The Bell Feminist Bi-Monthly online pathfinding

Welcome to The Bell. Starting with Volume 3, we will be mirroring our dead tree edition here on wordpress. Here is what we have for you so far:

Volume Three Issue One
Volume Three Issue Two”

Welcome to the Bell. Play nice in the comment threads so I can be your friendly neighborhood webmonkey instead of your unpleasant authoritarian neighborhood webmoneky.

As always,
Michael Phillips

Volume Three, Issue Two

Welcome again dear readers. It seems that four is our magic number, because once again we bring you four entries for The Bell Feminist Bi-Monthly.

First (Taylor Dean) brings us the text of her speech from the Critical Mass community bike ride to support the V-Day campaign to end violence against women.

Next we have a discussion of the central event of the V-Day campaign, the Vagina Monologues. (Amanda Morales and Jessica Glomb)

(Allison Baker) presents us with her Acrylic and paint marker piece “… Is Beautiful: Lorainne”

... Is Beautiful: Lorainne (Allison Baker 2009)

And finally this time around our Feminist in the Spotlight is Olympe de Gouges, brought to us by (Signe White)

As always Your Faithful Webmonkey,
Michael Phillips

This Issue of The Bell Feminist is brought to you by:

Amanda Morales: Editor
Olivia Morales: Hard Copy Page Designer (I cribbed her designs, so any errors hereabouts are mine.)
Taylor Dean: Contributor
Allison Baker: Contributor
Jessica Glomb: Contributor
Amanda Morales: Contributor
Signe White: Contributor

This publication is made possible by the Bloomington Feminist Majority.

Feminist in the Spotlight: A revolutionary voice (Signe White)

Olympe de Gouges was a revolutionary who incited women on the streets of France, calling on them to demand the same rights as their male counterparts.

Revolutionary feminists are not just a thing of the twentieth century, but have been present in many periods of turmoil throughout history. It is imperative to focus on these historic women in order to understand more fully the idea of feminism and how it came to be what it is in the modern era. During the onslaught of the French Revolution in the late eighteenth century, women began to band together and demand rights equal to those of men. One particular women, Olympe de Gouges, was among the most influential feminists in French history. In the 1790s, she led a women’s revolution in which thousands of women protested the male-dominated government of the French Revolution by dressing in men’s clothing and walking down the Parisian streets. She wrote the “Declaration of the Rights of Women and the Female Citizen (1791),” in response to the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen,” which left women with essentially no power. This work contained twenty-seven articles defining the specific rights to which women were entitled as citizens and human beings. The articles included the right to own property, to have equal jobs, to exercise thoughts and opinions, to be punished equally for offenses, and various other liberties. During the Revolution, many women joined together to advocate the right to vote and enjoy equal rights as citizens. They formed women’s groups and organizations and began to have greater power in society. In response to de Gouges’ article and the women’s uprisings, in 1793 the French government projected that women would have no part in the new government that the Revolution was creating and that it was strictly a role for men. The women’s group The Society of Revolutionary Republican Women was shut down by the government in 1793, and eventually all women’s clubs and societies were prohibited. Even though de Gouges did not receive the governmental response she’d hoped for, she still became a catalyst for later women’s movements during and after the Revolution. She fought to her death, literally, when in 1793 she was executed by the French government. However, her example has lived on to inspire future generations to again demonstrate against the male-dominated French government, and eventually to succeed in women’s empowerment.
*If there is room to print*

