Women’s Voices – Page 26 – Feminism and Religion

Invisible Connections: The Hidden Web of Women Writers, part 2 by Theresa C. Dintino

You can read part 1 here.

The erasure of this web is to make women feel alone and disconnected. Maybe it would make them want to give up.

Angela Davis and Toni Morrison

This may sound extreme but imagine this scenario: You are a young woman starting out and you are told that the path you wish to follow is one of pain, loneliness and lacks any kind of support or network with other women that came before you. There are plenty of men but you are left out of that network.

Why would you want to do it? Because in your soul of souls you are a writer, or an artist or a scientist . . . So you decide to do it anyway. But instead of expecting support and connection you have already decided, based on what you have been told, that there won’t be any and so you start to not expect it.

Invisible Connections: The Hidden Web of Women Writers, part 1 by Theresa C. Dintino

Moderator’s Note: We are pleased to announce that we are forming a co-operation with The Nasty Women Writers Project, a site dedicated to highlighting and amplifying the voices and visions of powerful women.The site was founded by sisters Theresa and Maria Dintino. To quote Theresa, “by doing this work we are expanding our own writer’s web for nourishment and support.” This was originally posted on their site on Nov. 16, 2021. You can see more of their posts here.

created by Data Visualization Specialist Mia S.Szarvas as part of a larger project of Nasty Women Writers about the Web of Women Writers

In the years that my sister Maria and I have been writing for Nasty Women Writers, one of the things that has become increasingly clear is how connected women writers are to one another. Every time I explore the life of a woman writer for Nasty Women Writers, I learn of other women writers she is connected to, inspired and supported by. Some of these connections are through time, meaning one woman writer reads and interacts with the body of work of a woman writer whose lifetime preceded hers chronologically, others are alive at the same time and they interact in person or through letter writing.

This Saturday March for Love, March for Healing, March for Strength by Caryn MacGrandle

Marches and Rallies will be held all over the United States this Saturday January 20^th to mark the upcoming 51^st anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. WomensMarch.Com

But what is happening in our world right now is Bigger than Roe.

It is not about Life, it is about Control.

I voted for Trump in 2016. There. I said it. My entire family was Republican. My husband at the time was Republican. I spent many years on an Airforce base where I saw firsthand that things the government run are full of red tape and inefficiency.

Patriarchy as Primer of Cruelty by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

This was a hard post to write. When I write about my personal trauma, it is not only healing for me but adds to the canon of stories of other women that help all of us navigate trauma. That makes it easier. When writing about the trauma of women in a whole culture, I feel a sense of helplessness, especially here in the United States. We are all experiencing a group trauma and it is digging in deep.

January 5, 2024, will live in the Patriarchal Hall of Infamy. On this date the Supremes agreed to allow the rapist, misogynist, trying-to-be-dictator former President an opportunity to have his rights heard. But this same date, the Supremes also told we women that our lives are insignificant. No that’s not right, less than insignificant, a mere distraction to what they consider to be more important issues. They allowed an Idaho abortion law to go into effect that doesn’t allow an abortion even in the case of a medical emergency when a pregnant woman in life-threatening distress has been rushed to the emergency room. The split screen exhibits patriarchy for what it is. I want to use the word, “culmination” but that means the height. I don’t think we’ve reached a culmination because there seems no end to the cruelty that patriarchy seeks to inflict.

The Sky Dancers by Sara Wright

December is a poignant month for many people, including me. Although I find the darkness comforting, winter stillness a gift, I do not celebrate the season as others do.

I begin December by bringing in the dawn each morning (if it’s clear) by standing outdoors in the cold watching Sirius, the dog star fade…Some mornings the sky turns rose, tangerine, or gold as clouds slide over the horizon or billow up like cottony balls of fluff. The air is fresh, fragrant, and clean. I listen for the first birds, the female cardinal’s chirp, the chickadees, and doves have yet to appear – these daily ‘morning mysteries’ are spontaneous and acted out in gratitude without thought.

