Category Archives: feminism and general human badassery

Rape, Suppressed Memory, and the Hope of Forgiveness

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“I wronged you in the past,” came the LinkedIn message notification on my phone. It was late on a Friday afternoon. I was at work, plowing through as much as I could before the weekend.

I did not recognize the name on the message. Whoever it was, he wanted to apologize.

For what? Who was he?

About an hour later, my brain miraculously coughed up a possible answer to the second of those questions. My friend Molly and I had once rented a house in Charlottesville from someone whose son also lived there. Could that guy be this guy? We used a nickname for him—one that seemed to align with his adult, LinkedIn name. This is an example of a brain doing something remarkable, because that is literally the only thing it has offered up to me from the locked vault since I received that message.

It turns out my brain’s suggestion was correct. That guy was this guy.

And at that moment, I had to face a hard fact. I had virtually no memory of the entire year. The only thing from that year that has been in my active memory files in the 40 years since is that I was living in that house when John Lennon was killed. That sliver is what allowed me to figure out what year it was. I Googled it. 1980. Got it.

That’s it. No actual memory of the house, my room, the street, any events from the year either at work, school, or home. I have subsequently learned that there were two other housemates, who lived in the basement. In a late-night Messenger conversation, Molly texted me numerous specific memories of all the roommates, the house, stuff we talked about and did— that I cannot conjure no matter how I try. An entire year—gone.

Including the rape that took place in my bedroom one night. I eventually listened to my rapist tell the story. It was not the story of a shared memory, where my brain provided images and feelings to fill in the edges. It was a brand-new story he told me, and the main characters were named “You” and “I.”

Let me back up a bit. Why did I ask for a call with my self-professed rapist?

  1. I wanted my questions answered.
  2. I wanted at least one black hole in my mind to be filled in.
  3. I wanted to control the conversation—no more surprising messages on LinkedIn or an apology via letter or email where he got to spin the narrative.

I asked him to talk the following Sunday. He agreed.

Friday afternoon—I was numb… like, kind of fine, actually, for a few hours. I called my sister and told her about the messages. “Are you okay?” was her first question. And I said, “I think so.”

Friday night into Saturday… definitely not okay. I have no clear explanation for the mental and emotional processes of the next several days. Rollercoaster, though painfully trite, gets close to being descriptive. Information overload. Brain overdrive. Heartache.

I had been raped a second time—a little over a year after the first one. And I had erased it, and all the months around it.

I felt as if he had just raped me, because until that Friday afternoon, I did not know he had.

The complete blank in my brain resulted in massive uneasiness and anxiety.

What happened?

I forget things. My brain learned the trick when I was very young. I forget so I can be strong. I forget so I can live as if it didn’t happen. I erase huge swaths of my life so I can feel better about my life.

So much forgotten time. Entire years, it turns out. That fact is a punch in my gut almost as heartbreaking as realizing I’d been raped not just once, but twice.

My housemate rapist looked for me, forty years later. He sought me out, found me on LinkedIn, and assumed I’d remember, just as he did, the events that took place. Also that I’d likely welcome his request to apologize. How could he have known that the event that has been with him for 40 years was only introduced into my consciousness by him?

His first messages were clumsy, unintentionally hurtful because rather clueless, and made me nervous about speaking to him. But I knew I needed to. Wanted to.

I processed the shit out of the whole situation all day Saturday. I spoke to my sister and my daughter, on the phone. My friends Mary (by chance she was in town) and Beth came over to sit with me that afternoon. We made a plan. I wrote my notes, my script, to help me get through the call. I got mad. At him: “How dare he contact me!” At myself. For forgetting. I sobbed intermittently with utter helplessness—once again I had to face my own vulnerability at the whim/hands/intentions of a man. I raged with fierce strength: “This does not define me.” I was exhausted.

The next day, Beth returned, to be by my side while I was on the phone.

I tapped in the number he’d given me. I vibrated all over as floods of adrenaline and cortisol had their way with my central nervous system. My voice shook when he answered the phone and I said hello.

Here’s the thing. I knew he wanted to apologize. That seemed, on the face of it, good. But I was not at all sure if he wanted to take responsibility—which was the only kind of apology that would actually help me. If his apology was for his own sake alone, I would know it. And it would hurt.

But it wasn’t.

Nothing can change what he did. He will have to live with that self-knowledge forever. But his actions on that Sunday afternoon on the phone were everything I could have hoped for, but had not hoped for.

He wanted the call to be healing. I did not think it could be.

But it was.

I led, he followed. I asked, he answered—with brutal honesty and full ownership of the awfulness of his choices and actions. He said the correct words: “I raped you.” He offered no excuses, and lay no blame or responsibility at my feet, as happens all too often.

I am not the only woman he is trying to find. There are two others. And for their sake, at the very end of our phone call, I offered him some suggestions about how he might do it differently next time. He thanked me.

He told me he had read my Me Too blog before he reached out to me—found my blog link on LinkedIn and then typed the words Me Too in the search bar. He thought he might find himself there—but it was someone else. When he messaged me, he already knew he was not the only man to violate me.

His wife was raped in college too, he told me. When she shared that information with him, when they were dating, he told her, “I did that.” He confessed the truth, that there are women out there, like her, because of him. He told me that their ability to work through those brutal facts, and every emotion on both sides, made all the difference to them. It took a long time and I don’t think it was easy. In the end, I had to respect him for that honesty with the woman he loved, and whom he could have lost.

It turns out we were housemates, not close, not friends, but friendly. He said he wasn’t the best housemate. I had to remind him to do his dishes.

After he told me what happened, I asked, “Why did you do it?”

“I was a privileged little shit.” Like so many upper-middle class white boys on college campuses, he imagined himself to be entitled to whatever he wanted. He thought he had magical powers to make women want his penis inside them. However it got there. The fact that he recognizes that now, and owns it, and refuses to be that guy anymore—well, it made an impression on me. As my heart broke for 20-year-old me, I recognized the growth and humility in him that makes him a human on a path, just as I am.

As for forgiveness, I’m not there yet, but I want to be. And I hope I’ll find my way to that place. I usually do.

The night he raped me, he knocked on my door. “I was lonely,” he said. “I asked if I could get in bed with you.”

His words triggered no memory. Still a blank. I sat in my sunny Sunday living room, tears dripping from my chin as I listened

He went on. “You were surprised, but you said, okay. Just to sleep.”

So he got in next to me.

I fell asleep. He didn’t.

 

 

A Mother Thing

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Did you ever think to yourself, “We all have one thing in common?” And the answer was: “Everyone has a mother.” Well, it’s not true.

Of course, every human emerged from a vagina. Or out of a uterus, one way or another. But throughout human history, children and mothers have been torn apart. An enslaved mother sold to another Southern farmer upon the birth of a child of questionable origins. A child whisked into sex trafficking. Mother and baby connections shattered by war and famine and epidemics.

Children in cages in the Land of the Free

And here in this country now, children kept in cages, far from their mothers. And, if the people in charge of this Land of the Free get their way, never to be reunited.

Quick disclaimer: I love daddies and I know that every story of family separation, loss, grief, and anguish is likely to involve a father. A father’s anguish is no less important, and a father’s love is no less vital, than that of a mother.

