I Am Beautiful: A Celebration of Women in Their Own Words

FEMINIST CULTURE • POLITICS • RELATIONSHIPS • ANALYSIS5.95 • CANADA $4.50HTHE PROGRESSIVE WOMAN'SQUARTERLYAlice Walkeron God, Magicand the Pagan SelfBosnia:A Nation ofWidowsBY JANGOODWINGuerillaHealthCarePLUSKate Milletfs Unknown ArtTara and Other Lieso 74470 78532 3

feedback'You can be childless and recognize the need forchild care; you can be single and helpend discrimination in marriage and divorce.'—M.LSTEVICK, WELLSBURG, WVStripped of IllusionsI recently picked up your fall '96 issueand was pleasantly surprised at my newfind. However, I have to object on behalfof myself and my coworkers to Ms.Maio's film section [Bad Girls Badly, fall'96.] I was anxious to read her critique ofStriptease. I was offended to read backhandedcomments about "real-life strippers."In less than a paragraph, she managedto trash an industry that supportssingle mothers, keeps women off welfareor helps them get off welfare, putswomen through school and supportswomen-owned businesses.By calling our audience "marks," Ms.Maio suggests that what we do is illegaland immoral. When she states thatdancers deliver "the illusion of friendly,feminine, sexual availability" and that"gymnastic routines delivered with coldauthority...would make lousy tips," Ms.Maio shows an unprecedented naiveteabout the industry. It has been my experience(and I have been doing this forfour years) that dancers who can danceand are gymnastic make better tips.I have always thought that feminismis about choice, but here I am readingthat the choice I have made for myself iswrong—and in as unlikely a place as afilm critique. Haven't you learned yetthat language is as powerful a weaponas it is a tool?Jennifer WisenbakerNew Haven, CTA Sexist Thing?I was disgusted with Charmaine Seitz'article: "Sexy Divas: It's a ControlThing," [fall '96]. Charmaine's attitude iscounterprogressive; she seems to thinkthat the way for women to gain self-respectis by showing off their bodies. Ithink it's wonderful that she feels so confidentabout her body, but shouldn'twomen be concentrating on their intelli-ON THE ISSUES welcomes letters and considersthem for publication in the magazine and on itswebsite, unless otherwise specified. Letters maybe edited for clarity and space. Send to ON THEISSUES, CHOICES Women's Medical Center, Inc.,97-77 Queens Blvd., Forest Hills, NY 71374-3317, or e-mail to onissues@echonyc.com.gence and gain respect with their knowledgeand creativity, rather than focusingon their appearance? Flaunting yourbody only emphasizes men's view ofwomen as sex objects. I'm 17 years old,and when I hear women like Charmaineboasting about their self-esteem, itmakes me worried about the state of thefeminist movement. I think a relationshipshould be based on mutual respectON M ISSUESthe male role model< WUSON The organization of angry dadsCARIES HEYWAKO Whaf s really wrongwith the faith of our fathersand equality; neither party should be incontrol of the other!She states her admiration for Salt-N-Pepa and TLC for gaining powerthrough objectifying themselves; howcan she admire those fascist celebrities?They are reinforcing the stereotypicalidea that the only way to "train" yourman is by using your body as a center ofseduction. We must grow as individuals,value our intelligence and individuality,and stop focusing on superficial consumeristpreoccupations.Erika FisherMontreal, QueFreedom of ChoiceI read Phyllis Chesler's story regardingchild support "Is Every Woman One DivorceAway From Financial Disaster"[winter '97], and I felt sorry for her. Hergeneration was brought up with themyth of everlasting romantic love, so itseemed as if every married couple wasrelatively happy. However, whenever asituation like that arises with anyone 35years or younger, I don't feel as sorry forthem. I think by now they should have aclue. The exceptional men are just that—the exceptions.I do not plan to get married. I thinkit's ludicrous to start out with somethingthat involves freedom and personalchoice and turn it into something legallybinding. I have also decided to remainchildless. If I were ever to change mymind, however, I would make the decisionbased on my income, how muchleave I can expect from my job, and thechances of keeping my job. I wouldn'tmake plans based on the lip service of aman who is probably harboring romanticfantasies of fatherhood.Although I don't plan to marry orhave children, I am still very supportiveof changing the law. I think you can bechildless and still recognize the need forchild care for working women , especiallythe working poor. I think you can besingle and still help to end discriminationin marriage and in divorce. We allneed to do our part, because we are all inthis together. When one woman suffers,we all suffer. When one woman ishelped, we are all helped.M. L. StevickWellsburg, WVPopular Feminism Counts, TooWhen I read Bonnie Dow and Lisa MariaHogeland's "When Feminism Meets thePress, Our Real Politics Get Lost," [TalkingFeminist, winter '97] I found myselfvacillating between cheers and boosfrom one paragraph to the next. The articlemakes crucial points about the limitationsof the ideological media darling,"power feminism," especially in its individualsolutions and self-help approachto feminist politics. However, I findsome of the implications of Dow andHogeland's article more troubling,includingthe labeling (and denigrating) ofthese media events as a milquetoast kindof "feminist literacy."Isn't feminist reform, however modest,worth something? I do not share theauthors' woe about "feminist literacy,"though I agree that it is "by no means anunmediated vision of feminism." I, forone, am among those feminists the au-O N THE ISSUES • Spring 1997

thors suggest are naively "grateful" forfeminist literacy, and I don't think thisgratitude means one must embrace PR tothe detriment of the feminisms outsidethe mass media.The point for me, which I think constitutes"real politics," is that feministsmight more often laud and appreciatethose who fashion progressive politicalplatforms into more popular (albeit simplistic)terms. I believe such mainstreamfeminisms can encourage women tochange their lives and to seek out furtherfeminist activity. I don't mean to suggestthat ''power feminism" is progressiveenough—a sort of "don't worry, behappy" approach to social justice. However,when feminists are unable or unwillingto celebrate and to capitalize onsuch media attention, as well as to engagein sustained political critique, perhapswe need to worry more about ourown goals and motivations, as well asthose of the "unfair" media.Devoney LooserIndiana State UniversityBloomington, INNo Laughing MatterPaula J. Caplan, in her article "Try DiagnosingMen's Mind Games Insteadof Pathologizing Women" [winter '97]refers to Gloria Steinem's article onFreud; perhaps Caplan attempted to followSteinem's lead in using humor andsatire to shed light on the misogyny embeddedin some psychological researchand diagnostic measures. However, Caplan'sarticle lacks Steinem's tongue-incheekwit; she fails to illuminate theproblems inherent in the classification offeminine behavior as mental illness.Caplan complains that "the gatekeepersof the DSM" are mostly white, malepsychiatrists. However, her resignationfrom a DSM committee is in part toblame for this situation. It is unfair forCaplan to criticize the DSM for excludingwomen when she had the opportunityto remedy the problem. But ratherthan serve on a DSM committee, Caplanhas settled for writing a male-bashingpiece which does not help feminists inmeeting our goals.I give Caplan credit for recognizingthat many of the diagnoses found in theDSM are biased and detrimental towomen. I wish that she would use herintelligence, determination and title in amore productive manner that wouldbenefit women.Liza FeldmanAlbany, NYIn Defense of EquestriansAs a feminist and a lifelong equestrianand horse lover, I was delighted to findNorine Dworkin's "Equestrian Equality"[fall '96] in my first issue of your magazine.The following issue included BatyaBauman's patronizing and disparagingletter, to which I am responding.So many people in this country believethat equestrian sports are all about"dominating the horse and bending it tothe master's will." In reality, to be at allsuccessful, riders must be in tune withtheir equine partner's body and mind.Brute force or intimidation, althoughused by ignorant trainers, never produceslasting positive results. This is, Ibelieve, why women tend to do so wellin the equine world. We are sometimesmore apt to try to understand why ahorse is behaving a certain way, whereasmen can be more prone to simply demandobedience.I ride horses not because I want powerand control, nor because I think it isprestigious, but because the partnershipand fusion that can occur when myhorse friend and I concentrate intentlyon one another is a singular joy in mylife.Ms. Bauman states that she would feela "whole lot better" about women wholove horses if we were in the forefront ofefforts to "end the many ways horses areexploited and abused in our culture." Inmy 16 years of experience with horses, ithas been the professional trainers, instructors,veterinarians, blacksmiths,barn managers, etc. who have been themost active and the most effective incombating abuse and cruelty. They arethe ones who educate the unknowingowner about caring for their pony, runthe local 4-H clubs, buy washed-up racehorses to retrain for a new life. I personallyhave called the local humane societyseveral times about starving horses I'dseen, and know many friends who havedone similar things. I mounted a largealumna letter-writing campaign to mycollege alma mater when I discoveredthat the person hired to run the school'sequestrian program had allowed thehorses to become thin due to underfeeding(that person subsequently resigned.)So, it is simply wrong for Ms. Bauman toimply that women who love horsesaren't involved.One more point: What is this obsessionwith women riders wearing tallleather boots with spurs, carrying crops,and so on? It occurred to me that imagesof S&M/bondage must be flittingthrough the minds of the uninitiated. Letme set the record straight: We wear tallboots because they are practical. I wouldhave raw holes rubbed into my legs if Irode without some kind of protection.Tall boots are also traditional, originatingnot with the military, but with overthe-kneeboots worn by English foxhunters.Let me now explain why we use spursand crops. When horses are interactingamongst themselves, they often bite andkick one another as a matter of course.These bites and kicks do not really hurtthe horses, although if one of them wereto bite or kick a human in the same way,it would severely injure us. The use ofspurs (nowhere near as harsh) as anotherhorse nipping the side of the one beingridden, is to encourage the horse tomove away from the pressure. Only experiencedriders who have enough bodilycontrol to use the spur selectivelyshould wear them, if they are needed fora particular horse. The use of the cropimitates the same thing, only it can beused in different places such as the rumpor shoulder. Again, a rider must be experiencedto use a crop or whip. Whipsand spurs, used properly, are trainingaids, not devices for punishment.Allison L. SchrafPittsburgh, PACorrection:NOW would like to correct informationincluded in the article, "Will PaternalParanoia Triumph?" [winter '97] by TrishWilson. The National Organization forWomen has not established a "ClearinghouseAgainst Fathers' Rights." NOW'sNational Board of Directors passed a resolutionat its 1996 National Conferenceto establish a clearinghouse for informationabout so-called "fathers' rights"groups whose objectives are to restrictand limit custodial parents' rights and todecrease child support obligations ofnon-custodial parents. These groups andtheir political agendas can be especiallyharmful to battered and abused womenand children. However, NOW's data collectionon these groups, like-mindedjudges and sympathetic policymakers isin the preliminary stages, and the clearinghousehas not been activated or formallynamed.Patricia Ireland, PresidentNational Organization for WomenWashington, D.C.EDITOR'S NOTE: Sorry we jumped the gun!ON THE ISSUES regrets the error.S p r i n g 1 9 9 7 • O N T H E I S S U E S

The good old daysat home sweet homeby Marge Piercyhard, honest work. This day, I didn't feelthat way. Returning home with the family,I learned what it was like to be invisible.Not once did the grandfather addressme directly; I was clearly of solittle consequence that he never felt theneed to even look in my direction. I wastold that since the family was about tohave lunch, I could wait in the livingroom, or go outside to the park. I choseto wait in the park.Until I came to this country, Inever had hate in my heart for anyone.Yet I have been treated so despicably,and cried so much that now I have notears left. I listen with amusement toworking mothers who claim to wantgood, reliable child care, because I knowthey don't mean it. What many of thesewomen want is cheap, anonymous labor.What I still can't understand is whymothers would treat so inhumanely theperson to whom they have entrusted themost valuable person in their life.Should I be part of the family? Not necessarily,but is respect and compassiontoo much to ask? I refer to mothers purposely;one thing that always struck meabout the child care situations that Ifound myself in is that the husbandshave always been very pleasant, kinderand more thoughtful than their wives. Ihaven't decided what the problem wasbetween myself and the women I haveworked for. I know only that I came tothis country with an open mind. Trulyunaware that we were supposed to dislikeeach other—black and white, Jewand gentile, working class and affluent,as a sad result of my experiences my innocencehas been lost.I want to believe that the children Ihave loved will always remember me asfondly as I remember them. I hope theynever succumb to the prejudice aroundthem, learning to see me as only anothernanny in a long line of caretakers. I hopeI have left my mark on them, just as theyhave on me. In the end, it has been theirinnocence that has kept me from embracinghate. •On Monday my mother washed.It was the way of the world,all those lines of sheets flappingin the narrow yards of theneighborhood,the pulleys stretching out secondand third floor windows.Down in the dank steamy basement,wash tubs vast and grey, the wringersliding between the washerand each tub. At least everyyear she and I caughta hand in it.Tuesday my mother ironed.One iron was the mangle.She sat at it feeding in towels,sheets, pillow cases.The hand ironing beganwith my father's underwear.She ironed his shorts.She ironed his socks.She ironed his undershirts.Then came the shirts,a half hour to each, the starchboiling on the stove.I forget blueing. I forgetthe props that held up the lineclattering down. I forgetchasing the pigeons that shaton her billowing housedresses.I forget clothespins in the teeth.Tuesday my mother ironed myfather's underwear. Wednesdayshe mended, darned socks ona wooden egg. Shined shoes.Thursday she scrubbed floors.Put down newspapers to keepthem clean. Friday shevacuumed, dusted, polished,scraped, waxed, pummeled.How did you become a feministinterviewers always askas if to say, when did thisrare virus attack your brain?It could have been Saturdaywhen she washed the windows,Thursday when she burnedthe trash, bought grocerieshauling the heavy bags home.It could have been any dayshe did again and again whattime and dust obliteratedat once until stroke brokeher open. I think it was Tuesdaywhen she ironed my father's shorts.MARGE PIERCY is the author of 13 novels and 12 collections of poetry. What AreBig Girls Made Of? is her most recent work.© 1996 Marge PiercySpring 1997 • ON THE ISSUES 11

One Flew Over the Coup:The Sculpture of Kate MilLettThe scholar Kate Millett, Ph.D., Columbia University, 1970, through a stunningexamination of patriarchal bias, gave the second round of 20th-centuryfeminism its theoretical moorings. The dissertation-turned-bestseller, SexualPolitics, secured Millett a Time magazine cover, household-name status,book contracts (a total of eight over the next 25 years)—and arguably herfame led to near oblivion as a sculptor. Ironically, her own torrent of wordsthat has eclipsed her prolific and profound body of art were sculpted in thestudio. There would have been no Sexual Politics without the 1963 "FurnitureSuite," a fanciful assemblage of hand-carved body parts encased in abed, love seat, and piano, in which Millet explored gender issues.Art historian Kathy O'Dell, has organized, with the Fine Arts Gallery atthe University of Maryland/Baltimore County, the first major retrospectiveof Millett's sculpture, opening February 27 (through April 5). The impetusto show her sobering large-scale installations since 1967 and earlier examplesof her witty surrealist sculptures came from "a desire to balance therecord," says O'Dell. As the curator observes, to second-wave feminists,Millett is a founding mother; to political activists worldwide, she is a comradeagainst human-rights violations; and to lesbians, she is a sensuous andculturally astute chronicler of her relationships with women. All can nowreckon with her extraordinary art production. In "Kate Millett, Sculptor:The First 38 Years," in the exhibit's catalogue, "Shaping Identity, ReshapingConstraints," and in a series of related lectures and interactive Web sites,the connections between Millett's visual and written work are finally addressed.The many Milletts are together at last.—HARRIET LYONSThe Trial of Sylvia Likens, 1978 •MiLLett's reaction to the 1965 torture-murderof teenager Sylvia Likens, held captivein an Indianapolis basement, would dramaticallychange the pop and fantasy imageryof her earlier work. The metaphor ofthe cage was born. It was "fear itself,"wrote Millett. "My fears. The fears of others.Of our times in fact. Confinement. Theterror of isolation." Although Likens's ordealwas the "hidden engine" powering herartistic vision, Millett did not deal with herexperience head-on until 13 years later in"The Trial of Sylvia Likens." This mockcourtroom filled with life-size models ofthe perpetrators invites visitors to readLikens's harrowing story written out on thewall (news accounts and pages from themanuscript of "The Basement") and listento it on audiotape.12 O N T H E I S S U E S • S p r i n g 1997

Psychiatry, 1995This work is informed by Milletfs personal history withthe mental health system. She was briefly committed in1972 to what she calls a California madhouse throughmisguided family intervention, and again in 1980 inIreland by police after she supported IRA hunger strikers."Psychiatry" displays a medicine chest housing bottlesof antipsychotics alongside bottles labeled withtheir positive and negative results. A hoped for effect,"quiet," can as easily produce "fright." "The glass doorof the cabinet has been smashed," observes curatorKathy O'Dell. "Medical tape has been wrapped aroundit, holding the cabinet together, as flimsily, Millettseems to be saying, as its drugs hold people together."rmfmmmmmHomage to the Old Menat the Houston Hotel, 1975 •The flop house that once stood a stone's throw from Milletfsstudio on the Bowery in Manhattan is re-created asa regulation cell with a victim she describes as "archetypicallymale. As are most prisoners, 'criminal' or political.As are most inhabitants of flop houses... With women, Ihave always known. That was our life—confinement... Allthat was merely theoretical until Sylvia Likens. Thisspunky kid, this humorist and fighter was punished untodeath for her energy, her potential sexual vitality. Shewas my lost child self. It could have been me, and in asense it was. I joined the underground people. Thereafterthey would be my subject, what I sculpted."H 1ri\< Waiting for Godot, 1995The two gigantic, wheel-like forms atop abench evoke two seated figures, a referenceto Estragon and Vladimir of Samuel Becketfsplay. These characters, according tocurator Kathy O'Dell, "wait for Godot, bidingtheir time by exchanging banalities andreflections on the vicissitudes of life. Nobodynamed Godot ever appears, the pointbeing the waiting: the deferral of satisfaction;the containment of desire. These arelikewise the terms of imprisonment." Whileno actual cages appear in Milletfs most recentwork, O'Dell sees the "caged dynamic"thriving. For Millett, however, "this entailsnot only resisting but reshaping constraints—thevery socio-political conditionsthat form the meaning of life."Spring 1997 • ON THE ISSUES 13

Desperate Measures:A mother battles a sick systemby Katherine Eban Finkelstein"Don't judge me by my house," saysKathryn Myrice, 42, in the airless clutterof her clapboard home on the edge ofOhio farm country. In the summer-bakedinterior, we wind through an obstaclecourse of illness. The small frontentrance hall has been converted into asick room, where her 19-year-old son,Chad, lies in a hospital bed. Light burnsthrough the small screen windows. Acool wash cloth covers his face, which isswollen from medication.Kathryn, coping with her son's fastmovingbrain tumor, leads me into herkitchen. At the table, amid strewnashtrays and stacks of medical records,sit three generations of family with nomedical insurance: her sister, Julie,wheelchair-bound (years ago, she wasshot by a jealous boyfriend); Kathryn'steenage daughter, Tonya, feeding herbaby son, Justin, perched in a high chair.Chad hollers out, "Mom," and Kathryngets up. "Having a brain tumor doesn'taffect your lungs," she says, her blue eyeslighting up behind pink glasses, herstenciled eyebrows rising. After giving herson a fresh washcloth, she returns to thetable. "I don't care if there are disastersstacked up to the ceiling," she says. "Ihave one function in this world right now,which is to take care of my son."Despite her fortitude and good humor,Kathryn is, in fact, desperate. Her son isdying and neither of them has healthinsurance. She forages constantly forcompassionate doctors, negotiatesresources and does end runs around anunresponsive system.Kathryn Myrice's predicament is onesmall ripple in a deepening nationalcrisis. An estimated 40 millionAmericans, almost one-fifth of thepopulation, lack health insurance,according to the Census Bureau. Thisnumber is climbing by two million ayear. New census figures reveal that onany given day, 61 million people areuncovered at least briefly after changingor losing their jobs. Because half of themare full-time employees, one recessioncould spike this number by 10 million.Behind these staggering numbers,however, is a crisis that falls heavilyon women: 13 million of the 40 millionuninsured are women; their childrencomprise another 10 million. In addition,26 million women are insured byMedicaid, the federal-state healthinsurance program for the poor. Thosekicked off welfare in the wake oflegislative reform will likely lose theirMedicaid entitlement and join theuninsured. And because, like Kathryn,women are often the primary caretakers,they end up nursing uninsured parentsand children.Despite a recent wave of incrementalhealth reforms, uninsured women andtheir struggles remain invisible. The new48-hour laws, which require insurers topay for two-day hospital stays forchildbirth and mastectomies, supportwomen who are already insured. TheKennedy/Kassebaum legislation, whichguarantees employees who change jobsthe right to new insurance regardless ofpre-existing conditions, willpredominantly help men, who are farmore likely to have health insurancethrough their employers.Also, the final bill does not regulatethe cost of insurance, which is typicallyTHAT\W0ME-K1l-f-'i 4. uJOiUvm.»nhigher for women of child-bearing agewho need regular checkups, and foremployers who hire such women.Moreover, many insurers either refuse togrant policies, or make themprohibitively expensive, for women withpre-existing conditions. Astonishingly,many insurers include domestic violenceas a pre-existing condition.With a system that so vigorouslyexcludes women, the fallout is far morethan payment and debt. The issue is,literally, a matter of life and death—asKathryn Myrice learned. When Chadsuffered his first symptom—a seizure in1993—doctors at a free clinic referredhim to St. Charles Hospital, a smallcommunity facility outside Toledo. Thedoctor who read his test results thereinformed Kathryn that her son was"healthy as a horse."However, because they weren'tinsured, St. Charles's doctors refused totake a magnetic resonance imaging test(MRI), which would have been the bestway to diagnose Chad's tumor. "Theytreat you like dirt," Kathryn recallsgrimly. "I couldn't say to them, "This isneurological. Take an MRI.' Nobodywould listen to me."Increasingly, such high-tech care isreserved for insured patients, and theresults have become painfully clear. Theuninsured are 25 percent more likely todie of their illnesses, and three timesmore likely than insured patients to diewhile in a hospital, according to a recentstudy in the New England Journal ofMedicine. As well, the uninsured oftenseek out care too late, when their diseaseis far advanced. As Jim Tallon, presidentof the United Hospital Fund, explains:"People who are uninsured often look atthe economic barrier and wait too longT'S MO£EL-IK.E WE'VE COMEWECA-W OlEKATHERINE EBAN FINKELSTEIN,a contributing editor to ON THE ISSUES, isan investigative journalist who writes frequentlyon health-care issues.1.4 ON THE ISSUES • Spring 1997

