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REEDUCATING OURSELVES

ABOUT GENDER

MEN AND WOMEN: THE CHALLENGE (AND REWARDS)

OF TRANSFORMING BEHAVIOR

EDITORIAL

TRANSFORMATIVE EDUCATION: HOW AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN’S HISTORY CHALLENGES THE TRADITIONAL HISTORICAL NARRATIVE

JEANNEGAZEL

RAGS, PETROL, AND MATCHES: WHY THE

EDUCATION OF WOMEN IS NOT ENOUGH ERIN MURPHY-GRAHAM

| PERSPECTIVES ON POPULATION, ENVIRONMENT, AND DEVELOPMENT:

A REVIEW OF DANGEROUS INTERSECTIONS JIA-YICHENG-LEVINE

AFTERWORD NOTES ONCEDAW, AFGHANISTAN, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, AND THE TAHIRIH JUSTICE CENTER

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World Order

VOLUME 33, NUMBER 2

WORLD ORDER IS INTENDED TO STIMULATE, INSPIRE, AND SERVE THINKING PEOPLE IN

THEIR SEARCH TO FIND RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN CONTEMPORARY LIFE AND CONTEMPO- RARY RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS AND PHILOSOPHY

Editorial Board: IN THIS ISSUE

BETTY J. FISHER KEVIN A. MORRISON 5

1 Men and Women: The Challenge (and Rewards) of Transforming Behavior Editorial

4 Interchange: Letters from and to the Editor

13 Transformative Education: How African American Women’s History Challenges the Traditional Historical Narrative by Jeanne Gazel

21 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Gives (poem) by Janet Tomkins

23 Rags, Petrol, and Matches: Why the Education of Women Is Not Enough by Erin Murphy-Graham

33 Perspectives on Population, Environment, and Development: A Review of Dangerous Intersections by Jia-Yi Cheng-Levine

45 AfterWord: Notes on CEDAW, Afghanistan, Domestic Violence, and the Tahirih Justice Center

48 Tahirih: Mother poem by Bret Breneman

Inside Back Cover: Authors & Artists in This Issue, Forthcoming

�[Page 1]Men and Women: The Challenge (and Rewards)

of Transforming Behavior

I REVIEWING the progress of the struggle to achieve equality between

men and women, one may be tempted to question whether, in the past few decades, real advances are being made at all. In the United States, to take one example, white women still earn only seventy-six cents on the dollar for work comparable to that performed by men (and the statistics are worse for minority women: black women earn only sixty-four cents for every dollar; Hispanic women, fifty-two cents). Women occupy at best only 2 percent of top management positions, and women account for 90 to 95 percent of victims of domestic violence. In many other countries women fare far worse.

Certain important milestones have been reached. In the United States equal access to education for women has essentially been achieved; in fact, according to the United Nations Division of Statistics, uni- versity enrollment ratios in the United States (as well as in New Zealand and many European countries) are higher for women than for men. The political discourse has also changed, and many govern- ments, institutions, and individuals are beginning to recognize the universal importance of what were formerly categorized solely as “women’s issues.” For example, the United Nations’ 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, now ratified by all but twenty-six countries, is the second most widely ratified human-rights treaty to date. In 1993 the World Conference on Human Rights, held in Vienna, recognized that women’s rights are human rights, a statement that has the potential to reshape the debate and remove it from the arena of men versus women.

Yet progress toward equality is slow and new problems constantly emerge. In many countries, access to the political system, education, and basic legal rights remains beyond the reach of most women. In developed nations, equal access to education has not translated into equality in the job market or in career tracks, and women who do work face a choice from which most men are exempt: to pursue a high- level career or to raise a family. In families where both spouses work, women generally continue to bear much more than half of the burden of child rearing and homemaking. Divorce rates continue to rise, and single mothers on average tend to be poor. In the United States and �[Page 2]2 WORLD ORDER: WINTER 2001-02

other Western countries where some of the greatest gains have been made, both women and men still tend to be caught in preassigned gender roles, which are perpetuated by both sexes and supported by the social system as a whole.

If we do not seem to be getting anywhere, perhaps it is because we do not yet fully understand where we should be going. In the 1960s and 1970s, when the equality of men and women was first widely discussed and the concept of feminism entered the national conscious- ness, efforts in the United States were focused largely on bringing women up to men’s “level.” Women wanted what men had, without considering if that was, indeed, the ideal situation for either men or women. In addition, we do not truly understand what “equal rights” mean and what a society that practiced them would look like, and many of us are not sure we want to go anywhere different at all if it may mean abandoning traditional gender roles and spheres of influence with which we are familiar and comfortable.

The Baha’{ scriptures unequivocally assert that “in the estimation of God there is no distinction of sex” and that while differences exist between the sexes, nonetheless in “powers and function each is the complement of the other.” Furthermore, ‘Abdu’'l-Baha promises that the age of the future will be “an age less masculine and more permeated with the feminine ideals, or, to speak more exactly, will be an age in which the masculine and feminine elements of civilization will be more evenly balanced.” This statement implies that neither element should be dominant nor should it possess an inherently higher status; no greater value should be given to traditionally “masculine” traits such as strength than to traditionally “feminine” traits such as intuition or compassion.

Given the stasis in which we find ourselves, we must ask whether we have not in some ways been striving to be equal in the wrong things. While it is of the utmost importance to ensure that women and men have equal rights and privileges, we must also be striving to find that balance to which ‘Abdul-Baha refers. We must remember that the person—man or woman—most acceptable in the eyes of God is the one whose inner character mirrors forth the divine attributes: mercy, justice, compassion, knowledge, wisdom, tenderness, benevo- lence, kindness, radiance, contentment, humility, graciousness, gen- erosity, forgiveness.

When we look to the future, what we need is both action and an unwavering commitment to the ideal of equality. We—women as well as men—must change our behavior at all levels of society, starting with our personal and family lives. We must be willing to reexamine our behavior, consult with one another, change patterns that have been set for millennia. We must continue to pass laws and resolutions to help bring about equal pay, equal access to education, equal political and social rights, while being ever mindful of the fact that action at �[Page 3]EDITORIAL 3

the level of civil society only, without a concomitant personal com- mitment to change, will not move us beyond where we are today.

We must understand and appreciate, and be willing to act on, the fact that the equality of the sexes is not a “women’s issue”; it is an issue of vital importance to the well-being of the entire human race. ‘Abdu'l-Baha states unequivocally that, “Until the reality of equality between man and woman is fully established and attained, the highest social development of mankind is not possible” and that “Until these two members are equal in strength, the oneness of humanity cannot be established, and the happiness and felicity of mankind will not be a reality.”

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Inter change LETTERS FROM AND TO THE EDITOR

LivING as we do in a global society in which there are no models of what true gender equality looks like, the topic, emotionally, intellectually, psychologically, and spiritually, is much like an onion. For every layer revealed, there are still more layers to be explored, analyzed, pondered, internalized, and applied in our personal lives and in society at large.

One lens to use while reading the ar- ticles in this issue on reeducating ourselves about gender is that of understanding more about our global family so that we, women and men, are truly informed as we go about the process of effecting personal and social transformation. Psychologist Harriet Goldhor Lerner has noted that we live in “a stuck society,” replete with stuck rela- tionships. Not knowing our family mem- bers, she says, virtually ensures the con- tinuation of unhealthy behaviors. Knowledge, by contrast, un-sticks prob- lems and opens the door to new, healthy, positive behaviors:

Remember that we all contain within us—and act out with others—family patterns and unresolved issues that are passed down from many generations. The /ess we know about our family history, and the /ess we are in emotional contact with people on our family dia- gram, the more likely we are to repeat those patterns and behaviors that we most want to avoid. Remember the old adage “What you don’t know won't hurt you?” Well, research on families just doesn’t support that one! Rather, it is the very process of sharing our experi- ences with others in the family and

learning about theirs that lowers anxi-

ety and helps us to consolidate our

identity in the long run, allowing us to proceed more calmly and clearly in all of our relationships.

In “Transformative Education: How African American Women’s History Chal- lenges the Traditional Historical Narra- tive,” Jeanne Gazel shows the multifaceted benefits of shifting the “historical lens to include those who have been rendered invisible.” The resulting inclusive histori- ography brings into the historical and sociological equation all of the interacting participants in the drama; shows how the marginalized were, in fact, agents of change; frees us from blind imitation of the past; and sets the stage for transformation, personal and societal, to take place. Her essay focuses on African American women, but the concepts she discusses can be applied to any marginalized group. The process un-sticks perceptions and frees us all for change.

Erin Murphy-Graham, in “Rags, Petrol, and Matches: Why the Education of Women Is Not Enough,” examines an- other aspect of a “stuck” society—that manifested in patriarchy. Using the writ- ings of ‘Abdul-Bahé on gender equality and a collection of essays by Virginia Woolf, Murphy-Graham examines the relation- ships among education for women, women’s entry into the professions, and world peace. ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s talks given in Western Europe and the United States in 1911 and 1912 provide the spiritual under- pinnings for achieving gender equality. Woolf explores the deleterious effects that

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patriarchal notions permeating educational institutions and professions have on women and men and, ultimately, on world peace. ‘Abdu’l-Baha calls for balancing feminine and masculine characteristics in both in- dividuals and society at large. The result will be, as Woolf argues, freeing women’s voices to un-stick the gramophone needle that continues to reproduce the old, un- workable songs.

Jia-Yi Cheng-Levine’s review of Dan- gerous Intersections: Feminist Perspectives on Population, Environment, and Development, rounds out the issue. The collection of thirteen essays on issues as varied as secu- rity, population and international migra- tion, culture, Native American rights, contraception and medical malpractice challenges male-dominated ideologies that degrade women and the environment and offers perspectives on how women can take control of their lives. The essays discuss the intersection of “patriarchy, power, militarism, and environmental destruc- tion.” For one author the un-sticking of the needle can be found in “the develop- ment of democratic, diverse, lively cul- tures with room for all our voices” —cul- tural development being “an essential part of remaking a world in which the dreadful imbalance between rich and poor, strong and weak, men and women, humans and other species, is becoming a death sen- tence not only for millions of people, but for the earth itself.”

