All posts in category women’s leadership

Homage to Amanda Gorman: Shine on!

American poet Amanda Gorman reads a poem during the 59th Presidential Inauguration at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, Pool)

On a day that still tingles with the electric pulse of the U.S. Presidential Inauguration, I remain moved and thrilled by the ringing cadences of Amanda Gorman’s finale poem—not only her brave and lyrical words, but also the grace with which she delivered them. 

Afterwards, I wondered: how did the Biden team find this gem? I discovered that it was Professor Jill Biden who recommended Ms. Gorman to the Inauguration planners after encountering her at a 2017 reading. 

Does it make a difference that Amanda Gorman is a Harvard University graduate? Certainly she seemed at home in the rarified circle of the Capitol, as she did in a 2019 poetry performance for a ForbesWomen conference. 

She has a poetic passion that is at once gritty and polished. She speaks of herself as “a skinny Black girl descended from slaves,” but also as someone who is part of a redemptive “we,” Americans who will “rise” to “rebuild, reconcile and recover” our country.  

“Being American,” Gorman says, “is more than a pride we inherit. It’s the past we step into and how we repair it.”

There is no point in lingering in the past, Gorman insists: “We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be: a country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free.”

She imagines what America might be if we were able to “merge mercy with might, and might with right,” so that “love becomes our legacy and change our children’s birthright.” 

Today I am wondering, can America live up to the challenge and the promise of Amanda Gorman’s “bold, fierce and free” vision? 

Can we merge mercy, might and justice to pave the way for love, rather than hatred and division, to become the legacy our generation will leave to the next? 

I have been a professor of comparative literature and media arts at a college for gifted students for more than a quarter-century. I teach courses like “Writing to Right the World,” “Women Write the World,” and “Leadership, Writing & Public Speaking for Social and Environmental Justice.”

I have met many young people who have the passion and even the talent of Amanda Gorman—but few who are able to offer their inspired visions to the world with such grace and aplomb. 

In these latter years of my time in the professoriate, I find myself no longer interested in teaching young people how to write proper academic essays. Yes, I want them to know how to do serious research, and to cite their sources responsibly. But what interests me most is developing three key capacities in young people: 

  • the ability to articulate interesting questions and follow these questions through to interesting, often unexpected outcomes; 
  • the confidence to write in their own personal voice, allowing their idiosyncracies of expression to shine through; 
  • and the poise and polish to present their ideas orally, whether live or on camera, in the strongest way possible. 

I encourage students to explore the intertwining dimensions of the personal, political and planetary in their writing; to write with both a hyper-local and a broadly global awareness; and to see how their personal experiences are conditioned by politics and place—as is every piece of writing, though for too long we have been taught to take the white European male perspective as the invisible, “neutral” default. 

Like Greta Thunberg and Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, Amanda Gorman speaks for many other young people, no less passionate but perhaps less able to articulate and convey their passions on a prominent public stage. 

The more those few exceptional ones step forward and lead the way, the more inspired, invigorated and enlivened their contemporaries will become, and the brighter their collective lights will shine out in the world.

It was a brilliant move for Joe Biden, the oldest incoming President of the United States, to invite powerful young women to grace his Inauguration. From Amanda Gorman to Lady Gaga and J-Lo, youthful energy blazed forth on the steps of the Capitol on 1/20/21, insisting that America must live up to its promise. 

While Joe himself looked back to Lincoln in calling for unity, young Amanda Gorman looked forward, proclaiming that “our people, diverse and beautiful, will emerge battered and beautiful” from all the challenges that have beset us of late. 

She closed with a challenge: “For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.”

I agree with Amanda: we must be the light that we want to see in the world. We must shine for our friends and neighbors, for our families and loved ones, for all the future generations yet to come.

In the immortal words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Darkness can’t drive out darkness; only light can do that.”

It’s our time, now, to be the light. 

Thank you, Amanda Gorman, for illuminating the path forward with such brilliance, poise and clarity. Shine on! 

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by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on January 21, 2021  •  Permalink
Posted in Activism, Alternative Futures, Leadership, love, New stories, poetry, Politics, Social change, women's leadership, women's writing, WorldWrights
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Posted by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on January 21, 2021

https://bethechange2012.com/2021/01/21/homage-to-amanda-gorman-shine-on/

Don’t let their blood red tarnish your vision

In the wake of the 2020 US election, I’m sitting with the sinking feeling, lodged like a stone in my gut, that there is not going to be any easy exit from the social quagmire that now exists in the United States. The ideological lines between red and blue have deepened into chasms between people who apparently disagree about pretty much everything. 

The red side is ready and willing to take up guns to settle such disagreements. In 2020 America, violence is always only a hair’s breath away, with millions of guns in civilian circulation, combined with militarized police forces everywhere. 

On the red side are autocrats who liked the original Constitution just fine—the one that gave rights only to landowning white men. It’s been especially disturbing to see how many white women support their own oppression, voting for the Handmaid’s Tale-esque party of “grab’em by the pussy.” 

I’ve seen some social media posts blaming the robust red turn-out on a poor public education system. It’s true that the red autocrats have been battling for years for ideological control of the common curriculum, with considerable success. I’m always struck by the starkly different narratives offered by American students from various parts of the country, when I ask them what they were taught about key topics like Native American history, the Civil War, slavery and women’s rights. 

But the most potent ideological education seems to be happening via the media these days. The red/blue divide is also a Fox/NPR divide. The Fox side lies with impunity and calls anyone who disagrees with their point of view a liar. How can you argue logically with people like that? 

Both sides speak to their own choirs, in a cacophony that boils over in every election cycle, when we are forced to hold our noses and listen briefly to each other. 

I have found myself pondering how a red/blue secession might work, logistically: is a bicoastal country possible? Or would the Pacific Coast and New England/Atlantic Coast each form their own federations? 

The fact that I am thinking about this is profoundly disturbing.

