Marie Cartier – Page 5 – Feminism and Religion

A Chorus of Need: I Need an Abortion by Marie Cartier

I need an abortion and I can’t get one

Because I don’t have the money to fly somewhere else other than …here

Where I can’t get one

I need an abortion and I can’t get one

Because the kid, or the cells of a maybe kid, were put in here by the guy that raped me and if I have to have it, I will kill myself

I need an abortion and I can’t get one

Because I have four kids already and I can’t feed another one

I need an abortion and I can’t get one

Because it’s my dad’s…did you hear me say that? I have never said that. I have never said what he does to me…and now I have to show everyone… if I can’t get this out of me I will…

I have to get this thing out of me

I need an abortion and I can’t get one

From the Archives: I Believe Anita! by Marie Cartier

This was originally posted on April 7, 2014

During the past week I attended a Los Angeles premiere of a new documentary Anita: Speaking Truth to Power (Dir: Freida Lee Mock USA, 2013). The screening was sold out and I had great seats saved for me– sitting with a friend who works at Samuel Goldwyn, the distributor of this fine film.

In 1991, Anita Hill provided testimony she hoped would serve to dissemble the nomination of Clarence Thomas as a Supreme Court justice. Although the vote would end up being close (52-48) Hill’s testimony did not serve to dissuade the decision — Clarence Thomas’ nomination was confirmed and he was appointed to a life term on the Supreme Court four days after Hill’s testimony concluded. Here is an outline of the debate.

I remember watching the hearings in 1991 at a friend’s house in Sacramento, CA where I was couch-surfing with another friend while we were in Sacramento from Los Angeles to protest for gay rights—to speak our truth to power. I remember being amazed that she was doing this—and that it was being televised. We were glued to the set before we went off to the protest we were attending.

A Poem for Our Abortion Rights by Marie Cartier

Fecundity: the ability to produce an abundance of new growth, but also the ability to produce new ideas

And now in the hour of our discontent, we are asked to worry about

fecundity. I suppose we can call it that—have we made enough babies yet?

As a people. A people ruled by patriarchy. No small thing. “A social system in which males dominate and hold primary power.”

Oh my god—am I sick of it? Anyone with a brain is sick of it…I want to think.

But they have brains, right? The afore mentioned patriarchs? Who are

creating this new social system?

A meme goes out on social media—I’m not pro-murder I’m pro-Ellen, thirteen years old and pregnant by her father

I’m pro-Margaret, with five kids and I cannot to afford to feed another

I’m pro-Eliza, pregnant with a baby known to have serious birth defects

I’m pro– you get the idea.

photo essay, part 2: bans off our bodies rally by Marie Cartier

photos from bans off our bodies rally, long beach ca may 14, 2022

all photos by: marie cartier

BIO: Marie Cartier is a teacher, poet, writer, healer, artist, and scholar. She holds a BA in Communications from the University of New Hampshire; an MA in English/Poetry from Colorado State University; an MFA in Theatre Arts (Playwriting) from UCLA; an MFA in Film and TV (Screenwriting) from UCLA; an MFA in Visual Art (Painting/Sculpture) from Claremont Graduate University; and a Ph.D. in Religion with an emphasis on Women and Religion from Claremont Graduate University.

Moderator’s note: This is the 2nd of the two part series. Part 1 was posted yesterday.

photo essay, part 1: bans off our bodies rally by Marie Cartier

photos from bans off our bodies rally, long beach ca may 14, 2022

all photos by: marie cartier

moderator’s note: There are so many powerful photos that they will be posted in two parts, today and tomorrow.

Mission, Not Glory: A Dialogue by Marie Cartier

Well, he didn’t do it for the glory, that’s for sure.

Maybe he did?

He’s gone. When you immolate –you’re gone. What glory is there in that?

Well, the reason he did it—as I understand it—is because the world is burning up anyway. He made a statement.

Exactly- a single statement. So, who’s getting the glory?

I mean we don’t know the entire impact it has. He took his life for God’s sake. On the Supreme Court steps. April 22, 2022. It means something. He knew he would be immortalized.

But, what difference does it make if he’s gone? I think it was a waste. I wish he would have run for –anything. School Board! Someone that committed should have stuck around and tried to do something.

He did do something. It’s just…he made the ultimate sacrifice.

I’m sorry. He killed himself. And so…we’re left here without him. Without someone who was that committed as an activist.

The world is burning up. We won’t last another thirty years. So good for him for taking a stand. He was a Buddhist monk, right? Good for him.

He was a hippie from Boulder, Colorado. Wynn Alan Bruce.

Well, here’s a hero now. And I bet he’s a hero to Buddhist monks, too. Wynn Alan Bruce? He was a climate activist, not just a hippie. I mean, I’ll give you that he may never be well-known. But he’s known. Just not well- known.

My Favorite President: Hillary by Marie Cartier

Can I finally write about that night? Not sure. Here goes. Hillary Clinton. My heart beat. I voted for her every chance I got. Loved her passionately—the way I’ve heard folks talk about working for a candidate with their whole soul. I was so happy: she was winning. We were going to have a woman president.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

PRESIDENT!

Girls can’t be president, stupid! That’s never gonna happen.

No more. My wife and I wore our white pantsuits to the primaries. What a night! She won! The most exciting political event of my life –and that’s saying a lot for someone who first put her body down in front of a nuclear facility at fifteen. I know politics, And protests.

From the Archives: The Feminist Toolbox by Marie Cartier

This blog was originally posted on April 4, 2012. There were a significant number of comments which you can read here.

This spring I am teaching “Feminist Ethics” at California State University Northridge. For the students’ midterm and final we are doing an innovative project that we want to share with the “Feminism and Religion” blogging community. My students have been asked to find a problem in the public world, or their private world, that they wish to interact with and provide a solution for. The solution can solve the problem or a piece of the problem. They must deconstruct the problem and then construct the solution for the midterm. For their final they actually must *do* the solution.

In creating their solution, they must address and use the tools in what I call “the Feminist Ethical Toolbox.” These tools are ones we have been extracting from the class readings (so far we have read the anthologies Feminist Theological Ethics, and Feminist Ethics and Social Policy, and Carol Gilligan’s philosophical treatise on the patriarchy, In The Deepening Darkness, and the students have been using the toolbox and its accumulated (and accumulating) tools throughout the class, in their own lives, and interacting with the toolbox in the reading response journals in terms of looking at wider world issues.

My Funny, Queer Valentine by Marie Cartier

I wrote a short story in the spirit of both my book Baby, You Are My Religion and Valentine’s Day for this month’s blog. Happy Valentines’ month. <3 Marie

She remembered that is what it had said, “To my funny, queer valentine.” She had thought then, as she squatted on the toilet at the If Club in downtown Los Angeles, 1963, trying to read the graffiti in front of her that yes, that is what it said. She thought to herself, Shirl, that is some graffiti. It read, “To my funny, queer valentine: I’ll miss you. I’ll always miss you.” Shirl could hear in the background Lesley Gore singing her new hit, “It’s My Party.”