For more information on practical efforts to put gender equality into practice, see “After Word,” a new (occasional) feature on pages 45 through 47. “Notes on

CEDAW, Afghanistan, Domestic Violence, and the Tahirih Justice Center” considers several gender-equality initiatives on the international, national, and personal lev- els.

OK OK

In the fall two members of World Order's Editorial Board received advanced degrees. In August 2001, Diane Lotfi completed a two-and-one-half year M.B.A. offered by Golden Gate University in San Francisco to working professionals and sponsored by CTB/McGraw Hill, where Lotfi works as an editor. She has since been promoted to manager for development of custom prod- ucts.

In October 2001, Arash Abizadeh suc- cessfully defended his dissertation on “Rhetoric, the Passions, and Differences in Discursive Democracy” and was awarded his Ph.D. in political philosophy from the Department of Government at Harvard University.

Several of our authors have made their marks by having essays originally published in World Order reprinted elsewhere. The University of Maryland University Col- lege posted on-line Michael L. Penn’s “Violence against Women and Girls” (pub- lished in World Order in Spring 1995) for a graduate introduction to sociology. The Association for Process Philosophy of Education reprinted in Process Papers 6 Daniel C. Jordan’s and Raymond Shepard’s “The Philosophy of the ANISA Model,” published in World Order in Fall 1972. Malcolm D. Evans, the editor of APPE, wrote that, when Jordan was writing his

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WORLD ORDER: WINTER 2001-02

series of articles about the ANISA model, he was also implementing the model in Suffield, Connecticut, where Evans was Superintendent of Schools. Jordan’s “un- timely death,” he goes on to say, “was a great loss for the reform and improvement of education.” There are some who “would like to see some effort to re-present the Anisa philosophy as an exemplar of what education in the 21st century should be.” Four articles about ANISA, authored or coauthored by Jordan, appeared in World Order's Spring 1972, Fall 1972, and Sum- mer 1973 issues. Jordan is also remem- bered for his popular “Becoming Your True Self,” published in Fall 1968, and reprinted for many years as a pamphlet.

Our hearty congratulations go to our authors and editors, past and present.

To the Editor

QUESTIONING PLURALISM I wish to comment on certain statements made by Julio Savi about the Baha’{ Faith, in particular, its view of its relationship to other religions, in his article, “The Declaration Dominus Iesus: A Brake on Ecumenism and Interfaith Dialogue?” in the Winter 2000-01 issue of World Order [32.2: 7-24].

First, in comparing the Baha’{ and Christian per- spectives on religious faith, Savi argues that “the Bahd’i concept of faith is quite different from that of Dominus Iesus, where faith in Jesus Christ, un- derstood as the wholehearted assent to His revealed truth as formally and authoritatively explained by the Catholic Church, is preeminent in comparison with any good deed performed in the absence of such faith.”

In His Kitdb-i-Aqdas: The Most Holy Book, Baha’u'llah states:

The first duty prescribed by God for His servants

is the recognition of Him Who is the Dayspring

of His Revelation and the Fountain of His laws,

Who representeth the Godhead in both the

Kingdom of His Cause and the world of cre-

ation. Whoso achieveth this duty hath attained

unto all good; and whoso is deprived thereof

hath gone astray, though he be the author of every righteous deed. It behoveth every one who reacheth this most sublime station, this summit of transcendent glory, to observe every ordinance of Him Who is the Desire of the world. These twin duties are inseparable. Neither is acceptable without the other. Thus hath it been decreed by

Him Who is the Source of Divine inspiration.

(Baha’u'll4h, The Kitdb-i-Agdas: The Most Holy

Book, ps ed. [Wilmette, IL: Baha’{ Publishing

Trust, 1993] K1.)

I read this passage as saying that, from the Baha’ standpoint, a person who wants God to accept his or her good deeds must recognize Bahd’u'll4h as God’s Manifestation for this age, and obey His ordinances, including His Covenant and the insti- tutions of His Administrative Order established pursuant to it. Faith in God cannot consist in good deeds alone; there must also be wholehearted assent to Baha’u'll4h’s revealed truth as authoritatively explained or applied by the relevant Baha’ institu- tions. Without such assent, a person cannot have true knowledge of, and faith in, God. The Baha’{ concept of faith does not appear, therefore, to be all that different in this respect from that of Dominus Tesus. (Whether, and to what degree, Jesus Christ gave the Catholic Church the authority to explain His revealed truth is, of course, a separate issue.)

Savi goes on to suggest that “[t]he Baha’{ teach- ings uphold religious pluralism not only de facto but also de jure. They consider each revealed religion as the fruit of an authentic divine revelation, equal to all the other religions in its essential aspects, such as the law of love and compassion, and different in its secondary aspects.” He defines pluralism as “the view that all religions come from the one God of all humankind.” Touching on this theme, he states that “t]he Baha’f perspective on the relationship between the Catholic Church and other religions in relation to salvation is that all religions present a legitimate path to salvation.”

Baha’u'll4h declares that in His Revelation “‘all the Dispensations of the past have attained their highest, their final consummation. That which hath been made manifest in this preéminent, this most exalted Revelation, standeth unparalleled in the annals of the past, nor will future ages witness its like” (quoted in Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha'u'llah: Selected Letters, new ed. [Wilmette, IL: Baha’{ Publishing Trust, 1991] 167).

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Shoghi Effendi states:

the Revelation identified with Bahd’ullah abro- gates unconditionally all the Dispensations gone before it, upholds uncompromisingly the eternal verities they enshrine, recognizes firmly and ab- solutely the Divine origin of their Authors, pre- serves inviolate the sanctity of their authentic Scriptures, disclaims any intention of lowering the status of their Founders or of abating the spiritual ideals they inculcate, clarifies and cor- relates their functions, reaffirms their common, their unchangeable and fundamental purpose, reconciles their seemingly divergent claims and doctrines, readily and gratefully recognizes their respective contributions to the gradual unfold- ment of one Divine Revelation, unhesitatingly acknowledges itself to be but one link in the chain of continually progressive Revelations, supplements their teachings with such laws and ordinances as conform to the imperative needs, and are dictated by the growing receptivity, of a

fast evolving and constantly changing society,

and proclaims its readiness and ability to fuse and

incorporate the contending sects and factions

into which they have fallen into a universal

Fellowship, functioning within the framework,

and in accordance with the precepts, of a divinely

conceived, a world-unifying, a world-redeeming

Order. (Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, new ed.

(Wilmette, IL: Baha’{ Publishing Trust, 1974,

1999 printing] 100; emphasis added.)

Savi quotes this passage, but omits certain parts, including that which refers to the Baha’{ revelation’s unconditional abrogation of all previous religious dispensations.

Shoghi Effendi also states that the Baha’{ revela- tion “claims not to destroy or belittle previous Revelations, but to connect, unify and fulfill them” (World Order of Baha'u'llah 22). It does not “at- tempt, under any circumstances, to invalidate those first and everlasting principles that animate and underlie the religions that have preceded it,” and

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WORLD ORDER: WINTER 2001-02

[flar from aiming at the overthrow of the spiri- tual foundation of the world’s religious systems, its avowed, its unalterable purpose is to widen their basis, to restate their fundamentals, to rec- oncile their aims, to reinvigorate their life, to demonstrate their oneness, to restore the pristine purity of their teachings, to codrdinate their functions and to assist in the realization of their highest aspirations (World Order of Bahd’ullah

114; see also Shoghi Effendi, The Promised Day

Is Come (Wilmette, IL: Baha’{ Publishing Trust,

1996] 176-77).

These and other passages from the Baha’{ writ- ings suggest that the Baha’{ Faith, whilst recognizing the other major religions, their divine origin, and the eternal verities they enshrine, believes that they all find their highest expression in the Baha’{ revelation, which connects, reconciles, unifies, and fulfills them. At the same time, the Baha’{ Faith also believes that it has abrogated all other religious dispensations, though not the spiritual foundation of these systems. Therefore, whilst it is a fundamental Baha’i belief that “all religions come from the one God of all humankind,” the Baha’{ concept of religious plural- ism excludes the idea that all religions are equally relevant today. Pluralism does not mean parity; and in relation to salvation, it is in the Faith of “the One Whose advent had been promised to all religions” that “all nations can alone, and must eventually, seek their true salvation” (Shoghi Effendi, Promised Day Is Come 182).

In stating this view, I am aware that Shoghi Effendi has also written the following about the Baha’ Faith’s relationship to the other established religions:

The Revelation, of which Baha’u’llah is the source

and center, abrogates none of the religions that

have preceded it, nor does it attempt, in the slightest degree, to distort their features or to belittle their value. It disclaims any intention of dwarfing any of the Prophets of the past, or of whittling down the eternal verity of their teach- ings. It can, in no wise, conflict with the spirit that animates their claims, nor does it seek to undermine the basis of any man’s allegiance to their cause. Its declared, its primary purpose is to enable every adherent of these Faiths to obtain

a fuller understanding of the religion with which

he stands identified, and to acquire a clearer

apprehension of its purpose. It is neither eclectic

in the presentation of its truths, nor arrogant in

the affirmation of its claims. Its teachings revolve

around the fundamental principle that religious truth is not absolute but relative, that Divine

Revelation is progressive, not final. Unequivo-

cally and without the least reservation it pro-

claims all established religions to be divine in origin, identical in their aims, complementary in their functions, continuous in their purpose, indispensable in their value to mankind. (World

Order of Bahd’u'lléh 57-58)

In my opinion, the statement in the opening sentence of this passage—in which Shoghi Effendi says that Bahé’u Il4h’s Revelation “abrogates none of the religions that have preceded it”—is a reference, not to the religious dispensations that have preceded the Bahda’{ Faith—which, as stated in the extract from God Passes By, have been abrogated—but to the “first and everlasting principles” that constitute the spiritual foundation of all these systems—which, as explained in the other extracts from Shoghi Effendi in The World Order of Baha'u'llah, the Baha'i Faith does not seek to invalidate or overthrow. Likewise, the statement in the last sentence of this passage— in which Shoghi Effendi says that Bahd’u’llah’s Revelation “proclaims all established religions to be divine in origin, identical in their aims, complemen- tary in their functions, continuous in their purpose, indispensable in their value to mankind” —is, in my opinion, a reference to these first and everlasting spiritual principles, and not to the religious systems that have been founded on these principles. The contents of this passage are not, therefore, at odds with what I have said about the Baha’{ concept of religious pluralism.

