[EMMAS] Jane Fonda's talk at the NWL Summit

Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2003 17:49:35 -1000
From: viviane <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: viviane <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Jane Fonda's talk at the NWL Summit
      To: Network of East-West Women <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

 http://www.awakenedwoman.com/jane_fonda_talk.htm
Speech at the National Women's Leadership Summit
Washington, D.C.
Jane Fonda

Before I turned sixty I thought I was a feminist. I was in a way - I worked
to register women to vote, I supported women getting elected. I brought
gender issues into my movie roles, I encouraged women to get strong and
healthy, I read the books we've all read. I had it in my head and partly in
my heart, yet I didn't fully get it.

See, although I've always been financially independent, and professionally
and socially successful, behind the closed doors of my personal life I was
still turning myself in a pretzel so I'd be loved by an alpha male. I
thought if I didn't become whatever he wanted me to be, I'd be alone, and
then, I wouldn't exist.

There is not the time nor is this the place to explain why this was true, or
why it is such a common theme for so many otherwise strong, independent
women. Nor is it the time to tell you how I got over it (I'm writing my
memoirs, and all will be revealed). What's important is that I did get over
it. Early on in my third act I found my voice and, in the process, I have
ended up alone...but not really. You see, I'm with myself and this has
enabled me to see feminism more clearly. It's hard to see clearly when
you're a pretzel.

So I want to tell you briefly some of what I have learned in this first part
of my third act and how it relates to what, I think, needs to happen in
terms of a revolution.

Because we can't just talk about women being at the table - it's too late
for that - we have to think in terms of the shape of the table. Is it
hierarchical or circular (metaphorically speaking)? We have to think about
the quality of the men who are with us at the table, the culture that is
hovering over the table that governs how things are decided and in whose
interests. This is not just about glass ceilings or politics as usual. This
is about revolution, and I have finally gotten to where I can say that word
and know what I mean by it and feel good about it because I see, now, how
the future of the earth and everything on it including men and boys depends
on this happening. Let me say something about men: obviously, I've had to do
a lot of thinking about men, especially the ones who've been important in my
life, and what I've come to realize is how damaging patriarchy has been for
them. And all them are smart, good men who want to be considered the "good
guys." But the Male Belief System, that compartmentalized, hierarchical,
ejaculatory, andocentric power structure that is Patriarchy, is fatal to the
hearts of men, to empathy and relationship.

Yes, men and boys receive privilege and status from patriarchy, but it is a
poisoned privilege for which they pay a heavy price. If traditional,
patriarchal socialization takes aim at girls' voices, it takes aim at boys'
hearts - makes them lose the deepest, most sensitive and empathic parts of
themselves. Men aren't even allowed to be depressed, which is why they
engage so often in various forms of self-numbing, from sex to alcohol and
drugs to gambling and workaholism. Patriarchy strikes a Faustian bargain
with men.

Patriarchy sustains itself by breaking relationship. I'm referring here to
real relationship, the showing-up kind, not the "I'll stay with him cause he
pays the bills, or because of the kids, or because if I don't I will cease
to exist," but relationship where you, the woman, can acknowledge your
partner's needs while simultaneously acknowledging and tending to your own.
I work with young girls and I can tell you there's a whole generation who
have not learned what a relationship is supposed to feel like - that it's
not about leaving themselves behind.

Now, every group that's been oppressed has its share of Uncle Toms, and we
have our Aunt Toms. I call them ventriloquists for the patriarchy. I won't
name names but we all know them. They are women in whom the toxic aspects of
masculinity hold sway. It should neither surprise nor discourage us. We need
to understand it and be able to explain it to others, but it means, I think,
that we should be just about getting a woman into this position or that. We
need to look at "is that woman intact emotionally," has she had to forfeit
her empathy gene somewhere along the way for whatever reason?

And then, of course, there are what Eve Ensler calls Vagina-Friendly men,
who choose to remain emotionally literate. It's not easy for them - look at
the names they get called: wimp, pansy, pussy, soft, limp, momma's boy. Men
don't like to be considered "soft" on anything, which is why more don't
choose to join us in the circle. Actually, most don't have the choice to
make. You know why? Because was they are real little (I learned this from
Carol Gilligan), like five years or younger, boys internalize the message of
what it takes to be a "real man." Sometimes it comes through their fathers
who beat it into them. Sometimes it comes because no one around them knows
how to connect with their emotions (This is a generational thing). Sometimes
it comes because our culture rips boys from their mothers before they are
developmentally ready. Sometimes it comes because boys are teased at school
for crying. Sometimes it's the subliminal messages from teachers and the
media. It can be a specific trauma that shuts them down. But, I can assure
you, it is true to some extent of many if not most men, and when the extreme
version of it manifests itself in our nation's leaders, beware!

