Nadine Feldman, Author

celebrating strong female characters and whatever else strikes my fancy

politics

Sandy: The Scariest of Hallowe’en Stories

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I have a lot of blog posts stacked up, but today they all seem trivial. In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, as the clean-up begins and we wait for the latest death toll numbers, we are left with questions. How do we keep Americans safe in the midst of ever-increasing, ever-intensifying weather events? How do we repair a crumbling infrastructure when money is tight — and yet, how do we not? How do we even consider electing someone for our country’s highest office who would privatize the work that FEMA does?

Passionate debates occur online and in the media. Some still stick to their guns that the climate change we see isn’t man-made. Even after Sandy. Even after Richard Muller, a Koch brothers-funded climate change denier, changed his stance last summer. Even with more than 97% of scientists in agreement.

Scary.

We do what we can. A few years ago, when my old Mustang bit the dust, I opted to live without a replacement. We keep our thermostat turned down and add layers of clothing instead. I dry only sheets and towels in the dryer, and hang all our clothing on drying racks. We recycle, compost and look for ways to reuse and reduce the packaging that we use. Most of our food comes from nearby, reducing the energy costs of getting the food to us.

Still, I feel a sense of futility. My efforts feel puny and inadequate.

Yes, let’s donate to the American Red Cross and other organizations who can help our friends and loved ones in the Northeast. Yes, let’s pull together as Americans still seem to do, even in our divided political landscape. But let’s also not waste this catastrophic event to have the real discussions we need to have. I am grateful for Governor Cuomo and Mayor Bloomberg for daring to utter the words “climate change,” which have been erased from political debates. We need to bring those words front and center.

Today, local children will dress up in their costumes and parade through downtown, where we will applaud them. We’ll give away lots of little Kit Kat bars (I hope so, anyway, because we sure have a bunch of them!). We’ll have fun and enjoy Hallowe’en. Maybe we’ll tell a ghost story or two…and we’ll try not to let the real scary story keep us up at night. This is not an imaginary monster hiding under the bed. This is real. We need to change.

Woman Up

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Can you feel it? It feels as though there is a new wave of feminism rising, one in which women are examining not just the patriarchal society that still tries to keep women down, but also the behavior of women within the patriarchy, where we are often our own worst enemies.

One of the popular phrases these days seems to be, “Man up!” Sadly, this phrase is often being used by women as well. It says, in essence, that if we are going to be strong and powerful, we need to be like men… and men have to be macho. It springs from the same place that uses a slang term for female genitalia to be the ultimate insult, a term that says, “You’re weak.” Much as I love me some Daily Show and The Colbert Report, even these reasonably enlightened guys throw that word around with little care. (Shame on you, Jon & Stephen!) Personally, I think if someone calls you a p*#sy, it should be a compliment. A p*#sy brings life into the world, the most sacred act on this planet.

I’m suggesting that we “Woman Up” instead. Women are strong enough to bring children forth from their bodies. Women often juggle jobs, kids, and housework, all while remaining the heart of the family. Women are half the population, and we need to hold half the power as well.

I’m seeing some extraordinary activity out there in the blogosphere and on the web about this topic. Here are just a few people who have saved me the trouble of saying some things that I had intended to:

Julie Farrar from Traveling Through writes about the Ashley Judd controversy.  Judd, as you may know, wrote an op-ed expressing her frustration at all the comments on her puffy face, assuming she had work done. Julie, along with my good friend Bella from One Sister’s Rant, examine the ways in which women hurt each other and tear each other down.

The Feminist Law Prof has scored on a couple of fronts, including the drastic things women are doing to lose weight, and a commentary as a Catholic about the Church’s fight against insurance coverage for birth control.

Mur Lafferty, who does the I Should Be Writing podcast that I have mentioned here in the past, has penned a powerful “Dear Daughter” letter that begins, “You should know that you are hated.” It is a touching, moving tribute to her spirited, inquisitive, and active child.

Barbara Hannah Grufferman, author of The Best of Everything After 50, is fighting tirelessly to revisit the Equal Rights Amendment for women. She will be marching and speaking at next Saturday’s We Are Woman March.

Our legislators are producing bill after bill to reduce the rights of women. In addition, there are other troublesome rumblings among those who would bring women back into the kitchen. One movement among evangelicals is called the Stay-At-Home Daughters Movement, which expects daughters to learn “womanly arts” but eschew getting higher education. These daughters are under the authority of their fathers until that authority is transferred to their husbands. While I have nothing against a woman staying at home if that’s what the family chooses, do we want that choice removed?

The one blessing of this reactionary behavior is that it’s bringing more women together and getting us focused. Perhaps, as we do that, we can learn better how to care for each other, to learn how to resolve conflicts with each other, and to find our collective strength. Maybe we can stop talking about someone’s puffy face or extra pounds and start finding the beauty that exists in all of us. It’s time to Woman Up.

