Resource Center Update

ISIS International Resource Center invites you to feast on our latest acquisitions of books in this latest update. This issue's update features 16 selections covering agriculture, trafficking, ecofeminism, healing, refugees, female sexual energy and other equally stimulating themes.

We have also included reviews of three books in our collection plus one that we hope to add to our shelves. Four perceptive women have woven together these incisive reviews which you will find in our book reviews section.

In this issue, our poetry comes from the Pacific and Bangladesh. Let the poems of Grace Molisa from Vanuatu, Cita Morei of Palau and Taslima Nasreen speak to your heart about their pain and struggles in their cultures.

And, of course, we have not left the fun out of our pages. We have an easy-to-follow recipe for recycled paper for your creative hands and a visual treat for the restless mind in our regular Recipes, Clicks, Ideas & Puns section.

The Resource Center Update of Women in Action is a regular section put together by the staff of the Resource Center and Information Program (RCIP). It is our way of sharing with you information from our collection of books, journals, films, arts and crafts, information packs, conference and workshop reports, and other unpublished material.

If you have any suggestions about books and other material that we ought to stack in our shelves, we would like to hear from you. We are also looking for reviews of books and films for publication in this magazine. Our next issues will be out in August and December.

If you are after information, contact us by phone, mail or E-mail. We can provide photocopies of non-copyright publications upon request. We may not be able to provide you all the information you need, but we do our best.

From the Isis Shelves

Mernissi, Fatima. Women and Islam: an historical and theological enquiry. Translated by Mary Jo Lakeland. New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1991. 228 pp. (CUL 02040.00)

Mernissi sheds light on the status of women in Islam by reassessing literary sources as far back as seventh-century Islam. Ample historical evidence portrays women in the Medina, the Prophet's city in the seventh century, as they liberate themselves from slavery and violence to become participants in the making of Arab history.

Women fled aristocratic tribes in Mecca by the thousands to enter Medina because Islam promised equality and dignity for all—men and women, masters and servants. During that time, women could gain access to full citizenship, the status of sahabi (the Prophet's companion). They enjoyed the right to enter the councils of the Muslim umma, to speak freely to its Prophet-leader, to argue with the men, to fight for their happiness, and to be involved in managing military and political affairs. The evidence is found in the works of religious history and in biographies of sahabiyat. Later impositions on women such as the veil were never the Prophet's intention.

Available from: Kali for Women B1/8 Hauz Khas New Delhi 110 016

Rogers, Barbara. The domestication of women: discrimination in developing societies. London: Tavistock Publications, 1980. 200 pp. (DEV 02042.00)

How do development planners deal with women's issues? The first part of the book discusses Western male ideology about gender distinctions and the division of labor. It explains how interpretations of other societies are used to bolster myths about women's "natural place" in society. The second part analyzes this process. It focuses on discrimination against women in development agencies, distortions in research and data collection on which development planning is based, and the relegation by planners of Third World women to the domestic sphere. The third part delves into the discriminatory impact of the planning process in subsistence agriculture, the sector in which most Third World women are concentrated.

Available from: Tavistock Publications in association with Methuen, Inc. 733 Third Avenue New York, NY 10017

Women writing in India. Vol. I: 600 B.C. to the early 20th century; and Vol. II: the 20th century Edited by Susie Tharu and K. Lalita. New York: The Feminist Press, 1993. (LIT 02041.00)

The two volumes offer more than 140 texts from 13 languages never before available as a collection or in English, along with a new reading of cultural history that draws on contemporary scholarship on women and India. These illuminate the lives of Indian women through 2,600 years of change, and expand the historical understanding of literature, feminism and the making of modern India.

Volume II brings the history begun in Volume I up to the present day. It offers poetry, fiction, drama, memoirs, critical introductions, and biographical headnotes. These map women's shifting roles and varying responses to the great social, political and cultural upheavals wrought by the struggle for independence, the establishment of the Indian nation, modernization, and the women's movement.

Available from: The Feminist Press City University of New York 311 East 94 Street New York N.Y. 10128

Minding our lives: women from the South and North reconnect ecology and health. Edited by Vandana Shiva. New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1993. 164 pp. (ENV 02045.00)

Minding our Lives is based on the seminar on "Women, Ecology and Health: Rebuilding Connections" held in Bangalore in southern India from July 17 to 22, 1991. It centers on the cultural and political roots of the ecological and health crises; the link between environmental degradation and women's health, and between ecological and social breakdown; the impact of new technologies on women's health and ecological stability; and the strategies that women—and men—are using to respond to violence against nature and the related violence against women.

Available from: Kali for Women B1/8 Hauz Khas New Delhi 110 016

Mies, Maria and Vandana Shiva. Ecofeminism. London: Zed Books, 1993. 328 pp. (ENV 02044.00

Ecofeminism shows the ways in which ecological destruction disproportionately affects women, particularly those in developing countries. It addresses the inherent inequalities in world structures which permit the North to dominate the South, men to dominate women, and the frenetic plunder of ever more resources for ever more unequally distributed economic gain to dominate nature.

Ecofeminism grew out of various social crusades—the feminist, peace and ecology movements—in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It thrives on connectedness and wholeness of theory and practice. It asserts the special strength and integrity of every living thing. It recognizes the value of the feminine principle that is caring, nurturing and sustaining, and brings this to ecology. Feminism has politicized ecology in describing patriarchy's domination of the earth.

Other issues discussed: the concept of knowledge, poverty and development, industrialization of all life forms, the search for cultural identity and rootedness, the search for freedom and self-determination on a limited earth.

Available from: Zed Books Ltd 7 Cynthia St. London Nl 9Jf UK, or Kali for Women Bl/8 Hauz Khas New Delhi 110 016

Chia, Mantak and Maneewan Chia. Healing love through the Tao: cultivating female sexual energy. Makati, Philippines: Institute for Inner Studies, 1986. 328 pp. (ENV 02045.00)

Sexual guidance and exercises are introduced plainly to the Western public for the first time. For thousands of years, a Taoist Master taught these secrets only to very small numbers of people in the royal courts in esoteric circles, who were sworn to silence. Now. the Chias are sharing their knowledge with the world.