This is her declaration:
Woman:
       Wake up!  The tocsin of reason is being heard throughout the whole universe; discover your rights.
        The powerful empire of nature is no longer surrounded by prejudice, fanaticism, superstition, and lies.  The flame of truth has dispersed all the clouds of folly and usurpation.  Enslaved man has multiplied his strength and needs recourse to yours to break his chains.  Having become free, he has become unjust to his companion.
Oh, women, women!
When will you cease to be blind?  What advantages have you received from the Revolution?  A more pronounced scorn, a more marked disdain.  In the centuries of corruption you ruled only over the weakness of men.  The reclamation of your patrimony, based on the wise decrees of nature – what have you to dread from such a fine undertaking?  …Do you fear that our French legislators, correctors of that morality, long ensnared by political practices now out of date, will only say again to you:  women, what is there in common between you and us?  Everything, you will have to answer.
If they persist in their weakness in putting this non sequitur in contradiction to their principles, courageously oppose the force of reason to the empty pretentions of superiority; unite yourselves beneath the standards of philosophy; deploy all the energy of your character, and you will soon see these haughty men, not groveling at your feet as servile adorers, but proud to share with you the treasures of the Supreme Being.
Regardless of what barriers confront you, it is in your power to free yourselves;
You have only to want to…

Featured Artist: Allison Baker

... Is Beautiful: Lorainne (Allison Baker 2009)

Allison Baker (bakeraj@indiana.edu)
… Is Beautiful: Lorainne
Acrylic and paint marker on canvas
2FtX4Ft, 2009

According to Naomi Wolf, “We are in the middle of a violent backlash against feminists that uses images of female beauty as a political weapon against women’s advancement: the beauty myth” (Wolf 10). Women’s beauty and femininity is being stolen, bottled, and sold back to them at the mall. Through this painting and the larger series it is a part of, “…Is Beautiful” I try to combat the negative images I am bombarded with daily. I want to reflect the beauty I see in my female friends that they are unable to see. I refuse to buy back my femininity, my womanhood. I refuse to let it be taken away.

“How to begin? Let’s be shameless. Be greedy. Pursue pleasure. Avoid pain. Wear and touch and eat and drink what we feel like. Tolerate other women’s choices. Seek out the sex we want and fight fiercely against the sex we do not want. Choose our own causes. And once we break through and change the rules so our sense of our own beauty cannot be shaken, right that beauty and dress it up and flaunt it and revel in it: in a sensual politics, “female is beautiful” (Wolf 291).

Pregnant is beautiful.

IU Presents: “The Vagina Monologues.” (Amanda Morales and Jessica Glomb)

Febuary 2009 The cast ofIU's 2009 production of "The Vagina Monologues" pose for a photo during rehersal. The show will run Feb. 12th, 13th, and 14th at the Fine Arts Building.

This year’s production of the Vagina Monologues is the show’s 11th anniversary. Activist Eve Ensler, who wrote the show after interviews with countless women, created the V Day campaign to end violence against women around the globe, and every year, the proceeds are donated to local rape crisis centers and the Spotlight Campaign. This year, the Women’s Student Association, Feminist Majority, and Friend’s of Middleway have come together to produce the show, which will benefit Middleway House, our local rape crisis center, and the women of the Democratic Rebpublic of Congo who are being raped and abused as a systematic tactic of war at this very moment.
Gabriel Reed, this year’s producer, says the show is “not only about helping to end violence against women and girls, but to empower them and to strengthen already existing domestic violence organizations. She thinks “people enjoy the show mostly because it bluntly says everyone thing that so many women have always wanted to say but have never been able to bring themselves to say before. There is NO holding back in this show.”
The show’s director for her second year in a row, Emily Patterson, stresses the universality of the piece. “It really speaks to everyone, not just woman. Events shape who we are and the relationships we have; the most important relationship being the one with ourselves, and this piece really explores self reflection.To me theatre is about communication, and action. I hope people come see the show and are moved or affected to such a degree that they take action. Even if that action is something as simple as not using the word cunt to describe another person in a derogatory way!”
The Vagina Monologues will be performed in the Fine Arts building on IU’s campus, in room 015 on February 12th and 13th at 8pm, and on February 14th at 3pm. Tickets are $8 for students, and $10 for non students, and can be purchases at the door. So come and do your part to make the Violence Stop!

