I have been meaning to write more about politics, but I find myself waiting for something to happen. Some resolution on the campaign trail . . . some result. So, while I hold my political breath, an article "Do not go gentle into that Eileen Fisher" caught my eye on Salon.com the other day about a book called "How Not to Look Old". The book and the reaction were somewhat interesting. I like to see how women are responding and addressing the issues of beauty and female objectification. What really interested me, and so often does in these days of blogging and news articles with comment sections, were the responses from the readers. Most of the women hated the idea of the book. One woman pointed with pride that it was her financial resources built up over a lifetime of work and a healthy retirement fund as the thing that made her feel good about herself--not a facelift. One woman lamented the author's demand that women throw out "grandchildren" necklaces because it made a woman look old. These necklaces she pointed out are generally given to the woman by her family and represents the love and esteem they have for her. I found the book's focus on youth predictable and really just missing the point. This commercialized, "Madison Avenue" attitude towards beauty is so at odds with the Navajo concept of the intrinsic sacredness of the human act of self-adornment that I had to comment on it myself. A Navajo prayer kept coming back to me as I read through the women's responses.
I am half-Navajo through my mother. The Navajo or Dineh people, as they call themselves, are matrilineal, so I have a clan, Kinyaani or the Towering House people. My mother would often talk to me about Navajo concepts of beauty or Hozhoni. She had under her bed a treasure-load of turquoise jewelry and old family photos. On days when we children were stuck inside because it was too hot to go out and play she would take these out and let us look at the old photos of her family. Elders in their traditional garb, she and her siblings in 1960's and 1970's fashions. Then we would get to look at the jewelry and she would let us wear some of it. She would tell us what meaning the turquoise, the red coral, the white shell had--even the humble cedar bead that could ward off ghosts. We would sit there on her bed and look at the pictures then look at ourselves reflected in her mirrored closet doors. Our small, brown faces and black hair dripping in strands of turquoise and red coral, silver and cedar. To us, little girls, this act of adornment by our mother would make us feel special and, yes, sacred in those afternoons in the cool, air-conditioned house with the sweltering desert heat outside kept at bay.
When the Navajo goddess Changing Woman, Adzaa Nadleehe was given her home, a hooghan, by her husband the Sun, he adorned it in this way with all the sacred things and in this way made it a beautiful and good place to live. In this way, I saw the older woman in my family, my grandmother and great-aunts, adorn themselves. They were lovely women until the day they died. Upright and strong after years of herding sheep and weaving rugs, their hair long and hardly touched with gray. They wore their long beautiful hair tied back with white carded wool in knots called tsiilyeel and adorned themselves everyday with elaborate turquoise jewelry and clothing made of velvet and satin. They were very elegant-looking, perhaps, more so than my mom and her generation in their utilitarian t-shirts and jeans and sneakers. Traditional people all over the world take personal adornment very seriously. Adornment is a defining aspect of humanness. Sometimes, I find the take on beauty in this culture is so different that it is difficult to make the connection between the two. I am beginning to realize that in some ways as a multi-cultural person, I have this Navajo lense and use it exclusively in some cases, despite my American upbringing--despite, even Madison Avenue and all the money they spent trying to make me see it another way. It is this alternate space inside me that was given to me by my mother and my grandmothers that I find myself retreating to almost reflexively. It is is hozho, beautiful. Just what I'm thinking about with International Women's Day coming up tomorrow.
I had noted in an earlier post, Senator Clinton's vote against a ban on cluster bombs (and Senator Obama's vote for the ban) has grave repercussions for children around the world. This new report given in New Zealand at a conference to draft language for an international treaty banning the use of these weapons came out on Tuesday.
Opening the conference, Disarmament Minister Phil Goff said a strong declaration on cluster bombs at the conference would mark a pivotal step in getting the weapons banned.
More than half of the 76 states in the world that stockpile cluster munitions are taking part in the negotiations, along with a majority of the weapon producers.
However, major producers such as the US, Russia, China and Pakistan have not joined the process and have no observers at the conference.
Cluster bombs are built to explode above the ground, releasing thousands of bomblets primed to detonate on impact. But combat statistics show between 10 percent and 40 percent fail to go off and lie primed in the target area to kill and injure civilians.
UNICEF deputy executive director Hilde Frafjord Johnson, speaking on behalf of 14 United Nations entities that form the United Nations Mine Action Team, said the UN wanted cluster bombs banned.
She said the weapons had a horrendous humanitarian, development and human rights impact.
Ms Johnson said the extensive use of cluster munitions in southern Lebanon in 2006 was a tragic reminder of how they caused death and serious injury of civilians.