According to them, there are two main practices for women to cultivate and enhance their sexual energy. One is ovarian breathing, which can shorten menstruation, reduce cramps, and compress more life-force energy (CHI) into the ovaries for more sexual power. Another is the orgasmic upward draw, which can be done solo or with one's sexual partner. When this practice is mastered, one can experience ""total orgasm" beyond the ordinary vaginal kind without losing the life-force energy.

Available from: Institute for Inner Studies, Inc. 2nd Fir., Evekal Building 855 Pasay Road corner Amorsolo St. Makati, Metro Manila

Feith, David. Stalemate: refugees in SIAUEMATE Asia. Victoria: Asian Bureau Australia, 1988. 92 pp. (HUM 02048.00)

There are somewhere between 10 and 15 million refugees in the world, mostly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. They are neglected by-products of the many conflicts that this century has witnessed. They are "a sign of the times."

Stalemate depicts their lives and problems. Feith traces the history of the main refugee groups in Asia and how the international community has responded to their problems, including their search for asylum and protection. He presents three conventional solutions to a refugee situation: returning home; staying permanently in the country of first asylum; and resettling in a third country. Finally, he discusses what has become a de facto fourth "solution": long-term residence in a refugee camp.

Available from: Asian Bureau Australia 173 Royal Parade Parkville Victoria 3052, Australia

World Health Organization. AIDS home care handbook. Geneva: WHO, 1993. 178 pp. (HEA 02047.00)

AIDS is a chronic disease lasting months or years. A person with AIDS may move several times from the home to the hospital and back again. Thus, much of the care of the afflicted occurs in the home, relying on two strengths—family and community. The handbook provides health care workers with information to help families gain confidence about their own ability to give safe, compassionate and helpful care to people with AIDS in their homes.

Part I is a teaching guide about HIV and AIDS for the community, the sick person, and the family, or anyone training to become a community health worker or a volunteer. Part II is a reference guide with detailed information about common AIDS-related problems and causes, what can be done at home to alleviate these problems, and when to seek further help.

Available from: World Health Organisation CH1211 Geneva 27 Switzerland

Archer, David and Castello. Literacy and power: the Latin American battleground. London: Earthscan Publications, 1990. 206 pp. (EDU 02043.00)

The often bloody struggles of Central America have long dominated the news. Behind the headlines lies the story of an enormous population of the desperately poor, who are impoverished even more by widespread illiteracy.

What actually counts as literacy, however, is less clear. Archer and Costello describe some of the most exciting and innovative programs designed to overcome the problem and, having worked with many of the people, how varied and controversial these are. The authors illustrate some of the political issues and problems of the continent (i.e.. El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Ecuador, Mexico, Chile, Bolivia and Guatemala) through specific case studies, highlighting the impact of popular education on people's daily struggles.

Available from: Earthscan Publications Ltd 3 Endsleigh Street London WCIH ODD

Hennessy, Rosemary Materialist feminism and the politics of discourse. New/ York: Routledge 1993. 177 pp. (IDE 02051.00)

The book is a powerful account of creating feminist theory that appropriates the best of materialism and postmodernism. Hennessy stresses that her work is not an overview or a genealogy of materialist feminism, that it does not offer an introduction to materialist feminism or plot out its organizing concepts. It is, instead, an argument for and within a materialist-feminist problematic that takes as its particular focus the problem of the subject—more specifically, the discursively constructed subject. She also shows how some of the conceptual frameworks that Western feminists have found most valuable blind us to the regressive global politics that they advance.

Available from: Routledge 29 West 35th Street New York, NY 10001-2299

Bhasin, Kamla. What is patriarchy? New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1993. 31 pp. (IDE 02049.00)

Has patriarchy always existed? How can we recognize it? Does it subordinate all women in the same way, everywhere? Is it a system of discrimination that has been institutionalized? Are all institutions patriarchal? Do all men benefit equally from it?

This booklet unravels the many strands of patriarchy in a lucid and accessible question-and-answer format. Focusing on South Asia, it locates women's struggles for social change in a context where the patriarchal control of major social and political institutions makes for specific forms of discrimination against women.

Available from: Kali for Women BI/8 Hauz Khas New Delhi 110 016

Kumar, Radha. The history of doing: an illustrated account of movements for women's rights and feminism in India 1800-1990. New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1993. 203 pp. (SOC 02052.00)

This thematic history of the women's movement in India, both before and after independence, covers the nineteenth century to the present. It looks at how women's issues were raised, initially by men and as part of the movement for social reform, and then involving women in the nationalist movement.

Using photographs, old and new documents, excerpts from letters, books, and informal writings, the author chronicles the growing involvement of women and the formation of the early women's organizations. She examines the foregrounding of the women's issue during the reform and nationalist movements and its subsequent disappearance from the agenda of public debate until it reemerged in the post-independence period of the Sixties and Seventies.

The book raises key questions regarding the nature of the contemporary movement, the issues it has taken up (such as rape, dowry, environment, work and health), its directions and perspectives, its differences from Western movements, the role of autonomous women's organizations, and their relationship with political parties, especially those of the Left. A wealth of information comes through accessible writing that should appeal to a wide cross-section of readers.

Available from: Kali for Women B1/8 Hauz Khas New Delhi 110 016

Eisler, Riane Tennenhaus. The chalice and the blade. New York: HarperCollins, 1987. 261 pp. (IDE 02050.00)

The story of our cultural origins is told, based on interwoven evidences from art, archeology, religion, social science, history, and many other fields of inquiry. War and the "war of the sexes" are neither divinely nor biologically ordained. The book affirms that a better future is possible, one firmly rooted in the haunting drama of our past.

Eisler reexamines society from a gender-holistic perspective, using a new theory of the cultural evolution: cultural transformation. This theory proposes that underlying the great diversity of human culture are two basic models of society.

First is the dominator model, simply known as patriarchy or matriarchy—the ranking of one half of humanity over the other. Second is the partnership model, with social relations primarily based on the principle of linking rather than ranking. Here, diversity is not equated with either inferiority or superiority.

The theory further proposes that our cultural evolution originally moved toward partnership. But, following a period of chaos and almost total cultural disruption, a fundamental social shift occurred.