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The crisis of the uninsured falls heavily on women: 13 million of the 40 millionuninsured are women; their children comprise another 10 million. And because womenare often the primary caretakers, they end up nursing uninsured parents and children.to get into the system."By the end of 1994, Chad was wellenough to be hired as a courier forUnited Parcel Service. But in August '95,he jumped off his delivery truck and somisgauged the height that he fell andripped open his knee. Again Kathryntook him to St. Charles, where he wastreated for superficial injuries. UPS,attributing the fall to poor vision, insistedthat Chad get glasses or he would befired. When he discovered the company'sinsurance plan did not cover eye care, hedecided to quit for a job at Sears, whichpermitted him to obtain a store creditcard. He charged his eyeglasses.Kathryn now reflects on this jobchange. "Chad wasn't willing to admithe was sick," she sighs. So, the Myricesfailed to seek out stop-gap measures likesick leave or disability. As Chad'ssymptoms worsened, Kathryn returnedwith him to St. Charles. This time a newdoctor examined him more carefully,running a battery of tests, and was ableto diagnose the tumor. As she recalls, thedoctor told Chad, "You're going to die.You have three months left to live."That is the moment, as Kathryn canbest pinpoint it, that she becamepolitical. She learned how to bend thelaw and break the rules in order to getcare for her son. Her energy came notfrom any epiphany about the socialjustice pyramid and her place near thebottom of it. It came from the raw factthat her son wanted to live.She filed the paperwork so Chadcould receive Medicaid. During thisprocess, Kathryn, determined to liftChad's death sentence, becamecaptivated by a TV news feature. AnOhio couple had brought their dyingdaughter to a Houston cancer specialist,Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski, who cured herwith experimental treatments.She resolved she would take Chad toDr. Burzynski. She needed close to$15,000 to get there and pay fortreatment. Medicaid would not coverthe cost of experimental procedures. Soa friend of Kathryn's created a cookbookto sell, the proceeds destined for Chad.They canvassed neighboring counties,set up donation buckets, had cookbookdrives at the local school and scrapedtogether $9,000. Because these fundsneeded to be put in a trust of whichChad could not be the trustee, Kathrynhastily established a trust in Tonya'sname—unaware that such an actionwould jeopardize her daughter'seligibility for welfare.Kathryn borrowed the rest from herbrother-in-law and left for Houston withChad, who was now unable to walk.While Chad was being treated, hisMedicaid caseworker learned of thetrust fund. No longer consideredindigent, Chad lost his Medicaid card.With the trust in her name, Chad's sisterand her son were then dropped from thewelfare rolls.The family continued raising moneyfor Chad's care, but he returned fromHouston only marginally improved.Kathryn then brought him to St.Vincent's Hospital, a high-tech facility inToledo. Remarkably, she found a radicalphysician there, Dr. Jonathan Ross, amember of Physicians for a NationalHealth Program, which lobbies forcomprehensive health coverage. Dr. Rossprescribed chemotherapy, which wassanctioned by the hospital billingdepartment even though Chad wastechnically uninsured. Kathryn,disputing Medicaid's decision to dropChad, put the expenses on his expiredcard. St. Vincent's medical staff was mostconcerned about trying to save Chad'slife. His mother would just let thegovernment catch up with her later.Chad died last September at home.Kathryn managed to get his Medicaidcard reinstated, but not until three daysbefore his death. "I explained toeveryone, 'You're going to wait until it'stoo late,'" says Kathryn. She was neverable to get Chad the right medication oreven the right portable hospital bedbecause she could not afford it. She hasbeen devastated by Chad's death. She isalso left with more than $30,000 inunpaid medical bills.Kathryn's brush with rebellion isfading with the loss of her son—which isexactly why uninsured women remainuninsured. Their political activities hangon the cycles of illness and often ebbwith the loss of a loved one. Kathrynwould like to help create change, whichis why she is telling her story. But sheremains immersed in personal crisis,caught in a tangle of Medicaidpaperwork and meetings with a lawyerto assess St. Charles Hospital's liabilityin failing to diagnose Chad earlier.Clearly, the very nature of illnessconsumes time, a commodityrequired for activism. During Chad'sillness, Kathryn was a survivalist, doingeverything she could to get by. Ideally(but perhaps unrealistically) familiesstruck by illness should work thesystem, as well as, organize politically intheir communities.How can the uninsured sustain theirenergy? The difference between failureand success might be a major conceptualshift. Uninsured voters need to stopthinking along party lines to effectchange. Instead, they need to startthinking of themselves (and organizingthemselves) as a single voting block. Fortymillion strong, they would constitute thelargest single voice in America. In thisway, their interests might effectivelycompete with those of the insurance andpharmaceutical lobbies, which doomedthe Clinton Administration's nationalhealth reform efforts.In Kathryn Myrice's vehemence lies theseeds of the next health care revolution.Because ultimately, no one will careenough to change the system except thefamilies of those who are dying. •S p r i n g 1997 • O N T H E ISSUES 15

ON THE ISSUESS p r i ng 19 97theonlyreasoityouwanttogotoheavenisthatyouhavebeendrivenoutofyourmind(oflfyourlandandoutofyourlover'sarms) ,'. .. . Aclear seeing innentedreligion and reclaimingthe pagan selfO N T H E I S S U E S • S p r i n g 1 9 9 7

Unto the woman God said: I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thyconception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall beto thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.—GENESIS 3:16.: U

ported their effort to keep the church open by respondingto whatever modest requests for assistancethey have made. I do this because I respect these oldwomen, and also because I recognize them as thekeepers of a personal heritage that is very dear to me.The cemetery with virtually all of my relatives, includinggrandparents and parents, is just across theway, as is the vetch-covered space where the firstconsolidated school for black people in our communityused to stand. A school my father was instrumentalin erecting. I find myself once or twice a yearsitting on the church steps, peeking into the windows,or just standing in the yard, remembering.What I remember is playing tag and hide-and-goseekwith my cousin and best friend, Delilah. 1 Shewas radiantly black, funny; and fleet of foot, andher mother dressed her in the same airy, colorfulsummer dresses and patent-leather shoes just theway my mother dressed me. Perhaps she had morepigtails; I had bigger bows. In winter we wore identicalmaroon-colored snow suits, which served uswell in the uninsulated church, which was then, andstill is, heated by a potbellied stove. We would growup and lose touch, and she would barely escape aviolently abusive marriage, about which I heardonly after the fact. I remember my father huddledwith other men outside under the trees, laughing.My mother scrubbed and shining, smiling. We wereall on our best behavior, even my incorrigibly raucousbrothers who, only at church, managed to beboth neat and quiet.Because we were Methodists, and sang mostlystandard hymns, the singing wasn't all that great. Iloved it, though, because I liked singing with others—stilldo—and I was, even as a small child, humbledby the sincerity inthe voices of everyone.After we sang any kindof song together, therewas nobody in the congregationI didn't love.Perhaps the singinghad been even more sincerea hundred yearsearlier; legend had itthat the former slaveowners would stoptheir buggies underneaththe red oak to listen.Sometimes professionalgospel singerscame down from Atlantaand "turned theplace out." They wereundisputed queens inThe author in 1950 at age six. their shiny red or bi uerobes: they shouted atGod as if they knew Him personally and also knewHe was hard of hearing. The black stuff around theireyes, which began to run and smear the moment they' Not her real name.began to sweat, was strange to us, as was the fact thatthey wore, and wiped off, more lipstick in an afternoonthan my plain, country beauty mother wouldown in her life.My mother, in addition to her other duties asworker, wife, and mother of eight children, was alsomother of the church. I realize now that I was kind ofa little church mother in training, as I set out for thechurch with her on Saturday mornings. We wouldmop the bare pine floors, run dust rags over thebenches and wash the windows. Take out the ashes,dump them behind the outhouse, clean the outhouse,and be sure there was adequate paper. We wouldsweep the carpeting in the pulpit and I would reverentlydust off the Bible. Each Saturday my motherslipped a starched and ironed, snowy white doily underneathit.One season she resolved to completely redo thepulpit. With a hammer and tacks and rich, wine-darkcloth she'd managed to purchase from meager savings,she upholstered the pulpit chairs, including thethrone-like one in which the preacher sat. She alsolaid new carpeting. On Sunday morning she wouldbring flowers from her garden.tHERE HAS NEVER BEEN ANYONE WHO AMAZEDand delighted me as consistently as mymother did when I was a child. Part of hermagic was her calm, no-nonsense manner. Ifit could be done, she could probably do it,was her attitude. She enjoyed being strong and capable.Anything she didn't know how to do, she couldlearn. I was thrilled to be her apprentice.My father and brother cleared the cemetery ofbrush and cut the grass around the church while wewere inside. By the time we were finished, everythingsparkled. We stood back and admired our work.Sister Walker, my mother, was thanked for makingthe church so beautiful, but this wise woman, whoknew so many things about life and the mysteries ofthe heart, the spirit, and the soul, was never asked tospeak to the congregation. If she and other "mothers"and "sisters" of the church had been asked to speak,if it had been taken for granted that they had visionand insight to match their labor and their love,would the church be alive today?And what would the women have said? Wouldthey have protested that the Eve of the Bible did notrepresent them? That they had never been that curious?But of course they had been just as curious. If atree had appeared in their midst with an attractivefruit on it, and furthermore one that they were informedwould make them wise, they would havenibbled it.And what could be so wrong about that? Anyway,God had told Adam about the forbidden fruit; Hehadn't said a word directly to Eve. And what kind ofGod would be so cruel as to curse women and menforever for eating a piece of fruit, no matter how forbidden?Would they have said that Adam was aweak man who evaded personal responsibility forg-3cI18 O N THE ISSUES • Spring 1997

his actions? Would they have pointed out howquickly and obsequiously he turned in hiswife to God, as if she had forced him to eat theSO hard for HIV parents'h(ypnprotinn t4-iaf the* cnKip^fruit, rather than simply offered him a bite? g eller

were not permitted to speak. They might have demandedthat the men of the church notice Earth.Which always leads to revolution. In fact, everyonehas known this for a very long time. For the other,more immediate and basic reason my mother and theother women were not permitted to speak in churchwas that the Bible forbade it. And it is forbidden inthe Bible because, in the Bible, men alone are sanctionedto own property, in this case, Earth itself. Andwoman herself is property, along with the asses, theoxen, and the sheep.I can imagine some latter day Jezebel in our community(Jezebel apparently practiced a Goddess-centered,pagan religion one of those the God of the OldTestament is always trying to wipe out) having thenerve to speak up about being silenced. And thesmugness with which our uninspiring and indifferentlytrained minister, Reverend Whisby, might havedirected her to a passage from the New Testamentthat is attributed to Saint Paul: "Let women keep silencein the churches." He would run his pudgy fingerunderneath the sentence, and she would read itand feel thoroughly put down. For God wrote theBible, she would have been persuaded; and everyAlice with mother, Minnie Lou Walker, 1979I could not seehow my parentshad sinned...I didnot see that theywere evil, thatthey should becursed becausethey were black,because mymother was awoman. Theywere as innocentas trees, I felt.word, even every word about murdering the sucklingbabies of your enemies and stealing all theirworldly goods, was Truth.I remember going with my mother to get waterfrom the spring. What is a spring? Many will ask, justas I did. It is a place in the earth where water justbubbles up, pure and sweet. You don't ask for it, youdon't put it there. It simply appears. There was onedown the hill from our house, in a quiet grove oftrees. Someone years before had put a piece of aterra-cotta culvert around it, with a notch in the lipfor overflow. We'd dip our battered aluminum bucketsin the shallow well, always careful to spot wherethe crawfish might be hiding, and perhaps sit for aminute before trudging back up the hill. How onearth did the crawfish get in there? I'd ask. They arealways in healthy springs, was the answer. Yes, butwhy? I don't know, that's just the way it is.But why is that the way it is? Where did they comefrom? There were no other crawfish for miles around.I never saw them in the creek, for instance, where mybrothers and I waded. This was a mystery that wasnot explained by my mother's final exasperated"God brought them."I was happier with my father's explanation: "Wellyou see, these crawfishes used to live over 'roundBuckhead, but it just got too goldarn hot on accountof all them fires the lumber company makes cleaningup the slag...so they held a crawfish convention,kinda like our revivals, and they resolved to moveEast. So they traveled and they traveled and one daythey came to this place where there was this prettylittle girl sitting looking down in the water. And youknow crawfish love to be looked at, so..." In fact, neitherof my parents knew how the crawfish got intothe spring.On the one hand I could strain to imaginea large white man in a white robe—unfortunatelyreal-life white men in robes belongedto the Ku Klux Klan—lovinglycarrying two tiny crawfish down the hill toplace them in our spring, or I could fantasizeabout the stouthearted crawfish pioneersleaving Buckhead with their SearsRoebuck Catalog, crawfish-size, suitcases.Because of the criminal exploitation inherentin the sharecropping system-inwhich the landowner controlled land,seeds, and tools, as well as records of account,sharecroppers were often worse offthan slaves, which was the point. Sharecroppingwas the former slave owners' revengeagainst black people for having attainedtheir freedom. It is no wonder thatunder such complete subjugation and outrightterrorism that included rape, beatings,burnings, and being thrown off theland, along with the entrenched Southerncustom of lynching, people like my parentssought succor from any God they wereforced to have. The idea that as descendantsof Africans and Native Americansand Europeans—Scottish and Irish—on both mymother's and my father's side, they might have hadtheir own ancient Gods, or that as free human beingsthey might choose a God uniquely perceived bythemselves, never entered their minds, except negatively.The "heathen" from whom they were descendedknew nothing of salvation, they were warned inchurch, and any God except the one in the Bible wasjust another illusion produced by Satan, designed tokeep them out of heaven. Satan: always described asevil, in color, black or red. African or Native American?Never admitted to be also a son of God, made$820 O N THE ISSUES • Spring 1997

also in the image of his creator, just the shadow sideof him. And yet everyone in our family and in ourchurch understood instinctively who Satan was. Hewas the other side of "the son of God" we always sawin the white people around us. Never did we see"Jesus" among those who insisted we worship him.Only Judas, and every day."Pagan" means "of the land, country dweller, peasant,"all of which my family was. It also means a personwhose primary spiritual relationship is with Natureand the Earth. And this, I could see, day to day,was true not only of me but of my parents; but therewas no way to ritually express the magical intimacywe felt with Creation without being accused of, andridiculed for, indulging in heathenism, that otherword for paganism. And Christianity, we were informed,had fought long and hard to deliver us fromthat. In fact, millions of people were broken, physicallyand spiritually, literally destroyed, for nearlytwo millennia, as the orthodox Christian Church"saved" them from their traditional worship of theGreat Mystery they perceived in Nature.N THE SIXTIES MANY OF US SCARED OUR PARENTS1profoundly when we showed up dressed inour "African" or "Native American" or"Celtic" clothes. We shocked them by wearingour hair in its ancient naturalness. They saw usturning back to something they'd been taughtto despise, and that by now they activelyfeared. Many of our parents had been taught that theworld was only two or three thousand years old, andthat spiritually civilized life began with the birth ofJesus Christ. Their only hope of enjoying a better existence,after a lifetime of crushing toil and persistentabuse, was to be as much like the longhaired rabbifrom a small Jewish sect in a far-off desert, as possible:then, by the Grace of His father, who owned Heaven,they might be admitted there, after death. It would besegregated, of course. Who could imagine anythingdifferent? But perhaps Jesus Christ himself would bepresent, and would speak up on their behalf. After all,these were black people who were raised never to looka white person directly in the face.I think now, and it hurts me to think it, of how tormentedthe true believers in our church must havebeen, wondering if, in heaven, Jesus Christ, a whiteman, the only good one besides Santa Claus andAbraham Lincoln they'd ever heard of, would deignto sit near them.The water we collected had many uses. We drankit, we washed dishes, clothes, and ourselves with it.We watered our livestock and my mother's vegetableand flower gardens.On Saturday night everyone in my family bathedfrom head to toe, even though this meant half a dayspent carrying pails of water up a steep hill. The waterwas heated in the big black wash pot in the yard. OnSunday morning we rose, washed our faces, had ahearty breakfast, and went off to church. As the smallest,I was bathed by my mother, dressed by my mother,fed by my mother, and wedged into the front seat ofour secondhand blue-and-cream Packard between mymother and father. They had worked hard all week forthe landowner's benefit; this was their only time ofpleasure, of rest, other than an occasional Saturdaynight film at the local picture show. We spent most ofthe day in church, listening to the minister, who stoodon the carpeting my mother had laid and read fromthe Bible I had dusted. Sometimes there were wonderfulstories: Daniel in the Lion's Den. The Three WiseMen. David and Goliath. The Life of Christ.Everybody loved Jesus Christ. We recognized himas one of us, but a rebel and revolutionary, consistentlyspeaking up for the poor, the sick, and the discriminatedagainst, and going up against the bossmen: theorthodox Jewish religious leaders and rich men of hisday. We knew that people who were really like Jesuswere often lynched. I liked His gift for storytelling. Ialso loved that, after Moses and Joshua, he is thegreatest magician in the Bible. He was also, I realizedlater, a fabulous masseur, healing by the power oftouch and the laying on of hands. Much later still Ilearned he could dance! This quote from The Acts ofJohn, from the Gnostic Gospels, is worth remembering:"To the Universe belongs the dancer. He whodoes not dance does not know what happens. Now ifyou follow my dance, see yourself in me."But basically, according to the Scriptures: We hadsinned. I did not know then that the root of the word"sin" means "to be." Woman was the cause. All ofour life we must suffer just because we existed.Worthless, worthless us. Luckily enough, we woulddie, but even then only a very small number of uswould get into heaven. There was hell, a pit of eternallyburning fire, for the vast majority.Where was hell? I wanted to know. Under theground, I was informed. It was assumed most of thewhite people would be there, and therefore it wouldbe more or less like here. Only fiery hot, hotter thanthe sun in the cotton field at midday. Nobody wantedto go there.I had a problem with this doctrine at a very earlyage: I could not see how my parents had sinned. Eachmonth my mother had suffered from what I wouldlater recognize, because I unfortunately inherited it,as bad premenstrual syndrome. At those times hertemper was terrible; the only safe thing was to stayout of her way. My father, slower to anger, wasnonetheless a victim of sexist ideology learned fromhis father, the society and the church, which meant Ibattled with him throughout childhood, until I lefthome for good at 17. But I did not see that they wereevil, that they should be cursed because they wereblack, because my mother was a woman. They wereas innocent as trees, I felt. And, at heart, generousand sweet. I resented the minister and the book heread from that implied they could only be "saved" byconfessing their sin and accepting suffering anddegradation as their due, just because a very longtime ago a snake had given a white woman an appleand she had eaten it and generously given a bite toher craven hearted husband. This was insulting toSpring 1997 • O N THE ISSUES 21

the most drowsy intelligence, I thought, noting thatmy exhausted father often napped while in church.But what could I do? I was three years old.When I was in my 30s, I wrote this poem:SUNDAY SCHOOL, CIRCA 1950"Who made you?" was alwaysThe questionThe answer was always"God."Well, there we stoodThree feet highHeads bowedLeaning intoBosoms.NowI no longer recallThe CatechismOr brood on the GenesisOf lifeNo.I ponder the exchangeItselfAnd salvage mostlyThe leaning.IT IS IRONIC, TO SAY THE LEAST, THAT THE VERY WOMANout of whose body I came, whose pillowy arms stillheld me, willingly indoctrinated me away from herselfand the earth from which both of us received sustenance,and toward a frightful, jealous, cruel, murderous"God" of another race and tribe of people,and expected me to forget the very breasts that hadfed me and that I still leaned against. But such is thepower of centuries-old indoctrination.We know now with what absolute heartlessnessthe male leaders of the orthodox Christian church—not unlike those of orthodox Judaism and Islam—stamped out, generally after robbing them of theirland and enslaving them, pagans and heathens, ourancestors and theirs, around the globe: a campaign ofsuch unspeakable cruelty which has lasted for solong, and which still continues, that few have had theheart to encounter it in art, politics, literature, or consciousnessuntil the present era. Thanks in large partto feminism and feminist scholarship, and to a resurgentbelief in the sacredness of the feminine, whichhas been deliberately erased, demonized and disparagedin all major religions. But thanks also to indigenouspeoples who, though a mere remnant of theirformer selves, before being invaded by conquerorsprofessing Christianity, have risen up to speak in defenseof the ancient Goddess/God of all pagans andheathens, Mother Earth.IN THIS CONNECTION, HAILLE GERIMA'S EXTRAORDINARYfilm, "Sankofa," has much to teach us. While beingphotographed, dancing and carefree, inside the wallsof a "slave castle" in contemporary Africa, a blackfashion model for a white, Western magazine, findsherself trapped inside the castle's dungeon, fromwhose loading tunnels millions of enslaved Africans,from the 15th to the 19th century, began their soulshattering journey to the New World. The woman ishorrified to discover she has somehow slipped backinto the past and is, in fact one of her own enslavedancestors. We follow her spiritual development as herown beliefs are denied her and the imprint of Christianityis literally beaten and branded into her flesh.People of color have been so successfully brainwashedto believe white orthodox Christianity hasgiven us something we didn't already have that werarely think of what it has taken away. "Sankofa"speaks to this. It also, perhaps for the first time in cinema,graphically depicts the process by which sadistswho purport to be Christian have forced their religiousideology on the cultures they destroyed.N THE BLACK CHURCH WE HAVE LOVED AND1leaned on Moses, because he brought the enslavedIsraelites out of Egypt. As enslavedand oppressed people, we have identifiedwith him so completely that we have adoptedhis God. But here is another look atMoses, whose wife Zipporah was a Midianite,two of whose children were Midianites, andwhose kindly father-in-law, Jethro, was also a Midianite.From the Book of Numbers, Chapter 31:And the children of Israel took all the women ofMidian captives, and their little ones, and took thespoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and alltheir goods.10 And they burnt all their cities wherein theydwelt, and all their goodly castles with fire.12 And they brought the captives, and the prey,and the spoil, unto Moses, and Eleazar the priest,and unto the congregation of the children of Israel,unto the camp at the plains of Moab, whichare by Jordan near Jericho.. . .14 And Moses was wroth with the officers ofthe host, with the captains over thousands, andcaptains over hundreds, which came from thebattle.15 And Moses said unto them, have ye savedall the women alive? .. .17 Now therefore kill every male among the littleones, and kill every woman that hath knownman.18 But all the women children, that have notknown a man, keep alive for yourselves...25 And the Lord spoke unto Moses saying,26 Take the sum of the prey that was taken, bothof man and of beast, thou, and Eleazar the priest,and the chief fathers of the congregation:...31 And Moses and Eleazar the priest did as theLord commanded Moses.32 And the booty, being the rest of the preywhich the men of war had caught was six hun-ON THE ISSUES • Spring 1997

portfoI ioI AM BEAUTIFULForget the ways popular culture defines women's beauty.Instead, take note of these portraits of women-at every age and stage of life—and be reminded where true beauty liesDANAChicago, IllinoisTry as I might, I am not able to say anythingabout beauty that is more meaningfulto me than the few lines I wrotenearly three decades ago as a twentyyear-oldArmy nurse in Vietnam:Like swans on still water they skimover the warAo dais gliding, rustling serenelygleaming black hair pulled primlyawayfrom faces that reveal nothing saveinner repose,a beauty so deep even war can't defile.I note my reflection in their obsidian eyesan outsized barbarian, ungainly, unkempt,baggy in ever-wilted greens,five-pound boots taking plowhand strides,face perpetually ruddy, dripping in alien heat.In their delicate presence I exhume teen-age failuresthe girl in the back row forever unnoticed,the one no one ever invited to dance,the one never voted most-likely anything,the one who was never quite something enough.But once in a while, on a crazy-shift morning,when I've worked through the night and I'm too tiredto care,a young man who reeks of rice paddies lies waitingfor someone to heal the new hole in his life.He says through his pain, all adolescent bravado,"Hey, what's your name? Let's get married.I love you."And just for a moment I become Nefertitiand for all the Orient's pearls and silksI would not trade the glamour and privilegeof these honored hands, licensed to touch one filthy GI.Excerpted with permission from / Am Beautiful: A Celebration of Women in Their Own Words edited by Dana Carpenter and Woody Winfree, published by Rose CommunicationsBridgeport, CT (Hardcover, $27.50.) Available from your local women's bookstore or directly from the publisher, (800) 784-5244.O N T H E I S S U E S • S p r i n g 1 9 9 7