But given the Democrats’ failure to secure a majority in the Senate or mobilize a presidential landslide, in a year where at least apparently this was not because of “Russian interference” or any nasty “October surprise”—in a year when the red leadership seemed to be bending over backward to show its heinous true colors—blood red, we might call it—well, there is just no way to sweet-talk myself into believing that sane heads will prevail in American government going forward, even if, as I hope, Biden takes the White House.

The meanness and gridlock will continue, with the most vulnerable people being continually sacrificed on the altar of greed and xenophobia. Racism and sexism will continue to worsen, with a Fox-driven hysteria around “socialism” and “elitism” that whips poor white people up to do the bidding of the masters. 

As a woman of Jewish heritage, I am aware of my family’s privilege, these past few decades, of “passing for white” in the racist USA. But any Jew in this country has to be triggered by the Nazi rhetoric and symbolism coming out of the White House lately. What are Jews like Mnuchin, Miller, Kushner and Adelson but the kapos greasing the wheels of bigotry, hoping to profit off the downfall of others? Attorney Cohen saw how well that went. 

And yet—and yet, all the sages of the world tell us to respond to such evil with love, not fear. Meet hatred with forgiveness. Melt oppression by turning the other cheek. 

I don’t like the feeling of my heart hardening. I know it’s the work of fear, throwing up walls, finding enemies, closing down compassion. 

I have compassion for the millions of people who have been duped by the Fox oligarchy into voting against their own interests.; those who have been persuaded to harden their own hearts, not only against their perceived enemies, but also to the vulnerable within their own ranks. 

I do not have compassion or love for the ones who are doing the manipulating, in such a cynical, open way. They may be thinking that it worked for Hitler, but we know how many paid the price. 

Is the US heading for a civil war? Is there anyone on the horizon with the uniting vision of Lincoln who can pull us back from the brink and remind us what “these United States” are supposed to stand for?

I know it’s a mistake to rely on charismatic leaders. We should be looking within ourselves for that leadership, those answers. 

Vision is all. Vibration is powerful. We cannot allow their dark visions to prevail. 

Perhaps this is what is meant by “coming from love, not fear”:

Continuing to hold a bright vision of “equality and justice for all”; to animate that vision with personal integrity, making it so at least within our own limited spheres; trusting that the positive vibrations we put out into the world can and will make a difference, growing into a mighty chorus affirming the human potential for kindness, respect, beauty and right relations among all beings on this Earth. 

Join me in this, the least we can each do: don’t let the blood red of their vision tarnish yours. Keep your vibration high. 

Photo by J. Browdy, October 2020.
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by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on November 5, 2020  •  Permalink
Posted in Alternative Futures, Community, Leadership, love, Politics, Politics of Gender, privilege, Resilience, social justice, women's leadership
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Posted by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on November 5, 2020

https://bethechange2012.com/2020/11/05/dont-let-their-blood-red-tarnish-your-vision/

In memory of RBG, we must stand up for justice

Moments after the NPR notification appeared on my phone—Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died—my social media feeds also lit up with shock and distress. Dear Ruth, so beloved by so many! She tried so hard to stay alive until after the election, and she came close…dying on the first day of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. 

As is often the case with Jewish holidays, Rosh Hashanah has a serious tone to it. The day RBG died is the first of 10 days of introspection, culminating in Yom Kippur, the day of atonement for one’s mistakes over the past year, along with a vow to do better in the coming year. 

Although I am not a practicing Jew, this ritual of taking stock of one’s transgressions at the start of the New Year seems like a wise one to me. I think many Americans are asking ourselves these days: how did it come to this? How did we let it come to this?

Well, my fellow Americans, it came to this because we were not paying close enough attention. We were not willing to rock the boat. We were not willing to give up our comforts. 

Justice Ginsburg was a shining example of a woman who paid attention. She repeatedly rocked the boat to stand up for her principles, and was beyond stoic in her willingness to sacrifice her personal comfort in order to serve her country. 

Imagine, at 87, after several battles with cancer, still working out at the gym to stay fit enough to keep going to work every day at an exhausting, demanding job. 

Gail Collins, in an admiring eulogy column, offered this summary of RBG’s trail-blazing legacy and her legendary grit:

“She came up as part of that first generation of women who proved they could mix families and careers, who stunned the authority figures in even the most demanding parts of their profession with their determination. While she was in law school at Harvard, her husband came down with testicular cancer. She went to his classes, brought him back notes, took care of their little girl … and made the law review.”

So many hard-working professional women today stand on the shoulders of women like Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Thanks to her, the doors to power have been cracked open a little wider, allowing more women to step through more easily. 

But we still have a long way to go, and without RBG at the Supreme Court, or someone like her, America will continue its backslide towards what I can only call patriarchal fascism. 

Thanks to the social and economic devastation of the coronavirus, the wildfires and the hurricanes, coupled with the open train wreck of Republican “leadership” and the twin threats of militarized police forces and death-dealing vigilantism, Americans are finally paying attention. 

The Black Lives Matter movement showed that when people get angry enough to take to the streets en masse, change happens. 

No political tyrants have ever been able to withstand the will of the people when they refuse to go along with oppression. 

Americans above all should know this, coming from a country that proudly celebrates its birth in revolution. 

But revolution, or civil war, is always a tool of last resort. America has prospered as a law-abiding country, with good people like Justice Ginsburg working to bend the moral arc towards justice through the legal system. 

However, if the Republicans have their way, it is quite possible that RBG’s seat on the Supreme Court will be filled by someone who wants to bend the law towards oppression.

Americans have to pay attention, and refuse to let this happen. 

I still can’t understand how we all stood by and let Bush Jr. steal the election from Gore in 2000. 

How have we stood by while the Republicans gerrymandered the districts to give themselves the advantage in the state legislatures?

For that matter, how have we allowed the injustice of the Electoral College to stand for so long?

How have we stood by and allowed police brutality against people of color to continue with impunity?

How have we stood by and allowed women to be hobbled by the expectation that they will do unpaid housework and child care while also working jobs for which they are paid less than their male counterparts?

How have we stood by and allowed the corporate chieftains to throw the planet into the maw of industry, with the resulting extinction of millions of species?