But this is my blog. I’m a mommy. And I want to talk about mothers.

My mother wanted me. I was planned. Still, for half a year when I was two, she abandoned me with a stranger. (She clearly did not see it that way.) It was with my grandmother—a woman I’d never met, in a house I’d never visited. Apparently I cried a lot—to the point of vomiting—upstairs standing in a crib. For a long time. A week? Two? Then, so say my uncles, I changed. Got quiet. Learned the rules.

I only mention this because it is my 1/1,000,000th partial-not-really experience with that awful rift. I did learn the rules and was reunited with my mother. It took me a few decades to really sort out the mommy thing (complicated by her narcissism and collapse into psychosis years later), but I turned out okay. Because I was privileged as hell. I was always fed, always warm, always dry and physically secure. I received an education, had experiences that enriched me, knew other adults who loved me—uncles, friends. And there was my Great Aunt Thelma who gave me all the unconditional love a gal needed, and my father. He was long-distance and distracted by a new family, but that was my family too, a blessing to me. And my father loved me the best he could. And I was white.

By the time I was 17 she was lost to me again, that mother. The psychosis previously mentioned had spiraled her into an alternate universe from which only her voice emerged, now and then, to blame me for things. I didn’t blame her, though. She did her level best with the cards she was dealt. Sure, it was hard to go through life’s trials and joys without a mom to turn to or share with. College. Date rape. First love. A broken heart. A medical crisis. Pregnancy. But I had enough of what I needed to be okay. More than.

Me with my babies long ago.

But you can bet your ass my babies got all the attachment parenting, unconditional love, safe boundaries I could give them, and a warm, ever-present, non-judgmental ear to listen to all of it, even in the middle of the night when, ya know, shit happens. Their privilege is profound, because of the love of me, their dad, and the fact that they are white middle class kids with US birth certificates. And passports.

But the most important of these is love…

I see the effects of that love in my now-grown children. They have self-love and they understand their worth. They are not afraid to ask for help. They are adventurous and kind. They know they’re okay. And they know where to go if they aren’t.

I see the remarkable children of safe, privileged, loving families—those of my friends, my sisters, and extended family.

I heard a statistic once from a therapist a bunch of years ago. 30% is all a child needs. If a parent can give love, attention, safe emotional haven, 30% of the time, things are probably gonna be okay.

THIRTY PERCENT. That’s all. That’s not much, really. That means 70% of a kid’s parenting can 100% suck and they’ll be all set. But a lot of kids get zero% because guess what? They got a raw deal.

Starving mother love

When the playing field is so slanted, how are parents expected to be fully present, have the wherewithal to show their love by listening, being there, lying in the sun with a baby on their chest? They’re busy trying to survive. Envision the mothering journey in a land where bombs fall daily? Where there is no food. Where institutionalized racism means everything is so much harder. How do you have anything left?

Probably like you, in 2016 I found out that racism in this country is not a last vestige of an old white paternalism, slowly fading to nothing. No. Racism is alive and well in America. Racism seems to be kind of what America is. Our claim to fame. The not so distant era of suppressed bigotry and implicit bias seems like a golden age.

But I misspeak. If your skin is not white and/or you were not born here, there has never been a golden age.

So I’m talking about the golden age when I and others like me were allowed to kid ourselves that things were “so much better” because it wasn’t in our faces. I am disgusted now, realizing that was me.

Slave children–our legacy

But there is no mistaking it today, in 2019. The war on people of color, women, children, immigrants, families of all varieties, gays and transgender (read: non-whites/non-males/non-cisgendered), not to mention the war on our basic constitutionally guaranteed (but not really) rights, is alive and well. Even more children than ever before are robbed of the one thing that –if there is a god or goddess up there, that deity would want to be like, FOR SURE EVERYONE GETS THIS ONE THING? What is the one thing? Not to be gunned down for being the wrong color? That’s a good one but even more basic than that. To get fucking toothpaste in the prison camp where you live cuz you wanted to escape a war and picked the wrong place to land? Don’t be silly. Food? No, not even that.

Mother love

The one thing —the safety of a mother’s arms.

I despair for our children.

What will this world be when it is populated by the privileged and securely-mothered few and a whole big lot of humans robbed of their childhoods, their security, their hope, their basic rights?

We need to rewrite that story before it happens. Join me in being an activist in whatever way you can. Join me in voting for NO MATTER WHO wins the Democratic nomination. Join me in sending as much money as you can spare to help get people voted into office around the country who will really make change. Join me in always speaking out when you see or hear injustice happening, either in front of you or on social media. Join me in refusing to be a bystander.

Mother love

Get the babies back with the mommies. That’s a good first step.

 

If you want to help but can’t decide how, check out this site and help progressive women get elected all over the country, not just in your state. 

 

PWITP: Women, Empowerment, and Purpose

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What gives you hope? For me, today, May of 2018, it’s the same thing that has boosted my flagging optimism for the last 12+ months. It’s a movement, a mission, a project called Putting Women in Their Place and it’s the brainchild of my very own sister, Megan Park.

And it’s fucking brilliant.

Let’s look at a few brief facts.

Without overstating the blatantly obvious, one of the (many) reasons the current government holding power in DC is seriously compromised is that it doesn’t actually represent Americans. In a democracy, the idea is that the government is supposed to be representational. Meaning every American citizen can register to vote and can actually get to a voting booth without obstruction. Meaning that the people voted into power actually represent their interests. Thus, the concept goes, our elected officials won’t screw over the poor in favor of the one percent. They won’t systematically reverse legislation that, after years and decades of fighting and struggle, guarantees the rights of women, people of color, and the LGBTQ. They won’t deny scientific evidence of climate change in order to ensure profits for the oil companies lining their pockets.

A democracy means that those in power won’t compromise the free press and lie in order to push through legislation that serves only them. It means that they are voted into office legally and ethically, without the intervention of a foreign power and the corrupt inner circle who greased the wheels for that to happen.

And to put it bluntly: 51% of the country’s population is women, and only 19% represent us in congress. 18% of the population is African American but only 9% of Congress is black. 17% of the country is Hispanic or Latino/a but only 7% of Congress is. And 10% of the citizenry is LGBTQ but only half of 1% of the people allegedly representing their interests in Congress is L, G, B, T, or Q. That is not representation.

And what about governors? Just as one example, women are sitting governors in only 6 out of 50 states. If I’m doing my math right, shouldn’t that number be closer to 25.5? And it’s not as if they are running for office in equal numbers and simply not being elected. They are not running. The system, is still and has always been, rigged. Society as we know it is still, and has always been, rigged.

So what’s a gal to do?

I was feeling so helpless. Not just in the days after the 2016 presidential election, but as I read the news reports day after day as our precious, gorgeous democracy began to look more and more like tyranny, or at the very least, a corporate oligarchy. And then there were the legislators defending the NRA as more children are gunned down in schools. And the golf trips of the president on my dime. And the hateful and persistent misogyny and racism. Imagine… the man holding the highest office in the land sticking up for sexual predators and Nazis.

Helpless is a bad feeling. My sister, Megan Park, didn’t like that feeling either. She said to herself, “If the system is rigged… we gotta unrig it.”

