Voting for Women's Equality that Includes A Woman in her Entirety

With the elections approaching, I have been thinking a great deal about the need to pass New York State’s Women’s Equality Act.  I had been thinking about it from a distance, for quite some time.  And I had been doing this peripheral thinking because it fills me with a great sense of frustration, or maybe even damn near despair when I get close.  Or closer.  Or close enough to be outraged.  Close enough to need to speak up against those that have refused to pass it in it’s entirety when it was put before the Legislative Session and failed for the second time this past summer. 

And so maybe I’ll take a different approach and not speak up against those that didn’t pass it, but instead I’ll speak up for why I think it’s important to elect representatives that value women in their entirety and are dedicated to passing The Women’s Equality Act.

So here I am.  Ready to attempt to calm and tamp down my frustrated, not quite spitting mad, near despairing disbelief about the state of equality for women in my beloved home state. I’ll try to express why we need to vote for candidates that support women.  And try in some way to articulate why the upcoming elections are so important to ensuring the Women’s Equality Act is passed, for women, and in turn for men. For equality.  For access to equal protections, that we cannot define as under the law, but need instead to demand equal protections above and beside, the current law.  Women can’t have equal protections ‘under the law’ if the law continues to be determined and perceived and made, predominantly by men and unfortunately, those few women, who don’t believe women are capable of making personal and private decisions about their bodies without government interference, restrictions and limitations.  

There has been a great deal of finger pointing and blame being thrown about and an exaggerated twisting of facts, either suggested or blatantly stated, regarding why one particular political party believes the Women’s Equality Act should be passed in it’s entirety while the other party believes one particular part of the act should not be included.  An attempt at revising the Women’s Equality Act by removing one specific part in an effort to pass it lead to a stand off in the NY Senate.  And so the Women’s Equality Act missed being passed, again. This unfortunate outcome is now being used as a political tool to disparage candidates that supported it’s passing.

The Women’s Equality Act, or that one specific part, is being misrepresented as some free wheeling legal document that could potentially give women in New York State the freedom to have abortions wherever, whenever and by whomever they choose.  In reality the point that has stopped the Women’s Equality Act from passing, simply and emphatically codifies the state law to agree with current¹ federal law regarding women and their reproductive rights.These rights would include the right to an abortion if a woman should decide that is the best choice for her. Passing the Women’s Equality Act with the one point dealing with the reproductive rights of women would ensure access to the very provisions already available under federal law, not less than, and no more than.

It seems as though that one part of being a woman that no one likes to discuss straight out in the open is connected to the one part of the Women’s Equality Act that keeps us from fully realizing equality in New York State.  If not for a woman’s rather private anatomical discrepancy that seems to require special² rights, women would otherwise be equal. And perhaps, if women could simply grow a penis, and were not able to become impregnated by someone already well equipped, or even moderately equipped for that matter, with a penis, women would be equal, or I suppose if they could grow that marvelous man part, they might actually just be umm.....let's see.....MEN!!!  Well equipped with rights. You see it sort of defeats the purpose of granting equality if we women are still not permitted to make decisions about our health and well being without the consent of the government.  And so the problem with passing the Women’s Equality Act while excluding the one and only part that deals directly with a woman’s use of her own female anatomy, is that we fall short on providing equal rights to women because they are…..um…..let’s see… give me a minute…… WOMEN!!  

And since female anatomy isn’t customarily discussed in mixed settings, including congress, court houses, state senate, and other government agencies, it makes it hard to discuss those very inequalities solely related to being a woman, and damn near close to impossible to enact policy related to righting the inappropriateness of government policy that palpably crosses the lines, or simply eradicates the lines between separation of church and state, but only as it relates to women. 