Available from: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. 10 East 53rd St. New York, NY 100022

Dorkenoo, Elua. Cutting the rose— female genital mutilation: the practice and its prevention. London: Minority Rights Publications, 1994. 196 pp. (VAW 02054.00)

Female genital mutilation (FGM) is the official term for the partial or complete removal of the external genitalia. This medically unnecessary, painful and extremely dangerous operation has been performed on tens of millions of babies and young girls throughout Africa and many other parts of the world. No anesthetic is used. The instruments used are unsterilized knives, razor blades or even shards of glass. Tetanus, septicemia or severe hemorrhaging may result. Death is not unknown.

This book presents the facts about FGM. It gives comprehensive, up-to-date, incisive information and shows how the cooperation between health professional and local and international bodies is essential to eliminate this vicious abuse of the human rights of women and children.

It points out a number of ideas for action. (1) African women who are researching and organizing against the practice should be listened to and supported. (2) While voluntary organizations can play a valuable role, only governments can take the necessary steps to initiate and coordinate work against the practice in their own country. (3) Western governments should allocate funds in their overseas development budget to specific programs for African women's health, education and welfare, related to the elimination of FMG. (4) UN agencies should sponsor research, coordinate action, and give practical support to governments and NGOs working against FMG.

Available from: Minority Rights Group 379 Brixton Road London SW9 7DE, UK

Johnson, Janis Tyler. Mothers of incest survivors: another side of the story. Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1992. 162 pp. (VAW 02055.00)

The book is a direct account of incest-family mothers. Six women relate their experiences in accounts that challenge the collusive-mother model. The collusive mother is described as a cold, frigid, withdrawn, physically ill or psychologically impaired woman who resigns from her expected roles of responsible wife and mother. She pushes her daughter into taking on her duties in the family, including satisfying the emotional and sexual needs of the father. The collusive mother denies the incest between her daughter and husband. When confronted with its reality, she either disbelieves or blames her daughter. And following disclosure, she chooses her husband over her daughter.

The accounts detail how the mothers discover the incest, why they keep it as a secret, how they respond to and explain events, and how they interpret the consequences for their daughters, husbands, families and themselves.

Available from: Indiana University Press Publicity Department 601 N. Morton Street Bloomington,Indiana 47404 phone: 812-855-8054

Asia Watch & The Women's Rights Project. A modern form of slavery: trafficking of Burmese women and girls into brothels in Thailand. New York: Human Rights Watch, 1993. 160 pp. (VAW 02053.00)

Based on in-depth interviews with Burmese victims, this study reveals violations of internationally recognized human rights. Most of the interviews took place at emergency shelters for trafficking victims run by nongovernmental organizations in Chiangmai and Bangkok. Some of the girls were detained at the Immigration Detention Center in Bangkok. They found out that Thai police and border patrol officials are involved in both trafficking and brothel operations, but these authorities routinely escape punishment, as, for the most part, do brothel agents, owners, pimps and clients.

The Human Rights Watch assesses the responsibility of the Thai government. It presents detailed recommendations to the Thai and Burmese governments and the international community for improving the protection of the women and girls and ensuring the prosecution of their abusers.

Available from: Human Rights Watch 485 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10017-6104

New Releases

A Tour "Down Under" for Women

Australia for Women: Travel and Culture

Susan Hawthorne and Renate Klein, eds.

Feminist Press Travel Series, September 1994

US$17.95, illustrated with 68 black-and-white photographs

ISBN: 1-55861-095-2

Distribution:

Consortium Book Sales and Distribution

1045 Westgate Drive

St. Paul, MN 55114, USA

phone: (800) 283-3572

The Feminist Press at The City University of New York has launched an innovative series of travel guides for women with Australia for Women: Travel & Culture. Deliberately designed for browsing as well as absorbing reading, Australia for Women reads as if a convivial, entertaining feminist friend turns up in every locale to conduct an insider's tour. With 57 women writers from the featured country contributing to the volume, Australia for Women is a brilliant, entertaining portrait of Australian women and their contributions to Australian society and culture—today and in the past, complementing all available conventional guides to hotels, tours or restaurants.

Australia for Women is divided into three main sections. In Part 1, essays, stories, and poems reflect on Australian history, culture, and everyday life. From Aboriginal origins to convicts sent to the colony the British called "Botany Bay" two centuries ago, the book moves on to the stories of some famous, and ordinary women, including the nurses of World War II and leaders of the modern women's movement.

"Australia is the only country in the world with a continuous cultural history of 60,000, possibly more, years," observe editors Hawthorne and Klein in their introductory essay. "And Aboriginal women have been central to that cultural development."

Other chapters in Part 1 give evidence of the diverse society which is Australia: "Memories of Sydney's China Town" by Mavis Yen, "Multyculturalism" by Sabine Gleditsch, "Feminism and Colonialism" by Uyen Loewald, "Lesbians in Australia" by Diana Starski, "Koori Women: Racism and Politics" by Destiny Deacon, "Women Composers Have Got Australia Covered" by Sally Macarthur and "The Women's Art Scene in Australia" by Merren Ricketson.

Part 2 is entitled "Cities-Country-Rivers." It opens with engaging portraits of the flora and fauna found throughout the sprawling island nation, followed by a practical guide by regions: after all, Australia the nation is also a continent!

Australia for Women combines colorful and straightforward introductions to landmarks, national parks, and urban centers with essays by contributors imparting the spirit of places or a sense of firsthand experience and lifestyles; Eliazbeth Jolley's "A Sort of Gift: Images of Perth," Tania Lienert's "Growing up in Woomera," Ruby Lnagford's "The Fencing Circus" (a memoir of Queensland and New South Wales), Jan Teagle Kapeta's "Darwin: A Letter," Jenny Maher's "Rural Women's Syndrome," and Kaye Johnston's "The Revolutionary Nature of Lesbian Organic Gardening" reveal the multiplicity of perspectives in this section of the book.

Part 3, "Resources," features a one-ofa-kind gathering of information (addresses, telephone and facsimile numbers) on women's networks today: travel agents, hotels, restaurants, night clubs, radio stations, bookshops, health and sexual assault services, and legal resources in Australia, as well as recommended books, periodicals and newspapers, making any women's adventure to Australia as complete as possible.

