Great Work–Great Need–Great Education
I just love all the great work being done by people around the world on behalf of girls and women, and the amazing increase in publicity we’re seeing about it. There is much to be done to move us to a peaceful, safe and healthy world and I believe we move closer to it, as the gifts of women world-wide are fully available to us all and appreciated. I also believe as men recognize and honor their more caring sides, and leave the ’old’ masculine identity behind (competition, winning at all costs, violence, money and sex), this will help speed up the process.
I am passionate about education. I believe when girls and women have access to equal education, 90 million girls and 25 million boys are uneducated today, it can save them from childhood marriages, kidnapping, sex trafficking, rape and lives of servitude and poverty. I have been encouraged by my friend Marilyn Shannon, to post a note about this and announce my commitment to raise money for a school in a country where there is extraordinary need, a school that will provide education, safety and care for girls to graduate from. I will use this blog to report our progress. I hope you will spread the word and help if you feel it in your heart to do so. I just read thousands of girls/women were ‘taken’ to the World Cup for sexual purposes. My heart bleeds every time I hear these stories and then heals a bit as I move forward in working to end the nightmare so many are living in today.
I have just started a Powerful Women’s Networking–Coffee and Contacts Chapter in St. Louis, MO. My plan is to create a global connection, support from our community and those around the country who too believe education is a powerful equalizer so that girls and women will have equal access to resources and power over their body, mind and their future. Thanks for taking a moment to read this. Please contact me if you share this interest, want to help, make a contribution in knowledge, contacts, money, time, etc. May our hearts be one as we take this journey.
Leveling the Playing Field
Are you longing to speak out about the double standards you see for women and men, standards that hurt women and/or standards that hurt men? If so, I’d love to hear from you. I have composed 5 questions I’d love your input on as I am writing a book that I hope will create awareness and action to move beyond gender limitations coming from cultural norms and traditions. If you’d like to share your thoughts, please write me back with your answers. If I can call you for a brief interview to get your responses live, better yet. Thanks so much. I look forward to learning from you.
1. Where do you see double standards; one standard for women and another for men? Can you provide an example of one or two?
2. How does it impact the way you and/or others live?
3. Do you feel this double standard creates a negative or positive outcome?
4. If negative, what is the negative outcome and what is one thing you would suggest that could be done to change this double standard?
5. If you believe (in question 3) the double standard creates a positive outcome, what is the positive outcome?
That’s it! Thank you so much.
Your name and # if I can call you. Thank you for your contribution!
New Video Game about Rape
I learned this week there is a video game, created by a Japanese
company and sold on Amazon, called Rapelay that is all about raping
women and forcing them to have abortions. I’m not only disgusted
something like this was created, I’m equally aghast Amazon would sell
it. I read there are tears in a young woman’s eyes as she is attacked
and it is depicted in graphic detail. The ‘game’ begins with a man who
stalks a mother on a subway and then he sexually assaults her. The man
moves on to attacking two daughters described as virgin schoolgirls.
The Rapelay game also includes an option where the player rapes women
and gets friends to join him in the attack.
What is the source of this? Isn’t it bad enough that women are raped,
beaten and killed in numbers that are unimaginable and now their pain
has been turned into entertainment? Isn’t it bad enough so many women
live everyday with the horror of a rape or a beating they have endured?
Can you even imagine the outrage if such a game were created showing
African Americans or Jews, Moslems or Native American Indians being
beaten and killed because of their race or religion? It is unimaginable,
yet women seem to be ‘fair game.’
I am begging every reader to stop referring to women as sluts,
whores, bitches, bimbos, tramps, dames, broads, wenches and all the
other horrible names girls and women are called. Stop buying, listening
and watching things that use this language and denigrate women. Stop
buying into naming women in this way so that ‘boys can be boys’ and too
many men can justify their behavior.
The more we hear and say it (women and men), and buy into it, the more
it becomes okay to put females down with words and violence. Notice it.
It is everywhere. And every time we let it slide or say it ourselves,
we vote it’s okay and another girl, daughter, and mother are raped,
beaten or killed, and another game, song and radio show host make money
off of our battered bodies. Enough is enough!
Join us this coming Tuesday (April 6) on our monthly GenderWise call as we support Women Coming Into Consciousness to change the world. (712) 432-0800, pin 464850# at 7PM Central, 8PM Eastern, 6PM Mountain and 5PM Pacific.
