[b]Gloria Steinem
Voting isn’t the most we can do, but it is the least.[/b]
Now look where we are. But point taken.
In Native spiritualities, there is often a belief that we cannot pray unless we’ve laughed.
Are they laughing now?
If someone called me a lesbian—in those days all single feminists were assumed to be lesbians—I learned just to say, “Thank you.” It disclosed nothing, confused the accuser, conveyed solidarity with women who were lesbians, and made the audience laugh.
For men on the other hand…
And not just back then.
Flo especially took me in hand. When I felt I had to prove the existence of discrimination with statistics, for instance, she pulled me aside. ‘If you’re lying in the ditch with a truck on your ankle,’ she said patiently, ‘you don’t send someone to the library to find out how much the truck weighs. You get it off!’
Or, sure, try both approaches.
An older man who seems to be the leader of the Jesus Tshirt group says that the Bible forbids abortion in its commandment “Thou shall not kill.”
But being in the Bible Belt, people really know their Bible, and an older woman cites Exodus 21:22–23, a passage that says a man who causes a pregnant woman to miscarry must pay a fine but is not charged with murder, not unless the woman herself dies.
Thus the Bible is making clear, that a dependent life is not the same as an independent life.
Maybe, but the Bible does settle everything else.
This balance between tribe and individuality, community and uniqueness, was a surprise in a world that makes us think we have to make a choice between them.
Something to think about?