Τό γυναικεῖον τῆς Ὑπατίας - An Áit Bhanda na Hypatia - Hypatia's Gynaeceum

Hello, friends. Happy Thanksgiving. It has been about three months since I last posted here. In those three months a lot has gone down in my life. Right now I don't know how to begin to get caught up narrating any of it for you. I've been through a lot of change. Been taken this way and that by changes. Reached a point where I need to catch my breath, reassess, retool, and heal.

I am currently reading the Earthseed duology by Octavia Butler: I finished Parable of the Sower and am currently in the middle of Parable of the Talents. It's hard reading because of all the grim and gruesome parts, and yet terribly inspiring as it shows the human spirit prevailing through adversity. A young African-American woman rebuilds the shattered lives of herself and many others by founding a motley community around the religious philosophy she develops called Earthseed, and leading them to a better future she envisions for the human race. I am moved to quote from it because my life has been through so much change lately, by way of apology for not going into all the details, and to summarize what does it all mean...



from EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING
By Lauren Oya Olamina

All that you touch
You Change.

All that you Change
Changes you.

The only lasting truth
Is Change.

God
Is Change.

***

Here we are—
Energy,
Mass,
Life,
Shaping life,
Mind,
Shaping Mind,
God,
Shaping God.
Consider—
We are born
Not with purpose,
But with potential.

I got started on this Octavia Butler kick after reading Daughters of Earth: Feminist Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century, edited by Justine Larbalestier. Which was all a great read and terrifically eye-opening. Next up on my Octavia Butler reading list is Seed to Harvest.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/01/AR2009050103406.html
When Women Rule, It Makes a Difference

By Christina L. Boyd and Lee Epstein
Sunday, May 3, 2009

When Sandra Day O'Connor retired from the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005, national polls suggested that the public overwhelmingly supported replacing her with a female juror. O'Connor seemed to agree. "He's good in every way, except he's not a woman" is what she had to say about the nomination of John G. Roberts Jr.

Now, Justice David H. Souter is set to retire from the court, and President Obama is already facing similar pressure. Who might take Souter's place? We're already being introduced to Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Pamela Karlan -- all very accomplished individuals who happen to possess the one qualification that many commentators and court-watchers seem to agree is the most important this time around: They are women.

Some of the pressure comes from those who believe that the membership of our courts should reflect the makeup of our society. More than half the U.S. population is female. Nearly one-third of all U.S. lawyers are women. Approximately 30 percent of the judges serving on the lower federal courts are women.

But a diverse Supreme Court isn't just about a bench that looks like America. This is about jurisprudence, too. In research that we conducted with our colleague Andrew D. Martin, we studied the votes of federal court of appeals judges in many areas of the law, from environmental cases to capital punishment and sex discrimination. For the most part, we found no difference in the voting patterns of male and female judges, except when it comes to sex discrimination cases. There, we found that female judges are approximately 10 percent more likely to rule in favor of the party bringing the discrimination claim. We also found that the presence of a female judge causes male judges to vote differently. When male and female judges serve together to decide a sex discrimination case, the male judges are nearly 15 percent more likely to rule in favor of the party alleging discrimination than when they sit with male judges only.

This holds true even after we account for judges' ideological leanings. If Obama is considering two fairly moderate people, one a woman and the other a man, we would expect the woman to cast more liberal votes in sex discrimination cases. The same would be true if the president were considering two very liberal candidates, again, one a man and one a woman.

The retirement of the liberal-leaning Souter may not give the president a chance to move the court significantly to the left. But it does let him make a different shift. If he does choose a woman to fill Souter's seat, he could have a major impact on an area of law that's important to many Americans -- women and men alike.
=============

Got this on Facebook:

NATION-WIDE Campaign: Kathleen Sullivan for Supreme Court Justice!
Sullivan is incredible qualified and would bring a lot of diversity to the bench.

Supreme Court Justice David Souter is planning to retire at the end of the current court term after 19 years on the bench. The vacancy will give President Obama his first chance to name a member of the high court and begin to shape its future direction. We are urging the consideration and appointment of Kathleen Sullivan.

