(by Julie Fausette, a.k.a. Aradia Artemis OakStone)

 

Dear Off Our Backs,

 

"THERE IS A NEED TO INFORM AND EMPOWER AVERAGE WOMEN"

 

    I am writing for feminists like myself who do not have academic degrees in women's studies, psychology, government or law.  While I so do appreciate all the hard work and sacrifice made by professional feminist women, I realize that; for a movement to be effective, it has to be inclusive of nonprofessional women who are the majority.  And of course, we can contribute financially to various causes if we are able; but that does not create the feeling of participation or camaraderie that we need to become a force for change.

 

    For example, when I might have been at college finishing my degree, I was a divorced wife and mother of two small children; a survivor of violence from my ex-husband.  My ex-husband's attacks could have killed myself and/or my two small children.  We escaped with our lives; he absconded with our business, my only source of income.  Years of hardship and struggle ensued for myself and my children.  And our attacker did not pay any penalty for victimizing us, we paid the price of being flung into poverty.  But, of course, our life story is just one of thousands like it.  This is the hidden reality for many women and children in patriarchal societies.

 

    After my children were grown, I had the opportunity, on state grants, to return to college where I completed two degrees.  A liberal and rather recent education made me aware that myself and my children were not the only victims of male violence.  And I learned that it was not about just one man but an entire religious and governmental system working together which supported and enabled men just like my ex-husband to batter and murder women and children.

 

    So after graduation, I was moved to lead a women's spirituality class for free at a local bookstore.  I also formed a local women's activist group that turned into a local chapter of the national, political organization WAND, Women's Actions for New Direction.  But I live in such a conservative area of our country that I did not garner the support I had hoped for.  I had a research article in our local newspaper on violence to women and children, and I had an article in the national magazine SageWoman that asked other women to join me in trying to speak out against the root cause of abuse to women, children and our planet in western society ~ the Christian machine.  A few brave women wrote to me.  We are not professors, teachers, government leaders, or published authors, but we want to be part of the feminist/Goddess movement.  So we started the Coven of Aradia.  We have sisters from Cape Cod, to the state of Washington.  First and foremost, we provide support for each other.  We have strong solidarity even though we have never had a gathering.  Our coven includes a very talented writer, a computer guru, a wise crone, even the wife of a retired minister.  And we truly have come to love and trust each other in a sisterhood way.

 

    We want to be a blueprint for what other women can do to act as muses for each other regarding feminism and activism.  We have inspired each other to reach out in many different ways; have emboldened, supported, and informed each other.  The coven is a success, it works better that I could have imagined.  Realizing that we have been trying to live the realities of patriarchy for all of our lives, we gave that up.  We have created realities and holidays for women.  For example, May 5th is our day to remember the millions of our sisters of the Inquisition.  As far as we know, there is not one monument to them, not one day to remember them on.  We ask Off Our Backs readers to join us on each May 5th in a vigil.  And on each August 23rd we continue with a tradition that was started in 1971 by The Women's Group of St. Clement's Episcopal Church, in New York City of actually looking at Bible scripture and realizing how those words have been successful at demonizing and subjugating women for the last two thousand years.  An excerpt of a writing on that tradtion by Meg Bowman. "Why We Burn: Sexism Exorcised" can be found in Women Without Superstition on page 527.  And our sister Lillian connected what we call our "Bible Burning Day," to the celebration of Nemesis, Goddess of just retribution.  You can read Lillian's research writing on why the date of August 23rd at our website at:  http://gaiasword.tripod.com.  Lillian also created this powerful verse for our August 23rd celebration:

 

 

 