Critical Mass: Riding for Justice in the Congo (Taylor Dean)

Critical Mass: Riding for Justice for the women of the DRC

Febuary 2009. Speaker Taylor dean speaks to the crowd at a Critical Mass rally raising awareness of the staggering genocide in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The following is a speech given by student activist Taylor Dean on Friday, February 6th at a rally preceding a critical mass bike ride in support of the V Day campaign to end violence against women.
I know that there are many ways for critical masses to work. Usually, they are unorganized events made possible by several bikers getting together and agreeing to ride as one—creating their own direction and agenda for their ride.  Some people ride for the thrill of creating their own motion, others for cyclers’ rights, or environmental issues. To my knowledge, there is no official critical mass “group”.  Rather it is a decentralized movement constructed by its participants, wherever and whoever they may be.
I am using the term “critical mass” to mean a unified group of individuals mobilizing for a social justice cause—today, that cause is ending violence against women.  We will be biking as part of the global VDAY movement to end the sexual, physical, verbal, and emotional abuse of women and girls both in our communities and around the world. We are gathered to raise awareness of violence against women as an issue that needs attention in order to be eradicated.
This year, the VDAY campaign spotlights the women and girls of the Democratic Republic of Congo who live with the constant threat of danger and violence. Affected by heinous, treacherous acts of gender-based sexual and physical violence perpetuated against them as a means by which to humiliate and control a population, countless women in the DRC have been subjected to rape, mutilation, HIV infection through forced sexual contact, forced prostitution, sexual slavery and harm beyond imagination.
Today we will ride as a unified force mobilizing to raise awareness of the global problem of the assault of women. With the women and girls of the DRC in our minds, it is our message that we will not stand for the devaluation of any human body. We urge the Congolese government and the United Nations to hold accountable those who violate women’s human rights. Until the violence stops, we will not be silent on these issues.

Volume Three, Issue One

This month, we have four articles.

In honor of comming out month, we have The experience: Coming out of the Closet by (Anon)

(Indra Dammu) brings us back to September 30th in Taking back the night

(Catherine Andrea Van Dort) reflects on one of the defining moments of her trip to Brasov in A Beautiful Thing: Memories of Romania’s children .

And this edition’s Feminist in the Spotlight is Cynthia McKinney: The feminist’s candidate by Jessica Glomb

We also have some vouchers from the Steak n’ Shake on College Mall. If print one off and bring it to the East Side Steak n’ Shake, between 4:00 pm and midnight on December 4th 2008, 20 percent of your purchase wil be donated to the FMLA.

As always your faithful webmonkey,

Michael Phillips

A moment with our sponsors:

The College Mall Steak ‘n Shake is donating 20% of any money paid by people bearing these vouchers on December 4th 2008 between 4:00 PM and Midnight.

Cynthia McKinney: The feminist’s candidate (Jessica Glomb)

Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, D-GA, was certainly the most feminist candidate in this year’s race for president.   McKinney was the presidential nominee for the Green party, and shared the Green ballot with vice-presidential running mate Rosa Clemente.

It is not surprising that she is many a lefty’s favorite candidate, as she attacks the U.S.’s current electoral system, in which the winner takes all and third parties, many of which are humanitarian, lose their voices completely.  She is the non-conformist’s candidate, calling for government reform and an end to the police state, living as a non-conformist among her fellow Catholics with her pro-choice, pro-gay rights platforms.

McKinney’s unique background has helped to shape her political views and reform ideas, especially in the area of education and affirmative action.  McKinney was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1955, at the ascent of the Civil Rights Movement.  She is the proud mother of a sixteen-year-old son, Coy McKinney.  Her own parents, Bill and Leola McKinney, supported her in casting the Green Party Black Caucus votes for her to become president this year.  Her father was one of the first Black Americans to be elected to represent Georgia in the House, and her mother served as a nurse in Georgia hospitals for forty years.

After graduating high school she pursued her undergraduate degree at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, attended Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Medford, MA and went on to be awarded diplomatic fellowship at Spellman College, Atlanta, GA.   In addition to her stellar voting record, McKinney supports a Hip-Hop movement for social justice.