Western Women Needed To Save The World
March 7, 2010
The world will be saved by the Western Women
~ Dalia Lama
I hope more Western women will come to consciousness by learning and
appreciating our history, understanding where we are today globally
(conditions girls and women live in around the world-100 million women
and girls are missing!), where we need to go and who we need to be to
save the world. I feel disheartened when I see so many of us continue
to give up our last names in marriage and give our children our
husband’s name, call ourselves girls when we’re well beyond childhood,
call girls and women sluts and the guys, the guys, and continue to
subordinate ourselves. I feel totally heartened when I read about women
around the globe, not the leaders of nations, but the women in the
trenches who are saying no to genital mutilation, who are building
schools for girls and hospitals for women who otherwise would die in
childbirth, who are prosecuting their rapists in a culture where it is
unheard of to do so, saying no to arranged marriages that are forced
upon them oftentimes by rape, and who are stopping girls from being
sold into slavery and brothels by ensuring education and healthcare for
girls. Gerda Lerner asks what could explain women holding onto our
subordination and ‘upholding the patriarchal system that continues to
subordinate us’. Is it fear of violence? Is it we are busy working,
caregiving, producing and reproducing? I suspect both and as we come
into greater consciousness, we will see, yes in fact we can and must
save the world. It is only through love and care the world can be
saved. Western Women with greater resources and access to them are a
powerful force to be reckoned with, once we feel empowered to be that
force.
Time For A Change?
How can it not be time for a change, right? Two weeks ago a man walked
into a St. Louis company he worked for and started shooting his co-
workers, killing 3people, and wounding over a dozen, I believe. The man
who killed his co-workers was also killed. One of the people he killed
was my friend’s neighbor’s son.
My heart tells me this all about how we’re raising little boys. We
‘train’ them just like they are trained to be soldiers in warring
countries or trained to put mines in fields, and that is to live life
like it’s one big fight and you better win. You better win in sports,
business and/or sex and if you don’t, you’re not a man. What’s so
absurd about the whole thing to me is when one does all these things so
well, like Tiger Woods, then we scream and carry on about it. Didn’t he
do as he was trained to do? I think so.
From my perspective, it’s not rocket science. If we want to stop
creating unhappy, lonely and isolated men who carry out acts of
violence because they feel there is no other recourse, we must teach
them differently. If the man at Ft. Hood had not felt lonely and
hopeless, the young Nigerian man had not felt so alone in the world
with all his worldly possessions and the man here in St. Louis had been
able to share his feelings, I don’t believe any of these horrible
things would have occurred. We see the same M.O. for gang members.
Their relationships at home and school are poor to non-existent and so
they find something somewhere just to feel worthy and connected.
Can we begin a dialogue about male violence? Yes, women are violent
also. However, we’re not getting anywhere talking about it collectively
and I do believe more men seek violent ‘solutions’ than women. Maybe
I’m wrong. Maybe the statistics would prove me wrong if I looked
deeper. And I’m very open to that discovery. I also know that because
we raise our little boys to be ‘killers’ in some way, kill ‘em on the
playing field, be a lady-killer, etc, we get killers.
How can we expect different results when this is what we’re training
50% of our species to believe they are here to be?
A human identity is where this craziness will end. When we raise little
boys to be skillful in building and honoring relationships, we will
create peace makers, collaborators and connected happy people. Blowing
up a plane or one’s co-workers would never even be on the radar screen
as a solution for solving any problem. It would be unimaginable.
Won’t that be wonderful to live in a time when killing, beating and
raping are unimaginable? The solution is imaginable. So what do you say
we not only imagine it we do it? One identity for both boys and girls,
women and men. To be human is to be loving, kind, compassionate and
caring. That’s it. Pink is just a color, crying is a just another way
to express one’s feelings like laughter, movies about relationships are
as valuable as any other kind of movie, etc. Being a man, like being a
woman, is simply about being a loving person.
Yes, it’s time for a change and I believe we know what needs changing.
It’s usually an inside job and this one is no different.Let’s do it!
GenderWise icircle – February 3, 2010
Join us each month for GenderWise icircle!
We’re creating a community of women and men up for change. Creating
positive feelings, thoughts and expectations of one another to move to
a more peaceful, caring and safe world. This month on a Wednesday
night, 7:00-7:45PM Central Time, 8-9:00PM Eastern, 5:00-5:45PM Pacific,
6:00-6:45PM Mountain
Call in #: (712) 432-0800, Access Code 464850#
Time for a Change?
How can it not be time for a change, right? Two weeks ago a man walked into a St. Louis company he worked for and started shooting his co-workers, killing 3people, and wounding over a dozen, I believe. The man who killed his co-workers was also killed. One of the people he killed was my friend’s neighbor’s son.
My heart tells me this all about how we’re raising little boys. We ‘train’ them just like they are trained to be soldiers in warring countries or trained to put mines in fields, and that is to live life like it’s one big fight and you better win. You better win in sports, business and/or sex and if you don’t, you’re not a man. What’s so absurd about the whole thing to me is when one does all these things so well, like Tiger Woods, then we scream and carry on about it. Didn’t he do as he was trained to do? I think so.