How have we stood by and allowed America to thumb its nose at the rest of the world’s efforts to get a grip on climate disruption?

This long list could be much longer. The point is that in my lifetime, Americans have just stood by as our supposed shining city on the hill became ever more tarnished and corrupted. And now, in our networked, globalized human civilization, we are dragging the rest of the world down with us into the pits. 

Each of us bears some responsibility for the way things are now. And each of us has the power to act to make things better.

Of course, we all have to go vote. That goes without saying. 

But like so many Americans, Republicans and Democrats alike, I find it hard to trust that we will have a just electoral process this year. 

And if the vote is stolen, if the election is rigged…then what? Are we going to stand by, like we did in 2000, and let the Supreme Court decide? Of course, that is why the Senate Republicans are suddenly slavering to appoint a Justice now, before the election.

How hard will they have to push Americans before a critical mass decides it’s time to stop standing by and letting the Republicans get away with the murder and mayhem they have inflicted on the country?

No one wants to see civil war erupt in the United States, and yet the conditions are ripe for it: a bitterly polarized citizenry, vast wealth disparity, and the powder keg potential of armed vigilantes and militarized police. 

The passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg brings us closer to this nightmare vision. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one tossing and turning last night, unable to sleep. 

I have no words of comfort to offer. 

We are in a transition time and the contractions have started. The pain will be real, the suffering immense. We can only hope that our collective labor will bring a better world into being. 

This morning, I am grateful for the shining example of RBG, who never, ever, gave up. 

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by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on September 19, 2020  •  Permalink
Posted in Activism, Alternative Futures, Leadership, New stories, Politics, Social change, social justice, women's leadership, WorldWrights
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Posted by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on September 19, 2020

https://bethechange2012.com/2020/09/19/in-memory-of-rbg-we-must-stand-up-for-justice/

Labor Day 2020: Honoring the labor of birthing in a time of transition

This Labor Day, when I turn the word “labor” over in my mind, the image that comes to me insistently is that of a pregnant woman, laboring to give birth.  

Having been through it twice myself, I can attest that birth is the most miraculous form of labor. There is some kind of intense non-rational knowing that occurs in those final days of pregnancy, an impulsion to go with the mysterious, hormone-driven instinct that comes over a woman as she goes into labor and surrenders herself to the body’s wisdom. 

In my first pregnancy, this inner knowing was marred by the hospital system to which I surrendered my laboring self. I was summarily strapped onto a gurney, hooked up to a fetal monitor, given an epidural and then an episiotomy—all things I had said I did not want when I made up my birth plan with my woman obstetrician, who did not show that day, leaving me in the hands of a male colleague I’d never met. 

Although becoming a mother was the greatest joy of my life, that first experience of labor and delivery was terrible. The anesthesia given in advance of the episiotomy put my legs to sleep, which meant I was sent to the recovery ward  without my baby after the birth. I will never recover from the frantic misery of being separated from my baby in his first hour of life. Of course, he was frantic as well, and it took him weeks, if not months, to fully settle down from the violence of his entrance into the world. 

Therefore I was much more careful in my second pregnancy, making sure I had both a midwife and a birth doula in attendance, with a doctor to be called only if needed. 

I was on my feet or on my knees during the labor, the midwife loosening my birth canal with warm oils, the doula rubbing my back, both of them talking me through the contractions reassuringly. Within a remarkably short time, six hours from start to finish, my second baby came slithering peacefully into the air. He nestled in my arms and latched right on to my breast, looking up at me contentedly.

My two sons, c. 1998

So here I am on Labor Day 2020, more than 25 years after my first pregnancy and labor, thinking about the parallels between the everyday wonder of a woman giving birth, and the great shuddering contractions of this Gaian transition time, as we strain to give birth to a better world.

This Labor Day, as I celebrate all the women who have or will be giving birth, I also want to recognize the hard work all of us are doing as we strive, each in our own sphere, to bring to birth the new, better society that is gestating actively now in our dreams and visions. 

Whether we realize it or not, we are all in labor now. My two very different experiences of birth have taught me that we cannot do this work alone. We need to plan for it with care and make sure we have allies who understand how the hard work can be made easier in community, even if in the end we must fly solo. 

This Labor Day, let’s honor the work of birthing, literal and metaphorical, and offer each other what nourishment and support we can. 

If you are interested in exploring writing as a means of inquiry and discovery, check out my upcoming workshops, including the 9-month Birth Your Truest Story By Nourishing Your Most Tender Voice series, as well as the monthly drop-in Purposeful Memoir for a Thriving Future series.

I’ve got workshops in both series coming up Sept. 13 and 20, and you are most welcome to join! Find out more in my latest WRITING LIFE newsletter, here.

Happy Labor Day, everyone. 

Whatever your work is now, may your efforts bear good fruit.

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by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on September 7, 2020  •  Permalink
Posted in Alternative Futures, Gaia, love, Social change, Spiritual Ecology, women's leadership
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Posted by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on September 7, 2020

https://bethechange2012.com/2020/09/07/labor-day-2020-honoring-the-labor-of-birthing-in-a-time-of-transition/

We are the World: A Rededication of Transition Times

It’s been a long time since I’ve written regularly in Transition Times. There’s a reason for it: the calamity of Trump stealing the 2016 election. After that, the bad news began to come so fast and furious that a) it was impossible to keep returning the volley, so to speak, with sufficient intensity; and b) life became exhausting, demoralizing and depressing. It was hard enough to live through each day, let alone write about it with the depth and clear thought that I have come to expect from myself in Transition Times.

So I shifted my outrage to social media, where I could share a multitude of other people’s thoughtful writing about resistance on many fronts. I shifted my writing practice to work on a novel that allowed me to lighten up a little and play with satire, even as I also made environmental resistance the engine of the plot. I’ve continued to teach leadership for social and environmental justice at the college, focusing especially on strategic communication: learning from those I call Worldwrights on how writing can right the world. And I’ve deepened my commitment to offering purposeful memoir as a technique not just for exploring the past, but also for understanding our difficult present, and envisioning a better future.

