"Women of the World"
A Sermon for Women's History Month by Rev. Charles Blustein
Ortman
March 20, 2011
READINGS: ANCIENT & MODERN
Our ancient reading is from the Book of Luke:
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village
where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister
called Mary, who sat at his feet listening to what he said. But
Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.
She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister
has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"
"Martha, Martha," Jesus answered, "you are worried
and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary
has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."
Our modern reading is an excerpt from the poem, "Still
I Rise," by Maya Angelou:
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
SERMON
When I began college in 1968, women's history was virtually an
unknown topic in schools or even in general public consciousness.
Then in 1987, the National Women's History Project petitioned Congress
to expand the national celebration of women in history to the entire
month of March. Each year, programs and activities in schools, workplaces,
and communities have become more extensive.
Throughout the flow of history, we know that women have been essential
in any analysis of the human pageant. We might wonder then, why
it is that women have not been adequately represented in the records
of that story. It's interesting and ironic that this month, just
this past week, many of us celebrated a holiday, which is really
the commemoration - of one aspect at least - of the promotion of
telling of history and the degradation of her-story.
This past Thursday was of course St. Patrick's Day. I know it's
un-American not to be Irish on St. Patty's Day. But all the same,
St. Patrick was hardly All-American, or was he? He is certainly
a symbol of the ancient victory of patriarchy over matriarchy.
Patrick went to Ireland to do battle with the indigenous religion
of the goddess, Bridget. The pagan religion of the Goddess was represented
by the snake - not a symbol of evil but a symbol of the earth and
of earthiness. As the story goes, Patrick drove the snakes into
the sea. And this is just one of the many stories from around the
world about putting women in their place. These stories have cumulatively
resulted in the invisibility of women from the many chapters of
the human story.
Women's History Month is an opportunity for a do-over. Not that
a do-over could possibly make things right, but it could lead to
some kind of eventual rebalancing of the male and female energies
that are both so vital in the balance of human existence.
Though our history books offered little help in affirming and promoting
the inherent worth and dignity of women by their deliberate omission
of them, the news media began to tell a different story to the children
of my generation. There were several women of the world, as there
always have been, who were at the forefront of the human endeavor
during that time. By the 1940's and 50's they were beginning to
be recognized. Ralph Waldo Emerson once noted that we live to trifles
when good persons die and we fail to mention their names. And so
today I want to lift up the names of some of the women in whose
shadows my own early years were cast.
Throughout my childhood, I was made aware of and was able to appreciate
the indefatigable efforts of Eleanor Roosevelt, who led the United
States delegation in the formation of the United Nations and in
the development of its charter. Until her death in 1960, she continued
to labor tirelessly on behalf of all the children of the human race.
Indira Gandhi, the only woman to have been elected as a national
head-of-state for three terms of office, served as Prime Minister
of India for nearly two decades from 1966 until her assassination
in 1984. She was known as the "Iron Lady," and the hallmark
of her rule was pragmatic shrewdness. Although she made many enemies
along the way, she was also revered as a champion by many of the
castes of the more common people.
Golda, a young Jewish girl from Milwaukee, grew up to become THE
Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel. Some of us may have agreed
or disagreed with her politics and policies, but in the end she
was a determined, accomplished and unbowed leader of an infant nation
that she served and led with fierceness, dedication and love.
Women did not need to be leaders of nations in order to be leaders
of humanity. My Pantheon of women of the world would not be complete
without recognition of some women whom I admired as a child and
whom I still consider to be saints of the human race. Rosa Parks
sat so that others could stand tall. Fannie Lou Hamer was, "…
sick and tired of being sick and tired," so that others might
find their just rest. Dorothy Day started the Catholic Worker House
so that those down on their luck might not have to be down on their
self-esteem or be lacking in opportunities for betterment. Mother
Teresa attended to the sickest of the untouchables, shining a light
on our common humanity.