The problem with the Women’s Equality Act or at least that one part, is that it relates to a woman’s rights regarding reproductive health.  And those rights might or might not be exercised by choosing to have an abortion.   The Anti-Women's Equality Act rhetoric uses seditious language to capture attention.  Claims about changing abortion law and practices have ensued.  In reality, The Women's Equality Act does not change how abortion is performed or regulated in New York, but it guarantees it.  Rabbi Dennis Ross, the director of Concerned Clergy for Choice wrote in a recent Poughkeepsie Journal OpEd piece,  "The debate about abortion is really a debate about the relationship between religion and government. Abortion opponents are open about their intentions to trample church-state boundaries."' He goes on to state why protecting women “as they come to their own conclusions and receive medical care” is an important matter that requires support.  Electing officials that will support passing the Women’s Equality Act is key.

Candidates that oppose passing this act based on their religious beliefs are out of line and over stepping their positions by attempting to create or block policy by promoting government interference in matters that are religious. Religious liberty relates to an individual's private life.  It provides citizens with protection to follow their faith. According to the now defunct blogger, The Christian Knight, religious liberty, means simply "believe how you like" without interference from the government. It means the government cannot tell you what to believe, or what not to believe, when it comes to religious matters. In this sense it has nothing to do with what is right belief or wrong belief. It is strictly limited to what the government can and cannot do. The restriction is placed on government -- not the Church.  However, this does not mean the Church is not restricted in practicing and preaching it’s specific dogma within the church.  Government officials are free to have and practice their personal beliefs as they see fit, but they are not permitted to create or block policy based on those privately protected beliefs. 

There are regrettably, women that oppose passing the Women’s Equality Act. And so I ask those women running for office; Sue Serino, Kathleen A. Marchione, Elizabeth O’Connor Little, Patricia A. Ritchie, and Catharine M. Young to consider separating their personal and private beliefs about women’s reproductive rights and support instead, equality for all women.  Better yet, I ask everyone in those districts to vote instead for Terry Gipson, Brian Howard, and Amy Tresidder and reach out to the senators that are running uncontested. 

How will we ever be treated equally or have equal rights if policy excludes a woman’s right to make decisions about herself?  How can we continue to permit the exclusion of a woman’s right to medical health care access from the discussion and legislation of equality?  How can anyone justify passing an act that protects women and provides equal rights, as long as it excludes giving women rights to make decisions about their own bodies?

Providing equal rights in a way that women in their entire being get to decide how to live as women, as mother’s or not, as workers or not, as women, and not men is the whole purpose for passing the Women’s Equality Act, in fact every other section of the act includes issues that involve and could potentially grant more rights to men. For those of us women that wish to practice freely, without discrimination, the right to safe and viable choices related to whether or not we wish to have an abortion or not is a necessary and important part of the Women’s Equality Act.  It does not mean that every woman must make the same choice, or agree with the choices being made by some women, but it is vital that all women be permitted to make decisions related to being women.  

Perhaps if we could pass the Women’s Equality Act in New York State, who knows maybe the United States as a whole might consider supporting and ratifying The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW, or the Treaty for the Rights of Women), which was adopted by the United Nations in 1979. It is the most comprehensive international agreement on the basic human rights of women, and the United States currently holds the deeply disturbing distinction as being the one, the only, country in the Western Hemisphereas well as the only industrialized democracy that has not ratified this treaty.  In fact we are joined with Iran and Sudan as countries that have not ratified this treaty.

Footnotes:

¹ Current- as in, since 1973.  New York State’s laws related to women have not been updated since 1970.  You know back in a time before women had a whole lot of rights….back before 1994, when domestic violence became illegal, women’s rights…such a wild new current concept somehow…. Almost makes you wonder

²Special- as in restricted by government

For more information check out these sites.  

http://nywomensequality.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/wea-factsheet-07102013.pdf

http://nownyc.org/womens-equality-agenda/32-state-senators-vote-against-choice/

Ghost Peppers and the Healing Power of Hope and Gratitude

A new day.  

With gratitude. 

There have been times that I have believed I can spin hope from the darkest of corners and between the largest chasms of impossibilities.  And on rare occasions I have convinced others of some great possibility or another.  To see potential all around.  To find happy. I am just now sitting at the river alone, on a small piece of heaven, that is in actuality a small stretch of floating dock, secured to a break wall along the Hudson River in this place I call home.  It is getting dark and there are others gathering a small distance from where I lie.  They come to observe the setting of the sun. 