And now I find myself here, in the early days of another spring. There are still peepers trilling in the wet woods of my home in western Massachusetts. The birds are busy with mating and nesting. These deep terrestrial cycles soothe me, even as I know how endangered these bright creatures are in the face of climate disruption and environmental destruction. Of course, they don’t know or care about the future. Their blessing is to be entirely focused on the present.

Is it our curse then, as humans, that we alone of all the other animals possess the magic of prophecy? I have written of myself, here at Transition Times,as a kind of Cassandra. Back when I started this blog, in 2011, very few people were paying attention to the threat of climate change. Bill McKibben and Al Gore were outliers, preaching to a fringe that was perceived, even in smart precincts like The New York Times, to be standing in the way of progress.

Now things have changed. Suddenly The Times has a Climate beat. It’s not only Elizabeth Kolbert sounding the alarm on species extinction over at The New Yorker. And New York Magazine, previously mostly a style rag, broke a blunt and influential story by David Wallace-Wells about the social chaos that climate disruption will bring, if not addressed immediately.

Although the news is still depressing as hell, I’m reassured that the major news media are now paying attention. I don’t feel like such a mad, lonely voice crying in the wilderness over here at Transition Times. Somehow, because there are more reporters on the beat, it feels like a good time to rededicate myself in this blog, and think about how I can best be of service in my mission of “writing to right the world.”

***

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I am co-hosting a local “hub” of the Findhorn Climate Change & Consciousness Conference happening this month in Findhorn, Scotland; we’ll be presenting some of the keynotes from the conference, along with related pre-recorded interviews, and leading discussions afterwards. My co-host, Rosa Zubizarreta, led an initial circle recently, gathering some friends to simply speak what is in their hearts and minds as they have become aware of climate disruption. It was a moving, disturbing session, as people voiced their fears and their stubborn hope that a path to a viable future can still be found.

Several women (the gathering was mostly women) spoke of their terrible grief, as they understood the realities of ecological systems collapse. I remember feeling that way and I realized that while I still grieve every day for the losses we are facing, I am now more focused on what Jem Bendell calls “deep adaptation”: preparing myself–emotionally, spiritually and in practical terms–to live on into this very uncertain transition time.

I have always hoped that Transition Times would be a place where people could come for inspiration, and I see that we need inspiration now more than ever. My plan going forward is not to respond to the day’s outrages; not to keen and wail in grief at all the destruction (of forests, of reefs, of all the beautiful creatures who have been our companions throughout the Holocene, but are now fading away as we advance into the Anthropocene). Or at least, to tell these tales of woe only insofar as they help to ignite the passion of resistance, so that we can, like modern-day Noahs, conserve what we can as the flood waters rise.

It is not that I’m going to be Prozac-cheery and pretend everything is just fine. Far from it. I am going to engage in dialogue with the Worldwrights I respect and admire—activists of social and environmental justice, Gaian warriors as I call them, after Joanna Macy’s more Buddhist idea of Shambhala warriors. I am going to look for hope where it is to be found, while at the same time being honest—sometimes bluntly so—about where we are headed as a civilization.

CoverIn Margaret Wheatley’s latest book, which I shared with my leadership students this spring, she uses John Glubb’s model of cyclical civilizational collapse to show how western society is in the classic end stages, headed for a big fall. And yet, she says, we have to do the work that is ours to do, moving beyond fear and beyond the false promises of savior-style hope.

At the end of my memoir, What I Forgot…and Why I Remembered, I said that I wanted to spend the rest of my life in circles of kindred spirits, “doing hope together.” I still feel that way, even though my understanding of “hope” has changed. I no longer hope that we can sustain this present civilization. I see now that what western society has created is totally unsustainable and so destructive, not only for the natural world but also for the vast majority of human beings.

Along with other transition thinkers, I have shifted away from the idea of “sustainability,” towards the promise of “regeneration.”

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From the ashes of western civilization something new will rise. There will be some humans left to greet the new day and start the task of creating the next version of life on Earth. Those who make it through what Joanna Macy calls the Great Turning will probably be the people who have remained indigenous through all the upheavals and torments of the past 500 years of European colonization; those who live in places not swept away by climate havoc, and who still remember how to subsist in harmony on the land.

Here in Transition Times, I will share what I am learning about deep adaptation, regeneration and how to prepare oneself, spiritually, emotionally and practically, to live through the times that are coming. I will share my own journey honestly, and hope that others will be inspired to share their thoughts too.

This is what “doing hope together” looks like to me now, here on the edge of what some are calling planetary systems collapse. To look out into the world with love and with courage; to say resolutely that we stand for the best values humanity has developed over these past few millennia of recorded history; and that we stand against the greed, shortsightedness, aggression and hatred that has been ascendant too long in western civilization.

As Arundhati Roy put it, “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way.  On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” Stop. Listen. Can you hear the better world that is laboring to be born now? Send her strength with every breath you take, knowing that the world breathes you as you breathe her. There is no separation. It’s become a cliché but it’s true: We are the world. And in the cycles of deep time, we will rise again.

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by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on April 7, 2019  •  Permalink
Posted in Activism, Alternative Futures, Climate Change, Community, Environment, Gaia, Leadership, New stories, Resilience, Spiritual Ecology, Uncategorized, women's leadership, WorldWrights
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Posted by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on April 7, 2019

https://bethechange2012.com/2019/04/07/we-are-the-world-a-rededication-of-transition-times/

Will the Real Hillary (Rodham, Clinton) Please Stand Up?

Today’s New York Times features an article by Amy Chozick about the fading away of Hillary Rodham Clinton, in the wake of her electoral college (though not popular) defeat to a known sexual predator.

The article regrets the fact that Mrs. Clinton, after so many decades of leading the way for women in politics, has now been forced to the sidelines. “On issues of sexual assault, Mrs. Clinton has remained mostly muted, her hands tied as liberals rethink how President Bill Clinton’s accusers were dismissed and shamed in the 1990s. Even the #StillWithHer crowd seems to agree that the #MeToo movement cannot feature Mrs. Clinton.”

And therein lies the rub for Mrs. Clinton.