“Sometimes, the presence of unexploded sub-munitions forced populations out of their homes and prevented those already displaced from returning home to rebuild their lives and communities.”
Ms Johnson spoke of 12-year-old Hassan Hemadi, who in 2006 picked up an object outside his home in southern Lebanon while he was watering the family garden.
“‘I saw a metal object,”‘ Johnson said, quoting Hemadi.
“‘I did not know what it was and so I picked it up. I started playing with the ribbon on the end, twirling it around. Then I don’t know what happened, it exploded. Now I have lost the fingers on my hand.”
I read today on the AP an article titled, "Indian Apology Close to Senate Passage". The resolution sponsored by Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback hasn't passed, but it's close. About time. This follows the Australian government's apology to the Aborigines. Of course, this doesn't change the fact that the Bush Administration is presently proposing a federal budget for fiscal year 2009 that would eliminate the Urban Indian Health Program which is budgeted at $35 million for this year. This, despite the fact that some 70% of American Indians live off of the reservation and the budget violates the terms that the land was originally ceded to the United States by tribes in the first place. Of course, if the U.S. government can't afford the payments (the Iraq war, according to National Priorities.org is costing us $275 million per day) it can always give the land back! That would include large chunks of Red States--I wonder how that would play on election day?
I read a post today on Women's Space about Gloria Steinem's support of Carol Moseley Braun's run for President of the United States during the 2004 election. I finally read Steinem's op/ed piece that was in the New York Times in January on the sexism Senator Clinton faces in the media compared to the (relatively) free pass Senator Obama is given regarding race. I found her piece, "Women are Never Front-Runners" disappointing in its reasoning, particularly, from a woman I admire so much. The generation gap has never felt so painful to me or so inexplicable. I heard the same things from my mom when I told her I was voting for Obama. If she wrote an article for the New York Times, it probably would have said the same thing. Suddenly, my mom--who had raised me up and trained me in a powerful sense of womanhood and feminism--and I were on opposite sides of the fence. Being the good daughter, I have found that hard to take. I also read Camille Paglia's recent Salon.com column on the election, which is fairly hilarious and, strangely enough, encapsulated so many of my feelings on the issue:
This disarray among Republicans, which may depress voter turnout or even spawn a protest splinter party, offers a fantastic opening to Democrats, if the party can only seize it. The galvanizing energy aroused by Barack Obama's thrilling coast-to-coast victories gives Democrats a clear shot at regaining the White House. However, the three-faced Hillary, that queen of triangulation, would be a nice big gift to Republicans, who are itching to romp all over the Clintons' 20-volume encyclopedia of tawdry scandals.
But, I am left rolling my eyes when she writes:
The old-guard feminist establishment has also rushed out of cold storage to embrace Hillary Clinton via tremulous manifestoes of gal power that have startlingly exposed the sentimental slackness of thought that made Gloria Steinem and company wear out their welcome in the first place. Hillary's gonads must be sending out sci-fi rays that paralyze the paleo-feminist mind -- because her career, attached to her husband's flapping coattails, has sure been heavy on striking pious attitudes but ultra-light on concrete achievements.
Meanwhile, Steinem writes in her piece:
I’m supporting Senator Clinton because like Senator Obama she has community organizing experience, but she also has more years in the Senate, an unprecedented eight years of on-the-job training in the White House, no masculinity to prove, the potential to tap a huge reservoir of this country’s talent by her example, and now even the courage to break the no-tears rule. I’m not opposing Mr. Obama; if he’s the nominee, I’ll volunteer. Indeed, if you look at votes during their two-year overlap in the Senate, they were the same more than 90 percent of the time. Besides, to clean up the mess left by President Bush, we may need two terms of President Clinton and two of President Obama.
But what worries me is that he is seen as unifying by his race while she is seen as divisive by her sex.
What worries me is that she is accused of “playing the gender card” when citing the old boys’ club, while he is seen as unifying by citing civil rights confrontations.
What worries me is that male Iowa voters were seen as gender-free when supporting their own, while female voters were seen as biased if they did and disloyal if they didn’t.
What worries me is that reporters ignore Mr. Obama’s dependence on the old — for instance, the frequent campaign comparisons to John F. Kennedy — while not challenging the slander that her progressive policies are part of the Washington status quo.
What worries me is that some women, perhaps especially younger ones, hope to deny or escape the sexual caste system; thus Iowa women over 50 and 60, who disproportionately supported Senator Clinton, proved once again that women are the one group that grows more radical with age.
Then I read on the Huffpo Erica Jong's take on the sexism in the election. To her, the issue of gender trumps all others.