From my perspective, it’s not rocket science. If we want to stop creating unhappy, lonely and isolated men who carry out acts of violence because they feel there is no other recourse, we must teach them differently. If the man at Ft. Hood had not felt lonely and hopeless, the young Nigerian man had not felt so alone in the world with all his worldly possessions and the man here in St. Louis had been able to share his feelings, I don’t believe any of these horrible things would have occurred. We see the same M.O. for gang members. Their relationships at home and school are poor to non-existent and so they find something somewhere just to feel worthy and connected.
Can we begin a dialogue about male violence? Yes, women are violent also. However, we’re not getting anywhere talking about it collectively and I do believe more men seek violent ‘solutions’ than women. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the statistics would prove me wrong if I looked deeper. And I’m very open to that discovery. I also know that because we raise our little boys to be ‘killers’ in some way, kill ‘em on the playing field, be a lady-killer, etc, we get killers.
How can we expect different results when this is what we’re training 50% of our species to believe they are here to be?
A human identity is where this craziness will end. When we raise little boys to be skillful in building and honoring relationships, we will create peace makers, collaborators and connected happy people. Blowing up a plane or one’s co-workers would never even be on the radar screen as a solution for solving any problem. It would be unimaginable.
Won’t that be wonderful to live in a time when killing, beating and raping are unimaginable? The solution is imaginable. So what do you say we not only imagine it we do it? One identity for both boys and girls, women and men. To be human is to be loving, kind, compassionate and caring. That’s it. Pink is just a color, crying is another way to express one’s feelings like laughter, movies about relationships are as valuable as any other type of movie, etc. Being a man, like being a woman, is simply about being a loving person.
Yes, it’s time for a change and I believe we know what needs changing. It’s usually an inside job and this one is no different. Let’s do it!
What Would Love Do?
I recently read this question (above) in an article by Mike Robbins who writes and speaks about appreciation. Since this is integral to my work as well, as a Health Coach, I loved seeing this question posed to his readers. I decided to pose the question to myself as I took on the ‘issue’ of certain marriage traditions, many of which secure gender identities and keep us locked into unhealthy paradigms and expectations of one another.
So before you get upset about me challenging our wedding customs, think about how often you hear of a heinous crime or injustice. Then see if you can trace it to the way men think about themselves as men and how they view women, and the way women think of themselves as women and how they view men.
Next, think about traditions. Our wedding traditions are a great place to look. For instance, it is widely accepted and expected that women will give up their last name for his, as well as their children’s last name. The woman will be given away, most likely, by one man to another. We will likely hear ‘you may now kiss the bride’. I’ve always wondered why this is directed to the groom. We’ll also likely hear ‘I now pronounce you man and wife’. She becomes her new role (Mrs), he remains the same (Mr).
Many in this country are perfectly okay with these traditions, yet see Middle Eastern women required to wear Burkas as something very different and sexist. Don’t all of these traditions say something about what we believe about women and men? And if you believe it is our feelings about ourselves, much of these feelings based on gender identities, that are at the cause of almost every problem we’re facing in the world today, then perhaps our customs and traditions need an update.
Because this has troubled me for a long time, I’ll take my own advice and ask myself the question, what would love do?
After a few moments of feeling love in my heart, it begins to guide me toward compassion for all of us as we navigate through life expecting things of one another based on the gender identities we have been taught and the cultures we live in that reinforce them, oftentimes with stiff penalties for non-compliance. Gender identities as we know them today, create rules that have been laid down generation after generation, based on centuries of narrow views of who and what women and men are supposed to be and do.
As I continue to hold love in my heart, it also guides me to keep going. Keep sharing a message that invites people to take a look at how we might do it differently. Too many people are hitting rock bottom, physically, mentally, emotionally right now. What if love had been there for the Fort Hood psychologist who killed over a dozen people in his military base and the young Nigerian man on the flight to Detroit? What if love were there for the children who have chosen gangs in Chicago and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan? What if they had a wonderful school to go to every day and a loving family to come home to? Do you think they would make the same choice? I don’t think so.
Love brings out the best in each of us. Love guides us to the place where we will find more love, the support we need, compassion when we’re down and forgiveness when we and others make mistakes. With love comes the greatest strength of all. It is the most powerful energy source on the planet and greatly underutilized. Coming from a loving, heart-filled place, our thoughts and actions are different, our opinions widen and we see things we otherwise could not.
So whether it is the upcoming wedding plans, the next teaching moment you have with your children or students, or response to your spouse, partner or friend, ask yourself first, “What would love do?” Collectively as we begin to reduce our pain and struggles on the planet, we will move beyond old paradigms that keep these very problems and struggles in place.
A change of heart truly changes everything. Love will bring what we need most right now; human beings prioritizing loving relationships with ourselves, with one another and all life on the planet.
