WHAT IS THIS GROUP ALL ABOUT???.
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From: Christina M.
Date: Thursday, August 10, 2006, 1:21 PM
Subject: What is this group all about???.
Reply to: 256180
ID: 253767

Greetings my sisters:

This is my first posting here, and I hesitated before doing this, 
but I've been reading these posts - about joining/not joining groups 
that exclude/oppress women, about collective agreements, and moving 
boulders, etc. - and something sprang to mind when I read White 
Feather's post below that I thought needed saying.

An herbal teacher of mine once had us do a very interesting exercise 
in a teaching circle. She had us all get comfortable sitting on the 
floor, and then told us to "get balanced." We all breathed and 
concentrated and got ourselves into that state, and then she said -
 "Now DANCE!"

We couldn't do it, of course - because "balance" is a static state, 
not a dynamic one. You can't dance when you're in a state of 
balance, but you can dance like an dervish when you're centered, and 
that was her point. It might sound like splitting hairs at first, 
but I think there's a real difference there that might be of value 
to this circle as a defining concept.

Among the many hats I wear is one of a cultural linguistic 
anthropologist, and I've been a raging feminist since... well, for 
as long as I can remember, so I've collected odd bits of information 
and insight here and there through my academic readings over the 
years, all of which have added to the breadth of my understanding of 
myself as a woman living in a hierarchical patriarchy. Yes, yes, I 
know - those inflammatory buzzwords... but my immediate question is -
 "Inflammatory for whom?"

Modern women have a challenging task before them - we need to find 
our center. We're "balancing" just fine in our present society; 
we've found ways to "get through" all the nonsense that faces women 
in their lives - unequal treatment before the law, oppressive fiscal 
burdens, medical insanity around "women's troubles" - come on, you 
know what it's like out there. But I've read, over and over again, 
in a wide variety of texts, the very real observation that women 
have consistently, over the millenia, thrown in lots with men, 
hoping that the problems specific to being a woman will be addressed 
in the course of solving "men's problems" - and it never EVER 
happens. Men solve their problems and tell us they'll take care of 
us next time around. We give it away, every time, because we don't 
want to UPSET THE BALANCE.

And we don't want to upset the balance because we're afraid. We 
know, deep down on some subliminal level (some of us on a more 
immediate one), that if we piss the men off, they're going to turn 
on us and stop being nice about it and we'll lose the little we 
have. The powers that be will be nice about it as long as we are, 
but when push comes to shove, the kid gloves come off and we see 
just exactly what their agenda is - and it doesn't include us. 
Michigan (I think that's the state) is about to run out of money to 
fund breast cancer screening for uninsured women, and will have to 
close those clinics because the federal government has cut the 
funding for that initiative nationwide. Do you think this would 
happen in a woman-friendly society? Do you think we'd be building 
hospitals in Iraq and closing them in the United States if we had a 
feminist in the White House? Women have been told, for their entire 
lives, in a million different, very subtle ways, that the way to be 
okay in this world is to "be nice," to "get along," to NOT UPSET THE 
BALANCE. And goodness, hasn't that tactic worked well for us, huh???

White Feather puts her finger directly on the problem when she talks 
about our longing for a savior. We want someone - a single person, 
an institution, a religious group or leader - to come and solve our 
problems for us, AND IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. It's basic social 
math. Somebody has to do the scut work - who's it going to be? The 
girl or the boy? Quelle surprise! It's us! And it's ALWAYS going 
to be us - not because there's some huge conspiracy going on out 
there, but because the people in power (i.e., the men) want to stay 
in power, and nobody in their right mind actually WANTS to do 
laundry. The person on top makes the person on the bottom do the 
scut work, and that's never EVER going to change unless the person 
on the bottom UPSETS THE BALANCE. And the person on top is not 
going to go gentle into that good laundry room - they're going to 
wheedle and weasle and bully and legislate - and bite and hit and 
kill, if necessary - to hold on to the hierarchical dominance they 
currently possess. Remember, my sisters - it wasn't the white guy 
at the front of the bus who said, "Oh gosh, Rosa, you look tired 
today - here, take my seat." It was Rosa Parks who decided for 
herself that it was time to change, and she nearly lost her life 
making that decision stick. Many African Americans DID lose their 
lives in the fight for civil rights - because they UPSET THE 
BALANCE, and the balance didn't like it, and fought back. But 
that's what it took. It's a scary thing to be the one - 
particularly the first one - to call out an injustice, but that's 
the only way it's ever going to change.

This doesn't mean that every man is a monster - quite the contrary. 
We can make deeply satisfying alliances with lovely, sensitive 
men... and still wind up doing the damned laundry, because we're 
afraid to UPSET THE BALANCE.

Ladies (excuse me - sexist term) - women - we are never going to 
change the current social paradigm without letting go of the balance 
thing. We're going to have to play... well, maybe not rough, but 
certainly not nice. We're going to have to speak some hard truths, 
out loud - through a bullhorn if necessary - and they will be things 
men do not want to hear, because they all understand the injustice 
that has prevailed all these years. We'll have a phalanx of "soft 
men" stop by to assure us they're on our side, and "here to help," 
and tell us, as they've been telling us for millenia, that the thing 
to do is go back into the laundry room and let them take care of it 
for us. They will do their very, sincere best to convince us that 
it's in our own self-interest to NOT UPSET THE BALANCE. But that is 
the only way things are ever going to change.