Third, I would like to turn to Savi’s explanation of the Baha’i view of the Manifestations of God. After stating that Jesus’ revelation is perfect, but not definitive or final, Savi asserts that “actually, three divine messengers of equal magnitude (Muhammad, the Bab, and Bahda’u’ll4h) have come to the world after Christ.” This proposition, in my opinion, is misleading, because it seems to imply that Baha’is believe that Jesus, Muhammad, the Bab, and Baha’u’llah, and the revelations associated with them, are all equally significant. The Baha’{ writings state that, whilst in a mystical sense all of the Manifes- tations of God are the same—occupying the same position and proclaiming the same message—their stations and functions in this world are different.

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‘Abdu’l-Baha describes Baha’u'llah, for example, as “the Supreme Manifestation of God” (The Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahd, in Adib Taherzadeh, The Covenant of Baha'u'llah |Oxford: George Ronald, 1992] 425). Shoghi Effendi, expanding on this, states:

There are no Prophets, so far, in the same cat- egory as Baha’u'lldh, as He culminates a great cycle begun with Adam. (From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to the National Spiritual Assembly of Australia and New Zealand, 26 Dec. 1941, Letters from the Guardian to Australia and New Zealand 41, in Helen Hornby, comp., Lights of Guidance [New Delhi: Bah#’i Publishing Trust, 1988) 471)

By Greatest Name is meant that Baha’u’llah has appeared in God’s Greatest Name, in other words, that He is the Supreme Manifestation of God. (From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to the National Spiritual Assembly of Australia and New Zealand, 26 Dec. 1941, Letters from the Guardian to Australia and New Zealand 41, in Lights of Guidance 471)

Baha’u llah is not the Intermediary between other Manifestations and God. Each has His own relation to the Primal Source. But in the sense that Baha’u'llah is the greatest Manifestation to yet appear, the One Who consummates the Revelation of Moses; He was the One Moses conversed with in the Burning Bush. In other words Baha’u'llah identifies the Glory of the God- Head on that occasion with Himself. No distinc- tion can be made amongst the Prophets in the sense that They all proceed from One Source, and are of One Essence. But Their stations and functions in this world are different. (From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual, 19 Oct. 1947, in Lights of Guidance 471; see also Shoghi Effendi, Promised Day Is Come 5, 184, 188)

Bahd’u’llah, describing the station of His revela- tion, says it transcends “the station of whatever hath been manifested in the past or will be made manifest in the future” (Kalimdt-i-Firdawstyyih [Words of Paradise], in Writings of Bahd’ulllah [New Delhi: Baha’{ Publishing Trust, 1986] 207) and “[t]o read but one of the verses of My Revelation is better than to peruse the Scriptures of both the former and latter

generations” (Kitdéb-i-Aqdas K138). ‘Abdu’l-Bahé says: “The mere contemplation of the Dispensation in- augurated by the Blessed Beauty [Baha’w’ll4h] would have sufficed to overwhelm the saints of bygone ages—saints who longed to partake for one moment of its great glory’”” (quoted in God Passes By99). And Shoghi Effendi refers to “the eventual recognition by all mankind of the indispensability, the uniqueness, and the supreme station of the Baha’i Revelation” (Principles of Bahdt Administration [London: Baha’i Publishing Trust, 1976] 23). (For references in the Baha’{ writings to the different stations and func- tions of Jesus, Muhammad, and the Bab, see, for example, Bahd’u'llah, Kitdb-i-Iqén: The Book of Certitude, in Writings of Baha'u'llah 117, 125-27, 149-50; Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By 57-60; Shoghi Effendi, World Order of Bahd’u llah 125-28; Shoghi Effendi, Promised Day Is Come 177-81, 195-97.)

By intimating that Baha’fs believe that all reli- gions are equal, Savi is repeating a view he expressed in his article, “Religious Pluralism: A Baha’{ Per- spective,” in the Winter 1999-2000 issue of World Order (31.1: 41]. He stated there that “Baha’is ear- nestly believe (and their scriptures teach) that all religions are equally authentic, true, and vital to the well-being of humanity.” I agree that Baha’is believe that the spiritual foundations of all religions are authentic and true and that all religions have, as “link[s] in the chain of continually progressive Rev- elations,” been vital to the well-being of humanity. But to assert, as Savi appears to do, that Baha’{s believe that all religions are vital to the well-being of humanity in this age, is not, in my opinion, accurate.

For Bahda’is, the idea that all religions come from one God is axiomatic. However, their goal is not merely to persuade others to accept this idea. It is, also, to announce that a religion uniting all the religions of the past has been manifested, and to invite humankind to enter its fold.

VAFA PAYMAN London, United Kingdom

THE BAHA'I FAITH AND PLURALISM

Mr. Vafa Payman writes that he does not agree with certain points of my two papers: “The Declaration Dominus Iesus: A Brake on Ecumenism and Inter-

faith Dialogue?” (World Order 32.2 [Winter 2000-

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01]: 7-24) and “Religious Pluralism: A Baha’i Per- spective” (World Order 31.2 [Winter 1999-2000]: 25-41). Those points are four. I will list each of them, summarize in each case my original points as well as Mr. Payman’s objections, and offer possible solutions to our apparent disagreement.

1. First, I wrote that “the Bahd’i concept of faith is quite different from that of Dominus Iesus, where faith in Jesus Christ, understood as the wholehearted assent to His revealed truth as formally and authori- tatively explained by the Catholic Church, is pre- eminent in comparison with any good deed per- formed in the absence of such faith.” Mr. Payman understands my words as identifying faith merely with the practice of good deeds. Perhaps he may want to read once more that part of my paper and observe the following quotations: “faith is for each believer ‘first, conscious knowledge, and second, the practice of good deeds” (‘Abdu’l-Baha, Tablets of Abdul Baha Abbas, vol. 3:549). In the Baha’i view, it is “true knowledge of God and the comprehension of divine words” (‘Abdu’l-Bahé, quoted in Baha’u’llah and ‘Abdu’l-Baha, Bahai World Faith 364).” | hope these two quotations may be sufficient to make clear that I do not want to belittle the importance of the recognition of the Manifestation of God as an ele- ment of faith and that I stressed the importance of deeds only to counterbalance the Christian idea that a man may be “saved” by his mere faith (that is, by his belief in the theological dogmas of the Church) even in the absence of good “deeds.” I was thinking of Martin Luther’s words, “Pecca fortiter, sed crede Jortius’—that is, “commit great sins, but believe with greater strength.” The Baha’{ idea of faith is different. Faith means recognizing the station of Baha’u lah as the latest Manifestation of God, with all the feelings and actions that this recognition implies. However, no mental faith in Bahd’u’lléh and in His teachings, as emotionally involving as it may be, will ever protect any Baha’{ from the con- sequences of his or her idleness or misbehavior in this world, as Martin Luther’s words seem to imply for the Faith in Christ of Christian believers.

2. Second, my words imply that each past reli- gion may be a legitimate path to salvation, even after the advent of Baha’wll4h. But Mr. Payman thinks that this is not the case. He writes that “the Baha’i concept of religious pluralism excludes the idea that all religions are equally relevant today. Pluralism does not mean parity; and in relation to salvation,

it is in the Faith of ‘the One Whose advent had been promised to all religions’ that ‘all nations can alone, and must eventually, seek their true salvation (Shoghi Effendi, The Promised Day Is Come 182).” Mr. Payman’s words may convince some of their readers that all Baha’is cherish toward their Faith the same feelings Dominus Iesus cherishes toward Catholicism. True salvation comes only from the Founder of our Faith, and nothing is left for whoever wants to be “saved” but to accept Him as the latest Manifesta- tion of God. I think that this understanding is lim- ited. It does not give due consideration, for instance, to the Baha’i principle whereby human beings have no access to absolute Truth. This principle has an important corollary: We cannot think in terms of being saved or damned. Human beings are “intel- ligent beings created in the realm of evolutionary growth” (‘Abdu’l-Baha, The Promulgation of Univer- sal Peace 129). Therefore, each of us is in a more or less progressed stage of that “evolutionary growth.” But no one is absolutely saved or absolutely damned— that is, absolutely perfect or absolutely imperfect— whatever his religious beliefs may be. Besides, Mr. Payman himself quotes this passage by Shoghi Effendi: The Revelation, of which Baha’u llah is the source and center, abrogates none of the religions that have preceded it, nor does it attempt, in the slightest degree, to distort their features or to belittle their value. It disclaims any intention of dwarfing any of the Prophets of the past, or of whittling down the eternal verity of their teachings. It can, in no wise, conflict with the spirit that animates their claims, nor does it seek to under- mine the basis of any man’s allegiance to their cause. (Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Bahd'ullah 57-58, emphasis added) From these words I understand that each religion may, just now, help its followers to understand those eternal verities on whose basis a better world may be built by all human beings together, whatever their belief may be. Therefore, each religion is meaningful and can help humankind to improve the human condition on the earth. As ‘Abdu’l-Bahd wrote in 1906 to Jane Elizabeth Whyte:

Thou didst begin thy letter with a blessed phrase, saying: “I am a Christian.” O would that all were truly Christian! It is easy to be a Chris- tian on the tongue, but hard to be a true one. Today some five hundred million souls are Christian, but the real Christian is very rare: he

�[Page 11]INTERCHANGE

11

is that soul from whose comely face there shineth the splendour of Christ, and who showeth forth the perfections of the Kingdom; this is a matter of great moment, for to be a Christian is to embody every excellence there is. I hope that thou, too, shalt become a true Christian. (“Abdu’l-