Kathleen Sullivan is hands down one of the most qualified candidates. She is a Marshall scholar and former Stanford Law dean whom constitutional law legend Laurence Tribe once called “the most extraordinary student I had ever had.” She is the author of the nation’s leading casebook in constitutional law, has litigated before the Supreme Court, and has been named one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America by the National Law Journal. Sullivan was also a professor of law at Harvard Law School from 1984 until 1993. She joined Stanford Law School in 1993 and became the Stanley Morrison Professor of Law in 1996. Sullivan then served as the dean of Stanford Law School from 1999 until 2004, when she voluntarily stepped down to serve as the inaugural director of a new Stanford center on constitutional law. Since 2004, she has been the Stanley Morrison Professor of Law at Stanford Law School.

In addition to this impressive list of qualifications, Sullivan is also a woman and openly gay which would bring some much needed diversity to the Supreme Court.

If chosen, Sullivan would become the first ever openly gay Justice and third female Justice in United States history to serve on the Supreme Court leading to a Court that more truly reflects the composition of the American population.

You can read more about Kathleen Sullivan here: http://www.law.stanford.edu/directory/profile/57/

--------------------------------
ACTION FOR MAY 20 - 22:
--------------------------------

STEP 1. Call Obama 202-456-1111
STEP 2. Email Obama: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
STEP 3: Repeat on Thursday and Friday.

--------------------------------------------------------
No matter what anyone tells you, remember…

NOW is our time.

YES we can.

Continue to invite your friends to join the campaign.

Disparaging or even hostile attitudes toward femmes and femininity I've often heard from both cis women and trans women invite a look at a hatred that I've found to be very prevalent and yet hardly ever acknowledged, let alone analyzed. We need to call it out for what it is, another form of misogyny.

I suppose in response to comments I've encountered like "feminine trans women are hard to take" or "feminine cis women get on my nerves," it would be fair to say that I find femmephobia hard to take, and it gets on my nerves too. Then we'd be even. But it wouldn't advance understanding or dialogue. That'll take some work and caring and thoughtfulness.

I get that being female and non-femme in a society that on the whole demands femininity of females gets really oppressive, and builds resentment. I totally get that. And I support non-femme women's right to defy these conventional gender expectations and live according to their true non-femme selves. Anytime an ironclad gender role or gender expression is imposed across the board, it's going to leave some persons marginalized and cause oppression. Maybe we could agree on the problem being not femininity or masculinity in themselves, but in the oppressive way they're enforced on people whether it suits them or not.

I believe with all my heart that diversity in openness makes for a beautiful world.

The funny part is that while the macro society demands femininity, once you get within the feminist and queer communities, femmes are often placed very much at a disadvantage. As if we get to be the scapegoats for the gender injustices of the macro society. Or whipping girls, in Julia Serano's phrase. Is it hard to see past one's particular oppression to acknowledge that other individuals can be oppressed in different ways?

If non-feminine females naturally exist in the macro society, and suffer oppression because of who they are, is it hard to see that naturally feminine women in feminist and queer communities are likewise made to suffer for who they are? You can argue that that's just tough, because the big oppressor is the patriarchy, and any other oppression becomes small and insignificant in comparison to that.

But femmes don't exactly find shelter or comfort in the patriarchy when we're queer and feminist. We experience it as monstrously oppressive too because we see what it does to women and queer people who we identify with. We need the queer and feminist communities as our haven and solidarity to be able to defend ourselves from the patriarchy too. So it's kind of painful and tragic when the other queers and feminists who we need to be our family turn around and reject us.

You might argue that being femme is inherently taking the side of the patriarchal oppressor. We queer feminist femmes would disagree because our femininity, despite what they say about us, is not a capitulation to the oppressor. On the contrary, we use it subversively. Because if you're queer in sexuality or feminist in belief, there is no way the patriarchy is your friend. We have more consciousness than you might give us credit for. All I'm saying is think twice before starting the femme-bashing. You might be hurting someone who's on your side.

