Be Good To Women Day

Men and Women must help each other fulfill God's Vision for their lives.

If you’ve been following my blog, you’ve noticed that I’ve been really quiet lately. Like all summer lately. What’s up with that? Well, part of the challenge of writing about depression is that it’s hard to write when depressed, and, well, depression happens.

But I’m back – well, back to Beautiful Mind Blog – and I thought I’d shake things up a bit.

I actually have been writing this summer, even if not on Beautiful Mind Blog. So I’ll post some of the online articles and blogs I have been writing.
I’m changing the format of the blog

I’ve been writing some longer-than-normal blog pieces reflecting theologically on various experiences of living with a depressive condition. I’ll keep doing that. But I’m going to intersperse those with shorter pieces about some of my daily experiences of what it’s like living with, wrestling, sometimes in great healthy ways, sometimes in I’ll-try-again- tomorrow ways with a depressive condition.

I’ve also decided to write a series about my recent experience with miscarriage. I’m not writing about it because it’s easy – because it’s not. I’m not writing about it because I want to share this part of my life with people I don’t know well. I’m writing about it because I’m called to.

I feel called to break silences that cause shame and diminish the qualities of our lives. That’s why I speak out against sexual violence. It’s why I write about mental health challenges. I’ve long been interested in women’s reproductive health, but I’m really interested in how women don’t talk to each other about our embodied lives as women. Sure, we ask how our derriere looks in these jeans, but we don’t talk about our uterus.

Popular society has called menstrual cycles everything from “the rag,” to “the curse,” to “Aunt Flo.” (Thank God for Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent for doing it’s part to encourage women to embrace our menstrual cycles in community!) I’ve recently written about dealing with uterine fibroids. Can I tell you – until I brought it up with my friends and damn-near strangers, only one woman (my mother) every talked with me about it. And about 75% of women may have uterine fibroids, with the African American women experiencing fibroids at a rate of three to five times their white American counterparts.

Likewise, I’m finding that miscarriage is something that women talk about – in whispers – after it’s over. Long after. Like years. Studies show that anywhere from 10-25% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage. It’s not an epidemic, but it’s not so uncommon either. But we don’t talk about it. Well, most of us don’t.

We don’t talk about any of these things. But womanhood happens. Womanhood is. We bleed. We don’t bleed. Sometimes it hurts. I find the silence deafening. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that we – women, men and society – are afraid of women’s uteri.

So I’m going to write about it for a little bit. I want to write about how I feel about motherhood – and how depression complicates that. I want to write about the grief that doesn’t end once the doctor says that “you can try again.” I want to write about how hormones play evil tricks on depressive bodies. And I want to write about the grief – and how it is and isn’t like depression.

I’m not writing about this because I’m brave or strong. Lord knows I’m not. I’m writing about it because I can’t write about anything else right now. Because I think we have to break the silence here too. Because I will not cry alone.

Read Monica’s Blog at http://monicaacoleman.com/blog/

An article appeared in Psychology Today entitled Why Are Black Women Less physically Attractive Than Other Women. Clarence pulls the covers off with An Inside Look At The News Inside The News.

Link to story about the article being pulled: http://feministing.com/2011/05/16/racist-psychology-today..

Here is the burning question:  Are YOU good to women?  Take this quick 10 question quiz and find out.

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H/T to BlackAmericaWeb

Chances are you’ve never heard of “Be Good to Women Day.” It’s not one of those days that is pre-printed on calendars. On the popularity scale the day ranks even lower than “Secretary’s Day” or “Grandparents Day.” But if Brad Sanders and a growing number of “Be Good to Women Day” participants have their way that will change.

Brad Sanders is a syndicated radio personality, actor and comedian who lives in Los Angeles. He’s the voice behind “On the Phone with Tirone” and he’s spent years listening and talking to women who call in with problems. Six years ago when Brad Sanders created “Be Good to Women Day” he was thinking of his mother, his wife, his daughter, his sister and his close women friends, all those who helped him become the man that he is. And he was hearing the voices of all those women he’s counseled and advised over the years. “Be Good to Women Day” is best understood juxtaposed against the disrespect women suffer in the lyrics of music and videos, the physical and emotional violence inflicted against them by husbands and boyfriends, the white collar crimes of unequal pay for equal work, the messages young girls receive about their worth. Why not set aside a day to begin to change that thinking?