To fully step into her power as a feminist leader, she has to account for her hubby. This is where the personal meets the political and things get complicated.

Chozick asks whether Mrs. Clinton should “be held responsible for the badly behaving men around her.” The answer is no, we are only responsible for our own behavior.

But her behavior in the Monica Lewinsky scandal was not okay. For years she determinedly looked the other way as Bill had his trysts. This was known when they were on the campaign trail in the 1990s, and the Lewinsky affair revealed just how deeply entrenched Bill’s proclivity to sexual predation had become.

All through that scandal, Hillary stood by her man.

Pres. Clinton Denies Lewinsky Affair

Even after they left the White House, when she could have divorced him without any political blowback, she continued to stand by her man.

We don’t know if he continued his sexually loose ways after retirement. I for one don’t care, as long as the encounters were consensual. Let him eat cake. Let her eat cake too, for that matter! I’m not one to argue sententiously for the sanctity of marriage.

But if Hillary wants to be an icon for women, she should help us understand what was in her mind as she stood by Bill, even knowing that he was getting young Monica to jack him off in the Oval Office.

I wish Hillary would write a real memoir digging into the full complexity of the calculus for women seeking power and success in a world still so overwhelmingly patriarchal.

frida-dvdSalma Hayek’s brilliant essay, revealing how she had to demean herself to Harvey Weinstein in order to achieve her creative masterpiece Frida, opens a lurid window into the contortions required of ambitious, talented women in this man’s world. Whether they are seeking success in science, religion, education, politics, the arts, or business, as feminists have been documenting for years, there is no level playing field for women.

These days, feminist critique is finally coming out of women’s studies classrooms and journals and into the mainstream. The whole nation saw the glass ceiling in action in all its glory, holding fast against the first woman who actually might have been POTUS.

At the very least, when all is said and done, Hillary deserves a good biography of her life, maybe a dramatic bio-pic made by someone who gets it, like Salma Hayek.

We need to understand what pressures women like her to put up with “bad behavior from those around her” in the quest to achieve higher goals.

We need to understand why she has stuck by Bill all these years. Hollywood celebrities get to marry and divorce with abandon, but not politicians, particularly women politicians. Why not? Why do we insist that women stand by their men, no matter what? Other countries are relaxing this standard—look at France, or Chile.

We will never know if Hillary would have been a stronger, better candidate had she divorced Bill after their shabby reign in the White House ended. All these years, she stuck by her man. Maybe she loves him. Maybe he’s changed with age and become a good companion for her.

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Hillary and Bill in 2016

The bedroom does influence the boardroom, for women as well as men. Hillary Clinton is someone who could tell us just how much this is so. But she’d have to take the risk of standing on her own two feet, as Hillary Rodham, Clinton be damned.

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by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on January 14, 2018  •  Permalink
Posted in Leadership, Politics, Politics of Gender, Uncategorized, women's leadership
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Posted by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on January 14, 2018

https://bethechange2012.com/2018/01/14/will-the-real-hillary-rodham-clinton-please-stand-up/

Time for the biggest march on Washington DC EVER!

The bombardment of bad news is relentless. For an empath like me, it’s literally painful, even self-destructive to open myself up to it. Today they are permitting the shooting of hibernating bears in their dens. Yesterday they threw out the rules against trophy imports of elephant and lion parts.

Tomorrow they’ll vote on a tax bill will savage students, the elderly and the working class, while sending the rich laughing to the bank. Word is that the senator from Alaska has decided to vote for it, despite misgivings, because she can’t resist the pork thrown her way: carte blanche to drill in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge. And then there’s the possibility of war with North Korea, which has Hawaii resurrecting World War II era missile warning systems.

Meanwhile, the insane man who stole our White House is busy inflaming old hatreds, undermining confidence in our most respected news organizations, and getting away with crimes that other men are now being fired for daily (Garrison Keillor, the latest head to roll for sexual misconduct).

How should we conduct ourselves in the face of such overwhelmingly bad news?

Like most people I know, I’m just continuing to go through the motions of my life. As a teacher, I go in to teach my classes, and most of the time current events doesn’t come up, even in my media studies classes. The students don’t want to discuss politics or current events. They don’t want to get into arguments or risk offending each other. They just want to do their work, get good grades, and move on with their lives.

I can’t blame them as I’m following the same playbook. We all are. Yes, there’s some outrage expressed on social media, but if we really allowed ourselves to wake up and feel the full measure of the slow-motion disaster that is our present moment, we’d be doing more than posting angry faces and sharing editorials.

Graduate students, who are among the biggest targets of the disgusting Republican tax bill being rushed through Congress, are taking to the streets to protest. As usual, the young lead the way. We should all be out in the streets protesting!

I am surprised that no national organization is calling for the mass protests that should be occurring in Washington DC this holiday season. Last January women turned out en masse not only in Washington but all over the country to protest the ascension of “grab’em by the pussy Donald” to the highest office in the land. Where are they now, when all our worst fears for the Trump era have come true, and then some?

Protesting to your social media friends in virtual reality is ineffective because you’re not reaching your “enemies,” the people in power you’re protesting against. The Republican-controlled government is in its own echo chamber—45’s 43 million Twitter followers are cheering him on, giving him the illusion of invincibility.

Trump and his Republican toadies need a wake-up call, and it needs to be delivered with boots on the ground, not easily ignored virtual reality.

Today I’m calling on the leaders of every progressive organization in America to get off their butts and start organizing the biggest march on Washington our country has ever known.

We are in the midst of a crisis of epic proportions, affecting every sector of society (save the 1% and the big corporations). The health of our society and environment has never been more threatened.

It’s a storm-the-Bastille moment, and yet here we are, all mesmerized and immobilized by our screens.

Let’s use virtual reality to organize: who’s ordering up a bus for my town? What about yours? It’s time to go to Washington to remind the politicos who they work for, and what the democratic creed of America stands for.

We need to do it now, before they lock in legislation that will cripple our economy and bankrupt our future for generations to come.

Fired up? Ready to go!