I am intrigued by this crowd that gathers, from out of woodwork it would seem.  Who are they and what do they want?  Cult-like and mesmerized they stand one or two together frozen, rapt, still.  As the sun sets behind Slide, Van Wyck, Peekamoose, Panther…the majestic Catskill Mountains.  

I rise after the water calms and settles and gather my belongings, a journal, my newest purchase; a book, The Exquisite Risk, my water and walk toward home leaving those gathered in the rapture of the setting sun.   A day has come and gone.  I walk at a pace not normally practiced.  Slow almost.  And notice my face is holding a smile.  A calm has washed over me.

The day prior I attended a Healing Workshop with John of God, a spiritual healer from Brazil.  I went in hopes of providing some degree of proxy healing to my daughter, which I know is a bit way out there in the scheme of normal, or acceptable.  But hey, the fact that my 23 year old daughter was slapped with stage 4 breast cancer is absolutely way out of the scheme of normal and acceptable and what else can I do, but pray, and fret, and worry, until hope and faith kick into my bloodstream and dull the pain and restrain the fears?  I walked around the grounds of Omega, that Eden-like environ, dressed in white and filled with an unknowing that slowly moved toward calm.  Quiet. And I was, like the sunset groupies moving in a similar cult-like rapture staring blankly towards something I could not see or make sense of, but I was for that time, not afraid. 

It was powerful to be in that one place among so many, feeling a collective unison.  We were all there to feed this one thing.  Hope.  And it was palpable.  In the quiet I could also feel the tenderness of doubt around the edges that softened, to become acceptance.   This acceptance was different than any I have experienced before.  It was not begrudging or despairing or submitting. It was not the acceptance of loss.  It was not the giving up of hope.  It was the acceptance that I was where I needed to be.  My daughter is where she is.  (I am determined to not say, where she needs to be….but she is there nonetheless.) It was powerful to be able to be among so many others that were seeking to be healed, seeking to be freed from worldly suffering, pain, debilitating grief, illness, emotional barriers, and/or physical limitations.  I was able to reflect and meditate and see myself exactly where I was.  I was free from comparing myself to others, to where and how much I fell short or was incapable of changing.  For once.  In this place filled with hope because we were all accepting of our pain.   And we were all wanting goodness, wholeness, peace.

Hope and faith are pretty strong ideas, credited for their healing powers even within the scientific community, the very one that relies heavily on medicines and surgical practices that are frequently developed by chance, or to remedy an altogether different ailment.  A medical community that works harder on treating symptoms then finding cures.  A community that is presented with inexplicable miracles and stories of hope and faith that strengthens the healing powers of pills and protocols that cannot be otherwise scientifically explained.   Hope and faith provide promise that cannot be prescribed.  And so I went to see John of God to help support and rejuvenate my own hope and faith.  To help direct a spiritual healing of one kind or another.  To do what little I can beyond making ginger carrot soup and kale arugula apple green tomato banana concoctions so that my daughter may drink down some antioxidant hocus pocus hope in a glass when she visits, unexpectedly.

The morning after my journey in white, I drink my holy water, I fidget my new prayer beads, I put in my rose quartz earrings mined from the Casa de Dom Inacio of Brazil, click my heels, blow a kiss up to God and heaven and head to work.  I am supposed to be in bed for 24 hours following this healing intervention, but John Of God, nor the entities of healing have left any money in my shoes, or added sick time to my benefit package and so I must go to work, but promise to take it easy and maintain as much peace and reflection as I can. 

