GREAT CONFERENCE! BirthKeeper Summit Report by Carol Downer

CONTINUE READING

Earth At Risk Conference, Pat Maginnis, Barbara Hoke, Molly Arthur, and Mary Lou Singleton

MEMORANDUM

NOVEMBER 25, 2014

TO: FRIENDS OF WOMEN’S HEALTH IN WOMEN’S HANDS

FROM: CAROL DOWNER

RE: TRIP TO EARTH AT RISK CONFERENCE, SAN FRANCISCO, 11-22 & 23-2014

BACKGROUND:  MARY LOU SINGLETON INVITED ME TO GO TO THE EARTH AT RISK CONFERENCE TO MEET MEMBERS OF THE WOMEN’S LIBERATION FRONT (WoLF).

SUMMARY:  DURING AND AFTER THE 2-DAY CONFERENCE, I VISITED THE WoLF TABLE.  I MET WITH MOLLY ARTHUR, MARY LOU SINGLETON, AND STOPPATRIARCHY.ORG.   I VISITED PAT MAGINNIS AND BARBARA HOKE IN OAKLAND,  AND PAT AND I ATTENDED A HEARING TO PROTEST CHILD ENDANGERMENT AND ANIMAL CRUELTY BY A LOCAL HAYWARD RODEO GROUP.

SUMMARY OF PROGRAM:
INFORMATIVE ABOUT 1) the extreme risk of ecological collapse: 2) the cause of collapse: capitalist system and its attendant -isms, colonialism, racism, patriarchy, militarism, masculinity; 3) power structure research about the way capitalism pathologizes our social relations, how the U.S. Constitution protects property rights over the people’s rights, 4) what to expect if and when the people challenge capitalist’s corporate rule.

THOUGHT-PROVOKING in presenting legal strategies to expose and force show-downs on basic legal protections of eco-cidal capitalistic behavior; in suggesting projects to directly transform our consciousness, our immediate environment, and the control of our lives.

INSPIRATIONAL in sharing indigenous culture’s example of how people can successfully live in cooperative, communal society that is earth-loving, in poetry performance to express our anger and sorrow; in exhorting us to build: 1) human connections with friendship, 2) human connections with nature “gardens of hope”, solidarity in defending and befriending mountains, rivers, insects, trees and other plants.

The 200-300 people that attended the conference all agreed that capitalism cannot be reformed and must be replaced with ways of organizing society that recognize the necessity of living in harmony with the earth and all its creatures.  They also all agreed that the strategy of influencing our elected officials and other governmental or business leaders is almost useless; that instead we have to build communities that take direct, dynamic and creative political action.

26 SPEAKERS PUT ON INDIVIDUAL OR PANEL PRESENTATIONS:
Keynote speakers:  
Vandana Shiva, (leader, author)
Alice Walker, (author)
Derrick Jensen, (author)
Chris Hedges, (author)

Panelists:
Dini ze Toghestiy, indigenous speaker
Freda Hudson, resistance leader, Tar Sands. Fracking
Caleen Sisk, Tribal Chief
Dahr Jamail, Journalist
Sarah M. Mah, anti-rape feminist
Yuly Chan, anti-rape, anti-prostitution feminist
Anne Keala Kelly, Hawaiian journalist, filmmaker
Diane Wilson, author, eco-warrior, fisherwoman
Dominique Christina, slam poet
Jeannette Armstrong, Okanagan Nation Knowledge Keeper
Sakej (James) Ward, teaches warrior societies
Vince Emanuele, Veterans for Peace organizer and spokesperson
Cherry Smiley, Indigenous Women Against Prostitution
Thomas Linzey, Attorney, Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
Gail Dines, Professor, Sociology and Women’s Studies, Wheelock College
Richard Manning, environmental author and journalist
Stephanie McMillan, author, Why Capitalism Must Die, cartoonist
Saba Malik, activist on racism, peak oil and anti-civilization
Charles Derber, environment, power structure author
Kourtney Mitchell, activist, anti-violence and pro-feminist
Guy McPherson, ex-professor, environment author
Stan Goff, ex-military, author anti-sexism, anti-capitalism
Doug Zachary, Veterans for Peace fund-raiser

FEATURED ORGANIZATIONS: Asian Women Coalition Ending Prostitution, Code Pink, Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, Deep Green Resistance, Elder Creek Center for the Land, Indigenous Women Against the Sex Industry, Iraq Veterans Against the War, One Struggle, Place for Sustainable Living, PM Press, Stop Patriarchy, Stop Porn Culture, Survival International, Unis’tot’en Clan, Vancouver Rape Relief, Veterans for Peace, Warrior Sisters, Winnemem Wintu Tribe, Women’s Liberation Front

FERTILE GROUND ENVIRONMENTAL INSTITUTE (FGEI), organized and sponsored conference. Founded in 2008 in Bellingham, Washington, national organization.
Primary focus is organizing and hosting events with focus on hard-hitting analysis of our current predicament and strategic planning for real victories. 

