Emerging Women

By Melissa Hatfield

I saw a man die on Oprah yesterday. It wasn’t of embarrassment. It wasn’t a character in a movie.

It was a real man. A young man. A man who had a name I do not know. A man who had a family and dreams, I suppose. Maybe both of these had died long before.

I was watching her show because she was telling stories of women in the world. Women who have made a difference. Women whose lives had been changed. An African woman who dreamed great dreams and made them all come true. An Indian woman who had taken a loan and built a business that bought her freedom and respect. A Congolese woman who spoke with courage about being raped in a culture where you don’t speak of being raped.

Then, in the midst of footage from the DR of Congo, where they recorded the woman’s courageous telling of her rape, there it was. Maybe ten seconds in a montage of other footage.

Two rebels in fatigues holding a young man in ragged clothes at the edge of a bridge. One solider had his feet. The other his hands. As the man twisted and cried out with desperate pleas, they threw him over the side of the bridge.

This wasn’t a movie clip. There wasn’t a mattress or inflatable waiting at the bottom to break his fall.

And then to make sure they had ended his life, they slid their guns from their shoulders and fired repeatedly into the water below.

Ten seconds over. On to another scene.

But this scene replays over and over in my mind. I was and am physically sick.

I’m not oblivious to what is happening in the world. I’m removed but not oblivious. I read books by survivors of unspeakable atrocities. I follow news reports and organizations like Invisible Children and Falling Whistles that fight to end these wars in central Africa. I write my government leaders telling them it must be a priority to end these wars. I show movies that tell the stories of Night Commuters, Glue Boys, and young men like Sunday to my youth and challenge them to get involved. I’ve been to Kenya twice, will return two more times this year, and have talked with people who have scars from machetes or family members that only exist in memories and stories because their lives were stolen.

But this. This ten second clip cut through all those and went straight to the heart.

His horrific murder was captured on video and that intimate moment was shown to 7 million plus individuals in the world.

As a f—— passing clip.

Oh God, how could you possibly forgive us for sitting by while this is happening.

I saw a man die on Oprah yesterday. Today many, many more die in silence from our silence.

Please, please help me make some noise.

1. Learn about what is happening in the Congo.

2. Sign a petition to get President Obama’s attention that this must stop. Arrest Joseph Kony, end the war, and help restore the regions of conflict and rehabilitate the people that live there.

3. Call, email or write your members of Congress.

4. Share this with your friends and family members.

Melissa Hatfield is a Pastor of Youth and Missions in Missouri and a daughter, sister, aunt and friend. This post originally appeared at her blog Wonderings and Wanderings.

My church recently hosted a screening of the documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell. I knew little about the film before attending the event, but what I encountered was a powerful story of women making a difference in their world. As the film description reads,

Pray the Devil Back to Hell chronicles the remarkable story of the courageous Liberian women who came together to end a bloody civil war and bring peace to their shattered country. Thousands of women — ordinary mothers, grandmothers, aunts and daughters, both Christian and Muslim — came together to pray for peace and then staged a silent protest outside of the Presidential Palace. Armed only with white T-shirts and the courage of their convictions, they demanded a resolution to the country’s civil war. Their actions were a critical element in bringing about a agreement during the stalled peace talks. A story of sacrifice, unity and transcendence, Pray the Devil Back to Hell honors the strength and perseverance of the women of Liberia. Inspiring, uplifting, and most of all motivating, it is a compelling testimony of how grassroots activism can alter the history of nations.

