Showing posts with label women's equality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label women's equality. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Bloggers Unite for Women's Equality Day
When women of the Caribbean and the Americas are truly equal, stay at home mothering will be a paying job. (Yes, at-home fathers will be paid too, of course, but this blog is not about them.) On that wonderful day coming women like me will be among the highest paid in all the land, together with teachers, nurses and police, and it will be illegal for preachers to make any money at all. I'm just saying. Stay at home mothering and the daily creation of the home and the family is a profession that has asked more of me than all of my jobs as a professional writer put together. My job at the time of this writing is to keep the rest of the folks in this household alive, fed, clothed, sheltered, clean, nurtured, educated, comforted, well-advised, contented, interconnected, inspired, protected and well-loved, all through every day, all through every night, and do it with a peaceful, joyful spirit. I get it right some of the time. When I am not getting it right, and someone or everyone is suffering because of it, including me, it is usually because I am freaking out about all the unpaid labor that I do. No wonder women would rather choose a dreary job with a paycheck over the unpaid labour of the woman at home. If motherhood paid then more of the best womanish minds of my generation would choose motherhood like it was as liberating and empowering as education and travel and free thought, it would be another wonderful life option with promises of enrichment and opportunity and financial security. It would make steaming the chicken so much more fun. It would empower me and free us all. I love my job. I love the blessed, beautiful work of mothering and making home. I wouldn't leave it for any outside employment unless the pay was enormous and I could hire a full time nanny with a degree. And a cook. Yes it is worth sacrifice, having the power to watch over our children as they grow, not having to wonder if the babysitter is hitting them or leaving them unattended, (how do the "working mothers" do it?). Stay at home mothering is certainly worth sacrificing many indulgences for a season, but mothers are people too. We are born with certain human rights, one of them being the right to self governance and personal empowerment, including financial empowerment. These are not indulgences they are requirements for a womanish mother's civilized life. It is crucial for a cultured, progressive society that women and mothers especially are never falling into pits of poverty and desperation because they have children. Let me say here: I do not live in poverty, not really. There are real poor people in this world and I know I am not among them at this moment. That I am cooking supper and blogging about human rights is proof of my continuing privilige even though my pockets are literally empty. But the fact still remains that the labor I perform as a stay at home mother is unpaid labor. I figure my work as mother and the maker of a home is worth at least $100 an hour in these hard economic times. Mr Prime Minister, are you listening? It is Women's Equality Day and I am celebrating by imagining a better world for women, and for mothers and their children especially.
Saturday, August 08, 2009
Support the Ammendment to the Bahamas Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Act
I stand in full support of MP Loretta Turner's proposed amendment to the Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Act that would outlaw marital rape in the Bahamas. All conscious, awakened, womanish women of the Bahamas need to speak up publicly and vehemently in support of Mrs Turner's proposed legislation. (All decent, non-violent, woman-honouring men who do not beat their wives also need to step up and express their support for this ammendment.)
As I see it, the new law would mean that married women who are brutalized by their husbands would win the right to bring rape charges against their attackers, a right that is denied them at this present time. This oversight in the present Act provides impunity for epidemic numbers of rapists who happen to be husbands. It turns marriage into the liscence to brutalize and terrorize. The law as it stands now serves to make it all the more difficult and even impossible for many women to get themselves free of their attackers. It aids in the perpetuation of cycles of brutality, grave injury and desperation for the thousands of women who are beaten at home every year in this country.
It is hard to imagine how any decent person in this day and age would stand against a battered woman as she struggles to get herself and her children away from the man beating her. Because this is what rape is, a beating. But sure enough, a national newspaper editor has given tonight's front page to coverage of a preacher speaking at a Rotary Club luncheon (can you say, old boys' network?), who seems to think the new law has something to do with "governing sexual intercourse." I don't know if the preacher is stupid, or evil when he misrepresents the issue in this way. I don't know if the editor is stupid or evil when he fails to get his reporter to make the clarification in her story. I don't know if any of the gentlemen (and women?) of Rotary had the courage to challenge the preacher and advocate for the women at risk who would most benefit from this new law. All the gentlemen involved in bringing us these idiotic, damaging remarks need to remember; RAPE AND BATTERY IS NOT SEX, IT IS A VIOLENT CRIME.
