abuse

Marketing in the New World and Karen Tate’s New Book on Normalizing Abuse by Caryn MacGrandle

Marketing was my thing in college. And my first professional job out of college was in Marketing at the Regional Headquarters of Canon in Dallas. And then my life took me out into the weeds: a marriage to an Airforce pilot following him to the snow filled tundra of North Dakota, the swamps of Mississippi, two divorces, four children, twists and turns and ups and downs all landing smack dab to where I sit in front of my computer at the moment outside of Huntsville, Alabama at 53 finally feeling like I’ve got somewhat of a handle on this crazy ride called Life or at least a better idea of how to buckle in and enjoy the ups and get through the downs.

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: FORGIVENESS or TRUTH: WHICH IS THE BEST REMEDY?

This was originally posted on March 5, 2012

What happened to you really was bad. This should not happen to any child. It should not have happened to you.

In our culture there is often a rush to forgiveness that precedes acknowledging the harm that has been done. When I was a child and my father yelled at me or withheld love, I was told by mother, “He really does love you. He just does not know how to show it.” She sometimes added, “Even though he will never say he is sorry, you should forgive your father, because he did not really mean what he said.”

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: “What Would Happen If One Woman Told the Truth about Her Life?”

This was originally posted on September 24, 2018

According to poet Muriel Rukeyser, “the world would split open.”

This poem accurately describes what many women experienced in consciousness raising in the 1970s and what many women experience today in the #MeToo movement.

For many of us the world did split open. We began to take ourselves and our experiences seriously. To do so we had to question received wisdom encoded in such questions as: “What was she doing there in the first place?” “Was she drinking too?” “Why didn’t she change out of her bathing suit?” Underlying these questions is the assumption that: “whatever happened, she must have asked for it.”

A lot of people are wondering why congressmen and voters who claim to uphold Christian principles are not more outraged about credible allegations of sexual assault against a child whose name was Christine Blasey. What this question fails to address is the fact that the Christian principles (if any) held by conservatives are steeped in patriarchy. Liberals may argue that Jesus would have cared about the girl, and I believe they are right. But the Christianity that developed after his death was centered on the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, all of whom are male. This Christianity is patriarchal to the core: its deep message is that power belongs the hands of males and that male power is not to be questioned.

Is Sin An Antiquated Concept? by Rev. Dr. Karen Tate

I believe many could and would characterize abuse and exploitation as varying degrees of sin, from gossip and verbal intimidation on one end of the spectrum to murder, rape or thievery on the other. Yet, while we’ve normalized some acts that we recognize fall into the categories of abuse and exploitation, if you asked someone if society has normalized sin, I suspect most people would say “of course not.” I believe that cognitive disconnect is proof we’ve become numb and acculturated to many forms of abuse. The concept of sin, and what constitutes sin along with redemption, purification and penance are not on the minds of people today as they once were, despite the rampant abuse and exploitation, aka sin. We accept it like we’ve come to believe greed is good when it once was one of the Seven Deadly Sins. I think prosperity gospels too need to be evaluated for the anti-Jesus message these teachings perpetuate that does little to advance an evolved and compassionate humanity.

We Endure Abuse to Survive, Part 2 by Karen Tate

Part 1 was posted on December 18. You can read it here.

But what was the straw that broke the camel’s back in my case? What hurled me into that dark abyss I described earlier? The paranoia, the anxiety, the nightmares and sleeplessness. Not opening my closet in three years or not caring about much of anything. The fear of being alone in a place or in a crowd of strangers. Fear of going to unfamiliar places. Of driving myself across town. Did it start with the collective trauma and abuse mentioned earlier? I can’t be sure, but therapy definitely points to my attack by an inebriated young woman wielding a stun gun. She looked to be college age. One would never have guessed her capable of such a senseless assault. I told few people about it but it was years before I realized how that event stifled my voice. Yet “they” – the authorities in society – say if we don’t talk about assault right away it must not be true. Or we’ve waited too long to talk. They want us to talk on their timetable about damage done to us when there might not be visible wounds or we even understand the psychological scars that might not have surfaced yet. It was a few years after the attack that I finally sought the help of a therapist and was diagnosed with the PTSD or post traumatic stress disorder that changed my life.

