AGA Roll Call: March for Women's History

Hagar:

Hagar tied a knot
and slipped through it

she tapped her
skull to
her son's

and together they
dipped into the
river of life.

She could lead a battalion
to a place of
naked peace
if not for her flesh,
wrapped in butcher's paper.

She was unvisited by grace
and so she spelled it out
in the sand.

We are rent from her now,
God's own beauty

strong only by breaks
in every conscience.

Sarah:

Sarah
you know you
are the one
broken lines
make straight in your wake
and
synonyms are hushed.

Sarah made of fathers
blood and

Imagine not knowing the year you were born...She thought she was born in 1825, While her death certificate said she was born in 1815 and her gravestone listed her birth in 1820.
Who am I talking about? Araminta Ross, or by the name you know her Harriet Tubman.

She was born near Bucktown, Maryland to Harriet Green and Benjamin Ross a slave couple that was lucky enough to spend most of their life in close proximity to one another. Harriet was one of around a dozen children. It is assumed she was a middle child. Though no records were found that listed her sisters or brothers, she had indicated that she did have older and younger siblings.

given life
by a child
only 13
parents seperated
when she turned 3
raised in the projects
raped at 11
sent to catholic school
to at least ensure heaven
2 years later
what happened had changed her
her family traveled
in hopes that could save her
and at age 13
she was raped by her neighbor

she turned to prositution
& was jailed for her "crime"
she sang
"body and soul"
for a home,
for a dime
unrecognized
overlooked
& segregated
she sang for her soul
she found music in hatred

she fell to numbness
using drugs for her pain
& for 8 months
she was jailed, once again

Music. It surrounds us; it fills the air, it fills our hearts. We can rise to great heights of joy or plummet into sorrow while we listen. Musicians pour their lives out into the world for all to see. Their emotions are clear, their souls are visible; we can connect to them through this music.

Throughout history, music has been defined by so many women. We have amazing jazz vocalists, pop singers like Avril Lavigne and Jennifer Lopez, artists like Alicia Keys and many, many more who fill up our world of music now and long ago. Every day we listen to music; our world is musical itself.

But about forty years ago(correct me if I'm wrong) there came a new genre of music. Rock music. This was filled with guys. Male vocalists, guitarists, drummers... We have the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, amazing artists.

Have you been working 12 hours a day, 6 days a week in a mill, garment factory or mine since you were 8 years old? When was the last time you ate corn bread with cottonseed oil (in place of butter) for breakfast before heading out the door with your entire family to work at 5am? Did your employer cut your wages by 10 percent when they found out you were saving that much out of every paycheck, trying to save for a house, farm or education?

These were common living and working conditions for working class families and children in the United State less than 100 years ago. Through much work and sacrifice, the labor movement of the late 1800s to early 1900s changed the culture and norms for working in the US and throughout the western world.

I remember being very surprised when I first learned about the role of the lesbian activist group Lavender Menace in shaping 1970s feminism. In the early 1970s, the mainstream feminist movement was not accepting of lesbians. Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique and president of the National Organization for Women, famously referred to lesbians as “lavender menace” to the women’s movement, because she felt that stereotypes of lesbians as masculine and widespread bias against lesbians would make it more difficult for the primarily white heterosexual middle-class women in the women’s movement to create political change if they were associated too closely with lesbian activism. Thus, NOW worked to distance itself from lesbian issues, not allowing an early lesbian rights organization, the Daughters of Bilitis, to be a sponsor for NOW’s First Congress to Unite Women in 1969.

Imagine having to make a huge choice four days after coming into your new office. Your superiors and the media at large are pressuring you one way even as your beliefs go another way. How do you vote?

Before Hilary, Nancy, or Barbara ever had to make that choice, Jeanette Rankin did. And she voted against World War I in accordance with her beliefs as a feminist and pacifist.

She was also the first woman ever elected to Congress, in 1916, before women could even vote for her. After completing college and trying out various jobs, she decided to become a social worker to help the poor and children. She was the first woman to speak for the Montana legislature and helped the women of Montana get the vote. Then, she ran for the House of Representitives.

"Women will not become more empowered merely because we want them to be, but through legislative changes, increased information, and redirection of resources. It would be fatal to overlook this issue." –Gro Harlem Brundtland

Kick-starting your political career by lobbying for abortion rights—in the early 70’ies, no less—isn’t exactly begging for a promotion. Gro Harlem Bruntland, however, did exactly that, and went on to become Norway’s first female Minister of Environment, and soon after Norway’s first female Prime Minister—not to mention the youngest ever elected, period. Not too shabby.

Apologies for not posting this yeterday-things have been crazy here. That's not a good excuse, but I am sorry.