FGEI position: Every successful social movement in history has used force to achieve its goals.  There is a continuum of tactics that range from boycotts, strikes, and civil disobedience to sabotage and outright revolution.  A serious ecological movement is based around communities that embrace and promote dynamic, creative political action.

HIGHLIGHTS OF PROGRAM (If there are few [or no] notes about a speaker or workshop, it means I couldn’t hear what was said).

COLONIZATION AND INDIGENOUS LIFE

• Women are leading the movement to save the earth.  Have to change water system. “We can live without electricity; we can’t live without clean water”.  Indigenous can teach us “what it means to be human”.  “It’s how you respond to living things; protect them”.  “Don’t have to be colonizer; come live with us, re-indigenize planet”.

• Many mountains losing water.  Mt Shasta, main spring going dry 2 months last 3 summers.

• Other culprit: RELIGION.  We’re regressing.  Things they say take us forward are taking us backward.

• Hawaii is an “illegal occupation” as per UN.  

• Hawaiians (natural, not people of color from other places) are fighting about it.”  Country under arrest (50-70% indigenous people incarcerated).  Economic terrorism and cultural genocide.  American Empire is spreading throughout Micronesia.  Overwhelmed with tourism-prostitution, pornography.  Largest U.S. Military command.

• Hawaii like woman being raped continuously.  “Aloha is a philosophy, not a tourist slogan”  It’s a way of sharing, valuing each other and the earth.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER: DERRICK JENSEN
Has written 20+ books. 

• BAD NEWS: Oceans are dying; there’s no more fish.  People being murdered.  Movement being infiltrated, people are disappearing.  158 species going extinct every day.

• WHAT TO DO: “If you’re going to say the prayer, you have to be part of making the prayed for thing happening.”

INDICATORS OF ECOLOGICAL COLLAPSE
Stages of Grief on Planet Dying: acceptance, rage, depression. We need new consciousness.

Diane Wilson: fisher-woman in Texas.  “Texans love tar sands”.  Texans lost faith, “You can’t fight city hall”.  You have to get involved when your home is destroyed in front of you.  Never say you’re not for progress.  It’s time to put yourself out there.  You have to work outside the box.  I kept waiting for someone with a better education, more abilities, more connections than me, to come along.  Finally, I realized I was the right person.  Need hope, have to get out of the box.

Green revolution a disaster for agriculture.  Destroying bio-diversity.  1/3 of  world suffering from “Hidden Hunger”.  People have enough calories, but deficient in nutrition.

“no way to grow food in monoculture and be sustainable.”

BUILDING RESISTANT COMMUNITIES

• “We (indigenous speaker) decolonized ourselves.  We refused to accept or comply and prevent destruction.”  We had to support the inherent ability of every organism to protect itself from harm.

• “Now is the time to do battle.”  We need hundreds and hundreds of groups, working together, to face down power.

• We must have structure, leadership, rules and norms.

• We must eliminate horizontal hostility.

• Women are the protectors of the higher nature.

• “We put the ‘Indian’ back in our children.  We decolonized their minds.”

• We changed our beliefs, and how we live.  We went to our homelands, wintered there.  We put away fish.  We kicked out a mining company, others.  We started managing our land.

• We need the warrior arts.  Daily practice to develop skill sets of self-defense.  We need to fall in love with earth again.  We need our ceremonies; we need to respect each other and earth.

• Present system designed to separate us from natural world.  We must teach our children to fall in love with trees, soil; that every living being has spirit; the mountains have spirit.

• We may have to defend our land, but we’re not going to encourage that, but, if necessary, we will fight for all that we love.  If does result in violence, so be it.

• We reject the idea that the state can dictate whether or not we can defend ourselves.

• Resistance may mean hierarchy-different forms of leadership-persuasion rather than orders-structure is action-based.