The wacko preachers will carry on, they always do when women are getting themselves free. Their minions will continue to provide them with forums for their religious hysteria and self-important ravings. But their era is passing away. There is a new consciousness among Bahamian women today, a new awareness of our rights as human beings, a new sense of empowerment and possibility. Loretta Turner's brave proposal is symbolic of this revival of womanish activism. She is especially representing the battered wives of the Bahamas, saying loudly on their behalf, We're not going to take it anymore! I want to add my voice to hers. I want to call on the intellectuals and artists of the country especially to come forward and give their public support to this ammendment . I send out a call to the women blog writers of the Caribbean too and ask that they raise their global voices in solidarity with Bahamian battered wives.
Change is going to come.
As I see it, the new law would mean that married women who are brutalized by their husbands would win the right to bring rape charges against their attackers, a right that is denied them at this present time. This oversight in the present Act provides impunity for epidemic numbers of rapists who happen to be husbands. It turns marriage into the liscence to brutalize and terrorize. The law as it stands now serves to make it all the more difficult and even impossible for many women to get themselves free of their attackers. It aids in the perpetuation of cycles of brutality, grave injury and desperation for the thousands of women who are beaten at home every year in this country.
It is hard to imagine how any decent person in this day and age would stand against a battered woman as she struggles to get herself and her children away from the man beating her. Because this is what rape is, a beating. But sure enough, a national newspaper editor has given tonight's front page to coverage of a preacher speaking at a Rotary Club luncheon (can you say, old boys' network?), who seems to think the new law has something to do with "governing sexual intercourse." I don't know if the preacher is stupid, or evil when he misrepresents the issue in this way. I don't know if the editor is stupid or evil when he fails to get his reporter to make the clarification in her story. I don't know if any of the gentlemen (and women?) of Rotary had the courage to challenge the preacher and advocate for the women at risk who would most benefit from this new law. All the gentlemen involved in bringing us these idiotic, damaging remarks need to remember; RAPE AND BATTERY IS NOT SEX, IT IS A VIOLENT CRIME.
The wacko preachers will carry on, they always do when women are getting themselves free. Their minions will continue to provide them with forums for their religious hysteria and self-important ravings. But their era is passing away. There is a new consciousness among Bahamian women today, a new awareness of our rights as human beings, a new sense of empowerment and possibility. Loretta Turner's brave proposal is symbolic of this revival of womanish activism. She is especially representing the battered wives of the Bahamas, saying loudly on their behalf, We're not going to take it anymore! I want to add my voice to hers. I want to call on the intellectuals and artists of the country especially to come forward and give their public support to this ammendment . I send out a call to the women blog writers of the Caribbean too and ask that they raise their global voices in solidarity with Bahamian battered wives.
Change is going to come.
Monday, March 16, 2009
International Women's Day on March 8
How could I have missed International Women's Day on March 8? I was with the baby, nursing, changing diapers, sleeping or trying to sleep, this is the nature of my personal womanish/feminist revolution at the moment. Its easy to forget what day it is, where the moon is, what my name is... Baby is Everything.
But it is not too late to pay tribute to the women of the world, so I do it now with this handfull of words. And since mothering is my focus now I'm writing especially to acknowledge mothers, and especially those who are most at risk globally, because of poverty, war and victimization, who against the odds
survive
thrive
and keep their children alive
because being women they are so very strong, so very resourceful, so very imaginative and creative and visionary and revolutionary, because being women we know, this new age belongs to us, we know we are the co-creators of an emerging new world where the lives we live are honoured, respected and valued once more, and forever.
But it is not too late to pay tribute to the women of the world, so I do it now with this handfull of words. And since mothering is my focus now I'm writing especially to acknowledge mothers, and especially those who are most at risk globally, because of poverty, war and victimization, who against the odds
survive
thrive
and keep their children alive
because being women they are so very strong, so very resourceful, so very imaginative and creative and visionary and revolutionary, because being women we know, this new age belongs to us, we know we are the co-creators of an emerging new world where the lives we live are honoured, respected and valued once more, and forever.
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