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: On Believing Things That Are Not True

This was originally posted on August 19, 2019 (when the former guy was President. Although former guy isn’t in power now, Carol’s points are still operative in our world.)

Anyone who is following American politics these days knows that the American President and his acolytes have little respect for what the rest of us consider to be the truth—or at least the best approximation of the truth that we can discern. Last week, while discussing the “lie” of white supremacy that approximately 40% of the American public has bought hook, line, and sinker, I had occasion to reflect again on the relation between traditional religious beliefs and rejection of reason and common sense. As is also well-known the President and his supporters have no respect for factual truth.

We Endure Abuse to Survive, Part 1 by Karen Tate

I considered myself savvy and educated and an advocate for peace, fairness and equality. I thought abuse was something that happened to others, not me. But it was happening to me. It had happened to me and I didn’t see the danger signs as my life careened off the road. I became aware abuse and the resulting trauma can happen to anyone. I came to realize we have to examine all aspects of our lives for both blatant and insidious abuse. We must recognize it and take steps to eradicate abuse from our lives and society. That’s where I’ve been on for the last five years and I’m only now able to begin to share that journey. To write a new book, Normalizing Abuse, and bring my radio show, Voices of the Sacred Feminine, back on the air after a long hiatus.

Part One

If you knew me before my unraveling, you might remember I was the hostess of the Voices of the Sacred Feminine podcast for more than a decade where I had the privilege of interviewing some of the most prominent thought leaders in spirituality, politics and academia. I’d published six books, gave talks at the Parliament of World Religions, the Academy of Religion and various other public and private associations. I had done dozens of interviews and was all over YouTube. I was out there and then gradually I wasn’t. I faded away and became a shadow of my former self. And for a time I don’t think I cared if I ever came back. I had no motivation or inspiration. I didn’t open my closet for three years. I didn’t care if I bathed or brushed my teeth. I was dreaming someone was trying to push me into a dark hole in the wall of a building. I’d hear floorboards creaking and feared the foundation of the house I was living in would collapse. I’d wake up with heart palpitations because the latest dream was one where our home had no ceiling or roof. I’d think cars slowly driving by my house were surveillance.

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: His Terror

Moderator’s Note: This was originally posted on March 25, 2019. AND the issues are still with us and as vivid as ever.

The first two parts of Susan Griffin’s Woman and Nature, “MATTER” and “SEPARATION,” are written in the authoritative voice of western philosophy and science that declares matter to be dead and the body an impediment to thought, and proceeds to separate the mind from the body. All of this, Griffin suggests, is based in the fear of death.

As Griffin notes, in this equation woman is identified with the body and her voice is silenced. Re-reading these parts of Woman and Nature for the umpteenth time for a class I am teaching felt even more painful than it had before. I was reliving parts of my own story.

I was brought up in the tract home suburbs of post-war Los Angeles in a world of women. Both of my grandmothers played central roles in my upbringing, introducing me to nature and the spirit of life they experienced as we explored trails the Los Angeles County arboretum before it was fenced or when we frolicked in the waves and picked up sand dollars at the seashore south of San Francisco. When I was ten years old my family moved to a new neighborhood that was almost entirely made up of families like ours with small children, fathers who worked, and mothers who stayed home.

Memoirs of a Cult Survivor by Chasity Jones

This blogpost is a reflection on my experience creating a podcast series concerning religious trauma experienced in cults as well as how to heal from traumatic cult experiences.

