OnLine With Zoe

June 1, Day 15 ~ NOW States Who is the True Opponent

Maybe women are complacent because it was men who voted in the Nineteenth Amendment and appear to be including women.  In reality, women have not stepped up to their voting power.  Men and women may vote in presidential elections in equal numbers, but it is not representative of the population.  And even among the women who do vote, they are not wielding any political leverage.  They do not demand fair labor laws, secure child protection or even elect women in representative numbers.  In fact, political savvy is often labeled as masculine behavior, unattractive and anti-family.  Surely Representative Bella wears those natty hats, not just with great panache, but with deep wisdom. 

     Any accusation that women are not smart or political enough to stand toe-to-toe with men, equally under the law, is not only inaccurate but immoral.  A wide-eyed survey of any U.S. neighborhood reveals more women in the workplace.  More women in politics.  More women teaching.  More women heads of households.  None of this is by reward.  This is by necessity.  Women are needed to work, govern, teach and lead their families into the future.  Clearly they need constitutional equality.

      Today Ellie Smeal issued a statement that the insurance industry is the primary opponent.  They stand to lose the most if gender discrimination becomes illegal, so they are spending millions to defeat the amendment.  They want to continue charging women higher rates and granting unequal benefits.  NOW says that women pay more for health and disability insurance even though women have shorter hospital stays and fewer injuries on the job. 

excerpt from The Hungry Heart ~ A Woman's Fast for Justice

May 31, 1982 Day 14 ~ Lincoln's Tomb with Dr. Lowery

It never occurred to me that the tomb would be in a cemetery.  As silly as that sounds, the only president monuments I have ever seen are the Lincoln, Jefferson and Washington in the District of Columbia – none in a cemetery.  Our line of vehicles wound around the Oak Ridge Cemetery passing hundreds of decorated graves.  We parked next to a huge stone building with a tower.  There are lots of bronze statues commemorating the Civil War, but the one that really stands out is an enormous head of Lincoln.  His nose is bright and shiny as thousands of tourists rub it for good luck. 

Walking around the back there is a iron gate on the vault entrance.  Inside everything is marble and cold with more statues along a hallway.  Finally we got to the sarcophagus chamber to discover wreaths on easels.  Someone made arrangements to have chairs placed around the tomb.  We each had one white rose to lay on the tomb.  The press was there in full force including the local TV stations. 

 This picture is one I have dreamed of all my life.  What happens when people, who are seeking liberation, come together?  This is a moment I have been preparing for, wishing for, praying for, as long as I can remember.  However I never ever would have imagined the stage and the players to be this grand, this articulate, this renown.  Dr. Lowery knew Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  He knows Coretta Scott King.  He said that he finds us inspiring.  Does he know how inspired I am to meet him?  Is that what is actually happening here?  Does each seeker enkindle the flame of another?  Does the Spirit of Liberation travel from one soul to another lighting a succession of souls? 

excerpt from The Hungry Heart ~ A Woman's Fast for Justice

May 30, 1982, Day 13 ~ Food Becoming Foreign

As of today I have done three big E’s.  No one could have ever predicted I would do such a thing.  It is so out of character for me that only the ERA, for all women for all time, could have made me do this.  But the truly great news is that my vision has cleared entirely which means I am mobile again.  Losing my independence had been just torture.  I am very relieved.

Food seems very distant to me today.  I have seen people eating: in restaurant windows, on the streets, in the rotunda.  It seems like an option.  Maybe a peculiar observation, but now it appears to be an expensive interruption.  Three or four times a day life stops, money is spent and people eat.  TV tells them what to eat and they eat.  Is there any thinking involved at all?  How much of it is a matter of choice?  Blind, redundant thoughtless eating.

excerpt from The Hungry Heart ~ A Woman's Fast for Justice

May 29, 1982, Day 12 ~ Oh Phyllis

I just can’t understand what is the big hold-up.  Why aren’t people utterly repulsed to be living under a constitution that does not explicitly state that all human beings are equal under the law?  The current constitution is shameful.  Why aren’t people rushing to amend it, fix it, elevate it and move on to greater issues like full representation in government, equality in employment and education?