But there is a danger in such propositions—even one with good intentions. Consider Valentine’s Day, with its cloying sentimentality and scripted giving. Buy your loved one things—chocolate, diamonds, lingerie—because you’re supposed to show your love this way (and spend a lot of money doing it). I approached “Be Good to Women Day” with a healthy dose of curiosity and caution.

That was last year. This year I knew what to expect when I attended the “Be Good to Women Day” prayer vigil. Inside Bryant Temple AME on a Tuesday evening in March, the pews are packed with men and women from all over the city. Some are church members. Some are not. Some are recovering addicts. Some are professionals. They are young and old and in between. Brad Sanders is standing in front of the alter explaining the purpose of the day:

“In our society and in societies all over this world women are subjected to a certain level of inferiority. Women are mistreated and used. I have pages of statistics…but what we must understand is these statistics are not the problem; they are the symptoms of the problem. That problem is in how we think of women. See, you don’t believe what you see, you see what you believe. So if you see somebody as being inferior that’s the way you think of them and that’s the way you behave toward them. And nobody knows that better than black men…and yet we turn around sometimes and perpetrate that same lack of understanding on our women. The purpose of this event is to influence a change of heart and a change of mind.”

Applause and affirmations—amen! preach it! say that!—rise from the gathering. But as it turns out the whole evening is one hearty amen to women, to healthy relationships, to realizing the way men and women can bring out the best in each other. The Rev. Cassandra Thomas-Wright took listeners back to the beginning and into the heart of God.

“God when he created humankind he had equality on his mind…It’s an interesting thing in this creation narrative, if you go back and read one through three in Genesis you’ll see God kept saying he created this and it was good. He created this and it was good. The only time when he said it was not good was when man was alone. He knew man couldn’t do what he needed to do without the help of a woman!”

The Rev. Kamal Hassan reminded the gathering that things don’t have to be the way they are, change is possible when the community takes action: “There are some things God expects us to do in helping men come out of the places where they have been buried! Some things we need to do! Some stones we need to roll away, so when Jesus calls he can get up and come out!

What are the stones that need to be rolled away? The stones of physical absence, emotional absence, domination, violence, control. The community, Hassan said, must roll away the stones.

The evening ends the way it begins: in prayer. The men form a huge circle around the perimeter of the sanctuary; the women are seated inside the circle. And then prayer rises from the men. They begin to pray: for forgiveness, for understanding, for healing for those who never knew their fathers, for peace, for deliverance, for redemption for men who have been the abuser, for hope. The men are praying for the women and children, for themselves, for right relationships. It’s simple, yet powerful, authentic and real—real enough to melt all caution and doubt. One can’t help but emerge from the center of the circle, feeling a part of something important and necessary, feeling valued.

Chances are you’ve never heard of “Be Good to Women Day.” It’s not marked pre-printed on your calendar. But it should be.

Jocelyn Stewart

Be Good to Women Day is an event and a commitment to loving and supporting the heart, minds and souls of women.  It’s affirming and a reminder of  how much we need one another.  As strong and powerful as women are, nothing replaces or makes us feel better than when our men celebrate, honor and make us feel good.  It’s also a reminder of the important role that God has given women to carry life into this world.

Finally, women need to be good to one another. The bond that we have when we work, pray, laugh and socialize together is amazing.

According to Ultra Conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Women do not have equal protections through the equal protections clause in the Constitution.:

In 1868, when the 39th Congress was debating and ultimately proposing the 14th Amendment, I don’t think anybody would have thought that equal protection applied to sex discrimination, or certainly not to sexual orientation. So does that mean that we’ve gone off in error by applying the 14th Amendment to both?

According to Amanda Turkel of Huffington Post:

For the record, the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause states: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” That would seem to include protection against exactly the kind of discrimination to which Scalia referred.

H/T Huffington Post.com

A female Executive for a pharmaceutical company could have saved itself millions of dollars had they listened to her and respected her opinion.  Check out this video from 60 Minutes.

2010 has been a great year for women.  For the first time in history there are now 3 female sitting Supreme Court Justices.  The Female Speaker of the House has finished moving through congress one of the most ambitious legislative agendas in several generations.  The female Secretary of State has been an enduring symbol of power across the world putting in place the policy and world view of President Barack Obama.

None of this would be possible if the President didn’t have one of the most powerful, elegant, intelligent women on the planet as his Wife and Partner.  Lets check out a years solute to First Lady Michelle Obama.

h/t Michelle O. Style