Firstly, I had to be very intentional about the word survivor as opposed to victim. Survivor was the obvious choice because I used to cringe when thinking of myself as a victim. However, As I heal, I can honor both the survivor and the victim, for they are the same. I cannot forget to acknowledge though that some victims do not survive and this is the same concerning cults. Many people at this very moment are in exile or in hiding from their cults when they escape and for that reason some of the people who engaged in this series were forced to engage anonymously.

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: The Devil’s Bargain: “If You Can Convince a White Woman”

This was originally posted on August 12, 2019

This week’s news from America. Where to begin? When will it end?

The President of the United States is a racist who incites racist violence. Republicans have been slow to condemn the President and are not likely to pass a complete ban on assault weapons and to make those currently in circulation illegal.

After reading a speech condemning hate speech and gun violence that he obviously didn’t write, the President scheduled a round-up of brown people working in chicken-packing factories in Mississippi to coincide with his unsympathetic visits to the cities of Dayton and El Paso, where two recent mass killings by assault weapons occurred. The next morning, we were greeted by images of little children coming home from school in small towns in Mississippi to find their parents missing. We were told that none of the surviving victims of the El Paso shooting wanted to meet the President.

This is not the America I want. But it is the America that many Americans seem to want. I would like to think that women as a group reject the President and his agenda. Sadly, this is not true.

Part 2 – The Other Side of the Story by Sara Wright

To read part 1: click here

I am watching my neighbor from a window as her body dissolves and disappears into a pile of dark smoke that rises up to the ceiling in a pink room. She leaves behind a bed full of human shit.

I had this peculiar dream a year ago in early August the night my neighbor died. When I awakened I could sense her absence. What surprised me was that I felt sad because this neighbor had never befriended me, although I had done my best to get along with her for so many years. There were things I liked about her; she had a good sense of humor, loved animals and plants, the color red. She could be explosive, and I understood that because I got openly angry too. There were periods during which time we had brief conversations but they were always punctuated by periods of what seemed to me to be inexplicable silences until I finally began to uncover a complicated and still incomplete story.

The Ugly “Neighbor” and The Power of Evil by Sara Wright

What follows is yet another story of how patriarchy is destroying our culture through the lens of personal narrative. This is a pattern we must uncover, reveal for what it is and refuse to participate. As bell hooks once said, “your silence will not protect you”. Especially from insanity.

I was gone when the U-Haul moved out.

For almost 19 years Ugly neighbor lied, manipulated, tried to steal land, stole my young balsam trees, ignored covenants on our deeds and most recently started to set off explosives.

Six months after moving in here this guy cut down my trees and built a bridge over the brook on my land. It never occurred to me that he did it. Oh, I wasn’t accustomed to this sophisticated level of manipulation. When I approached Ugly neighbor (alias ‘nice guy’ with a fake halloween pumpkin smile) to tell him what I believed someone else had done, I discovered he built the bridge; he cut down my trees. Stunned, it barely registered when he said “I did it for you.” WHAT???

Accustomed to the old fashioned ‘respect your neighbor policy’ I had no frame of reference for the hell that was coming my way.

From the Archives: Politicians Make Dangerous Theologians by Katey Zeh

This was originally posted November 21, 2017

Accounts and allegations of sexual harassment, assault, and abuse perpetrated by mostly straight white men in power have flooded the U.S. news cycle for months. Each new revelation confirms that sexual violence is an epidemic fueled by systems of unchecked power and authority, including patriarchy, white supremacy, and Christian supremacy.

After The Washington Post published the story of Leigh Corfman who recounted the sexual abuse she suffered as a teenager at the hands of Roy Moore, Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler came to his defense and argued that this would have no political impact since Moore “never had sexual intercourse with any of these girls.”

We all ought know by now that such allegations of sexual abuse, even when the perpetrator admits to them, bear little weight on the electability of white male politicians (see: November 8, 2016). Even so, I was stunned by a poll that revealed that 29% of Alabama voters answered that they are now more likely to vote for Roy Moore since allegations were made against him.