At this point, it doesn’t even matter to me how this equality is applied.  What matters is removing any and all obstacles to equality.  Then, if a woman (or man) chooses a newly paved opportunity, it is her decision.  Incredibly, Phyllis Schlafly is making progress against the amendment by suggesting that women will have to dig ditches as fast as men, women will have to carry adult men out of burning houses and, most heinous, use firearms in war. 

This manipulation is unforgivable.  Are we measuring masculinity by brute strength?  That should infuriate men as much as women.  I feel safe stating that every woman, pro or anti, wants her dentist and doctor to have a delicate touch, a gentle approach, a kind manner. 

I know lots of women who can dig a ditch, but most are smart enough to enlist John Deere.  I don’t need every fireman (?) on the truck to be able to carry dad out of the burning barn – one will do.  And has any one heard of Boudicca, the Celtic Queen who led an army against Claudius’ Roman military?  Diana, Nike, Joan, countless women who have been soldiers, pilots, samurai and many more whose patriotism required them to fight in full male disguise?  They can cut off heads with the best of them.  Besides it was often women who trained these little boys to wield their rage and it is women who make airplanes and war ordnance while the boys are busy killing. 

May 28, 1982, Day 11 ~ LA Times Covers the Fast

Women Fasting for ERA and Hungering for Justice
Religious Zeal Sustains Illinois Demonstrators
By Kathleen Hendrix, Times Staff Writer

Springfield, Ill – So finally, it has come down to this – a handful of women, most of them mothers, fasting on water, sitting in the rotunda of the Illinois Statehouse, growing visibly weaker by the day, hoping somehow to move the legislators and the people of America to make the equal-rights amendment part of the Constitution before the time to ratify runs out June 30.

      Five of the women are mothers, and to the concerned, sometimes righteous-sounding questions raised about their responsibilities to their children – leaving them, endangering their own health, maybe risking death, they answer sharply, “Who do you think we are doing this for?”

       Dina Bachelor, who reared four children on her own, sees the ERA in economic terms, and she smarts when she talks about the necessity for it, and for her action, using her own life as an example.  Working since she was 13 and nothing to show for it; earning half as much as men doing the same job; seeing herself replaced by two men once, both hired at higher salaries than hers.  She does not want her three daughters to have to repeat that. 

Complete article in The Hungry Heart ~ A Woman's Fast for Justice

May 27, 1982, Day 10 ~ The NOW Security Guard

When we arrived at the rotunda today, four women from the NOW office came over to us and said that they are officially assigned to guard us.  Louise, Judy, Kathy and Vicki are dressed in green and white and seem happy with this new assignment.  Part of me, the Catholic-raised, self- effacing, guilt-ridden woman, feels embarrassed with this amount of attention, all this fanfare. But in my heart I know this is right.  Regardless of me being one of them, the seven women who are offering their lives for equal rights deserve this and so much more.

The fact is we need to consider safety and possibly needing guards.  The crowds are growing and hostility is boiling up and spilling over.  The entire atmosphere is thick with fear, hope, mockery, a wide buffet of emotions.  With the passing of each day, we are becoming removed and less human to everyone.  Some people stand just a few feet away and talk about us as if we have no ears, no feelings, no rights.  They push and shove and don’t respect our space.  They step on our feet and bang into us.  Yesterday a man intentionally jammed his lit cigarette into my arm as he passed by.  I am sad about that.  And even the people who support us have lost perspective.  They think we are superhuman which removes us from their immediate family.  That seems sad too.

NOW’s gift of security and safety is a semi-circle of love standing around us in the rotunda: Louise, Judy, Kathy and Vicki.  They keep everyone a few feet away.  We can breath a bit, relax a tiny bit.  We don’t have to be on alert, which is so exhausting.  They let in the press.  They let in friends.  They are concerned and brilliantly efficient.  It is how I remember being when I was eating.  I remember being capable and organized.  Now I just want to be quiet and insulated.  I feel fragile and extra touchy.  Do they know I am a leader?  Do they know that I am smart?  Do they know that I am well read and clever?  I feel like a shell of a woman sitting silently in my chair, holding a glass that magically fills with water the instant I look away.