LINZEY-KEYNOTE SPEAKER

• The problem is the U.S. government, not the corporations.  The environmental laws are good, but it’s a waste of time trying to enforce the law, because, under the Constitution, it’s not permissible for a governing body (usually municipal) to pass laws to restrict legal uses (factory farms, fracking).

• The only thing environmental regulations regulate are the environmentalists.

• “Taking amendment says you can’t ban corporate business for doing something legal without being sued for loss of business.

• Constitution establishes property rights above people’s rights.  Constitution not necessarily democratic.

• Example: community laws banned corporations from factory farming, Then corporations went to State legislators to enforce corporate rights..  Ultimately lost at federal level.

• Still thinks this process can be useful because it forces corporations to show how unfair the law is to the community-“the system illuminates itself!”

• How to force change: now 200 municipalities are going up against the federal government.  People are beginning to see that the Constitution doesn’t protect peoples’ rights.

ECO SYSTEM RIGHTS are not property, but have rights to exist on their own.  In Ecuador, wrote new constitution giving eco system rights.  The River is the Plaintiff.  A Watershed can be a plaintiff.

• In Nepal, there’s a Right of Nature Network.

• The problem of liberal politics is that it’s “pressure politics”.  The real problem is the government itself.

CAPITALISM AND SOCIOPATHOLOGY
7 Pillars of Capitalism:  Anti-social values & practices created by ruling elites.

1. Individualism
2. Competition
3. Ecoside-violence against nature
4. Militarism
5. Class violence, inequality
6. Profits over usefulness
7. Fictive democracy

Carol’s note:  He asked audience how many of them were sociopaths.  Nearly all raised their hands.  I did not, because I believe that mental health comes from battling one’s oppression every day, and, whether or not I am lessening my oppression, I am somewhat protected from falling into being sociopathic.

Stephanie McMillan: People need a collective organized class struggle. Capitalism comes from surplus value.  Proletariat class needs to take over.  Capital treats living things as objects.

• 95% of environmentalists think solution is more capitalism. They believe that it’s FATHER CAPITAL PLUS MOTHER EARTH

• Capitalists do cooperate.  They just have antagonistic relations with the rest of us.  The antagonism is between 1% of us and 99% of us.

• We, (the revolutionary working class) need to organize collectively, get rid of system and the new system will be developed in the revolutionary struggle.

• We need to find a way to speak to people on visceral level about the discontent people have about their lives. 

• Example: abused child will cling to abusive parent; it can’t leave parent unless there is an alternative.

• To win, one must destroy enemy’s ability to wage war.

(Carol: In Iranian revolution, even though Shah had world’s 5th largest army, he couldn’t stop revolution, because the army refused to attack its own people.)

CHRIS HEDGES: KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Capitalism has no internal check.

• Crushing the Occupy movement is a danger sign.  Means rulers can only speak through force.  They are preparing.  They’ve already passed Draconian regulations.  They can now hold someone indefinitely, including at offshore prisons.

• Inverted totalitarianism.  Corporate state has all the levers of power.

• We must go back to mass movements and fight the fascists.

• Resistance is a way to affirm life.

• Greatest evil isn’t radical—it has no roots.  It asks no questions.  It can spread over the whole world. 

RAPE, MILITARISM AND MASCULINITY
Masculinity sees female body as permeable-coitus, lactation, menstruation, birth.  Transgression of female boundaries is thrilling.

• Can lead to mass incarceration, genocide, and mass addiction.

• Many vets are dying from suicide, alcoholism, drug addiction and CANCER.

• Masculinity is a script, and a performance.

Question from audience: Are men victims?  Panelist answer: No, they’re damaged, but not victims.

CONFRONTING MISOGYNY
Third Wave Feminism: Example: Jennifer Baumgardner “What is feminism is individual to each woman”.  Does not see structural inequality within a racist/sexist global capitalist economy.  Men are missing as a class.

• This is all coming from the Academy.

• Post-modernism meets Post-Structuralism.

“There’s no such thing as It”, Feona Attwood 2012-example

Pornography facts:
36% of the internet is porn.  She listed all the features of the internet, including privacy, payment online, etc. as having been developed by pornography industry.

• Porn has driven the net.

• In January, they’ll have a Pornography meeting in Las Vegas.

• We need to go from “empowerment” to “liberation”.

• We are not living in the same world.  But, as Gramse said in 1929, we need a Pessimism of Intellect and a Optimism of Will.

• Indigenous, Asian Women Against Pornography (Canada) are fighting a Global system of imperialism.  Patriarchy is part of national oppression.  Sexual conquest is part of war.  Involves World Bank, International Monetary Fund.  Part of privatization, tourist industry.