Be the Donkey: On Parshah Balak by Ivy Helman.

The Torah portion for July 16, 2022 is Balak (Numbers 22:2 -25:9). Some of what happens in Balak is familiar: idolatry, divinely-sanctioned death penalties, and a plague. But, did you know that this parshah has a talking female donkey who stands up to abusive behavior? Perhaps not. That talking donkey and the larger story of Balak’s attempt to curse the Israelites raises questions about gender, how we treat animals, choices, free will, violence, courage, and having one’s eyes open to what is really happening around one’s self. All of which is what we will be looking at today.

Balak begins with this story about Balaam. The Moabite king, Balak, wishes to curse the Israelites because he is worried about their size and their impact on the land and its current inhabitants (22:3-4). He sends representatives to bring Balaam, a powerful man whose curses and blessings have tangible effects on their recipients (22:6), to him. Balaam meets with those representatives and tells them to wait; he has to talk to the deity in order to know what to do. The deity commands Balaam to stay put and to not curse the Israelites, for they are blessed (22:12). Indeed, a first in quite a while.

When Rabbis Abuse: Power, Gender, and Status in the Dynamics of Sexual Abuse in Jewish Culture, Part 2 by Dr. Elana Sztokman

Moderator’s note: This is a book excerpt in 2 parts. Part 1 was posted yesterday. When Rabbis Abuse will be published on June 14th, information on ordering below.

Grooming tactics: Targeting the victim

Although there are many ways to target a victim, there is a particular type of grooming that is available to rabbinic figures and other clergy, which comes in the form of pastoral care. Many stories involve glaring examples of this—funeral, bat mitzvah class, depression, or other moments of emotional vulnerability. Often the rabbi-abuser will target people who are going through a divorce—or even worse, recovering from sexual abuse. …

Brenda, for example, says that the rabbi targeted her when she was at a very stressful time in her life and having what she described as “emotional issues”:

I was making my son’s bar mitzvah, and it was a lot of work. I was having some emotional issues because I’m more observant than my family and most of my family is pretty secular and it’s always challenging to get my family to be engaged, and I was feeling stressed and hurt because a lot of my relatives had decided not to come.

When Rabbis Abuse: Power, Gender, and Status in the Dynamics of Sexual Abuse in Jewish Culture, Part 1 by By Dr. Elana Sztokman

Moderator’s note: This is a book excerpt in 2 parts. Part 2 tomorrow. When Rabbis Abuse will be published on June 14th, information on ordering below.

When I started this research in 2015, I was not expecting rabbis to be the headliners. I was looking at abuse in general in our community. When I began conducting interviews on this topic, I was startled to discover how many of the abusers described by interviewees were rabbis.

Discovering rabbis

Although anthropology does not claim to offer statistical evidence or representative sampling, and although I efforted to maintain listening neutrality and non-judgment, I was nonetheless swept away by hearing so many of these accounts of rabbis who sexually abuse. The title of this book is a result of an incomprehensible number of interviewees in which the abuser was a rabbi. I decided to examine the profile of the rabbi-abuser more carefully to understand what this means for our culture and our community, and to use those insights to analyze other cases of high-profile abuse using those paradigms of power in our culture….

Carol P. Christ’s Legacy: Are Most of Us Abused Children? And is Child Abuse the Root of Evil?

This was originally posted on July 16, 2012

Child abuse does not have to be physical or sexual. The most widespread forms of child abuse are psychological, and therefore harder to see, acknowledge, and eradicate. As abused children, we unconsciously pass on patterns of abuse visited on us to children, and to others we have power over including students, employees, and even friends and lovers.

The recent visit of a friend who is suffering greatly in a “battle” with her own “demons” reminded me of the important work of Alice Miller. My friend’s “demons” take the form of a persistent self-criticism laced with the feeling that “if only” she did or didn’t do certain things, her world would fall into place. My “demons” generally take a different form, telling me that I am helpless and that there is nothing I can do to ease my suffering.

