I am not sure how to convey the power of this poetry collection.

I can tell you that once I picked up Love Cake, I could not put it down until I finished every poem, even though I sometimes had to read through my tears. Upon finishing, I immediately had to call a femme friend to read her a poem that reminded me of her. Relocating from my couch to my bed, I sank in and re-read the entire collection.

I want to say that the poems tore out my heart. I keep seeing an image of my heart getting pulled out of my chest, but my heart does not remain in the air, naked and exposed. Instead, birds carefully wind orange velvet ribbons around it before they replace it in my chest cavity, prettier and stronger than it was before. These poems demand that I feel everything more intensely–including grief and rage–but in return, they give me back something I didn’t know I was missing: an expansive sense of possibility. The morning after I read this collection, I woke up from my sleep with a feeling of anticipation, remembering that I had been given an unexpectedly precious gift that I will carry deep inside me.

The gift of this poetry collection is nothing less than a roadmap to what liberation can look like for queer people who survive personal and collective trauma. Describing border crossings that she experiences as a queer working class person of color, Leah Laskshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha gives voice to the involuntary incursions on her body: child abuse, colonialism, racism, and war; as well as her voluntary crossings of boundaries: leaving her family of origin, rediscovering her roots in Sri Lanka, and reclaiming her body. She maintains a tension between oppression and healing throughout, in poems that leave no doubt about her power as a survivor, healer, and activist.

When I returned from a six-month kibbutz experience in Israel in 1974, I felt the “culture shock” of reentry into American society. What surprised me most was that I suddenly became aware of women driving cars, and that it seemed strange.

You see, on the kibbutz where I had been living, only one woman was given permission to drive the kibbutz car, and she was considered a little odd. I had become acculturated to the gender bias of that time and place.

Of course, the Israel I knew has progressed in many ways around this issue, but the struggle continues. The details have changed, but the headlines show there’s still a problem.

Read this incredible speech on September 3, 2011 by Daphne Leef, who initiated Israel’s massive protest movement a few months ago, after pitching her tent in Tel Aviv’s Habima Square. You can find it here.

Then read the September 6^th commentary in the Sisterhood Blog (Jewish Daily Forward) about how male activists are spotlighted and praised, while female activists are relegated to the lower rungs of relevance. The speech is here.

Unfortunately, gender discrimination remains strong.

It’s time for this to change, too.

When I saw Eliaichi Kimaro’s moving and complex documentary A Lot Like You at the Seattle International Film Festival in June 2011, one of my first responses to this film was to recognize it as a model for a personal and family accountability process. Having just finished reviewing The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities for Bitch magazine, I was interested in seeing more concrete examples of community accountability, which the authors define as “any strategy to address violence, abuse or harm that creates safety, justice, reparations, and healing without relying on police, prisons, childhood protective services, or any other state systems.” A Lot Like You brings to life the complicated, messy, beautiful, and liberatory process of addressing harm and seeking healing within a family context.

I sought out Eliaichi, a Seattle filmmaker and activist, for an interview and was excited to learn that she also sees her film as capturing the beginning of a family accountability process. The film was originally titled Worlds Apart, and its change to A Lot Like You reflects the journey that Eliaichi embarked upon while creating this documentary about her relationship to her father’s side of the family – the Chagga tribe in Tanzania, who live on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro. The first cut of the film emphasized the cultural differences in her family, which “spans many different continents and worlds,” but the final version emphasizes Eliaichi’s connection to her Chagga relatives.

After growing up in Tanzania, her father Sadikiel Kimaro earned a scholarship to pursue his PhD in economics in the US where he met his future wife, Young, a student from Korea. While his five siblings remained behind in Tanzania, Sadikiel spent the next forty years or so working for the IMF, while Young worked at the World Bank. They raised Eliaichi and her brother in a suburb of Washington, DC. After her parents retired to Tanzania, Eliaichi and her partner Tom decided to join them with the intention of filming for nine months, partly because Eliaichi felt only a “hazy connection” to her Tanzanian family in spite of having spent every other summer there as a child.