Baha, Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu'l-Bahd

29-30)

3. Third, my words imply the concept that all the Manifestations of God are equally significant, whereas Mr. Payman stresses the idea that Baha’u’ll4h is the greatest among the Manifestations of God. When I read the Kitdéb-i-[gén I think that both of us are right, in the light of the following words by Baha’u'Il4h Himself:

We have already in the foregoing pages as- signed two stations unto each of the Luminaries arising from the Daysprings of eternal holiness. One of these stations, the station of essential unity, We have already explained. “No distinc- tion do We make between any of them.” The other is the station of distinction, and pertaineth to the world of creation and to the limitations thereof. In this respect, each Manifestation of God hath a distinct individuality, a definitely prescribed mission, a predestined Revelation, and specially designated limitations. (Baha’u lah, The Kitab-i-Igén 176)

Personally, I cannot forget the personal debt of gratitude I, as any other human being, have toward each and all of these Manifestation (even the very ancient ones Whose names history does not record). Whatever good I have in my heart comes from them. Therefore, I always think of them in their “station of essential unity,” as they are described in The Four Valleys:

The exalted dwellers in this mansion do wield divine authority in the court of rapture, with utter gladness, and they do bear a kingly sceptre. On the high seats of justice, they issue their commands, and they send down gifts according to each man’s deserving. Those who drink of this cup abide in the high bowers of splendor above

the Throne of the Ancient of Days, and they sit

in the Empyrean of Might within the Lofty

Pavilion. ... (Baha'u'llah, The Seven Valleys and

The Four Valleys 60-61)

This helps me to lay my grateful heart on Their holy Threshold.

4. Fourth, Mr. Payman says that my words imply the belief that “all religions are equally authentic, true, and vital to the well-being of humanity.” He writes: “For Bahd’is, the idea that all religions come from one God is axiomatic. However, their goal is not merely to persuade others to accept this idea. It is, also, to announce that a religion uniting all the religions of the past has been manifested, and to invite humankind to enter its fold.” I may agree with Mr. Payman. But, personally, I do not consider World Order as a proper vehicle for such an “invi- tation,” because I could run the risk of imposing it on reluctant hearers or readers. Obviously I did not write my two papers to “announce that a religion uniting all the religions of the past has been mani- fested, and to invite humankind to enter its fold.” I wrote them to promote unity among the believers of different Faiths, who may be more deeply in love with their Faith than I am with mine. Possibly, I would like to help them fan their love for their respective Faiths into flame. If this happens, they will be better instruments of the Will of God. And He will guide them wherever He pleases in the process of their “evolutionary growth” (‘Abdu’l-Baha, Pro- mulgation of Universal Peace 129).

Therefore, I do not disagree with Mr. Payman. Iam simply speaking on a different level, in a different context, from a different point of view. I simply want to explain certain aspects of the Bahd’i teach- ings in the hope that my words may help my readers to have a better understanding of “the image and likeness of the Lord” (‘Abdu’l-Baha, Promulgation of Universal Peace 373) they have in themselves and thus to be more qualified to contribute their share to the ongoing process of interfaith dialogue.

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Transformative Education:

How African American Women’s History Challenges the Traditional Historical Narrative

BY JEANNE GAZEL

D2 the last twenty years the bur- geoning scholarship in American his- tory from the perspective of African Ameri- can women has challenged the way we as Americans look at our American experience— in particular how we teach and understand American history—and, consequently, how we see ourselves as Americans. Among the many works published during the last two decades, three works have contributed to a significant shift in the historical narrative by bringing those who are traditionally marginalized (in this case African American women) to the center of historical inquiry and illuminating the role of human agency.’

1. Human agency is a process of individual and collective social action or engagement undertaken to effect social change. It is often used to counteract the idea that human beings are acted upon and shaped by social, economic, and political forces without having much influence on their environment. Of course, his- torians know that humans act upon their environment, but, since history is unevenly taught and abysmally understood, people do not typically reflect on the phe- nomenon of social change when they think about the social world. That is why it is important to examine the process of human agency, which is often used inter- changeably with historical agency and social-change agent. See Patricia Collins, Fighting Words: Black Women and the Search for Justice (Minneapolis, MN: U of Minnesota P, 1998); Paulo Freire, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed and The Pedagogy of Hope (New York: Seabury P, 1970); and Eric Foner, “My Life as a Historian,” in Historians and Race: Autobiography and the Writing of History, ed. Paul A. Cimbala and Robert E Himmelberg (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1996).

Publishing accounts of African American women is playing a significant role in creat- ing an inclusive historiography that shifts the historical lens to include those who have been rendered invisible. The impact of this new scholarship has a transformative effect on the reader as individual and collective experi- ences come into the light. It is critical to note that shifting the lens does not simply mean adding African American women’s history to the narrative. Rather, it means shining a light on that which was happening all along, that which has been historically silenced. The first book, Darlene Clark Hine’s and Kathleen Thompson’s A Shining Thread of Hope: A History of Black Women in America (1998), is a survey history written for both academics and lay readers. The second book, Glenda Gilmore’s Gender and Jim Crow: Women and the Politics of White Supremacy in North Caro- lina, 1896-1920 (1996), is a monograph on the experiences of African American women and men (with primary focus on women) and the strategies they employed to over- come white supremacy. The third book is Pauli Murray’s Pauli Murray: The Autobiogra- phy of aBlack Activist, Feminist, Lawyer, Priest, Poet (1989). Through the lens of personal experiences, it walks readers through race relations during some of the most turbulent periods of the twentieth century. Examining exemplary works from black women’s history helps us to grasp the reality that a society stratified by race, class, and gender demands that we refocus the histori- �[Page 14]14 WORLD ORDER: WINTER 2001-02

cal narrative if we are to get the full story of our past. Without the full historical story, we are disconnected from our past and cannot possibly understand the conditions that define our collective present; moreover, we remain deprived of examples that can assist us in overcoming similar barriers we face today. Some of the clearest examples of this discon- nection can be seen in contemporary discus- sions around meritocracy and affirmative action. Statements such as “We need to go back to how it was in the good old days when America was based on values of hard work as the way to get ahead” or “Racial prefer- ences have never been, nor should they ever be, the American way” blatantly ignore his- tory to construct a make-believe “America” where equal opportunity often reigned. His- tory that refocuses the lens tells the stories of those who have been systematically excluded from opportunity throughout United States history, thereby shattering the myth of merito- cracy. This includes the histories of many marginalized groups.’ It is a history of struggle on the part of those marginalized to attain human dignity and equality. There are simi- larities and differences throughout each of the experiences. The new and prolific schol- arship that looks at women, particularly as race and class have affected them, enriches, deepens, and sharpens our understanding of both the unity and the diversity of the in- dividual and collective American experience, thus creating a new inclusive historiography.

To understand fully the importance of works such as those written by Hine and

2. See Ronald Takaki, A Different Mirror (Boston: Little, 1993).

3. ‘Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l- Bahd, comp. Research Department of the Universal House of Justice, trans. Committee at the Baha’i World Centre and Marzieh Gail (Haifa: Baha’i World Centre, 1997) 247.

4, Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed 106.

5. See Friere, Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

Thompson, Gilmore, and Murray, it is im- portant to understand what is meant by trans- formative education. As used in this essay, it is education that empowers; it is an interac- tive process involving both thought and action. It begins with the kind of independent in- vestigation of truth that eradicates “blind imitation of the past.” It is fueled by an un- compromising love for justice that stirs the mind and spirit. “To lead forth,” the original meaning of the Latin word in which educa- tion has its roots, captures the essence of the educative process. As the internationally known educational reformer Paulo Freire so powerfully states, human beings are not empty vessels in which to dump knowledge (the banking method) but rather are “co-investi- gators” of their own learning.‘ Transforma- tive education is about expanding the mind’s capacity and using that greater capacity to develop healthy human relations that advance the social world. This kind of education teaches one to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions, to question, and to take action against the oppressive elements of society.? While technical training to learn a skill or trade is an important aspect of learning, it is no substitute for teaching one to understand the human condition, the social and political ramifications of the quest for equity and social justice, and the continual development of creative and innovative thought and agency that can advance com- munity.

Throughout United States history, Afri- can American women have known only too well the connection between education, human agency, and the advancement of community. From the slave quarters where they educated their children (especially daugh- ters), to the abolitionist movement, to the development of black women’s clubs that addressed a myriad social needs perpetuated by racial discrimination (access to health care, education, community welfare), to the 1960s civil-rights movement, black women have �[Page 15]blazed a trail of victories and hope.° This is human agency at its best.

The history of African American women, as a discipline, has made an invaluable con- tribution to an inclusive historiography that

reveals our American past from the multiple .

perspectives of race, class, and gender. The works by Hine and Thompson, Gilmore, and Murray serve as examples of writers who are reconfiguring the traditional American his- torical narrative to include its multidimen- sionality. Although the focus is on black women, women from any background could be used to make the point (as could men from any historically ignored group). It is important to understand that any one work of inclusive history cannot include everyone; rather, it introduces the conceptual frame- work that opens the door for all voices to be raised. This framework shines a light on the power of transformative education both for those who made the history and for those who study it. Bringing these historical actors to life challenges the notion of irrelevance and invisibility and creates a sense of hope in discovering entirely new ways of looking at the world. Once one becomes engaged in this process, there is no turning back. U.S. history is no longer a recounting of wars and presidents leading a glorious nation to take its “rightful” place as the sole superpower of the world but rather one in which the drive for freedom and democracy was hard felt and fought by all of its citizens.

The works by Hine and Thompson, Gilmore, and Murray help us to understand the role of human or historical agency. All of their stories focus on historical figures who

6. Darlene Clark Hine and Kathleen Thompson, A Shining Thread of Hope: The History of Black Women in America (New York: Broadway Books, 1998) 5—6.