***

While you’re waiting for the bus, you can call these senators who are said to be open to rational appeal on the tax bill:

Collins (ME) 202-224-2523
Corker (TN) 202-224-3344
Daines (MT) 202-224-2651
Flake (AZ) 202-224-4521
Johnson (WI) 202-224-5323
Lankford (OK) 202-224-5754
McCain (AZ) 202-224-2235
Murkowski (AK) 202-224-6665

And consider submitting your writing, photography or art to the new online magazine I’ve just founded, Fired Up! Creative Expression for Challenging Times.  It’s true that online activism can only take us so far. But it’s a good way to let off some steam and inspire ourselves and others in the process!

1 Comment
by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on November 30, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in Activism, Alternative Futures, Empathy, Environment, Health, Human Rights, Leadership, Politics, Uncategorized, women's leadership
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Posted by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on November 30, 2017

https://bethechange2012.com/2017/11/30/time-for-the-biggest-march-on-washington-dc-ever/

Leadership in the End Times: Feminine Rising

“Oh, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt/Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew/Or that the Everlasting had not fixed/His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God, God!/How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable/Seem to me all the uses of this world!/Fie on ’t, ah fie! ‘Tis an unweeded garden/That grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature/Possess it merely. That it should come to this./But two months dead—nay, not so much, not two./So excellent a king, that was to this/Hyperion to a satyr.”

—Hamlet, Act I, Scene 2”

You may remember Hamlet’s anguished soliloquy as he contemplates the death of his noble father, the rapid remarriage of his mother to his lecherous uncle, and the fact that “something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”

In this male-dominated kingdom, an “unweeded garden,” young Ophelia goes mad and drowns (a possible suicide), the Queen shares a bed with her husband’s brother-turned-killer, murder plots abound and no one is safe, not even the idealistic, intelligent young Hamlet, who cannot unravel the mess of his kingdom without becoming unraveled himself.

Does this sound familiar?

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Margaret J. Wheatley

It would not be too much of a stretch to compare our own sorry political landscape in the U.S. to the “rank and gross” garden of ancient Denmark. And thus it did not surprise me to find Meg Wheatley, in her latest book on leadership, turning to history to explain our current moment: what she calls, following British historian Sir John Glubb, “The Age of Decadence.”

Here is Wheatley summarizing Glubb:

“Glubb studied thirteen empires in the Middle East, Asia and Europe…from Assyria in 859 BCE to modern Britain in 1950. The pattern of the decline and fall of these superpowers was startlingly clear. It didn’t matter where they were or what technology they had or how they exercised power. They all declined in the same stages and it always took ten generations, about 250 years.

“The logic of this is very clear: each generation matures in better socioeconomic circumstances created by the preceding generation; thus, there is always a march to increasing materialism. In every generation, youth will have higher expectations for comfort than their parents. Improved material conditions create attitudinal changes that insist on still more material changes; and predictably, because of its wealth and erosion of morality, the civilization declines into decadence.” (Who Do We Choose to Be? 34).

The United States is nine years shy of its 250th anniversary. We are deep into our Age of Decadence, which Wheatley (following Glubb) describes as a time when “wealth and power have led to petty and negative behaviors, including narcissism, consumerism, materialism, nihilism, fanaticism and high levels of frivolity” (35).

The pattern is clear; the writing is on the wall–even without the added wrench of climate change and environmental destruction, which Glubb, writing in the 1970s, could not foresee.

Wheatley’s questions for our time are essential. Given the stark reality of our epoch, what should we do as leaders? How can we stay centered and grounded in the midst of social turmoil and environmental catastrophe, and work in our own spheres to create “islands of sanity” in our communities?

As I’ve become more acutely aware of the transition times (end times?) we are living through in the 21st century, it’s become important to me to reach out and try to find others who are also aware of what’s happening—those who are not giving in to despair, but who are continuing to work for positive change.

All kinds of resistance and action are needed, from protesting the unholy trinity of Fossil Fuels, Big Pharma and Big Ag; to holding elected officials accountable; to protecting our dwindling wild places and wild creatures; and working to improve quality of life for people with few resources.

It’s all urgent and important, and taken together, it’s overwhelming, which is why, as co-founder Kenny Ausubel said at the Bioneers conference last month, it’s important for activists to come together to imbibe the “good medicine” of sharing our stories and knitting together our hopes and dreams for a better future. It was great to get a strong dose of that good medicine myself at this year’s Bioneers.

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Nina Simons addresses the Bioneers 2017.

At the Bioneers, it was the women leaders who especially inspired me. It was heartbreaking but galvanizing to listen to Kandi Mosset, of the Indigenous Environmental Network, talk about the horrendous impact of the fossil fuel industry in her home state of North Dakota.

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Clare Dubois at the Bioneers 2017.

Kandi’s litany of destruction was balanced by the visionary, participatory ritual created by Treesisters founder Clare Dubois, invoking a rise of feminine consciousness to balance each of us as individuals (men as well as women) and enable us to bring our planet back into balance.

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Nina Simons awakening women leaders. 

Starhawk’s regeneration workshop echoed a theme raised by Bioneers co-founder Nina Simons in her women’s leadership session: the idea of composting what we don’t want, and focusing on generating more of what we do want and need.

But what if it’s not clear what we should compost in our lives, and what we should be growing? The way forward is murky in our times. I was reassured in my uncertainty by Joanna Macy, who ended her Bioneers session with simple but potent advice: “Cherish the questions.”

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Joanna Macy, wise elder at the Bioneers 2017.

I was also invigorated in my own work of purposeful memoir to find Meg Wheatley ending her new leadership book with a turn to the personal. From the wide historical sweep of her opening sections, she eventually narrows down to the particular center from which each of us operate: the self.

“We see the world through the powerful filters of self. The more we know our filters, the more we can see beyond them….The distinction between self-help and self-knowledge is important. There are thousands of self-help methods available to design a better you. But here, we aspire to high levels of self-awareness, not to help ourselves but to learn to trust ourselves in difficult situations….Our motivation is to be more in control of ourselves so that we don’t get in the way, and don’t give ourselves away, as we work in service to others” (275).