Such “demons” were not implanted in my friend and me by the devil. They took root in interactions with our own parents, who were not themselves any different from most of the parents of their time and place. Recognizing that our parents were not “bad” people should not blind us to the great harm they did to us. However, when abused children speak of their abuse, the statement that their parents did not intend to harm them usually functions to deflect attention away from child abuse that really did occur. What happened to my friend and me was something like this. In many small and perhaps also a few traumatic interactions, we learned that our feelings do not count. “Don’t talk now, your father is tired.” “Stop making so much noise, your father has a headache.” “Don’t ask your mother for attention, can’t you see that she has more than enough to do with your younger brother.” Harmless in themselves, such messages, when repeated over and over, lead the child to believe that there must be something wrong with the feelings she has.

“Calculated Emotional Violence” and Abuse: Memories of ‘Mother Days’ by Sara Wright

I took the above phrase from a post on FAR (published 5/6/22) after it triggered memories of mother abuse. Like Sedna I was a daughter who was thrown into the sea, her fingers cut off one by one (but not by my father). Abandoned and left to die, Daughter sank to the bottom of the sea. The classic Handmaid’s Tale. In the Inuit story the abused daughter survives, transforming into Mistress and Mother of the Animals. As a woman I have followed in Sedna’s footsteps in that I became a dedicated naturalist with a fierce love for all non-human creatures (and plants), but I have yet to transform my unfortunate family history.

With Mother’s Day approaching, I am forced against my will to think about my calculating, deceitful mother who had little use for women in general, and spent her life criticizing and eventually deleting her only daughter permanently from her life. Trashed.

My first crib memory is one of raw terror – a bewildered baby crying out for a mother that never came. Comfort, compassion, love were withheld. Now at 77 I ask myself: what was wrong with this woman?

From the Archives: Medusa and Athena: Ancient Allies in Healing Women’s Trauma by Laura Shannon

This blog was originally posted on June 24, 2017

Rather than being a bleeding image of female disempowerment, Medusa may be read as…one of the most ancient European symbols of women’s spiritual abilities… [and] an empowering image of feminine potential.’

–Patricia Monaghan, O Mother Sun! (1994:244)

The name Medusa means ‘sovereign female wisdom,’ ‘guardian / protrectress,’ ‘the one who knows’ or ‘the one who rules.’ It derives from the same Indo-European root as the Sanskrit Medha and the Greek Metis, meaning ‘wisdom’ and ‘intelligence.’ (1) Metis, ‘the clever one’, is Athena’s mother. Corretti identifies Athena, Metis, and Medusa as aspects of an ancient triple Goddess corresponding respectively to the new, full, and dark phases of the moon. (2) All three are Goddesses of wisdom, protection, and healing.

Athena with Gorgoneion in her heart. 5th C BCE.

Athena and Medusa are particularly linked: indeed, one may have been an aspect of the other, ‘two indissociable aspects of the same sacred power.’ (3) Their many common elements include snakes, wings, a formidable appearance, fierce eyes and powerful gaze. The serpent, like the Goddess, has been cast as an embodiment of evil in patriarchal retellings; yet as Merlin Stone points out, serpents were ‘generally linked to wisdom and prophetic counsel’, associated with ‘the female deity’ and ‘entwined about accounts of oracular revelation…throughout the Near and Middle East.’ (4) According to Ovid, the poisonous vipers of the Sahara ‘arose from spilt drops of Medusa’s blood.’ (5) Although this is presented as a further sign of Medusa’s horrifying character, the original Berber inhabitants of North Africa – where Herodotus reports that the Medusa myth began – viewed snakes as bringers of luck and portents of joy. (6)

Carol P. Christ’s Legacy: Please Keep It in Your Pants by Carol P. Christ

This blog was originally posted on November 6. 2017. You can read the original comments here.

