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Sunshine for
Women NOW or Never ToC | Home |
The 1996 election is probably the most important election cycle in the last quarter of the 20th century- this election will determine whether we press forward into the future or retreat backward toward the past. Affirmative action policies, reproductive rights, religious freedom, and even the right to freedom of speech, are all under attack and this election cycle will determine whether we pass on our hard-won freedoms to the next generation or whether these freedoms are taken from us.
Some feel that voting is a waste of time. If voting is so unimportant, why did women have to struggle for 72 years to get the right to vote? If voting is so unimportant, why were civil rights activists murdered in the 1960s for trying to register blacks to vote? Money does talk in this society, but money cannot buy our votes. Only when we fail to vote does the other side win - after all, we have the issues and public opinion on our side.
The steady improvements that have occurred in society and for women over the last 150 years have come about by individuals working through the system, not by abandon-ing the system. Future progress will also be made by working through the system and that means in part electing people who share our vision to public office. No candidate will ever agree with her supporters on all issues, but some will be better than others. And if you want to change the system, then get involved in it, for only when average, ordinary citizens choose to take back their government, our government, will our elected officials respond to our wishes. Vote on election day and get involved in the political process by monitoring local school board and city council meetings, by calling and writing your elected officials, by writing letters to the editor of the local paper and national magazines, by joining with like-minded activists to change laws and policies. But remember, on Nov. 5, 1996 VOTE, and take a friend to the polls with you.
8) Treating women as the property of men to be disposed of according to his will
9) Reporting the story with a frivolous touch
11) Minimizing the extent of the violence
12) Equating the violence done by the man against the women with the violence the woman uses against the man
13) Making the violence seem to be normative or acceptable
14) Focusing on the "pathological" aspects of the perpetrator
15) Glorifying violence - aka Teddy Savalis in Kojack, John Wayne in almost anything
16) Sensationalizing the violence
Ideas from Femicide: The Politics of Woman Killing an anthology on violence against women edited by Jill Radford and Diana Russell, Twayne Publishers, NY, 1992
Some notes from Verbal Abuse Survivors Speak Out: On Relationship and Recovery by Patricia Evans, Bob Adams Inc, 1993
1) "Abusive men stop at nothing to squelch, put down, correct, criticize, belittle, trivialize, snub, sneer at, and, when all else fails, put on displays of rage in order to dominate and control their mates."
2) "Survivors tell us that verbal abuse always lowers self-esteem, no matter how much they may try to ignore it. The survivors of verbal abuse consistently reported that they came to believe what they were hearing."
3) "The abuser is often so good at control that he can turn his intimidating displays on and off in order to continue to "look good" to the outside world."
4) "Some survivors, while feeling the constant shocks of verbal abuse, were even more shocked as they became more aware of their mate's reality."
5) From a letter by T.M., Portland, Me.: "Once you've realized he has lied, you can then question the validity of everything he says and has said. And it is that realization that is the first key to gaining your freedom."
6) "Verbal abuse seems so inhuman, so bizarre to anyone seeking mutuality in a relationship that, no matter how deeply she understands that an abuser abuses because he abuses not because of her, the survivor will almost always find it incredible that any human being would treat another that way."
7) "Survivors often express a feeling of incredulousness about their mate's behavior because it is so foreign to them."
8) From a letter by L.D., Loveland, Co: "For the longest time I felt if I just did this or that "things" would be better. Not! He'd just change his method of abuse. Every time I told him he was hurting me he'd do something worse." [my emphasis]
9) "Many women experience "being punished" when they bring up their abuse. . . "
10) Paraphrasing letter from HS, Akron, Ohio: When women in a support group for verbally and physically battered women were asked which is worse, women inevitably answer: the verbal violence was worse.
11) From a letter by M.B., Dallas, Tx: "I don't think anyone other than another victim of verbal abuse could totally understand the tremendous damage that is done to a verbally abused person."