7. Lawrence Levine, “Clio, Canons, and Culture,” The Journal of American History 80.3 (Dec. 1993): 849.

8. Hine and Thompson, Shining Thread of Hope 166.

TRANSFORMATIVE EDUCATION 15

would, for the most part, be invisible in the traditional historical narrative had it not been for these authors’ meticulous reconfigurations. These three authors break the silence and sharpen our vision so that we can better see the complexity and multidimensionality of our collective history.’ Shining a light on historical agency reminds us that we are not merely acted upon by earth-shattering events but also that we act in ways that shape his- tory—a simultaneous, interdependent pro- cess. When that agency results in the trans- formation of individuals and groups in ways that promote greater actualization of social justice, and when that understanding is re- flected in the historical narrative, we can more fully understand who we are and who we can be.

A Shining Thread of Hope: A History of Black Women in America In A Shining Thread of Hope: A History of Black Women in America, the first compre- hensive history of African American women to be published, historians Darlene Clark Hine and Kathleen Thompson give us a meticulous history of the illustrious lives of some and the everyday lives of other black women. The organizing theme that runs through the work is black women’s fight against “three enemies—law, custom and violence”: Law made black women and their chil- dren slaves, robbed them of their human rights, and bound them to often cruel and exploitative owners. Custom constrained them within limitations of gender and race and rendered their attempts to pro- tect their sexual integrity virtually useless. Violence permeated their lives. These three enemies have worked together, and black women have seldom been able to attack one without finding themselves painfully ensnared by the others.® To read this work is to find oneself beside black women as they struggle through sla- very, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Great �[Page 16]16 WORLD ORDER: WINTER 2001-02

Migration, the Great Depression, two World Wars, and the civil-rights movement. The beauty and strength of the work is how it brings two hundred years of United States history to life through the lens of black women, free and slave, rich and poor, educated and illiterate, married and single, laborer and professional, artist and community organizer, politician and educator. Black women were primarily responsible for their family’s sur- vival despite the meager resources most of them had. This narrative looks into the lives of extraordinary and ordinary women and the educational practices they creatively and painstakingly devised with the support of their communities of extended family and fictive kin.” Sometimes they had white allies, but in most cases they did not. The previ- ously untold story of traditional American history is the way black women triumphed against extreme odds. From their underground schools for slave children to their academies for free blacks to the schools that they founded and integrated through Jim Crow and deseg- regation to their breaking into historically all-white, male fields of medicine and law as early as the mid-nineteenth century, the fight was relentless."°

But perhaps most immediately applicable to the contemporary struggle for equal op- portunity across race, class, and gender bar- riers is the story of the women of the civil- rights movement, including Septima Clark, Diane Nash, Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, Rosa Parks, Daisy Bates, Ella Baker, and Anna

9. Close friends that are “like family” but are not blood relatives.

10. Hine and Thompson, Shining Thread of Hope 160-63.

11. See Vicki Crawford, Jacqueline Rouse, and Bar- bara Woods, ed., Women in the Civil Rights Movement: Trailblazers and Torchbearers (Bloomington: Indiana UP 1993).

12. Hine and Thompson, Shining Thread of Hope 281.

Arnold Hedgeman. It was Hedgeman who asked that a black woman be allowed to present a major address at the 1963 March on Wash- ington. Her request was based on the role women had been playing in the civil-rights movement, leading up to this historical march. Septima Clark, one of the civil-rights hero- ines, was the director of the first integrated citizenship schools (Highlander) that trained some of the great civil-rights leaders, among them Fannie Lou Hamer, who cofounded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which challenged white political domination of the Mississippi Democratic party. Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, Rosa Parks, and others, with their preparatory work and with their determination born, as Parks stated, of their being “tired” of the unequal treatment that made their days longer and their lives harder, contributed to the success of the Montgom- ery Bus Boycott. Daisy Bates was behind the effort to usher the Little Rock Nine through the trauma of integrating Arkansas public schools in 1957. Ella Baker, with her vision of empowering young people in participa- tory democracy strategies, inspired the cre- ation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinat- ing Committee (SNCC) in 1960." Thus Hedgeman’s request to include a woman as a keynote speaker in the program for the 1963 March on Washington was not based on a whim or a kind of female solidarity for the sake of appearance. It was in honor of the women who worked to make that 1963 historical event possible. When the male leadership denied the request, it brought home the point to Hedgeman that black women were viewed as “second-class citizens.”'* That the women leaders of the civil-rights era made tremendous contributions to the victories won is undeniable. That they could have achieved more if they had been welcomed as partners to the men is also true.

Hine and Thompson have made acces- sible to a wide audience the lives of black women who, with their men, resisted domi- �[Page 17]nation from white oppressors and fought for equality. We know that this journey, though the road has been well traveled, is not yet at an end, for there are many battles yet to fight. The black women that Hine and Thompson discuss—human agents par excellence—are shining examples of how the battle for equal- ity must be fought and won at all levels of human interaction: educational, political, social, and religious.

Gender and Jim Crow: Women and the Politics of White Supremacy in North Carolina, 1896-1920 IN Gender and Jim Crow: Women and the Politics of White Supremacy in North Carolina, 1896— 1920, Glenda Gilmore takes Post-Reconstruc- tion history in North Carolina and stands it on its head. Determined to uncover what happened during the period leading up to the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, she rewrites a compelling, impecca- bly documented narrative from the perspec- tives of African Americans fighting against the machinery of white supremacy as it tried to deny them all hope of becoming full citi- zens.

Gilmore begins her narrative by following through the 1880s and 1890s the life and writings of her “main character’—Sarah Dudley Pettey, educator, writer, and activist. Pettey, her husband Charles Pettey, and other educated blacks believed they had a fair chance at full citizenship and worked diligently through education, the church, and other social institutions to develop the capacities to be outstanding members of their communi- ties. Again, as Hine and Thompson discuss in A Shining Thread of Hope, laws, customs, and violence made sure that the Petteys and their colleagues would have great difficulty in succeeding. White supremacy was at its ze- nith, with its zealous supporters determined to create a new and legal form of slavery that began with the disenfranchisement of black men, economic disempowerment, and the

TRANSFORMATIVE EDUCATION 17

segregation of all public facilities. The 1896 Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson intro- duced the separate-but-equal doctrine, put legal force into the web of actions and coun- teractions created to keep blacks in their place. As middle-class black men and women demonstrated the highest “Christian” values (education, stable family life, modesty, and a prudent Victorian life style, which enabled them to become what they called “Best Men and Best Women’), they stirred up fear and resentment in whites who believed that they alone could occupy these places. Custom de- manded that whites remain on top. Black mobility threatened the racial order that many whites during the final two decades of the nineteenth century felt their Confederate fathers had lost. The sons of these fathers were determined to pick up the pieces of their fathers’ defeat and create a new social order where whites would unquestionably reign supreme. The Best Black Men and Women, such as Charles and Sarah Pettey, would have to be put in their places. Throughout the twenty-four year period of Gilmore’s study, African-American resis- tance strategies were plentiful. There was nothing more important to the emerging black middle class than enfranchisement. Their determination, hard work, and persistence in building their lives and communities under the shadow of white supremacy did not fal- ter. Whites did their best to retard black progress, using violence as a key part of their strategy. On a few incidents of black-on- white rape they concocted the myth of the black male rapist who was determined to destroy the purity of white womanhood. They created a rape scare that had little basis in fact. According to Gilmore: For the previous two years, 1895 and 1896, the attorney general had counted twenty- eight rape cases statewide. Neither he or [sic] his successors specified the race of the rapists. They did, however, list the race of those lynched and executed. In 1895 and �[Page 18]18 WORLD ORDER: WINTER 2001-02

1896, one black man was lynched for attempted rape, and none executed. If we can assume that any black man accused of raping a white woman would have been either lynched or executed, that leaves twenty-seven cases that did not involve black on white rape. Many of those twenty- seven convicted rapists must have been white men who raped white women since black men’s rapes of black women were less likely to be prosecuted and white men’s rape of black women rarely resulted in convictions.’ The facts did not matter to those who were determined to shatter the hopes and dreams of full citizenship for North Carolina’s Afri- can Americans. Creating the image of the black man as a rapist monster who was lurk- ing around every corner to strike down white womanhood was a device sure to capture attention and harness mass support for those desperately trying to regain unfettered white rule. Black leaders were blamed for not being able to control the black rapists, and black soldiers were labeled sex symbols and were harassed by white gangs.'* Growing tensions led to the 1898 racial massacre in Wilmington when white supremacist Alfred Moore Wadell led a mob into the city, burned the offices of the black press, seized the office of the black mayor and forced him to leave the city, and either shot other black leaders or ran them out of town. Many leaders, like Charles Pettey and Congressman George White, con- cluded that they could “no longer live in North Carolina and be a man.””

13. Glenda Gilmore, Gender and Jim Crow: Women and the Politics of White Supremacy in North Carolina, 1896-1920 (Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1996) 86.

14. Gilmore, Gender and Jim Crow 81-82.

15. Gilmore, Gender and Jim Crow 117.

16. Gilmore, Gender and Jim Crow 118.

Gilmore makes the case for widening the historical lens as historians examine this tur- bulent era in Southern history. To under- stand the period between 1896 and 1920, with its violence, resistance, defeat and sur- vival, and complex web of relationships, one must examine the parts played by black and white men and women of all classes. Gilmore notes that

Examining the race wars of the 1890s

exclusively through the eyes of white su-

premacists does more than neglect the

African American experience, it distorts

the campaign’s meaning by ignoring its

context. What white men did and thought is important because they held the pre- ponderance of power and used it so bru- tally. White men knew, however, what

historians are discovering: that they did

not act with impunity in a lily-white male

world; rather, they reacted strategically in

a racially and sexually mixed location.