I believe that in feminism and in queer theory, and especially in feminist queer theory, intersectionality is key. Intersectionality allows us to focus in on ending the oppression itself and lay off of each other.

Alessandra Belloni is a percussionist, singer, dancer, and folklorist from the region of Apulia in southern Italy. Her art is centered on the dance indigenous to Apulia, the tarantella.



She has four CDs of her music out currently: the first was Earth, Sun, and Moon recorded with a folkloric group she founded, I Giullari di Piazza (which roughly translates as 'the town square players'). Then her solo career broke out with Tarantata: Dance of the Ancient Spider, followed by Tarantelli & Canti d'Amore. Her latest CD, Daughter of the Drum, is privately issued. I hope she gets a recording contract again. She is an amazing artist who deserves to be better appreciated. She performs her music with a certain raw intensity. It isn't for people who want their music to be all smooth and safe. Her music is wild, powerful, and very female.



There is more to the tarantella than the conventional story about how the dance was used to cure tarantula bites. Signora Belloni traces its origins back to pre-Christian pagan Greek and Roman women's mysteries. The bite of the spider is allegorical-- the real ailment the tarantella is a cure for, the tarantism, comes from the repression of women's freedom and sexuality in a patriarchal world. For ages women in southern Italy have been gathering and dancing themselves into a frenzy to let their female power out in a safe space for healing. The Greek mythology about the Maenads came from real women who drummed and danced ecstatically in their rites. Taranto was a Greek colony long before the Romans came along.
( continued )

I was just about to send in my subscription renewal when this sad news developed. Even though I'm broke, I'm sending them a donation. Economic pain is widespread this fall. Bitch is vital. Bitch is the most vital magazine I've ever read. Fortunately their fundraising drive over the past 3 weeks has been successful and will allow them to produce one more issue. But after that? I'm still concerned for them.

"It always goes back to the love."

The other night, I began attending a women's self-defense class in DC, given by Defend Yourself. I registered for this class through WEAVE (Women Empowered Against Violence). I am so glad I'm doing this!

The women in the class were all having a great time learning to smash an attacker's balls with our knees while shouting "NO!" We were all really getting into it; you could tell how each woman had enough reasons in her life to make that a satisfyingly cathartic exercise. It went really well. There was one Arab woman in the class; I really really felt glad to see an Arab sister learning this. Lauren, the instructor, is a veteran of the original Take Back the Night movement in the '70s. She was wearing a "Stop Rape" t-shirt which on the front had a diagram of a man's body and marked in red were all the places to hit him where it hurts the most. On the back was a statement that 2 out of 3 rape attacks on women were stopped by the women resisting. Attackers and harassers expect us to be passive and not resist. When we do resist, they're caught off guard and can't deal with that.




It was all about how to handle harassment and physical attacks. We practiced going at each other and saying "STOP" "BACK OFF" "GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME" etc. How to be in control of the situation. How to shout in the right tone of voice, in a commanding steady pitch and not shrieking. I have a definite tendency to shriek, so I learned not to when being attacked. We learned various sorts of ways to hit and places to hit where it hurts. How to jab fingers into eyes, how to break a nose, how to slam the side of someone's head one-two with elbows going both ways, how to stomp on toes, and--the unanimous popular favorite--knee into the balls. One woman pointed out how men are automatically guarding their balls all the time, so that can't be the first hit-- rather, hit them in the face first and their hands will go up there, then go for the balls, and do it a bit sideways so that you won't be hit by their heads moving forward when they crumple. How to stand, how to call for help, how to run after disabling the attacker, how to be assertive and say "NO."

I feel so much more confident having done this. I will feel safer on the street now. The proportion of women who get harassed is something like 98%, I read that on Feministing. This class was seriously hands on, we were hitting hard. The instructor brought a large padded shield so we could really hit, not just pretend.

I just wanted to express how deeply delighted I feel to see women helping women to defend ourselves. It was a beautiful, energizing, even spiritual experience.