Theirs was a courageous and hope-filled story that gives testimony to the fact that grassroots activism does affect change, but it was also much more complex than that. It is also a story of terror, greed, and oppression. Liberia’s Civil War tore apart the nation. The President, Charles Taylor, in his greed for money and power, ruled through his roaming military bands with no regard for human rights. The opposing warlords cared little for saving the country, and made use of the same injustices to secure power and wealth for themselves. The women were tired of seeing their husbands and sons caught up in (and dying in) the pissing contest for power, of watching their children starve, of having to flee their homes, and of witnessing the rape and murder of family members. But instead of simply despairing, they decided to take a stand for peace. Taking their cue from Esther in the Bible, they wore simple clothes and began protests for peace hoping to gain the attention of the President and the warlords. They held signs, sang songs, and persuaded their priests and imans to join their cause. They withheld sex from their husbands to get them to listen to reason. And when the eventual peace talks stalled and became a joke, they staged a sit-in trapping dignitaries in the conference hall until a decision was reached. And even when the chance of democratic elections was won, they campaigned still – guiding the disarmament process, getting women out to vote, and electing for Liberia the first woman President of any African nation. Courage, passion, and intensity can barely begin to describe the commitment these women had to peace. As they got into the cause and started to see that peace might actually be realized, they were emboldened and forgot to fear. As one women put it, “we forgot we could be raped.”

The power of women to change their world was profoundly demonstrated in this film. I loved how these women were presented as always being for peace rather than against the atrocities. This perspective kept them on the path to achieving their goals. It also help them help rehabilitate the child soldiers after the war ended. The images of young boys with limbs blown off playing schoolyard games is heartbreaking – and it was even harder knowing that those women were helping their former rapists and torturers. I’ve heard similar stories of women in Nigeria and Kenya peacefully banding together to stand up to injustices. It takes vision, commitment, and more hope in a better world than there is fear of what repercussions may ensue.  But it also takes a commitment to mercy and love.

Beyond being emotionally moved by this film, I was struck by the need for a couple of things in response to the film. First is the need for stories like this to be told. All of this was unfolding in Liberia during 2003-2005 and I never heard a thing about it on the news. Granted here in the USA, we were busy at the time bombing the crap out of Iraq and to even say the word “peace” much less talk about a movement of all of a nation’s women for peace was considered highly “unpatriotic.” But the world needs to know about the injustices as well as these stories of hope. Knowing that ordinary mothers and grandmothers can completely alter the path of a nation, is inspiring to say the least.

The second thing I was struck by was the need to educate children on conceptions of masculinity and femininity that affirm love and not hatred. When men are taught that they must be strong and powerful to be a good man, it is not hard to end up where the men and boys of Liberia did. Killing, raping, and pillaging in order to gain wealth and power shouldn’t be the definition of a man. Churches though are supporting these lies in encouraging the “fighter Jesus” images and hierarchical concepts that place men above women. The women of Liberia finally stood up and took charge, challenging those inane conceptions of masculinity. Others of us, especially in the church, can learn from them the importance of promoting respect, reconciliation, and love as opposed to strength, power, and dominance as core values.

To see the ability of women to change the world, to see the hope to be found in peace, and to know that even the most horrible of hells can be redeemed through peace and love, Pray the Devil Back to Hell, is a must see film. This is the sort of film that should be encouraging our churches to similar action and the sort of story that I want my children to learn as they grow older.  Our schools should be teaching our children less of the stories of who killed the most people to win wars, and more of those that saved their country by ending war without violence. If we want to raise peacemakers that respect the dignity of women, choose love over hate, compassion over greed, and life over death these women are the heroes they need to be presented with from a young age. So go see this film – spread the word, tell the story of hope, and take a stand for peace. To find a screening of this film near where you live click here

In light of the ongoing protests and election turmoil in Iran, I found this interview with an Iranian women’s rights activist to give a helpful voice to the real people involved there – “Iranian feminist dissident hopes protests will succeed and stay peaceful.”

To her this isn’t about overthrowing a regime, but a call for serious reform that focuses on human rights. People want to stop the abuse of women on the streets by government guards. Women want to live a normal life. For them, it is not just an election, but basic human dignity that is at stake here.

From the Campaign for Gender Equality last Thursday -

We are very excited. Today Congresswoman Jackie Speier (CA CD12 San Francisco/San Mateo County) announced that she will introduce a bill to establish a Presidential Commission on Women.

Congresswoman Speier said “I will be introducing this bill today… Today is a very significant day for women in America. April 2, 1917 was the date that Jeannette Rankin was sworn in as a member of congress, the first woman to serve in the House of Representatives… So far I already have generated 18 original co-sponsors and I am not done yet. I am hoping to double that number before the day is over… We are going to show how grass roots can move legislation.” More information will be avaliable on Congresswoman Speier’s website.