Aung San Suu Kyi. Ever since I read about this woman several years ago, I have been inspired by her story. Does the name ring any bells? She's the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize Winner. Democratically elected leader of Burma from 1990. Remarkable woman.

She is the leader of the National League for Democracy Party of Burma, which is the opposition party to Burma's military regime. She has been under house arrest periodically since the late 1980s, primarily because she poses such a threat to the military regime in power. The military junta has remained in power since 1988, where they seized power despite her successful election.

My opinion about homosexuality and homosexuals is exactly the same as my opinion about heterosexuality and heterosexuals. All depends on individuals and circumstances. I claim a general freedom of behavior.
-Claude Cahun

Being a liberal, Jewish, lesbian, crossing dressing, bald, revolutionary artist, who publishes anti-government propaganda may be hard in modern times. But imagine being all of the above in a Nazi occupied country during WWII and maybe you can image what life was like for Claude Cahun and Mercel Moore.

Claude Cahun adopted her androgynous name 25 years after being born Lucy Schwab. Mercel Moore was originally born Suzanne Malherbe. The two lived in Paris for several years before moving to the island of Jersey off the coast of France. Together the two women would create artwork, literature and personal appearances that made people question what it means to be a certain gender. Claude Cahun often dressed as a male, cut her hair short and dyed it outrageous colors or went completely bald. In their photographic artwork, Cahun and Moore explore gender and self identity. In their photographs they take on the roles of popular images in our culture. The virgin, the angel, the sailor, the athlete. Sometimes the photos are dramatic, the female figures depicted with exaggerated make-up, hair and costume. In others they depict more realistic male figures. Some of their photos show the true beauty of the human form. Their collages range from abstraction to clear and popular western symbols, placed together to create certain messages.

“I don’t run a woman government. I run a government of people. Of course, I am the first democratically elected woman president in Africa, and that raises a lot of expectations. Because I represent the aspirations of women all over Africa, I must succeed for them. I must keep the door open for women’s participation in politics at the highest level. That is both humbling and exciting.”

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf beat ex-international football star George Weah in a 2005 election for the Liberian presidency. That was the easy part. Now the world waits to see if ‘Ma’ Sirleaf can bring economic success to a country torn by a history of class divisions and civil war.

If there is one name that comes to the mind of anyone in Germany when talking about feminism, it is that of Alice Schwarzer. She is a well-known presence in the media landscape and though people's opinion of her tend to be divided strictly into disdain and admiration, just about everyone is aware of her importance for second-wave feminism.

In my generation, many of her earlier achievements are forgotten and she is known mostly as the founder of the first (and only) by-women-for-women magazine EMMA and for her infamous discussions on various talkshows (the most well-known one being a debate with author Esther Vilar in 1975, who had written a book about the opression of men by women). Her appearance on the game show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire is legendary (and won her a viewer's choice award) and she is often quoted in discussions of current events.

New Zealand is a rather odd place for women, and it really always has been. Socially we still have a lot of work to do, many would argue that New Zealand is a very socially advanced country for women, but having lived the other side of that my eyes have been opened to a lot of suffering that women in my country still go through daily with little continued support. However politically New Zealand women have worked hard to keep women in parliament from the very start and as of right now we have a wonderful feminist prime-minister Helen Clark.

The political advancement of women in New Zealand was bought about by a handful of courageous women, particularly Kate Sheppard. Kate was born in Liverpool, England in 1847. After her fathers death the family moved to New Zealand in 1868 settling in Christchurch (my home town) a few years later, where Kate married and had one son.

A woman is running for president. She advocates for fair labor practices, social welfare programs and women's rights. She also appears a bundle of contradictions -- she is anti-abortion (as are most at the time), but pro-free love; a eugenicist, but also a civil rights supporter and socialist; a suffragist and a spiritualist. She has worked as a stockbroker, a lobbyist, a businesswoman and a newspaper publisher. She is both admired and despised by many. Nominated as her running mate is an African-American man.

No one really thinks she will win. However, everyone who nominates and supports her, including she herself, feels that it is important a message be sent to the U.S. government that it is time for a woman in government and in the White House.

During her run, personal -- rather than political -- attacks are made on her from all sides, in all the ways women who threaten the status quo, women who dare, are typically attacked: she is painted as a witch, a bitch, a prostitute, a woman of "loose morals." Her politics and platform are not critiqued: she is a woman, and so it is her person which is maligned and demonized. She is purposefully scandalized by people -- primarily men, or women acting as protectors of men -- with power to prevent her and any other woman from having any chance at all.

Sound kind of familiar? But it isn't 2007. It's 1872.