I came across an old copy of Womanspirit: A Guide to Women's Wisdom by Hallie Austen Iglehart in Second Story Books at Dupont Circle. Published in 1983, it was one of the early works to integrate feminist spirituality with the feminist movement, after the author had been involved in both spiritual yoga and feminism and felt torn between them-- because in her experience all the yoga institutions were male-dominated and even downright misogynistic, while feminist groups in the '60s and '70s had no place for spirituality or mysticism. Iglehart spent years feeling "torn, physically and psychically, between my feminist and spiritual selves." By the time she published this book, she must have found a receptive audience, since that era was being invigorated by books like When God Was a Woman and The Spiral Dance. Nowadays, third-wave feminism is naturally more attuned to this integration with women's spirituality, thanks to the groundwork laid by books like these.

So when I rode downtown on the Metro recently, I brought along this book and began reading. It eschews theory and abstraction, focusing instead on personal narrative and immediate experience-- the latter in the form of guided meditations for the reader. So I practiced the first one (p. 14) while riding.

By the time it was done, I was in tears. It went:

( click to see the details of the meditation, and what I got out of it... )

Why is the patriarchal system so anxious to defend some women from rape while the same system also condones and exonerates some rapists? The key issue is whether the rape victim is under the control of the patriarchy.

Jamie Leigh Jones, who was raped by other Americans while serving in Iraq, writes:

A sexist male (or female), views of rape frequently resurface with vengeance. We still live in a male dominated society in which organizations and men control most power. Rape is a crime of dominance, so in this perspective the domineering individual would be vengeful towards the victim. These views can be overwhelming and cooped with groups of members of society which can devastate the victim.

Old sexist stereotypes of rape begin to surface. Ideas about what is proper behavior for a female are restricting in that people can always find a way to blame the victim. Some excuses could be; she was out too late, acting too sexy, too innocent, too assertive, drank too much, too stupid, too aloof, or not assertive enough. It doesn't matter what the victim was doing at the time she was raped. These old constrictions on female behavior provides ample cover for those who want a way out of having to stand up against a rapist.

Sometimes authorities don't take rape seriously. When the authorities aren't taking rape seriously then often society doesn't take rape seriously either. Once authorities show they aren't taking the allegations seriously, then support groups of the victims often erode rapidly.

When the patriarchy does demonstrate outrage against rape, it isn't because it accords a given rape victim the human rights to be safe from this violence-- it's because she is seen as the property of a man, and the outrage is actually for the benefit of the man whose property is being damaged and thereafter of less worth to him. Rather than protection of women, it amounts to objectification of them.

When patriarchal authorities don't take rape seriously, as Jamie Leigh Jones discusses, this lack of concern is for an independent woman who is not the property of men. In such case, the system's neglect implies that she had it coming (any pretext will do), and that rape is actually useful to the system as a way to keep down women's independence.

None of this is meant to impugn individual men who sincerely support women's rights to be independent and safe from violence as a basic human right. I am against the patriarchal system which privileges all men with institutional power over women whether a given man consciously wants this privilege or not. Men whose hearts are in the right place are nice to have around--but they are insufficient to end the oppression. As radical feminism says, the only solution is to demolish the patriarchal system completely and replace it with gender equality in which no gender is privileged over another. Some believe that gender itself is inherently a tool of privilege and oppression, but that would be a separate discussion. Anyway it's the privilege of one gender over another that is the root of the problem and has to go.

Mysa: "It's shit like this that makes me wonder how any woman stays sane in this world."

My reaction--

That's absolutely nauseating. I'd like to know what she is pursuing now in the way of justice. Like going to the district attorney and pressing charges.

Melissa's right, what is happening these days where men feel entitled to treat women like slaves? I blame the growth of male chauvinist misogyny that is part and parcel of the dominance of the Republican right wing aided and abetted by religious fundamentalism-- and the backlash against feminism that has all along been one of their key intentions.

It also nauseates me when I hear women repudiating feminism in order to get men to like them better. Pathetic. Hypatia says fight the power! Alarming stories like this show how badly and urgently we need a major resurgence of feminism right now. I can't get over how the behavior of the males betrayed an attitude that being born with dicks entitled them to act like this. I'm not violent, but this makes me so pissed off I wish she had smashed their nuts along with their faces.