Setting out to portray culture in Tanzania, they interviewed members of Eliaichi’s family and filmed different aspects of Chagga life, but often bumped into cultural disconnect and miscommunication. In the film’s voiceover narration, Eliaichi describes how “everyone around us performed their version of Chagga culture, one they thought that I, as a tourist, wanted to see.” The first cut of the film was focused on Eliaichi’s father’s story, but included interviews with her two aunts who describe, in brutal detail, how their marriage rituals involved violence. Her aunts did not know that Eliaichi was also a survivor of trauma.

There was good news on the front page of the New York Times this week. Apparently, “a leading medical advisory panel recommended on Tuesday that all insurers be required to cover contraceptives for women free of charge as one of the several preventive services under the new health care law,” and the Obama administration is “inclined to accept the panel’s advice.” Even better, no Congressional approval is required.

As Senator Barbara Mikulski put it, “We are one step closer to saying goodbye to an era when simply being a woman is treated as a pre-existing condition. We are saying hello to an era where decisions about preventive care and screenings are made by a woman and her doctor, not by an insurance company.”

Affordable contraceptives are sorely needed in the US, where “nearly half of all pregnancies” are unintended, and “about 40 percent of unintended pregnancies” end in abortion. Since women living in poverty are four times more likely to become pregnant unintentionally, there is reason to believe that price is an issue.

Because making contraceptives more accessible should decrease the number of abortions, the Christian Right ought to be rejoicing about this proposed policy. Strangely, however, the Family Research Council (FRC) opposes it. It is not strange that the Catholic Church opposes the measure, since they consider contraceptives immoral, but Protestant Christianity allows for the use of birth control. What gives?

Do feminist organizations have anything to say about the battle over the debt ceiling? If they do, it certainly hasn’t gotten much coverage. It seems that they should, since many of the budget cuts proposed by the Republican Party and the Obama Administration will slash funding for programs that meet human needs (and employ women).

Well, as it turns out, feminist organizations do have something to say about the budget. The National Organization for Women (NOW), for example, makes the following point:

Very soon, members of Congress will reach an agreement on how to reduce the federal deficit. As much as $4 trillion could be cut from the federal budget over the next decade. These cuts will touch upon virtually every program that serves and employs women. Currently, some negotiators are refusing to accept new taxes to raise revenues as part of the package, which could result in deep benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and an array of other critical safety net programs. The economic well-being of women, communities or color, persons with disabilities, low-income earners and their families are at stake.

In response NOW, along with the National Council of Women’s Organizations, is asking our elected officials to “Respect, Protect, Reject” – to make sure “women are respected” in budgetary negotiations, “that programs which disproportionately serve and employ women are protected,” and that “any effort to undercut these programs [is] rejected.”

As you may have noticed, superstar academic Cornel West has been in some public hot water for a recent web interview in which he made some, well, not very nice comments about president Obama. West, who writes on culture, politics, religion, and race, and who tends to shuttle between Princeton and Harvard, accused the nation’s first African-American president of being the puppet of Wall Street interests, uncomfortable in his own black identity, and more likely to be hanging out with “white and Jewish men,” then the brothers and the sisters. West was bitter about not getting an invitation to the inauguration, and that Obama was no longer returning his phone calls. And this despite his own hard work in getting Obama elected.

Comments on West were predictable. Most of them were wholesale attacks on his intelligence, character, or even sanity (A Boston Globe article credited some observers with suggesting that he was both a blowhard and “unhinged.”) Of West’s few defenders, the most striking was radical journalist Chris Hedges, who believes that West is a major social prophet and that West’s critics can’t even carry West’s computer paper.

Look around the web and you’re sure to find lots more about this encounter, and here are my few cents.

Asma T. Uddin is a contributor to Tikkun Daily, but she’s more widely known as the founder of Altmuslimah.com. Since 2009, Altmuslimah.com has been fostering online dialogue on the highly emotional and difficult to define subject of gender roles in Islam. This online magazine-style blog “looks at the intersection of female and male sexuality and gender identity with society, politics, economics, and culture” and uses personal, individual narratives from contributors to do so.

Uddin is a Legal Fellow with the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) and an international law attorney with The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a non-profit, non-partisan, public interest law firm based in Washington, D.C. But it was her own experience growing up as an American Muslim, and her own evolution as a Muslim woman which inspired her to create an online space for free expression and intelligent debate which welcomes Muslims, non-Muslims, men and women to participate.