From The Hungry Heart ~ A Woman's Fast for Justice

May 26, 1982 Day 9 ~ Rotunda Madness

The rotunda carnival was the same today with lots of crazy-making people and all the little fasters all in a row.  For some reason, or no reason, we have been sitting in the exact same order every day.  I am the last on the left which puts the elevator to my right.  Throngs of people pour past me, most of them with food and drinks.  We have placed ourselves precisely where and when people are on a mission for their lunch.  I can smell it all, right down to the dill pickles.

And so we sit.  The crowds buzz around us with their opinions and judgments, always just loud enough for us to hear clearly.  They seem to be in two distinct groups.  They hate us and think we are actually mad and wicked or they think we are sainted.  Neither of them is true which leaves me feeling isolated and sad.  It isn’t that I want them to know who I really am, but I want them to know that we are women, ordinary women.  We are their sisters, aunts, mothers, wives, teachers, nurses, neighbors who are unrecognized and disregarded first class citizens.  We are the seven who are here and the rest of us, the millions of us, are at work in factories, in hospitals, in schools and homes all over this country.  Many women in America will make and eat dinner tonight because if they don’t, they will put themselves and their children in danger.

From The Hungery Heart ~ A Woman's Fast for Justice

What the ERA Campaign Can Learn from the LGBT Movement

While the media and citizens are celebrating the lightning speed of the accomplishments of the LGBT Movement the ERA Campaign has a lot to gain by noting some key elements which contributed to this historically high-speed success.  Since I have walked both these lanes of the social justice movement for 40 years and in the last 10 come to the reckoning that all roads of oppression intersect, I have a few experienced insights I want to share.        

As I have heard and repeated so many times, social movements take over 150 years, the LGBT Movement broke through that barrier.  They really put their heads down and conquered the internet allowing them to create a true sense of urgency.  It has cut broadcast time, organizing effort and fundraising immeasurably.  However in the ERA campaign, many of our strongest supporters do not use facebook, youtube or Twitter.  Even more of an obstacle is that many pro-ERA people do not regularly use email which leaves them not only out of the information stream entirely but, even worse, thinking there is no ERA interest whatsoever.  This is a serious problem which carries a residual toxin of intergenerational division. In the future this will not be a problem, as in 10 years everyone will be using electronic communication but there is a lot of untapped strength and artificial unraveling right now hidden in the midst of this cultural shift. 

Second, LGBT mobilized internally on all cylinders; from liberal bureaucrats to street radicals - every level pushed the status quo with focus on particular issues.  Within the movement there was internal criticism about civil disobedience, arrest actions, marches, conferences all the way to loud disapproval of those orgs that wanted to slow down and build patient alliances with the White House.  All that rabble rousing collectively created energy.  

Third, the LGBT movement began paying attention and soliciting all avenues of support; corporations, members of Congress and the White House itself.  Relentless, sometimes illegal and sometimes elegant pressure, from Alonzo Mourning’s house to black tie dinners, the President was pressed with no end in sight.  It is well documented that his “evolution” was partially motivated by it. 

Fourth, they recollected their history which brought the movement heroes, gravitas, weight, pride.  It has had a tremendous effect.  Young people take pride in the Queens of Stonewall and the Daughters of Bilitis all the way to Lady Gaga and Lt Dan Choi.  Inspiring historic characters have been celebrated and movies made.  Layer upon layer, like the Names Quilt itself, have contributed to radical change-making.  History, from Stonewall to the White House Fence to hundreds of renown people coming out or announcing their advocacy, built an alliance and lineage.  

Fifth is the current day tragedies.  Terrible suicides and murders set hearts on fire but I would argue that every day that women are not in the US Constitution women and children die from inadequate wages, healthcare, loss of the comprehensive VAWA, too many things to list.  What is different is that LGBT brought issues into focus, connected dots and, though there was never agreement on how, there was always agreement on the goal.  