It is very important that we all unite behind this effort and you can help. Please contact your Congress member and ask them to sign on as a co-sponsor. CONTACT INFO

In September 2008, Campaign for Gender Equality met with WomenCount to discuss the idea of calling for the establishment of a Presidential Commission on Women. We worked together for three months to develop the plan of action that launched the Presidential Commission on Women petition drive. We thank WomenCount for all their work with Congresswoman Speier to make this bill a reality.

* The United States ranks 71st in the world in the number of women in elected office.
* Women earn 77 cents on the dollar compared to men. African American women earn 69 cents on the dollar compared to men. Latinas earn 59 cents compared to men.
* One in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime. Eighty five percent of domestic violence victims are women. The cost of intimate partner violence exceeds $5.8 billion each year, $4.1 billion of which is for direct medical and mental health services.
* Women of color are disproportionately affected by the inequalities women face.
* Gender bias and discrimination remain pervasive in almost all aspects of our culture, including but not limited to the media, family life, the workplace, sports, education, health care, the military, entertainment, and financial matters.

To read the complete Bill go to www.speier.house.gov.

A Presidential Commission on Women is a way to initiate a much needed national conversation about gender inequities and to make changes. We are pleased that President Obama created a White House Council on Women and Girls and believe that Council and the Commission can and should work together in collaboration – the Council working within the administration and the Commission working to bring stories of women to light and make policy recommendations.

It has been 48 years since the last and only Presidential Commission on Women was created by President Kennedy. Campaign for Gender Equality will be working on the grassroots level to ask individuals and organizations to support the creation of a Presidential Commission on Women.

It is very important that we all unite behind this effort and we are asking for your help. Please contact your Congress member and ask them to sign on as a co-sponsor.

So I saw my first “Sarah 2012″ bumper sticker the other day. It’s not that I didn’t assume that the political machines wouldn’t start moving as soon as Obama took office, but it was still a bit odd. What struck me was the use of Sarah Palin’s first name. It of course reminded me of how Hillary Clinton simply used her first name as well in her campaigning. It’s an intriguing quirk that powerful women running for office would use their first rather than last names, but I wonder if it is a good or a bad thing.

Part of me wants to believe that it is simply a positive identity statement. I recall thinking through the name issue a few years ago after reading an editorial in Christianity Today. It was written by a black man who detailed why he insists people call him by his title and last name. He knew that historically black men were disrespected and simply called by their first names (like children). For him it was a point of pride and proof that times had changed to be referred to in respectful terms. As I read his piece, I thought that for women the opposite is often true. Historically, we had no individual identity and were referred to as “Mrs. John Does.” Our identity was simply an extension of our husbands, our name his name. So for women to use their first name became a symbol of identity – asserting that we are people with our own distinct name. So when I see the “Sarah” or the “Hillary” campaign signs, I want to believe that it might just be a means of asserting identity.

But there is a part of me that also question if the use of the first names is simply a way to make strong women more acceptable. Our culture still fears powerful women – they get labeled as bitchy or scorned as cold if they are too assertive, knowledgeable, or decisive. So the use of the more familiar first name softens this perception – makes them appear more like children or best friends and less like the scary female leader. Instead of a term of respect it becomes an accommodation and a reminder of how far women still have to go to reach equality.

So what do you think? Why do these women simply use their first names? What is your personal preference in how you are addressed? Do you see difference in levels of respect regarding what people are called?

By Onleilove Alston

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.
Beyond Vietnam — A Time to Break Silence
Delivered April 4, 1967, at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City

On Tuesday January 20th, 2009 I was blessed to be in Washington, D.C. to witness history. As a descendent of one of the largest slave holding families (the Alstons of North and South Carolina) it was surreal to realize that less than 200 years after the Emancipation the first African-American president was sworn in on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible. I have been overwhelmed with emotion and still cannot believe that the new first family looks like my own. I am very proud of how far African-Americans have come towards freedom and though a major part of Dr. King’s dream was realized we are still not at the Promised Land. Many leaders from the Civil Rights movement have alluded to fact that it has been 40 years since Dr. King’s assignation. This fact has made me think about the Exodus story which has given African-Americans encouragement and a framework for their experience in America. The Exodus story is the foundation of the Black Church and I think it can provide important insights for how we as an American people can make it to the Promise Land Dr. King preached about in his Mountain Top sermon given the night before his death.