Megan explains the “trickle up theory” that fills the pipeline with women from the bottom… up.

 

She and her business partner have a company, Little Sprig, that makes videos. That’s what they do. They know how to tell a hell of a story. Her lightbulb moment was a good one. She knew what she could do to enact real change.

She would make free campaign videos for any progressive woman running for office. How does someone get elected to the highest office of the land? One way is for a candidate to have no experience or credentials and to buy and bribe and cheat his way into office. Another way—the way most often used in this country through history—is to start at the beginning. As town supervisor. Local circuit judge. Sheriff. District Attorney. And do good. Represent the people. And get elected to the state senate, or as mayor. Eventually, to Congress, or as a senator, a governor…

From the courthouse to the state house to the White House—that’s how. And there can’t be just one or two—not good odds. The political pipeline must be full of women. Women of every color, faith, heritage, sexual orientation. If we support women all the way into office, the demographics inside every legislature, state capital, and DC’s halls of power will shift across the board.

And that is exactly what PWITP is ensuring. As more and more women step up to run for office –in unprecedented numbers—PWITP is there to help. They’ve already made videos for 65 candidates in 6 states. They made a video for Andrea Jenkins, the first openly transgender black woman to be elected to office in Minnesota. She is City Councilwoman in Minneapolis.

Some of the passionate voters (and one candidate for NY Senate) who came out for PWITP.

Last week, my home was bustling with passionate, intensely committed people. Mostly women, I admit, but not exclusively. I’d invited them to join me on the day before Mother’s Day to hear what Megan had to say about PWITP. Their current project—called the 1000 Video Project—is exactly what it sounds like. They are setting out to make free campaign videos for at least 20 progressive women candidates in every state. 20 x 50 = 1000. PWITP, as Megan says, amplifies the voices of women who want to serve and have the guts to do it.

People left my place that unseasonably chilly evening well-fed, well-informed, truly inspired, and eager to help. This is a real thing that we can do. We can spread the word. We can contribute money as we are able. And we can volunteer, as appropriate.

Go to their website. Sign up. Follow them on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook and share, share, share till they go viral! Tell everyone you know. The future is female.

Please join me in feeling very, very hopeful.

Me with my feminist, empowered, badass sisters.

 

 

 

 

Me Too

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He gave me a ride home from a party. He was older. Maybe eight or nine years older. He was a friend of the guys my friends and I were hanging out with that night. Pot-head frat types who played great music and had a big room for dancing in. In our first year of college, my nerdy writer friends and I quickly figured out that going to a few of the less mainstream frat houses was a cheap, jolly way to have fun on a Friday night. At this particular place, we felt comfortable. The guys were not grabby or patronizing. We could hang and dance. We felt safe. They were chill, ya know? And we were innocent. Naïve. Very, very smart, but… not really that smart.

Forty years later and I am still friends with one of those guys, someone I dated for a while, thought I was in love with, maybe even was. But I never told him this thing that I’m now going to post publicly on my blog. I never told anyone until the day in marriage therapy when it bubbled up. I said the words out loud for the first time and my then-husband looked at me, incredulous. Twenty-five years together and I had managed to avoid mentioning that I’d been raped. By a trusted semi-stranger in my own apartment at eighteen, a week into my third semester at UVA.

I spent most of my life telling myself a version of the story in which somehow it was “my first sex” and an inevitable, even normal way to “lose my virginity.”

Normalizing sexual harm, male aggression, female powerlessness—yes. I did that. I participated in the massive cover-up that is our male-privilege normative society. I did not want to admit I’d not had power in that moment. I wanted to believe I chose those offensive eight minutes, because what would it mean if I had not? So, feminist that I am, I did not say the word rape to myself, let alone anyone else, for decades. Years of therapy in which I dealt with a lot of crazy shit did not excavate that little artifact of experience from my subconscious. So what finally did?

Don’t know, really.

Fast forward to 2017. The grossest kind of misogynist is in the White House. The entire government seems hell bent on disempowering, disenfranchising, and just plain dissing women and anyone else they don’t want to give up their white male privilege to. And yet none of us who sees what’s going on seems willing to go gentle into that horrific night.

And now, this month, October 2017. A worldwide movement of saying, “Me too.” Me fucking too, ya bastids. It is a huge problem, okay? And you can’t shove all nine zillion of us under a rug.

Many are embracing “me too.” Some question it. Some think it does not do enough to create change or real dialogue. Others ask, “Why is it always on women to tell the hard truths?”

As for me, I don’t even want to analyze it or question it. Instead I’ll simply wholeheartedly applaud the countless women who are saying, not just to their sisters and friends, but to everyone who cares to read their status on Facebook, their blog, or their Tweet: ME FUCKING TOO.

Are people surprised? I don’t know anyone personally who is shocked that women are routinely, daily brutalized in small and huge ways. If people are surprised, I simply don’t want to know that. I would be too angry. Seriously. Enraged at the stubborn obliviousness people hide in, like a closet of privilege that protects them from uncomfortable truths. Because think about all the times that (let’s face it pretty much every) woman has been catcalled or assaulted. Shoved into a corner with a leer and a wink. Groped in the empty hallway and then silenced by shame, threats, or feigned innocence (“Honey I didn’t mean anything by that!”). Blamed by society for her experiences of harassment or sexual violence because of her clothes/attitude/choices. Propositioned by employers or superiors, or just treated like shit for being smart, sexual, ambitious, tough, emotional, or badass. And raped. Violently or quietly or multiply or repeatedly. By the stranger, the trusted friend, the uncle, the boss, the neighbor, the husband, the priest, the therapist, the teacher, the guy who is just pissed off because she did not acknowledge his right to possess her.

And these are not “bad experiences.” These are not “experiences” at all. Experience is when you go outside and there’s a rainbow. Or when you spend the day in the museum. Or you have an afternoon of glorious sex with the windows open. Or jump in the car for an impromptu road trip. Those are experiences. We participate in them. They occur. They can be sought or they can be serendipitous. But no one is perpetrating them.

Assault, sexual intimidation, rape—these are not things that “happen”—they are done by men to women against their will.

So given the reality of “me too”—what about the men? For every me too there is a man who took action. To grope, grab, hold down, threaten, penetrate, bribe, intimidate, belittle a woman. To order her to get on her knees, or fetch him a beer, or smile, or shut up and enjoy it, or just plain shut up.

What about the men who know about it, see it, hear it? How dare men be surprised or “taken aback” by this long-overdue public awareness announcement from all those women on their social media feeds. Where have they been?

I don’t remember much about that semester, after that “ride home.” (“Your friends want to stay. I can give you a ride home if you want.” “Really? That would be great.”)  I remember spending Thanksgiving at a friends’ house in Philadelphia. I remember nothing about Christmas. I know I was not completely in my body. That feeling of not “being yourself?”—that’s when part of you leaves and the rest of you feels incomplete. School—always my happy place—had lost its luster. I did not want to go to class. I did, of course, being always more than adequately “good” at doing what needed to be done. But, you know. The thrill? It was gone.