The ERA Campaign has so many things to our advantage; the ERA is already on the Democrat Party Platform, two strategies in play with bills in Congress (69, 21, 47, 39), stated support by members of Congress and the White House.  To our disadvantage we do not have singular focus, many of our women’s organizations do not dedicate any work on this issue.  2011, NWPC unanimously voted to have an ERA Liaison but does not have one, NOW does not have a lead solely dedicated to the ERA.  While it might be perceived as too thorny to take on because of different strategies, it is really quite easy – fully support them both - all as do Carolyn Maloney and Tammy Baldwin, authors of each. 

As a known champion of the ERA I am asked constantly, what is happening? Who is working it?  Why isn’t NOW making it front and center?  I think that the real question is why isn’t the entire country, which supports it by a margin of over 70%, on fire about this country advancing its position of women In leadership (ranking 72^nd globally) and constitutional inclusion.  While we invade other countries and insist on women quotas in elected seats and inclusive constitutions, USA merely writes her intention in a platform, on bills in every congress since 1948 and knows that we will never force the issue, that would be too messy.  Women haven’t stormed the White House Fence for the ERA since 1981.  We have not increased the number of women in Congress since then either. 

While I am not a fan of the phrase, War on Women, I would say their most effective weapon is they are certain nothing will actually guarantee women’s rights but full constitutional equality and that remains allusive, out of focus and sounds like some history lesson.  While women and liberation activists are busy trying to make every dollar = two, there is little time for such trivialities as the ERA.  I can say with total honesty, the LGBT movement never allowed such a notion to dissuade them. 

The LGBT movement had two pinpoint demands; repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and Marriage Equality.  The opponent showed the reach of his hand with the passage of Prop 8.  That was the tipping point and, even though it was only about California, the entire Queer Nation rallied and in less than a year, held a national march on Coming Out Day.  Maybe the fact that it was California, incorrectly deemed the most progressive state, combined with removing a right already exercised by 1,800 couples, set all engines on warp speed.  I ask, what could be more inciting than the litany of egregious attacks on US women, from family planning to wages to seniors to education, etc. the worst of it is we are being attacked by a Gatling gun, dispersing any vision we should be holding precisely.     

To try to do my part, I am posting entries from my 1982 diary every day for 37 days here.  I do feel a mission to make sure this time is not forgotten. Though we did not win the ERA at the time, some extraordinary women and men contributed to the unfolding of Gender Equality.  It was a proud time when we truly practiced ALL HANDS ON DECK. There were fasters and civil disobedience and grassroots and legislative and bureaucrats and orgs and clergy and unity. It is a very inspiring time. Women and girls today deserve to know about it.  The current day women's movement needs to know about the radiant activism that has occurred along this long arduous path to equality. What you are doing now is in direct lineage, it is cumulative, Equality is on the way.

May 25, 1982 Day 8 ~ Hungry for More

We are the lead story on the local TV stations.  We sit and watch and appear glib.  I am not.  I am deeply moved.  I know I am romantic and idealistic, but I have never been a principle in a drama before.  I might see a movie or read a book and feel as if I know the characters, understand their journey, love them, care for them.  Now I am the one in the story and I am just as moved.  I am marching on line with Alice Paul.  I am sitting with Rosa Parks.  I am resisting with Gandhiji.  I have put down my books and am walking with Oscar Romero.  I am writing and working with Dorothy Day. 

And in the midst of this nostalgia and devotion, what I am really discovering is that we are all just people.  We are human beings who are not satisfied with things as they are.  We see that there could be more.  There should be more.  What we all have in common is that we are all hungry for more. I am just as confused as ever about why there are so few of us.  I consider the longing for liberation and justice to be obvious and ordinary.  People tell me that they could never do this.  Sure they could. 

From The Hungry Heart ~ A Woman's Fast for Justice

May 24, 1982 Day 7 ~ Losing my Sight

Today is a nightmare.  I feel helpless and lost.  I can do almost nothing by myself and have to wait for help.  I am trying my very best to not let it show but I feel like butter in a red hot frying pan; sputtering and ultimately evaporating.  I want to cry every five minutes. 