MARGUERITE, Cambridge, MassachusettsThe remarkable resemblance between the Minoanpriestess's distinct profile and my own strikes medeeply. It is a great, magical affirmation of my beauty,strength and connection to our ancient feminineheritage. It makes me think I must have had pastlives as a priestess in which I stood proud, confident,empowered. It affirms the importance of myspiritual path in this lifetime to assist humanity inembracing and reintegrating the feminine oncemore. It helps me heal from the sadness I've feltover not measuring up to the image of buttonnosed,blond-haired, blue-eyed beauty so prized byour culture. It reassures me that my rich, exoticlooks make me glorious, too.S p r i n g 1 9 9 7 • O N T H E I S S U E S 25

Prairie I iew, TexasMy life is full of Alvhahs.Born during the hottest part of sevent)nurtured in a mother s loveanchored by a father's strengthadventured in childhood joyssearched for identitytraveled abroadyearned for Mr. Rightmarriedmothered a darling babygrieved her early deathsuffered the pain, weathered the agonyand nowhaving a love affair with life!ON THE ISSUES • Spring 1997

W I JxJ_J A, Sunny Valley, OregonWhen I look in the mirror, I see a fairly attractivebutch—one with seductive green eyes, flaming redhair and an elfin face. These externals don't make mefeel beautiful. I know that I am beautiful when I ambeing creative, singing, writing and especially, acting.When I draw a roomful of strangers into my worldand suspend them in a temporary reality, we click intoa single entity, collaborating in an artistic creation. Ishine in that connection, and I am beautiful.OPAL WITHHER GRANDMOTHER,rLLJl 1 LI Oakland, CaliforniaGrowing up in Jamaica, my beauty was pointed outat every turn by women in my community. Mymother was beautiful and everyone said I lookedlike her. By the time I was 3 years old my beauty wassomething I took for granted. However, as I grewolder, I learned that beauty did not merely refer tofacial or physical features, and could be enhanced bya friendly, easy-going disposition. Like my mother, Ienjoyed laughter. You could say laughter found us inevery corner and at all times. Since this laughter, andlove, were a reflection of the community from whichI came, I have never doubted my beauty.

econstructionpoliticsA NATION OFWIDOWSThe adult population of Bosnia is now 70 percent female,but women are being shortchanged in the reconstructionBY JAN GOODWINBOSNIA, NOVEMBER 1996: IN THE HARDSCRABBLE YARD,the small group of women and children are catchingthe last vestige of the day's weak sunshine. By afternoon'send, when the late autumn chill sets in, the temperaturein their homes will be the same as that outside. Whatlittle fuel they have is reserved for cooking, not heating.The pinched, gaunt look of the adults, is matched by that ofthe children, who have seen too much pain, felt too muchfear, far too soon. They are the kids Bosnia's former PrimeMinister, Haris Silajdzic, describes as having the "gray hairand eyes and hearts of old men."The children's faces bear the sores and eruptions of poornourishment. The average Bosnian lost 28 pounds duringthe war, according to the World Health Organization. Manyalso suffered from vitamin and mineral deficiencies.Youngsters like these continue to do so, despite Bosnia'sstores being full again, and the small street stalls againladen with imported fruit. "During the war, bananas werejust a dream," recalls 20-year-old Leila Begtasevic. But formany Bosnians, bananas continue to be beyond their reach;they do not have the money to buy them.It is exactly a year since the Dayton Accord brought uncertainpeace to this devastated land. It is 16 months sinceFikreta Sulejmanovic moved into this derelict school, nowdesignated a refugee collective center, with her 7-year-oldson, Hassan, and elderly mother-in-law after the fall of Srebrenica.They are only the only known survivors of herfamily in what was the largest single European massacresince World War II and the lowest point of ethnic cleansingin the former Yugoslavia.On July 11, 1995, Bosnian Serb soldiers rounded up theJAN GOODWIN is a human-rights activist, an award-winningjournalist, and the author of Price of Honor: Muslim WomenLift the Veil of Silence on the Islamic World (Plume/Penguin).Muslim inhabitants of theUN "safe haven" of Srebrenicaand herded some25,000 women and childrenonto buses, while detainingapproximately 10,300 menand teenage boys at gunpoint."Go. They will besafe. You will see them atthe other end," the terrifiedwomen were told by GeneralRadko Mladic, theBosnian Serb military commander.The entire malepopulation of Srebrenicawas never seen again. Instead,in recent months,their mass graves havebegun to be uncovered."E ARE NOWjust a worldof women,"says Fikreta, through hertears. Aged 42, she lost her husband and 16-year-old son,her two brothers, and their two sons. Her mother-in-law,Aisa Fejzic, 76, lost her daughter and son and five grandchildren.The litany of loss is manifoldly echoed, over andover, when talking to her neighbors or other Srebrenicawidows in other refugee collective centers. Most tellingly,the adult population of Bosnia is now 70 percent female. Inthe aftermath of the brutal four-year war, it is the women ofBosnia who must rebuild their country.Despite this stark statistic, however, Bosnian women arenot viewed as a priority, either by their own government orO N T H E I S S U E S • S p r i n g 1 9 9 7

Experts expect it will be2000 before Bosnia iseven halfway rebuilt to itsprewar condition. Here, atemporary replacementfor a bombed Ottomanby international donors. Humanitarian funding forwomen's projects is minuscule. The U.S., for example, isspending $400 million rearming the country after the warand the U.S. Agency for International Development(USAID) has allocated $45 million of a loan program tosmall businesses, but none of that money is going to businessesheaded by widows or other women. Clinton's BosnianWomen's Initiative, by contrast, is distributing $5 million,much of it targeted for programs that supplementincomes but don't permit women to earn enough to supporttheir families now that they are the sole breadwinners.In their wisdom, the UN and USAID have also decidedthat Bosnian women no longer need psychological counseling;funding for this vital service has been curtailed. But wartrauma does not disappear that easily. Thousands of Bosnianwomen were wounded or physically brutalized duringthe war, and many also lost not only their husbands but allthe male members of their families—sons, fathers, brothers.Politically, too, women have lost ground. In the formerYugoslavia, an estimated 16 to 30 percent of the governmentwas female. Today, only one woman serves in theparliament. But a journey through Bosnia reveals that de-Spring 1997 • ON THE ISSUES 29

spite the unrelenting hardships,Bosnian women continue to displaythe courage, determinationand strength they exhibitedduring the war.FIKRETA'S NEW HOME SITSbetween Tuzla, a northernindustrial city, and the formerfrontline, now renamed theZone of Separation, a narrowcorridor intended to keep theformerly warring factions apart.Near the refugee center is ademining center, a reminder ofhow close the frontline was.Bosnia's woods and meadowsare seeded with an estimated 10 million landmines, a legacyof the war. So serious is the problem that public-service adson television, and Superman comic strips, constantly warnBosnians of all ages of the dangers. "I wouldn't walk off apaved surface anywhere in this country," says George Focsaneanu,the UN coordinator for mine clearance. Yet despitethis extensive campaign, during the previous month in Sarajevoalone, 61 adults and children were killed or maimed bylandmines, usually as they searched for wood for fuel.The refugee collective center had no glass in the windowswhen Fikreta moved in, and missing chunks of plasterin the ceilings testify to frequent rain leaks, as do thewater stains on the walls. There was primitive plumbing,and no heating, although simple wood-burning stoveshave more recently been installed. Each former classroomhas a few bunk beds, occupied on a first come, first servedbasis. Slabs of bare foam rubber on the floor serve as mattressesfor the remainder. Scratchy gray blankets, but nosheets, complete the furnishings. Privacy, even to weep, is athing of the past; one's neighbor is just a mattress away.Fikreta spends most of her time these days crying and replayingrepeatedly in her mind that last day in Srebrenica.Left, primitiveplumbing facilities ata derelict school,now a refugeecollective center.Below, FikretaSulejmanovic, 42(right) with hermother-in-law, AisaFejzic, 76.Her face awash in tears, shesays, "My son was only 16, butbig for his age. He looked 20.When the Serbs started separatingthe men from the women, aneighbor of ours said, 'They aregoing to kill them.' She told myboy to run. But he couldn'tmove; he was too afraid, toofrightened. And so..." her voicetrails off. Today, Fikreta can'teven say her son's name. "He'sbeen missing for over a year....He spoke good English, he wasa good student...," she says withmaternal pride. "What do youthink happened to him, to myhusband?"Her mother-in-law answersthe question for her. "They aredead, killed for sure. Every daythe government reports thatmore bodies, more mass gravesare being found." The olderwoman isn't being callous. Shehas simply lived too long to acceptfalse hope, unlike someSrebrenica women who want tobelieve their menfolk escapedinto the woods before the massacrebegan and are still tooafraid to reveal themselves.In her heart, Fikreta knowsthat her son, her husband andher brothers are dead. "I don'twant to live anymore, either,"she says. "I'm so sick, mynerves.... But I have to go on livingfor my child, Hassan." Whenshe talks of her surviving son,her tears give way to anger. "Nobody is helping us. Wedon't have shoes or quilts for the children. I can't even sendHassan to school because I don't have 20 deutsche marks topay for his bus fare. (During the war, Bosnia's currency, thedinar, collapsed, and was informally replaced by Germancurrency.) We get only some humanitarian food, but nowood for the stove to cook it."Women like those in the refugee center, who did not workbefore the war, also need job-training skills, and many likeFikreta need psychological counseling. But even when skillstraining is available, there are far too few jobs available inthis war-shattered economy. Nineteen-year-old Senada Velagicis about to begin an IBM-sponsored computer trainingcourse in Tuzla. She must support herself, her 15-year-oldsister and her invalid mother, chronically ill with heart andkidney disease. Her father was killed at the onset of the war,and her two brothers, aged 20 and 17, have not been seensince the fall of Srebrenica. She believes they were killed."These days, when you look for a job everyone asks if youcan use a computer," she says. Senada is also aware that of224 recent graduates from a similar course, less than a thirdfound work.s.30 O N T H E I S S U E S • S p r i n g 1997

IN THE MEANTIME, SHE IS HELPINGto counsel elderly widows at aprogram run by the U.S.-basedInternational Rescue Committee. "Itry to give these women hope, evenif it is false," she says gently, "becausethat is what they want to hear.Everyone needs hope." Senada'ssalary is paid in food. During thewar, Bosnians who were fortunateenough to be employed usuallyworked for free or for food parcels.Today, an estimated 60-80 percent ofcity-dwellers are currently unemployed;in rural areas, the situationis worse.Psychological counseling is rarely available now becauseinternational bodies, such as the United Nations andUSAID, that fund the humanitarian relief agencies have decidedthat it is no longer necessary in Bosnia. Instead, "reconstructionand reconciliation" are the current bywords ofthe international donor community. There are many criticsof this decision."The war didn't end with the Dayton Accord, not in ourheads. It isn't over just because you say it is over. It is afragile peace, as fragile as the most delicate porcelain," saysProfessor Rado Boric, who used to teach languages (she isfluent in eleven) at Zagreb University. When the war brokeout Boric, a former Fulbright scholar at Indiana University,stopped teaching to help run an indigenous humanitarianorganization, "Women for Women War Victims.""There is tremendous war trauma," she says. "People arefacing reality for the first time. Mass graves are only nowbeing excavated, people remain missing, refugees want toreturn home but can't. The men are either dead or depressed,suffering from post-traumatic stress. Suicide is up,so is alcoholism, drug abuse and domestic abuse." So too isdivorce, hi Sarajevo alone, the rate is reportedly eight timeshigher than it was before the war. "Everybody has armsnow, so men are threatening women with weapons broughtfrom the battlefield," says Professor Boric. "I know of acase just recently when a woman was locked in the bathroomby her husband, who placed hand-grenades outsidethe door, telling her she could not leave. He threatened todetonate them if she came out."By some estimates, it will take decades for Bosnia's psychicwounds to heal. Yet despite this, the UN and USAID aretelling NGOs (non-governmental organizations) not to applyfor funding for psycho-social programs, says Boric. "Theyinform us, 'There is no longer any need for counseling ofwomen. We don't fund it anymore.' As if saying it makes theproblems go away. It's become almost a joke, except that itisn't. Such decisions are clearly made in a vacuum."Foreign 'experts' come here as consultants to study theproblem. Based on those brief visits, they decide the fashionof the day will now be X or Y. Right now, it is reconstructionand reconciliation. Recently, an official fromUNHCR (the United Nations High Commission forRefugees) admitted to me that they were 'inventing' whatthe next phase for funding would be, and that this iswrong. Why don't they ask us what we need, instead ofimposing on us what they think we need?"One of Bosnia's resources is its large numberof highly educated women. But more need toassert their rights: Last October, only onewoman was elected to parliament.Left, Halima Hadzijamakovk, head of Sarajevo'slargest municipality. Below, parliamentarianMediha Filipovic, M.D.Boric points out that becauseof such attitudesduring the war, therefugees received, for example,vast quantities oftampons, for a culture thatdoes not use them. "Wehad warehouses full ofthem and no sanitary napkins,which women reallyneeded. But then they alsosent us semen to inseminatecows when hospitalsfor humans had no antibiotics."As one Bosnianpolitician put it, "When we needed a doctor, you sent us apriest. Now that the war has ended, and we need a priest,you send us a doctor." (A dramatic example of this is theU.S. refusing to supply Bosnia with arms during the war,but now that the fighting is over, sending them $400 millionof weapons and the specialists to teach the Bosnianmilitary how to use them.)Maurice Cronly, who heads the British Charities AidFoundation, concurs with Boric. "UNHCR brings in consultants,who get paid $300 a day, to learn what Bosnianscould teach them. There are many highly educated menand women in the former Yugoslavia. This is not an underdevelopedAfrican nation." The former Yugoslavia is, ofcourse, in the heart of Europe; Sarajevo is as close to Rome,as the crow flies, as Milan is. Education was stressed underthe socialist system for both sexes, and the country has proportionatelymore college graduates and postgraduatesthan many European countries, hi fact, by that same ratio,there are more technically qualified women engineers, architects,etc. in Bosnia, than there are in the U.S."One of our major resources is the very high level of educationhere," says Halima Hadzijamakovic, a 41-year-oldwoman economist who was elected the president of Sarajevo'slargest municipality the day before we met. "RebuildingBosnia will fall to women because so many lost theirhusbands. Fortunately, we have strong, very talentedwomen. But under socialism, we also had a cradle-to-gravementality. We now have to change that. We also need to developa free market economy to compete in the world."IF BOSNIA IS TO SURVIVE IN THIS POST-WAR ERA IT HAS SEVeralkey transitions to make: from war to peace, communismto democracy, and planned economy to a freemarketsystem. The Dayton Accord is far from ideal, callingas it does for a triumvirate of Presidents to head the country,one from each ethnic group—Muslim, Croat, Serb. Ithas been likened to insisting that Clinton, Dole and Perotsit together in the Oval Office and simultaneously leadSpring 1997 • O N THE ISSUES 31

America; an impossible task, evenwithout their having spent four yearsat war with one another."Never, even in ancient history, hasthe world seen a single country run bya three-president leadership. How canit be successful? We are walking onvery thin ice" says Mediha Filipovic,M.D., the only woman elected to parliamentin the first elections after thewar, held in October. Filipovic is vicepresidentof Bosnia's opposition party.She is also a professor of orthodontiaat Sarajevo University, and despite thethree-and-a-half year siege by BosnianSerbs and constant shelling, she isproud that the school was open everyday. Like her colleagues, she workedwithout salary throughout the war,and like all Sarajevans daily carriedwood and water to her home. "Do youknow how rich orthodontists are inother countries?" she can joke now.During the war, she lived 100 metersfrom the frontline, and her apartmentbuilding was shelled 17 times. "Eachmorning, I read obits on men and boysI had known all my life. Fifty youngmen on my street alone were killed."More than 100 women ran in theOctober elections. Filipovic is "deeplydisappointed" that she was the solewoman elected. "There were a numberof highly qualified women candidates,"she says. "But these electionswere run on the parliamentary system,which means candidates wereappointed by their parties, and fewwomen were at the top of their parties."She expects this to change."Women need to assert their rightsand seize the opportunity to becomemore powerful in politics," she says.She is one of 42 members of parliament;divided strictly along ethniclines, Muslims, Croats and Serbs have14 representatives each. At the timethat ON THE ISSUES spoke with her, theBosnian Serbs were delaying theopening of parliament in Sarajevo byrefusing to attend."They claimed they were afraid tocome here, which is hard tobelieve,"said Filipovic. "I don't believethat people who were capable of killing250,000 Muslims, or raping 7-year-olds,and who slaughtered 10,000 men onthe spot in Srebrenica, are afraid. Theywere also offered extremely high securityby SFOR (the Nato-led StabilizationForce) a multi- (continued on page 56)DIMPLES OF STEEL:IF SWANEE HUNT doesn't have widename recognition right now, chancesare high that's about to change.Whether it's selling her photographsto National Geographic (she's trying),co-authoring a major feature in GoodHousekeeping with her 14-year-olddaughter, Lillian, on Lillian's painful battlewith manic depression (it just ran), orswanning through Elle, Town & Country,Parade and Rolling Stone (upcoming),plus penning her regular columns andop-eds, or hosting her weekly radioshow, the Texas native is putting herselfin the public limelight. A number ofother national magazine pieces are in theworks. And her personal P.R. agent continuesto seek out over lunch influentialeditors who haven't yet been hooked.Hunt has yet to retain Hill & Knowlton,the promo choice of presidents andprime ministers, but could certainly affordto do so. She's also happy tobankroll the cost of flying journalists halfwayaround the world to document heractivities. And why not? She's theyoungest daughter of the billionaire oiliconoclast, H.L. Hunt.Dr. Swanee Hunt, the U.S. Ambassadorto Austria—one of 17 female ambassadorsin Vienna—appears to havepolitical ambitions, although she deniesthem. She landed the Vienna postingthree years ago as a thank you for investingheavily—a reputed $225,000—inClinton's first presidential campaign; abeneficiary of the quaint U.S. tradition ofrewarding deep pockets with positionsthat other countries reserve for their careerdiplomats.Her name was mentioned as a replacementfor Madeleine Albright at the UN,after Albright was short-listed to replaceSecretary of State Warren Christopher,but the ambassador was never a seriouscontender. She's also viewed as possiblereplacement for Pamela Harriman whenshe steps down as the U.S. ambassadorin Paris. Like Pam, she possesses thecharm and ability to woo foreign politicosand dignitaries, but don't be fooled.Hunt's deep dimples are said to be dimplesof steel, as those who cross herknow. But then Hunt, a 46-year-oldstrawberry blonde with alabaster skin,was formerly an ecumenical minister, aswas her first husband, whereas Harrimanwas definitely more sinner than saint, atleast in her younger days. And whilethese two women share the same facilitywith languages, Hunt is the better educatedof the two, holding two master'sdegrees—psychology and religion—anda doctorate in theology.A New York gossip column recentlyclaimed Swanee was spotted in Indiabusily measuring curtain sizes at the U.S.embassy in New Delhi, as a precursor toher taking over there. An unlikely tale,which she herself denies. By her own admission,however, she is frequently approachedby Washington insider talenthunters.Despite this, Hunt says, "I haveNO political ambitions," as definitively asGeorge Bush said, "Read my lips.""I would specifically not like to live inWashington D.C. It's a mean and nastyplace. A career isn't important to me; Ido not have personal ambition. I've hadthe enormous luxury of never needing ajob, so there's no ladder to climb." Sheinsists she doesn't "dream" of an ambassadorshipelsewhere, or a position in theSenate or Cabinet. "I've been askedabout all these things by people withinthe system, the last time as recently as aweek ago. But I'm not going. I'm veryfulfilled by the work I'm doing." Thatmay be so, but Vienna, of course, is betterknown for its bier und burghers,waltz, schmaltz and schlag, than it is forits influence on the world stage.Hunt has close friends who are cabinetmembers, she says, "And boy, they gothrough hell. They go in with wonderfuldreams about all they will accomplish,IO N T H E ISSUES • S p r i n g 199 7

Touring Bosnia with Swanee Huntand then they spend most of their timescrambling to deflect bullets."Three days later, over breakfast in Bosnia,a volte-face is apparently on the menu.Hunt declares, in that soft-voiced, cozydown-home style of hers, that while she isnot looking forward to leaving Vienna, she'svery happy there, but if pressed by PresidentClinton, she would take up anotherrole. She can't imagine saying no to thepresident, she says, like so many politiciansbefore her when they announce they arerunning after insisting they aren't. "If asked,I would do it. I'm here to do his work." AndBosnia and meet real people and hear theirstories, you discover this war was more amassive propaganda campaign by politicalidealogues who had very specific ambitionsfor their own careers than it is about ethnicstrifes that cannot be bridged."She does recognize how "irregular" it isfor her to be "roaming" around Bosnia,climbing in and out of military helicopters,getting mud on her boots, sans the ambassadorialarmor of power designer suits,make-up and jewelry. Certainly, it's notPamela Harriman's style."lt has Washingtonmidlevelers scratching their heads and say-Left, Hunt (center) with two of her staff at the Sarajevo women's NCO,Zena 21. Center, entertaining a Sarajevan child at Zena 21.Right, with Haris Silajdjzic, former prime minister of Bosnia.then she laughs, embarrassed. That's alower-cased "H" on "his," she stresses.This is Hunt's sixth trip to Bosnia, wherethe risk of her dodging bullets is real, notfigurative, as it is in the White House. Thearmored vehicles and humvee security detail,courtesy of the American branch ofSFOR (the multi-national NATO-led StabilizationForce), are charged with protectingher. "Ambassadors are really so much troublewhen they come into a country likethis," she acknowledges. "If we get kidnaped,or injured, it becomes an internationalincident." The U.S. General in chargeof Eagle Base in Tuzla is pleased to see herarrive, she says, but happy to see her go,and Hunt understands why.As the ambassador to Austria, Bosnia isnot technically her beat, so why does shego? "I believe you can't understand the politicalsituation unless you do so at ahuman level," she says. "When you get toing, 'Somebody put her back in her box!Please!'" She chuckles. "It's the people atthe upper levels who say, '"Come on. She'sdoing the Lord's work.'"SUCH RELIGIOUS REFERENCES are COITImonin Swanee's conversationand speeches, in which shetends to use Biblical type parables,like the minister she oncewas, to make a point. She canalso be expected to burst into song, frequentlyhymns or Sunday school ditties, atthe click of a photo-opportunity. When shewas growing up in Dallas, the churchplayed a major role in her life, in part becauselife at home was so difficult. "TheChristian fundamentalist church was theonly warm environment for me as a kid."she says. Now she sawily distances herselffrom it. "When I go home these days I pretendI'm visiting a [foreign] culture," shesays, just as she separates herself from herfather's arch-conservatism and overly colorfulreputation.Swanee is one of 15 offspring sired byHunt with the three simultaneous womenin his life: one to whom he was married;the second, his secretary, whom he finallymarried; and a third, who came forward atthe time of his death to say she'd beenmarried to him and claim part of his estatefor her children.At one stage in his life, H.L. Hunt was reputedlythe richest man on earth. Two ofSwanee's half-brothers made a bid for thesame title some years laterwhen they attempted, andingloriously failed, to cornerthe silver market. But for abrief while, they were worthan estimated $5 billion. H.L.Hunt, a man with a thirdgradeeducation, worked variouslyas a shepherd, a shortordercook, and alumberjack, before gamblinghis way, via poker, into owningoil fields. Swanee's shareof the family fortune is nowworth, by her own reckoning,"several hundred million dollars."It could be more, butshe has not been accruingprincipal, preferring instead to donate halfthe annual income to a foundation she andher sister, Helen, run.H.L. Hunt was not an easy man to livewith. He was 60 when Swanee was born."Home life was pretty tough; there were alot of strains. I had an extraordinarilystrange upbringing," she says. "My fatherwas a very eccentric man, very involved in alot of right-wing causes. And being a Huntin Dallas was isolating, like being a Rockefelleron the East Coast or part of the royalfamily in London." She left home early tomove to Heidelberg, Germany, where shespent four years "trying to get as far awayfrom my home environment as possible,"she says, and where she learned to speakthe German she now uses in Vienna."I grew up in an extremely patriarchalfamily," she says, "and a particularly gratingmemory for me came after my half-brothershad a run in with the silver market. A leadingbusiness magazine stated that my father'left behind a progeny that cares aboutnothing more than (continued on page 59)S p r i n g 1997 • O N T H E ISSUES 33

eakingranksTARAAND OTHER LIESMargaret Mitchell and the real Rhett ButlerBY CAROLYN GAGEMARGARET MITCHELL,author of GoneWith the Wind,was a battered wife. Shekept her first marriage a secretfrom the press, becausethe court records for the divorcecontained a harrowingaccount of her husband'sattempted rape ofher. It was a graphic accountwildly at odds withthe famous marital rapescene that provided thedramatic climax of the romancebetween ScarlettO'Hara and Rhett Butler inMitchell's famous novel.How could her readers surrenderthemselves to the thrill and passion of the fictionalizedaccount after reading about the real Rhett—a jealousand violent alcoholic named Red Upshaw whose assaultleft Peggy Mitchell hospitalized for two weeks?Why the discrepancy between the two accounts? BecausePeggy Mitchell belonged to a society that attached more importanceto myth than to reality, a society deeply invested inglossing over the horrors of its recent history of slavery forthe sake of glorifying a romantic epoch that never existed.This was a society that, in 1936, had still not come to termswith Appomattox. She also belonged to a society that sacrificedits daughters religiously on the altar of Southern womanhood—fetishizingthem sexually, infantilizing them so-CAROLYN CAGE (http://www.monitor.net/~carolyn) is alesbian-feminist author and playwright. She is the author of LikeThere's No Tomorrow: Meditations for Women LeavingPatriarchy (Common Courage Press, 1997.)Margaret Mitchell (center) meets her fantasy: Clark Cable and VivienLeigh join her after the debut of Cone With the Wind.dally and stunting them intellectuallyand artistically,all in the name of chivalry.Peggy Mitchell, an inveteratetomboy, had not gonedown without a fight. A regionaloutsider and amediocre student, she haddropped out of Smith Collegeafter her freshmanyear, when her mother died.Her attitude, which she expressedto her brother, was,"If I can't be first, I'd ratherbe nothing."Returning home to Atlanta,she attempted to carveout a niche for herself as arebel among the city's debutantedaughters. But Peggy underestimated the forces shewas up against when she challenged the authority of theDebutante Club's senior committeewomen. The last strawhad been her uninhibited exhibition of apache dancing atthe annual charity ball. It was traditional for the debutantesat the end of the season to receive their invitations to join theJunior League, the equivalent of initiation into "high society,"but when the letters went out, Peggy's name had beenleft off the list. As a member of one of Atlanta's oldest andmost established families, with an uncle who had been bothmayor and state senator, Peggy could only take this omissionas the personal rejection it was meant to be.But Peggy found that her Junior League ban had not hurther popularity with men, a fact she enjoyed flaunting to thewomen who had snubbed her. She took to bobbing herhair, wearing short flapper skirts and drinking her datesunder the table at the Peachtree Yacht Club, a social clubthat had nothing to do with boats.3-! O N T H E ISSUES • Spring 1997