Trigger warning: this post describes sexual abuse

Last week while responding to a comment on my blog, I suddenly remembered a series of incidents in which men I did not know exposed themselves to me in public places. The first time occurred at a park around dusk during an outing with a group of girls. I was about 11, I may have wandered away from the group, or I may have been with others. What I remember is seeing a man with his pants down sitting on a park bench, possibly the first time I ever saw an adult man’s penis. I told or we told, but the man was not reported by the adults. Fast forward to the beautiful gardens of the Palace Schoenbrunn in Vienna where I was confronted by a penis while lost in thought when I was 19. I ran, but said nothing. In my 20s at the early showing of movies in New York City men would sit next to me and jerk off into paper bags. I learned to move whenever a man was near me in the theater, but I never told the ticket seller. A few years later, I crossed paths with a man who had his penis out on my favorite walk in the hills of Alum Rock Park in San Jose. I never walked carefree in that park again. When I was looking for the cave of the Furies on the Acropolis Hill in Athens, a man followed me waving his penis. I told the guard, but when the police came, he was gone. I arrived home in distress. My boyfriend said I was over-reacting. I learned to stay clear of men in cars on the streets of Athens at night after seeing things I did not want to see more than once in their hands. I coded this behavior as part of the background of my life. There was a man who from the basement apartment a few doors up from the Cycladic Museum pressed his erect penis against the window. I told the guard at the museum who said, “We have called the police more than once, but he always cries, and they let him go.” On a trail I had walked many times with my dogs near Lafionas in Lesbos, coming around a bend, I encountered a young farmer, who as soon as he saw me, pulled out his penis and urinated against a fence. That was the last time I walked the trail. We are supposed to learn to consider this behavior as well, if not normal, anyway, not such a big deal. After all, I wasn’t hurt, or was I?

Walking With Aletheia by Jean Hargadon Wehner – Book Review by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

Trigger Alert: There is discussion of sexual violence.

“I transformed from terrified victim to a courageous survivor . . .Different than an ‘out of body’ experience, this felt more like an ‘in-body’ experience. I stood my ground and did what I had to do to get the hell out of there.” Jean Hargadon Wehner (pg 89).

In 2017, a Netflix documentary came out called The Keepers. It is the story of abuse and torture that was not only allowed but protected by the Catholic Church. Jean was featured in the series as the linchpin who helped to uncover and bring to light the atrocities. Our own Carol Christ watched the seven-episode series when it came out and wrote a blogpost about it. FAR reposted that blog at the end of February to honor Jean who has now written her own book, Walking with Aletheia. In it she describes her own healing journey or as she calls it her “health walk” out of the wreckage of that horror. For more on The Keepers, you can read Carol’s post here (which also includes Jean answering some questions about her story). This book is Jean’s story which, while intricately intertwined with the Church, is ultimately about her own pathway to spirituality and healing.

It’s hard to imagine the emotional weight of the authority figures that bore down on Jean when she was a student at Baltimore’s Archbishop Keough High School in the late 1960s. Not only did two priests torture and abuse her but they drew in other Church officiants as well as the police. The legal system actively turned its collective back to her. It is a great gift that she has survived and a testament to her strength, inner creativity, and the love in her heart that she was able to navigate such an apocalyptic terrain. The instruments of the torture were horrendous including rape, sex trafficking, drugs, and mind control techniques.

Carol P. Christ’s Legacy: The Keepers and the Roman Catholic Church featuring Jean Hargadon Wehner

Moderator’s Note: Jean Hargadon Wehner, who is referenced and quoted by Carol in this post will be available to respond in the comments section. Feel free to ask her any questions. Jean has a new book out about her experiences. The link is at the bottom of the post.

Carol’s work continues through her non-profit foundation, the Ariadne Institute for the Study of Myth and Ritual and the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete. This blog was originally posted July 10, 2017. You can read it along with its original comments here.