• Under Mao, China had no prostitution. Now, in the 1980’s, prostitution is in every city.

• Prostitution undermines indigenous communities.

VANDANA SHIVA-KEYNOTE SPEAKER
The world economy, organized as it is, has become a CATASTROPHE!

• GNP is the only measure, meaning the measure of that which is commodified, is all that counts.

• The commodification of women, prostitution and porn, is now counted in the GNP.

• Environmental damage is not measured.

• Soil, water degradation is not measured.—only products produced.

• Industrial farming is our biggest threat.

• Next year is “THE YEAR OF THE SOIL”.

• Patenting of seed is commodification.  We have seed monopolies.

• Anniversary of Bhopal is coming up.  

• GMO crops –toxic systems of agriculture.

• Eliminating insects who are the best controllers of insects.

• We have only 22% biodiversity.

• “Species have intelligence as they evolve.”

• By 2050, ½ of American kids will be autistic.

• We must create commons, stop privatization.

• Cited Ghandi and Rosa Parks as examples of how we have to affirmatively take action to take what is ours. (Ghandi-salt, Parks-seat on bus).

• We must each create a “garden of hope”, and be free (not commodified) creative beings.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER: ALICE WALKER
We need to recover our friendships.

MY REACTIONS AND THOUGHTS FROM THE CONFERENCE

I avoid learning about the damage to our environment because it is so depressing, because 1) my consciousness is already raised; I believe that global warming is real and serious and 2) other than making modifications in my own lifestyle and working to help women to learn about our bodies and to love them, I don’t know what else to do at this time.  In this conference, I was able to get past the depression, because I was among friends, looking at these hard facts together, and I was learning about concrete actions that are taking place and also get suggestions on projects I could do.

Ultimately, I realized that I, at base, am an optimist.  No matter how bleak it looks, I keep remembering being in Iran after their revolution.  I also think about how although globalization is hurting people and the earth, it is also linking us more together, and that gives me great hope.

I think the main message I received was “we must fall in love with the earth”.  My own addition to that is, “we must fall out of love with industrialization”.

Also, everything that we do in self-help, which is having positive interactions amongst women, learning to trust each other, bonding, rejoicing in our bodies and getting acquainted with them, as well as learning how to control our fertility, to ease menstrual cramps, nurse our babies.  All this is entirely consistent with the goals of building communities, respecting nature, rejecting authoritarianism, seizing control of our lives.

Of course, I can’t help but be sad that the same individuals who are putting out this strong message seem to be unable to apply it to their own physical sexual and reproductive ownership.  The self-help movement should be on that stage, because we have learned how to gain power, both psychologically and physically through mutual help and the use of simple tools.

MEETING WITH PATRICIA MAGINNIS

Pat and I went out to breakfast, then later she, Barbara Hoke and I had dinner.  After that, Pat and I went to a board meeting of the Hayward Department of Recreation and Parks.  They were considering removing their approval of some events put on by a rodeo group.  The events consist of putting a very young child on the back of a sheep to try to ride it, milking a cow in the arena, the use of a electric prod on horses. 50 people from the rodeo community came out to support these activities.  About 10 of us opposed it.  Eric Mills heads up the protest.  Although there were women and children there, the testosterone level in the room was palpable.  Also, this group is 100% white.  Some are ranchers, others run the rodeo.  The rodeo people won.

Pat and I made copies of some of her cartoons at the local copy place, and we talked about some of the events in the late 1960’s that prompted her to create them.  They are really great.  Pat loves to have people use her cartoons.  If you’re interested in using any, I recommend you write her or call her.  She is hard of hearing, so e-mail or snail mail is probably better.

Also, Pat would like to compile her cartoons.  If anyone wants to help in such a project, there are people in Northern California that have worked with Pat to create her website and I’m sure she and they would like to hear from you.

Barbara Hoke continues her 20-year coordination of the defense of an Oakland abortion clinic that is harassed each weekend.

CONTACTS:
Molly Arthur Birthkeeper Summit (April 30-May 3, 2015)
Molly6@pacbell.net
(415) 435-8031

Mary Lou Singleton
enchantedfamilymedicine.com

Suzanne Jay
Asian Women’s Coalition Ending Prostitution
awcep.info@gmail.com
(604) 760-1175

FOLLOW-UP:
Gail Dines
Professor of Wheelock College

• I need to get in touch with her by e-mail.  What does she know about the Academy and how the post-structuralism and queer theory and pro-pornography movement developed?  Who funds it?

