01:21 - 07.03.08
Secondary
Tomorrow, March 8, is International(English) Women's (French) Day (Spanish). A lot of my time and attention has been focussed on that the past couple of days. One of my friends is hosting an event and asked if I wanted to be involved. It is the only one being offered publicly in this city. I think in such a very privileged community as the one I live in, that it is important to remind the population that there is a duty to take a stand for women who still have minimal rights, if any, in most of the rest of the world. The federal government, after all, justifies it's presence in Afghanistan based on that issue. There is too much of the "droit du seigneur" or "divine right of kings" attitude among a lot of the citizens here, about their perceived place in the world order. They seem to believe that others not privileged enough to be living here, or those here, but struggling to survive, deserve to be exploited or abused because they "asked" for their lot in life by being vulnerable, even though they had no choice in the matter. Sorry, but accidents of birth whether for the good or not aren't permission to ignore or exploit other's plight. The question of "Am I my Brother's Keeper", and it's variations in all major faith systems, has to be posed. See what happens to my entries when I start reading the Bible? Can't help reflecting back what I read, so I might as well come right out and admit it. The cats are puzzled by Judges, but then again felines live by another type of morality - Mother Nature's.
The upshot is that I've spent considerably more time on the telephone than usual. Talked with the one friend who was overseas as an international elections observer in the course of my telephone work. She returned just over a week ago and is finally acclimating to the change in time zone and weather. She said she came home to chaos, both in family issues as well as with respect to her home. She always talks about how grateful she is to have a husband such as hers, who seems to be able to step in with finesse to smooth things over or provide the support necessary. He is a great guy. We talked for a couple of hours, as she debriefed about her assignment overseas and then vented about what she arrived home to find.
Another form of support women just do naturally - let each other talk "it" out with out judging or trying to "fix" what's "broken". Often someone's well meaning interference under the impression they are helping, is an even greater stressor; creating problems worse than the original issue. Remember my travails with certain male relatives for the past half of last year with respect to my home environment? They seemed to believe I (instead of my home) needed "fixing", against my will at that. Their supposedly "superior knowledge" about things having to do with tools and construction being the weapon they tried to use to force me to submit to their will. However, they don't know jack about environmentally friendly building techniques, which are what I want for my environment, thank you very much. Anyway, I finally realized that they had all lost jobs or businesses in the last year. I think they were likely all subconsciously trying to re-establish their "manhood" by exerting their control, by force, over one of the symbols of all that's "wrong" with the society that they feel sabotaged their career aspirations, the "uppity women", who have disturbed their nice vision of patriarchal dominance.
And back we are to why International Women's Day is important. Any female who thinks she is immune to the old bad ways reasserting themselves just once has to find herself sick and undefended in a hospital setting. One of the last bastions of - "we're doing this for your own good" - despite the existence of the patient's bill of rights in this country, which includes the right to refuse any or all parts of a treatment regime. Yeah right - more like the pharmaceutical companies' good, thank you very much. It's still all about money, resources, power and who controls them. One of the concerns being raised by women to the UN right now is that there are absolutely no women involved in any current peace negotiations in any global conflicts, either as an observer or a mediator. So the 50% of the population most vulnerable and most likely to be harmed, have no say at all in the process. The fact that steam still comes out of my ears every time I think of the commentary in Mary Daly's book "The Church and The Second Sex", is a fairly good indication that not enough has changed in social attitudes, despite all the high sounding rhetoric spewed out at convenient moments - like in the heat of an election campaign. One just has to listen to or read the commentary about the US Democratic party's nomination process to see all the old poison still being hidden by sophistry. Um well yes, end of rant.
I have an early start planned for the morning so good night for now dear diary. Sleep well.
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