 We went by the hotel and picked up Greg.  The press was giddy over this new celebrity to fawn over.  Any concern we had about him joining us has vanished.  He has demonstrated again and again that he is here to spotlight the fast, the issue is equal rights and he is honored to be here with us.  Over the last week, we unintentionally started sitting in specific order.  Since I am on the open end, Greg is sitting next to me. 

Sonia is entirely wiped out.  The folding chair is not holding her up and she is lying on Shirley’s lap.  Dina looks her beautiful self, but she is using her usual make-up.  If you look through it, you can see she is really suffering.  Maureen and Mary Ann are upstairs most of the time, knocking on doors to lobby members of the House and Senate.  My vision is completely unreliable.  Everything is blurry.  I start to cross the Capitol floor and I just freeze, afraid to take another step.  I can’t count on myself for the simplest of things.  Dixie walks with me to the bathroom and mailbox, but that leaves the others alone.

From The Hungry Heart ~ A Woman's Fast for Justice

May 23, 1982 Day 6 ~ Fasting Got Political

As of Greg’s arrival, we are drinking spring water only.  We were lavishing in Perrier until he blew a gasket about it.  He said that the salt was lethal.  Sonia and Dina are feeling very bad and there is speculation that it is their kidneys.  We have been advised to drink a gallon of water everyday, but I know I can’t possibly choke down a gallon of water a day. 

 Dr. David Spencer, chief of Southern Illinois University School of Medicine Family Practice Center, has offered to see us for free and monitor our electrolytes.  None of us feel right about that choice.  We cannot disregard the fact that Dr. Spencer is funded by the great State of Illinois.  We could never be entirely certain of an unbiased opinion.  Who can say if this fast might escalate into something controversial and the Governor might want to taint it in some way.  All they would have to do is report that the urine or blood work indicates that we are eating.  Right now, the fast is obvious as none of us is looking very good. 

From The Hungry Heart ~ A Woman's Fast for Justice

May 22, 1982, Day 5 Dick Gregory

Greg, as Dick Gregory has asked us to call him, arrived at Kumler around 3 P.M.  He is a refined and gentle man.  I find him most pleasant to be around.  He is not what I expected from a husband whose wife is home with ten children.  While we are fasting on water, he is fasting solely on air.  At one time he fasted on water for forty days while traveling to fifty-six cities in protest of the Vietnam War. 

He has traveled here because of his dedication to political fasts and fasters.  He explained that he has personally dedicated himself to travel wherever people are fasting in the world; to be with them, help them, teach them. 

He began by telling us that it is really important to ramp up to a fast methodically by systematically removing things from one’s diet.  I am certain he is not recommending twelve pounds of chocolates and teriyaki chicken.  He went on to say that the first seven days are the toughest because the body is trying to adjust and is throwing off the toxins we have spent a lifetime accumulating.  His biggest shock was all of the stairs we climb everyday.  He said that we should be lying down and conserving energy.

From The Hungry Heart ~ A Woman's Fast for Justice

May 21, 1982 ~ The Great Pizza Rebellion

From The Hungry Heart ~ A Woman's Fast for Justice

So Bernie (from the Bloomington Pantagraph) arrived at 9 A.M. with his photographer unaware that his visit was a force majeure.  And from his point of view, we must look like wilted wet noodles draping over our chairs.  He was allowed in the work room, but not the classrooms where we sleep.  At 10 A.M. we sat in a circle and meditated while pictures were taken.  In our circle sit a Quaker, an ex-Jehovah Witness, three ex-Mormons, an ex-Catholic and a Catholic; silent prayer seems the obvious choice. 

The chief offender at this point is our breath.  It is putrid and offensive and unrelenting.  It is our bodies throwing off toxins and from the smell of it, it could throw off Arnold Schwarzenegger.  I am very embarrassed about it.  It is just awful when a reporter leans in to ask an “intimate” question.  One even went so far as to ask if we would have periods while fasting.  I never thought of that.  I plan to.