Australia for Women: Travel & Culture inaugurates the Feminist Press Travel Series. "Greece for Women" and "Italy for Women" slated for publication in 1995 and 1996, will provide further options for women travelers to the most popular destinations.

A poet, novelist, festival organizer, and publisher, Susan Hawthorne has lived and traveled in Australia for many years. She is co-editor of four anthologies of women's writing and has been active in the Australian women's movement for more than 20 years.

Renate Klein is Deputy Director of the Australian Women's Research Centre and Senior Lecturer in Women's Studies at Deakin University. She is know internationally for her work in Women's Studies and women's health. She has written and edited numerous books,

source: The Feminist Press, The City University of New York

First Accurate Translation of a Major Work in Western Feminism

The Answer/La Respuesta

by Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz

critical edition and translation by Electa Arenal and Amanda Powell

includes a selection of poetry

English translation alongside original Spanish text, 1994)

Consortium Book Sales, distributor

1045 Westgate Drive, St. Paul, Minnesota 55114-1065

phone: (800) 283-372

Sor Juana lnés de la Cruz (1648/51-1695), "the first feminist of America," "the tenth muse," "one of the most important women poets of the Spanish-speaking world" and "precursor of the 18th.century enlightenment," remains a commanding figure in the history of the women's struggle for intellectual freedom.

After she was commanded to acknowledge learning as unbefitting a woman and a nun, Sor Juana composed her Respuesta a Sor Filotea de la Cruz (1691), now seen to be a key document in women's emancipation. It remains one of the most moving prose works in Spanish, with its elegant defense of learning as a proper task for women and its eloquent criticism of a society dominated by men and a church dominated by the Inquisition.

Other translations of the Respuesta a Sor Filotea de la Cruz exist in English; this one differs by more fully drawing in and upon the spiritual, cultural, social and female context in which the author lived and wrote her Answer, and to which she refers in the text," explain editors/translators Electa Arenal and Amanda Powell.

Stephen Greenblatt, The Class of 1932 Professor of English Literature at the University of California, applauds just this concern for rendering Sor Juana's original linguistic intent: "The excellent translation and scholarly commentary are particularly sensitive to feminist concerns in the context of a nuanced understanding of the history and culture of Sor Juana's time."

In 1668 Sor Juana entered the Hieronymite convent in Mexico City, where she composed music, conducted scientific experiments, kept a 4,000-volume library and received intellectuals, while pursuing a polymathic literary career until threats fi-om church officials silenced her remarkable voice.

Enjoying the favor of New Spain's vicereine and viceroy as well as great popular acclaim, Sor Juana wrote sacramental and secular plays, poetry and essays that are erudite and witty— writings that embroiled her in ongoing, and ultimately dangerous, controversy. Sor Juana's work evidences a profound and subtle intellect, a spirit deeply opposed to the sexist standards of both society at large and the church hierarchy. She boldly critiqued accepted values which condoned for women only marriage, childbirth and religiosity. Her emphasis on secular knowledge conflicted with her status as a "bride of Christ." She championed the rights of women and defended slaves and Native Americans in her texts.

Sor Juana's social and intellectual independence inevitably generated hostility from the fathers of the church. Criticism reached a climax in 1690 in the form of a letter from the Bishop of Puebla. Hiding behind the female name 'Sor Filotea de la Cruz,' the bishop condemned Sor Juana's theological views and her neglect of religious literature.

The Answer is Sor Juana's final defiant salvo in her battle for free expression. She wrote only a few more pieces before she ceased all writing and renounced the world in 1694. After disposing of her books and instruments, she then devoted herself to penance and contemplation. A plague devastated Mexico City in 1695 and Sor Juana fell victim to it while tending the sick.

"Sor Juana used her art and her religion to be a scholar, and she used her scholarship to create a piece of literary art that defends the sacredness of poetry (as well as of women). She understood the power of language and ideology, and the unstated gender issued embedded in both. That is precisely why... Sor Juana seems so 'modem' and why she continues to rivet our interest."

source: The Fem/n/st Press, The City University of New York

POETRY

Cita Morei is a teacher and an activist who fought for the Independence of Palau.

KNOW THAT I AM...

Wastied in life's thickets

white walls with crickets.

Dismisses as a displaced person

Dying to live with reason.

Don't think I am not trying

Open your heart I am crying.

"I have been there," HE said.

I have heard you.

and I am sorry for you.

I've been watching your closed doors;

waiting by your drawn curtains;

waiting to let My Light shine in.

Why be a prisoner in yourself?

You are free.

I AM with thee.

I AM in the spectrum of the rainbow;

present at your ship's bow.

I AM the sunrise you see at Desbedall;

the sunset you savor by Icebox wall

I AM the rolling waves you see on the reef;

more with you when you are in grief.

I AM in the grain of sand you fee! on the beach;

there, when your mom and loved one seemed to preach.

I AM in the rain you hear over the old tin roof;

... AM waiting, others are waiting, you need no proof.

I WAS with you on the bus trip from Oregon;

there, on the bike accident by safeway store.

I WAS with you on the long flight home.

I AM with you, but you choose to be alone.

Why maintain your prison?

I cannot open your door;

Your shutters are locked;

from the inside;

You have the key

BELAUAN WOMAN

She is all there

on pages of history

weaving herstory in living legends.

She was melted down carefully for you

and cast down to cradle

to care for you through the ages

Belauan woman---she has always been there,

a sister, a love, a mother

She is a bastion after a tropical storm,

an unwilling wild flower among the thorns.

She is rooted in the land,

loving in the field of life.

She is exceptional.

Belauan woman—she became a "mengol"

a way she knew as protocol,

which brought money and fame

it was not a shame.

You see

She is more than that.

She sat in the "bai"

Your tattooed woman in command

This is not an experiment.

She sees to balance north and south

an obligation she does with pride

a love for home she could not hide.

She is harmony.

Belauan Woman—she is all there

she restored hope in the laws of man

and peace unto the land

when all did fail to see

justice was meant to be.

She is admired.

Belauan Woman—she is there.

Keeping Faith with present joys

Deferring the vice of flesh with poise

Cherishing the womb that wisdom bore.

Belauan Women ---Walk boldly in Truth my sister

And do not deign to give.

Remain secure through pain and gain

to help preserve thy home, thy heart.