Molly Arthur-Molly has friend who uses herbal contraception

• Plan for conference.  Perhaps go to Sacramento to speak.

Suzanne Jay
e-mail, maybe go visit.

IDEAS:

• Article on commodification
• Get in touch with herbalists to track down people using herbal contraceptives and spreading the knowledge of it.
• Write Gail Dines to find out more about how post-structuralism and queer theory have affected the women’s studies departments.

REPORT - TRIP TO PHOENIX, AZ, BROOKLYN, N.Y, and ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.

October 2 to October 7, 2014

By Carol Downer

Background: Kinyofu Mlimwengu invited me to be the keynote speaker at her “Reproductive Awakening” event in Brooklyn.

Summary:

1. 10/2/14: stop in Phoenix, AZ airport to meet with Ann Hibner Koblitz 
2. 10/2/14 - 10/4/14 at Gilbert Gaynor’s N.Y. apartment 
3. 10/4/14: New York Magazine interview and presentation in Brooklyn
4. 10/5/14: Kathy Scarbrough and Kathie Sarachild and I drove to Carol Hanisch’s house in Ellenville, N.Y.; met 3 hours 
5. 10/6/14-10/7/14: Met with Mary Lou Singleton: presentation in Albuquerque

Phoenix 10/2/14 - Meeting with Ann Hibner Koblitz: She has an impressive background and has written several books.  Since 1998, she has been a professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at Arizona State University, where she teaches courses on Women as Healers, Gender and Science/Medicine, and Feminist Theory.

Ann is the author of Sex and Herbs and Birth Control, Women and Fertility Regulation Through the Ages.  She discusses women’s efforts to maintain control of their sexuality and fertility through time and across cultures.  They have utilized herbs; fashioned barriers out of lemon, beeswax and sea sponge and circumvented religious and societal proscriptions in order to maintain access to abortion.  Ann emphasizes women’s agency, our pragmatism and resourcefulness.

Sex and Herbs and Birth Control is a wonderful book.  I highly recommend it. 

We found ourselves in agreement or close to it in many, many subjects, especially the potential of women to control our own fertility through self-knowledge, use of natural remedies and substances and simple abortion technology.  Ann is the one who recommended Caliban and the Witch to me.

We discussed the current attack of some transwomen on radical feminists’ exclusion of them from all-female events; she informed me that Arizona State University had just added complete coverage for trans-sexual surgery and care to their insurance policy.  We agreed that it is positive news that this surgery and drug treatment will be covered, but we marveled that it has been a fight to get abortion and other women’s reproductive medical services covered in insurance policies, and we have often been unsuccessful, yet the inclusion of this extremely expensive medical procedure in group insurance policies is becoming standard. 

We shared our dismay that young college women are generally inactive politically, even those in the Women’s and Gender Studies program.

If we both had not had to board planes, we would have kept talking for many hours more.

Ann wrote a lively account of our meeting on her blog, ahkoblitz.wordpress.com.

New York, 10/2 to 10/4: I had a restful but stimulating stay at the apartment of Gilbert Gaynor for 2 nights.  Gilbert is a brilliant constitutional lawyer.  I met him 30 years ago at the ACLU when he worked on the health center injunction to prevent some anti-abortionists from holding a funeral for the remains of 4,000 aborted embryos and a few fetuses.  (We won the legal battle, but they had the politicians on their side and did it anyway)  Gilbert clerked with a California Supreme Court Justice, Joyce Kennard, and as a private practitioner, he takes on complex litigation with gusto--and wins most of the time.  He does death penalty appeals, something that only the highest qualified attorneys are able to do.  He has recently moved to New York from California.  He’s looking for new paying clients.  He’s over-booked for pro bono for civil rights cases, and, like everyone else, he has to pay his bills.  I’ve worked on cases with Gilbert, and he not only writes persuasively and produces impeccable papers, but he’s very aggressive and creative in court, a combination of skill sets that are rare.

Brooklyn 10/4/14: Kinyofu Mlimwengu is the curator of “Reproductive Awakening: Narratives of Agency in Black America: An Exhibition” which started October 3, 2014 and will continue until November 23, 2014.  I gave the keynote talk on October 4.  The event is being held at the Women’s Museum of Resistance at 279 Empire Boulevard, Brooklyn.  The Museum is dedicated to black women’s experience in America and has beautiful artwork and relics of black people’s centuries of slavery and subsequent times in the United States.