Her voting history may be the most feminist in the current House, and clearly her history as a strong pro-choice voter makes her one of the most feminist representatives in the House.  She resisted Bush’s proposition to ban Family Planning funding in the U.S. and overseas in 2001, and supports interstate transport of minors to get an abortion in a state that does not require parental consent, without the 24-hour notice policy, in which the young woman’s family is required to be notified if she makes such a choice within 24 hours.  She even supports funding for contraceptives and family planning for the UN, an indication of her passion for the global fight for women’s rights.

Unlike candidates Barack Obama and John McCain, McKinney realizes that the U.S.  has enough money in its budget to provide humanitarian services, to its own citizens and those in need abroad, and sees no need to ask for loans or raise taxes in order to increase budget spending.  In fact, she admits that U.S. funds are misallocated to other projects, such as abstinence-only education, which creates the illusion that the U.S. never has the money that it needs to provide all of these services.  Given McKinney’s voting record, some of that money can be expected to fund family planning centers, scholarships for minority and low-income students, pulling all U.S. troops out of countries abroad, and sexual and civil rights education.

McKinney supports Affirmative Action, the institution established under Kennedy for businesses, schools, and other corps to end discrimination based on race and ethnicity and believes that an end to racial profiling is key in increasing justice in our country.  She passionately pursues the issue of voting rights for minorities in the U.S. American Blackout, a 2006 documentary by Guerilla News Network productions, chronicles McKinney’s campaign through the nation to raise awareness that black Americans were unjustly denied the right to vote at the polls in the 2000 and 2004 elections, along with other persecuted groups such as left-wing voters, young voters, and other minority voters.  The film won the Special Jury Prize at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival.

Her fight for civil rights and total liberation does not stop there, though her efforts in those areas are extensive; McKinney supports gay adoptions, and supports adding an amendment to the Constitution declaring equal rights for all genders.  McKinney wishes to reallocate a part of the $700 billion in war spending to save the U.S.’s decaying education system and bring home all U.S. troops that are stationed abroad, anywhere.  She recognizes that the Patriot Act is a blow to Americans and not a measure of Homeland Security and supports abolishing the Act to end infringement of our Constitutional rights to privacy and fair trial, and calls on Congress to impeach Bush and Cheney.

To top off, her healthcare reform plans are written to help Americans, not insurance companies.  McKinney calls for universal healthcare and single-payer healthcare to aid all Americans, and believes that rehabilitation, not incarceration, will end the war on drugs.  She calls to legalize both marijuana and needle sterilization to make these available to Americans who truly need them.  Above all, McKinney places emphasis on women’s healthcare improvement, especially for older women, prenatal and postpartum mothers.

It is imperative for a fair system that in the future that we begin to recognize candidates outside of the limited political binary of Democrats vs. Republicans.   But most feminists don’t care about voting for the clear winner anyway, right?  We care about voting for the feminist.

A Beautiful Thing: Memories of Romania’s children (Catherine Andrea Van Dort )

A Beautiful Thing

There is one moment that summarizes my entire three month adventure in Brasov. I can not remember the exact date apart from the fact it was a Friday. And not just any Friday, but it was to be my last in Brasov, ergo it was the last time I went to Donald.

Much to my disappointment, the children were not in the best of spirits that day. It was sunny, so the children were being fed outside in the garden. Anna was sat on one of the mats chewing her wrist, already sore from where she had bitten it previously; the sticky biscuit pulp of masticated biscuit, blood and saliva desecrating her delicate skin. Sammy was equally distressed; biting and hitting and crying frustratedly. Surprisingly, even Julian was out of sorts; grunting and shouting in a state I had not seen him in before. It broke me to think that this would be the last image my mind photographed, the last memory I took away of the children.