We need a womanspace, and I had thought this was it until I started 
seeing posts from men. Lovely, soft men, I'm sure, but we spent a 
great deal of time talking to them and arguing with them and trying 
to persuade them of our points of view, and frankly, I got tired of 
reading it. What women need to do, I believe, is what I've 
dubbed "removing the womandate" (as opposed to the MANdate). No, 
it's not okay with us - us women, as women, as women joined into a 
solid whole - that you do (whatever it is you're doing) - AND WE'RE 
NOT GOING TO BE NICE ABOUT IT. It's not okay that a woman on the 
700 Club - which has made an industry out of the assault on women's 
right to choose what happens to and within their bodies - is 
a "lovely woman" who has good things to say. SHE'S A PAWN, GALS - 
WAKE UP. That's how they do it - and we fall for it every time. We 
have to stop worrying about being nice and being balanced and get 
ourselves up out of the hole we've been buried in for the last 
14,000 years, and it's not going to happen without UPSETTING THE 
BALANCE.

I don't want to raise anyone's consciousness. It's not my job, and 
frankly, it rarely works; anyone beyond the age of 12 who still 
thinking "boys are better than girls" is beyond hope, and the only 
thing I want between me and them is distance. We need to remove 
ourselves from the institutions and organizations that oppress 
and "other" us. And that means Christianity, and the Baha'i, and 
Islam, and Judaism too, for that matter (at least Orthodox Judaism), 
and probably most of the political parties that I can think of right 
off the bat. THEY ARE NOT "FOR" US. They are for themselves, they 
are for the current "balance" of power, and we need to look right at 
it and speak the truth, even if it UPSETS THE BALANCE. Because 
the "balance" sucks, and I'm damned sick and tired of doing laundry -
 you know?

Karl Marx said it nearly a hundred years ago - "Religion is the 
opiate of the masses," and I see much of the New Age philosophy 
going right down the same road. It's not about anger, and it's not 
even about "being mean" - it's about finding a womanspace, a 
spiritual center, that holds to the radical concept that women are 
fine, just the way they are, and that the differences between men 
and women are to be celebrated, and not assigned relative worth. 
What's more important, the Moon or the Sun? The air or the water? 
Up or down? Absurd questions, of course, but these questions have 
all been asked, and answered, by our society. The "either/or" 
paradigm reigns supreme in our culture. Up IS better than down 
(because up is heaven and down is hell), and mind IS better than 
body (because thought is superior to that icky girl stuff that goes 
on every month), and spirit IS better than emotion (oh, those pesky 
emotions!) - our society divides everything into twos, and then 
decides which side is "better," and associate everything "good" with 
men and everything "bad" with women. Which comes as no surprise, 
since it's the men doing the judging.

I'm not proposing that we remove ourselves from men entirely 
(although I frankly think it would be a great lesson for them if we 
did) (for about 20 years!) (let them do their own damned laundry for 
that much time - bet they'd treat us better afterwards!!!), but I am 
proposing that we remove ourselves from situations, relationships, 
offices, political parties, religions, and human gatherings of all 
description that do not honor us - and to do it deliberately, 
vocally, and if necessary, theatrically. It is (yet another) 
illusion to think we can ever hope to "subvert from within," because 
we can never get close enough to the center of power to change the 
rules that oppress us. And apologizing for the organizations, 
religions, etc., who do this, and asking our sisters to "overlook" 
the nasty bits, only feeds this oppression and - most important, to 
our oppressors - divides us among ourselves.

We have to get serious about this, sweet ones. We've beaten this 
paradigm to death - almost literally. We're about to kill our 
entire planet, not to mention most of the life on it, by worrying 
about the damned BALANCE. Screw the balance. Let's aim for 
centering, and see if maybe the power generated by owning and 
honoring who we are will put us over the top. [Required viewing for 
everyone with internal genitalia: IRON-JAWED ANGELS, about the 
fight for women's suffrage in the 20s. Those gals had guts, let me 
tell you.] Let's not vote for sexists - and tell them why they lost 
our vote. Let's withdraw from religious organizations who treat us 
like second class citizens - and tell them why we're not putting 
money in their plate anymore. Let's refuse to do business with 
companies who pay their female employees less than their male ones 
(can you guess who I'm talking about here????) - and tell them why 
we're taking our business elsewhere. Let's step - no, let's LEAP, 
boldly and joyously - out of the feminist closet and refuse to 
settle for anything less than full partnership in our society. And 
scream and yell and march and howl and chain ourselves to the gates 
of the White House until we get it.

I was going to close this with "In peace," but I think that's a 
trap, too, so I'll close it with these wise words: "If you long for 
peace, work for justice." Sounds good to me!

Blessings to you all on this beautiful day.

Christina / Quanah'che Mawokee
The Feathered Serpent Women's Lodge
Albuquerque, New Mexico