I left school that second semester of sophomore year. I went to visit my dad for a couple weeks. Returned to Charlottesville. Got a job. Went back to school. And, not sure how, but I gradually regained my optimism, my desire to go outside and see a rainbow.

These experiences take a toll on women. Women survive and “move on” because they have to. These women—so so many women—may, briefly or for decades, have their inner knowing knocked out of them when men steal their power and rob them of…so much. Women may be set back—literally—and need to catch up yet again, to prove that “WE TOO” will persist and all the shit you do to us won’t keep us down.

But it’s hard. It’s exhausting. And it is absurd—a folly, a civil wrong—that it is still on us to fix this mess not of our making. Men? Grow the hell up and stand up for your sisters literally EVERY TIME. In the board room, the classroom, the bedroom, everywhere. If you are not one of the perpetrators, prevent those who are from getting away with it and joking about it later. If you are one of those dudes—if you rape or insult or beat or catcall or belittle or grab or assume—STOP. Just stop now and live with honor for the rest of your days.

And as for me, the rape on the hallway floor of my apartment was one of several catalysts in my youth that prompted a lifetime of self-reflection and an insistence on growth and forward movement. A refusal to accept any status quo. A refusal to stay hidden.

The Wonder of Wonder Woman

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When the movie ended, tears welled up. My throat closed. I was overwhelmed with emotion.

Not a tear jerker movie, so why?

I always enjoy superhero movies. We all do—or lots of us, anyway. The possibility of good prevailing. The presumption that there is good. That there are people devoted to doing the right thing, fighting injustice and evil, for the sake of all the world. These heroes have grit and brains, sometimes brawn, and often super powers to boot. What’s not to love?

As I sat with my adult daughter in the theater watching the opening scenes—powerful, dauntless women exhibiting their prowess with weapons and their badass skills, swiftness, and strength—I was thrilled to my core. That feeling never stopped until the final scene. Diana’s evolution into Wonder Woman is superb—the way she always speaks her truth, calls a spade a spade, kicks ass, calls the patriarchy on its shit, does what’s right and not only what is expedient, is not willing to settle for “good enough,” and does not care one sliver of an iota what anyone thinks of her. She even loses the man she loves and… well, she survives.

While I relished every moment, at the same time I was thinking about all the little girls in theaters across the country watching the movie this summer. Not just being inspired by a real-live woman hero, but one for whom there are no excuses made for why she is what she is and why the men defer to her, admire her, and put their faith in her. The little girls sitting with wide shiny eyes in dark theaters across the US are seeing what little boys have absorbed their entire lives. (And by little boys I mean white little boys because little boys of any other color are always dealing with a different paradigm too.)

Our sons, not to mention our sons’ fathers and grandfathers—grew up in a world where this paradigm was their everyday reality. Not just in movie theaters where they saw men and boys ruling, being the coolest, fighting, winning, dominating, saving the women, saving the world, bossing and managing and commanding others—but in every history book, on every street, in their homes, in their schools, at their jobs, on billboards and in TV ads, in the halls of power, on the news. The very fabric of their reality was that they could, would, and do have the “right stuff.” That they can do whatever they want. They’ll be admired and rewarded for it. They will probably even be given a pass on a lot of bad stuff they also apparently “can do.”

For me, my sisters, the women I went to school with, my friends, our daughters—and every girl child born on this planet, pretty much since history was a thing—has NEVER had that. EVER. That thing the boys just get automatically. A system infused with an acknowledgment, endorsement, and affirmation of their power, goodness, potential, and significance in every sphere of life. Every sphere of life, you get me? They grow up just KNOWING they can and do rule. As in—the world.

When Cleopatra reigned over Egypt, Queen Elizabeth I was queen of the most powerful empire in the world, and Catherine the Great was empress of Russia, every advisor, every colonial governor, every other person in power in their countries and every other country at that time, in the time before, and the time after—were men. And the sacrifices they made to do what they did were not any that male leaders have ever been expected or obliged to make. So don’t throw these fabulous outliers at this situation as proof that what I’m saying isn’t true, because you know it is. The unbelievably rare exceptions call the rule into stark, horrific relief.

In spite of the beat-us-down reality with which we are flooded every moment of our lives by not just the media but life-as-we-know-it, women have made truly significant inroads. Painfully, inch by inch, up against odds no man can imagine. Not the odds created by being inferior and having to make it against their natural superiors, since that is a myth of mythic proportions that no civilized human says out loud any more. No. The odds created by the status quo and how comfortable everyone seems to be with it. The sexist objections and roadblocks coming from all quarters.

And still, we persist.

But imagine. Imagine a world in which every CHILD was infused and flooded with a different truth: that all humans have equal powers of wonderfulness. Every child can be fast, strong, cool, smart. Anyone can do any job, with the right skills and aptitude. (Let’s be honest, you don’t want me doing your taxes.) Anyone can invent, heal, design, create, govern. Anyone can learn how to save the world through science, theology, philosophy, technology, scholarship, political or economic reform, education, and love….

In that world, no gender or race could or would ever be able to get away with dominating another because all of us would have grown up with these beliefs instilled in us. No man would proposition or deride a woman on the streets. No man would get away with a slap on the wrist for raping anyone. No woman would have to accept less money for the same job, let alone accept that she is “less than.” Women in equal numbers would be senators, governors, CEOs, engineers, brain surgeons, heavy machinery operators, and airline pilots.

The pressure would be off men to carry all that responsibility. Who asked them to, anyway, poor guys?

I know and love the fact that more and more girls are wielding “swords” in the playgrounds of America this year thanks to Wonder Woman. They feel a glimmer of that feeling—that empowered feeling that they deserve.

So why did I cry when the movie ended? Why was I so choked with helpless emotion? Because even the most empowered of my gender, raising our daughters to know and to feel their own worth, their own stunning strength and brilliance, will never really know that feeling—to be ENTITLED to your power. Because there is a different and tragic law of the land, accepted by most without even thinking about it—a law that governs everything from the color of our Legos to the length of our shorts. From the dreams we have about our future to things we do on a Saturday afternoon. From the best possible scenario we can envision for ourselves to the darkest fears we harbor in our hearts.

Three Bad First Dates

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He asked the bartender for a taste of a particular wine to see if he liked it. Common enough; no biggie. He wanted a sweetish white. Well, he did not like it, so he tried another one. Nope. The bartender tried to chat with him about the wines, explaining that the Reisling they pour is quite dry, that they don’t have too many truly sweet whites, that such-and-such was the most “fruit forward.” My date was pretty determined to know more about wine than the bartender, so he waved his words away and asked for a taste of yet another bottle. Still no luck (as was anticipated by everyone within five feet). After the third reject, he ordered the same red wine I was drinking, but only after asking for a taste—he refused to taste mine, though I offered.

So this was the start. Then he needed to interview the chef about the menu. She obligingly came out to the bar to talk about this and that. I sipped my wine, nodding. I know a bit about food too, but saw that the wisdom in this moment was to just smile and seem impressed. I was impressed—with the chef—but my date did not need to know that he wasn’t the one earning my approbation.

