I'm not sure what to title this post, but...

Recently at school we were learning how to write questions and interview people to prepare to be future members for the Fourth Estate.  We honed in on our questions, then, armed with clipboards and pencils, we roamed the playground (it's always best to use the Great Outdoors classroom at any opportunity).  A little boy, who just turned 8, asked me, "Ms. Pettit, do you prefer fiction or non-fiction."  I stopped to think.  Hmmm.  When I was younger, I read a diet of strictly fiction, pulpy bodice rippers with lots...of...heaving....bosoms...and swooning.  But these days, I find I read mostly non-fiction, so that's what I told him.  

Not only am I reading more non-fiection,  I'm also reading more by, and about women.  Not in any particular domain of public or private life, but just the role that we have played in the quiet moments of world history.   Too often, our story reads like marginalia.  But as I read old myths from a woman's perspective, the text pulses and rings with truth.   There is more to us than the damsel in distress needing a quick rescue from a bold and brave, chisel-chinned knight.  Women are not ornaments.  

I've been reluctant to label myself a women' libber.  It makes me feel like I'm trying to get a look-in.   I'm smart, work hard and contribute to the Commonweal just like the next person, and in exchange, I expect the same opportunities, compensation and anything else on offer.   Given that me and my kind make up 51% of the human race, I don't think this is unreasonable.

But apparently, it is.  And I think all of this has to do with the fact that whenever women engage in the discussion of equality, the language of discourse is defined by men.  We use their language to participate in the discussion to equalize our rights.  It places women (and minority groups) in the position of having to be "exceptional."  Having to have the playing field leveled so that we can have a leg up.  And having to install quotas or set benchmarks to fill vacancies with only women/black women/handicapped women/welfare/LGBQT candidates.  Our inequality is created by and defined for us.   By men.  And solutions are created and defined by us using men's criterion.  It just doesn't work folks.

Take the most recent nomination for Supreme Court made possible by the retirement of Justice Stephen Breyer.  The Democrats, salivating at the chance to keep the democratic agenda present on the bench, made this a campaign promise - to add a black woman judge to the bench.  It was the right thing to do, but it's just infuriating that we are in 2022 and still having to redress the imbalance in political terms and at the hands of benevolent white men.

However, because this position was "set-aside" for just the right black woman, that woman had to be blemish free.  She stepped into her new role with burdens that men just don't have to bear.  

She's the candidate who had to have the playing field cleared just so she had a chance, even though she is one of the best legal minds in the country.   She had to have impeccable credentials, a blameless lifestyle, no secrets, no past, to get through the confirmation hearings.  Let's face it, the last two nomination hearings were manipulated by the Committee to enable a probable sex offender and a white woman with questionable religious bias, to get the Court leaning hard right.   The bar was lowered for these "finest legal minds in the country."  I can still the Senator from South Carolina gushing over Kagen like she was Southern Belle beauty queen, and rushing to her defense when he perceived that the "Other Side's" question were a little too harsh, probing, on point!  I can't picture a scenerio that would cause that particular White Knight coming to the aid of a black woman who's getting a bit beyond herself, can you?

Finally, for the rest of her life, she'll be the poster girl for the how the establishment ticked the race boxes on that appointment and can move on to appointing anyone they please - another middle-aged white man with a frat boy past and an extensive rolodex of all the right contacts.  I don't notice that much attempt has been made to add black justices of any gender to the Court since the deplorable white-washed Clarence Thomas.  Thomas, who replaced Thurgood Marshall (a man in whose shadow Thomas is not qualified to stand), currently holds the Black man seat.  And I suspect that when he finally retires, he'll be replaced with another black male.  

So, yes, I'm reading books that have to do with women's issues, and within these pages, it's a woman's voice that challenges the status quo and pushes it beyond the gender wars into something that might look more equal. 

I've just finished read the Real Valkurie by Nancy Marie Brown.   Even in archaealogical circles, the warrior is assumed to be the man, but as a result of DNA testing, we've discovered that a Viking grave contains the remain of a female who is clearly a Viking warrior.  This single find has turned the ancient world on its head.  Brown tells a compelling story about the owners of those bones and what her place in her world at her time might have looked like.  It's eye-opening.

I have also just finished a wonderful book, The Scared Earth, The Scared Soul, Celtic Wisdom for Reawakening to What the Soul Knows and Healing the World, by John Philip Newell, which spoke to me in so many ways that I'm having a 'Think' about.  Newell explores the the ancient spirituality that connects us to the earth, to each other and to God.  The life and teachings of leading spiritual leaders and saints whose ideas and voices have become a murmur on the hot winds of today, but which still have so much to teach us about reconnecting with the sacred feminine as taught by Brigit of Kildare.  In this text, I find the feminine language that might help the sacred feminine of today standup to the oppression of those seeking to control us.

And I listened to a rather fine Audible of Clarissa Pinkola Estes reading her masterpiece, Women Who Run with Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype.  I was not able to read it when first published.  It was a bit scary really as it challenged my ideas of Christianity.  But as a 60-year old woman who's been around a bit, I sank into with a deep sigh because every syllable resonated.  I didn't realize that I'd been running with the wolves for some time now, and this explains so much!  Again, another read that reaches back into the ancient vernacular to find the authentic female voice.

It's a lot to take in.  Much to rethink and reshape.  There's so much to be incensed about but nothing will change if we don't find our collective voice, our authentic vernacular and our will to seek our rightful path.

Keep reading, keep searching for your truth, and keep speaking up for what is right.