Comments on: Open Letter to Leaders

By: xan joi

xan joi — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:21:29 +0000

It is almost a year after this post - was there a call put out for womyn to gather? (I say ‘womyn’ for two reasons: 1) taking the men out; and 2) the inclusive ‘womyn’ to include ALL womyn not just the straight, white, etc. understood in ‘women’)

I have visualized the gathering of womyn many times in the past in my life. I’ve seen womyn coming from all over the country, by bus, by boat, by train, by horseback, walking, hiking, driving, biking to some sacred place in the desert, in the mountains, in Michigan.

And talking, squatting, processing, drumming, greeting, arguing, hammering, creating, cooking, shaping, sharing, weeping, dancing, talking, birthing…

Maybe we should just put the call out and go somewhere and wait and see who shows up. Like the ancient days…

For there must be so many womyn who know just how critical things are, that the time is NOW, more than it has ever been, NOW for the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan; NOW for the people of Haiti; NOW for the people of Detroit, Burlington Township, Antioch. NOW for the people of Sudan, Iran, Gaza; NOW for the people of Guam, Mexico, Venezuela. NOW for the people of this country; NOW for the people of the world. NOW for the babies. NOW for climate, environment, food, water. NOW for all life on this planet. NOW for the Mother Earth.

Womyn in the past must have felt similar feelings of despair, helplessness, longing, hopelessness as they witnessed their worlds invaded, colonized, victimized, genocided.

The difference today is that we have a picture of the ENTIRE world and what is happening EVERYWHERE.

And a clearer picture of what our government, our corporations, our military is doing to us and to the world not just to satisfy their greed and yen for dominion over others, but also to maintain our U.S. of A. consumptive superiority/inferiority lifestyles.

Let’s do it. Let’s put out the word and gather at Michigan this year, or retreat to the Santa Fe Mountains, or head to the Grand Canyon, Anza Borrego and wait: for our commadres, our foremothers, our sistahs to come, to be with us, to guide us, to do the work we HAVE to do NOW to change direction, to ensure a future for life, Mother Earth, and all her children.

By: MadamaAmbi

MadamaAmbi — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 21:44:33 +0000

http://feministadvisoryboard.blogspot.com/2009/04/womens-movement-is-dead-listen-to.html

The link will take you to the full text of Richard Rodriguez’s essay of April 9, 2009, on The News Hour, a PBS program. There is also a link there if you’d like to hear the audio version. Rodriguez’s titled his essay “Women on the Move” and I have recast it as “If you think women’s movement is dead, listen to Richard Rodriguez.”

Is women’s movement dead or alive? As Sabine has asked, are we poised to take advantage of this time in history? Please read Rodriguez’s essay and then share what you think.

In case you are not a regular viewer of The News Hour, here’s a little background on Richard Rodriguez: he’s of LatinAmerican descent and he’s gay. Why do I mention this? Because I think it takes someone who has been marginalized to see when the institutions that support the dominant class are tumbling down…

Women: are we ready to use this opportunity? to step up and lead? to change the game?

By: MadamaAmbi

MadamaAmbi — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 02:59:56 +0000

hi Max–keep on growing your list! That’s what we need to do: reach out to our networks, keep the momentum circulating, keep building the collective purpose. Sabine says you coined “multi-issue solidarity,” which is a great way of thinking about it. I just read Sabine’s post “Are we historically poised for a resurgence of women’s movement?” and below is what I wrote. I’m looking forward to more brainstorming here and there…and anywhere…

Sabine–what an excellent overview. I also love “multi-issue solidarity” and kudos to Max for that. You know what’s hard for me? Seeing how much consciousness there is online, how many thinkers and leaders there are, and yet when I put out the call, hearing just a few voices respond to my fervor…my ardor, as a friend called it. I’ve had a few younger, newer feminists ask me how I keep up the struggle and although I have a few answers for that, I think it’s also important to be able to say, hey, I’m feeling so alone! I’m feeling so frustrated! Can’t we get this revolution in full swing and take advantage of an unprecedented opportunity to restructure? Patriarchy is coming apart at the seams! Richard Rodriguez of PBS did a wonderful essay on this last week. I immediately went to their website to share it, and it was only available as a podcast, which, frankly, bummed me out.

So, at the same time that I am united with the struggle, I want to be able to say that IT’S HARD! It’s hard to pour your energies into making something new come into being and then hear your own voice echo back at you. Whatever you are doing in the movement, whether organizing or donating time/energy/skills or training new leaders or raising consciousness on your blog–whatever it is–it’s hard. And it’s harder for some than for others. I just heard from a friend of mine who’s going through a very tough economic time, her baby has been sick for months, and as she put it, somebody left her a warm message of “die nigger die” next to her regular parking spot.

I implode hearing that. I absolutely implode. She is such a trooper, a single mother with so much to say about her experiences as an AfricanAmerican woman and the choices she has made. These are the voices that really matter to me, and these are probably the women that are the most stressed in their day-to-day lives. So…it’s hard…it’s hard…and it’s never going to stop being hard, sisters. I know you don’t want to hear that from me, believe me, I know. I know we all hold in our minds a vision of a far more just world, that if we only trudge a little further, we will discover just over the hill, just beyond that rainbow, just like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and her motley crew were overcome by the resplendence of The Emerald City.