Taslima Nasreen, a Bangladeshi poet, essayist, novelist and doctor, used her prose and poetry to battle social injustices in her country. For this, she was sentenced to death by hanging and hounded by the Muslim fundamentalists which forced her to flee to Sweden.

source; Manushi: A Journal About Women and Society, No. 85; c-202, Lajpat Nagar-I, New Delhi-24, India

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

I don't believe in God.

I look at nature

with my infatuated eyes,

I walk ahead holding

the hands of progress.

But the crooked ways

of the society

pull me back

holding me by my sleeves.

I wish I could

walk over the entire city

in the middle of the night,

sit down somewhere

all by myself,

and cry.

I don't believe in God.

Religionists secretly

divide houses into sects,

separate woman from humanity.

I too get divided,

I am deprived

of human rights.

The hard-boiled politician

gets his ovation

talking about class exploitation,

but he cleverly camouflages

words about exploitation of

women.

I know all these characters.

The world over

religion has spread its eighteen fingers.

How much can one, alone, break one's bones

challenging all these?

How can the outspread

nets of inequality

be broken?

ENJOYING A WOMAN

On the third day

of our acquaintance,

you questioned the way

we should address each other.

After seven days,

you wanted to take me

to Madras, Bangalore,

Kathmandu and Calcutta.

On the eighteenth day,

you wanted to touch my fingers.

in two months

you demanded a kiss

and in three months and a half,

my body.

What all you'll get

In this beautiful body,

you will also get

In a full-time wife,

in half a dozen office girls

and in cheap harlots.

But then you go about

wearing down you reels,

talking nineteen to the dozen

trying to drag me

close to you, by deception.

All these translate into one thing.

Unless you enjoy a woman

after some tactical moves,

there is no satisfaction

in such enjoyment.

And since I know that,

before you can spit on my body,

I spit twice over

into your aberrant mind.

ON THE EDGE

Go ahead I must

though all my folk want me back;

My child pulls me by my sari.

My husband stops me by the

door,

Go I must.

There is nothing before me,

only a river;

that I'll cross.

I know how to swim,

but they won't allow me

to swim and cross it.

There is nothing

beyond the river,

only an open field.

But then I want to touch

the void once.

I'll run against the wind.

I feel like dancing;

I must dance one day,

and then come back.

For a long time now,

I have not played

my childhood games.

I will play them one day

shouting to my heart's content,

and then I'll come back.

For a long time,

I have not cried

with my head in the lap

of loneliness;

I'll cry myself empty

and then I'll come back.

There is nothing before me;

only a river.

And I know how to swim.

Why shouldn't I go?

Go I must.

Grace Mera Molisa worked as Executive Secretary to Father Walter Lini, former Prime Minister of Vanuatu.

Marriage

Matrimony

the grafting

of a male

to a female

The parasite

saps and smothers

the female

so to flourish

and bloom

in resplendent glory.

A woman

has no future

no identity

the backbone

hidden

by Man's exterior.

Women

wanting to grow

into entities

in their own right

do not marry.

Marriage

terminates

growing

thinking

independence

identity.

The morgue

of the living dead

bedazzles

suicidal moths

swarming

in their hordes

to inevitable

slaughter.

The hallowed

institution

of holy matrimony

a sanctified

social order

for security

guarantees

property right.

Basic

political unit

of power

imbalance

root-cause

off-shooting

social order

and disorder

in human relations

and organization.

Wedded bliss

is ne'er amiss

wearing, tearing

aging

and seeding

the female

transforming

nubile form

to formless blob

of vegetating glob.

Considering

the realities

walking the aisle

should be

the last thing

in life

if at all necessary

for women

of good sense.

The formality

of marriage

involving

esteemed socialites

guarantees

the binding bonds

of bondage

confining

the spirit

within

the prison fortress.

The commendably

courageous

defy

insurmountable

odds

to choose lovers

and have children

forfeiting

the dictatorship

of a Husband.

As Need Dictates

A joker

cracks jokes

A nature

freak

extols

the beauty

of the golden

daffodil.

A foreigner

raves

about

the orchid

exotica

A tourist

fantasize

waving palms

white sands

glassy seas.

The lonely heart

romanticizes

the glorious

sunset

and silvery moon.

My Verses

not intended

as jokes

provoking

merriment

raise issues

stimulation

second thoughts.

Delightful Acquiescence

Everybody loves

a self-effacing

submissive woman

Vanuatu men and women

love self-effacing

acquiescing women.

For better or worse

we force

talented women

into acquiescence.

The power echelons and hierarchies

thrive

acquiescent women.

Vanuatu pay homage

to foreign women

womanaples ino gat ples.

Vanuatu supports

liberation movements

in other parts of the world.

Half Vanuatu

is still colonized

by her self

Any woman

showing promise

is clouted

into acquiescence.

Vanuatu loves

self-effacing, acquiescing

submissive, slavish, women.

BOOK REVIEWS

Between Love and Intimacy

by Luz Maria Martinez

Asked for Intimacy: Stories of Blessing, Betrayals and Birthings

Renita J. Weems, author

California: LuaraMedia

7060 Miramar Rd., Suite 104, San Diego, California 92121

"The only thing worse than loving a man who doesn't love you is loving a man who loves someone else. Perhaps the second thing worse than loving a man who doesn't love you is loving a man who loves your sister. And the only thing worse than all of the above is having sex with a man who hates you. Of course, he doesn't hate you enough to leave you—after all, what man can resist a compliant woman. Rather, he hates you enough to make sure you remain dependent upon him. And, unfortunately, you don't love yourself or hate the situation enough to leave him."

Throughout her book, Renita J. Weems strikes resonant chords with her personal stories and exploration of the relationships that mold women's lives. In this collection, she shares herself intimately with readers as she brings compassion, wit, and balance to issues that confront women daily.

"One night I wrote until my knuckles were swollen. When I finished, I said to myself, 'Surely now I am healed'. . . more than eight years have passed . . . and the demons have not vanished. We are just more cordial to one another. I asked for intimacy. But in the relationship between mother and daughter, I found a frightened little girl instead."

She confronts such painful memories honestly, poignantly, without judgment or bitterness. Her candid tales blend with those of other women of biblical times and this century. These charming stories make this a "finish all in one sitting" book.