I am gifted with working with children.  The type that keep things real.  Or push things so far to unbelievable that I am reminded everyday, everything is possible and nothing ever goes the way it should.   Expecting miracles, and disasters, and always laughter.  My students arrive, loud, exuberant, unaware of most anything outside of their own needs and perspectives.  They stumble in with binders and breakfast and problems thought to be insurmountable.  “Why did they put so much cheese for this pretzel on my tray?”  (There is about a cup of thick soft pale orange soup on his Styrofoam tray next to his soft pretzel.  This is breakfast?  I wonder.  I had thought this was a baseball game indulgence, an unimaginative treat from some poolside snackbar. ) “Why is this cheese so hot?”  Student 1 explains immediately, “It is hot pepper, a nacho cheese sauce, that is why.”  (He in fact speaks, in a factoid like mechanical manner when sharing facts.) Student 2 implores unimpressed, “Why would I want nacho cheese for a pretzel? “  Student 1 answers, off track, “Do you know if pepper is hot in your mouth the only thing that will help is milk? That’s why I’m drinking all my milk. See?” He slurps extra loud for impact.  Student 2 disputes this, “C’mon that doesn’t make any sense! But why is there nacho cheese for a pretzel? Student 1 sticks to his guns, “No it’s true. Water will just wash the hot burning reactions all over your throat, but milk absorbs it.  Try it!”  He smiles for extra encouragement.  Student 2 refuses.  Student 1 adds more background knowledge, embellishing and delighting, at the very least, me.  “Do you know the hottest pepper in the world is called the ghost pepper and it can kill you?”  I think I hear music, background, maybe something from The Exorcist..Probably, no doubt if you forget your 52 cents for strawberry milk.  I snarkily think to myself.  But student 2 is coming around, “What? Wait… the ghost pepper? how do you know that, did you ever have one?”

And then suddenly in the middle of this, as I am trying to keep my pact with God and follow the protocol of resting, as I am falling into meditation and reflection and calm…..Student 1 wakes me from my 2 second meditation to ask, “Hey, what exactly are those things?” I’m not quite sure what he ….    "There, in your ears! What are those supposed to be?  A dwarfs weights?  Little pebbles for weightlifting?”  Ah, the healing powers of rose quartz are working miracles already, because in the midst of so much that makes no sense to me, I am smiling.  

Student 1 reminds me that it is important to not take life so seriously.  To be able to laugh at myself.  He helps me stay in the present and not attempt to see any dark edges at the expense of missing the brightness.  The hope. The faith.  The healing powers of ghost peppers, which he swears he has tried.  And he did survive it. He boasts.  As Student 2 says, “Well of course we can see you are alive.”  And I attempt to teach, but always learn a great deal more, about myself, about life, about humanity and that day, about ghost peppers.  The hotness of one is comparable to 100 jalapeno peppers.  When the oil from a ghost pepper is mixed with marine paint, barnacles cannot grow on boats.  I wonder if they can stop cancer cells from growing? But not out loud.  And then Student 1 asks, “Hey, where were you yesterday?”  And I tell him I was helping my daughter.  To which he says, “You have a kid?”  When I laugh and say I have three, he laughs louder and says, “Oh my God! What did you go and do that for?”  I have to smile and reflect and start driving the day toward pronouns and the Haudenosaunee Peace Tree.   

                                               

When I return home from the river, in my peaceful new manner or deportment, my daughter calls to tell me she is coming home for the weekend.  And I am filled with happiness.  At the miracle of her.  Of life.  Of unexpected pleasures. I am filled with gratitude and excited about giving her the amethyst crystal earrings that were purchased for her.  The ones that may or may not look like weights for a very small person.  The ones that may or may not have healing powers.  I can’t wait to see her.  I call out to my son as he is heading downstairs to tell him this news.  She is coming home for the weekend.  I can see his smile expanding as his cheeks grow and become visible from behind.  

I wonder where I can find ghost peppers to remove those barnacles from my daughter, so that she can journey on calmer seas.  I am reminded that hope and faith come in many shapes and sizes and theoretical beginnings.  I am reminded that love is more healing than anything else I can offer.  But just in case, I will be following the protocol for healing for the next 40 days.  And maybe after that the seas will calm or part or continue to wash over me and provide restorative life affirming grace. And I will look forward to a big soft pretzel with mustard and maybe a ghost pepper on the side.  And a drink.  It is long over due for me to rid myself of a few sharp edged barnacles that have been blocking my vision, my hope and faith.