In a recent interview, I spoke with Uddin about the impetus for founding Altmuslimah.com. “In many ways, Altmuslimah is a playing out of a lot of internal issues and struggles–spiritually and otherwise–I experienced back when I was in college,” she told me.

Up until she went to college Uddin had had a warm and fuzzy view of religion. Growing up as a Muslim in Miami, Florida she was fascinated by comparative religion at a young age and engaged enthusiastically with people about Islam. But after arriving on campus she found a great deal of conflict between American-born Muslims and those who were from other cultures who had vastly different ideas about Islam and women’s roles in the community.

Some of today’s most interesting, socially engaged, controversial, and occasionally even blasphemous artists are working in the mediums of spoken word, video and performance art. I’m excited to be joining Tikkun Daily as a blogger on the multi-media arts beat. All of the artists I plan to present here are working out of the belief that through their work they have the capacity — even the obligation — to ask the questions that light the spark of change. Whether they are examining issues of social justice, feminism/gender politics, the environment versus consumerism, Israel/Palestine or any other of today’s most complex problems, these artists are trailblazing their way to the cutting edge of both politics and artistic representation.

The first artist featured here is Lisa Vinebaum of Montréal, Québec.

Self-portrait as a Christian fundamentalist cheerleader. From the series "Patriot Acts" (2006-2010). Photo by Ivan Coleman

I had a curious conversation with a conservative lately in which he claimed the US Constitution as a conservative document, while I objected that in the 1780s conservatives opposed it, since conservatives then were believers in monarchy and tradition. Yes, he conceded, but today it’s a conservative document. I suggested that this is what happens time and again, that the gains made by progressives of one era against the vehement opposition of conservatives, become the core items that conservatives defend in a later era. So perhaps it would behoove him as a conservative to get ahead of the curve by helping the progressives today!

He wasn’t buying it, of course. And it makes some sense that he wasn’t, because in many ways these labels of progressive and conservative are about contrary emotional responses to the world. We need both responses.

One week after Jews all over the world nosh on Haman’s hat, dress in kooky costumes and party until we no longer recognize the difference between the ancient Persian equivalents of Hitler and Einstein, our preparation for Passover begins. On Shabbat Parah we study the enigmatic commandment to purify ourselves from contact with the dead through the sacrifice of a young, unblemished, red cow.

In many ways, this reading seems to continue the comedic inversions and paradoxes of Purim, the Jewish Mardi Gras. But surprise and delight at our continued presence on earth gives way to thoughtful reflection on emancipation from slavery and the attendant new-found responsibility we incur as a nation of free citizens. Observance takes a serious turn. Passover swings into view.

Parshat Parah is a pivotal passage. Why does this turning point in an overwhelmingly patriarchal text appear to revolve around menstruation?

This Sunday, I published an editorial in the Albuquerque Journal North explaining why I terminated a pregnancy at 16. I was inspired by Democratic Representatives Gwen Moore (WI) and Jackie Speier (CA) who stood up on the House floor in the middle of an assault on Planned Parenthood and the definition of rape and described their own decisions to end a pregnancy.

I intend to mail a photocopy of my editorial to the Congresswomen.

I hope every woman who has ever faced this decision will do the same. If we refuse to be intimidated or shamed, then we can’t be intimidated or shamed.

My public response, which appeared in the Journal North on March 6th follows below the jump. (Sorry, I can’t link because I don’t have a paid subscription to the Journal online).

This is the first post in an exclusive Tikkun Daily series highlighting Muslim activists, entrepreneurs and artists who are making waves online.

Fatemeh Fakhraie is the founder and editor-in-chief of Muslimah Media Watch, the premiere website for Muslim women to discuss media images of themselves since 2007. In 2009, Fakhraie published her first book, Effects of Socioeconomic Status on Hijab Styles in Urban Iranian Women, a textbook version of her master’s thesis. In addition to blogging at Muslimah Media Watch, she also contributes to Bitch Magazine, Racialicious, AltMuslimah, and her own eponymous blog.

In an interview this month, I asked Fakhraie about Muslimah Media Watch and what motivated her to launch a site which is truly peerless.