After her husband's attack, Margaret Mitchell bought a small pistoland kept it on her bedside table until his death in 1949.Like the heroine of any good romance novel, PeggyMitchell threw in her lot with love and adventure. Defyingher father and brother and flouting social convention, shemarried Red Upshaw, as likely an anti-hero for her plot asany of the sons of the South. Red, a devastatingly handsomerake with a reputation for womanizing, had droppedout of college and was supporting himself by bootleggingliquor. But there had been more to Red than just the outlawimage. He was the only boyfriend of Peggy's who ever encouragedher rebelliousness, laughing at her risque jokesand never criticizing her for drinking or smoking. It wasobvious to Peggy that the two of them were meant for eachother.But real life is not a novel, and as the spunky heroine ofher own script, Peggy Mitchell never dreamed that herdaredevil marriage would end in attempted rape, a facedisfigured with cuts and bruises, a sordid divorce and aswift retreat into a safe, but suffocating second marriage.Before this second marriage, she made one more attemptto emulate the heroines of a romance novel. The winterafter the assault, she booked passage for Cuba, planning towork her way to the Canal Zone, Honolulu and Tahiti. Butshe was totally unprepared for the sexual predation thatawaits the single woman travelling alone. If chivalry wasnot dead in upper-class Atlanta, it certainly was in thestreets of Havana, and the flirtatious charm that she had assumedas part of her personality was not a distinct liability.She aborted the trip, returned home and married JohnMarsh.And John was a good rescuer. But rescuers exact a price,and although he was neither a violent nor a passionateman, John Marsh had pressured Peggy to quit her job as astar reporter for the Atlanta journal. Childless by choice, shehad enjoyed the fast pace, the challenging assignments andthe social life of a journalist. But even as a staff reporter, shehad not been able to escape the stigma of her gender. Shewas frequently required to write stories like "Should HusbandsSpank Their Wives?" or "How A Perfect Lady RefusesA Proposal." The one time she had been given free reinto write a series profiling some of the strong women inGeorgia's history, the paper cancelled the articles. It seemsthat her real-life heroines had been too "mannish," too unladylike,and too violent for the readers' tastes.After leaving the journal, Peggy embarked on a career asa professional invalid, developing agoraphobic symptomsand a number of physical conditions, both diagnosed andundiagnosed, that were to plague her for the rest of her life.Outnumbered, wounded and badly demoralized, there wasnothing to do except to sound a retreat. And so PeggyMitchell turned inward to the world of her imagination,where she could live all the romance her heart desiredthrough her impetuous and indomitable alter-ego, ScarlettO'Hara. And for seven years she did just that.Peggy Mitchell reinvented herself in the pages of her historicnovel. She rewrote life the way she thought it shouldhave been, and she did it persuasively: The dashing andsexually charismatic alcoholic really was the right man afterall. The attempted rape was only the natural surge of anS p r i n g 1997 • O N T H E ISSUESanimal passion that would sweep up both husband andwife and carry them beyond their pride and their personalitiesto some transcendental realm of psycho-spiritualbonding. The philandering, alcoholic bootlegger only neededthe responsibilities of fatherhood to transform him intoa sober and upstanding citizen. And when the heroinefound herself suffering from the after-effects of the night ofpassion (a later miscarriage of the fetus conceived thatnight), her penitent husband kept watch night and day outsidethe door of the sickroom, racked with guilt that heshould have been the cause of her pain, and waiting anxiouslyfor word that she might forgive him.IN REALITY, PASSION HAD HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THEattempted rape. The marriage had been a disaster fromthe honeymoon. Possibly in a move to curb Red's violence,Peggy had insisted that they both live in her father'shouse. Married in September 1922, they were separated byJuly. Three months later, Red drove up unexpectedly to thedoor. Peggy spoke with him briefly and then invited himinto the house. In the divorce deposition, Peggy stated that"Mr. Upshaw demanded his connubial rights after strikingme with his fist upon my left arm..." She refused on thegrounds that she feared he would treat her in a "cruel andinhumane manner." Her counsel stated that he "jerked heragainst the bed, causing her to be bruised all over herbody." Peggy fought him off, screaming for help. BessieBerry, her housekeeper, appeared in the doorway as Redwas leaving the bedroom. Peggy in tears, ran after him,yelling at him to get out of the house. At that, her husbandturned around and punched her full in the face.Unlike Rhett, Red did not set up a vigil outside his wife'ssickroom door. Instead of going to the hospital, Red paid avisit to his friend John Marsh, who would soon becomePeggy's second husband. He asked John to serve as a gobetweenin negotiating an agreement whereby he wouldnot contest a divorce if she would not file criminal charges.Peggy, unlike Scarlett, did not awake the next day to the realizationthat she loved her husband. She woke up withtwo black eyes, a sense of terror she was to carry with herfor the rest of her life, and a sense of profound humiliation.Far from hoping her husband would visit, she purchased asmall pistol and kept it on her bedside table until receivingnews of Red's death in 1949. A vagrant alcoholic, he leapedfrom the fifth floor of a flop-house hotel in Galveston.Why the lies? How could Peggy Mitchell bring herself toglorify the most traumatic and degrading episode of herlife? Perhaps the question is not "How could she?" but"What else could she do?"Marital rape was not even recognized as criminal. Therewere no shelters, no crisis hot lines, no rape advocates, noliterature on the subject, no television talk shows. Althoughher family had disapproved of the marriage, they considereddivorce the ultimate disgrace. Peggy's friends had allwarned her against Red, so she was understandably reluctantto appeal to them for support, at risk of hearing howshe had "made her bed and could lie in it." Peggy and Redseparated with no closure. He didn't visit the hospital, he35

Margaret Mitchell readingcongratulatory notes in herAtlanta, QA home followingthe announcement that hernovel had won the PulitzerPrize, May 1937. Below,John P. Marsh, Mitchell'ssecond husband.failed to show up in court, he didn't call, he didn't write.Writing, like all art, can be an attempt to resolve contradictionsthat cannot be reconciled in life. And certainlyMitchell's life was fraught with contradictions: A tomboywith a lust for adventure, she had been compelled to actout the role of dutiful daughter and southern debutante.An avid journalist, she had been sidelined on the"women's page"; the daughter of a militant suffragist, shehad been shamed and abused by her mother. An enthusiasticcollector of erotic writing, she expressed a profoundaversion to male sexuality. Raised on stories about theglory days of the Confederacy, Peggy Mitchell could hardlyreconcile these with the poverty and explosive racial tensionsin the Atlanta of her girlhood.Turning to writing for the closure she needed, one of thefirst orders of business was to exorcise her guilt at the failureof the marriage. In the novel, Rhett is not blamed forthe rape. He is depicted as being driven to it by Scarlett'sprovocations, and by her not-so-secret love for AshleyWilkes, a married man. In reality, Peggy had been notoriousfor playing multiple boyfriends off against each other,and she was known to brag about her ability to tease herdates into a frenzy of sexual frustration. Also, like Scarlett,she fancied herself in love with a man she could neverhave. Clifford Henry had been a friend of Peggy's brother,a lieutenant and a recent Harvard graduate. He was a gentle,philosophical man, and it was their shared love of literaturethat formed the bond between him and Peggy. Beforegoing overseas, Clifford had given Peggy his ring. AtSmith, Peggy's romance with an "older man" at the frontwas a subject of envy. The friendship was a sincere one,and when she received news that he had been killed at thefront, Peggy had been genuinely grieved.Four years later, at the time of her marriage to Red,Peggy apparently came to the realization that CliffordHenry had been the one true love of her life. It is not knownwhy she shared this insight with her new husband, but itmay have provided Red with an excuse for hisviolence. But Peggy's "one true love" hadbeen even more inaccessible than Scarlett's.Not only was Clifford dead, but one biographersuggests that he might have been gay.In Gone With the Wind, Scarlett is scapegoatedand punished ruthlessly, both for her flirtingand for her infidelity. For MargaretMitchell to have justified compulsive flirtingas a learned response to a social milieu thatsystematically stripped women of the powerto direct their lives, she would have needed afeminist perspective which was still 50 yearsin the future. For her to know that the batteringwas not her fault, she would have neededto hear the voices of other battered women.For her to receive validation for the criminalityof rape by her husband, she would haveneeded the legislative reform spurred by activistsagainst domestic violence. And for herto understand her attraction to dispassionatemen and platonic affairs, she would haveneeded the critique of compulsory heterosexualitywhich could only emerge from a visibleand vocal lesbian culture.But Margaret Mitchell did not have these things. She hada typewriter and a desperate need for closure. Batteredwomen have powerful stories to tell; when there are no appropriateoutlets, they tell them any way they can.SOME TELL THE STORY IN THEIR BODIES, WITH CHRONIC ILLnessor injuries. Some tell their stories through chronicexhaustion or mental debilitation. Other women keeptelling the story with their lives, pitifully seeking closure inabusive relationship after abusive relationship. And somewomen tell their strongest stories with their lies, with theirdenial. These are the women who stand in the subways,one hand on the strap and the other clutching a romancenovel. These are the women who spend the whole afternoonwatching soap operas—the women who buy Regencynovels by the gross, reading one after another.It doesn't matter that the plots are indistinguishable, thatthe main characters are all the same—in fact, that's thepoint. These novels and soap operas, if read or viewed frequentlyenough, provide a pseudo-reality, a closure ofsorts—as long as they never end. What lies behind the romanceaddiction—the compulsion to hear over and overthe stories of love at first sight, of Sleeping Beauty beingawakened with a kiss? The answer is horror, the horror oflifetimes—hundreds of thousands of women's lives—wasted,destroyed, sold into slavery by lies and lies and liespassed down from grandmother to mother, from mother todaughter. Romance literature is Western mind-binding, femaleemotional castration.Romance is the legacy of our colonization as women,which we pass on to each other in the blind belief that itwill ease our bondage. Instead, it perpetuates it, becausethe woman invested in romantic fantasy will interpret herdegradation as the result of a personal failing, instead of adeliberate goal of a male dominant culture. Scarlett O'Haracould afford to put off reality; she could always think aboutit tomorrow. But for real women, today is all we have. •O N THE ISSUES • Spring 1997

feminomicsCOLLECTIVEENTREPRENEURSHIPWhat developing nations are teaching American women about businessBY MARLENE C. PITURROC C ~¥~ KNEW I NEEDED MORE MONEY TO HELP MY BUSINESSI survive," says Ana Pena. "But the bank wouldn't-Llend to me and I was afraid to borrow more on mycredit cards because the interest rate is so high." In her 30s,with dark hair and a bright smile, Pena and her large familyimmigrated 20 years ago from the Dominican Republic.Pena had long been a self-employed beautician, but withoutcapital she couldn't stock up on the supplies she neededor upgrade the appearance of her two-chair beautysalon in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.Then she heard about ACCION New York, a bankingprogram that offers "microloans" to customers that ordinarybanks don't view as creditworthy. (Once offeringloans as small as $100, ACCION New York now providesmicroloans ranging from $500 to $25,000.) Pena joinedforces with two other women to create what Accion calls a"solidarity group." The group applied for a $4,500 loan,with the funds to be divided equally among them. Together,they were responsible for repaying the entire loan. If onemember defaulted, the other two would have to make upthe difference or no one in the group be eligible for anotherloan. Today, with the original loans successfully repaid, thegroup has borrowed a larger amount on what Pena calls"comfortable" terms. She has expanded her business, employstwo beauticians and can now pay her mother and sisterto help out during busy times.Cross-Cultural OriginsThe concept of microloans has its roots in the work of developingnations to secure its citizens' economic future.One of the first bankers to go micro was Dr. MuhammadYunus, president of Bangladesh's Grameen Bank. He intuit-MARLENE C. PITURRO is a freelance journalist and aformer banker from Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. Piturro'slast story for ON THE ISSUES was a profile of Hong Kong's AnsonChan, "First Chinese, First Woman," summer 1995.ed that lending women entrepreneurs small amounts ofmoney—whether to buy two laying hens or a sewing machine—woulddo more to end poverty than governmenthandouts or dependence on a husband.How to lend to women with no credit or collateral?Yunus solved that problem by having women form groupsof four to six entrepreneurs to cross-guarantee loans. Eachwoman received a small loan, which all had to repay beforereceiving subsequent higher loans to grow their businesses.A laggard's loan would be covered by the other groupmembers before they could move forward. Yunus' ideaworked. Grameen Bank has made over two million microloans,nearly all to women, with a repayment rate of97 percent, versus less than 60 percent for wealthyBangladeshi borrowers. "Capital does not need to be thehandmaiden of the rich," Yunus says.India's Ela Bhatt started the Self-Employed Women's Association,a trade union and its bank in 1974, to help its4,000 members earn a living. The association lendsamounts as little as 50 rupees ($1.40) to buy seed corn orfabric to women who couldn't even sign their names.Bhatt's bank has maintained a loan portfolio of $3.6 millionand reached 85,000 customers. The group has a loan repaymentrate exceeding 95 percent.It might come as a shock to many Americans that conditionsfor 40 million poor people in the United Stateshave become so appalling that international relief agenciessuch as Oxfam, ACCION International and Save theChildren support the establishment of similar relief programsfor America's inner cities. But the fact is that suchprograms, imported from Bolivia and Bangladesh, areworking just as well among the American poor. Theseeconomic innovations have come not a moment too soon;the bipartisan 1996 welfare reform bill, with its sink-orswimapproach to poverty, makes inner city and rural entrepreneursvital to stopping the further economic deteriorationof their communities.Spring 1997 • ON THE ISSUES 37

Public Policy BreakthroughIn the U.S. microlending began in the early 1970s. ACCIONInternational, which has run micro-enterprise programs inLatin America since 1973, set up shop here in 1991 after recognizingthe widening gap between haves and have-notsin the United States. By 1994, microlending vaulted to newlevels, when leaders at the World Bank realized that afternearly 50 years of trying to spur economic development inless developed nations, the rich were still getting richerwhile the poor languished. The bank's top honchos had anepiphany: put tiny amounts of capital into the hands of entrepreneursand you build countries. Joined by 23 other developmentbanks, the World Bank pledged $27 million ofthe $200 million total to microlenders through the ConsultativeGroup to Assist the Poorest (CGAP), expecting toreach 7.5 million women and their 38 million family membersin ten years.Piqued by the World Bank initiative and the success ofinternational microloan programs, U.S. Treasury SecretaryRobert Rubin successfully lobbied Congress and PresidentClinton, and in 1994 helped create the Community DevelopmentFinancial Institutions Fund (CDFI) to expand theavailability of credit, investment capital, financial and developmentservices in poor urban and rural communities.He then appointed Kirsten Moy, an expert in mortgagelending in poor areas, as CDFI's first executive director. Toimplement the CDFI politicians, following in the footstepsof international microlenders, deferred to private agenciesexperienced in micro-enterprise. CGAP would leverage the$200 million in funds allocated—enough to reach nearly 40million borrowers.The need is there. In 1995, CDFI received 268 applicationsrequesting more than $300 million in financial assistancewhich is a 10-1 subscription above the $31 millionavailable.Janie Barrera, Executive Director of ACCION-San Antonioand a daughter of micro-entrepreneurs, has demonstratedthe correctness of those decisions. Barrera's parentsscrimped and saved to open a Mexican restaurant in CorpusChristi, where she waited tables. After a stint in the AirForce, her entrepreneurial instincts and her desire to returnto her community to "make a difference," led her toBoston-based ACCION International. With ACCION seedcapital she set up an office, then went banging on doorsuntil she got four banks to extend $150,000 worth of interestfree credit. She cadged an additional $150,000 fromPartners for the Common Good Loan Funding, a religiousEqual parts banker, social worker,cheerleader, den mother, andMafld bagman, successful microlenders dothings that few traditional financiers do.organization dedicated to socially conscious lending.Crisscrossing the sprawling city, she now ferrets out theconventional banker's nightmare clients—women, mostlyLatinas, with bad or no credit. Often she finds them as foodvendors at street fiestas that move from neighborhood toneighborhood. Some work from store fronts; perhaps a curtainand drape retailer who could land a major contractwith the school district, if only she had credit to purchasematerial.Barrera and her staff find these entrepreneurial womenthrough word-of-mouth, public service announcements(PSAs), newspaper ads, socials, and tenant meetings. Withloans averaging $2691, ACCION-San Antonio has disperseda total of $1.5 million in loans; they had one defaultthis year. ("If only she had come to us for help," moans Barrera).Barrera's goal for ACCION-San Antonio and herclients is economic self-sufficiency. She has funds to make350 loans a year but expects to come up short. It's not easyto find borrowers among those alienated by the bankingsystem, and convincing them one-on-one that they deserveaccess to credit and capital. Since the lender goes out on alimb (Barrera once accepted a day care center's couch ascollateral), she must have monthly payments on the loan'sdue date. Poor judgment about a client's credit worthinessand lax repayment collection would quickly doom a microlender.Barrera recalls a husband-wife team who sold icecream from a truck for 15 years, saving every penny to buya dilapidated grocery store. A small loan transformed it intoa thriving taqueria; two subsequent loans enabled them tobuild a drive-through window. Rapid growth sometimescreated cash flow problems. Barrera feared that they wouldstart skipping loan payments. Her fears seemed real on thelast day for an on-time payment, until the borrower arrivedat ACCION's office, soaking wet after taking buses througha rainstorm to deliver her loan payment.An Antidote to Welfare?Connie Evans, executive director of the Women's Self-EmpowermentProject in Chicago, tries to strike a balance betweenmicrolending and support services for her agency'sclients, 35% of whom are on welfare, 80% whom are black,all with family incomes below $15,000. Having visitedGrameen Bank in Bangladesh, Evans has modified microfinanceto work in an inner city. She's flexible about solidaritygroups, forming them only when a simpatico group coalesces.She also spends time helping women negotiatesocial services, puts five percent of loan proceeds into ansavings account for clients' emergencies, and offers somebusiness and technical support: "This is not Bangladeshwhere you can buy a cow and sell the milk. A woman fromthe South Side might be sewing garments from home, butshe's competing with Wal-Mart and J.C. Penney. We've gotto step up with technical assistance and increasedloan size."Other municipal programs contract with privateagencies with close ties to their needyclients. Ithaca Urban Renewal Agency of Ithaca,N. Y, for example, chose Angela Noble Presidentof the Noble Economic DevelopmentGroup to design and deliver local microenterpriseprograms. Noble's typical clients are poor women ofcolor, such as a landscaper who came to the loan-reviewcommittee with two-foot long garden shears in hand. "Wedidn't turn her down," notes Noble.Flexibility and fine-tuning are the keys to successful mi-Spring 1997

croloan programs. Chicago's Connie Evans tinkered withthe Grameen model so that it could work for welfare mothers.Angela Noble would like to raise her programs' loancap from $5,000 to $10,000, and struggles with an 8 percentinterest rate for borrowers—higher than the human-servicetypes wanted, but lower than the bankers' comfortlevel.New Mexico's Melinda Kenefic lobbied hersenator, Peter Domenici, to increase microloanfunding as she stood behind him on the take-outline for Chinese food. ACCION-New York'sDelma Soto wants passionately to have thelargest microloan program, (at the very least, tobe the largest microlender to Latinas), and tokeep her default track record at $26,000 on a $3million portfolio.The Answer to Poverty?Is there a downside to microloans? Touting microloans asthe antidote to American poverty is asking more from a financingmechanism than it can deliver. Even though eagleeyedmicrolenders do everything to ensure success—providingbasic business training, one-on-one attention, andpeer pressure—they can't make everyone an entrepreneur.Although rugged individualism and the entrepreneurshipit spawns symbolize America, small companies havealways played a more important role overseas. A 1996study in Inc. magazine found that micro-enterprises (businesseswith fewer than 10 employees) were more prevalentin Europe than the U.S., 93.3 percent versus 78.2 percentTaiwan and Korea became economic superpowers from outof nowhere, thanks to their entrepreneurs. In China, sincesupreme leader Deng Xiao Ping declared in 1979 that "toget rich is glorious," small enterprise jumped from 1.4 millionto 20.8 million, contributing 31 percent of that country'sproductive capacity.Best estimates indicate only 10 to 15 percent of Americansare cut out for self-employment. However, the SmallBusiness Administration estimates that nearly all of the 2.6million new jobs in America in 1995 were created by smallbusinesses. So as micro-enterprises grow, they have job-creationpotential that can benefit more people in poor neighborhoods.A real threat to the continued success of micro-finance isconventional or SBA programs masquerading as microlendingprograms. The Illinois Development Finance Authority,for instance, made 22 loans totaling $410,000. The IDFA'saverage loan, however, were higher than the usual loan of$10,000-$20,000. Default rates soared to between 25 and 30percent. IDFA's Executive director Bobby Wilkerson said:"The default rate raised some concern among some of ourboard members in terms of how we're handling creditanalysis." If the IDFA scenario plays out around the country,with community development types handing out heftyloans without proper checks on credit and collateral, genuinemicroloan programs will be killed as well.When it comes to increasing poor people's access to creditand capital, good intentions aren't enough. GreenpointBank of Flushing, Queens' "low documentation/no documentation"home mortgage loans shows that bad thingscan happen to nice bankers. With the same impetus as microlending,GreenPoint eased credit terms for immigrants,people with poor credit histories, and low-income borrowers.In less than two years the default rate hit 12 percent, resultingin 2,100 home losses, destroying the dreams of"A woman from Chicago's South Sidemight be sewing garments from home, butshe's competing with Wal-Mart andJ.C. Penney. We've got to step up withtechnical assistance and increased loan size."homeowners, their families and tenants. Without a microbankerwho leads with her gut, but follows her portfoliolike a bird dog chasing prey, just lowering the barriers tocredit and capital access can be disastrous.Assuming that microloan programs continue their upwardtrajectory, will banks have a microloan window inevery branch? No, because conventional banks are notstructured to profitably provide small loans. That hasn'tprecluded program heads such as Barrera, Soto, and Evansfrom devising ways for big banks to participate by extendinglines of credit to their nonprofit agency and treating theaggregate microloans as one loan. The agency, in turn, disbursesthe funds and takes responsibility for collecting thepayments from each borrower.Banks are also helping with philanthropic programs suchas the Citicorp Foundation's "Banking on Enterprise",which will disburse $10 million over five years (1995-2000)to microloan agencies last year. Brandee Galvin of the CiticorpFoundation explains: "It makes perfect sense for us topartner with microlenders. These programs are effective,have a positive impact on people's lives, and build appropriatechannels for accessing the capital markets." Citicorpis also sponsoring a microloan summit this month, expect-^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ed to attract 4,000For information onmicro-loan programs in yourarea, contact:Association for Enterprise Opportunity70 East Lake StreetChicago, Illinois 60601(312)357-0177The Aspen InstituteSELP-Ste 1070333 New Hampshire Avenue, NWWashington, DC 20036(202) 833-7434Office of Public AffairsDepartment of Treasury1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, NWWashington, DC 20220(202) 622-2960global participants.Despite the foreignnessof microloanprograms tomost Americans,they represent atremendous boostfor the economicallydisenfranchised. Becausesmall amountsof money can be lentover and over again,the relatively smallinvestment of $200million can reachover 40 million entrepreneurs,creatinga cycle of independenceand opportunitythat can changewomen's lives. •S p r i n g 1997 • O N T H E ISSUES39

fBIOLOGY, AND , *DESTINYThe Feminist Awakening ofNobel Prize WinnerRita Levi-Montalcini