Though the Exodus account ends with the Children of Israel entering the Promised Land, not everyone was able to enter. Moses himself had to be left behind, and some from the older generation passed without entering the Promised Land. As a nation if we truly want to enter into the Promised Land Dr. King preached about, we have to continue to challenge the three ills Dr. King discussed: Poverty, Militarism, and Racism. We have to hold our president accountable to addressing these ills through his policies. In my opinion we need to have a revolution of values, a revolution that places the least of these at the top of our agendas. The time has passed for the Greed is Good ethic that has characterized the last twenty years, the time has passed for patronizing charity, and the time is now to reignite Dr. King’s Poor People’s Campaign. The Poor People’s Campaign brought poor African-Americans, Whites, Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans together to converge on the nation’s capital to challenge our government to address the needs of the poor. As people of faith we must challenge this new administration to deal with the scourge of poverty once and for all. With the current economic crisis the ranks of the poor are growing to include not just the homeless or the welfare mother, but to include the former Lehman Brothers employee, or our suburban neighbor. Now that the issue of poverty is at the forefront we can begin to address issues of sexism, racism, and militarism; which all feed into poverty. Now is the time to challenge President Obama to continue the unfinished work of the Poor People’s Campaign, least we are left behind like Moses and the Children of Israel who did not completely yield to God’s call and missed entering into the Promised Land. Will we yield to Christ’s call to “preach good news to the poor” or will we be left behind?

Organizations dedicated to ending poverty:

The Poverty Initiative at Union Theological Seminary
Sojourners Mobilization to End Poverty
Micah Challenge
New York Faith & Justice
Domestic Workers United
Christian Community Development Association

Onleilove Alston is a former Beatitudes Society Fellow at Sojourners. She serves on the Servant Leadership Team of NY Faith & Justice, is a nominated Poverty Scholar and a Faithful Democrats Fellow.

by Sonja Andrews

It’s just too bad she won’t accrue any benefits from it.

Maybe you remember Lilly from last year’s presidential campaign. Or if you’re really observant, from the news in May 2007. If you don’t, allow me to tell you a little bit of Lilly’s story.

Lilly Ledbetter worked for the Goodyear Tire & Rubber company down in Alabama. She was an Area Manager (aka plant supervisor). She worked at Goodyear from 1979 to 1998. When she retired in 1998, she was the only female Area Manager, the rest of her colleagues were male. All 15 of them. Another unique characteristic that her colleagues shared was that they all earned more than she did. Every single one of them. Even those who had worked at Goodyear less time than Lilly had. Even those who did a worse job than she did.

Sometime in early 1998, Lilly began to get suspicious and she filed paperwork with the EEOC (that’s the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission). She retired in July and in November she filed a lawsuit against Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company claiming that they had discriminated against her on the basis of her gender. That’s when the legal wrangling began. I’ll spare you the details. But it went all the way up to the highest court in the land.

The Supremes got it. No, poodles, not Diana Ross and the Supremes. The Supreme Court. The Nine in Black. However, their decision made just about as much sense as MacArthur Park.

Now you can read the ruling in it’s entirety if you’d like. You can download it for yourself here. However, the essence of the majority (5 to 4) decision, handed down by Justice Alito, was that Ms. Ledbetter had missed the boat. You see, Lilly had filed suit saying, in essence, that because there was discrimination in her pay at the end of her employment, there had been ongoing discrimination for a long period of time. Justices Alito, Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas (who, being African American, ought to know better) disagreed and wrote, essentially that Ms. Ledbetter ought to have known about the discrimination in her salary from the very beginning and in order to have gained redress, should have filed grievances at every instance. They used plenty of the court’s own rulings as precedence for this. Every single one of which as been overwritten by Congress. They ignored the intent and the scope of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, and the National Labor Relations Act.