And as long as I'm warmed up to the subject... I got an e-mail yesterday from Irene Khan, the Secretary General of Amnesty International, about "The Undeclared War on Women."

Honorata Barinjibanwa was just 18 years old when she was kidnapped from her village in the Democratic Republic of Congo by Rwandan outlaw fighters last April. She spent five long months tied to a tree - her captors untied her only to gang rape her. She survived to tell her story, but remains deeply wounded by the attacks.

Rape is a weapon of war in so many countries around the world, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Colombia and Sudan. And one thing is clear - the problem of violence against women vastly exceeds the resources currently devoted to stopping it.

Through our Stop Violence Against Women campaign, Amnesty International is leading an effort to end this systematic violation of women's basic human rights. But we have a long road ahead of us to ensure that our work brings real changes for women.

Even though I don't have money these days-- it's been six months since I lost my job, and have just completed the first 40-hour week I've worked (temping) since then-- I sent in a donation to Amnesty for this.

Today is Blog for Fair Pay Day -- Women in the United States are still paid only 77 cents for every dollar earned by men.

And for women of color, the numbers are even worse. African-American women earn 63 cents and Latinas earn 52 cents for every dollar paid to white men. Looked at the other way around: For every dollar a while woman earns, a white man earns $1.30. For a dollar a black woman earns, he earns $1.60, and for a Latina woman, $1.75.

A bill awaiting a vote in Congress would help women fight for fair pay. Advocates are pushing for the Senate to vote by the end of April, to commemorate Equal Pay Week. Call or write your senators and urge them to support the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

It's time we took action to get fair pay for women! Pass it on!



Thanks to hari_mirchi who alerted me by posting this in the feminist community.

On Saturday the 29th I went with invisione to the Visions in Feminism Conference at American University. The conference was pretty amazing, it was SOOOO college student, and by far, *not* your mom's feminism! :) It seemed to be entirely college student conceived, planned, and executed, no trace of old-lady stuff there! The workshops ranged from LGBT Muslims to trans allies to kinky sex, i.e. the sorts of things I guess college students are thinking about these days. It's always refreshing for me to keep tuned in with the younger generation. I'm especially happy and relieved to see that feminism (as one workshop called it, "the new F word") is still alive and kicking among youngsters today, however much its areas of focus have evolved since my day. We're counting on you kids to carry it on when we're gone.

One of the best things of all that day: When I went to the LGBT Muslim workshop, I felt intuitively drawn to sit next to a woman I'd never seen before and the two of us hit it off immediately. When she said she moderates an online feminism forum, I asked what it was, and was astonished to learn that it's the LJ feminist community, which I already belonged to, and my new acquaintance was none other than crafting_change, whose contributions I had already seen and admired there as well as in the faith_feminists community. So we each got a new LJ friend out of the experience! Small world, huh!

Sometimes you just have to take a step in a direction and good stuff happens, like the Arabic proverb says, harakât barakât 'movement is blessing'.

…

Upon my visit to Philadelphia, whither one of my old friends had moved, I took lodging in Germantown in the home of Michael's mother's kinsfolk, and recalled the gentleman there to whom Mrs. Smith had recommended me. So one morning I put on my bonnet and walked until I found Queen Lane, where I made inquiry for a Mr. K—— and was soon knocking on his door. The oddest looking figure, a sort of gargoyle you might say, comprised his door knocker, and I felt a faint shudder to look at it.

The door was opened by a kindly old gentleman clad in an Oriental robe. Upon mention of my Indian tutor, Mr. K—— nodded. "So old Injun Annie sent you. You know, years ago she sent word to me to watch for a beautiful lady named Patience." I allowed such was my name. He bowed, "Do come in, ma'am!"