This is precisely the goal of my work of “aligning the personal, political and planetary through purposeful memoir.” In my workshops and online course, following the path I took myself in my memoir and laid out in my writer’s guide to purposeful memoir, we explore how our individual life stories have been shaped by political and environmental forces beyond our control.

As we learn about who we are in our particular time and place, as well as the ancestral baggage we carry, we can begin to “compost” what we don’t want to bring forward into the future, and envision “the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible,” to quote Charles Eisenstein.

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Barbara Marx Hubbard, born the same year as Joanna Macy, 1929.

Yesterday I listened to Clare Dubois’ interview with the visionary thinker Barbara Marx Hubbard, who declared that we are living in the end times of a great evolutionary cycle. But in Nature, all death is also the opportunity for rebirth: compost leads to regeneration.

Ours is a moment of chaos and decay, but also a moment of great potential, when thanks to our enhanced powers of communication (the Internet) those whom Wheatley calls “Warriors for the Human Spirit” can find each other and work together to amplify our signal, increasing our collective ability to be a force for good on the planet.

In my lexicon, our task is to shift the destructive, aggressive Anthropocene to the balanced, harmonious Androgynocene. To do this, feminine leadership must come to the fore—in both men and women.

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Warrior for the Human Spirit AMY GOODMAN inspires young folks at the Bioneers 2017.

What would feminine leadership look like? Simply put, it is collaborative rather than competitive; nurturing rather than domineering; empathetic rather than arrogant; generous rather than stingy; putting the well-being of the entire system and all its components ahead of the individual striving of a few.

Can we achieve this before human civilization crashes and the entire planetary environment hits the reset button?

We have a ringside seat on the action, my friends. And we don’t have to stay on the sidelines! Each of us has a role to play in nudging our world towards a tipping point, for good or for ill.

If you can get clear on what you want to cultivate—in yourself, your communities, and the planet—you can then act in your own sphere to create an “island of sanity” around you. Once you feel clear, grounded and strong enough, you can reach out to likeminded others and welcome them in to your circle.

And then, let the world know what you’re doing by sending out encouraging messages in bottles (blog posts, tweets, photos) through the Internet. You never know where the ripples will spread and who your message will reach in a time of need.

It’s important that we counter the constant mainstream litany of bad news with positive stories of the better world that is regenerating through the compost of our civilization right now. It’s happening! And the more we share the news of the new shoots and beneficial micorrhizal networks we see, the more vigorously they’ll grow.

 

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by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on November 4, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in Alternative Futures, Leadership, New stories, Resilience, Social change, Uncategorized, women's leadership
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Posted by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on November 4, 2017

https://bethechange2012.com/2017/11/04/leadership-in-the-end-times-feminine-rising/

Toxic Masculinity & the Power of ME TOO

The latest tsunami to hit us is a cultural disaster rather than a natural one. I’m talking about the huge tidal waves of grief and anger pouring out on Facebook pages, mostly from women, expressed in two telling words: ME TOO.

I don’t know who struck the spark that set off this conflagration (to mix water and fire metaphors, deliberately), posting the very first “ME TOO—Pass it On” on Facebook, but it is running like a California wildfire—out of control, slightly hysterical, as women who may never before have publicly admitted the shame of having been molested, assaulted, or harassed now begin to proclaim it loudly, in ALL CAPS.

As thousands of women join this mega-virtual Take Back the Night rally, you can see those virtual men looking at each other uneasily, beginning to post “Not Me,” in so many words, on their FB pages.

Harvey Weinstein, yes; Donald Trump, yes; Bill Cosby, yes; Bill O’Reilly, yes; Casey Affleck, yes…yes, yes, yes…so many OTHER men routinely disrespect and prey on women. Not me.

Although this dialogue may be new to many, it’s been going on in the fringes of our culture, in the women’s & gender studies circles where I hang out, for a long time.

A few brave men have dared to stand up to the culture of silence (from entitled men) and shame (from fearful, self-blaming women) and say, loud and clear, that MEN need to own the issue of violence against women and children, and clean up their acts collectively.

If women could solve the issue of domestic violence and sexual assault on our own, we would have done it by now.

The majority of men do not perpetrate the violence, yet by looking away from it, they condone it.

That has been the message of men like Michael Kimmel, Jackson Katz and Robert Jensen over many years now. Men need to stand up and reject the toxic masculinity that glorifies aggression, hardness and lack of emotion, affirming instead a positive masculinity that uses its power to protect and embraces its nurturing, loving characteristics.

Boys do cry, as well they should. And men should be crying now too, as they bear witness to the magnitude of the violence that their female friends, partners, daughters, sisters and mothers have had to silently absorb.

Women, brava to us for standing up in this virtual “women’s march” on social media. Now let’s make it real in our lives.

In my memoir and on my Transition Times blog, I’ve been arguing that we must “align the personal, political and planetary” to heal ourselves, our society and our world.

It’s plain to see that in our time, this bleak 21st century, violence against individuals is replicated by political violence against groups and massive violence against in the planet. And let’s be honest: in every realm, most of the violence is perpetrated by men—against people of all genders.

elemental-journey-cover-new-smIt does not have to be this way. Change must start with individuals—ME TOO—and then move out into the world. That’s why I have chosen purposeful memoir as my starting point for myself, and my offering to others.

I have a whole series of purposeful memoir workshops starting in December, and if you can’t wait that long, my new online course is available now.

Unpack those two little words. Tell the stories that go with them. And then move the fierce energy you will release in the telling out into the political and planetary spheres.

When we align the personal, political and planetary, we bring balance to ourselves, our communities and our world. And then…watch us rise!

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by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on October 16, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in Activism, Alternative Futures, gender studies, Leadership, love, media, New stories, Politics of Gender, privilege, Resilience, Uncategorized, women's leadership, women's rights
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Posted by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on October 16, 2017

https://bethechange2012.com/2017/10/16/toxic-masculinity-the-power-of-me-too/

Celebrating Balance on Indigenous People’s Day: Ancient Wisdom the World Needs Now!