I’ve been very lucky with my forays into the world of dating, thanks to the following: I am very selective, and do my homework. I don’t have a ton of unscheduled time to drive around the Hudson Valley and meet people so when I do I want them to be—at least—interesting. I have met about a score of men since last fall, most of them truly lovely—various versions of smart, kind, interesting, interested, thoughtful, sexy, funny. But this guy was a mistake from the get-go. To make it even more interesting, two friends of mine happened to be sitting at the other end of the bar no doubt giggling into their martinis.

After he had his wine, and was eating his calamari or whatever it was, he began to tell me the story of his lovely wife and how she died. I actually was relieved when he started down this road as it gave me a chance to simply see him as a man who has gone through a tough time. But somehow, his narrative was full of sex. The sex he used to have with her, and that they didn’t have while she was dying (yeah, and that is important to his story why?), and then the tangent about his mother and how she was such a fan of his stories of sexual exploits now that he’s single. She must be very proud. Actually, I think the word he used was “sexual prowess.” Oy. (This same mother, I also learned, got pregnant with her husband at the age of 17 back in the old country, without knowing how that worked—like, what made a woman pregnant exactly? I could write a book about this guy, his mother, and dead wife….)

The story of the wife was quite moving, actually. I think part of my reaction was on her behalf, wondering if she was now spinning in her grave as her widower tried to use his grief over her loss to get into other women’s pants. But she sounded pretty great, and unless he was lying completely, he may have been a good husband to her. I am willing to assume: yes. It helps me to believe that.

I had talked very little at this point (a definite theme in the three bad dates), but I said something sympathetic and he said, “Now don’t start crying.” I said, “Not planning to…” wondering if perhaps that was and continues to be his end-game with first dates, to get them to cry over his dead wife.

His next rant was about the dating site on which we met and how they “obviously put filters on the photos.” Excuse me? Pretty sure they don’t do that, and I said as much. He whipped out his phone and called up my profile. There were my carefully selected unfiltered photos on his phone, his big thumb flipping through them. Yup, regular old pictures, my most flattering of course, but as I am not a baby any more, they show the reality of wrinkles and the like.

Somehow the poor guy felt like he’d been sold a bill of goods, and did not mind telling me. I laughed right (at him) and asked, “Am I not looking my very best tonight?” (I looked really hot, BTW.)

But then, he flipped to a full-length photo of me and said, avoiding the question, “Oh, this is my favorite.”

I commented, “Oh look, I’m wearing those same pants now.” (It was something to say.)

He said, “I know,” and proceeded to jam his entire hand between the thighs of my crossed legs. I batted him away and inched closer to the woman sitting to my right.

Why didn’t I leave then?

Meanwhile, the bartender, Jim, was giving me sympathetic looks every time he came down to that end of the bar. I felt free to make eye contact with Jim because literally any time he was not actively talking, my date was looking over my shoulder at the TV set above the bar.

When my date launched into a story about how he gets hit on by ministers on all the dating sites, and his weird fantasy of the awkwardness of taking off a minister’s clerical collar to get at her boobs, while demonstrating on me, including a “turn the knob hard to the right” gesture mere inches from my own breasts, I turned to the bartender and said, “Could we have the check please?”

My date threw down his card the minute the check arrived. I thanked him and said I had to get going, as we’d met a distance from me. He walked me to my car and said, during the very unwelcome full body hug he pressed upon me, “If you want to see me again, it’ll be on you,” I had to wonder about that mama of his, and what she taught him, exactly, as a child.

The other two “bad dates” were similarly themed. One guy was the epitome of the mansplainer. He pursued me very hard on the dating site and I had a few pre-date phone conversations with him. So I have only myself to blame as the writing was on the wall. But, I was lured by the words, “You interest me,” though they were belied by his actions. (It is rare that a man will admit to being interested in me, as opposed to how sexy I look or the fact that I might be interested in him.)

So I met this guy in my town. He drove the 40 minutes (normal procedure is to meet halfway) which was a nice touch. He wanted to greet me with a kiss. To clarify: he wanted to meet for the first time with a kiss on the mouth. I demurred.

So this is the summation: he talked, he held forth, and he knew more about everything than anyone, especially me, could ever know. One topic covered: cooking and food—I managed to slip in that I had once cooked professionally. He blew past that to launch into All the Knowledge about All Cooking as well as All the Kitchen Exploits—his. Not interested in my input. I did try to start a few sentences. This is how many times he interrupted me: all of the times.

He brought up independent education because he went to a private school in 8th grade. I slipped in (by talking very fast) that I had attended private schools too, and have worked in independent education for 30 years. He gave me a level look that seemed to say, “Oh you poor ignorant woman,” and proceeded to mansplain the hell out of education, private education, including teaching, fundraising, finances, child development, private vs. public, and on and on. He got a lot of things wrong. I started a few sentences along the way. This is how many times he interrupted me: all of the times.

At one point during this ghastly hour I figured, what the hell. I’m going to have fun and try an experiment. Next time I try to talk and he (invariably) interrupts me, I will—instead of stopping talking to let his interruption go unchallenged—continue with my sentence until it is over. Or even my paragraph. Let’s see what happens.

Maybe you’ve guessed? Yup. I continued to talk after the next interruption and he kept talking so that we had two adult humans facing each other both saying different sentences. If this were a traffic situation, it would look like this: I had the right of way, he pulled into my lane and then refused to stop, instead literally driving over my car and probably my dead body.

I was truly amused by the fact that he was 100% oblivious. I went to the bathroom and texted my daughter: “CALL ME IN TEN MINUTES WITH AN EMERGENCY.”

She did it, bless her. As soon as the call came through and I explained the “emergency” to my date (who clearly knew what was happening as it probably happened on all his first dates), I hustled to find the waiter for the check. The waiter and his colleague were in a little alcove out of my date’s line of sight. I asked for the check. Both men gave me looks of such unutterable sympathy that I almost cried and laughed. Instead, I rolled my eyes and grinned. The check came fast. I threw down cash and bolted. My date did not object.

The most recent bad date was probably the least bad, really. Nothing aggressive or menacing, no rude assumptions or veiled insults. Just another well-meaning, obliviously privileged white male who thinks a first date is a chance to dazzle, monopolize, hold forth, audition, dominate, prove-something….

This is what I learned about him in one hour: how many times he was married, what kind of alcohol he likes, how he came to be introduced to port, and sherry, and his recent trip to the Middle East, and that his sister paid for it, and that they stayed at great places, and what airline they used, and what airlines he prefers typically, and that he used to drink one beer a day, and that he doesn’t now but he drinks wine (and port and sherry) and that he goes to the gym daily, loves Zumba…. I learned how he found out about Zumba, in detail, and how he got involved, and how he got good at it because he’s not a natural dancer, and how it reminds him of some great free form dance events he used to go to, and how his girlfriends never went with him, and exactly what those events were like, and how he organized a Zumba flashmob at his gym, but that he did not know what one was till he heard it mentioned, and that the flashmob he organized made him a hero at the gym and how everyone loves him. And he has a bad knee, and I know about the medical interventions he has sought, oh and I know what kinds of shoes he wears for each kind of activity he does at the gym. I heard about the errands he did on his way to meet me, and about his career, and about a conference he is about to go to in Oregon, and I learned so much more that has leaked out of my brain. Realize that each of these single items was part of a detailed narrative with tangents, side-notes, and usually accompanied by the words, “I’ll keep this short.”