As my eyes adjusted to the dimly lit interior, I perceived that his entire room was furnished in the arts of India. Was my host a merchant who sailed the seas, bringing these artifacts from the Indies along with tea and spices? I gazed at peacock feathers amidst the figures of Mohammedans, Hindoo fakirs, ladies wrapped in great lengths of fine fabric. He gestured for me to be seated, "Please be my guest. I have just brewed coffee, as a good Yankee should!" and laughed. "I gave up good old German beer for my adopted country, not to speak of English tea. Drinking coffee is the least an American patriot can do," and he laughed again, merrily. "Remind me sometime to tell you how I came to America… but later, when we are better acquainted, hmm? I had been expecting you someday, though it has been years since I last heard from Injun Annie. So I made use of the power found in your name, and passed all these years till now by having the gift of patience… in the absence of Patience." His aspect turned presently somber.

Over coffee I related a synopsis of my Indian apprenticeship on the frontier. Mr. K—— nodded sagely when I described matters such as setting out bunches of different herbs on a medicine wheel, arranged to correspond with the seasons; stories of the Great Bear in the stars; or how to read natural signs in the forest, and who were the old-time famous Indians who had their spirits in certain features of the landscape, and what that had to do with reading signs around there. His eyes flashed with a keen interest to hear me speak so. I concluded my narrative by bringing it into the present, for the herblore I learned from Mrs. Smith formed the foundation of my midwifery vocation.

"Mrs. McGuire," he spoke up, "I have a hunch that you may be an initiate of authentic mysteries," making a gesticulation I did not understand. I looked at him in surprise. He repeated the movement — a grotesque one. “You do not comprehend?” he said. “Not I,” I replied. He sighed. "There is yet much I may not reveal to you. Know you aught of any sacred mysteries?" I allowed a brief description of my vision of the Blessed Virgin upon my arrival on the frontier—omitting certain gory details, I nonetheless related the honest gist of her conversation with me. He closed his eyes, pondered long, and then nodded in affirmation. "Mrs. McGuire, I believe you are describing what could be called a genuine spiritual initiation. If so, you are destined for higher knowledge. Have you heard of… Freemasonry?"

"Heaven forbid, sir, that I should ever be tempted away from the true faith by any such Protestant mummery! I follow the faith of the Holy Father of Rome. And by your leave, sir, I believe it is time for me to go. I thank you for your hospitality."

He did not get all up in arms as I'd come to expect from Protestants. (Such as the combative Scotch-Irish who settled the uplands, who would shoot you soon as look at you. My brother said no wonder they are wary and belligerent: land up there is all the more meager and valuable a commodity, as so much of it is vertical.) Rather, he smiled benignly and said in farewell: "We are the beneficiaries of an intellectual and moral Enlightenment. The illumination to come will supplant all such priestcraft… but you may comfort yourself with it for now," threw back his head, and laughed.

I wasted no time but continued on my way. My next destination was down near the riverfront, the new home of my girlhood friend Adelia McGraw, as she had married a gentleman who served as civil engineer to the national government of the United States. She received me warmly, and our conversation went as follows:

--Patty, so glad you could call, dear, we just received a shipment of books from England!

--Remember, Adelia, you promised me a set of Shakespeare for our Allegheny settlement?

--Here it is. And may I suggest you take a copy of this? It's becoming all the talk of the ladies here.

--A Vindication of the Rights of Woman? What rights? I don't understand.

--The author Miss Wollstonecraft argues that women are just as capable of learning as men, and that we have been kept ignorant only through custom. Therefore it is only just and fitting that we ought to enjoy rights equal to those of men.

--How can a woman have rights like men? As well ask a horse to fly, or a bird to swim, or a fish to walk. As well ask an apple tree to bear hickory nuts! Each creature behaves according to its born nature.

--She says that this very nature of women, of which you speak, is potentially equal in learning to that of men, given sufficient education and nurturance. Once we have advanced thus, we shall become fit to assume equal positions of authority to guide our own destinies as we will.

--A Mhuire, such a strange idea! Have all these revolutions nowadays knocked the earth from its axis too? Then who'll do the women's work, sure and won't your Harry look dandy a-scrubbing the floor in his apron! Can you picture it! Shall he suckle your babes? No one else can do what we do, Adelia, and that suits me fine out on the frontier. We don't have to argue for rights. Rights? Everyone lends all their hands to the common survival. Women and men alike. That's all we know out there. I'll leave it to your drawing rooms of Philadelphia to plan the women's revolution, and then shall ye write it up in a fine handsome document. Meanwhile, I have corn to plant, cows to milk, raccoons to skin, butter to churn, wounds to dress, babes and calves to birth, pots to scrub... Adieu for now!