Moreover, the victories they won were not

ordained or complete but began as pre-

cariously balanced compromises that pa-

pered over deep fissures in southern life.’ Gilmore’s study is an example of inclusive history that demands our questioning what we have previously understood about the critical historical period labeled Post-Recon- struction. If we take the time to think about it, when telling any story, the plot is centered in the interactions and nature of relation- ships among the people involved. Leaving out interactions that render groups of people invisible cripples our insight into how we have come to be who we are, consequently limiting our ability to envision our future and change it for the better. Gilmore's inclu- sive history gives us a more realistic road map of what is required to understand and tran- scend a past that included multiple players in the struggle to awaken and educate a com- munity in ways that would lead toward greater freedom and dignity for everyone. �[Page 19]Pauli Murray: The Autobiography of a Black Activist, Feminist, Lawyer, Priest, and Poet Pau! Murray was one of the most extraor- dinary black women of the twentieth cen- tury.” Poet, lawyer, activist, feminist, and priest, she battled racial and gender oppres- sion and exclusion throughout her life, and she blazed a trail through many obstacles in her path. In her preface to Murray’s autobi- ography, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Congress- woman for Washington, D.C., and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission chair during President Jimmy Carter’s administra- tion, states: In effect, she recorded her life not at the end but as she went along, keeping records and notes of events small and great. It is a testament to her need to remember, her regard for history, and her insistence to learn from her past. But Pauli never lived in the past. She lived on the edge of his- tory, seeming to pull it along with her.’ Murray’s autobiography provides ample back- ground for anyone studying the history of

17. I discovered Pauli Murray by chance. While I was researching the relationship between Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McCleod Bethune, over and over I came upon the name Pauli Murray and the letters she had written to Mrs. Roosevelt about racial injustices. Murray’s audacity and tenacity so intrigued me that I knew I would have to research her further. In fact, from the evidence that I have seen, I believe that the relation- ship between Murray and Roosevelt was much closer, more dynamic, and more genuine that the one between Roosevelt and Bethune. Evidence from their letters showed that they seemed to have transcended the “po- lite racial etiquette” and got down to some very real and painful issues. See Joseph Lash, Eleanor and Franklin: The Story of Their Relationship (New York: Norton, 1971), based on Eleanor Roosevelt’s private papers.

18. Eleanor Holmes Norton, preface, in Pauli Murray, Pauli Murray: The Autobiography of a Black Activist, Feminist, Lawyer, Priest, and Poet (Knoxville: U of Ten- nessee P, 1987) xi.

TRANSFORMATIVE EDUCATION 19

race relations leading up to the civil-rights movement and beyond. Born in 1910, the same year in which the first issue of the newly founded NAACP’s magazine The Crisis ap- peared, Murray witnessed or experienced some of the most pivotal moments in the pursuit of racial justice in the country. As in the accounts in A Shining Thread of Hope, the themes of custom, law, and violence play their part in her life and the lives of those around her as she weaves her story. Murray shows how the personal and political are interwoven, demonstrating, in her daily life, how race, class, and gender intersect in the quest for social justice.

Murray’s narrative is dense, though several chapters, including “A Sharecropper’s Life” and “A Sharecropper’s Death,” can be read as independent essays. In these chapters, Murray tells the story of Odell Waller, who in 1940 shot and killed Oscar Davis, the Virginian white farmer with whom he shared land, in an altercation after Davis had con- fiscated Waller’s wheat crop. Through the Workers Defense League, Murray became involved in helping to raise money for an appeal after Waller was convicted of first- degree murder and sentenced to death by a white jury of non-poll-tax payers, who, obviously, were not Waller’s peers. This case takes Murray from New York to Virginia where, just months before, she had been jailed twice for the “crime” of challenging segrega- tion on a bus. In that case Murray and her friend Adelene MacBean (“Mac”) had worked together, using nonviolent, direct-action tech- niques that Murray had recently studied in Ghandi’s Satyagraha.

Working through the Workers Defense League, Murray and others tried to bring constitutional rights to bear on Jim Crow regulations in the areas of public transporta- tion and the legal victimization of Southern sharecroppers. They lost both battles. Murray and MacBean were fined for refusing to sit �[Page 20]20 WORLD ORDER: WINTER 2001-02

in the “colored” row of the bus. Waller was put to death for premeditated murder, de- spite the fact that the evidence supported the defense’s contention that fear and self-de- fense had motivated the shooting. But Murray had succeeded in planting the seeds of social justice. In the coming years she would wit- ness the fruition of the goals for which she had fought—protection for black people’s constitutional rights. She was there in 1954 when the Supreme Court decision to dis- mantle legal segregation became the law of the land. About the eradication of the poll tax, she writes: “In 1966 the Court held that a ‘State violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment whenever it makes affluence of the voter or payment of any fee an electoral standard.’ Those who remembered Odell Waller felt his cause had at last been vindicated.””

To read Pauli Murray’s autobiography is to follow the who, what, when, where, why, and how of pivotal moments in twentieth- century race relations. Her encounters with Thurgood Marshall are a good example. Murray first met him in 1938 when he con- sidered taking her denial of admission to the University of North Carolina Law School as a test case to challenge the “separate-but- equal” admission policy. The NAACP legal team had renewed interest, and hope of success, in suing universities, based on the 1935 Supreme Court ruling in the Gaines case, which ruled “that the state of Missouri was obligated to provide facilities for legal education substantially equal to those which

19. Murray, Pauli Murray 176.

20. Murray, Pauli Murray 114.

21. Pauli Murray, State Laws on Race and Color (Athens, GA: Woman’s Divisions of Christian Service, Board of Missions of the Methodist Church, 1951; Athens, GA: U of Georgia P, 1997).

22. Murray, Pauli Murrary 289.

the state provided for white students or it must admit Gaines to the University of Missouri law school.” As it turned out, because Murray was not a resident of North Carolina, and they did not want to risk losing on that technicality, Marshall and the NAACP decided that Murray’s case was not strong enough.

Murray’s and Marshall’s paths would cross again when Marshall came to Richmond, Virginia, to help prepare for the Waller case. Murray’s work with the Workers Defense League reactivated her interest in law school, and, with Marshall’s letter of recommenda- tion, she entered Howard University Law School in 1941. When she entered the legal profession, the NAACP lacked the funds to hire her. Hence she struggled, while in pri- vate practice, to continue her civil-rights work. In 1951 she published the first comprehen- sive book on racial laws, entitled State Laws on Race and Color." In 746 pages, Murray painstakingly compiled for the first time all racial laws and codes in one document. She was told that, during the final stages of the NAACP?’s legal attack on the “separate-but- equal” doctrine, Marshall called the book his “bible.” It soon became dated by all the leg- islative changes instituted after the Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954. Murray notes that, “During its brief existence, how- ever, it helped to further the developments that made it obsolete.”

Murray characterized her participation in a way that still resonates with the contempo- rary struggles we face in the twenty-first century:

The events of my final days as a student

in Washington climaxed six years of in-

tense personal involvement in the struggle

against segregation that had begun in 1938

with my application for admission to the

University of North Carolina. If there were

moments of deep despair in those years,

there was also the sustaining knowledge that the quest for human dignity is part �[Page 21]of a continuous movement through time

and history linked to a higher force.” Any one of Murray’s accomplishments would be an inspiration to those interested in the struggle for racial and gender justice. The fact that she developed so many sides of her- self and her abilities make the study all the more comprehensive and interesting. Her life captures the continual journey, with its pit- falls and victories seemingly at every junc- ture. She personifies historical agency, show- ing that each defeat can be transformed into a victory when the vision is clear and the principles of justice are uncompromised. At every turn in her life she lived the power of transformative education.

Conclusion Reapers of Darlene Clark Hine’s and Kathleen Thompson's A Shining Thread of Hope, Glenda Gilmore’s Gender and Jim Crow, and Pauli Murray’s Autobiography, all centering on the

23. Murray, Pauli Murray 232.

24. Vincent Harding, “Healing at the Razor’s Edge: Reflections on a History of Multicultural America,” Journal of American History 1.2 (Sept. 1994): 8.

25. Foner, “My Life as a Historian,” in Historians and Race 103.

TRANSFORMATIVE EDUCATION 21

contributions of African American women, together with the many other works that have been published during the last two decades, will be left with three important lessons that cannot help but move us toward further developing an inclusive community fueled by a vision of social justice. One les- son is that, to know who we are as Ameri- cans, we must study history from multiple perspectives and study those perspectives not as isolated but as interacting constructs that shape one another. The second lesson is that, when looking at history, we should not be content with seeing human beings as victims who are acted upon; we must also see their agency as they engage in the struggle to change their circumstances.” The final lesson is that we should realize that learning history from this inclusivist perspective liberates us from blind imitation of the past and sets the stage for transformation to take place. We are not merely filling our heads with bland and ir- relevant facts; we are engaging with the real stories of people who fought daily physical and ideological battles for their freedom and dignity and who provide us with examples of human agency that can help us understand more fully who we are and who we can be. These lessons can transform our perspectives on American history and thus show us the way to overcoming similar barriers in the future.

‘Abdu’l-Baha gives. Get up an hour earlier and learn how He lives.

—Janet Tomkins

Rags, Petrol, and Matches: Why the Education of Women

Is Not Enough

BY ERIN MURPHY-GRAHAM

No guinea of earned money should go to the rebuilding of the college . . the guinea should be earmarked “Rags. Petrol. Matches.” .

. therefore,

.. And this note should be

attached to it. “Take this guinea and with it burn the college to the ground. Set fire to the old hypocrisies. Let the light of the burning building scare the nightingales and incarnadine the willows. And let the daughters of educated men dance round the fire and heap armful upon armful of dead leaves upon the flames. And let their mothers lean from the upper windows and cry, ‘Let it blaze! Let it blaze! For we have done with

9929

the “education

URN the college to the ground? Mothers hanging out of windows crying, we

have had enough “‘education’”? This passage from Virginia Woolf’s Three Guineas, pub- lished in 1938, may at first glance seem shocking to those who believe in promoting education for women, particularly since its author was one of the more celebrated femi- nist writers of the twentieth century.’ Much of Woolf’s writing shows that she does not disagree completely with the idea that edu- cation is an avenue to equality. Rather, the excerpt from Three Guineas raises her concern that educating women in colleges designed

1. Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas (1938; New York: Harvest, 1966).

2. See Nelly Stromquist, “Women and Illiteracy: The Interplay of Gender Subordination and Poverty,” Comparative Education Review 34.1 (1990): 95-111.