“I hated everything I saw about Muslim women in mainstream media, and didn’t see myself in traditional feminist media,” she explained. “So I made a place for myself and women like me. In U.S. media, Muslim women are much more visible and even welcomed than we were when I started. But I think that there are still huge problems with that visibility: a lot of books and movies about Muslim women still fall into one stereotype or another, and a fair amount of news articles that feature Muslim women are reductive or coddling – I see so many articles that simply just pat Muslim women on the head for doing stuff that isn’t in itself exceptional, but seems like such a big deal for a Muslim woman to do.”

Lilly Rivlin

Lilly Rivlin is a New York-based filmmaker who tirelessly works against the odds to create documentary films that illuminate her passions for women’s rights, peace, and a secure, progressive Israel. She combined these concerns several years ago in a work narrated by Debra Winger, Can You Hear Me? Israeli and Palestinian Women Fight for Peace. (I know Lilly from Meretz USA, which she continues to serve, after taking her turn as president a few years ago.)

In The Tribe (1983), she documented a reunion of 2500 members of her enormous extended family in Jerusalem, where many have lived for generations. She, herself, was born in pre-State Jerusalem. Among her many distinguished relatives is Ruby (Reuven) Rivlin, the Likud politician who is currently Speaker of the Knesset. They joust (generally in good humor) on peace issues from opposite perspectives, but he is one of the old-line Likudniks who have expressed alarm at the growing anti-democratic atmosphere in Israel.

Lilly’s latest creation is Grace Paley: Collected Shorts, an uplifting portrait of the late writer and peace activist. In a Q & A after its local debut at Lincoln Center at last month’s New York Jewish Film Festival, Lilly asked for members of the audience to share their personal remembrances of Paley. I was too shy then, but here is mine now:

Last weekend I was invited to take part in the 4th annual Faith and Feminism/Womanist/Mujerista conference at herchurch in San Francisco. The theme this year was “Reclaiming the Divine Feminine — pathways to a sustainable world.” Now, I consider myself a feminist in that I support equal rights and protection for women and believe that women have unique experiences that give them a different perspective on life and different needs than men, but I’m not the type to identify myself as a feminist first and foremost. And I’ve never been to a feminist conference. You could probably call me a mainstream feminist.

I went into the conference expecting to meet some nurturing-mother types, a few strict scholars, hippies with long flowing hair, and a lesbian separatist or two — stereotypes I realize, but this is what came to mind and I like to meet stereotypes head on. I did meet women fitting into many of these roles, but overall I was surprised by how mainstream the event was. Herchurch may be housed in an ostentatious purple building, but it is, afterall, a Lutheran church. In many ways it felt not so different from the progressive Protestant community I grew up in.

I was most caught off guard by Jann Aldredge-Canton, who led a workshop on gender inclusive hymns and liturgy. In a smart tailored jacket and with a charming Louisiana accent, she fits right in in Baptist communities in Texas, despite the fact that she writes or re-writes hymns to include feminine/Goddess language of liberation and equality. So much for my preconceived notions. She offered practical advice on how to “sneak” the Goddess into churches through song, noting that people are much more accepting of similes than metaphors when comparing God to something feminine, and that “guide us” sounds a lot like “goddess” when you sing it.

US Army: Border Police in Paktiya (photo by Staff Sgt. Andrew Smith)

In times of war, sacrifice is, unfortunately, required. The US is at war now, and we live in a profoundly dangerous world. Thus, while we may wish it were not so, when it comes to DADT we must put personal agendas aside and focus on the greater good.

That’s right, DADT supporters, I’m talking to you.

Photo: courtesy of the Swiss canton of Glarus

In many countries, the concern is to get away from Presidents for life, from power-hungry politicians changing constitutions to allow incumbents to have another term, bending the rules to stay in power. Here in Switzerland, the government ministers take it in turns to act as President. So probably a pretty shocking percentage of Swiss would not be able to tell who this year’s President is!

The President’s responsibilities and powers mainly involve chairing the meetings of the coalition government that includes all the largest parties represented in Parliament, and welcoming foreign heads of state and dignitaries, who otherwise might find it hard to understand shaking hands with all seven of the wise men and women. And the world, which rightly shows little interest in the strange ways of a small country in the middle of Europe, has shown some interest in last month’s election of two new ministers being elected by the parliament, giving Switzerland for the first time a majority of women in the government. Switzerland now has a woman President, and both houses of parliament are chaired by women. So there’s feminist rejoicing (and I count myself a feminist) in a country where women only got the right to vote in Federal elections in 1971.