--Wait, don't you want to hear about the scandalous new fashions in Paris?

Seven human rights groups including Amnesty International have urged Iran to set aside a prison sentence for women's rights activist Delaram Ali. She was sentenced to 39 months in jail and to be flogged with 10 lashes for the "crime" of participation in a peaceful gathering of women’s rights defenders in June 2006, in Hafte Tir Square, which ended with police violence and brutality and the arrest of 70 protesters. Other women sentenced in connection with that rally are Fariba Davoodi Mohajer: three years suspended sentence and 1 year prison term; Nooshin Ahmadi Khorasani: two years suspended sentence and 6 months jail term; Parvin Ardalan: two years suspended sentence and 6 months jail term; Shahla Entesari: two years suspended sentence and 6 months jail term; Sussan Tahmasebi: one year and 6 months suspended sentence and 6 months jail term; Azadeh Forghani: two years suspended sentence; and Bahareh Hedayat: two years suspended sentence.

Jelveh Javaheri was arrested on Saturday for creating an Iranian women's rights web site, Change for Equality (Taghyir bara-ye Barabari). This site has a report from Maryam Hosseinkhah who is also in prison now.

Hana Abdi was arrested on November 4 and is being held incommunicada; her family does not know her whereabouts. Her colleague Ronak Safarzadeh was arrested on October 9, and is being held with no access to lawyers.

These women are leaders in the One Million Signatures Campaign, petitioning to change Iran's discriminatory laws. Over 30 women's rights activists have been arrested in Tehran this year. Most of them have been taken to Evin Prison, infamous for its cruel treatment of prisoners. Mothers of these activists have made a web site in Persian, Mothers for Peace (Madaran-e Solh).


Take action now to help get these women released!

1) You are the Magical Clue Fairy for a day, with your clue-imparting clue-by-four. What one clue would you want everyone to catch?

Can we please have a world without hierarchies that determine who's privileged and who's disparaged by arbitrary/discriminatory sets of standards? A world where everyone feels free to be her true self without getting punished for it? Please?

2) What languages do you dream in?

English, with occasional bursts of Arabic, French, and Italian. The other night I dreamed I was in Iraq, surrounded and about to be attacked by Islamist militia mujahidin. The American soldiers I was with put an automatic gun in my hands. Wait, I'm not a combatant. I was just about use my skill in Classical Arabic to start negotiating with the Islamists--but then I was awoken...

3) Steampunk or Gypsy Pirate? And, of dire import, why?

Hmm... Victorian techno whiz... or violin-playing violent robber? Can I dump the technology and crime, and just be a Victorian violin player? That reminds me: Stefi Geyer (1888-1956) was a Hungarian violinist and Béla Bartók (sigh... the sexiest composer ever) was in love with her and wrote a violin concerto for her. Now you're talking!


4) Who are your role models?

Strong women who fight the power. Lilith. Sappho. Hypatia. Jeanne d'Arc. Anne Hutchinson. Mary Wollstonecraft. Harriet Tubman. Sojourner Truth. Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Emma Goldman. Rosa Luxemburg. Eleanor Roosevelt. Rosa Parks. Joan Baez. Sylvia Rivera. Barbara Jordan. Meena of Afghanistan. Marija Gimbutas. Audre Lorde. Starhawk. Benazir Bhutto. Medea Benjamin. Amina Wadud. Shirin Ebadi. Natalie Maines. Rauda Morcos... you get the idea... Anyone who inspires other women to courage, integrity, and freedom. I want to include Hillary too, if only she wouldn't keep disappointing me...


5) How do you take your tea?
Organic fair trade green.
Hot.
Naked.

Lennon was the most outspoken male feminist ever. It took some serious balls to sing "Woman Is the Nigger of the World," especially that long ago.