BY RUBY R O H R L I C H1I OW COULD YOU RETURN TO LIVE INa country that persecuted you, that took away your citizenship,your profession, and forced you to live undergroundto survive?" Rita Levi-Montalcini, winner of the 1986Nobel Prize in Science, never answered my question. Instead,smiling a little, she set down her watering can amidthe dozens of coral and crimson plants and went to thebook shelves in the apartment she shares with her twin sister,Paola. When she returned to the room, Levi-Montalcinigave me an armful of family papers, books, and descriptionsof her- Nobel-winning discovery of Nerve GrowthFactor, a natural chemical that helps nerve cells to navigateand survive and may someday be used to regenerate damagedor severed nerves.Born in 1909, Rita Levi-Montalcini will soon be 88 yearsold. Her slim carriage is erect, her hands don't tremble, shedoesn't wear glasses. Her thick, gray hair is smartly and simplystyled, and so are her clothes. Her hyphenated name, andthe elegant gold jewelry she wore, once led an American psychologistwho encountered Rita at scientific meetings to assumeshe was supported by a wealthy Italian husband.Nothing could be further from the facts of her life.An anxious child, Rita Levi-Montalcini grew up utterlylacking in self-confidence, afraid of her father, Adamo Levi.A businessman with an exuberant love of opera, Adamowas also a controlling patriarch; his wife, Adele Montalcini,nine years his junior, accepted his authority and toleratedhis explosive temper. Paola was not intimidated by theseverity and piercing quality of Adamo's gaze, the silentflaring of the nostrils preceding his brief but violent outburstsof anger, the imperious voice. Rita trembled withfear when she saw such behavior and, extending this fearto all adults, fled from them. Her father's stories about theprecarious situation of Jews under the Italian Inquisitionand during the pogroms in Eastern Europe gave her nightmaresinto adulthood.Undoubtedly it was also Adamo's temperament that impelledhim to make all the decisions in the household, rightdown to the kinds of hats worn by the twin girls. When itcame time for higher education, it took two years for Ritato persuade her father to allow her to enter medical school.According to Adamo, two of his six sisters, both of whomhad doctoral degrees, had found it very difficult to reconciletheir studies with their conjugal and maternal roles.Adamo objected that medicine "was a long and difficultcourse of study, unsuitable for a woman." The young Ritahad already decided to forego marriage, however, and shehad no interest at all in babies. In her autobiography, InPraise of Imperfection, she wrote that "the subordinate roleplayed by the female in a society run entirely by men madethe status of a wife less than attractive."Finally her father yielded. Rita and her cousin, Eugenia,Anthropologist RUBY ROHRLICH PH.D. has authored numerouspapers on women. She is currently working on a book,Scientists as Survivors: From Ashes into the Light.S p r i n g 1 9 9 7 • O N T H E I S S U E Sspent a year preparing for entrance exams: with the help oftutors, they learned Latin, Greek and mathematics. The twoyoung women studied philosophy, literature and historyon their own. Their concentration was rewarded when Ritascored highest on the list of candidates on the entranceexams. In 1930, both she and Eugenia enrolled in Turin UniversityMedical School on the banks of the River Po.Rita was one of seven women in a class of 300 students;she made few friends at the university. A classmate oncedescribed her "as a kind of squid, ready to squirt ink atanybody who came near." She did, however, attract a mentor,Giuseppe Levi (no relation). Later, she would describehim as "celebrated in Turin University as a scientist, for theanti-fascism he professed with supreme disdain for themost elementary rules of caution, and for his terrible butshort-lived fits of rage."Rita graduated at the head of her class in 1936, and wasrewarded with a trip to a scientific conference in Sweden.She decided to specialize in neurology and psychiatry, andwas given a job as assistant lecturer in the anatomy department.But history intervened.Underground ResearchIn 1936 Mussolini's ties with Hitler became closer andthe Italian Fascists began to vilify the Jews. When theanti-Jewish laws were passed in 1938, Rita was compelledto leave the university and was barred from doinglaboratory research and practicing medicine. Rita hadnever firmly identified herself as Jewish; her father had notifiedhis four children, before they could even read andwrite, that they were freethinkers and could choose orrefuse a religion when they reached the age of 21. As theItalian newspapers continued their vicious attacks on theJews, Rita at first experienced a kind of shock. That shockeventually gave way to a sense of liberation from "thenightmare of an anti-Semitism, all the more menacing forbeing invisible and yet ever present," that had tormentedher since early childhood."For the first time I felt pride in being Jewish and not Israelite,as we had been called in the liberal climate of myearly years," she wrote, "and though still profoundly secular,I felt a bond with those who were, like me, the victimsof the lurid campaign unleashed by the Fascist press."In 1940, one of her classmates, Rodolfo Amprimo, proddedher into continuing her research. With the help of herbrother Gino, Rita built a laboratory in her bedroom. Shecontinued her early research on the nervous system of chickembryos. The first experiments turned out well, allowingRita to observe the development of the nervous system.Her mentor, Giuseppe Levi, who had been dismissedfrom the University along with all the other Jewish professors,became Rita's first assistant, and his students crowdedinto her bedroom to work and examine her experiment.In this setting, Rita replicated an experiment by ViktorHamburger of Washington University, which she had readof in a scientific journal. In the winter of 1942, Rita wrote41

Rita Levi-Montalcini and her twin sister,Paola, in 1938.up her findings, which differedfrom Hamburger's, and sent themto a Belgian journal, since Italianjournals then did not accept thework of Jewish scientists.Life in HidingLater that year theAllies began systematicallyto bomb thecities of northern Italy,particularly industrializedTurin. The Levi's, along withmany other Turinese, movedto the nearby countryside. Inthe dining area of the small"house they rented, Rita set upher lab on a little table in the corner.She cycled from hill to hillbegging farmers to sell her their Ieggs, particularly the fertilized ones, |for "her babies." In the spring, it wasthe burgeoning plant and animal lifearound her that stimulated Rita's interest inthe nervous system of different species. She came torealize how "individual cells behave in a way similar tothat of living beings, how plastic and malleable is the entirenervous system." Her awareness of this "behavior" was inmarked contrast to the rigid and unchanging structure ofcells described in neuroanatomy textbooks of the time.But Rita soon found it impossible to focus on her work.In September 1943, the Germans occupied Italy, and theLevi's found themselves fleeing for their lives. They triedcrossing into Switzerland but were rebuffed by the Italianguards at the frontier. With false identity cards, they nextboarded a train going south, and Rita found herself facinga former fellow student in a Fascist uniform, who askedwhere they were heading. In the chaos at the railway station,she said, they had boarded the wrong train; theywould be getting off at the next stop, which turned out tobe Florence. The group got off the train in a heavy downpourearly in the morning and phoned a friend of Paola's,who in turn took them to meet Consilia Leoncini.With a sick father in the house and her son at the front, itwas too dangerous for Consilia to rent a room to Jews. TheLevis said their name was Lupani, assured her that theywere Catholics from Apulia, and Consilia gave them alarge room. Thereafter they spent their time filling out falseidentity cards, printed by the partisans, which they distributedto friends who also managed to reach Florence. Withthese identity cards they procured ration cards, which"sanctioned, at least temporarily, the right to life, of whichwe had been deprived by the Nazi invasion of Italy," Ritawould later write. Meanwhile, they all listened to the BBCevery evening on the radio, discovered that Consilia wasan ardent antifascist, and learned from Cosetta, Consilia'sdaughter, that her mother realized they were Jews early on.At the same time, Giuseppe Levi also managed to reachFlorence, where his wife and twochildren were staying, and he andI Rita edited a new edition of histwo volumes on histology.On September 2, 1944 theI British marched into Florence.I Rita registered with the AlliedHealth Service, where sheacted as both doctor andnurse. By the summer of1945, depressed by the impotenceshe experienced withthe service, she decided neveragain to practice medicine.She returned to Turin and theposition of assistant professorat the university, along with| Giuseppe Levi and the other Jewishprofessors who had survived.She also enrolled in a biology programto bolster what she readily acknowledgedas her inadequate scientifictraining. Less than a year later, on a sum-Hmer morning in 1946, Giuseppe Levi showedRita a letter from Viktor Hamburger, the chair of thebiology department of Washington University in St. Louis,Missouri. He had read Rita's paper in the Belgian journal,noted that her conclusions differed from his, and invited herto spend a semester with him to investigate the problem further.The following year, Rita set sail for America.Sanctuary and SexismViktor Hamburger, impressed by Levi-Montalcini'sscientific acuity, enthusiasm and hard work, helpedher settle into American life. In the early years atWashington University, she often visited her former classmate,the microbiologist Salvador Luria, who by then hadbecome chairman of the biology department at IndianaUniversity in Bloomington. During her times there, she encounteredJames Watson, Luria's student, who was invariablyvery rude to her, "a frail foreign woman," as she describedherself at this time. In her book, she attributed hisattitude to his "well-known anti-feminism." It was an antifeminismthat Rosalind Franklin, the English physicalchemist, was later to experience.In the midst of her work, Rita had nevertheless beendoubtful at times about the value of experimental neuroembryologicalresearch. One afternoon, however, examiningher latest series of silver-salt-impregnated chick-embryosections, she realized that the nerve-cell populationsshe had been so carefully observing were subject to migrations,quotas and to the elimination of excess numbers.Nervous systems, in short, were more accessible to investigationthan she had imagined. "The revelations of that daystayed permanently inscribed in my memory," wrote Rita,"marking not only the end of the long period of doubt andlack of faith in my research but also the sealing of a lifelongalliance between me and the nervous system."42 O N T H E I S S U E S • S p r i n g 1997

At the end of World War II, Rita returned to Turin and to the university to continueher work, along with the other Jewish professors who had survived.Unlike other cells in the body, such as cells of skin, nervecells do not naturally heal or regenerate themselves whendamaged. But Rita's observations led her to the theory thatthere was a natural substance in the body that promotedthe growth of nerves. To test her hypothesis, she graftedsmall fragments of two tumors close to the vessels of themembrane covering the embryonic tissues. After 10 days ofincubation, she observed that the volume of the sensoryand the sympathetic ganglia was much larger than normal,that sympathetic fibers had invaded the organs, some evenpenetrating into the veins of the host embryo. This confirmedher hypothesis about the humoral nature of the substance,which she called the "nerve-growth promotingagent," and concluded that it could be identified by the invitro(outside the body) technique.She secured a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation anddecided to visit another friend, Hertha Meyer. Meyer hadlong ago set up an in-vitro culture unit at the University ofRio de Janiero. Throughout her trip, Levi-Montalcini carriedin her coat pocket two white mice with implantedtumor cells nestled in a small cardboard box; with the miceshe included an apple for food and drink.Two months later, in a letter to Viktor, Rita described andillustrated an extraordinarily dense, halo-shaped outgrowthof nerve fibers from the ganglia grown close to thepreviously transplanted tumors. "Enchanted by the beautyof the halos, I never tired of repeating the experiment, anddocumented it with drawings in my numerous letters,"wrote Rita.On her return to St. Louis, Rita began to work with Dr.Stanley Cohen, a flute-playing biochemist and newly appointedresearch associate in the biology department. Aftera year of hard work in the in-vitro culture unit that Rita setup, she and Stan discovered the qualities of the growthstimulatingsubstance, which they named the NerveGrowth Factor (NGF). It seemed that NGF was a peptide, amacromolecule containing complexes of nucleic acids andproteins; the salivary glands of male mice, they discovered,were rich in NGF and were an inexpensive source. By designingan antiserum charting NGF's role, they found itwas essential to the differentiation and health of nerve cells.Six years later, in 1959, Rita and Stan's intense, productivecollaboration abruptly ended when Viktor Hamburgerfired Cohen. It was an event that Rita writes "sounded toher like the tolling of a funeral bell." At no time, however,was Rita critical of Viktor, the man who had brought herout of devastated Italy. Still, it was clear that the time hadcome for Rita to establish her independence.An Institute of Her OwnIn 1961, Rita obtained a grant from the National ScienceFoundation to establish in Rome a counterpart to theSt. Louis laboratory. She spent six months of each yearthere, alternating with a colleague, the biochemist PieroAngeletti, the direction of the lab and her own work atWashington University.By the middle 1980s, as the genetic coding for humannerve growth factor was identified, the significance ofS p r i n g 1997 • O N T H E ISSUESRita's work was recognized. In 1986 she received a Laskeraward, the most prestigious science prize in the UnitedStates. Later that same year, Rita Levi-Montalcini and herformer colleague, Stanley Cohen, were awarded the NobelPrize in Medicine and Physiology for their discovery. She isone of only 25 women to have won in the 93-year history ofthe Nobel Prize; of those 25, only five have won in medicineand physiology.As the first Italian woman to receive a Nobel Prize in science,Rita is extremely popular in her native country. Constantlyfeatured in the Italian media, she is a role model notonly for women aspiring to be scientists, but also for the elderly,for she continues to go to her lab every day. Recently,Rita used her public position to rescue from privatizationthe Institute of the Italian Encyclopedia Trecanni, theequivalent of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and gained fullpowers over it. These she handed over to a group of efficientand qualified "youngsters"; she appointed a 35-yearoldto the position of chief editor of the encyclopedia. Shecreated a biology laboratory under the supervision of theworld's leading scientists and entrusted it to 20 young scientists,who will transfer their studies and discoveries tothe volume "Frontiers of Biology" in the encyclopedia, towhich she has given new life—at last on a CD-Rom.In a New York Times article entitled "Science vs. the FemaleScientist," Dr. Shirley Tilghman, professor of molecularbiology at Princeton, wrote: "The culture of scienceevolved in a period when it was being practiced exclusivelyby men, and that has greatly influenced the outcome. Itis a man's game, and it continues to be played by men'srules. Linda Wilson, president of Radcliffe and a chemist,recently suggested that the fierce rivalries and ruthlesscompetition among scientists were incompatible with theinclusion of women and minorities in science. . . . But scienceis an extraordinary profession. I know of few otherprofessions where the excitement that brought you to thefield in the first place is sustained over so many years. Itwould be a tragedy to exclude women from all this fun."Rita Levi-Montalcini has no intention of being left out,even now. Along with her 200 scientific articles, severalpieces on the social significance of science, and her autobiography,Rita wrote and presented "The Feminine Awakening,"an explicit expression of her feminist thinking and anoverview of the women's emancipation movement from itsorigin in the early 19th century to 1970. By 1979 she hadreached retirement age in both the United States and Italy.Since then, she has written, "I have been allowed, if notwithout opposition,...to work in the capacity of a guest inthe institute which I had seen born under better auspices 10years earlier." She continues to direct the Rome laboratory,where there are currently seven younger women doing research.One of them, Luisa Bracchi-Laudiero, told me thather grandmother, but not her mother, had always encouragedher interest in science. It was that grandmother whoproudly calls her "my little Levi-Montalcini." The world ofscience is not an ideal world for a woman, but it is a radicallydifferent one. And for Rita Levi-Montalcini, sciencecontinues to be pure joy. •43

activismHOW THE SPIRITMOVESAt Mississippi's Camp Sister Spirit, survival is the best revengeBY BRENDA AND WANDA HENSONHERE IN THE DEEP SOUTH, WHERE YOU COMEfrom and who you belong to is everything.Folks will go to great lengths tofind out who your people are and whobelongs to you. What might be considered"nosy" in other parts of the U.S. isconsidered "caring" here at home. Forfour years, Sister Spirit Incorporatedworked to raise money so that a feminist educationaland cultural retreat center could be built in Mississippi.The core group of women wanted to create a placefor self-sufficiency and autonomy from the patriarchy, aplace for creating indigenous lesbian culture, a place fromwhich to share food and clothing with neighbors, a place towork and to care.We wanted to be able to work with whoever camethrough our door. Some have labeled our work "actionfeminism." We call ourselves "doers"—we do what needsdoing, with whatever we have to work with. Since ourstruggle became national news in November 1993, sistersand brothers from all over the world have responded.When the violence against us broke out three years ago,we had daily contact with only one neighbor. He told usthat since he owned the 100 acres to the north of us and the100 acres to the south of us that he has always hunted theland—even the 120 acres sandwiched between his land,now legally owned by Sister Spirit Incorporated. When wetold him that our land was a wildlife refuge and wouldnever be hunted again, he was enraged. He told us that wehad no right; considering himself the patriarch of this community,he thought he could run us off. So far he has failed.People from around the country have stuck by us.We can hardly believe that three years of our lives havepassed so quickly. We are proud, amazed and grateful forBRENDA AND WANDA HENSON are two of thefounders of Camp Sister Spirit, located in Ovett, Mississippi.what more than 3,000 volunteers have done. We have succeededin creating our dream: a feminist educational andcultural retreat center with what we call a "land dyke"focus; a safe space—no violence in word or deed; a spacecommitted to sobriety. Camp Sister Spirit now has a 33-bedbunkhouse for womyn-born-womyn only, an eight-bedcabin and a six-bed bunkhouse for men or womyn. The cabinsare ramped for access by the disabled, though thebunkhouse upstairs is not. Our meeting space can holdabout 75 folks; our kitchen is large and well equipped. Ourpantry doubles as a community food pantry, and we feedmore than 100 people each month. One mile of used tinfence protects the perimeters of the 120 acres and the electricfront gate, given by Robin Tyler's West Coast Womyn's Musicand Comedy Festival participants, is remote controlled andlavender. In the face of terror, we have managed to survive.WE CONTINUE TO CONNECT WITH OTHER GROUPS ANDcharities to make referrals and to complete jointprojects. We call our efforts fellowshipping, or"networking for peace." Recently, after four months ofspeaking to local ministers, community leaders and volunteers,we were able to get a wheelchair ramp put on thetrailer of a neighbor who recently lost her leg to diabetes.This effort was followed by a letter to the local newspapereditor, thanking all those we had spoken with as well asthose who actually helped. Mennonites from five countiesover built the ramp. Several other churches offered money,but could not find folks within their congregations willingto volunteer to do the work! Several women we've connectedwith who share our desire to make Mississippi a betterplace to live, (including the directors of the local Red Crossand Good Samaritan Center), are now making referrals tous. We in turn refer to them. Our list of professionals, peoplewho are willing to work on a referral basis and acceptsliding scale fees, is limited but growing.Despite the local fundamentalists, we are who we are44 O N T H E I S S U E S • S p r i n g 1 9 9 7

and we are working to make life better. We have found thatour place is in the whole community. We have earned therespect of many who "did not have an opinion one way orthe other" about lesbians or gay men. We have earned therespect of many who may have had a strong negative opinion,but who admire our willingness to stand up for whatwe believe in: as one neighbor said, "You gals are tough."We have also earned the scorn of those who tried hard toget us out of their "Christian community" and who noware revealed as "bearing false witness" against us. We havenot done what the preachers said we would do: We havenot marked any babies; the divorce rate has not gone up;we did not turn out to be "The Gay Agenda."Many brothers and sisters come for the Camp Sister Spiritexperience. Mamma, Brenda's 91-year-old mother wholives here with us, says she never knows from day-to-daywho will be here for supper. True. We now have three landcaretakers, Brenda, Wanda, and Mattie; two more apprenticeswill be here come spring.ALTHOUGH THE INDICTMENTS AND THE OUTRIGHTthreats of our neighbors have dwindled, we stillface harassment from others, notably our neighbor.In September of 1995, for example, we received a water billfor 187,000 gallons of water—for one month. Usually, ourbill is, at most, for 18,000 gallons monthly. The woman atour community water service tried to convince us that wemust have a leak.We began turning the water on for an hour or so, longenough to wash dishes and bathe, then we'd turn it off. Theturn-off valve is across the road at our neighbor's. Sometimeafter I talked to the water service, I went down to cut thewater off and noticed that the dial had stopped spinning. Icalled the representative to report my discovery. "Like I said,your pipe was broken. You must have fixed it," she said.Our pipes run across our neighbor's field, yet he has refusedto let Brenda check for a leak on his land, eventhough our water company has a verbal easement. To getaccess to his land, we would have to take him to court. Wedecided instead to hire a company to drill a well for us.After waiting two months for an appointment with thecompany, we called to ask how much longer it would take.The company representative said, "Sorry, we accepted alarger contract and we are not available." All the otherdrillers are booked until February 1997. Brenda and I managedto resume our doctoral studies during the fall. But assoon as the semester is over, I will rent a trencher. We hopeby the time this article is published that we will have installeda half-mile of water pipe all the way to thefront road.I am not from Jones County. I'm a native of JacksonCounty, Mississippi, 80 miles south, so I'll always be Iconsidered an outsider here. But Jones County has a Iremarkable history of African-American liberationand integration struggles, which include the hardwork of many lesbians and gay men. Now the firstgeneration of folks since the Civil Rights Era of the1950's and 1960's have faced off in a battle for lesbianand gay sovereignty. Thus far, social justice is ahead.The land feels enchanted by the loving energybrought here by the thousands of volunteers who'veworked with us. The land feels clean, washed by theSpring1997 • ON THE ISSUEStears of those who lived through those first two years offear on the land. The land feels blessed by all the prayers,rituals and gatherings in the name of our protection on theland. And most importantly, the land now feels safe forthose who are interested in coming to volunteer, visit, do aninternship, do a class project, or whatever you can.What have we learned, you might ask? Lots. But themajor lesson we learned—and the reason we could not getinto court to stop the aggression against us in the first fewyears—is that there are no civil rights laws to protect us aslesbians and gays. Therefore we do not have civil rightsunder the U.S. government. I read in the gay press all thetime about gay and lesbian civil-rights-law violations. Notso. Violations, yes, but no laws.I feel that the United States is in violation of the InternationalHuman Rights laws, which mandate governments toprotect their citizens from being terrorized. As global citizens,we have the right to live without fear. Yet fear is away of life for many gays and lesbians here in the U.S.; justsee how many of us are closeted. I can't tell you how manytimes African-American Mississippians have stopped us intown and said, with an air of hope and of trying to get usto understand the real issue, "Listen, this is what it is. Wegot our rights. You can get yours, too. Keep on going." It'sthe hugs that always follow this advice giving that lets meknow that change is possible.Many folks have asked us why we do what we do, "in ofall places, Mississippi." We do it because Mississippi is ourhome. When you move because you are forced to, you becomea political refugee. Fundamentalists do not have aright to force their religiousunderstandingson us. Our own religion,Unitarian Universalism,honors our Ilesbian love and our Ibeing loved. For us, |being refugees is notan option. •Right, Brenda andWanda, March 1996.Below, Tara Cray, thesign Goddess andartist, preparing forthe Gulf CoastWomyn's Festival.45

