readings for the week

I loved Sonia Johnson's "The Bears and Anarchy." Johnson says, "Every living thing must be true to itself, must do what it wants to do, so that all other living things can be free to do the same. This is anarchy, this living in a knowledge of total connectedness, and it is perfect order" (RFRT 305). She made a great point of showing how nature governs itself and any disorder in nature caused by humans will cause nature to turn against them. I think it's like an ecosystem that has been sustaining itself for years and years. Anytime there's a disruption to the system, it can be problematic. I relate this to Johnson's ideas of patriarchical systems and how shocked she was to hear their attitudes toward the Equal Rights Amendment. For her, Mormons are known for their big families (as well as polygamy, but I won't go into that). Therefore, sometimes they would consider women's purposes to be breeding machines. Johnson says, "How can I have any respect for them? Men who cannot accept that women are anything but childbearers and caretakers..." (RFRT 275). And when women start waking up one day and realizing that they want to be more, it will disrupt the entire system.

However, this is when anarchy can be good. Sometimes whoever is in charge isn't working for the common good of the people, so that's when that someone needs to be booted out of office (not referring to anyone in particular, by the way). If women voters are finding that their male leaders are just not doing what they can for the female population, it's up to women to find their own leaders. Last night I was watching Criminal Minds and it was about women who were raped in Mexico. In the show, it seems to say that rape is not even an issue in Mexico. The women who were raped were hateful, distrustful, and unhappy. They didn't say anything because nobody cared. Perhaps if they had talked, people might have done something. Unfortunately, it was the American team that went to save them (making the US seem superior) and convinced them to speak out, but just like people say, "If you don't vote, you can't complain." If you don't do anything about it, complaining is just fruitless.

I also enjoyed Johnson's reading about being a good mom vs. a bad mom. She says, "So I decided to be a bad mother. Being a bad mother meant that I could be sorry when my kids had sad times, but I wouldn't be sad. Their being sad was already enough sadness. They could be in trouble and suffer, and I would commiserate and help in whatever appropriate way I could, but I would not suffer" (RFRT 300). It's the same analogy as teachers. We can't care too much about our students because we might get hurt or disappointed when they don't reach the bar of expectation that we set. We should do what we can and move on. It will save us a lot of stress in the end.