P.S. We all shine on, like the moon and the stars and the sun

Central Asian women's poetry series #8

Meena (1956-1987), one of my feminist heroes, founded the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan in 1977. Her name means 'love' in the Pashto language.



She was murdered by the Soviet-occupied Afghan regime. One of her poems in Dari Persian about her struggle has become famous and often quoted. The refrain from it gives me profound truth, inspiration, and strength for my personal "jihad" (i.e. effort) as an out queer woman facing antagonism.

من زنم كه دیگر بیدار گشته ام
راه خود را یافته ام و هرگز بر نمیگردم

man zanam kih digar bidar gashtah am
rah-e khod ra yaftah am wa hargiz bar na me gardam

I'm the woman who has awoken
I have found my path and I will never return

I think the verb at the end of the second line is better translated "I will never go back" or "I will never turn back," but I've quoted it in the translation that RAWA uses. I have a RAWA t-shirt with Meena's portrait and these lines from her poem. The full translation of the poem goes:

I'm the woman who has awoken
I've arisen and become a tempest through the ashes of my burnt children
I've arisen from the rivulets of my brother's blood
My nation's wrath has empowered me
My ruined and burnt villages fill me with hatred against the enemy,
I'm the woman who has awoken,
I've found my path and will never return.
I've opened closed doors of ignorance
I've said farewell to all golden bracelets
Oh compatriot, I'm not what I was
I'm the woman who has awoken
I've found my path and will never return.
I've seen barefoot, wandering and homeless children
I've seen henna-handed brides with mourning clothes
I've seen giant walls of the prisons swallow freedom in their ravenous stomach
I've been reborn amidst epics of resistance and courage
I've learned the song of freedom in the last breaths, in the waves of blood and in victory
Oh compatriot, oh brother, no longer regard me as weak and incapable
With all my strength I'm with you on the path of my land's liberation.
My voice has mingled with thousands of arisen women
My fists are clenched with the fists of thousands of compatriots
Along with you I've stepped up to the path of my nation,
To break all these sufferings, all these fetters of slavery,
Oh compatriot, oh brother, I'm not what I was
I'm the woman who has awoken
I've found my path and will never return.

This page http://www.rawa.org/ill.htm links to the original Persian and translations in several languages, plus an mp3 of a song composed to this poem and sung in English.

I just want to give a shout out to Meena who has given us a beautiful example of how a really STRONG Muslim woman faces adversity. May we all find strength and inspiration in her example.

Support RAWA in their struggle against Islamic fundamentalism.

An Australian feminist blogger called tigtog cited my original Feminism Friday entry on women's rights in Iraq. With gratitude to her, I'd like to return the favor. She contributed very valuable insight into the debate. For example--

"The European Enlightenment that Hirsi Ali so fondly praises came about from within Christianity by secularists and freethinkers: it wasn’t imposed by the warriors of another religious culture entirely. The Roman Catholic monopoly was broken by Martin Luther, not by Saladin. The Puritan hegemony under Cromwell in England was dismantled from within, not without. Compare with the religions that conquerors have tried to stamp out: would Christianity today even still exist without the persecutions of Roman emperors? Will demonising Islam the way that the Romans attempted to demonise Christianity strengthen or weaken Islam, what do you think?

Will intervening to attempt to change Islam to fit into what the West wants Islam to be strengthen or weaken the traditionalist jihadist Muslims? For instance, the WOT-hawks argue (now) that we needed to intervene/stay the course in Islamic countries to improve life for women. But can they point to any actual success in improving life for women in Iraq?"

Peace and feminism have to go together. Feminist warmongering/imperialism or peacenik male chauvinism are non-starters. When the revolution comes, Laura Bush is destined for a re-education camp all right. ;)

Martin Luther King said: "The evils of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism are all tied together." I think he's right, and I would add: The granddaddy of all those evils is patriarchy.

This was too easy.

You Are 100% Feminist

You are a total feminist. This doesn't mean you're a man hater (in fact, you may be a man). You just think that men and women should be treated equally. It's a simple idea but somehow complicated for the world to put into action.