Could we have solved world hunger, achieved world peace, if someone, usually unsung and unheard but with the perspective of truly caring for the world, had felt confident enough to speak publicly? Had been respected enough to be listened to?
I was listening to my audiobook, "The Equivalents," this morning as I walked the dog. In the book the author describes a passionate lecture given by Tillie Olsen about how creativity--the act of creating something--takes time, energy, money, education. Something that the poor and so many women (who are disproportionately the poor and enslaved,) don't have. Virginia Woolf argued the same in 1928 in her essay "A Room of One's Own." I think this paragraph sums Woolf's argument up beautifully:
"Women have burnt like beacons in all the works of all the poets from the beginning of time. Indeed if woman had no existence save in the fiction written by men, one would imagine her a person of the utmost importance; very various; heroic and mean; splendid and sordid; beautiful and hideous in the extreme; as great as a man, some would say greater. But this is woman in fiction. In fact, as Professor Trevelyan points out, she was locked up, beaten and flung about the room. A very queer, composite being thus emerges. Imaginatively she is of the highest importance; practically she is completely insignificant. She pervades poetry from cover to cover; she is all but absent from history. She dominates the lives of kings and conquerors in fiction; in fact she was the slave of any boy whose parents forced a ring upon her finger. Some of the most inspired words and profound thoughts in literature fall from her lips; in real life she could hardly read; scarcely spell; and was the property of her husband." Woolf, Virginia (1935) [1929]. A Room of One's Own. London: Hogarth Press. p. 64-66.
As I listened to the description of Olsen's lecture in my audiobook I felt fired up. "Yes, YES," I thought. And thanks to that time of listening, of reflection, I was able to think about how women's voices could have changed this world for the better. Are changing the world for the better. I think of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern who boldly brought her infant with her to the United Nations General Assembly, who quickly reacted to the horrific shooting in Christchurch by enacting strict gun control legislation, who acted quickly and decisively as the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded. Of course there's also the example of Margaret Thatcher who was the polar opposite to Jacinda. Proving that women are just as diverse as men are.
In my church, women have been told for decades that their most important work is in the home, that they should be creating the environment in which happy and healthy human beings flourish. Raising sons who will serve missions and become leaders in the church and daughters who will become educated but, more importantly, will marry and raise children in the faith. Perhaps that's unfair. After all, we have women in visible leadership positions in the church. They serve on the general boards. We have in the church women writers, women doctors, lawyers (I think, not so familiar with any women lawyers in the church.) But, we don't hear about them in the same way as we hear about "the 15," and "the 70." Certainly not in terms of policy making. In the very early church I know of one story about how a woman changed a policy--Emma Smith and the Word of Wisdom re tobacco. Are there more? I don't know, I would have to dig deep to find them.
Some of my friends would say this is changing. Slowly, but it's changing. But the main thing still goes back to what Tillie Olsen and Virginia Woolf said. In order to have one's voice heard, to be creative, to be able to think about how to change things for the better, at the very least one needs time, energy, money and an education. More so for women than for men.
I thought of this again as I reached my house. I was fired up by what I heard, ready to write an essay about my thoughts and feelings. And I have. But to do that I had to navigate my husband's questions about what was for breakfast, what was I going to do today, was such-and-such done.... And I have a low-demand spouse and no children! I think of a woman, with several children, in a middle-class home, who has an idea for how her child's class might be better organized. But there is breakfast to make, dishes to do, laundry to do . . . and her idea fades away. Or the single mother in a tenement building who wants her voice heard in the community about the violence. But the landlord has increased the rent and she works the night shift cleaning offices because the father of her child has disappeared and her wages barely support the family.
I would think these are issues that women can particularly recognize. And we are smart enough to solve them. What we need is time, energy, and money. And a platform from which we can be heard.
I was listening to my audiobook, "The Equivalents," this morning as I walked the dog. In the book the author describes a passionate lecture given by Tillie Olsen about how creativity--the act of creating something--takes time, energy, money, education. Something that the poor and so many women (who are disproportionately the poor and enslaved,) don't have. Virginia Woolf argued the same in 1928 in her essay "A Room of One's Own." I think this paragraph sums Woolf's argument up beautifully:
"Women have burnt like beacons in all the works of all the poets from the beginning of time. Indeed if woman had no existence save in the fiction written by men, one would imagine her a person of the utmost importance; very various; heroic and mean; splendid and sordid; beautiful and hideous in the extreme; as great as a man, some would say greater. But this is woman in fiction. In fact, as Professor Trevelyan points out, she was locked up, beaten and flung about the room. A very queer, composite being thus emerges. Imaginatively she is of the highest importance; practically she is completely insignificant. She pervades poetry from cover to cover; she is all but absent from history. She dominates the lives of kings and conquerors in fiction; in fact she was the slave of any boy whose parents forced a ring upon her finger. Some of the most inspired words and profound thoughts in literature fall from her lips; in real life she could hardly read; scarcely spell; and was the property of her husband." Woolf, Virginia (1935) [1929]. A Room of One's Own. London: Hogarth Press. p. 64-66.
As I listened to the description of Olsen's lecture in my audiobook I felt fired up. "Yes, YES," I thought. And thanks to that time of listening, of reflection, I was able to think about how women's voices could have changed this world for the better. Are changing the world for the better. I think of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern who boldly brought her infant with her to the United Nations General Assembly, who quickly reacted to the horrific shooting in Christchurch by enacting strict gun control legislation, who acted quickly and decisively as the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded. Of course there's also the example of Margaret Thatcher who was the polar opposite to Jacinda. Proving that women are just as diverse as men are.
In my church, women have been told for decades that their most important work is in the home, that they should be creating the environment in which happy and healthy human beings flourish. Raising sons who will serve missions and become leaders in the church and daughters who will become educated but, more importantly, will marry and raise children in the faith. Perhaps that's unfair. After all, we have women in visible leadership positions in the church. They serve on the general boards. We have in the church women writers, women doctors, lawyers (I think, not so familiar with any women lawyers in the church.) But, we don't hear about them in the same way as we hear about "the 15," and "the 70." Certainly not in terms of policy making. In the very early church I know of one story about how a woman changed a policy--Emma Smith and the Word of Wisdom re tobacco. Are there more? I don't know, I would have to dig deep to find them.
Some of my friends would say this is changing. Slowly, but it's changing. But the main thing still goes back to what Tillie Olsen and Virginia Woolf said. In order to have one's voice heard, to be creative, to be able to think about how to change things for the better, at the very least one needs time, energy, money and an education. More so for women than for men.
I thought of this again as I reached my house. I was fired up by what I heard, ready to write an essay about my thoughts and feelings. And I have. But to do that I had to navigate my husband's questions about what was for breakfast, what was I going to do today, was such-and-such done.... And I have a low-demand spouse and no children! I think of a woman, with several children, in a middle-class home, who has an idea for how her child's class might be better organized. But there is breakfast to make, dishes to do, laundry to do . . . and her idea fades away. Or the single mother in a tenement building who wants her voice heard in the community about the violence. But the landlord has increased the rent and she works the night shift cleaning offices because the father of her child has disappeared and her wages barely support the family.
I would think these are issues that women can particularly recognize. And we are smart enough to solve them. What we need is time, energy, and money. And a platform from which we can be heard.
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