This is what he learned about me: my son lives in Oregon, I had knee surgery once. (Slipped those suckers right in there!)

The funny thing is, all three of these men understood instinctively that there would be no second date. So they all pulled the plug on their own, making excuses or shutting the door, managing the situation so I did not get to reject them. Understandable. Their privilege comes with a certain undercurrent of uncertainty perhaps, or vulnerability when faced with a very clearly unimpressed female with a mind of her own, long legs, and a loving heart—none of which they’ll ever get to touch.

Solidarity, Empowerment, Sisterhood, and Love

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Me with my daughter on 42nd Street amidst the throng.

Me with my daughter on 42nd Street amidst the throng.

Standing in line to get some food at Grand Central at the end of the day, my daughter, a friend, and I stood chatting. A man in a Metro North conductor’s uniform stood near us. He turned a few times to look at us, and finally spoke. “I don’t mean to be forward, but I wanted to say something to you.” We were listening, unsure what would come next. “I haven’t been doing so well since the election. And today, seeing all the people pouring onto my train to come here to join the march, is the first time since that day that I have felt calm. I want to thank you.”

The estimates vary a bit but it looks like at least 500,000 men and women marched in New York City on Saturday, January 21, 2017 in response to the inauguration of Donald Trump. The purpose was simple enough: to let the new administration know we are here, we will be heard, and that human rights are not to be abrogated, dismissed, or flicked away because they interfere with one man’s fascist agenda. Well, one man plus a lot of other men who see Trump’s ascendancy as their chance to solidify their privilege once and for all. Fat chance.

A group of friends who either went together or found one another.

A group of friends who either went together or found one another.

If you have a pulse and are awake at least an hour or two out of every 24, you probably know that over 600 marches worldwide pulled in upwards of three million participants. All of them were peaceful. What I tuned into while I walked (and often stood still in pause-mode, pressed up against the patient thousands in my immediate vicinity) were: love, empowerment, solidarity, optimism, some fear and anger at what is transpiring in this country at the expense of the majority, but most of all a spirit of activism that is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Even the protests against Vietnam, the Civil Rights marches, the Million Man March (1995), and other major peaceful protests have not approached the numbers that turned out this time (around the planet).

As far as the eye can see.

As far as the eye can see.

Thousands of men marched alongside their sisters, wives, daughters, mothers. There were people of every color and all ages. From toddlers on shoulders to teens, the kids who participated were learning the lesson of peaceful activism from their parents—such a valuable lesson to learn by doing. White-haired grandparents, men and women in wheelchairs, straights, gays, transgender, first time marchers, veteran marchers, breastfeeding moms, dads wearing pink pussy hats—so many human beings with common purpose.

I marched with my alma mater.

I marched with my alma mater.

People are realizing that every voice does matter. People who voted for Hillary, and people who did not vote at all, and even some who voted for Trump, are coming together to take a stand against the rich and entitled skewering the rest of us. Take a stand for affordable healthcare for all. For public education. For the environment and the future of our planet. For the rights of women. For the rights of immigrants. For #BlackLivesMatter. For the future of this entire country, not simply the privileged.

Pussy hats prevailed.

Pussy hats prevailed.

There is a phrase in the song “America the Beautiful” that goes like this: “crown thy good with brotherhood.” (Sometimes when I sing it, the word “motherhood” slips out instead.) But what I want to say is this: for centuries, the concept of brotherhood has been accepted as a catch-all to refer to solidarity among people of all genders. The male pronouns and nouns have reigned. Yesterday, a spirit of sisterhood infused the marches worldwide. The men who participated did so joyfully in that spirit of sisterhood. Josh Bauman, a young cousin of mine, wrote this on his Facebook wall: “As today has proven in overwhelming numbers, we are stronger together and we will stand against those trying to tear us apart. And, appropriately, it is WOMEN leading the way.”

Some friends and colleagues of mine in D.C. with their posse.

Some friends and colleagues of mine in D.C. with their posse.

Women are indeed the future of this planet, simply because to continue to marginalize them and the issues they embrace is to alienate 51% of the humans on Earth. The needs, wishes, and agendas of only men will not serve the future. Pretending that a pussy-grabbing, climate-change-denying, racist one-percenter in the pocket of Vladimir Putin is a legitimate and worthy person to lead us into the future is pointless, a distraction, and a very dangerous thing to do. The Trump Zone of “alternative facts” is a parallel universe of lies and hatred that more than 3 million people rejected on Saturday.

Love, assertiveness, and empowerment are far from being mutually exclusive. They strengthen each other and those who embrace them. #whywemarch #womensmarch #resisttrump #pussygrabsback #dissentispatriotic

 

 

Be the Sapiosexual You Want to See in the World—Smart is Sexy! *

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smart-is-sexy-image

Sapiosexual.

If you know what that means, I’d probably like you. If you consider yourself to be sapiosexual, I might even love you. And if you’re a guy, I’d date you.

I didn’t know what sapiosexual meant until a while back when I saw a man describe himself that way on his dating profile. Excited to find a word I had not heard before, I was immediately hooked. I was pretty sure I knew kinda what it meant. Sapio—from the Latin verb “sapere” (dare to be wise) from which we (however accurately) derived sapiens, the second half of homo sapiens. Aka animals with thinking brains. (Yes, this is super species-centric and assumes we are the only ones with thinking brains [in itself a profoundly stupid assumption], and a case could be made that we might actually not be that smart after all, if you look at it a certain way [aka the fate of our planet and all the creatures upon it], but regardless, sapiens basically means smart.)

The Urban Dictionary tells us that “a sapiosexual person is someone who finds intelligence and the human mind to be the most sexually attractive feature in the opposite sex” (or same sex if you are gay). Glory be!

I am automatically going to swipe right for any man who says he’s a sapiosexual. Why? Because I grew up in a world that tries to convince women and girls that their brains are 1. Not that important 2. Probably not as good as those of the dudes 3. Something to downplay on a date and I could go on. All of which is 1. Wrong 2. Sexist 3. Likely to be the end of civilization as we know it if we stick with those made-up, ridiculous rules. I love the men who love my brain, because to me they are 1. Confident 2. Smart 3. Fun to be with. Oh, and yeah, 4. Sexy as hell. (And also probably not afraid to admit they are feminists, and in case you need a reminder that means they believe that men and women deserve equal rights and treatment. Not that radical.)

Smart IS sexy. It just plain is sexy, sexy, sexy. I’m not going to want to rub up against someone I can’t talk with. Deeply. I mean, whatever your thing is, it doesn’t matter: quantum physics, mechanical engineering, 17th century poetry, neuroscience, international politics, Cajun cooking, the history of fashion design, ornithology—I’m interested in it if you are, and I want you to be interested in my stuff too. I mean, why not learn something while you cuddle in front of the fire in the ski lodge, lie naked under the ceiling fan after a day on the beach, or sip yummy wine at a sexy little hole-in-the wall in the West Village.

Part of attraction/love/desire is being excited, right? If I’m excited about a book I just read or an idea I just had, it’s going to light me UP, and make me desirable and sexy. If you are turned on by your work, your art, your ideas, that thrill you feel will make its way to me and I’ll get… turned on too. See how that works?