Metropolis: The Movie

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Remember way back when Madonna was still cool and she made the video “Express Yourself“? The grim images of workers slaving away in dark rooms in an expansive city were an homage to Metropolis, a silent film made in the 20s in Germany. A cinematic masterpiece, the special effects of Metropolis remain stunning 85 years later. What Madonna didn’t know was that years later, in 2008, lost footage of the film would be found in Argentina, allowing a more complete restoration. It was this version, accompanied by a live three-piece orchestra, The Alloy, that I had the pleasure of viewing at the Rose Theatre in Port Townsend.

Metropolis paints a dystopian picture that is relevant to today’s politics. A class system has workers devalued and living underground while the upper class lived and played without a care. Sound familiar? One blog, moviediva, examines the movie in the context of Germany of the 20s, with a severe depression that ultimately led to the rise of the Nazi party. It’s an interesting read. Unfortunately, unlike the benign and helpful “mediator” who was sought in the story (a savior archetype), the Germans ended up with Hitler.

From a personal standpoint, Metropolis can also represent the inner journey. The son of the aristocrat has a Buddha-like awakening while frolicking in his garden, when he is unexpectedly exposed to a group of impoverished children. Awakened to suffering, his personal journey takes him to the depths of the workers’ city, even becoming a worker himself — and in his personal growth, has the potential to change the world. I write a lot here about overcoming inner struggles, and this includes traveling to the greatest depths of our being in order to triumph.

One of the memorable characters in Metropolis is Marie, who is encouraging faith among the workers. The same actress plays another role in the movie, that of a robot made in her image to trick the workers. She follows instructions to incite them to violence; unfortunately for the workers, they do not realize that in their rebellion, they risk destroying themselves. The robot invites references to the Whore of Babylon, and perhaps can be relevant today in terms of the myth of woman as destructive temptress.

The tagline of the movie is “The mediator between the head and the hands must be the heart.” Though dismissed later by Lang himself as being silly, I think it’s true for all of us — as individuals and, collectively, as a society.

I’m unclear as to how Metropolis plays into the narrative in Madonna’s video, but oh, well. It was fun to watch it again with a greater understanding of the Metropolis references…and to tap my toes a bit.

Religion and The Ostrich Effect

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Some years ago I went to church with the family of my boyfriend at the time. It was Mother’s Day, and his mother wanted to be the one at church with the most children in attendance. During the sermon, though, the pastor complained about women working outside the home. When we got back to the house, I was shaking with anger. How dare he? Why did he have to use a woman’s special day to offer a Neanderthal opinion of what women should be doing? How come no one else in the family was as incensed as I was?

The answer was simple and shocking. No one else heard it. Over the years they had just tuned the guy out. They dressed up on Sunday, went to church with a big smile, and then spaced out until it was time to go home and have a big family dinner.

Now we are in the midst of a debate being presented on one side as women’s reproductive rights, and on the other as religious freedom. Yet many Catholic women practice birth control. How many? It’s hard to say. According to some, the 98% figure being bandied about is an inaccurate representation, but it’s obvious that families overall, including Catholic families, are smaller than they used to be, so do the math.

To me, the deeper issue is the power we give to religious organizations, often by default.

Overall, church attendance appears to be down, so maybe there’s less of this quiet hypocrisy than it appears. Even Catholicism, so prominent in the current political climate, admits to declining attendance and observance of church doctrine.

Still, in a country with religious freedom and a separation of church and state, religion has inserted itself in the debate, and the opinions of religious leaders, in power in part because of the passivity of their flocks, are being given more weight than they have the right to. Why? Why do we just ignore what’s being said from the pulpit or bimah? Why aren’t the people rising up and demanding more from their leaders, when there is obvious disagreement about their principles?

When Darrell Issa had his little “panel” to convene about religious freedom and insurance coverage for contraception, the panel was entirely made up of males. Some females actually defended this, saying it was a religious freedom issue. Really? Then why weren’t there female religious leaders? What religious freedom does a woman actually have in these organizations? What about the religious freedom of the women working in religious organizations who are not members of that religion? What about the religious freedom of the women to practice birth control without feeling guilty about being untrue to their church? Where are the leaders from religions who don’t have a problem with birth control? Finally, where was the religious freedom of the children who were sexually abused by clergy who now claim moral authority over women’s bodies?

It’s easier to stick our heads in the sand and to make our religions a buffet where we pick and choose what we want. The problem is that in our silence, those leaders think that we agree with them. Yes, some do, but it’s a minority — and that minority is now trying to control our political discourse. This is a problem that we have created collectively, and it’s a problem we must solve in the same way.