Another thing that I've learned is that there is a fundamental contradiction
not just between patriarchy and relationship, but between patriarchy and
Democracy. Patriarchy masquerades as Democracy, but it's an anathema. How
can it be democracy when someone has to always be above someone else, when
women, who are a majority, live within a social construct that discriminates
against them, keeps them from having their full human rights?

But just because Patriarchy has ruled for 10,000 years since the beginning
of agriculture, doesn't make it inevitable.

Maybe at some earlier stage in human evolution, Patriarchy was what was
needed just for the species to survive. But today, there's nothing
threatening the human species but humans. We've conquered our predators,
we've subdued nature almost to extinction, and there are no more frontiers
to conquer or to escape into so as to avoid having to deal with the mess
we've left behind. Frontiers have always given capitalism, Patriarchy's
economic face, a way to avoid dealing with its shortcomings. Well, we're
having to face them now in this post-frontier era and inevitably -
especially when we have leaders who suffer from toxic masculinity - that
leads to war, the conquering of new markets, and the destruction of the
earth.

However, it is altogether possible, that we are on the verge of a tectonic
shift in paradigms - that what we are seeing happening today are the
paroxysms, the final terrible death throes of the old, no longer workable,
no longer justifiable system. Look at it this way: it's Patriarchy's third
act and we have to make sure it's its last.

It's possible that the extreme, neo-conservative version of Patriarchy which
makes up our current Executive branch will over-play its hand and cause the
house of cards to collapse. We know that this new "preventive war" doctrine
will put us on a permanent war footing. We know there can't be guns and
butter, right? We learned that with Vietnam. We know that a Pandora's box
has been opened in the Middle East and that the administration is not
prepared for the complexities that are emerging. We know that friends are
becoming foes and angry young Muslims with no connection to Al Qaeda are
becoming terrorists in greater numbers. We know that with the new tax plan
the rich will be better off and the rest will be poorer. We know what
happens when poor young men and women can only get jobs by joining the
military and what happens when they come home and discover that the day
after Congress passed the "Support Our Troops" Resolution, $25 billion was
cut from the VA budget. We know that already, families of servicemen have to
go on welfare and are angry about it.

So, as Eve Ensler says, we have to change the verbs from obliterate,
dominate, humiliate, to liberate, appreciate, celebrate. We have to make
sure that head and heart can be reunited in the body politic, and
relationship and democracy can be restored.

We need to really understand the depth and breadth of what a shift to a new,
feminine paradigm would mean, how fundamentally central it is to every
single other thing in the world. We win, everything wins, including boys,
men, and the earth. We have to really understand this and be able to make it
concrete for others so they will be able to see what Feminism reall is and
see themselves in it.

So our challenge is to commit ourselves to creating the tipping point and
the turning point. The time is ripe to launch a unified national movement, a
campaign, a tidal wave, built around issues and values, not candidates.

That's why V-Day, The White House Project and their many allies are
partnering to hold a national women's convention somewhere in the heartland,
next June of 2004. Its purpose will be to inspire and mobilize women and
vagina-friendly men around the 2004 elections and to build a new movement
that will coalesce our energies and forces around a politic of caring.

The convention will put forward a fresh, clear, and concise platform of
issues, and build the spirit, energy and power base to hold the candidates
accountable for them. There will be a diversity of women from across the
country who will participate in the mobilization. There will be a special
focus on involving young women. There will be a variety of performers and
artists acknowledging that culture plays a powerful role in political
action. There will be a concurrent Internet mobilization. Women's
organizations will be asked to sign on and send representatives to the
convention.

There will be a caravan, a rolling tour across the country, of diverse women
leaders, celebrities and activists who will work with local organizers to
build momentum, sign people up, register them to vote, get them organized
and leave behind a tool kit for further mobilization through the election
and beyond.

This movement will be a volcano that will erupt in a flow of soft, hot,
empathic, breathing, authentic, vagina-friendly, relational lava that will
encircle patriarchy and smother it. We will be the flood and we'll be Noah's
arc. "V" for Vagina, for vote, for victory

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