You see, the original court in which Ms. Ledbetter filed her claim she was given redress for the wrong and was awarded $3.5 million dollars in lost income. That seemed a little steep to me when I first saw the number, because at the time of her retirement the disparity in income was not that great. Ms. Ledbetter was earning $3,727 per month; the lowest paid male area manager received $4,286 per month, the highest paid, $5,236. However, then I realized that while the immediate difference was not great, this difference would play out for perhaps 30 years or more during her retirement. Ms. Ledbetter had not had the opportunity to save as much for retirement, nor Social Security as her male counterparts and so that must also be accounted for in the redress.

You may be wondering why Ms. Ledbetter won. Well, until the Supreme Court ruling, the presumption was that the clock (180 days) started running on the day that one recieved the most recent (or current) discriminatory paycheck, NOT the first discriminatory paycheck. So the court in which she originally filed suit found that she presented a valid case and gave her redress. Goodyear Tire did not like that answer and filed an appeal. Thus the case wound it’s way to the Supreme Court.

Think back for a moment to your employment experiences. Go ahead. I’ll wait. Think about the notion that salary decisions might be public knowledge.

Have you finished guffawing yet?

That’s exactly what Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg thought too. She wrote the dissenting opinion. Then took the unusual step of reading it from the bench after the majority opinion had been read. If you’ve never read Supreme Court decisions, this is a good one to cut your teeth on. It’s fairly straightforward and you already know what’s going on. Even more interesting (to me) are the dissenting opinions. The writing in those are more relaxed and less full of legalese, because they don’t count for as much. That is, future jurisprudence will not necessarily be relying upon the dissent. Reading the dissenting opinion from the bench is very unusual. It carries a certain weight; it goes beyond saying, “We in the minority disagree.” to also spitting on your shoes. In public. Here is some of what Justice Ginsburg had to say:

The Court’s insistence on immediate contest overlooks common characteristics of pay discrimination. Pay disparities often occur, as they did in Ledbetter’s case, in small increments; cause to suspect that discrimination is at work develops only over time. Comparative pay information, moreover, is often hidden from the employee’s view. Employers may keep under wraps the pay differentials maintained among supervisors, no less the reasons for those differentials. Small initial discrepancies may not be seen as meet for a federal case, particularly when the employee, trying to succeed in a nontraditional environment, is averse to making waves.

Pay disparities are thus significantly different from adverse actions “such as termination, failure to promote, . . . or refusal to hire,” all involving fully communicated discrete acts, “easy to identify” as discriminatory.

There is so much more. This may not sound like much to the untrained ear/eye, but in the language of the Supreme Court it is a stinging rebuke. Especially since it was delivered in a public address.

And so things stood for nearly two years. But two days ago, President Obama and the U.S. Senate set the scales of justice just a little bit right again. The Senate approved legislation which would establish that the clock starts with the most recent discriminatory paycheck NOT the first one. Then President Obama signed it into law. It was the second law he signed since taking office. It’s known as the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. And, God bless her, Lilly won’t get one thin dime from it. The rest of us will. Or not. But at least we will have gained an equal footing on which to stand up for ourselves.

As Gail Collins wrote in yesterday’s NYTimes:

Ledbetter, who was widowed in December, won’t get any restitution of her lost wages; her case can’t be retried. She’s now part of a long line of working women who went to court and changed a little bit of the world in fights that often brought them minimal personal benefit.

I highly recommend that op-ed piece. For two reasons. First, you’ll read about women who have paved the way for the rest of us, the un-sung heroines in mostly blue-collar jobs who made it possible for us to get where we are today. Second, many of the cases that Gail writes about, were also used as precedence by Alito, et al; cases the Court ruled on which were then overwritten by Congress.

So, if you think about it today, say a prayer for Lilly Ledbetter and Eulalie Cooper and Patricia Lorance and Lorena Weeks. They fought so we could stand.