But, that’s not the river we’re in. It’s gonna be hard coming together, it’s gonna be hard figuring out how to do multi-issue solidarity, it’s gonna be hard facing grim realities and ridicule…and failure. But, at least here’s a little bright spot, in my view! I am not afraid of failure! Never have been, don’t know why, but I am immune to what people think of me, and by this time of life have failed so many times in so many creative ways that I’m impressed with my resilience, my stubbornness and my genius at learning from mistakes. The greatest compliment anyone has ever given me was to tell me that I have “the guts of an artist.”

That’s a true statement. An excellent observation by someone who knows me reasonably well. I am united with this work and I can’t shake it; I see myself in a long line of feminists who have already passed the torch to me…and I have miles to go before I pass it off and rest…

By: Max Dashu

Max Dashu — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 19:22:17 +0000

I thought of another nominee, a person who has done strong feminist work in the media, confronting left sexism (as in mostly male presenters at conferences, after all this time): Jennifer Posner. She’s great!

The thing about Iran is that their women’s movement is booming, on the upswing, and seems to have more momentum than many North American communities. They know what they’re up against, while here many women have let things slide. We’ve lost a lot of solidarity…

But that was then and i think the ferocious media treatment of Clinton led to many realizing that things weren’t as copacetic as they thought. Now if we could just get together to move on violence against women, as well as the economic issues!

By: Starting the discussion: Are we historically poised for a resurgence of women’s movements? — Confabulous

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:13:10 +0000

[...] or a single notion of “woman.” I’ve been thinking about this since reading Madama Ambi’s piece over at Fem 2.0 and echoing her call here. It’s something that Max Dashu calls [...]

By: MadamaAmbi

MadamaAmbi — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 15:13:29 +0000

hi Max–thanks for your support and good ideas. It is a hard fight, and there are so many fronts of this fight. In the past weeks I have become more and more focused on women in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, whose rights are so severely negated that they are chattel. They are suffering. I feel that We Who Are Freer Must Speak Out, but so far I have found little support for this. In fact, I wrote to Secretary of State Clinton on the issue and got back a one-line form reply. I have asked members of Feminist Advisory Board who would join me in a letter and so far have received one positive reply.

I’m going to ask MomsRising, who invited Fem2.0 members to blog on their site, if they would like to help in this effort. What would be best? How can we best pressure our government to pressure these countries to uphold the human rights of women??

By: Max Dashu

Max Dashu — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 04:02:09 +0000

Pushback, yes! all the way with you. No more slippage, but strong pro-woman, multi-issue solidarity. Justice for women is the keystone for so many issues, from poverty to AIDS to violence to healthcare, children, eldercare. The time is right now for a resurgence of female empowerment and truth-telling.

Out of the shadows: absolutely. Some of us haven’t yet succeeded in emerging from obscurity, but not for lack of trying. It hasn’t been easy to get press coverage for my Women’s Power dvd, or the Suppressed Histories Archives. Even in “progressive” circles the going can be rough. Our local alternative lefty radio has regularly preempted “Women’s Magazine” timeslots and this year kicked the program off the air for three months.

I’ve been saying for years that women’s movements are about to rise again, and i believe it from my soul, in spite of all the hits we’ve taken, and the splits.

Some nominees: Andrea Smith, bell hooks, Adrienne Rich, Barbara Smith, Kate Clinton, George Friday, Loretta Ross, Catherine McKinnon, Jessica Valenti, Mamacoatl and Comadres on a Mission (see http://sites.google.com/site/womenswisdomwork/), the Lakota activists of Women Are Sacred (at http://www.sacred-circle.com/), Suzanne Pharr, Hattie Gossett, Lee Lakeman and Cherry SMiley of Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter.

By: Calling all womanist and feminist leaders! — Confabulous

Calling all womanist and feminist leaders! — Confabulous — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 12:44:37 +0000

[...] is a very exciting post over at Fem 2.0 (one of the most interesting feminist sites coming out of the U.S. right now), written by Madama [...]

By: Sabine Hikel

Sabine Hikel — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 12:34:25 +0000

Wow! This open letter is amazing and so timely. We really, really need this sense of leadership in Canada, too (and globally). I’m going to post it on my own blog and get my readers involved in the conversation.

By: Servane Mouazan

Servane Mouazan — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 08:25:01 +0000

I guess you have to call a meeting yourself starting with the members of your nearby networks.
This is what we did on march 3d, calling a meet up for female social leaders and innovators. We invited the gust to say something about their projects, social businesses, campaigns and to donate a question to the audience, to create a thinking platform (not a moaning platform). We decided that it was not the place to shed tears about glassceiling but rather to dismiss it for a while and give ourselved enough space to shine and shout out about our accomplishments.
More about the Manifesto for Female Social Innovators:

http://ogunte.com/innovation/events/203-manifesto-for-female-social-innovators

and http://www.slide.com/r/VRN37yHs7T-qePwhl-NDMtK2BWgJMJE9?previous_view=lt_embedded_url
for slides
Networks are key, dialogue is key, by organising collaborative events where everybody has an equal turn to speak and to learn, you’ll grab the attention of the wider audiences…
(ps: we had men in the audience too!)
Best wishes
Servane Mouazan

http://www.ogunte.com