Or Oprah who forgets she wasn't always Oprah -- I knew her when she had two names. She was always really smart, but she used to identify with women. And now she's joined the Obamarama. I get it. I understand. People want their own color in the White House (pun intended). And nobody said Barack wasn't brilliant.
But the truth is, we have no idea what he stands for. At least I don't. All we have are soundbites and attacks on "the" Clintons. But I guess the great American Amnesiate prefers it that way.
I'd have to disagree with Steinem on the voting record. The vote yesterday on FISA is a case in point. As one reader responding to Erica Jong's op/ed said:
As a young graduate of your alma mater, it pained me to not to cast my primary vote for the first female presidential candidate in my voting lifetime. Unfortunately (that was sarcasm, absolutely fortunately), because my education taught me think for myself and take reasoned, educated stances on issues important to me, I decided not to vote for Sen. Clinton.
Sen. Clinton voted against Senate Amendment No. 4882 last year, which would have banned the use of cluster bombs in civilian areas. While Sen. Clinton voted against the ban, Sen. Obama voted for the ban, acknowledging that cluster bombs are an antiquated form of collective punishment primarily impacting civilians and serving as a long-term impediment to reconciliation. Although the ban did not pass, this is one of the few Senate voting record differences between the two. It speaks loudly to me.
Another divergence between the senators appeared this week: I don't know definitively where Sen. Clinton stands on retroactive telecom immunity because- even though she was in the Potomac triangle when it occurred- she did not attend the relevant Senate session to cast her vote. Sen. Obama attended; he voted against retroactive telecom immunity.
I'm glad you write about the sexism this race reveals and I absolutely agree that in calling Sen. Clinton "Hillary" and Sen. Obama "Obama" we reveal the patriarchal, misogynistic tendencies underlying American society; however, I don't think this is an adequate argument for voting for Sen. Clinton. Does that make me a "Hillary Hater" worthy of your vitriolic language? I don't think so. I don't even think it makes me a woman-hater.
Addressing the issue of calling Senator Clinton "Hillary", I would point out that is exactly what her signs said at the Washington Caucus I attended on Saturday. Here is what they look like and here is what the Obama sign looks like:
Other commentators took Jong to task for invoking the memory of Bella Abzug, a renowned anti-war and women's rights leader to support a candidate that voted for war in Iraq and cluster bombing villages with children.
The statements of Steinem and Jong brought to mind the fight that occurred when it appeared that the 15th amendment would give black men the right to vote but not women. When Frederick Douglas announced that he would support the amendment without woman's suffrage included, Susan B. Anthony declared, "I will cut off this right arm of mine before I will ever work or demand the ballot for the Negro and not the woman."
By the way, here is a great video from the Google Employee Q & A series that shows (to answer Jong's request for more specifics) quite clearly what Obama stands for:
It was quite inspirational to go to the caucus. I was a precinct captain for Camas, Washington and the turnout was amazing. There were all these Hillary signs and Hillary campaign workers who were very in-the-know and Junior League-ish with pearls and suits and nice flip hairdos. Us Oregonian Obama volunteers were mostly new to the political process and a bit more of the people, if I may say that. But when they counted the votes I was shocked. My precinct went 8-2 for Obama! The Clintonian ladies had given speeches about sexism, etc. and when the Obama voters spoke (some gave short speeches to run for delegates, it was my job to encourage a group of voters to stay and do that) they all spoke of the desire for change and that it was time to end the Bush/Clinton/Bush ruling of our country and that it was okay to have hope.
I am writing an essay on "The Political Education of an Obama Voter," right now. In it, I trace my coming of age during Reagan and my first election in New Hampshire and my disappointment with the Clintons (NAFTA, WTO, Welfare Moms to Work, Don't Ask Don't Tell, the Thong thing). Also, my activism in the Green Party and the Bush regime confirming every thing Noam Chomsky taught me. So many teachers. It's been a bit of joy to go through all that, listening to the Dead Kennedy's again and John Trudell and realizing that those truths they spoke about that enriched my perspective then still apply now.
February 27th is the 35th anniversary of the stand-off at Wounded Knee. I'm thinking about how my parents' generation stood up for Civil Rights in this country even if meant being hit on the head with a baton or being gunned down by the FBI in their houses on the reservation. I owe them a lot. They made my life so much better than it would have been under Jim Crow America.
I saw this post at the Huffington Post. It features Obama's mother and her struggle with cancer. It also includes some audio from "Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance". Just think on it she was a white woman who married a black man in the early 60's! It's people like her who are real Americans to me and embody everything that is possible and makes this country great.