Kinyofu and I became acquainted when she interviewed me for an excellent paper that she wrote as part of her class work, Self Help as the Base for Women’s Power.  It’s an overview of the women’s health movement of the ’70’s, its history and its politics of empowering women through regaining control of their reproduction.   

New York Magazine, 10/4/14: Rachel Syne of New York Magazine interviewed me re menstrual extraction.  She was interested in learning the history of menstrual extraction as it applies to the medical version of M.E., M.V.A (manual vacuum aspiration).  A doctor in New York City is offering this procedure, and Rachel is impressed with how superior the technique is.  The machine is noisy and often performed in an impersonal setting.  I believe a good article will be the result.  Rachel also was keenly interested in self-help.  I gave her a speculum.  

The Program, 10/4/14: Kinyofu constructed a “red tent” for her exhibit.  The tent was incredible; it occupied about 400 square feet, carpeted with a red padded floor.  It had filmy red drapes and velvet tie-backs.  Dozens of pillows formed a comfy circle; I had the immediate urge to go in it. 

First was a dance/drama with 2 women.  With my hearing impairment, I couldn’t understand the dialogue, but I appreciated their graceful moves and expressions.

Kinyofu gave a moving presentation.  The centerpiece of her talk was that our uterus is our core and the source of our strength.

My presentation, first consisted of a brief history of the abortion movement in the 1970’s and how self-help played a key role in building a women’s movement that was poised to take full advantage of the Roe v. Wade decision.  30 women-controlled clinics, almost all directly or indirectly connected with the FWHC’s started within a year or so of the decision.

Then I talked about Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici.  This was my first time to present this material in a talk, and I was worried the women would find my point of view too anti-capitalistic and too intellectual.  They were totally interested and their questions showed a profound understanding of the importance of Federici’s work.

 Then, Stephen, one of the members of Kinyofu’s team, shared an Indian line dance, which got our juices going.

Ellenville, New York, 10/5/14: Kathie Sarachild, Carol Hanisch and Kathy Scarbrough presented “De-Fanging the Women’s Liberation Movement” at the Boston Conference on the Second Wave of the Women’s Liberation Movement earlier this year.  I’ve met with Kathie Sarachild before, (the Feminist Women's Health Center’s have been supportive of Redstockings and their political decision to expose Gloria Steinem’s pre-feminist anti-communist activities.   They responded to my offer to come meet with them to continue discussing the panel’s topic.

At the conference, Kathy Scarbrough laid out how gender and sex are alternate categories to use to overthrow male-domination and Patriarchy.  We talked about the recent attacks of radical feminists by some transwomen. (born males transitioned to female physical appearance through drugs and surgery) for not allowing them into all-women meetings.  They charge discrimination and call radical feminists “rad fems” or “TERFS”, (trans-exclusionary radical feminists).  They have been verbally violent and sometimes property-damaging.  They have received wide support from leftists for their complaints.  They’re particularly angry with lesbians if they won’t have sex with them; they have come to occupy positions on advisory boards that previously were occupied by lesbians.  Consequently, I was anxious to continue the discussion with Kathy, Kathie and Carol.  Kathy proposed some questions to me that challenged my concern about “destroying gender”.  Since then, I’ve thought a lot about her points and I’ve written what I think is a clear exposition of my position.  I’m going to put it on my blog. 

At the Boston conference, Carol Hanisch, gave out a list of terms with two columns.  The first column listed that we used in the Women's Liberation Movement (WLM) in the 70’s and the second column listed the “new and improved” terms that have replaced them.  For example, “male violence” is now “spousal abuse” and “pro-abortion” is now “pro-choice”.  Some of these examples were amusing, but her point was dead serious.  The use of gender-neutral language has destroyed the feminist insight that 95% of violence is male-female which is caused by male-dominated culture, and supported by male dominated institutions, like the police and counselors, etc.

Kathie Sarachild has been an influential voice in the WLM.  She and other WLM members promoted the use of consciousness-raising groups.  She and Carol are original members of the Redstockings, and one of their contributions is to emphasize the importance of remembering and honoring our history.  As Kathie has said, “If you can’t remember where these ideas comes from, they lose much of their power.”  Unfortunately, her warnings have been ignored.  I expressed my belief that the universities have created an anti-radical feminist tradition that is training young women who enroll in these courses hoping to learn about their history and instead are being taught to ignore the 70’s second-wavers because “they were all white, middle-class women”.   