These women have all found their way into the history that is being
taught to our children today, thank goodness. But they were the
living companions and leaders of my generation. There were legions
that went before them, upon whose shoulders they stood. And there
are multitudes who now pick up where they left off.
There is one among us here, whom I want to name to this latter
group, and that is our own Pillar of the Congregation, Janice Maffei.
Those of you who have been around for a while will remember that
Janice is a former president of our congregation. Many of you may
not know though, that she is a champion, far beyond our walls, for
women and for people everywhere.
Janice was the primary director and regional coordinator of Women
to Women, an international program dedicated to helping women survivors
of war as they go about rebuilding their lives. She served as a
facilitator for President Clinton's Global Initiative Conference,
which gathers together world leaders annually in order to address
some of the planet's most pressing problems with innovative and
creative solutions. Janice took part in a Women's Leadership Forum
gathering in Chicago a couple of years ago, where a group of prominent
women met to launch the National Women's Leadership Initiative,
an effort to recruit and engage other women leaders from across
the country to work together in support of President Obama. She
recently coordinated the program, "Words of Choice," a
theatrical presentation promoting the protection of women's reproductive
rights. In her free time Janice runs a consulting firm, VisionFirst,
and she is also a playwright and an author. Janice Maffei is a woman
who is in fact a role model for us all.
The truth is there are many women who broke and are breaking through
the barriers that previously held them and their sisters in subservient
roles. The truth is there are many women who continue to serve in
expanding those openings. The truth is that women are now numbered
among every profession and manner of life that is obtainable to
their male counterparts. The question is then - so why do we need
to continue shining a light on women through the observance of Women's
History Month?
Of course the answer is obvious and it is right in front of our
eyes most of the time. But, though it is in plain sight, it too
often flies below notice on our radar screens - I suspect that to
be more true for men than it is for women. So it's important, until
gender balance is achieved, to have International Women's Day and
Women's History Month. We need such commemorative occasions to draw
our attention to truths that can stir our aspirations.
When we pay attention to those truths we see more than the successes
that give us cause to celebrate. We see the cognitive dissonance
that lies between who we think we are as a people and the distance
we have yet to travel in achieving that ideal. When we pay attention
to the plight of women, especially women of lesser means but not
only them, we see something of a continuation of a definite second-class
status. This is true not only in the global sense, but nationally,
too.
According to the National Organization for Women, these past few
months have been brutal in illustrating the gap between the status
of men and women in our country. NOW goes so far as to declare that
the U.S. Congress is waging "War on Women." They make
clear that House Bill, H. R. 1, proposes debilitating cuts to programs
that will endanger women's health, undermine vital food programs,
erode women's economic security and workforce preparedness, undercut
education programs for women and children, and cripple vital housing
programs that especially affect women.
Many others have characterized the House's action as being directed
at and not for women. Pat Waak of the Huffington Post reported that:
During the recent debate over women's health, 240 members of Congress,
mostly men, voted for denying affordable health care to women. At
the head of the pack was a Congressman from New Jersey, Chris Smith.
He has been fighting against women for over three decades.
This outrageous attack on women's health and reproductive rights
provoked another member of Congress, Jackie Speier of California,
to reveal that she had undergone an abortion. "I lost a baby,"
Speier began softly, admonishing [House members] for graphically
describing the procedure she had endured. "But for you to stand
on this floor and to suggest, as you have, that somehow this is
a procedure that is either welcomed or done cavalierly or done without
any thought is preposterous."
Anika Rahman, President & CEO of the Ms. Foundation for Women,
reported that:
On Friday, February 18, the US House of Representatives dealt a
crushing blow to the health and well-being of millions of women
across America: in a 240-185 vote, the House approved H.R. 1…
which would prohibit Planned Parenthood from receiving federal funding
for any purpose, including providing basic preventive health care
to women and families.
Consider it a slap in the face to women in general, especially
to low-income women who have nowhere else to turn for their primary
health care.