The collection gives me a new framework for recalling and telling my own personal stories and those of my friends and other women I know. It makes me think of women who have touched my life but whom I have not seen or spoken to in years. I wish I could share with them these stories, which can give insights into their own needs. In Ms. Weems, I have found a new friend, who I wish could share with me more of her stories.

In the end, the author finds the intimacy she is searching for. She searched for this intimacy in her parents, female and male friends, lovers, religion, ministry, and self-development, and in an ironic twist finds it in a relationship she had most feared and avoided.

Weems is an Assistant Professor in Old Testament Studies at Vanderbilt University Divinity School and on ordained elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. A former economist, public accountant, and stockbroker, she is both scholar and writer. In addition to her scholarly works in Old Testament Studies, she has also published numerous articles in Essence, Ms. and SAGE. Her teaching and writing continue to expand as she travels across the country, speaking, preaching, and leading seminars. She lives with her husband, Martin Espinosa, and her daughter, Savannah, in Nashville, Tennessee.

Abuse as Necessity

by Kathleen Maltzhan

Christianity, Patriarchy and Abuse: A Feminist Critique

Joanne Carlson Brown and Carole R. Bohn, eds.

Cleveland, Ohio: The Pilgrim Press, 1989

"Children, thank youfor your present. Fm finished now, it's your's"

The speaker was Antonio Sanchez, mayor of Calauan town (about 400km south of Manila); the 'children' he was referring to were his nephew, gardener and six body-guards, as well as one local policeman; and the present was Mary Eileen Sarmenta who was abducted by Sanchez's men in 1993, 'gifted'to their boss, raped by him, given back to Mary Eileen's abductors, raped again by each of them, then executed.

Sanchez and his men would later be meted seven life sentences each. After the sentencing, Sanchez was led out of the court room cursing and shrieking. The Marian devotee transformed into a raving, hysterical psychopath abusing bystanders and spitting out curses.

For months, Sanchez, who claims to be a Marian devotee, was a constant, grotesque presence in the media—he would be praying the rosary next to the Virgin Mary, or he would exhibit his severely calloused knees to prove that he constantly walked on bent knees down church aisles. "The Lord God and Mother Mary know," he declared, "that I am innocent."

The fusion of numbing violence and bizarre piety left most people disgusted. His God may think he's innocent, many felt, but ours does not. Sanchez's religiosity was dismissed as either a public relations ploy, or yet another sign of the twistedness of the man, with no real connection to credible Christianity.

The book Christianity, Patriarchy and Abuse: A Feminist Critique, however, makes it difficult to accept that Sanchez's blend of religiosity and brutality is just his own personal project, without support from a christian ideology. All but one of the 10 articles contained in Christianity, Patriarchy and Abuse look with astonishing honesty at Christianity and abuse, without the coating that often tries to reclaim Christianity as inherently nice, with just a few unfortunate distortions that have allowed violence to seep in.

In one of the weakest chapters in the book, Marie F. Fortune attempts to do just that. Fortune says that both 'self-blame' and 'God-blame' "simply avoid... acknowledging that a particular person is responsible" for abuse. Self-blame is misdirected, and as for blaming God, within a religion premised on an all-loving, all-powerful God, this often comes from a search for a reason for something that actually happens "for no good reason," from a blindness to the necessary, highly structured role of violence in a patriarchal system. Fortune remains bound to saving Christianity: to cleaning up the mess of patriarchy while desperately trying to deny its presence.

In sharp contrast to this approach is the opening chapter, Joanne Carlson Brown and Rebecca Parker's "For God So Loved the World?" The article takes the book's introductory statement that "saving a tradition based on patriarchy is impossible" seriously, plunging straight into one of the central images of Christianity, the cross. Why, the two ask, does a violent and torturous death become the inescapable entry point to life? Christianity has many answers to this question, with every single one of them presuming that suffering is a necessary ingredient for holiness. Even liberation theologies fail to challenge the necessity of suffering, but in a radical twist. Brown and Parkers declare that "to argue that salvation can only come through the cross is to make God a divine sadist and divine child abuser." When any suffering is glorified, even Jesus Christ's, ail suffering is glorified.

The statement sounds blasphemous, but look again at the crucifixion story. Why would a father send his child to torture for sins not of his own making? Why would a father refuse to save his son, even when he has the power to do so? Why did God need the catastrophe of his son's death to become close to his creation and join in their suffering? Christianity, Patriarchy and Abuse answers these questions, and more.

One of the book's strong points is that it goes beyond critiquing what exists to suggesting new ways forward, both within and outside the christian tradition. Mary Hunt's biting, beautiful Theological Pornography: From Corporate to Communal Ethics" talks of the dominant theology that objectifies persons, trivializes sexuality and leads to violence. She calls this theological pornography, and suggests in its stead a model for 'theological erotica,' where agency, inclusivity and diversity are honored. Others talk of reclaiming the child as divine, a real image within the gospels, and replacing the glorification of suffering with a commitment to living.

Christianity, Patriarchy and Abuse is a powerful book, and a necessary one. The christian ideology, replete with "benevolent" (and not-so-benevolent) abuse, as well as the sanctification of suffering, undergirds many cultures. By understanding this, we may also understand much of the injustice in society. Then it may not be surprising that a man like Sanchez can torture and destroy a human sacrifice given by "children" who wish to please him, and remain confident of his own faith. He is imitating the central story of conventional Christianity.

THE ART OF REDISCOVERING ONE'S SOUL

by Seann R. Tan

Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype

by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

New York: Ballantine Books, 1992

There is an old woman who lives in a hidden place that everyone knows but few have ever seen. She is called by many names: Bone Woman; The Gatherer; and La Loba, Wolf Woman. The sole work of La Loba is collecting bones of desert creatures in danger of being lost to the world. But her specialty is said to be wolves. When she has assembled an entire skeleton, she sits by the fire, raises her arms over the creature and sings out. That is when the skeleton of the wolf begins to flesh out. La Loba sings some more, and more of the creature comes into being, and the wolf creature begins to breathe. As she continues to sing the wolf opens its eyes, leaps up and runs away down the canyon. Somewhere in its running, the wolf is suddenly transformed into a laughing woman, running free toward the horizon.