    And we are going to honor Margaret Sanger on her birthday of September 14th because many of us know that we would not be alive today if it was not for her willingness to go to jail in violation of the Comstock laws.  We would have died years ago trying to produce one child after another if it was nor for Margaret Sanger.  And of course there are many more women who deserve their own national holiday.  And it may seem strange to write that we are creating national holidays but a well-known quote that resonates in my mind is. "If not me, then who, if not now, then when?"  We must start doing our own things, not just reacting to patriarchy.  I can tell you truthfully that I cannot remember the birthdays of all my friends but our new sacred holidays seem to be etched in my heart.  I sing them in my mind like a happy little song.  That our dates make me feel so happy is an undeniable reality.  It must be that I have been waiting all of my life to have realities that are meaningful to me.  Of course, every one of our official, national holidays have worked to reinforce patriarchy.  They actually say that women do not exist, not if our memories and not on our form of value, money.  And please, do not one of you bring up the Susan B. Anthony coin which includes "In God We Trust" as an example that men have thrown us a tiny bone.  And of course, Mary Daly as quoted in your last issue as having written, "Memorial day really means forgetting day" is so right.  You know, forget the grieving mothers and right on to the next glorious war.  And let's never forget that there will be a god on both sides of any conflict to glorify the human sacrifice and to justify all the collateral damage as well.

 

    All the many symptoms of patriarchy are so well documented in Off Our Backs that they seem overwhelming, and unstoppable.  Besides trying to stop the many symptoms we must, as quoted from Angela Davis on page 68 of Off Our Backs, volume xxxvii, number one, "... achieve the 'restructuring of the culture' that created war."  That very same thought has been my driving force since I graduated from college.  How can we get the knowledge to women who have not had the opportunity to attend years of college in liberal studies that the very churches they crowd into each Sunday, the doctrines of those churches hate women and children and enable wars to continue ad infinitum which will eat up their children and spit them out into body bags?  And of course, it seems to go without saying that the various god wars against women are an absolute necessity for patriarchies to keep women/mothers down so the patriarchs can continue on with their wars against other groups of males for power and control of the earth's resources.  Women who have been demoralized for thousands of years by mysogynistic religions will not act to protect their children from becoming the soldiers of wars and Julia Ward Howe had hoped they would when she wrote her famous, but now, almost completely forgotten proclamation against sacrificing young adults to war back in 1870.

 

    I do not believe that a wonderful, small army of professional women can, alone, stop the violent and well-organized patriarchal god machine that has trampled women and Goddess, has devastated all life forms on planet earth for the last approx. 4,000 years.  Quite the contrary, patriarchal destructiveness has recently escalated.  We need to help many more average women understand what feminism is.  I believe it can be done and hope that you will print our website so that women can go there and either enjoy our ritual, holy days/holidays as a solitaire or maybe find the courage to ask their close women friends to be part of a coven.  I had started our coven in September of 2004 before sister Gaia Gal sent me a copy of Urgent Message From Mother by Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D. in which Bolen envisions covens/circles such as ours springing up all across America.  How I do hope her vision is true.  We must help women connect the dots between god religions and expecting poor mothers to sacrifice their children to the wars of the wealthy.  On our website, I will have a writing for that purpose.  And the fact that atheists and Goddess-restoring people realize that they have the same goals, is now evident in the fact that one of the greatest openers and informers of women's minds, Barbara G. Walker, has a new column in the atheist and anti-theist publication Freethought Today.  I am also an anti-theist and Goddess woman in the sense of restoring and returning woman's sacredness, sacred space, and rituals because those are the foundations that every peaceful society has built upon for millennia.  The lack of any humanistic/Goddess morality plus the plague of violence that has engulfed our world is the absence of the ancient Goddess/women's natural place in society.  Goddess bless you all and may no feminist feel that she has nothing to contribute; because if we are serious about stopping patriarchy, many more average women must know that they do have something to contribute.  Our coven is proof that a few women working together and supporting each other can be creative in the process of empowering women.  And whether a reader agrees with all of the above or not, I do believe we can agree that many more average women are needed for feminism to make a visible and effective difference in our world.

 

    And when I write the word feminist, I do realize that men can be feminist in their thinking and women can be masculist.  For just one example, presidential candidate Hillary R. Clinton is masculist in her acceptance of war violence and collateral damage while one of her opponents, Dennis Kucinich, is feminist in his stance against violence.  And of course, feminists do not hate men.  We wish to protect them as our husbands, sons and brothers from the institutions of patriarchy.

 

 

 

 

 

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