I led a nature divination workshop in the University of Wisconsin Arboretum a few years ago. I asked the group first to ground and center, then remind themselves of their oracular question, and then simply look around at the marshland where we had gathered. One woman decided to ask two questions rather than just one.

She stationed herself on a boardwalk overlooking the marsh, closed her eyes and asked: “How can I find the time and energy to enjoy my life, given the fact that I am extremely busy with work right now?” When she opened her eyes, she immediately noticed the swaying grasses and rushes in front of her and realized that she, too, could be flexible like these plants. She could go with the flow and fit pleasure into the small cracks in her work life.

Then she closed her eyes again and asked: “What should I do about my nephew?” Opening her eyes on the same scene less than a minute later, she noticed a large tree in the middle distance that appeared sturdy and deeply-rooted. Yes, she thought to herself, I could provide this teenager with the kind of stability this tree represents if I open my home to him.

My student’s experience exhibits the extent to which her insight depended on her own perception. Because she was looking for different types of feedback, at the same place and at almost the same time, she noticed two very different images.

To see more divination cards, visit the Tikkun Daily Art Gallery.

This is exactly the type of experience I wanted to foster when several years ago I proposed a project to my daughter, the painter Linnea Vedder. My idea was a deck of divination cards that helps people access their own insight. Linnea illustrated the cards and I wrote the accompanying book. We call it The World Is Your Oracle.

Last Thursday July 15th Fran Luck interviewed Abby Scher and me about right-wing “feminism.” I wrote about it after our talk, and I just wanted you to know that you can hear us at http://archive.wbai.org. Just scroll down the page until you come to the “Joy of Resistance” on Thursday July 15 at 11:00am (the listing is in reverse chronological order). The first half of the show concerns current news about women around the world, and the interview begins at 31:17 (i.e. 31 minutes and 17 seconds into the program). Hope you enjoy it.

NWP members picket the White House in 1917. The banner reads, "Mr. President, How Long Must Women Wait For Liberty."

This morning I had the pleasure of talking with Fran Luck on WBAI-FM , a Pacifica affiliate in NYC. Fran hosts the “Joy of Resistance,” a show that covers “the ongoing and world-wide struggle for the full liberation of women–as it continues to unfold dynamically in every country and culture on the planet.” She had read my original post about Sarah Palin and wanted to interview me about the parallels I saw between Palin’s “feminism” and the Nazi militants, about whom I wrote part of my dissertation. It was a great conversation.

I’m a conversation junkie. Nothing gets my mind going like talking with a knowledgeable person. That’s part of the reason I love Tikkun Daily. I interact with smart, informed folks who are just as interested as I am in the topics I write about.

Fran’s interest in my post was piqued by the fact that a group of women calling themselves “feminist” existed during the Third Reich. She brought Abby Scher into our discussion, because Abby has been researching women on the American Right for quite a while and edits “The Public Eye,” a quarterly publication that tracks right-wing movements.

Rachel, Mary, and the Reverend Mother

Mary Clancy, the ne’er-do-well protagonist of the 1966 comedy The Trouble With Angels is the Catholic education system’s worst nightmare: she is clever, irreverent, wise beyond her sixteen years, and full of “scathingly brilliant ideas.” She is sent (along with her best friend and most loyal follower, Rachel) to St. Francis Convent to be “straightened out.” It is there that she meets her foil and foe — the venerable Reverend Mother (played by the equally venerable Rosalind Russell), a stern nun with a fondness for order and cooperative, obedient young women. Shenanigans, of course, ensue.

For most of the film, the plot is episodic and predictable. We follow Mary and Rachel through their four years of high school, which are peppered with pranks and subsequent punishments. The Reverend Mother can be seen lurking around corners and smiling ruefully at the folly and preciousness of youth before putting on her stern mask to punish the girls. She intends to expel them at one point, but her heart is softened by these two girls’ (especially Mary’s) particular need for a strong mother figure and a firm-but-gentle guiding hand. It is all very ’60s.