—Virginia Woolf

by men for men often leaves unchallenged and even serves to reproduce a patriarchal society in which men rule and sustain an ideology of women’s physical and mental inferiority. Patriarchal ideology has not been so crude as to declare women entirely incom- petent. Rather, patriarchy operates on the notion that women may not be able to per- form certain functions in society that men certainly can and that women are naturally and uniquely endowed to nurture, to raise children, and to care for their husbands.” According to some feminist scholars, the notion that women are “natural” homemak- ers became the cornerstone of the sexual division of labor—a division that is evident in many societies and manifests itself in a variety of ways, including women’s under representation in engineering and over rep- resentation in the kitchen. In short, patriar- chy prevents the establishment of gender equality because it reinforces the sexual di- vision of labor and maintains women’s infe- riority. �[Page 24]24 WORLD ORDER: WINTER 2001-02

The equality of men and women is one of the fundamental principles of the Baha’i Faith. ‘Abdu’l-Baha, the son of Baha’u'llah, the Founder of the Baha’ Faith, and the appointed interpreter of His teachings, defined the equality of men and women as “equal rights and prerogatives in all things pertain- ing to humanity.”* More than twenty-five years before the publication of Three Guineas, ‘Abdu'l-Baha gave a number of talks in Paris, London, the United States, and Canada in which He stressed that gender equality is a fundamental prerequisite of world peace. Further, He emphasized that a prerequisite of gender equality is women’s access to edu- cation: “When all mankind shall receive the same opportunity of education and the equal- ity of men and women be realized, the foun- dations of war will be utterly destroyed.”4 Three Guineas was written more than sixty- five years ago, and ‘Abdu’'l-Baha’s talks were given more than ninety years ago. But if we ask where we are now with respect to the equality of women and men, their arguments are still applicable in contemporary Western society. ‘Abdul-Baha spoke in 1911 and 1912 as the principal expounder of the new order proclaimed by Baha’u'lléh, which envisions a world founded on justice and unity. Woolf, writing in 1936 during the interval between two major world wars and at a time when women had begun to demand equality in the political sphere, also saw what ‘Abdu’l-Baha

had pointed out to His Western audience—

3. Abdu'l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace: Talks Delivered by Abdu'l-Bahé during His Visit to the United States and Canada in 1912, comp. Howard MacNutt, 2d ed. (Wilmette, IL: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1982) 283.

4, ‘Abdul-Baha, Promulgation of Universal Peace 175.

5. See Shirley Panken, Virginia Woolf and the “Lust of Creation”: A Psychoanalytic Exploration (Albany, NY: SUNY P, 1987).

that the education of women and the pre- vention of war are linked.

The equality of men and women must be translated from belief to action. But because we have no model of what gender equality in society actually looks like, we find it difficult to put the belief into practice. Revisiting ‘Abdu'l-Baha’s talks reminds us of the spiri- tual and practical principles necessary for achieving gender equality. The works of writers such as Woolf that explore various facets of this issue can help us identify the roots and manifestations of gender inequality in West- ern society. Recognizing the roots and mani- festations of inequality, frequently so famil- iar that we do not even see them, is the first step in putting belief into practice.

Between the Devil and the Deep Sea VirGINIA Woolf was born in 1882 in Lon- don, England. Although she was denied both public school and university education, as were most women of her time, she had free run of her father’s library and was an avid reader. Moreover, her parents instructed her and her sister, supplementing their formal education with family discussions and de- bates. At the young age of twenty-three, Woolf began her literary career when she started writing for The Times Literary Supplement. She suffered from depression and what today would be diagnosed as anorexia and in 1913 made her first attempt to kill herself. Her first book, The Voyage Out, was published in 1915, and she continued to write for the next twenty-six years. In 1941 she committed sui- cide.

Five years before she took her life, Woolf wrote the letters published in Three Guineas in response to three letters that she had re- ceived asking for political and financial sup- port for various causes related to women’s emancipation.

The first letter asked Woolf to send a don- ation to help rebuild a women’s college. The second asked for a donation to a society that �[Page 25]worked to help women become profession- als. The third made two requests: First, it wanted Woolf’s opinion on how war could be prevented. (With the memory of World War I still lingering, and World War II al- ready looming over Europe, war was a topic of great social concern.) Second, it asked her to join a society that worked to promote peace. In her responses, Woolf makes the argument that education, entry into the pro- fessions, and preventing war are inexorably linked. Using similar reasoning in each case, she discusses the connections. Ultimately, Woolf decided to send the sum of one guinea (about fifty dollars today) to each cause—at best a token gesture, at worst a dismissal of what she probably viewed as a naive request: “But the three guineas, you will observe, though given to three different treasurers are all given to the same cause, for the causes are the same and inseparable.”® Woolf argued that each cause alone is insufficient and that fundamental changes in the structure of society are necessary. In essence, Woolf called for the dismantling of the patriarchal system. The depth of her concern she summed up this way: We, the daughters of educated men, are between the devil and the deep sea. Be- hind us lies the patriarchal system; the private house, with its nullity, its immo- rality, its hypocrisy, its servility. Before us lies the public world, the professional system, with its possessiveness, its jeal- ousy, its pugnacity, its greed.’

6. Woolf, Three Guineas 144. 7. Woolf, Three Guineas 74. 8. Woolf, Three Guineas 37. 9. Woolf, Three Guineas 17.

RAGS, PETROL, AND MATCHES 25

In the first of her responses (to the letter asking for a donation to rebuild a woman’s college), Woolf immediately widens the scope of the discussion, stating that women must have both access to education and entry into professions, which, in turn, will help prevent war. Thus Woolf insists that, if the educa- tion of women is merely more of the same, we should rather “‘burn the college to the ground,” since colleges are obviously inad- equate in that they serve to reproduce the “old hypocrisies” of a patriarchal system. However, despite the inadequacies she per- ceives in colleges and her strongly worded critique, Woolf also acknowledges that col- leges are the best alternative to education in the private house, because women restricted to education in private houses would be in no position to challenge the prevailing order:

But there is no blinking the fact that in the present state of things the most effective way in which we can help you through education to prevent war is to subscribe as generously as possible to the colleges for the daughters of educated men. For, to repeat, if those daughters are not going to be educated they are not going to earn their livings; if they are not going to earn their livings they are going once more to be restricted to the education of the pri- vate house; and if they are going to be restricted to the education of the private house they are going, once more, to exert all their influence both consciously and unconsciously in favour of war.8

That women achieve financial indepen- dence was of the utmost importance to Woolf. If a woman were financially autonomous, “she need no longer use her charm to procure money from her father or brother. Since it is beyond the power of her family to punish her financially she can express her own opinions. ... In short, she need not acquiesce; she can criticize.” The “weapon of independent opinion based on independent income,” for Woolf, is an effective weapon in preventing �[Page 26]26 WORLD ORDER: WINTER 2001-02

war.” The challenge is to use this newly acquired weapon. This leads Woolf to con- clude that the professions, with all of their “possessiveness, their jealousy, their pugnac- ity, their greed,” must be restructured. On this note she moves into the arena of her reply to the second letter."

Woolf used the second letter and its re- quest for funds to help women enter the professions to expatiate on how and why professions should be restructured:

If we encourage the daughters to enter the

professions without making any condi-

tions as to the way in which the profes- sions are to be practiced shall we not be doing our best to stereotype the old tune which human nature, like a gramophone whose needle has stuck, is now grinding out with such disastrous unanimity?” Woolf had an unerring, and unforgiving, instinct for attacking the jugular of a weak argument. Education alone is insufficient; entry into the professions, if these continue to be dominated and ordered by men, is insufficient. Woolf kept her gaze fixed firmly on final outcomes. She was willing to offer her one guinea if, and only if, the treasurer

10. Woolf wrote (Three Guineas 40) that, “Now that we have given one guinea towards rebuilding a college we must consider whether there is not more that we can do to help you prevent war. And it is at once obvious . . . that we must turn to the professions, because if we could persuade those who can earn their livings, and thus actually hold in their hands this new weapon, the weapon of independent opinion based upon independent income, to use that weapon against war, we should do more to help you than by appealing to those who must teach the young to earn their livings; or by lingering, however long, round the forbidden places and sacred gates of the universities where they are thus taught. This, therefore, is a more important question than the other.”

11. Woolf, Three Guineas 74.

12. Woolf, Three Guineas 59.

13. Woolf, Three Guineas 59.

14. Woolf, Three Guineas 80.

of the society could promise that “profes- sions in the future shall be practiced so that they lead to a different song and a different conclusion . . . if she can satisfy us that the guinea will be spent in the cause of peace.” Woolf argued that women’s entry into pro- fessions was worthwhile only to the extent that it could transform the social and eco- nomic structures. She envisioned a different style of professional life that would reflect the values of women: certainly not that which early female entrants to the professions en- countered, where they were restricted to the foyer, while the inner sanctum continued to be reserved for men only. To incorporate women’s values into the professional world, Woolf suggested four general premises to which women should adhere: “enough money to live on,” or modest financial independence; “chastity,” by which Woolf meant not selling one’s brain for the sake of money; “derision,” by which Woolf meant refusing all methods of advertising merit (for example, she argues that women should “fling back into the giver’s face” any badges or decrees that are given to them because censure and obscurity are pref- erable for psychological reasons to fame and praise); and “freedom from unreal loyalites,” or any form of pride." In the absence of these premises, women would continue to repro- duce the old song of the “gramophone whose needle has stuck,” and women would con- tinue to be oppressed.

Woolf incorporated many of the arguments of her first and second letters into her third. She agreed to donate a single guinea to the cause of preventing war but refused to sign the petition that sought to promote peace through the protection of cultural and intel- lectual liberty. She argued that women must distance themselves from the cultural values of patriarchy, including those of cultural and intellectual liberty, because these values sup- port the drift toward war: “Hence there is a very clear connection between culture and intellectual liberty and those photographs of �[Page 27]dead bodies and ruined houses.” As Woolf saw It:

It seems both wrong for us rationally and emotionally to fill up your form and join your society. For by doing so we should merge our identity with yours; follow and repeat and score still deeper the old worn ruts in which society, like a gramophone whose needle has stuck, is grinding out with intolerable unanimity."