He told me his “come” was a sacrament… He made the sign of the cross with it on my breasts. Jean Hargadon Wehner in The Keepers

I sat glued to my television last weekend watching seven episodes of The Keepers one after the other. Out of all the horrific information in this Netflix documentary, these words stick in my mind. Jean Hargadon Wehner said Father A. Joseph Maskell told her that she was sinner after she confessed to him that her uncle had molested her. Father Maskell explained that her case was so severe that ordinary absolution might not work. Thus, he told her, she must participate in ritual sex with him in order to purify her soul. Jean Hargadon was too young and naive to question his authority. She only knew that she dreaded hearing her name called out on the school loudspeaker with instructions to report to Father Maskell’s office.

From the Archives: Women’s Bodies and the Bible by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

Moderator’s note: This marvelous FAR site has been running for 10 years and has had more than 3,600 posts in that time. There are so many treasures that have been posted in this decade that they tend to get lost in the archives. We are beginning this column so that we can all revisit some of these gems. Today’s blogpost was originally posted May 20, 2019. You can click here to see the original comments.

Trigger Alert: The bible on its face is quite violent to women.

Amidst the ugliness that is American politics in general and abortion politics specifically, I began to look for guidance to understand what is happening. I ended up pulling out two books that I read long ago. The first is Woe to the Women-The Bible Tells Me So by Annie Laurie Gaylor. Gaylor, in turn, was inspired by the work of Elizabeth Cady Stanton in her The Women’s Bible which was originally published in two parts (1895 and 1898).

I had forgotten how inspired I have been by both books. Together, they motivated me to begin looking at how the bible is a foundational paradigm of our culture. I started researching how translations have been altered from original meanings. I have already written a few blogs about how the representations of Eve have been changed to strip Her of the roots of Her original power. Take a look here and here.

From the Archives: #MeToo and the Idolatry Trap by Tallessyn Zawn Grenfell-Lee

Moderator’s note: This marvelous FAR site has been running for 10 years and has had more than 3,600 posts in that time. There are so many treasures that have been posted in this decade that they tend to get lost in the archives. We are beginning this column so that we can all revisit some of these gems. Today’s blogpost was originally posted January 20, 2018. You can visit it here to see the original comments.

Really – everywhere we look – there are dead white guys. National holiday? Most likely in honor of a dead white guy. Statue on a green? Founder of a major Christian denomination? Dead white guy. Classic literature, painting, play, music ‘everyone’ is supposed to know about? Yup, probably by a dead white guy.

It’s a little exhausting.

It’s easy to develop a pretty negative attitude about all these dead white guys. I mean, some of them were pretty questionable if not downright oppressive people. Enough, already! Am I right?

Yes! Yes. Well… sort of. The thing is, some of them really did say and do wonderful, important things. I suppose we should not dismiss an entire portion of our history just on race and gender alone. And, truth is, I have a confession to make. I kind of really love the insights of some of these folks. I guess it’s easy to complain about all these dead white guys… until you fall in love with one of them.

Peng Shuai and Tennis’ #Metoo Moment by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

I am a fervent tennis follower in all its forms. I both play and watch tennis. That is, perhaps, why this story caught my eye. As I’ve written before, I am also a survivor of sexual assault, so these #metoo stories are personal.

On Nov. 2, Peng Shuai, a member of the WTA (Women’s Tennis Association), charged a high-ranking Chinese official with sexual assault via social media. Her post was taken down in under 30 minutes and for 2 weeks she was not heard from at all by any independent person. An uproar ensued with major tennis stars speaking out including Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka, Andy Murray, and Novak Djokovic. Peng, a 3-time Olympian herself, has been ranked as high as #1 in doubles and #14 in singles.

