Years ago, when I first moved to Utah, I hosted a radio show on KRCL, the local community station. For three hours, once a week, I immersed myself and my listeners in a gendered world. All the music, news, interviews, poetry, announcements, etc. had to do with women. At the time, I equated gender with women and it was women's voices, ideas and realities that I needed to hear. Like many women, I was trying to find my own voice against deeply embedded personal and cultural male/patriarchal voices, ideas and politics. Women like Toni Childs helped me birth myself after a long labor. Her song The Woman's Boat, off of the cd of the same name (which I just realized was released just before I began doing the show) is one song of many by powerful women that awakened in me a gendered, embodied force I had not known.
The Woman's Boat
now, I am a woman
and you are a man
I was born different from you
on this earth we both stand
now, as a daughter
I have learned rules and laws
what to say and not to say
what's acceptable to be called
in the woman's boat
on the woman's sea
they are calling us
they are calling us to sea
and yes, I have my worries
about the human race
you see my breasts are aching
and I hope it's not too late
for the woman's boat
on the woman's sea
they are calling us and they're calling me
how the seasons change
they rock and they rage
will I please allow the thunder
and the birth inside of me
now do you believe in powers
like the human and the seed
and how evolution happens
how the whirlpool spins in me
oh grandmother tell us your secrets
your stories passed down through the years
could I really believe it?
is there something happening here?
in the woman's boat
on the woman's sea
is there something hidden
something to see
oh the seasons change
they're rocky and they rage
will I please allow the thunder
and the birth inside of me
My birthing journey took a long time. There were many ports of call (like the radio show) along the way. Prior to that, I was briefly exposed to feminist theory as an undergraduate and then as a graduate student in New Orleans. Finally, after two decades, I am coming back around to unfinished business in my quest to understand the human condition – particularly as it pertains to women.
I now am exploring gender as a lens that in and of itself does not privilege. It's how gender is interpreted and operationalized within a society that can lead to inequity and the need for social change. Feminism offers ideas on how to make that change. This has been brought home to me recently through a project I am doing - collecting oral histories of people involved in the founding of Planned Parenthood Association of Utah. Women and men from various backgrounds worked together to change the social and medical landscape of Utah. Access to reproductive health care was seen as a women's issue and as such was often connected to the female feminist project in the late 1960's and 70's. In Utah, the project included men. I'm not sure all the women involved considered themselves to be feminists (although many of the men I've interviewed did.)
I am looking forward to having the opportunity this semester to dig into the evolution of feminism over the years and to investigate ways in which a feminist paradigm and women and men marching together has impacted the world. The energy of that march as Nina Storey sings about it in her song Let Us Walk, has also long inspired me. It’s on the cd Shades. Below is a video (from You Tube) of the song being sung by a group of Amherst College students. Enjoy!