The four of us shared a delicious, vegetarian lunch in Carol’s living room.  The windows on three sides looked out on a small town neighborhood in the Catskills with lots of trees and mountains all around.  Like most feminist discussions I’ve ever been in, a lot of our time was spent discussing the agenda, taking spirited detours to talk about specific questions as they arose.  In other words, we covered nearly all the topics that had been brought up, we shared what we were doing politically and yet there never was a “new business” and “old business” approach.

We found that we each differ on which organizing strategy and tactics to pursue at this time, but none of our different approaches are incompatible with the other; it’s more a matter of emphasis and differing histories, skills and personal situations.  I agreed with the others‘ belief that it is essential to keep articulating a radical feminist perspective and exposing the subversion and co-optation of the women’s liberation movement (what I called “muck-raking”, an honorable tradition in journalism), but I favor going past that by putting forth our positions and taking actions, rather than assuming that once people know the truth about what’s going on, they will do something to change the situation.  This difference came up in the context of discussing what, if anything, should be done to fight back against the transwomen’s attack against TERFS.  Kathie has already signed a public statement supporting women‘s right to have all-female meetings that exclude transwomen.  I believe that unless we act now and act forcefully, the radical arm of the women’s movement may be dead for generations to come.

Kathie, in particular, believes that Redstockings has an action program.  For example, they’re giving ten weekly sessions on Radical Feminist Theory and Action Today in New York City from September 18 through November 20th (contact: nwl@womensliberation.org).   

We talked about the upcoming meeting of StopPariarchy.org in New York City to plan a January 22nd protest.  All said they would attend protests put on by SP, but that they couldn’t be part of organizing them.  Kathie said that she wasn’t going to work on abortion anymore; she’d rather work on related reproductive rights issues, such as childcare, maternity leave, etc.  When I told her that I agree that the pro-choice movement limiting itself to birth control and abortion is a mistake.  I still think that the pro-abortion movement needs to give priority to the abortion issue, while always placing it in the larger context of reproductive rights, including childcare, natural birth, breast-feeding, toxins in work environment, getting rid of the Hyde Amendment, and increasing women’s power generally, because the legality and availability of abortion is the key determinant of the birth rate and thus the priority of the liberal anti-natalists and to the right-wing pronatalists. Allowing abortion (but not supporting women’s options to have children) or restricting abortion (and forcing women to be mothers) is the most direct threat to a woman’s right to control her reproduction.  She clarified her statement to say that she will support abortion rights by going to demonstrations, but she will not devote a significant amount of her time to it.    

I definitely achieved my goals of the meeting and justified my time and expense in getting myself there, and all three said they were glad I had come so that we could have a face-to-face in-depth discussion of these important issues.

We’ve been e-mailing since, and I hope that our meeting will give us a basis to continue to do so (of course, they already had this basis).

Albuquerque, 10/6 and 10/7: Mary Lou Singleton is a nurse practitioner and midwife and a fellow member of the advisory committee of StopPatriarchy.org.  She is a founder of PersonhoodforWomen.org.  She is a member of WoLF (Women’s Liberation Front), womensliberationfront.org a radical feminist organization that started this last year. Mary Lou, despite working her regular, more-than-full-time schedule, picked me up at the airport, crammed in every free moment to talk to me and organized a community meeting at her office. 

She and I talked about hating capitalism and patriarchy.  We shared our information about the attacks of some transwomen on radical feminists at the Michigan Women’s Music Festival and other events.  In particular, we discussed the increasing number of very young children as being identified in their pre-school as transgender and the parents considering surgery and drugs as young as six years old, the participation of transwomen in women’s athletic events which is resulting in beating out born females in many categories, the widespread leftist support of transwomen being allowed to attend female-only events, the concurrent rise of the pro-pornography movement, etc.  It seems that the trans movement is receiving a lot of foundation support.  I noted that it would be consistent with the history of the anti-natalist movement to support any cause which had the net effect of reducing women having babies, such as gay rights.  But, since the behavior of some transwomen (does anyone know what percentage of transwomen take this aggressive, radical feminist-hating stand?) seems like such classic male behavior, it occurred to us that maybe the right-wing power structure is promoting the activities of that portion of the transwomen’s.