Be the sapiosexual you want to see in the world. If you want to be fulfilled in the long term, don’t hide your brilliant fire under a bushel to get a date. If you do, you’ll be stuck pretending to be somewhat dim for the duration, and you’ll bore quickly or resent the person who liked you in spite of being, well, dim.

Shine forth!

  • Being smart means you are open to the fact that you don’t know everything. Think of the fights you’ll avoid by not believing you know everything. Smart people know better.
  • Being smart means you actually will read a book or have a conversation that might change your mind. Do you know how amazing it is when you send a link to an article to a guy you kinda like and he a. reads it and b. can’t wait to talk to you about it? Amazing in this case = sexy.
  • Being smart means you never have to say or hear (or say) the words, “There, there, dear, don’t worry your little head about that.” So much better to hear/say: “What do you think? I really want to know.”
  • Being smart means you may well be on your way to falling in love before your hands or lips ever touch. SO HOT.

The deepest loves (and sexiest) I’ve had have been the ones where something—a circumstance of one kind or another—allowed friendship and intimacy to blossom fully before that first sexual moment. The hunger and subsequent thrill that comes on the heels of that slow build-up is indescribable.

Are physical compatibility and attraction important? YES. But honestly, the men on dating sites who say “send me more pictures” or call me “cutie” without knowing a thing about me don’t interest me in the slightest and, in fact, turn me off. The ones who tell me something interesting, and ask to hear what I have to say—they will get me to keep the conversation going, every time.

*This blog also had a guest appearance on the blog of Betty Russel, BeFreeToLove.com. Thanks, Betty!

 

My Mother’s Battle Against White Male Privilege

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woman-in-mans-world-3

I’m sure I don’t know the half of it.

Back then, if it was named at all, it might have been called chauvinism. I doubt she even heard the word “sexism” until she was out of the corporate world and battling a different set of demons that dominated the latter part of her life.

She grew up in poverty during the Depression, was the first person in her family going back to forever who went to college, and the first of her immediate family to leave Ohio. She was also the first woman in her family to pursue a career outside of domestic service. She was, I believe, the first to imagine a different life. She had aspirations.

She learned how to “pass” in the world she longed to enter by taking lessons from a kindly aristocrat who lived on the other side of town. As a girl, my mother would visit Mrs. Myers to learn how to speak properly, set a table, pour tea, walk gracefully, descend the stairs with a book balanced upon her curly head. She had aspirations, sure enough.

Her fascinating career path, post-college, included stage acting, a brief hiatus as a travel agent (it got her to Europe), and even her own 15-minute TV show called “At Home with Lee”—a kind of proto-Martha Stewart thing where she (as I understand it) advised about home décor and fashion. That was all out in California. Then, in 1962, when I was two, she ended up leaving my dad behind in Pennsylvania where they lived, to pursue acting in NYC, only to change gears again in the pursuit of enough money so she could feed me and pay rent. A clever writer, she got a job with L’Oreal (then known as L’Oreal of Paris) creating names for lipsticks and nail color and was soon promoted to copywriter. Within five years she was a rising star in the New York advertising world.

I literally had to watch Mad Men to realize how thrilling, and truly horrific, that must have been for a young woman.

She was a strange product of two worlds—the one she was born to and the one she pushed her way into (brooking no argument). She did not think in terms of “feminism” but the constant inequities she faced were, to her, shockingly, soul-burningly unjust.

But she shared little of this with me. Interesting, considering she did not hesitate to include me in way too much information about other things in her life. Perhaps she felt that it was somehow her fault that she could not convince her employers that she was worth more than 50 cents on every dollar her male counterparts earned. Her solution was simply to work five times as hard as they did, achieve 10 times their success… and maybe if she was lucky inch up to 55 cents.

One story she liked to tell—probably because it showed my father in such a good light—was this: My father had recently taken a job as a professor at a small Pennsylvania college. At this point, their separation and her move to New York was still a couple years in the future. Though she’d always worked before they moved back east from California, she was now expecting a child (moi), and didn’t have a job. My father was asked to give a speech, but felt overwhelmed with his new duties, so he asked his wife if she’d help him out by writing the speech for him. The way I understand it, they talked. He told her the gist of what he wanted to say, and she made it happen. It’s called ghost writing (I do it for clients all the time). It was apparently a very good speech. He delivered it, with few, if any, tweaks.

When the chair of his department came up to my parents after the speech and praised my father for it, my dad (bless him) said, “Well thank you! My wife wrote it, actually.”

The professor looked down at my mother with (I imagine) a painfully patronizing faux smirk of uber-unctuous paternalism and said, “You mean she typed it?”

A good story in that the guy was set straight, but very few of my mother’s encounters with entrenched sexism had happy endings. As a single working mother over 30 she was constantly judged as either doing a crappy job of parenting or, inevitably, doing a poor job of everything else.

Still, she earned lots of respect from many people in her field. She always managed to be promoted, or head-hunted for an even better job, and broke through several intermediate glass ceilings on the way. But she had to prove herself again and again in ways that the men in her field did not. She and her team won numerous Chloe awards and, every time, had to correct assumptions that the team was led by the only man on it, 15 years her junior and with less than half her experience or savvy.

Before she left the corporate world, she was making more than anyone in her family ever had, despite the income disparity between her and every guy within ten thousand hectares.

That was the 60s and 70s. One woman: my mom. Multiply that story by a zillion cubed and we might have an idea of how women have had to fight for every ladder rung. Beat off the guys who tried to grab them by the arms and throw them off that ladder with dismissive claims that they belong in the secretarial pool, if not the kitchen. I imagine my mother sitting in meetings with a bunch of men and trying to report on her department while being called “honey” and asked to make coffee. How many times was her ass pinched in the elevator? How many men tried to sleep with her? How many men threatened her job if she did not sleep with them? I mean, I don’t know for a fact. So maybe it never happened.

But it happened.

Here we are in the 21st fucking century. Women have been elected to the highest offices in several countries. Women populate the colleges and universities in the US by over 50%. We’ve crept up to 74 cents on the dollar (average between the 79 cents of white women and the 68 cents black women earn). Do we celebrate those gains or beat our heads on our desks because it’s so insanely not enough? But we keep inching painfully forward. Justin Trudeau makes headlines by having a totally integrated cabinet. I love him, but why does that make headlines? It should be a non-starter, as it would be to splash the front page with two inch letters saying Boys and Girls Being Born Every Day in Local Hospitals.

Still, what I’m saying is that we’ve continued to (mostly) make progress since my mother’s story.

The coming election will mean everything to this continued narrative of women’s rights. Will the tone set by Trump and his followers become the tone of the story of this nation in the future? Will the ugliness of bare-knuckle misogyny be the new starting point with our children, sons and daughters alike—the next generations who will either continue to be incrementally moved toward gender/race enlightenment or have the scaffolding knocked out from under them?

Women still get their butts pinched in the work place, but at least now it’s against the law. Women still have to cope with intrusive, objectifying, sexual, patronizing behavior from men every single day, but they are less and less afraid to come out in public to say, “This happened and it’s not okay.”