Through the story of La Loba, we learn to look for the indestructible life force— the bones. This story promises that if we sing the deep song, if we howl with our soul-voice, we can call up the psychic remains of the Wild Woman soul and sing her into vital shape again

Women Who Run With the Wolves is a treasure trove of powerful healing stories—myths and folk tales and fairy tales from different parts of the world. A cantadora (storyteller) and Jungian analyst, Estes unravels the threads of each story, mines its potent images for nuggets of deep knowing for women who longing to return to their instinctual self. Her insightful interpretations inspire, instruct and empower women to be true to their own nature, and to reconnect with their fount of creativity, intuition, laughter, passion and strength.

In the course of spinning the story, she touches her life more on the lives of other women—grandmothers, mothers, daughters, storytellers, analysts they have been hounded, harassed, marginalized, pushed down, entrapped, and how they have been able to survive, and even thrive, getting their strength and wisdom from sources deep in the underground. Thus, with her passionate, mythopoetic language, Estes moves the reader to reflect on her own experience and go deep down to the yearnings of her soul.

The book contains more than a dozen stories which a receptive woman, one whose soul is ready for Wild Woman, can relate with "Bluebeard," Estes warns us of the "predator" in our psyche that preys on us by destroying our good instincts. She shows us how to recognize this preadtor to protect ourselves from its devastations and ultimately, to deprive it of its murderous energy so that they can start healing wounds that will not heal.

"Vasalisa the Wise," an old Russian tale, teaches us to reclaim our lost womanly instincts—to trust our intuition, which serve as lanterns as we search in the darkness of the forest. The Inuit story "Skeleton Woman" introduces readers to the Life/Death/Life cycle integral to love in its the various phases It shows how a shared living together through all endings and beginnings allows us to participate in the dance of life, death and rebirth.

Most of us are familiar with the story of "The Ugly Duckling," and the sad process that the ugly duckling had to undergo before she discoveres her true nature. Women who live true to their wild self may have been treated as "outsiders" within their own family. This story calls out to all such "exile" to hold on and find their own spiritual family—a circle of nurturing friends—and their own way of acceptance of their uniqueness.

"Red Shoes" takes us down the path of the twirling, dancing red shoes that can ensnare women into addiction or excessiveness—drugs, alcohol, poor relationships, abusive situations, negative thinking because they were captured and became overly domesticated, their instincts deadened.

"Sealskin, Soulskin", an Icelandic story urges us to use our instincts and find our way back home where we can have our soul-healing. Home, as Estes defines it, is a sustained mood more on the lives of other women—grandmothers, mothers, daughters, storytellers, analysts they have been hounded, harassed, marginalized, pushed down, entrapped, and how they have been able to survive, and even thrive, getting their strength and wisdom from sources deep in the underground. Thus, with her passionate, mythopoetic language, Estes moves the reader to reflect on her own experience and go deep down to the yearnings of her soul.

"Red Shoes" takes us dowm the path of the twirling, dancing red shoes that can ensnare women into addiction or excessiveness—drugs, alcohol, poor relationships, abusive situations, negative thinking because they were captured and became overly domesticated, their instincts deadened.

"Sealskin, Soulskin", an Icelandic story urges us to use our instincts and find our way back home where we can have our soul-healing. Home, as Estes defines it, is a sustained mood or sense that allows the sublime such as wonder, vision, peace, freedom. The story suggest the way home—through solitude, music, art, forest, mountain, ocean and sunrise.

"La Llorona" is a Mexican tale that weeps over the poisoning of women's wild soul of women when given no nourishment of their creative life. To create means to produce, to make life that flows—in art, family, friendship, work, and in the environment.

The Japanese story "The Crescent Moon Pear" touches on women's rage and forgiveness, guideing readers through the cycle of rage and the stages of forgiveness.

The book ends the circle of stories with "The Handless Maiden," which is about women's initiation into the underground forest through the rite of endurance. The maiden in the tale masters several descents into the underworld of female knowing and achieves transformation. The descent, loss, finding and strengthening portrays women's lifelong initiation into the renewal of the wild.

Reading Women Who Rum with Wolves is akin to a profound journey with the author as a wise old woman gently reminding us of broken glass along the path, prickly bushes on the side, predators lurking somewhere, delicious morsels wrapped in wolf traps. At the same time, Estes leaves the readers space to make their own choices, foolish or wise, because she alone can undertake this journey and go through initiations that will draw her back to her own wild and soulful healing

Estes has created in Women Who Run with Wolves a psychology of women driven at knowing of the soul. Her stories, work as markers along the path, reminding readers of Wild Woman, who will bring them back to the ways of the wild. To be wild, Estes suggests, is to establish territory, to find one's pack, to be in one's body with certainty and pride, regardless of this body's gifts and limitations, to speak and act on one's behalf, to draw on the innate feminine powers of intuition and sense, to come into one's cycles, to rise with dignity, to retain as much consciousness as we can.

The book provides a bibliography for "soul nutrition" as well as some general wolf rules for life. Howl often, for she who cannot howl, will not find her own pack.

Tradition and Power as Woman's Destiny

by Flor C. Caagusan

Like Water for Chocolate

Laura Esquivel, author translated by Carlo Christensen and Thomas Christensen

New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday, New York, 1992

241 pp

During the Mexican revolution in the early 1900s, there lived a simple woman named Tita de la Garza. She was "the last link in a chain of family cooks" over generations in the De la Garza ranch.

Family tradition dictated that, as the youngest of three daughters, 15-year-old Tita had to take care of her Mama Elena until death. Marrying her suitor Pedro Muzquiz was forbidden. Dona Elena de la Garza sealed Tita's fate by getting Pedro to marry her second daughter Roasura instead. Over the next 24 years, Tita had to learn the recipe to heal the icy chill that blasted her soul that day.

Tita's lifelong struggle is the main ingredient of Like Water for Chocolate. As it simmers to boiling point in the novel's plot of forbidden love, we recognize women's "fate" in patriarchal society.

Tita doesn't comprehend the "unknown forces" behind her mother's decision, although she questions them throughout her life. These forces are concentrated in her family. Most deeply rooted through the generations is obedience to parental authority, which Mama Elena embodies and enforces on Tita by criticism, scoldings and beatings.