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ooks& filmsThe battle between feminism andmotherhood: Is it fruitful to multiply, ordo the intense needs of children limitthe growth of the women who love them?FRUITFUL: A Real Mother inthe Modern Worldby Anne Roiphe(Boston: Houghton Mifflin,$22.95)REPRODUCING PERSONS:Issues in Feminist Bioethicsby Laura M. Purdy(New York: Cornell UniversityPress, $42.50; $16.95, paper)THE GOOD(AND NOT SO GOOD)MOTHERREVIEWED BY ROBIN BROMLEYnism, which to her "was always to givewomen fuller, better lives, a chance for equalitywith men, and an opportunity to use all ofThe notion of motherhood, never simple orparticularly stable, is again under pressure— their human potential" and the needs of children,which in our culture has limited suchthis time on several fronts. While advances inreproductive technology and changes in familystructures stir debate about where, when agony of wrenching herself away from a cry-personal growth. For Roiphe, this includes theand why women want children, the sharp increasein working mothers heightens the ten-as ambivalence about the movement itself. Imingchild to pursue her own ambitions, as wellsion between self-fulfillment and the demands ages of Roiphe herself going into labor aloneof family, and provokes anxiety about who in a snow bank; of her mother sipping Scotchtakes care of the children.in a bathtub, longing for divorce; and of beingTwo recent books: Fruitful: A Real Mother inencouraged to leave her playwright husbandthe Modern World, by the novelist and columnistAnne Roiphe, and Reproducing Persons: Is-grateful the author is for the fuller, better lifeand find her own voice, make it clear howsues in Feminist Bioethics, by philosophy pro-feminisfessor Laura M. Purdy, reveal just how urgent way feminists have belittled motherhood,gave her. But she is also angry at thethese questions have become. In widely differentcontexts and from different points of view, more recently, attacked women's motives forabandoned the demand for child care and,these two books define the major issues in the having children in the first place. In fact, thecurrent debate about reproductive choices and book's title was inspired by one of the movement'searly swipes at mothers: Betty Rollin'stheir political ramifications. They also revealhow divisive the debate can be.1970 command in an issue of Life magazine,Fruitful, Anne Roiphe's 11th book, is a personalreflection on her experience as a mother, we could understand," she said, "even he"If God were speaking to us today in a voiceas well as feminism's impact on her and the would say 'Be fruitful! Don't multiply.' "culture—at least the middle-class part of it. Itwas prompted by The Morning After, her ROIPHE IS OUT TO PROVE HOW WRONGdaughter Kate Roiphe's critique of feminism's Rollin was; real mothers can do both, shefocus on date rape and sexual harassment. argues.The book is also a plea for a more realisticassessment of what mothering is: "It's allProud of her daughter's work and also awareof the irony of having "a critic of the revolution very well in the abstract to speak of thein which I was a foot soldier and she a beneficiary,"Roiphe says, "I am a mother feminist. I thick of it, we have to consider, is it worth it,virtues of motherhood. . . but up close, in theask myself is that a contradiction, and this what does it do to us, how exactly does itbook begins." It's Roiphe's chance to address make us feel. Because the emotions, good andher own doubts about the women's movement,as well as its goals and achievements. blocks of our next political direction." Roiphebad, of the common mother are the buildingThe chief contradiction Roiphe addresses is takes a significant step toward redefiningthe personal conflict between the goal of femi-motherhood in the second section of her book,ROBINBROMLEY is a writer, editor and mother living in New York City,S p r i n g 1 9 9 7 • O N T H E I S S U E S 47

"Guilt." A veteran of consciousness-raising,Roiphe knows that stories can effectchange, and she uses them persuasively.Her anecdotes about outstanding mistakesgo a long way to dispel the notionof the available mother who heals allwith a hug. They also help assuage theworking mother's guilt over neglectingher children. (I, for one, gained tremendouslatitude for error from the stories ofher inadvertently leaving her 10-year-oldhome alone when rushing to a hospital,and sending her toddler to a birthdayparty without underpants.)The book is less convincing, however,when it turns from anecdotes to ananalysis of sexism and prescribes newdirections for the future. For instance, relyingheavily on the work of psychologistsNancy Chodorow and DorothyDinnerstein, Roiphe traces the chiefcause of misogyny back to women themselves,to "mother-dominated childhoods,"in which children fear regressionand the loss of self. The idea is thatpeople hate women because they hatetheir repressive mothers. So if things arebad for women in general, they areworse for moms. Quoting Chodorow,Roiphe writes, "We are all prone tomother hating because we live in a societythat says that mothers can andshould do all for their children."The failures of feminism can also beblamed on women, particularly the rageagainst men that became a definingtheme in radical feminist politics andscholarship. Roiphe writes that "Insteadof establishing equality between thesexes, all the banging of the consciousness-raisingdrum had somehow managedto reverse the polarity. Good wasnow female and bad was male." Pronatalism,which Roiphe defines as "theidea that the culture is rife with evidenceof a conspiracy to make women bearchildren," comes in for even stiffer attack.While Roiphe forgives the early exaboutchild care." Worse, she contends, itplays into the hands of anti-abortionistswho use it to position the women'smovement as antifamily. Oddly enough,although women are the problem,Roiphe believes the solution rests inmen. If men would share half the responsibilityfor raising children, theywould attract half the wrath. This wouldnot only diffuse misogyny but also givewomen the time they need to pursuetheir aims and children the attentionthey so sorely need.Women must lead the way: "If wecould make a revolution about whatwomen did, we can make a revolutionabout what men do, what families shouldbe. It is just that we stopped halfway. "This will free us to attend to the next gen-Roiphe traces misogyny back to women themselves; people hate womenbecause they hate their repressive mothers.pression of pronatalism as "a kind ofpolitics-cum-paranoia" of early feminism,"today's anti-baby posturing," shesays, "is something else again. It repelsmost women. It makes it possible for usto avoid serious questions and issues" Controversial paradigm-challengingutterly engrossing"A compelling and intimate portrait of howthe contemporary Goddess movementimpacts women's lives today. The film coversthe emotionally moving experiences ofwomen attending a three-day Austin-basedworkshop taught by author and feministwitch Zsuzsanna Budapest, often called the"founding mother" of the women'sspirituality movement.To Order send check to:Women's Spirituality ForumP. O. Box 11363Oakland, CA 94611To order withVisa or MastercardCall: (510)444-7724Video:Shipping & Handling:Total $34.95A documentaryby Peg |ordaneration of feminist goals: putting childcare back on the agenda, helping womenmake informed choices about reproduction,and finding solutions to infertility.Roiphe's call to bring fathers homedoesn't mean she excludes other formsof family. Examining the various waysfamilies are formed today—homosexualpartnerships, adoptive families, remarriages,families formed with the help ofsurrogate mothers or IVF—Roiphestrives for tolerance, recognizing thatpeople nurture each other and childrenin many ways. And yet, unaware of herown biases, she often undermines hercause. In an otherwise moving definitionof family, for example, she seems blindto the huge caveat she throws into theargument, suggesting that differentkinds of family are fine as long as theyare not substantially different: "If we definethe family as a bond, biological orchosen, which is dedicated to the caringof all. . .then the genders of the adultswill affect the style, the culture, the politicsof that home, but no more."There is, of course, nothing insubstantialabout culture and politics. Roiphesays in her baldest statement of the issue,"Feminism needs to be pro-marriage, becausethat is the best way to make mostmen, women, and their children happy."Her point is that parenting is at least atwo- or three-person job, if not the wholevillage's. But her wish for the return ofthe family, even the broader and moreexpansive families of the present, doesn'tseem to be any less fantastic. This is whyI think she ultimately slips back into acall for "traditional families."48 O N THE ISSUES • Spring 1997

Roiphe's descriptions of her own familyprove much more affecting, especiallyas it grows to include one daughter fromRoiphe's first marriage, a new husband,two stepdaughters, and two daughtersfrom her second marriage. It is hard todispute the elasticity and strength of afamily that endures an angry child settinga bed on fire; one sister badly batteringanother; a daughter getting strung out ondrugs, then going through recovery andthe discovery that she is HIV-positive.Reflecting on how much her experienceas a mother has encompassed, howmuch it has expanded the way she thinksand feels about herself as well as others,Roiphe claims that contradictions collapseand the clash between motherhoodand feminism is an "artificial one, afterall." At first, I found this disappointing, afacile resolution of a powerful conflict.But as I reflect on the family AnneRoiphe describes and the contradictionsthat motherhood entails, I believe her.Her personal story makes an importantcontribution to our understanding ofwho we are and to enlarging roles thatthe culture has made much too small.REPRODUCINGPERSONS: ISSUES IN FEMInistBioethics, is entirely different inscope and purpose than Roiphe's reflections.The book is a collection of formalphilosophical essays on the moral implicationsof abortion, reproductive technology,and genetic testing written over thelast 20 years. Purdy, who teaches philosophyat Wells College, is interested inbringing the rigors of her academic disciplineto the moral issues underlyingwomen's childbearing choices. She also iscommitted to demonstrating that feministethics deserves the attention of seriousphilosophers. Therefore, she applies therules of formal logic to each issue, testingthe merits of each argument with the formaldemand that "equal consideration ofinterests would mean that women's interestswould count as heavily as those ofmen and, where the two come into conflict,would be taken to outweigh thoseinterests at least half the time."Purdy is much more skeptical thanRoiphe when it comes to the reasonswomen choose to bear or raise children.Aligned with what Roiphe considersanti-baby posturing, Purdy is convincedthat social pressures have more to dowith reproductive decisions than intrinsicdesire. Thus, while Roiphe and Purdymight agree on the current aim of feminism,which, as Purdy puts it, is "to helpwomen take more control of their lives,"the two women have very different ideasabout how close women are to achievingthat goal. Purdy believes that the threatsto women's self-determination are enormous,consisting not only of the pronatalismthat Roiphe dismisses, but of theinsidious sexism that overtly challengeswomen's development, and makes it difficultfor them to feel as suited to otherroles as they are to nurturing.Purdy's chief concerns about the difficultyof making reproductive decisionscome to the fore in her 1995 essay, "WhatCan Progress in Reproductive TechnologyMean for Women?" At issue iswhether the risks involved in genetictesting, which allows women to abort seriouslyimpaired fetuses, outweighs itspotential good. Here, as in later argumentsabout abortion, Purdy emphasizesthe burden on women raising children ina sexist society. Without guaranteedhealth care, child care, or equal opportunitiesin education and the workplace,raising children can be an overwhelmingresponsibility. Purdy's view of how grimparenting can be is even starker, in anessay comparing compulsory pregnancy(which is what a ban on abortionamounts to) with the International LaborOrganization's definition of forced labor.017THE WISE WOMAN2441 Cordova StreetOakland, CA94602(510)536-3174The CulturalContradictionsof MotherhoodSharon Hays"A lucid, probing examination of our culture'scontradictory and troubled relationshipto motherhood—and how it affectsmothers....A thoughtful analysis."—Kirkus Reviews"Hays's intellectually incendiaryCulturalContradictionscould add needednuance tofeministthought—and perhapsignite changein mothers'over-burdenedlives."—The Nation$2$.00YALE UNIVERSITY PRESSP.O. BOX 20904O, NEW HAVEN, CT 06520THE WISE WOMAN, a national journal, locuses on feministIssues, Goddess lore, feminist spirituality, and Feminist Witchcraft.Published quarterly since 1980 by Ann Fortreedom.Includes: women's history, news, analysis, reviews, art, photos,poetry, cartoons by BOIbul, exclusive interviews, and originalresearch about witch-hunts, women's heritage, and women today.Subscription: $15 yr./$27 for 2 yrs./ $38 for 3 yrs. (U.S. funds).Sample copy or back Issue: $4 (U.S. funds).Microfilm: available In the Alternative Press Collection of UniversityMicrofilms International. Contact: UMI, University Microfilms, Inc.,300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346.The Wise Woman - Timely, Yel Timeless.THE WISE WOMAN. J441 Cordova SI.. Oakland, CA 94602.Subscribe now to The Wise Woman, and send In a copy of this ad,and you will be sent a free gift of matriarchal significancelSpring 1997 • ON THE ISSUES

A child's serious health problemsadded to this make it an almost impossibleburden, one that should count asmuch as—or more than—fetal life. Thisburden is compounded when a womanhas been pressured into having the child,a phenomenon that Purdy sees as pervasive.Unlike Roiphe, Purdy does not believemany women choose to have childrenfor the power of the experience. Infact, she is skeptical that many womenThere may behidden ingredientsin theproducts youuse... cruelty,pain, suffering.Rabbit with burned back from a skinloxicity study at a product testing lab.Let us send you a free Cruelty-FreeShopping Guide so you can makecompassionate choices on your nexttrip to the store. To receive a copycall us toll free at (800) SAY-AAVS orwrite to The American Anti-Vivisection Society, 801 Old York Rd.#204, Jenkintown, PA 19046.THE MAKING AND UNMAKINGOF A FEMALE SCIENTISTSLAM THE DOOR GENTLYAuthor Ruth Glater, Ph.D., tells the storyof her struggle to gain work, recognition,and respect in a field dominated by men.Her account "personalizes the statistics, revealingthe extraordinary psychological costs thatsuch discrimination exacted."JANE SHERRON DE HART, UCSBPaperback, $12.95 + $2.50 S&HFor information call Fithian Press1-800-662-8351Hungry for a new visionfor an aching world?Cloudhand,Clenched FistChaos, Crisis, and theEmergence of CommunityDrawing on 1he insights of new sciences andchaos theory, weaving in metaphors from T'aiChi and trans brming life stories, social activistRhea Miller de ivers a profound plea-and hopefulpossibility—tha. our very survival depends on theemergence of empowered communities.$15.00. Availat le from bookstores or fromINNISFREE PRESS 1-800-367-5872actively choose at all. As she sees it, thepressures of pronatalism are very real,very harmful and widespread: "Manywomen (and men) have children because'it is the thing to do,' and only 'misfits'fail to reproduce." Even more insidiousis the way sexism can corral women intounwanted pregnancies and parenthood:"Women in sexist societies are bombardedwith the view that women (but notmen) are nurturers by nature," Purdymaintains. "This assumption, togetherwith the (now usually subliminal) messagethat females lack the qualities necessaryfor other projects, undoubtedlyleads many women erroneously to concurin the judgment."Purdy's remedy, at first glance, seemspatronizing. "Feminists need to engagein an unrelenting campaign. . .to makesure that women are provided with theopportunity for thoroughgoing scrutinyof their needs, desires and plans beforegoing ahead with having a child. Suchscrutiny must include a realistic assessmentof the demands of motherhood. Itmust also include a clear-eyed assessmentof each individual woman's inclinations,strengths and resources. It iseasy to see why Roiphe and others mightIN BRIEF• FEMINISM & HISTORY edited by)oan Wallach Scott, (Oxford UniversityPress, paper, $19.95) This collection of20 essays, part of the "Oxford Readingsin Feminism" series, articulatesacross time and culture the classic dividebetween 'equality' and 'difference'feminism. Many of the texts areprofoundly academic, but what theysometimes lack in grace they make upfor in intellectual depth and range. Anespecially provocative essay includes"Does a Sex Have a History?" by theanthropologist Denise Riley, whichchallenges the very existence of theterm "woman" in a post-deconstructionistage; Ann Snitow's essay, "GenderDiary," tracks years of debate onmotherhood as a privileged category.Reducing the number of pregnanciesand abortions would mean changingdeeply ingrained social assumptions andthe behaviors that go with them, (empoweringgirls to refuse unwanted sexualencounters and making contraceptionand sex education a priority are two importantexamples). It would also meanPronatalism's pressures are real, harmful and widespread,according to Purdy; reducing pregnancies and abortions wouldmean changing social assumptions.reject this argument. If you don't acknowledgethe impact of sexism andpronatalism, you might think Purdy issaying that women do not think throughtheir choices. They are being herded towardmotherhood like sheep. But in fact,Purdy is adamant about looking at thesocial pressures women are under to definethemselves as mothers, the hardshipsthey can endure as a result, and theeffort to alleviate those pressures bymaking alternatives available throughgenetic testing and abortion as well asthrough wider social reform.In her essays on abortion, which makeup the second part of the book, Purdymakes an even stronger case for the needto evaluate the social forces that influencesa woman's decision to bear children.In "Abortion and the Argumentfrom Conscience," for instance, she suggeststhat the political debate has focusedon the sanctity of the fetus to divertattention from the real issue—whythere are so many unwanted pregnanciesin the first place. We avoid these problemsbecause the social cost of remedyingthem would be profound.improving women's health and financialstatus, and providing adequate food,shelter, and care for children. This laysout a far more constructive agenda forfeminism than arguments about the relativesexism of the culture, for it calls attentionto the very real consequences ofill-considered pregnancies: those youngpeople whose lives we say we hold sodear, yet whose well being we do so littleto foster.PURDY SHOWS GREATER SYMPATHY FORdesire to have children in her morerecent essays on reproductive technology,which comprise the third and lastsection of the book. Indeed, it is the basisfor her argument against feminists whofear men will use technology to controlwomen's reproductive decisions, or eveneradicate the need for women themselves.Unlike Roiphe, Purdy offers amuch more measured, even cooler, viewof the experience. Carefully defining the"right reasons" for parenting, she acknowledgesthat some men and womenwant children for the pleasures of thespecial closeness in being a child's pri-50 O N T H E I S S U E S • S p r i n g 1 9 9 7

IEImary caretaker and the wish to nurture achild and witness her or his growth, yetPurdy remains skeptical of the independenceof their choice.Rather than define herself as a parent,Purdy says she "participates in parenting."Nevertheless, she does admit thatthe desire to parent can be a compellinginterest—one that outweighs the manyarguments that Purdy puts forth againstparenting in a sexist society, and one thatshe ultimately upholds on the samegrounds she gives for the access to genetictesting and abortion: the right toself-determination, which emphasizescontrol over one's body and resources.Given how much influence society hasover our decisions, in Purdy's view, it isnot surprising that she ultimately arguesthat the more significant issue in reproductivetechnology is not about individualchoice, but whether the huge sums ofmoney being allocated for it might betterbe spent on broader social change, suchas routine health care for women thatmight reduce the infant mortality rate.Roiphe would agree, despite her radicallydifferent view of parenthood andthe forces that shape it. No one can denyhow hostile the environment has becomefor women and their children, given therecent welfare "reform" measures thataim to marginalize (if not extinguish)them. Onslaughts like this make it clearthat, while it is important to debate anddefine who we are and what we need aswomen, right now we may need to subordinateour differences to fight for anenvironment in which women and childrencan survive, let alone thrive. •IN BRIEF• LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW:Meditations for Women LeavingPatriarchy by Carolyn Gage, (CommonCourage Press, paper, $14.95)For once, here's a meditation manualwith attitude. Written by an ON THE IS-SUES contributor, this book of morethan 100 meditations covers issuesfrom empathy to jealousy, from askingfor help to refusing to compromise.Gage gathers quotes from courageouswomen around the world, and writesin a tone that encourages and inspireswithout being insipid. Packed withoriceless gems ("The doctrine of'choosing one's battles' is a dangerousone for the radical feminist."), it's abook that deserves a place of honor onevery woman's bedside table.FITHE DIVA INTHE MIRRORBY KATHI MAIOIT'S NOT EASY BEING A DIVA, AND Idon't mean an opera singer. (Althoughthat's no walk in the park, either.)No, I'm referring to the Hollywoodfemale superstar: iconic women performerswhose show biz personas couldfill a screen, eclipse any script and overshadowany co-star. Back in the goldendays of Hollywood, the town was full ofthem. Joan Crawford. Bette Davis. EvenJudy Garland and Elizabeth Taylor. Theywere bigger, much bigger, than the filmsthey appeared in. And that's the way weliked them.But, gradually, throughoutthe 1950s and 1960s, the roleof women in feature films deteriorated,and the Hollywooddiva all but disappeared.Oh, we still havefemale stars today, but look atthem. Headliners like JuliaRoberts and Sandra Bullock(and even slightly older performerslike Meg Ryan andMichele Pfeiffer) are girlish,sweet and, sad to say, almostinterchangeable. They hardlystrike us as women of power,and they never truly dominatetheir material, or theirleading men. In fact, comparedto the hypermasculinemale stars of today (Stallone,Mel Gibson, Schwarzenegger, etc.), theypractically fade into the woodwork.So, is the diva dead? Not as long asBarbra Streisand still lives andbreathes—and produces, directs, writesmusic for, sings over the closing creditsof, and stars in—the occasional film.Theproblem is, much of the movie-goingpublic—that is, many audience membersand almost all critics—no longer want towatch a woman be a STAR. They want awoman who takes up less space on thescreen, someone who is young and prettyand more docile, on and off the set.KATHI MAIO is the film critic forON THE ISSUES.That's why there was such backlashagainst Streisand's latest movie, THEMIRROR HAS TWO FACES. Most of thereviews were pans, and most of the panswere intensely personal attacks, chargingher with "control-freak" perfectionismand excessive vanity. Many gleefullypointed out that she fired some technicalworkers during her shoot. Others beratedher for lighting herself in a flatteringmanner. It's as if they were saying, "Howdare she call the shots on her own filmset?" "How dare she be the star of themovie wherein she plays the protagonist?"(Take a moment to consider thatwhen Mel Gibson directed himself as thetitle character of "Braveheart," no onebusted his chops for being a take-chargekinda guy, or for filling the screen withhis own manly, mythically heroic countenance.Heck, they even gave him a coupleof Oscars for his self-glorifying epic.)As with her previous (Oscar-snubbed)directorial projects, much of the snipingagainst The Mirror Has Two Faces was leveledagainst La Barbra for having the au-The divabehind thecamera:BarbraStreisanddirects JeffBridges.dacity to be an (unrepentantly) powerfulwoman in today's Hollywood. It's sexist.Unhappily, however, so is Ms.Streisand's entertaining romantic comedy.In the film, Streisand plays Rose Morgan,a popular professor of romantic literatureat Columbia University. Rose stilllives in the shadow of her beautiful, vainmother, Hannah (Lauren Bacall), whobelittles her constantly, and her beautiful,vain sister, Claire (Mimi Rogers),who steals and marries Rose's equallyshallow boyfriend (Pierce Brosnan), simplybecause she can.This is fairytale family dysfunction.Only the wicked stepsister and stepmotherare actually flesh and blood. Since thisS p r i n g 1997 • O N T H E ISSUES 51