At present, Planned Parenthood provides nearly four million tests
and treatments for sexually transmitted infections, 830,000 breast
exams, more than a million Pap tests, and helps prevent more than
612,000 unintended pregnancies each year.
These are recent reports of attacks at the security of primarily
lesser privileged women, who are the most vulnerable. The gender
gap does not only afflict poor women though. Its capacity for permeating
class and economic boundaries can be easily seen in the dark stories
of domestic violence.
The National Coalition against Domestic Violence reports that one
in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime.
An estimated 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by
an intimate partner each year. 85% of domestic violence victims
are women. Historically, women have been most often victimized by
someone they knew. Females who are 20-24 years of age are at the
greatest risk of non-fatal intimate partner violence. And most cases
of domestic violence are never reported to the police.
And still another telling illustration of the need to focus on
the unfulfilled plight of women in the battle for gender equality
is in an area that rarely sees the light of day. It is one that
transcends economic, social, ethnic and all other cultural boundaries.
It is the vulnerability of women to even maintain their maternal
rights when those rights have been challenged in court.
Our own Diane Finn is a social worker and something of an expert
on the issue. She tells me that time and again mothers are stripped
of their parenting rights. Those rights are then often awarded by
the courts to fathers regardless of their capacity to be adequate
custodians, even when they have been vindictive and abusive spouses.
As Diane puts it:
"I have seen the inequality in the Family Court's handling
of women vs. men repeatedly in my career as a DV counselor. Men
often flout court orders and have no consequence; in the same case,
if the women even appears to have not followed the judge's order,
she is threatened with loss of her children. It is well-documented
that the court's response to men telling their children negative
things about their mother or using children to spy on their mother
is minimal to non-existent while the court's response to mom's discussing
in any way the behavior of the father is labeled an attempt at parental
alienation by a vindictive, hostile mother. This is a reflection
of the bias that women are essentially sneaky and vengeful while
men are allowed to be angry and behave in hostile ways because it's
just natural male behavior… The issue of the treatment of women
and children in the Family courts (and the way domestic violence
in general is handled by the courts - criminal and civil) reflect
latent unexamined bias against women."
I don't begin to imagine, and I hope you don't either, that I have
provided anything close to an exhaustive list of the ways in which
women continue to get the short end of the stick in nearly every
aspect of our national and global postmodern/consumerist age. The
number of examples is truly endless.
Some good news though, is that in the past year, according to the
World Economic Forum, the United States moved from 31st in the world
to 19th in closing at least the economic portion of the gender gap.
We have to take our good news where we can get it.
The Forum's Global Gender Gap Report has found that, although more
women are employed than ever before, major corporations are still
not capitalizing on their talents. Pay equality has not been achieved
either. So why are women still not equally represented in major
multinational companies and, when they are, why aren't they being
paid equally? The report shows much progress still being made but
a lot of ground still to make up. Its co-author Ricardo Hausmann,
Director of the Centre for International Development at Harvard,
says countries have to adjust for the fact that marriage and motherhood
are not at odds with women's advancement in the workplace.
What might it mean to be religious in our response to the truths
that are given light through the commemoration of Women's History
Month? It could mean that we take heart from the examples of women
like Eleanor Roosevelt, Fannie Lou Hamer, Janice Maffei and others
who have defied limitations placed on them by society and who have
raised the standard of living for all of us as a result. It could
mean that we gain confidence in moving forward by acknowledging
the very real progress we have made in achieving balance in gender
issues. And I hope it means that we will pay attention to the distance
yet to be traveled, that we will take aim on the obstacles that
still remain as impediments to equality, and that we will be inspired
by visions of a more loving, compassionate and just world to do
better than we have done so far.
The truth of the matter is obvious, and it is right in front of
our eyes most of the time. The object is to keep that truth visible.
The way lies before us. So let us be on our way.
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