by Joe Kandra, Kathie Malley-Morrison, Pat Daniel
Tag: women’s rights
Sojourner Truth’s Journey is unfinished. Join up.
by Kathie MM
Courageous women, revolutionizing women, history-altering women come in all colors and times. Continuing their work is as crucial as ever for peace and social justice.
.So let’s start February, Black History Month, with the words of Sojourner Truth (1797-1883) , who was born into slavery in 1797 and escaped carrying her infant daughter in 1826. (“I did not run off, for I thought that wicked, but I walked off, believing that to be all right,” she said.) When the son she left behind was sold illegally, she successfully sued for his freedom. Naming herself “Sojourner Truth,” and converting to Methodism, she campaigned for women’s rights and the abolition of slavery throughout her life .
Here’s her “Ain’t I a Woman” speech, given in 1851 at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, OH.
“Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that ‘twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what’s all this here talking about?
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?
Then they talk about this thing in the head; what’s this they call it? [member in audience whispers, “intellect”] That’s it, honey. What’s that got to do with women’s rights or negroes’ rights? If my cup won’t hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn’t you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?
Then that little man in black there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men, ‘cause Christ wasn’t a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.
If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.
Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain’t got nothing more to say.”
Give your day an extra boost by clicking here to hear a contemporary rendition of her speech .
Speaking truth to power on IWRD
By Kathie MM
It’s International Women’s Rights Day, March 8, 2018—a day not just to celebrate women’s escape from bondage, or women’s courageous struggle to gain their inherent social, economic, and political rights, but also to press for progress / . When gun rights outweigh women’s and children’s rights and the NRA agenda outranks human rights, it’s time to act.
In every nonviolent struggle for rights, role models can play a crucial role. Today, let a child lead you. Watch and take courage from the words and deeds of some very young women—the young women who are organizing the March 24, March for Our Lives on Washington, DC. https://marchforourlives.com/In particular, make your day by watching this video in which Sarah Chadwick, one of the survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting (which left 17 students and staff dead), takes on Dana Loesch, spokespropagandist for the NRA.
Read the whole story and transcript here.
Then decide how you can support the March 24 March for Life, for women’s rights, human rights, and peace. To remind yourself that the activism of ordinary citizens can move mountains while congresspeople sit on their hands and worry about their wallets, read this .
Women, for further inspiration about the particular differences women can make, also read this and join the cause.
Hear-ye, Hear-ye, Read all about it!
By Kathie MM
Last Saturday, June 17, 2017, on a miserably wet day, multitudes of women marched in New York City.
Their purpose? Rallying for a United Nations ban on the use, development, and sale of nuclear weapons.
Support for such a ban, like support for efforts to deal with climate change, may be essential to the survival of most of the remaining species on earth, including human beings.
However, effective banning of the bomb faces enormous obstacles. Foremost is the opposition of all member countries already possessing nuclear weapons—including the United States.
Fortunately, many courageous women—and their male supporters—have faced daunting obstacles in the past and have overcome them.
Step back. Imagine what it must have been like for women in this country when:
- they could not vote,
- advocating for a right to vote could mean a term in prison or an insane asylum,
- divorcing an abusive husband meant losing your children,
- distributing contraception aids or advertising safe abortions was a criminal offense,
- higher education was pretty much out of bounds, and
- while poverty was rampant, nearly every kind of job was closed to women except domestic work and prostitution (which was more lucrative but also a pathway to prison).
Perhaps you have heard the names of some of the women (e.g., Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Victoria Woodhull) who worked, often at great personal cost, to challenge these injustices.
If you want to immerse yourself in the lives of those women and others (e.g., Susan B. Anthony) as they struggled against widespread oppression and persecution (personified by the smug zealot Anthony Comstock), read Marge Piercy’s Sex Wars.
The novel is riveting, with rich and well-researched characterizations of Cady Stanton and Woodhull–courageous, passionate, sometimes conflictual, flawed, admirable human beings–and the nefarious Anthony Comstock (who devoted his life to sending uppity women to jail ), as well as the inimitable fictional immigrant, Freydeh Levin.
Read it for an intimate and engrossing engagement in a culture awash with violent prejudices, run by a cabal of rich and powerful white men able to postpone but not prevent the protest movement for women’s rights.
Read it, be grateful for the progress that’s been made,, and ask what you can do for…
- Peace,
- Survival of the earth, and
- Human rights.