Is all that going to change?

“Momma, I’m sorry to say that all the work you did will come to nothing in the end” is not something I want to say to the urn sitting on my bookcase. I want to say, “The asshole got his comeuppance and the first woman president has been sworn in. And she’s badass, Momma. You’d love her.”

Scarlet Words—How Women’s History and Power Was (partly) Stolen by Changing the Language

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Ishtar--Queen of Heaven/Whore of Babylon

Ishtar–Queen of Heaven/Whore of Babylon

The other day I woke from an undifferentiated dream with the words, “verbs, nouns, and scarlet adjectives” in my head. When I considered this word cluster, after a cup of coffee, I determined that its key word was “scarlet.” I pondered the word “scarlet” over the next few days. My train of thought, Google, and most importantly The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets by Barbara Walker all reminded me of an enormous cover-up perpetrated by the Judeo-Christian patriarchy.

Not to put too fine a point on it.

Scarlet. I asked myself, and several other people, what that word conjures. Literally everyone said either The Scarlet Letter or “a scarlet woman” or both. Scarlet + woman = fall from grace, shame, sin. In other words, whore, harlot, hussy, slut. The original scarlet woman, it turns out, was the woman who has come down to us as the Whore of Babylon. In Revelations, chapter 17, we are told just how horrific this woman (spoken with dripping scorn and indignant rage) was. A few choice quotations:

  • “Come hither. I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication….”
  • And shortly thereafter: “I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy…. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup … full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication.”
  • And last but not least: “And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”

But let’s back up a bit.  Like 3 or 4 thousand years. Harlot, the word so contemptuously used by the writers of the Book of Revelation in the Old Testament, was originally the name for the sacred priestesses who served the Great Goddess Har, also known as Ishtar. From the word “har” came other words, such as “hara,” a Hebrew word for great mountain or pregnant belly, and Harmonia, a daughter of Aphrodite and bringer of peace. The Greek “horae,” the Persian “houris,” or the Hebrew “hor” (“synonym for the sacred prostitute and the Goddess she served”*) are all etymologically linked to the word “whore.” But the fact is, sacred “harlots,” and priestesses of the goddess Har, or Ishtar, were powerful and honored, in fact revered, members of pagan societies.

Pagan priestess in full possession of her power and her sexuality.

Pagan priestess in full possession of her power and her sexuality.

Words that mean one thing for thousands of years: co-opted and degraded in a matter of a few hundred years by one male-dominated institution.

Let me continue. The scarlet woman—often seen wearing the red (and/or purple) of divinity—was first of all the great Ishtar, aka Queen of Heaven aka the Great Whore of Babylon. She called herself “a prostitute compassionate” and she and her priestess harlots were “honored like queens at centers of learning in Greece and Asia minor.” Despite her reverenced position throughout the ancient world, she comes to us via the Bible as “the mother of abominations,” among other things.

Some of these priestess-whores actually did become queens. Justinian’s bride, Theodora, was a temple harlot before she said, “I do.” The Emperor Constantine’s very own mother, now canonized (St. Helena), was a harlot before she became an empress/saint. Gosh why don’t Western histories tell us this stuff?

Priestess-whore/divine feminine

Priestess-whore/divine feminine

So, countless ancient yet sophisticated cultures including the Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, Persians, Hindus, Japanese—all revered women whose lives were spent in temples, as hierodules (representing the goddess on earth) having sex with men (often priests), who were honored as healers (their vaginal secretions and spit were said to have healing powers), and who were valued as brides when their service in the temple was over. Very, very cool.

That was back when sex was not a sin, women were not only allowed to be sexual beings but adored for their sexual powers, and when “virgin” meant unmarried woman. You’ve probably heard of the “Vestal virgins?” Well what you were not told is that most if not all the priestesses who looked after temples were virgins. Meaning they chose to remain unmarried. And have as much sex as they wanted in their roles as priestess-virgins.

Now, of course a “whore” is a term of degradation and contempt. Young women are hog-tied by the idea that “virgin” means “girl who does not have sex” instead of independent woman who is allowed to make her own sexual choices. Rethinking the mother of Jesus—we were told she was a virgin when her womb quickened with humankind’s savior. Well, according to the meaning of “virgin” at the time (aka the original meaning of that word), that meant she was not married. It did not mean she had not had sex.

How did this complete co-opting of language (nouns, verbs and scarlet adjectives) happen? Easy. The rise of the Christian church put the kibosh on anything that smacked of feminine power. Whores held significant status in pagan culture, so they had to be brought low. Powerful and influential men literally stole the truth, rewrote history, and at a time when literacy was low and there was soon a church in every village, the redirection of language was achieved efficiently and brutally.

Typical example. The horae of Aphrodite—her “celestial nymphs, who performed the Dances of the Hours, acted as midwives to the gods, and inspired earthly horae (harlot-priestesses) to train men in the sexual mysteries”*—were magically transformed by the church into virgins (the kind who don’t have sex), martyred, and turned into three maiden saints—Agape, Chionia, and Irene. Done.

Sacred horae

Sacred horae

Another example. In Iceland, a very matriarchal society at that time, every woman worshipped the goddess in her own home, on her own hearth. This woman was known as a “hussy,” and typically shared her “hus” (which meant both home and place of worship) with more than one “hus-band.” But when Iceland agreed in about 1000 AD to become Christian, guess what? The word hussy became a derogatory term. Done.

The Christian patriarchy seemed to be all about taking the power to choose away from women, a woman’s power over her own body being a prime example. At first glance one might think, how can anyone take one’s power to choose, or to control what she does with her body, away from a woman? We all know how it’s done today. Through public opinion, rape and the perpetuation of rape culture, legislation, and any number of societally accepted norms (from pay scales to product marketing) that marginalize and diminish women, or try to. And often succeed.

As the Catholic orthodoxy rose to prominence in Western and Eastern Europe, a woman with a lover became indistinguishable in the eyes of the church from a professional prostitute. Both were considered “whores.” In fact, women who gave their love and body freely to a lover were tortured in hell as viciously as the reviled prostitutes. St. Augustine and others depicted the torments reserved for sexually active women (whether lovers or whores) as being among the very worst—greater than those for murderers, for example.

We have inherited this twisted view of women and language—whereby both the women themselves and the words that described them have been repainted by a society hell-bent on destroying the truth and keeping women “in their place.” Though no longer considered the property of men, women are still either actively treated as objects or allowed by much of the bystanding populace to be objectified day after day on billboards, on Twitter, by Hollywood, you name it.

It would be lovely to reclaim our “nouns, verbs, and scarlet adjectives” in the pursuit of a genuine equality. It bothers me, I must admit, that history seems to begin, in the minds of 99% of the world, after women’s power was systematically stolen from them. Part of empowering women and men is to resurrect the truth and at least have a working knowledge of what the words that are used to shame, control, and demean women actually mean.

Scarlet. The color of a woman’s power, a woman’s sexuality, a woman’s direct connection to the divine. It has become my favorite word.

*from The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, by Barbara G. Walker, entries on Horae, Ishtar, and Prostitution. Much of my information came from this source and I highly recommend this book to you if you do not have it.