Again, I felt helpless. Helpless, like the time the homeless gypsy stood outside the flat lacerating his neck with broken glass. Helpless, like the time Alina was beaten, kicked and abused at Bradet and all I could do was watch. Helpless, like the disgraceful number of times children like Georgianna, Valentine and Marian were slapped, bullied and hit at the nursery. Amongst this morbid collection of memories, the worst thought that ran through my mind, was the question of whether or not I was helpless. After all, I had gone to Romania to help children in need; to make a difference no matter how small. How can I say I made any bit of a difference if all I did was observe at the times I was needed the most?

My efforts to comfort Anna, Sammy and Julie were fruitless. Although today was rather an anomaly, it still felt as though all the work I had done with the children at Donald had been in vain. I was even forced to leave the children at Bambi on an unhappy note that week. It was as if I had reached the finish line only to fall at the last hurdle.

On leaving, my spirits lifted somewhat when Florine ran out of the house carrying my bag, and after presenting it to me, gave me one of those rare Florine kisses not everyone was graced with. Izi and I bid farewell and left Donald for the very last time.

The bus ride back was a quiet one. I dejectedly sipped from the bottle of Sprite I had bought at Harman, now warm and flat. I replaced the cap and put it away as we pulled into the station.

As always, Brasov train station was abundant with gypsies, begging from natives and tourists alike as they milled out of the mouth of the building. I followed closely behind Izi, making sure I remained cautiously aware of the activities of those around me as we ambled to our stop and proceeded to wait for the bus.

It was not long before we were approached by a small girl, holding out a fragile, expecting palm; a hair crab holding up her rusty, brown hair. She could have been no older than 7 or 8. Ever the prepared one, Izi reached into her back pack and produced a handful of bracelets and hair bands. The child’s face shone with joy and excitement. Izi counted each bracelet as she adorned the child’s delicate wrist with the jewellery, her little fingers bunched together at the tips as her hand passed though each loop; arms so thin that each one fell down to her elbow.

Struggling with all she was holding, Izi dropped two of the hair bands from the collection she had taken from her bag. On seeing this, I half expected the gypsy girl to pick up the fallen items and keep them for herself. Instead she picked them up and offered them back to Izi, who gave them to the charming child anyway. Overcome with gratitude the little girl threw her arms around Izi’s waist, embracing her.

She then looked to me, but all I had on me was half a bottle of warm, flat lemonade. Employing what little Romanian I knew I asked the girl if she would like the bottle. Nodding her head I gave her what little I had on me to give, wishing I had something more, something better. Wrapping her arms around my waist, the little girl gave me a hug that expressed appreciation unlike any I had ever felt before.

I broke away from the hug and asked the child for one of her new gifts; a hair band. She gave it to me without hesitation. Facing her away from me I took out her hair crab. Releasing her matted, broken, weathered hair, I gathered it ever so gently, ever so lovingly into a pony tail and replaced the clip. “Gata.” I announced as I finished. The girl raised her arms to the back of her head, and explored her new hair style.

Then, without warning, I found myself lost in the awe of this beautiful child’s gratitude as she embraced me once again. I wrapped her in my arms, lifting her slightly off the ground, and rocked her slowly. I had never met this girl before, yet I felt like I could not have loved her any more than if she was my own child; lost in a moment that felt like we were the only two people on earth.

Now, I have seen children open an unwanted Christmas present and discard it without so much as a second look. How can this little girl, who came from a family so destitute that they had to send their own child out by herself to beg from strangers, appear to be the happiest girl I had ever met in my life? The material possessions Izi and I had given her did not bring her as much joy as the love that was shown to her.

Love; a gift so powerful it transcends any tangible offering. Love made everything worthwhile. The love I felt for all the children I worked with in Romania was real. The aching sadness I feel when I think about how much I miss them is real; as is the torture I feel when I realize that I might never see them again, but I know would rather die from a broken heart than not feel anything at all.

Before Romania I was in a dark place I feared I could never escape from. Nothing I did would ever make a difference. Nothing I had was ever enough. I was a lost cause. Unreachable. Unlovable. Until an extraordinary, benevolent child opened my eyes and made me realise, that at the end of all things, we are all loved, and that is a beautiful thing.