12) In a letter by D.S., Moorestown, NJ: "He's a leader in the church. Had I known about this side of him I would never have married him. We dated for five years and I did not see the anger. It began after marriage. "
13) "If the partner of an abuser leaves the relationship and then comes back thinking he's changed, the abuser will almost always intensify the abusive behavior. Why? Because from his standpoint, if he'd really had enough control the first time, she wouldn't have gotten away."
Born in Alford, England, Anne Marbury married William Hutchinson in 1612 and bore him 14 children, 6 of whom were born in the American colonies.
The Hutchinson family immigrated in 1634 to the Massachusetts Bay Colony at Boston. Experienced in child-birth and relatively well educated, Anne became a midwife. Since childbirth was a leading killer of fertile women, her patients often feared death. Anne ministered to the spiritual needs of her patients as well as their physical needs. The women who survived childbirth spread Anne's message which emphasized inner faith over outward piety. Soon, health women and men began meeting at Anne's house to discuss religion.
Local clergymen viewed Anne's actions as a direct threat to their power. In March 1368, Anne was tried before a court for a second time and excommunicated. The Hutchinson's moved to the new colony of Rhode Island.
After her husband's death in 1642, Anne moved her family to a farm in rural Long Island, New York, a haven for refugees escaping religious orthodoxy. In 1643, Anne and five of her 6 children were massacred by Algonquian Indians.
Although Anne only lived in America for nine years, her legacy is timeless. The witchcraze was nearing its peak in Europe and the immigrants brought their prejudices against women and witches with them. In an era when few men were courageous enough to speak out against the clergy, Anne was an out-spoken feminist theologian of the highest order. She was one of the first Americans of either sex to take a stand defending her right to hold the religious beliefs of her choice and her right to speak freely of those beliefs.
From Doris Weatherford's, American Women's History, Prentise Hall, 1994
write: WIMSA, Dept. 560, Washington, DC 20042-0560
phone: 1-800-222-2294 or 703-533-1155
e-mail: wimsa@aol.com
http://www.wimsa.org/pub/wimsa
America's First Woman Warrior: The Courage of Deborah Sampson, Lucy Freeman and Alma Bond, $22
Women Patriots of the American Revolution, Charles Claghorn, $53 (biographical dictionary of 600+ women patriots)
An Uncommon Soldier: The Civil War Letters of Sarah Rosetta Wakeman, Lauren Cook Burgess, $25
Spies! Women in the Civil War, Penny Colman, $7
Patriots in Disguise - Women Warriors of the Civil War, Richard Hallm $12
Memories of the Civil War, Clarissa Hobbs, autobiography
Lamp For A Soldier, Sarah Sand, WW I veteran $9
To Serve My Country, To Serve My Race, Dr. Brenda L. Moore, an autobiography of one of the few African-American women to serve abroad in WW II $24
One Woman's Army, Charity Adams Early, another African American's story of her WW II experiences in the WACs and American Red Cross $20
'Til I Come Marching Home: A Brief History of American Women in World War II, C. Kay Larson, $10
They Also Served: American Women in World War II, Olga Gruhzit-Hoyt, $19 an anthology of the accounts of 40 servicewomen
Women at War, Elizabeth Norman, collected biographies of 50 Vietnam War nurses, $17
She Went to War: The Rhonda Cornum Story, Lt. Col. Rhonda Cornum who served in Desert Storm, $10
Women in America's Wars, Silvia Anne Sheafer, $14, collected biography
Pat Robertson in his book, The New World Order, 1991, p. 231:
"The potential savings in the national budgets from the elimination of police, criminal courts, standing armies, pollution control agencies, drug enforcement, and many poverty programs is almost beyond calculation."
sunshine@pinn.net
Sunshine for Women encourages you to support our feminist sisters by purchasing their books, reading them, disseminating the ideas they contain, but most especially, by making their book available to our sisters, our daughters, and the community at large by requesting your school library, your public library, and area bookstores to carry their books. Remember it is not enough to write literature, history, and theology, we must pass these works on to future generations. Help us to preserve these works for a new generation by putting them on library bookshelves.
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