Meeting, 10/6/14: Approximately 20 women attended.  We sat around a large “coffee table” in the reception area of Mary Lou’s offices.  I started off with an introduction to the self-help movement, and the intense interest of the group in menstrual extraction determined the rest of the group’s discussion.  There were many questions about forming a ME group and discussions amongst the group about the possibilities of doing so.  There seemed to be a potential of several groups being formed.  One new possibility came up.  There are two “red tent” groups in Albuquerque, and one participant is a member of both.  She plans to take the information back to those groups.  I assured her I would be delighted to work with them if they wanted any further information.

People contributed to a collection basket, and it was given to me, so I raised about $100.00 to go toward the expense of the trip.

Sharing Resources
Sex and Herbs and Birth Control, Ann Hibner Koblitz.
http://kovfund.org/book.shtml
http://ahkoblitz.wordpress.com/

Radical Feminist Theory and Action Today in New York City from September 18 through November 20th  Contact: nwl@womensliberation.org

New Redstockings Button: “DUES-PAYING FEMINIST”
Proclaims the alternative to foundation-grant feminism, academic feminism and dependence on the academic-media complex, a independent financial base, for an independent women’s liberation movement. $One Dollar per button.
Redstockings Women’s Liberation Archives for Action
P.O. Box 744 Stuyvesant Statiion, NYC, 10009
www.redstockings.org

Follow-up:

1. To develop a questionnaire for people that work in the university setting to get facts about the establishment of gender studies, rather than women’s studies.  Who is doing it?  Have new positions opened up? 
2. To learn more about the transgender movement in general and the transwomen activities in particular.
3. Join WoLF (done) - womensliberationfront.org
4. Send Ann a list of people that I think would use her book to further their work, and she will send out copies to them.  Call me if you would use the book in your work.
5. Keep communicating via e-mail with Carol Hanisch, Kathy Sarachild and Kathy Scarbrough re Class, Gender issues
6. Possible Conference or some mini-conferences to get a discussion going about what to do about the attack of radical feminists by some transwomen for not letting them come into our all-female groups.

Contact Information:

• Kinyofu Mlimwengu - http://choosetoevolve.com
• Ann Hibner Koblitz - http://ahkoblitz.wordpress.com
• Gilbert Gaynor - http://www.avvo.com/attorneys/07102-nj-gilbert-gaynor-171325.html
• Kathy Scarbrough - http://meetinggroundonline.org
• Kathie Sarachild - http://www.redstockings.org
• Carol Hanisch - http://meetinggroundonline.org
• Mary Lou Singleton - https://twitter.com/prsnhood4women

Annotated Bibliography

Articles

• Heinsohn, Gunnar and Steiger, Otto “Witchcraft, Population Catastrophe and Economic Crisis in Renaissance Europe: An Alternative Macroeconomic Explanation”. 31 Pages  

Then, at the Summit Conference on the Persecution of Midwives, Hermine Hayes-Klein provided us with a paper written by german sociologists about how the Witch Hunt was specifically designed to stamp out "women's secrets", meaning how to have voluntary motherhood using herbal tonics and other substances.

Books

• Federici, Silvia Caliban and the Witch Women, The Body And Primitive Accumulation. Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 2004

Silvia Federici's book places the Witch Hunts in the larger historical context of the establishment of capitalism, through primitive accumulation of capital in Europe, then using that capital to launch worldwide exploration and invasion of other lands and peoples, again using the Witch Hunts to destroy "women's secrets" forcing colonialized peoples to provide the slave labor for the European capitalists.

• Koblitz, Ann Hibner Sex and Herbs and Birth Control: Women and Fertility Regulation Through the Ages. Kovalevskaia Fund, 2014

Ann Koblitz' book discusses how women have in the past controlled our own fertility.

•  Riddle, John M. Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance. Harvard University Press, 1994
  Eve's Herbs: A History of Contraception and Abortion in the West. Harvard University Press, 1999

Then, I read John Riddle's books which pull together the evidence to show that women's knowledge of contraception and abortion did exist in the European society among women, but the chain of knowledge was broken by the witch hunts. He cites the studies that show that these remedies were effective, and populations were stable.

Handouts

• Wicanhpi Iyotan Win Autumn Cavender-Wilson BA “Midwifery, Colonialism, and Settler Identity: Deconstructing Colonial Norms in Modern Midwifery”

At MANA conference in Portland, Wicanhpi Iyotan Win Autumn Cavender-Wilson handed out these suggestions to U.S. settler midwives on how to maximize their support of indigenous midwives and ways to be accountable to them.  She told us "find out your own history".  I did so, and it turns out that as a white, European settler woman, our histories are different but interwoven, and we are oppressed by the same forces.