This month is a time of remembrance … I think of people I loved, some I did not, those I lost…

Kairos Time by Beth Bartlett

I love the time between the Winter Solstice and New Year’s – a time of suspended animation, a reprieve from the demands of daily life, a respite from the woes of the world, from needing to pay attention to the time of day, days of the week, and tasks that need to be accomplished. A whole week with nothing scheduled on the calendar. Simply presence. It is a liminal time on the threshold between the old year and the new – whether measured by the turning of the planet from dark to light on the Solstice or of the Gregorian calendar year – a time when many of us pause and reflect on the year past and our hopes for the year to come. It is a moment of what the Greeks called Kairos time, as opposed to Chronos time, by which we measure most of our lives — in seconds, minutes, hours, days, and years.

In the years I spent in academia, my life was governed by Chronos time that often forced me to live in the future rather than the present. Course scheduling and book orders needed to happen far in advance. Course syllabi planned students’ readings and assignments for the next several months ahead. Learning was to occur in specific blocks of time, which always struck me as such a bizarre way to teach and learn, when we’d have to break off discussion and deep learning simply because the hour was up.

Public Goddess Gatherings by Caryn MacGrandle

I swat at her like an annoying fly. ‘Stop it. I’m good. I’m very happy. Go away.’

I took a part time security gig on the weekends to bring in some extra cash, and they sent me out to direct traffic at a holiday outdoor market here. 150 booths of incredible, local, organic, home-made, natural items. Right up my alley.

The festival started at noon. And the steady stream of cars started. By 12:45pm, the entire parking lot was filled, several football fields long: a Dave and Busters, a Wahlburgers and a Trader Joe’s sharing the same area. All their spaces filled too.

Back Off Wednesday by Caryn MacGrandle

Moderator’s Note: This was clearly written closer to the Thanksgiving holiday but we feel that it has a message that still holds strong.

Owens Cross Roads, Alabama. Long before Owen’s claimed his crossroads, the Land I live on was stewarded by the Shawandasse Tula, the S’atsoyaha Yuchi and the Cherokee.

We just got through another Thanksgiving an American holiday built on domination and patriarchy. Several years ago, I became vegetarian, but my adult son’s boss bought all his employees turkeys. An estimated 46 million turkeys give up their life every year so that we can celebrate our heritage as Pilgrims.

I cooked the turkey so that this one would not have given up its life in vain. I will make sure that my children who are still carnivores enjoy it.

The Unbearable Sweetness of Being by Vibha Shetiya

I watched with confusion and a guilty sense of disgust – maybe this was the way things were done in India? My aunt had reached across to the cluster of letters strung together by a single piece of wire twirled around a nail on the wall, and gently dislodged one of them. They were from my father to his mother. I didn’t know what to think. After all, she went on to say, Your father is so good with language; just listen to this, just how beautifully he writes, before reading out aloud a lengthy passage. She was a good reader; gentle, perfect cadence with pauses in the right places. But I wanted to turn away on this intrusion of privacy, on this emotional voyeurism, but then thought, Wait, just last evening and the evening before that, and the many evenings before that she had spent the only free time she would get – from the large extended family who, hearing of her generous spirit, had congregated in her home in Bombay, that city of big dreams but of tiny square footage (blissfully unaware that they were now indebted to her for life) – on her rudrakshamala, deep in meditation, in union with god. So pious a woman! So pure a heart! Such a giving soul! Surely then there can’t be anything wrong here. Especially if it’s to say something nice about someone you cared for. And, after all, those letters were right there in the kitchen above the dining table, weren’t they? Not tucked away in some corner of a chest of drawers hidden from sunlight.

The Dark Tunnel by Sara Wright

Recently I had a very strange experience. I had fallen and was dumped into a nursing home to ‘recover’.

Since I have written about other aspects of this terrifying experience on this blog and published some pieces elsewhere, I am turning my attention to what happened to me after being drugged senseless, and then being stripped of every aspect of personal autonomy.

After I refused the 17 drugs, I incurred hostility from some nurses and aides who blamed me for having diarrhea and many other infractions none worth mentioning (one of the consequences of stopping the drugs was loose bowels).

The one medication I needed was routinely withheld. Each time this happened I became more frightened and anxious. Shaky. These same caregivers either ignored me or intoned “all you have to do is relax, breathe”. They dismissed my PTSD/Anxiety disorder as some kind of psychological problem or were too ignorant or indifferent to care.