Sexual taboos even in marriage are symbolized in Rosaura's blinding—white bridal sheet with its delicately embroidered opening "designed to reveal only the bride's essential parts while allowing marital intimacy". The codes of monogamy and family/male honor exact a heavy price when violated: Tita's father dies of a heart attack on learning about her sister Gertrudis real paternity. Mama Elena, too pays the price of hardened bitterness over lost love, herself becoming a destructive authority figure.

Tradition is formalized in the customary practices that chain Tita to kitchen labor: engagements, weddings, baptisms, funerals, holiday celebrations. A host of rules for proper behavior on these occasions are dictated by Carreno's etiquette manual, in the same way that Tita must obey Mama Elena's rigid instructions for cooking and her command to behave "like a decent woman".

But living in the same household with Pedro, Tita experiences the progressive stages of sexual intimacy in their brief erotic encounters. Tita becomes aware of her own sexuality and so saves herself from the total self-alienation that afflicts Mama Elena. Her secret relationship with Pedro also becomes Tita's lifeline, against the constant inner chill, to other family relationships and roles other than cooking. Though she feels lost and lonely, like "the last chile in the walnut sauce left on the platter after a fancy dinner", Tita becomes the living spirit of women's power to nurture and heal others.

Tita's cooking not only is unsurpassed. It creates situations that change or end other's lives, and in turn alter the course of her fate. Her repressed desires, bitterness and hatred, and her occasional joys mix, unintentionally, into the food she cooks, driving all who eat this into acute symptomatic attacks and unforseen actions. Only Tita is protected from its toxic effects.

Thanks to Tita's "Quail in Rose Fetal Sauce", her sister Gertrud is eventually finds freedom in Pancho Villa's revolutionary army. That recipe is Tita's contribution to the historical forces of change that overturn the status quo in Mexican society. While Gertrudis rises to become a commander, Tita goes through the ordeal of subverting tradition from within the family walls.

Healing and saving lives during crises is the other of Tita's spiritual gifts. Wise women guide her from the unseen otherworld—the old cook Nacha and the Kikapu healer "Morning Light". They symbolize the magical traditions that women have been practicing for ages within the dominant patriarchal order.

Only after Tita exorcises the guilt and fear that silenced her rebellion is she able, willfully and defiantly, to change the fate of new generations of women in her family. She fights for the right of her niece Esperanza, daughter of Pedro and Roasura, to grow into her own future. Esperanza inherits from Tita "the secrets of love and life as revealed by the kitchen", along with the ancient art of cooking.

Like Tita, Esperanza's daughter has trouble with onion, for "once the chopping gets you started and the tears begin to well up, the next thing you know you just can't stop." It is through her voice that we read her great-aunt's life, flowing turbulently through the 12 traditional Mexican recipes that Tita recorded in her diary.

Reading the novel is like slicing through an onion. Its outer layer is the melodrama of undying passion. Beneath are the cycles of women's oppression and rebellion straining against the iron force of History. Tita de la Garza knew none of these big terms, she simply lived them for other women to improvise or make new recipes for their own liberation. Who can say where that process begins and ends?

RECIPES, CLICKS, IDEAS, PUNS

Make Your Own Recycled Paper

THE BEST WAY TO LEARN HOW RECYCLED PAPER IS MADE IS... TO MAKE IT YOURSELF!

THE RECIPE COMES FROM FIRST STEPS IN ECOLOGY, PRINTED BY THE ECOLOGY CENTER IN BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA.

WHAT YOU'LL NEED:

2-1/2 SINGLE PAGES FROM A NEWSPAPER
A WHOLE SECTION OF A NEWSPAPER
A BLENDER
5 CUPS OF WATER
A BIG SQUARE PAN AT LEAST 3 INCHES DEEP
A PIECE OF WIRE MESH THAT FITS INSIDE THE PAN
A MEASURING CUP
A FLAT PIECE OF WOOD THE SIZE OF A NEWSPAPER'S FRONT PAGE.

WHAT TO DO:

TEAR THE 2-1 /2 PAGES OF NEWSPAPER INTO TINY PIECES.
DROP THE PIECES INTO THE BLENDER.
POUR 5 CUPS OF WATER INTO THE BLENDER.
COVER THE BLENDER. (YOU DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO SCRAPE NEWSPAPER OFF THE WALLS!).
SWITCH THE BLENDER ON FOR A FEW SECONDS, OR UNTIL THE PAPER IS TURNED INTO PULP.
POUR ABOUT ONE INCH OF WATER INTO THE PAN.
POUR THE BLENDED PAPER (PULP) INTO A MEASURING CUP.
PUT THE SCREEN INTO THE PAN
POUR ONE CUP OF BLENDED PAPER PULP OVER THE MESH
SPREAD THE PULP EVENLY IN THE WATER WITH YOUR FINGERS.
LIFT THE MESH AND LET THE WATER DRAIN.
OPEN THE NEWSPAPER SECTION TO THE MIDDLE.
PLACE THE MESH WITH THE PULP INTO THE NEWSPAPER.
CLOSE THE NEWSPAPER.
CAREFULLY FLIP OVER THE NEWSPAPER
SECTION so THE MESH IS ON TOP OF THE PULP. THIS STEP IS VERY IMPORTANT!
PLACE THE BOARD ON TOP OF THE NEWSPAPER AND PRESS TO SQUEEZE OUT EXCESS WATER.
OPEN THE NEWSPAPER AND TAKE OUT THE MESH.
LEAVE THE NEWSPAPER OPEN AND LET THE PULP DRY FOR AT LEAST 2.A HOURS.
THE NEXT DAY, CHECK TO MAKE SURE THE PULP PAPER IS DRY.
IF IT IS, CAREFULLY PEEL IT OFF THE NEWS PAPER .
Now YOU CAN USE IT TO WRITE ON!

SEE HOW EASY IT IS TO MAKE RECYCLED PAPER? NOW THAT YOU KNOW HOW EASY IT IS, YOU CAN HELP SAVE TREES AND FIGHT THE GARBAGE PROBLEM BY RECYCLING YOUR PAPER... AND BUYING RECYCLED PAPER.

from 50 Simple Things Kids Can Do lb Save The Earth, as cited in Utusan Konsumer, mid-September 1994