isn't the eighteenth century, you mightwonder why a middle-aged professor ata major university is still living at homewith her able-bodied and emotionallysadistic mother. All the better to show,presumably, that this is one Cinderellathat needs a rescuing prince, pronto.But princes seem in short supply, untilRose meets another Columbia prof, ahandsome but awkward mathematiciannamed Gregory Larkin (Jeff Bridges).Gregory, who has had many failed relationshipswith la belle dames sans merci,decides to try another approach to a contentedand productive existence. Sincebeautiful women wreck his life, he'llseek out a homely one with mutual interests;since sexual preoccupations keephim from his work, he'll build a meaningfulcelibate relationship.When Gregory sits in on one of Rose'slectures and hears the frumpy but dynamicteacher expound upon the "courtlylove" ideal of a pure union of thesouls, he thinks he's found the perfectwoman. Later, both agree that themedia-induced obsession with beautyand romance is a harmful force in genderrelations. And so, Rose, who is at-iHelp us rebuildAmerica'sinner cities...and we'll pay youback with interest!Your South Shore checking, savings.time deposit or IRA account directlytargets the inner-city neighborhoods-Vy /I/±Jm /JMwe serve. Plus, you earn an attractive,guaranteedreturn that helpsbuild cities today.Contact JohnHoughtonfor details:800-669-7725,ext. 5636,deposit@sbk.com.MEMBERIDICSouth Shore BankWhere America banks Us values.tracted to Greg's intelligence and kindness(as well as his good looks) is happyto give celibate marriage a try.The brave—and interesting—thingwould have been to have these two form aloving, supportive primary relationshipwithout sex. But Hollywood has neverbeen that courageous, even with a womandirector at the helm. Movies (as "Mirror"itself admits) are designed to sell sexual intercourse.So, before you know it, RichardLaGravenese's screenplay has Rose throwingpn a black negligee and lighting upcandles in an attempt to seduce her husband.When the seduction fails, Rose iscrushed and Greg is confused—and thetwo are temporarily separated.THIS IS WHEN THE MOVIE REALLYfalls apart. These two, who clearlyalready care for one another deeply,don't simply work out their relationship.No, that would be too civilized and tooself-respecting. Instead, Rose opts for atotal beauty makeover. While Greg lecturesin Europe, she exercises andstarves herself down a couple of dresssizes, paints her toenails, bleaches herhair, paints her face, dons black sheathdresses, bares her cleavage and teetersaround on four-inch heels. In short, shebecomes Barbra Streisand at her mostglamorous—a manifestation of everyCosmo cover you've ever seen, a personificationof every Jenny Craig, Lancomeand Clairol ad that has ever promisedyou love and acceptance if you can onlyHOMEVIDEOSIN BRIEFachieve the right "look."In having Rose heal her life through abeauty regimen, The Mirror Has TwoFaces embraces the very superficial,misogynist trappings that Rose and Gregdisparaged earlier in the film. It is especiallytroubling to watch Rose put hermakeover in the hands of her mother—the very woman who, the story goes,kept Rose from developing a healthysense of self.Barbra Streisand has said that themother-daughter angst of the film ismore than a little autobiographical. (Sheeven fed bits of her conversations withher own mother to LaGravenese to insertin the script.) But, in real life, Streisandworked on her self-esteem issues inmuch different ways than she allowsRose to do. Babs got some distance fromthe toxic relationship she had with hermother. She went into therapy andlearned to love herself for who she was.And, as we all know, she accomplishedgreat things in her professional life. Toobad poor Rose couldn't do the samething. Instead, she is redeemed by cosmeticsand hair dye...and a good-lookingman admitting that, yes, he does want tosleep with her.Oh Barbra, Barbra, Diva mine! Couldn'tyou find a project more worthy ofyour prodigious talents? It's really hardfor me to come to the defense of the lastof the female superstars when your putyour power behind a retrograde fairytalelike The Mirror Has Two Faces. •• FLY AWAYHOME is a movieabout a pubescentgirl, Amy(The Piano's AnnaPaquin), and theflock of geese she raises and then leadsSouth for the winter. Doesn't sound likegreat cinema, but it is. That's because directorCarroll Ballard (The Black Stallion) has alwayshad a gift for working with children just to spend some time with them.likeable (and life-like), that you're happyand animals. In both cases, he never goesfor simply cute. He has the patience to portrayboth the human young and our animal the bone, but is just as fascinating (and not• SECRETS AND LIES cuts a little closer tbrethren as complex characters, worthy of without its own sense of humor). When arespect, and capable of brave adventure. young black London optometrist namedMy only complaint? The film exploits the Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) decidesage-old screen cliche of killing off (or spiritingaway) the child-protagonist's mother. (Brenda Blethyn), she starts a cycle of truth-to seek out her white birth mother, CynthiaAmy would be a compelling hero even if telling that sends shock-waves throughoutshe weren't a motherless child.her new "family." Mike Leigh's character-d;•WALKING AND TALKING, the featuredebut of writer-director Nicole Holofcener,is a warm, funny look at women's friendships.Amelia (Catherine Keener) and Laura(Anne Heche) have been best friends alltheir lives. But now Laura is planning to getmarried and Amelia is feeling shut-out andeager for a romance of her own. There's nohigh drama or wild slapstick in Holofcener'slittle movie. It doesn't need any. The characters,both primary and secondary, are soven, class-conscious melodramas are alwayswinners; this one took home the Palme d'Orat last year's Cannes Film Festival.52 ON THE ISSUES • Spring 1997

CHKSLKR (continuedfrom page 7)my escape plans, my father-in-law choseto obtain an Afghan passport for me; andso, I left Afghanistan for the UnitedStates. When my U.S. visa expired, theU.S. State department told me I had toleave New York, my birthplace. I said I'dchain myself to the Statue of Libertybefore I'd return to Afghanistan—but I had to have my marriage annulledin order to receive a newAmerican passport. The old one isstill somewhere in Kabul.My so-called "Western" feminismwas certainly forged in that beautifuland treacherous country. Foreverafter, I was able to "see" genderapartheid anywhere, even in America.Although I appreciated my relativefreedom as an Americanwoman back on American soil, I nolonger believed that Americanwomen were free—only privileged—orthat Western male adultery,serial polygamy and the impoverishmentof mothers upondivorce were a vast categorical improvementover what I had observed in Iranand Afghanistan.BY 1967, I HAD JOINED THE NATIONALOrganization for Women. I said: Aslong as women are enslaved anywhere,women everywhere, even if privileged,are endangered too. As feminists, wehave to do more than analyze woman'scondition: We need to provide sovereign,physical asylum to women in flight fromslavery.I tried to take two female servants outwith me when I left but failed in this endeavor.Kamar and Madar Kamar: whereveryou are, forgive me. Know that I'venever forgotten you, your numerous kindnessesand sweet and playful dispositions.I will never forget how kind my sisters-inlawwere to me, or my young nephews,who tried so hard to cheer me up.Nor am I likely to forget certain heartstopping,eerily familiar sights, sounds,tastes, smells that, at the time, movedme so: flocks of sheep, camel caravans,fierce, tender, rurbaned men armed withrifles, stars so thick and close-clusteredyou'd think you could touch them(Afghanistan is more than 5,000 feetabove the sea), ancient bazaars, awesomemountains (I could see the foothills of theHimalayans from my bedroom window),minarets, the muezzin's hoarse call, cookingoutdoors on an open fire, delicious,too-sweet candies flavored with roses (!),exquisite, salted pistachios, communalsandalis (to warm one's feet on freezingnights), turquoise-colored ceramichookahs (also known as hubble-bubbles),in which one smoked tobacco or hashish.Every time Afghanistan is in the news,I reach for the phone, call Karim, whoalso eventually had to flee. When I firstMy so-called Western feminismwas forged in that beautiful andtreacherous country, whichafterward allowed me to see genderapartheid everywhere in America.met him he had lustrous black hair, dark,melting eyes, long, feminine lashes—hecould easily have passed for an illustrationin my much-thumbed copy ofScheherazade's The Arabian Nights.When I left the country, Karim wasabout to become a government minister.In 1979, after the Russian invasion,Karim himself escaped by crossing theKhyber Pass into Pakistan, disguised asa nomad. Since 1980, he and his familyhave been living in America.Karim's hair is white now and hishealth is impaired. I do not ask him howhe earns his money. I go to his home for along evening of delicious Afghan food,memories, emotions. Karim's wife Halide,a former diplomat, is warm and charming.She has blue eyes and blond hair and oncetooled around Kabul in her own sportscar. She and Karim are the parents of twomost extraordinary and beautiful children,Iskandar and Rabiah, who are now intheir late twenties. Invariably, when thetwo of them have me alone, they ask:"Why did you come to Afghanistan?What were you looking for?"Thirty-nine years have passed since Ifirst met Isakandar's and Rabiah's father,and I still don't have one "right" answer.Some say that Afghans constitute the losttribes of Israel; others say that a legendaryband of Amazons (warriorwomen)was last seen there. Perhaps,unconsciously, I felt drawn to Karim becausealthough male, and wealthy, hewas an outsider, marginal: like a womanin her own country. Perhaps I simplycould not resist the call of a truly GreatAdventure.These were my prefeminist, heterosexualheydays. I did not know that, unlikeSir Richard Burton or Lawrence of Arabia,Western women abroad were not acceptedas "brothers" simply becausethey, too, were enamored of Araband Moslem places—and men; orbecause they, too, were weary ofmodern, Western, secular societyand romanticized the far and "primitive"shore.Many of the male Victorians andtheir anthropologist successors weretime travelers in search of Biblicalhuman hospitality. They were menwho wished to test themselvesagainst formidable natural challenges,e.g., extremes of temperatureon the brigand road, malaria, parasites,gangrene, amputation, withoutWestern medicine or technology. Ah,but unless a woman was the cousinof the English queen or travelingunder a pasha or sheik's personal protection,long before she could test herselfagainst the world's harshest terrain shewould be stalked, raped, kidnapped, impregnated,locked up behind high mudwalls either in marriage, a seraglio, or abrothel. Dead in childbirth. Or murdered.I had no idea that some Westernwomen had adventured to and/or survivedtheir captivity in Egypt, SaudiArabia, Syria, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan,Morocco, Tunisia, Siam: the 18th centuryFrench/Martiniquan, Aimee Dubucq deRivery, whose son became the Sultan ofTurkey; the Victorian-era Lady Sale,whom the Afghans imprisoned and laterreleased (they killed her husband for attemptingto conquer the country for theBritish crown); the Britons, Harriet Martineau,Lucie Duff Gordon, Isabel ArundellBurton (Sir Richard's wife), the HonorableJane Digby el Mezrab, AnnaLeeowens of The King and I—and myown all-time personal favorite: thehaunting Russian-Swiss Isabelle Eberhardt,who, in the early twentieth century,dressed like an Arab boy, convertedto Islam, married a French Legionnaire,wrote stoned, mystic poetry (under thename Si Mahmoud), and died in a flashfloodin the Sahara before she was 30years old.For years, I have wanted to write afeminist Passage to Islam and I may do soyet. Maybe that's why I went toAfghanistan. •Spring 1997 • ON THE ISSUES53

WALKER (continued from page 23)have been brought up to adore must beexpanded to include the "wizard" andthe dancer, and that when this is done, itbecomes clear that He coexists quite easilywith pagan indigenous peoples. Indeed,it was because the teachings ofJesus were already familiar to many ofour ancestors, especially in the Newworld—they already practiced the loveand sharing that he preached—that theChristian Church was able to make asmany genuine converts to the Christianreligion as it did.All people deserve to worship a Godwho also worships them. A God thatmade them, and likes them. That is whyNature, Mother Earth, is such a goodchoice. Never will Nature require thatyou cut off some part of your body toplease her; Never will Mother Earth findanything wrong with your natural way.She made it, and she made it however itis so that you will be more comfortableas part of Her Creation, rather than less.Everyone deserves a God who adoresour freedom: Nature would never adviseus to do anything but be ourselves.Mother Earth will do all that she can tosupport our choices, whatever they are.For they are of Her, and inherent in ourcreation is Her Trust.We are born knowing how to worship,just as we are born knowing how tolaugh.THERE IS A SPECIAL GRIEF FELT BY THEchildren and grandchildren of thosewho were forbidden to read, forbiddento explore, forbidden to question or toknow. Looking back on my parents' andgrandparents' lives I have often feltoverwhelmed, helpless, as I've examinedhistory and society, and especially religion,with them in mind, and have seenhow they were manipulated away froma belief in their own judgment and faithin themselves.It is most painful to realize they wereforever trying to correct a "flaw"—thatof being black,female and human—thatdid not exist, except as "men of God,"but really men of greed, misogyny andviolence, defined it. What a burden tothink one is conceived in sin, rather thanin pleasure; that one is born into evilrather than into joy. In my work, I speakto my parents and to my most distantancestors about what I myself havefound as an Earthling growing naturallyout of the Universe. I create characterswho sometimes speak in the language ofimmediate ancestors, characters who arenot passive, but active in the discoveryof what is vital and real in this world.Characters who explore what it wouldfeel like not to be imprisoned by the hatredof women, the love of violence, andthe destructiveness of greed taught tohuman beings as the "religion" by whichthey must guide their lives.What is happening in the world moreand more is that people are attemptingthat love you to death.Yeah, I say, and he give me a lyncheddaddy, a crazy mama, a lowdown dog ofa step pa and a sister I probably won'tever see again. Anyhow, I say, the God Ibeen praying and writing to is a man.And act just like all the other mens Iknow. Trifling, forgitful and lowdown.She say, Miss Celie. You better hush.God might hear you.Let'im hear me, I say. If he ever lis-Wards Chapel, Eatonton, Georgia, Alice's family's church for over one hundred years, andwhere she was baptised.to decolonize their spirits. A crucial actof empowerment, one that might returnreverence to the Earth, thereby saving it,in this fearful-of-Nature, spiritually colonizedage.AN EXAMPLE OF THIS DECOLONIZATIONoccurs in The Color Purple: Shug, thepagan, discusses the nature of God withCelie, the confused Christian:Dear Nettie,I don't write to God no more, I writeto you.What happen to God? ast Shug.Who that? I say.She look at me serious.Big a devil as you is, I say, you notworried bout no God surely.She say, Wait a minute. Hold on just aminute here. Just because I don't harassit like some peoples us know don't meanI ain't got religion.What God do for me? I ast.She say, Celie! Like she shock. He gaveyou life, good health, and a good womantened to poor colored women the worldwould be a different place, I can tell you.She talk and talk, trying to budge meway from blasphemy. But I blasphemymuch as I want to.All my life I never care what peoplethought bout nothing I did, I say. Butdeep in my heart I care about God. Whathe going to think. And come to find out,he don't think. Just sit up there gloryingin being deef, I reckon. But it ain't easytrying to do without god. Even if youknow he ain't there, trying to do withouthim is a strain.I is a sinner, say Shug. Cause I wasborn. I don't deny it. But once you findout what's out there waiting for us, whatelse can you be?Sinners have more good times, I say.You know why? she ast.Cause you ain't all the time worryingbout God, I say.Naw, that ain't it, she say. Us worrybout God a lot. But once us feel loved byGod, us do the best us can to please himwith what us like.You telling me God love you, and yousInO N T H E ISSUES • Spring 1997

ain't never done nothing for him? Imean, not go to church, sing in the choir,feed the preacher and all like that?But if God love me, Celie, I don't haveto do all that. Unless I want to. There's alot of other things I can do that I speckGod likes.Like what? I ast.Oh, she say. I can lay back and just admirestuff. Be happy. Have a good time.Well, this sound like blasphemy surenuff.She say, Celie, tell the truth, have youever found god in church? I never did. Ijust found a bunch of folks hoping forhim to show. Any God I ever felt inchurch I brought in with me. And I thinkall the other folks did too. They come tochurch to share God, not find god.Some folks didn't have him to share, Isaid. They the ones didn't speak to mewhile I was there struggling with my bigbelly and Mr. children.Right she say.Then she say: Tell me what your Godlook like, Celie.Aw naw, I say. I'm too shame. Nobodyever ast me this before, so I'm sort oftook by surprise. Besides, when I thinkabout it, it don't seem quite right. But itall I got. I decided to stick up for him,just to see what Shug say.Okay, I say. He big and old and talland gray bearded and white. He wearwhite robes and go barefooted.Blue eyes? she ast.Sort of bluish-gray. Cool. Big though.White lashes, I say.She laugh.Why you laugh? I ast. I don't think itso funny. What you expect him to looklike, Mr. ?That wouldn't be no improvement,she say. Then she tell me this old whiteman is the same God she used to seewhen she prayed. If you wait to findGod in church, Celie, she say, that's whois bound to show up, cause that's wherehe live.How come? I ast.Cause that's the one that's in the whitefolks' white bible.Shug! I say. God wrote the bible, whitefolks had nothing to do with it.How come he just like them, then?Only bigger? And a heap more hair.How come the bible just like everythingelse they make, all about them doing onething and another, and all the coloredfolks doing is gitting cursed.I never thought bout that.Nettie say somewhere in the bible it sayJesus' hair was like a lamb's wool, I say.Well, say Shug, if he came to any ofthese churches we talking bout he'dhave to have it conked before anybodypaid him any attention. The last thingniggers want to think about they God isthat his hair is kinky.That's the truth, I say.Ain't no way to read the bible and notthink God white, she say. Then she sigh.When I found out I thought God waswhite, and a man, I lost interest. Youmad cause he don't seem to listen toyour prayers. Humph! Do the mayor listento anything colored say? Ask Sofia,she say.But I don't have to ast Sofia. I knowwhite people never listen to colored, period.If they do, they only listen longenough to be able to tell you what to do.Here's the thing, say Shug. The thing Ibelieve. God is inside you and insideeverybody else. You come into the worldwith God. But only them that search forit inside find it. And sometimes it justmanifest itself even if you not looking, ordon't know what you looking for. Troubledo it for most folks, I think. Sorrow,lord, Feeling like shit.It? I ast.Yeah, It. God ain't a he or a she, but aIt. Maybe a "us."But what do it look like? I ast.Don't look like nothing, she say. Itain't a picture show. It ain't somethingyou can look at apart from anything else,including yourself. I believe God iseverything, say Shug. Everything that isor ever was or ever will be. And whenyou can feel that, and be happy to feelthat, you've found It.Shug a beautiful something, let me tellyou. She frown a little, look out cross theyard, lean back in her chair, look like abig rose.She say, My first step for the old whiteman was trees. Then air. Then birds.Then other people. But one day when Iwas sitting quiet and feeling of beingpart of everything, not separate at all. Iknew that if I cut a tree, my arm wouldbleed. And I laughed and I cried and Irun all round the house. I knew justwhat it was. In fact, when it happen, youcan't miss it. It sort of like you knowwhat, she say, grinning, and rubbinghigh up on my thigh.Shug! I say.Oh, she say. God love all them feelings.That's some of the best stuff Goddid. And when you know God loves' emyou enjoys' em a lot more. You can justrelax, go with everything that's going,and praise God by liking what you like.God don't think it dirty? I ast.Naw, she say. God made it. Listen,God love everything you love and amess of stuff you don't. But more thananything else, God love admiration.You saying God vain? I ast.Naw, she say. Not vain, just wantingto share a good thing. I think it pissesGod off if you walk by the color purplein a field somewhere and don't notice it.What it do when it pissed off? I ast.Oh, it makes something else. Peoplethink pleasing God is all God care about.But any fool living in the world can see italways trying to please us back.Yeah? I say.Yeah, she say. It always making littlesurprises and springing them on uswhen us least suspect.Your mean it want to be loved, justlike the bible say.Yes, Celie, she say. Everything want tobe loved. Us sing and dance, make facesand give flower bouquets, trying to beloved. You ever notice that trees do everythingto get attention we do, except walk?Well, us talk and talk bout God, butI'm still adrift. Trying to chase that oldwhite man out of my head. I been sobusy thinking bout him I never truly noticenothing God make. Not a blade ofcorn (how it do that?) not the color purple(where it came from?) Not the littlewildflowers. Nothing.Now that my eyes opening, I feels likea fool. Next to any little scrub of a bushin my yard, Mr. 's evil sort of shrink.But not altogether. Still, it is like Shugsay, You have to git man off your eyeball,before you can see anything a'tall.Man corrupt everything, say Shug. Heon your box of grits, in your head, andall over the radio. He trying to make youthink he everywhere. Soon as you thinkhe everywhere, you think he God. But heain't. Whenever you trying to pray, anda man plop himself on the other end ofit, tell him to git lost, say Shug. Conjureup flowers, wind, water, a big rock.But this hard work, let me tell you. Hebeen there so long, he don't want tobudge. He threaten lightning, floods andearthquakes. Us fight. I hardly pray atall. Every time I conjure up a rock, Ithrow it.Amen. •"The Only Reason You Want to Go toHeaven," is adapted from a speech given byAlice Walker at Auburn Theological Seminary,April 25,1995.Copyright ©1997 by Alice Walker.Spring 1997 • O N THE ISSUES55