Rich Woods, from the Illinois Religious Committee for the ERA, called to tell us that Phyllis Schlafly is going to have two hundred pizzas delivered to the rotunda today at noon.  Very Funny.  When we arrived at the Capitol there was a lot of anxiety.  Pizzas or not, the point was facing two hundred opponents in the rotunda.  Whenever and wherever the Green & Whites (pro-ERA) meet the Red & Whites (anti-ERA), it is very distressing.

As noon came closer, dozens -- if not hundreds -- of people poured in from all of the surrounding office buildings.  They formed a great deep circle insulating us from the Pizza Rebellion.  It was a warm and loving gesture that fed us all.  The pizza vendor never showed up.  Later we found out that it was a joke that some columnist thought up. 

Then from out of the crowd a young woman appeared with a gold florist box.  She put the box on the floor and opened it.  Inside were seven long stemmed white roses with a purple bow on each.  Returning to the box seven times, one by one, she handed each of us a flower.  She disappeared the very moment she finished.  I don’t know her name, but as long as I live I will never forget her.  I hope someday she will know what a miracle she was for us that day.

May 20, 1982, Day 3

This really is a battle, isn’t it?  There are lives at risk.  The most endangered species on the planet is woman.  What can women do after designing their lives to support marriage and children when their husbands move on for younger and childless women?  What if a woman has no money of her own, no insurance, no pension, no social security?  Women are battered, raped, held captive in economic slavery.  I wonder how many women would stay with their husbands if they had good jobs and all the money they needed.

What is this battle?  Who is the enemy?  How can this injustice cover the entire earth?  Why are some women fighting to maintain their secondary position?  Am I trying to win something that people don’t even want?  It is very confusing, but I must do this.  I truly believe that women must recover their power.  Women must define their own lives and their place in society.  Women must have absolute autonomy over their bodies and all reproductive decisions.  We have to abolish gender categories in jobs, credit, education, property and contracts.

I want a world where men and women have equal opportunity to express themselves.  I want sexism eliminated from the media and language and most of all in religion.  I want women to define themselves and not be classified by marital status and ability to reproduce.  It is a very simple premise: true justice is opportunity.  All parties suffer when there is an imbalance.

From The Hungry Heart ~ A Woman's Fast for Justice 

 

Sonia and I talk about our Marriages

May 19, 1982, Sonia and I go to Chicago to be on Chicago AM.  Just missed Oprah by a couple of weeks. 

Twenty-four hours ago I was in a sleeping bag on a classroom floor and here I am in the finest hotel in Chicago.  Around noon today the people from Chicago A.M. called and invited two of us to be guests on the show tomorrow morning, all expenses paid.  Sonia was the obvious choice.  Since I was really excited about it, and the others just wanted to be left alone, I got to go too.  We will be interviewed on air by Robb Weller...

... Lying in our beds, talking into the night, our thoughts and feelings lifted like steam rising over boiling soup.  We talked about our marriages.  I told Sonia what a hard fall it had been for me as the myths of romance disintegrated one by one.  Like Sonia’s Mormonism, I had been a devout Catholic respectful of the sacrament of marriage.  I married young and loved my husband.  We were both idealists: marching for civil rights, opposing the Viet Nam war and fighting the draft.  I wanted to be a school teacher and he was interested in prison reform.  A couple of years after moving from Illinois to California, he felt cheated for having married so young.  He was bored with our relationship and wanted to experience other women.  Once I became aware of his many affairs, the marriage was over in a matter of months.  I was broken-hearted.  Our mutual dreams were gone forever.  We both were sad.  We lost the innocence we had celebrated together.

Then one day the entire illusion broke open for me.  I am not certain why or how, but I realized that married life and parenthood were not my destiny.  Being single was not a miserable life as a half person.  For me it was a whole life, a complete life.  This was not a lesson I could learn from school or from bride dolls under the Christmas tree.  This is a rite of passage in a soul’s unfolding journey.  This is a knowing that is born out of pain, rejection and finally healing.

From The Hungry Heart ~ A Woman's Fast for Justice