Could this be the case where there might actually be consequences for silencing a woman who has credibly charged abuse? It appears, at least for now, that the WTA is doing the right thing. After some initial dithering, the WTA is, as of this writing, standing strong saying they will withdraw tournaments from China until there is a satisfactory resolution to this situation. This is a billion-dollar industry with 11 tournaments scheduled to take place in China yearly. In other words, its a big deal.

Last Tuesday Night by Marcia Mount Shoop

It’s been just over a week. Last Tuesday night to be exact. That’s the night the four of us huddled around our beloved companion of sixteen and a half years and said goodbye.

Buck became a part of our family when he was three months old. We were living in Oakland, California at the time. My son was five and my daughter had just turned one. My husband was coaching for the Raiders and he was gone all the time. It wasn’t a great time to get a puppy on paper—but our hearts said otherwise, so we did.

Just a little over a year earlier I had said goodbye to Tino. He’s the Blue Heeler that found me in a dream when I was living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. That morning I woke up and just had to get a puppy. It was a visceral pull. And I went to the Santa Fe Human Society and there was the puppy from my dream. He didn’t look like any dog I had ever seen until my dream the night before.

Ha’azinu and Models of the Divine by Ivy Helman.

This week’s Torah parshah, as you can tell from the title, is Ha’azinu, or Deuteronomy 32:1-52. This is Moses’ final speech to the Israelites before he ascends Mount Nebo to die. It is traditionally associated with Yom Kippur and read somewhere very close to it (when exactly depends on the year). The reasons for this association should become obvious as we continue.

In the parshah, Moses describes how, even in the Promised Land, the Israelites will continue to be idolatrous, thus disobeying their deity and bringing divine wrath upon themselves. From what I have already discussed in past blogs about the history of the Torah’s composition, clearly the exiled Israelites in Babylonian sought reasons for that exile; in traditional Isrealite fashion, they made sense of their current circumstances by reasoning whose disobedience was to blame.

Who is the Goddess? by Sara Wright

I have been re-reading Rebirth of the Goddess reflecting upon my own journey over these past 40 years, remembering how her image appeared to me as a bird goddess the day I first worked with river clay… When I discovered that some of the images I sculpted of bird goddesses mirrored those in Marijia Gimbutas’s The Language of the Goddess I entered an unknown realm. All I understood at the time was that I was being called by some unknown force. I had no idea that this power existed not only without, but within, and that someday I would be able to name both Nature and my Body as the source of that power. And come to understand that they are One.

Feminist Parenting About Sexuality Part 4: What to tell my daughters by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir

In this blog series, we have discussed:

—The importance of admitting how painful this subject is

—Reminders that I am NOT saying all men are bad or maleness is bad, because men and maleness are truly inherently beautiful and divine

—The necessity of facing honestly just how scary and horrifying the epidemic of violence against females is in our world today

—The truly evil, vicious destruction pornography is causing to female bodies and male psyches in training many, many males to rape and abuse females, and grooming females to normalize and comply with rape and abuse by males

Bill Cosby and Our Wounded Hearts by Janet MaiKa’i Rudolph

This blogpost is a rewrite and an update from one I wrote on Jan 26, 2020 (I’m Getting Triggered by the Impeachment Trial and I Bet I am Not Alone). I was writing about The Former Guy’s 2^nd impeachment trial which rattled my bones and hurt my heart. How often have we seen angry men (and sometimes women) abusing women, abusing the earth, abusing the vulnerable, abusing immigrants, abusing power? And yet the pattern never seems to end. In many cases, they not only get away with it, it is actually celebrated.

In that 2020 blogpost I included Bill Cosby’s case as a success story. Look how hard it had been, how many years, how many accusers it took for justice to give us the illusion of being meted out. And now pulled away.

In January 2020 there was a blunder (or so they called it) at the National Archives’ in their exhibit titled “Rightfully Hers.” They put up an image of the 2017 Women’s March and blurred out the protest signs. Oh, the irony to blur out women’s voices in an exhibit named Rightfully Hers. Yes, they apologized. But they had to get caught first.