Fact: men commit most of the violence in the world, whether domestic violence, military violence, murders or mass shootings. By far, these acts of violence—along with the violence of logging, mining, drilling, hunting animals, industrial fishing, developing and spreading chemicals in the environment—all committed at a higher rate and under the leadership of men.

This is not a diatribe against men, but against violence. Patriarchal human cultures, which are ascendant in the world today, glorify violence and teach boys that to become men, they have to at the very least acquiesce to it, if not to practice it themselves.

“Real men” join the military, keep their families in line with the threat of violence, harden their hearts against the suffering of animals and nature. Emotions are for sissies.

Violent hyper-masculinity is leading us straight over the cliff, and yet like lemmings we seem to be compelled to follow, to stick with the herd.

The unprecedented wildfires, floods, storms and temperatures of 2017 have everyone’s attention. Yes, Virginia, climate change is real and it is here now. Every day that we continue with business as usual is a day that brings us closer to that abyss: the day the sea comes crashing in to our city, the floods or droughts wipe out our crops, the temperature rises and the power grid fails.

We have known for a long time that the poorer, weaker parts of the world would suffer first and hardest. Ask any Puerto Rican about that.

Would Donald Trump, the sissy man who tries so hard to act tough, have dared to hurl his puerile insults a male Puerto Rican mayor?

Trump epitomizes violent masculinity gone amok: the bully who sprays tweets like machine gun fire. That the overwhelmingly male Republican Congress does not throw him and his henchmen out is testament to the fact that our country is dominated by toxic masculinity.

Just look at the legislation the Republicans have been trying to pass lately. Overwhelmingly, it benefits the few rich white males already at the pinnacle of power in our society, at the great expense of everyone else.

Thank heaven for a handful of strong women Republican leaders like Susan Collins of Maine, holding a finger in the dyke and standing up for their constituents—the ordinary ones, the ones who would be the victims if the Repugs had their way—even at the risk of incurring the bullying wrath of the Tweeter in Chief.

I am spelling this out not to wring my hands and beat my chest in grief, but to lead the way to a pivot point.

It does not have to be this way.

It should not be this way.

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Now, of all times, with the abyss of the end of human civilization in sight—no exaggeration—all men and women of good conscience and clear thought must stop and acknowledge that it is time to resist toxic masculinity and the violence it spreads. It is time to strengthen and bring forward the creative feminine principle, cultivating harmony as we work rapidly to restore the ecological balance of the planet and to create peaceful, productive cultures that work for the well-being of all.

It can be done, and women can and should take a leadership role in this crucial work of the 21st century.

I have been saying for a while now that the 21st century must become not the bleak, dead-zone Anthropocene envisioned by the techno-futurists, but a verdant, harmoniously balanced Androgynocene, where the masculine qualities of the warrior are combined with the feminine qualities of the nurturer in every human being; where each of us steps up in our own sphere to become fierce, tender stewards of the planet and of each other, learning to work together for the good of all.

“I know you’ll say I’m a dreamer…but I’m not the only one” (Lennon). Many good people are coming forward now to reject toxic masculinity in all its forms; to insist that another way is possible; and to lead the way out of the current violent, apocalyptic landscape into a promised land in which we and all life on Earth can thrive.

It is no accident that many of the leaders who have already been doing this balancing work for many years were born female, or are men who honor the feminine in themselves, or are queer—that is, open to the fluidity of their gender identity.

Over the years, Transition Times has celebrated many of these leaders, including Mary Daly, Gloria Anzaldua, Bill McKibben, Barack Obama, Llewelyn Vaughan-Lee, Starhawk, Terry Tempest Williams, Thich Nhat Hanh, and so many more.

22171565_1136051956528488_82733588_oThis year I am focusing on the work of Ojibwe Great-Grandmother Mary Lyons, a leader who has dedicated her life to nourishing and strengthening her family, her community, and the Earth community as a whole.

Today is Indigenous People’s Day 2017 and in partnership with Grace Rossman I am launching an Indiegogo campaign to fund the publication of The Wisdom Lessons of Mary Lyons, a rich compilation of spiritual insights and offerings that Mary has been writing down throughout her long, sometimes difficult, and always inspiring life.

Mary is one of those leaders who works to balance the hearts and minds of all individuals she comes into contact with, as well as to offer an example of what it’s like to live in integrity, dedicated to the well-being of the entire community.

It is a profoundly feminine vision, and yet the masculine warrior’s protective spirit is also undeniably present in Mary.

Mary Lyons coverI hope you’ll pitch in to support the work of bringing Mary’s thoughtful, fierce and yet also gentle and playful spirit out into the world in the beautiful volume of her Wisdom Lessons that Green Fire Press aims to produce. Although an amazingly spry and energetic elder, she is slowing down a bit and hopes the book can circulate further out in the world than she is able to go in person.

In these transition times, as the old familiar environment and civilization shakes and crumbles, and we look ahead desperately seeking solid ground, Mary’s wisdom provides a bridge to the stable, harmonious future we must co-create together.

In Mary’s words:

The only war that goes on is the one inside you, when you are off-balance;

Your body will argue with your spirit about what is right or wrong.

The greatest war of all will be when your body overcomes your spirit and you join in

on the dark path here on Mother Earth.

In these man-made wars, your spirit will be put to sleep and the balance of life will

falter as you fall prey to the trickster that lurks in dark places with enticing

temptations..

When you realize the loneliness within you,

You will remember that the gateway to balance is through awakening your spirit.

Then the light of goodness will come on.

Beauty will appear everywhere when balance is restored.

–from The Wisdom Lessons of Mary Lyons

Please help us bring these wisdom lessons to the world in book form! Contribute here.

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by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on October 9, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in Alternative Futures, Environment, Leadership, New stories, Politics of Gender, Social change, Uncategorized, women's leadership
Tagged , , , ,

Posted by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on October 9, 2017

https://bethechange2012.com/2017/10/09/celebrating-balance-on-indigenous-peoples-day-ancient-wisdom-the-world-needs-now/

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