100 Acres • PoolHot Tub • Trails20 Charming RoomsPeace & PrivacyA Lesbian Paradise^Highlands ^IP.O. Box 118-OTBethlehem, NH 03574(603) 869-3978ON THE ISSUESCheck us out on the Web:http://www.igc.apc.org/onissues/ON THE ISSUESSUBSCRIBERSERVICEP.O. Box 3000Denville, NJ 07834-9838Change of Address: Please allowthree weeks. Attach label with your oldaddress and write your new address below.New Subscriber: Fill in your name andaddress in the new address space. Check termprice of your subscription below.*Renewal: Attach label if available. Checkterm price of your subscription below.*• One year $14.95 • Two years $25.00• Three years $34.95OLD ADDRESS:NAME (PRINT)ADDRESSCITY/STATE/ZIPNEWADDRE'SS"NAME (PRINT)ADDRESSCITY/STATE/ZIP• Payment Enclosed • Bill MeCanadian subscriptions add $4 per year; other foreign add $7(surface mail) or $20 per year Airmail. Institutional rate: Add$10 first year; $5 each additional. Payable in U.S. funds only.Mail to our Subscriber Service address above. 472SSBOSNIA {continuedfrom page 32)national peace-keeping force, which includesAmerican troops). In my opinion,it is only procrastination. "At the sametime as Bosnian Serbs were foot-draggingpolitically, there were outbreaks of violence,described as the worst fightingsince the war, as Muslims tried to exercisethe right accorded them by the DaytonAccord and return to their former homes.Bosnian Serbs, determined to keep themout, however, have been destroying suchhouses by blowing them up or burningthem down, often as returning Muslimswatched from nearby. So far, of the 2.7million displaced, (more than half the formerBosnian population according to UNstatistics), less than 250,000 have beenable to return home. Even more disheartening,an estimated 90,000 have been drivenout since the war ended.The peace agreement may now be intoits second year but indicted war criminalscontinue to go free, a number livingat home in comfort without fear of arrest.Four such criminals continue towork as Bosnian Serb policemen. Onlyseven of the 75 people indicted for genocide,war crimes and crimes against humanityare in custody. This, says onecritic, is like "leaving Himmler and Eichmann,and other Nazi architects of genocidewalking the streets and in control ofa large part of the country after WWII."In November, the first sentence washanded down by the War Crimes Tribunal.A 25-year-old Croat in the BosnianSerb army confessed to being part ofan execution squad at the Srebrenicamassacre; his unit alone killed 1,200 unarmedmen in five hours. He was sentencedto 10 years, while the senior militarycommanders who ordered theslaughter remain free.Almost as daunting as keeping thepeace is the reconstruction of Bosnia, asthe statistics attest: An estimated 60 percentof housing throughout the countryhas been damaged or destroyed, entirevillages have been gutted, and in Sarajevo,many high-rise blocks of apartmentsare hollow shells. Two-thirds of the capital'swindows are still covered withUNHCR plastic sheeting instead ofglass. Forty percent of the country'sbridges are down, and as many roadshave been damaged in bombardments.The parliament building and national libraryare burned-out shells, the millionvolumes and rare manuscripts of the latterreduced to ashes, and the garden ofthe national museum is heavily landmined.A number of Bosnians who livedin cellars during the constant shellingcontinue to do so for want of any othershelter. Some communities will spend afifth winter without running water orcentral heat, as the wood stacks on highrisebalconies confirm.Before the war, Yugoslavia had perhapsthe highest standard of living ofany socialist country. It was not unusualfor Bosnians to own cars and beach vacationhomes. The same appliances foundin American homes—televisions, VCRs,computers, washing machines—werecommon. Even now, small TV satellitedishes are visible on many houses, eventhose that are burned out.A CCORDING TO THE WORLD BANK, BOS-XXnia needs $5.1 billion for the firstthree years of reconstruction. So far, onlya third, $1.8 billion, has been donated bythe world community. The U.S. share ofthat sum is $600 million over a threeyearperiod. Assuming that the $5.1 billionpackage is implemented, by the year2,000 Bosnians will be back at about halfof what they had when the war startedin 1992," says a spokesman for USAID inSarajevo.Exacerbating the problem is that largeamounts of the monies so far madeavailable are sitting in bank accounts,held up by bureaucratic sloth, or inpipelines awaiting approval. World Bankpresident James Wolfensohn has criticizedthe moribund pace of spending forBosnian reconstruction, and a report bythe Washington, D.C-based PeaceThrough Law Education Fund concludedthat, "The longer we wait to addresssuch realities, the more bitterness willswell and close the window of peace thatU.S. diplomacy and SFOR opened."Of the international funding that hasmade its way into Bosnia, accusations ofcorruption both on the grand and pettyscale are beginning to arise, and USAIDin Sarajevo admits that it is a concern.All these factors affect the women ofBosnia, of course, many of them solebreadwinners struggling to feed theirfamilies. So, too, does the fact that theformer communist country, with no experienceof NGOs, is refusing to give reliefagencies the tax exemptions theywould normally receive, particularlywhen bringing humanitarian suppliesinto the country. Without such tax exemptionsthere is also no incentive forbusinesses to contribute to programs forrefugees. "This makes it impossible forsuch projects to become self-sustaining,"56 ON THE ISSUES • Spring 1997

said the deputy director of an AmericanNGO working in Bosnia.Bosnian authorities are also insistingthat the standardized income tax formerlypaid under socialism should be adheredto by war victims employed insuch income-generating projects. "Consequently,"says Neljira Nalic, head ofBOSPO, the Bosnian Committee forHelp, a humanitarian agency aidingwomen refugees, "women earning DM100 a month in small-scale projects, suchBoric. On a much larger scale, the multimilliondollar reconstruction projectsfunded by USAID, for example, requirethat a substantial portion of the raw materialsand equipment be purchased inthe U.S., thereby reducing the actualfunds entering the recipient country onsuch a grant by as much as 50 percent.The UN operates in a similar vein.Amila Omersoftic, the 51-year-old directorof Bosnia's Radio and Television Networks,used the same skills she learnedNone of the $45 million of a U.S. loan program for smalL businesseswas given to firms headed by women.as producing honey, tailoring or knittingsweaters, are expected to pay DM 150 amonth, which in the socialist era went topay for taxes, pension and health insurance.It's crazy. And, of course, thewomen can't pay it. It's just another exampleof where the new government hasto catch up with the situation today."It isn't only the Bosnian governmentthat seems out of touch with the times.USAID officials in Sarajevo, who were inthe process of allocating $45 million of aloan program for small businesses, admittedin April to representatives fromthe New York-based Women's Commissionfor Refugee Women and Childrenthat none of that substantial sum wasgoing to businesses headed by widowsor other women. Two months later, SwaneeHunt, the U.S. ambassador to Austria(see profile on page 32) persuadedPresident Clinton to launch the $5 millionBosnian Women's Initiative (BWI).This would provide loans and training ineconomic development for women.According to Hunt, women in Bosniahave also lost many of the socialized servicesthey enjoyed in the former Yugoslavia,such as subsidized food, daycarefacilities, family allowances, maternityleave, health services. Compared tothe need, and the fact that nearly threequartersof Bosnia's adult population isnow female, $5 million is not a largesum, but it is a step in the right direction.HUMANITARIAN AID FUNDING, SUCH ASthis amount, is reduced further,however, by the international agenciesthrough which the money is funneled—for the BWI that's the UNHCR and theInternational Rescue Committee. Largesums are consumed by the salaries andother living expenses of the foreign nationalswho administer the grants, as wellas the fees of foreign consultants broughtin to advise, point out both Cronly andas a systems engineer and in establishingher own software production company,to analyze the requirements for refugeesand displaced persons when the governmentasked her to become an adviserduring the war. She worked closely withUNHCR at the time."I remember the discussion about purchasingthe vast quantity of plasticsheeting needed to replace windowsblown out during the war," she says. "Inresearching the issue, I located a companywho could supply the plastic for sixtimes less than the UN wanted to pay forit. When I mentioned this, I was told,'No, that is not your job. We are here togive you goods. It is not for you to decidewhere they should be bought.' Howsilly. How condescending."So often, says Boric, UN agencies donot want to share power, "especiallywith women. In this regard, they are alittle imperialistic. UNHCR also has apoor record on gender issues."Women like Omersoftic and Boricwould like to see Western companieswilling to become partners with Bosnianwomen able to operate small businesses,which in turn would employ and/ortrain local women. "We need the loansON THE ISSUESHas the last really goodconversation you've hadbeen with yourself?Ever wish you could talk aboutwhat you've read in ON THE ISSUES?Interested in starting a discussiongroup in your area? Become agroup leader, or join a developinggroup! We'd like to hear fromreaders who are ready to take onthe issues—with each other!Contact us at (718)459-1888, ext. 270or e-mail onissues@echonyc.comWe'll help you get started!Become an Outpost of theFeminist Government inExile. ON THE ISSUES seeksregional representatives to attendsynergistic conferences, exhibitsand events. To find out more, fax(718)997-1206 or call (718)459-1888,ext. 210.a woman•\Adults:S, M, L,Ex-L $15Youth:2-4, 6-8,10-12,14-16 $12Visa/MC 1 -800-891 -2126 10% discount with adMail orders: Add $3 for shippingTRAVEL WITH MEG BOWMANBox 21506, San Jose, CA 95151 (408)292-1172 924-53251997: Natural Habitat Travel for Women Series:COSTA RICA, April or Nov. (10participants) $2,395.UGANDA PRIMATE WATCH July 30-Aug. 9, 1997 (9 persons) $4,795.BOTSWANA SAFARI Aug 4-19, 1997 (8 women) $4,495. 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and the raw materials; we have theknow-how and the skills. We need support,but we are not disabled," says Boric.Even women in rural areas haveproved that. Hanifa Karic, in the smallnorthern community of Babunovici,demonstrated her entrepreneurial talentswhen she launched a sugar-cube manufacturingcompany in her living room.The supply of sugar cubes, preferred byBosnians in the small cups of thick,syrupy coffee they consume daily,dried up in the war when both factoriesended up in the Serb-controlledpart of the country. Recognizinga need, Karic, who workedin a textile factory before the warbut was retired after being injuredin a fall, applied for a 12-monthmicro-enterprise loan of DM 2,000.The six-month-old business, whichuntil now has been hand-operated,has been so successful that it isabout to become mechanized. Itcurrently produces almost a ton ofsugar cubes daily by operating 16hours a day in eight-hour shifts.The business has also enabledKaric to buy a car, a VW Golf. "Ifeel much safer than before, nowthat I have a business," she says.Karic, a Muslim, employs a Serbbookkeeper. "It is important to respecta person regardless of theirnationality," she says, sweepingaway the ethnic divisions that rentthis country during the war. In thisregard, she is not that unusual.Many Serbs stayed on in Bosnia duringthe war, and many protected Muslimsfrom Serb soldiers, some dying in theprocess. During the height of the Sarajevosiege, of the 380,000 remaining population,an estimated 55,000 were Serbs.MIRA BAJER IS A 41-YEAR-OLD HIGHschool teacher of Bosnian languagein Tuzla. A Serb married to aCroat, she and her husband elected tostay in the city as more and more Muslimsrefugees flooded in, and Serb artillerydaily targeted Tuzla. Throughoutthe war, she also worked a second job asa program coordinator at BOSPO, aidingMuslim women refugees. Her husbandserved in the Bosnian army, which infact, was not unusual. While it is littleknown outside the former Yugoslavia,one third of the Bosnian Defense Forcesduring the war were Serbs and Croats.Bajer insists she and her husband arenot unique. Before the war, she pointsout, as many as 40 percent of urban Bosnianmarriages were ethnically mixed. Religiousobservation, after all, was illegalin socialist Yugoslavia, and the vast majorityof the population was secular. Eventoday, her teenage daughter has a Muslimboyfriend. "It's true that when I firststarted working at BOSPO, I didn't tellthe women, many of them Srebrenicarefugees, that I was a Serb," she pointsout. "They were too unhappy then. IWoman at Bosfam's carpet-weaving, incomegenerating project.waited until they knew who I was, beforeI said it, and then it didn't matter anymore.By then they could view me as awoman, and not as a Chetnik."We must break this, 'You're a Serb, I'ma Muslim,' and be a bridge between people,eyes to eyes. I can teach many skills tothe women at BOSPO; that's what's important,not my ethnic background."The economic futures of women workingin income-generating projects run byhumanitarian organizations may be tenuousat best. The handful of refugeewomen sitting in front of looms at theBosfam agency, a Bosnian NGO in Tuzla,learned to weave when they were growingup. Back home, weaving was ahobby, and the carpets they producedwere used to decorate their homes. Butnow, women like 50-year-old Nura Habibovic,who lost everything during the fallof Srebrenica, would be destitute withoutthe DM 150 a month they make here.Bosfam is already struggling to pay itsmonthly rent of DM 3,000. And projectslike the carpet-weaving one are increasinglyexpected by international donors tobecome self-sustaining, which usuallymeans that international funding willsoon end. "It's ludicrous to expect suchprojects to be self-sustaining in a collapsedeconomy," says Boric, who adds thatunder such guidelines, one major hinderthat operated 80 such projects last year, renewedonly three of them this year. "Ithink that is pretty telling, don'tyou?" she asks.The intricate, pure wool carpetsare of excellent quality, but inBosnia only SFOR troops or foreignrelief workers can afford them.Dealers in Austria have shown interestin marketing them, but considerthe cost, DM 850 for a 9 x 6 ftcarpet, overpriced. That sum, approximately$600, was less than amonth's income for many in theformer Yugoslavia. Each carpettakes a refugee woman, workingfull time, six days a week, betweenfour and five months to weave.FVEN MORE IMPORTANT THAN THEincome is the social supportthe women at projects like Bosfamreceive. "I thought I would diewhen I was forced to leave Srebrenica,"says Habibovic, her voicecracking. "I miss everything. Idon't have anything now. It's easierfor me to work and not remember."Beba Hadzic, the 49-year-oldprogram manager of Bosfam,knows the importance of the emotionalsupport her agency offers. "The agencyhas a psycho-social component. Thewomen here have all been through thesame experiences, and we understandhow that feels." On the wall behind heras she talks, hangs a small cushion coverwith the name Paric Alem, and the dateJuly 11, 1995, embroidered on it. "Wehave over 9,000 of those," she says."Each one carries the name of a missingSrebrenica man. Paric is my 17-year-oldnephew." (Some 750 Srebrenica menhave already been confirmed dead.)A Srebrenica refugee herself, Hadzic, aformer elementary-school administrator,says, "Bosfam has become a replacementextended family for these women." Sucha role is a heavy responsibility. And it isrepeated throughout the country, byother agencies working with otherwomen war survivors. One can onlyhope that the international donor communityis up to the task. Bosnian womenhave suffered enough. •t• _O N T H E I S S U E S • S p r i n g 1 9 9 7

SWANEE HUNT (from page 33)amassing more fortunes.' It was as if thewomen in the family didn't even exist."At the time of that article, the foundationHelen and she operated had been workingin the inner city for about five years."But somehow, that didn't count." It alsorankles when she's referred to in print asa socialite oil heiress. "Don't call me the"S" word," she warns."I've lived under a shadow for a lot ofright. Like the occasion she was hostingthe negotiations for the Federationagreement between the Bosnians andCroats at the embassy in Vienna. "Fornine days, the Bosnians occupied myprivate dining room; the Croats took uptheir positions in our conference roomdown to hall. Neither party would directlyspeak to the other. Prospectslooked bleak, just as they often dotoday." Swanee's solution when theshuttle diplomacy threatened to breakHunt sat Bosnian and Croat emissaries at small, six-person dinnertables to build amity; the accord happened.Goddess /ewelrysilver bronze goldP.O. Box 389-U Brimfield MA 01010Catalog Phone/Fax: (413) 245-9484years," says Hunt, "so maybe that is partof what is behind my wanting the storytold."WHATEVER HER REASONS, TRAVELINGwith Hunt is very much likebeing one of "the boys on the bus" of apolitical campaign. Over-scheduled, herentourage barely has time to follow her,as she troops in, delivers the same flawlesssound-bites, sings a song or two,poses for her personal photographer,and leaves again. It may play well at theFirst Baptist Church in Dallas, where shewas once a member, but in war-shatteredBosnia, the glee-club numbers, completewith chorus-line kicks, seem onlybizarre. So does her choice of lyrics.After keeping the female movers andshakers of Sarajevo waiting for sevenhours to meet her (her helicopter wasgrounded by fog in Tuzla), Swanee burstinto a complete rendition of "We Ain'tGot a Barrel of Money." Her audiencewere women members of Zena 21, a humanitarianagency aiding war victims,which also runs the only woman's magazinesurviving in Bosnia today. The highlyeducated, mostly fluent Englishspeakers had spent the day anxiouslywaiting to hear if their organizationwould receive a portion of the $5 millionfunding from the Bosnian Women's Initiative,Swanee's brainchild, which theagency desperately needs.Equally unconsciously, and during heroft-given speech, "We are all mothers,"Hunt made a reference to Muslim andSerb women being able to live togetherand forgive each other. At that sameevent, there were angry rumblings in thecrowd. "What are we to be forgiven?"asked one Sarajevan who had livedthrough the three-and-a-half-year siege ofthe capital and its constant shelling. "Noone asked the Nazis to forgive the Jews!"But there are times when she gets itdown? She decided to throw a joint dinnerparty at which the tables for sixwould be only 33 inches across "so theirknees would touch." The psychologist inher knew that it's hard to ignore someonewhen you are that close. Because theembassy didn't have tablecloths smallenough, she ordered bedsheets cutdown, and helped to hurriedly hemthem. "I credit those tiny tables withpeace in Bosnia today," she jokes. Afterdinner, she strengthened the new Bosnian/Croatamity by sitting down at herpiano and getting both sides involved ina loud and lengthy singsong.It's hard to imagine Kissinger or WarrenChristopher leading a singalong, orhemming bedsheets for tablecloths as aroute to peace. But whether it's trompingthrough the mud and dodging landmines,persuading presidents to rememberthe forgotten, or selling Americanpolicy abroad, Swanee Hunt is high energyand great on follow-through. Hermethods may be unorthodox, and thereare some false notes that need work, butperhaps her next appointment shouldbe Assistant Secretary of State. There'sone for European Affairs she'd be perfectfor.—J.G.CJocLiessrimaoe Co ivicK Carol CT-ir-i*lJoin us in search of ancient mystenes.Transform the way you feel about women, yourselfPOT- mare irtfvjrmacion:Goddess Pilgrimage Tours1306 CrestviewDr.»Blacksburg, VA 24060Phone/Fax: 540-951-3070The Elizabeth Stone HouseA Feminist Mental Health AlternativeThe Elizabeth Stone House is knowninternationally for its innovative abilityto empower women in emotionaldistress as well as their children.Residential and Non-Residential ProgramsResources and Training AvailableCall for InformationPOB 59, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130(617) 522-3417Visit New York's elegant sexuality boutique created by womenfor women and their partners. Discover a world ofearthly delights to excite your mind, body and spirit!Write or call for a free catalog 1-800-848-3837 (7days/24hrs)119 W. 57th St. • Suite 420oi • NY, NY 10019 212-757-8651Visit us on the Internet: http://www.evesgarden.comBoutique Hours:Mon-Sat 1 2-7pmeve's # gardenWe grow pleasurable*^hings for women!ConfidentialityGuaranteed.S p r i n g1 9 9 7 • O N T H E I S S U E S

ackpageCarol HenryNO DISNEY, PLEASE!A baby-shower invitation also welcomesthe author's granddaughter to a brave new world.Big news! We're having a baby! Yes, you and I and you!That's if you agree it takes a village, and I'll assume you do.Our child will join Jacob with Julie and StuUp in Vermont, where the England is new.It won't surprise you to hear we're making new rules—Like I'm planning a shower for both Stuart and JulesGifting before the birth, hmmm...not sure what to think?Let's move on: How are you on baby boys who wear hot pink?Something else concerns you. I hear you saying, "Oy,How can I know what's an acceptable toy?"First there's the issue of the companies: Which exploit childlabor? Which kill trees?Which pollute the air and the seven seas?Which use animals as testees?And which are run—Cod forbid—by Republicans, please?Did the makers of car seats and baby carriagesLobby for or against same-sex marriages?Fisher-Price seems safe—oops; they use a lot of plastic.If an item is educational, are standards more elastic?Guns, of course, are bad...home-spun is goodOh, if I'd only learned how to knit with wood.Well, if you're really not sure about what to bringYou can say the hell with it and do your own thing,But know that in lieu of Bloomies, Saks and Tiffany,Julie/Stu have registered their preferences with—me!Clothes would be great; anything Disney would not.No stuffed animals, please (though no one's asked our tot).And if, by the way, you're thinking crib sheets and the likeI have to warn you: What crib? They'll sleep with the tyke.Books, bunting, bathing stuff would all make their day...Uncle Judd would too; perhaps you'll fly him in from Taipei.—Well, I hate to interrupt me while I'm on a roll,but I need to make some headway toward my goal.The date for this event is Sunday, October thirteenat neither 12:30 or 1:30, but precisely in between.My home and hearth will be our venue,call 555-1234 and tell me—can you?So now you're worrying about the food, I knowWill there be veggies only, will the beef be faux.Well, the soycakes will be fresh, the goat milk divineBut there won't be pigs' feet. (They're friends of mine.)CAROL HENRY is awriter for Gay Men's HealthCrisis in New York City.Louisa Ruth HenryStrothman, Carol'sfirst grandchild, wasborn last November.Pictured, left toright, Carol Henry,Julie, Louisa and Stu.60 O N T H E I S S U E S • S p r i n g 1 9 9 7

Looking for Another Great Feminist Magazine:Summer 19%J5.75CHEN'S NEWS £ F i l l i f i f VIEWSNo Further.Satire. In-depth Features. News from all over. Great Columnists"Canada's Ms Magazine" -Jane Foy London Free Press, I want to read more stimulating, inspiring and challenging feminist articles.Sign me up as a Subscriber to f/cl^(20/v> for:NameAddress.CityStateZip• 1 Year -only $23.95 (4 issues)• 2 Years- $39.90 (8 issues save $8.00)It's easy. Just mail a copy of thisform with your cheque to:Herizons MagazinePO Box 128Winnipeg,MB CANADAR3C 2GlClip or Photocopy this Form and Mail it in Today

GERDA LERNERWHY HISTORY MATTERSLife and Thought"With her customary brilliance and clarity, Gerda Lerner offers us her own story and in theprocess explains how history happens, is interpreted, utilized, transmuted into meaning andmemory, and denied and distorted by those with the power to do so. This book is a gift toall who hope to understand the role of the past in the present"—Letty Cottin Pogrebin."This moving collection of essays is testimony—if more were needed-—to the breadth ofGerda Lerner's spirit and her humane wisdom"—Linda K. Kerber, co-editor of U.S. Historyas Women's History: New Feminist Essays. In Why History Matters, Gerda Lerner brings togethersome of her most significant thinking and writing on history that she has done in herentire career. A founding member of NOW and a past president of the Organization ofAmerican Historians, Gerda Lerner is a pioneer in the field of Women's History and one ofits leading practitioners. Why History Matters is the summation of the work and thinking ofthis distinguished historian. $30.00, 288 pp.RACECHANGESWhite Skin, Black Face in American Culture"This rich and fascinating study testifies to the long history of white Americans' ingeniousand insatiable envy of blackness"—Barbara Johnson. Co-author of the influential TheMadwoman in the Attic, Susan Gubar now turns her attention to the incendiary issue of race.Through a far-reaching exploration of the long overlooked legacy of minstrelsy—crossracialimpersonations or "racechanges"—throughout modern American film, fiction, poetry,painting, photography, and journalism, she documents the indebtedness of "mainstream"artists to African-American culture, and explores the deeply conflicted psychology of whiteguilt. Drawing on a stunning array of illustrations, including paintings, film stills, computergraphics, and even magazine morphings, Racechanges sheds new light on the persistence ofracism and on the exciting aesthetic possibilities for lessening the distance between blacksand whites. $37.50, 336 pp., 96 illustrationsSUSAN GUBARMOLLY HASKfLL•HOLDING MY OWNIN NO MAN'S LANDWomen and Men and Film and Feminists"At their best, Ms. Haskell's essays not only make us rethink the history of women in film,but also provide a fresh, ideology-free look at the noisy gender wars"—Michiko Kakutani,The New York Times. "I can't think of a better way to refresh my mind than by readingMolly Haskell. She is the most sophisticated, well-informed film critic ofour time, and she has a genius for putting unconventional insight into witty,graceful, seemingly effortless prose. I read many of these pieces when they firstappeared with delight and discussed them with glee. Collected, the delightremains, the impact grows. Holding My Own in No Man's Land is a major statement—anda treat!"—Phyllis Rose. "Watch this elegant, razor-sharp mind weavethrough the forest of our prejudices—these essays interest, challenge, amuse, awake thedesire to give chase"—Anne Roiphe. $25.00, 216 pp.N E W; »© X F O R DAt better bookstores. Or call 1-800-451-7556 (M-F, 9-5 EST) OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS www.oup-usa.org