In short, Three Guineas argues that hu- mankind needs to turn off the gramophone and change the “record” of patriarchy. To do this, women must be educated outside of the home, be financially independent, enter the professions, and transform professional life. Woolf explained in her third letter that the “feminist” cause is a cause for all of society, not just for women. She argued that the system of patriarchy does not just oppress women but men as well:

Our claim was no claim of women’s rights

only. . . . it was larger and deeper; it was

a claim for the rights of all—all men and

15. Woolf, Three Guineas 97.

16. Woolf, Three Guineas 105.

17. Woolf, Three Guineas 102.

18. See ‘Abdu’l-Baha, quoted in Foreword to 1982 Edition, ‘Abdul-Bahé, Promulgation of Universal Peace xii.

19, ‘Abdu’'l-Baha, Promulgation of Universal Peace 108.

20. ‘Abdwl-Baha, Promulgation of Universal Peace 15%

21. ‘Abdu'l-Baha, Promulgation of Universal Peace 75. He goes on to say:

But even this [lack of education] is not always a

shortcoming. Shall we consider it an imperfection

and weakness in her nature that she is not proficient in the school of military tactics, that she cannot go forth to the field of battle and kill, that she is not able to handle a deadly weapon? Nay, rather, is it not a compliment when we say that in hardness of heart and cruelty she is inferior to man? The woman who is asked to arm herself and kill her fellow creatures will say, “I cannot.” Is this to be consid- ered a fault and lack of qualification as man’s equal?

RAGS, PETROL, AND MATCHES 27

women. ... The daughters of educated men who were called, to their resentment, “feminists” were in fact the advance guard of your own movement. . . . they were fighting the tyranny of the patriarchal state.!”

Establishing Gender Equality More than twenty-five years before the publication of Woolf’s Three Guineas, a call to restructure society had been voiced by ‘Abdu’l-Baha. While visiting Europe and North America in 1911 and 1912 to explain the revelation of Baha'u'llah, ‘Abdu’l-Baha gave several public addresses in which He called for gender equality and outlined the relation- ship between the education of women and the prevention of war." In these addresses He declared that women will be vital in prevent- ing future armed conflicts because they will not allow their children to go to battle:

War and its ravages have blighted the world; the education of woman will be a mighty step toward its abolition and ending, for she will use her whole influence against war. Woman rears the child and educates the youth to maturity. She will refuse to give her sons for sacrifice upon the field of battle. In truth, she will be the greatest factor in establishing universal peace and international arbitration.”

Early in His speaking tour ‘Abdu’l-Baha, addressing the Federation of Women’s Clubs in Chicago, Illinois, raised the question of “What, then, constitutes the inequality of man and woman?””? In response to this question, He noted that women have been denied opportunities “which man has so long enjoyed, especially the privilege of educa- tion.””' Using the logic that Woolf would later employ in her 1936 letters, ‘Abdu’l-Baha said that education will thus enable women to enter professions:

Women shall receive an equal privilege of

education. This will enable them to qualify

and progress in all degrees of occupation �[Page 28]28 WORLD ORDER: WINTER 2001-02

and accomplishment. For the world of humanity possesses two wings: man and woman. If one wing remains incapable and defective, it will restrict the power of the other, and full flight will be impos- sible. Therefore, the completeness and perfection of the human world are depen- dent upon the equal development of these two wings.” (Emphasis added) ‘Abdu'l-Baha thus stressed that a healthy society is characterized by men’s and women’s being equally capable and by education’s being an essential component of attaining gender equality. He stated that the education of women and gender equality are fundamental for the abolition of war: “Daughters and sons must follow the same curriculum of study,

Yet be it known that if woman had been taught and trained in the military science of slaughter, she would have been the equivalent of man even in this accomplishment. But God forbid! May woman never attain this proficiency; may she never wield weap- ons of war, for the destruction of humanity is not a glorious achievement. The upbuilding of a home, the bringing of joy and comfort into human hearts are truly glories of mankind. Let not a man glory in this, that he can kill his fellow creatures; nay, rather, let him glory in this, that he can love them.

22. ‘Abdu'l-Bahé, Promulgation of Universal Peace 318.

23. ‘Abdu'l-Bahé, Promulgation of Universal Peace 175. In a talk at a women’s suffrage meeting in New York City, ‘Abdu’l-Baha said:

So it will come to pass that when women participate

fully and equally in the affairs of the world, when

they enter confidently and capably the great arena of laws and politics, war will cease; for woman will be the obstacle and hindrance to it. This is true and without doubt.” (Promulgation of Universal Peace

135)

See also Promulgation of Universal Peace 108, 284, 375.

24. ‘Abdu'l-Bahd, Promulgation of Universal Peace 283.

25. ‘Abdu’l-Bahdé, quoted in J. E. Esslemont, Bahd'ullah and the New Era: An Introduction to the Bahdi Faith, 5th rev. ed. (Wilmette, IL: Baha’{ Pub- lishing Trust, 1980) 149.

thereby promoting unity of the sexes. When all mankind shall receive the same opportu- nity of education and the equality of men and women be realized, the foundations of war will be utterly destroyed.”

While ‘Abdu’l-Baha emphasized that women and men must have equal rights and privileges in all things pertaining to human- ity, He did not focus on the shortcomings of “professions.” Rather, He stressed more broadly that women must attain equality in all spheres of life. Women must “demonstrate capability and ensure recognition of equality in the social and economic equation.” He called for a society where violence and aggression would not be rewarded—a society where feminine and masculine elements would be more balanced:

The world in the past has been ruled by force, and man has dominated over woman by reason of his more forceful and aggressive qualities both of body and mind. But the balance is already shifting; force is losing its dominance, and mental alert- ness, intuition, and the spiritual qualities of love and service, in which woman is strong, are gaining ascendancy. Hence the new age will be an age less masculine and more permeated with the feminine ideals, or, to speak more exactly, will be an age in which the masculine and feminine el- ements of civilization will be more evenly balanced.”

‘Abdu’l-Baha’s reference to “an age less mas- culine and more permeated with the femi- nine ideals” anticipates the crux of Woolf’s argument—that the current system must be feminized and the professions transformed through incorporating feminine values.

The Role of Men in Peace and War BoTH Woolf and ‘Abdu|-Baha refer to the relationship between masculinity and milita- rism. ‘Abdu’l-Baha says that women and men must “[s]trive that the ideal of international peace may become realized through the efforts �[Page 29]of womankind, for man is more inclined to war than woman... .»*° Woolf highlights three reasons why men are led to fight: “war is a profession; a source of happiness and excitement; and it is also an outlet for many qualities, without which men would deterio- rate.””” Both of these arguments highlight the need for a new conception of masculin- ity. According to Michael Kimmel, a sociolo- gist and the author of The Gendered Society, violence and masculinity go hand in hand. Kimmel argues that violence is often the most evident marker of manhood.” Boys are taught that fighting is noble, and from an early age they learn that violence is not only an accept- able form of conflict resolution but one that is admired.” A central component in ending

26. ‘Abdu'l-Bahé, Promulgation of Universal Peace 284,

27. Woolf, Three Guineas 8.

28. Michael Kimmel, “Masculinity as Homopho- bia: Fear, Shame and Silence in the Construction of Gender Identity,” in Mary M. Gergen and Sarah N. Davis, ed., Toward a New Psychology of Gender (New York: Routledge, 1997) 234.

29. Michael Kimmel, The Gendered Society (New York: Oxford UP, 2000) 10.

30. ‘Abdu’l-Baha does not say whether the differences in masculine and feminine qualities are matters of sex or matters of gender (that is, socially constructed).

31. Moojan Momen, “In All the Ways that Matter, Women Don’t Count,” Bahai Studies Review 4.1 (1994): 44, Spiritual Assemblies are administrative institutions of the Baha’{ Faith that operate at the local and na- tional levels and are elected according to Baha’{ prin- ciples. They coordinate and direct the affairs of the Baha'i community in their area of jurisdiction.

32. “In some respects woman is superior to man. She is more tender-hearted, more receptive, her intu- ition is more intense” (‘Abdu'l-Baha, Paris Talks: Ad- dresses Given by Abdu'l-Bahd in 1911, 12th ed. [London: Baha’i Publishing Trust, 1995] 50.6; ‘Abdu’l-Baha, in Esslemont, Bahd’u lah and the New Era 149).

33. Hoda Mahmoudi, “From Oppression to Equal- ity: The Emergence of the Feminist Perspective,” Jour- nal of Bahai Studies 1.3 (1989): 34.

RAGS, PETROL, AND MATCHES 29

patriarchy and, therefore, in establishing peace is to redefine manhood.

For the most part, Baha’{ writers have not examined the masculine identity but, rather, have emphasized the need to find the “bal- ance” of masculine and feminine qualities referred to by ‘Abdu'l-Baha.*° Moojan Momen, the author of a number of scholarly works on the Baha’ Faith, points out, in his article “In All the Ways that Matter, Women Don’t Count,” that we must redefine what society values. He argues that the goal of attaining gender equality cannot be achieved merely by trying to advance the position of women:

While there is no reason why we should

not try to make progress in the number

of women elected to Baha’i Assemblies, this sort of emphasis is, in reality, trying to persuade women to accept the mascu- line nature of our society and to compete with men on these patriarchal terms—it is playing into the hands of the subversive nature power. Rather, we should be look- ing at our Baha’{ communities and seeing in what ways we can make them a better arena for a genuine “feminine” contribu- tion, by both males and females.*! The question that emerges from Momen’s argument is how can men make a more “femi- nine” contribution? According to ‘Abdu |-Baha, some of the “feminine” qualities that men must cultivate are mental alertness, intuition, tender-heartedness, and receptivity.” As so- ciologist Hoda Mahmoudi argues in “From Oppression to Equality: The Emergence of the Feminist Perspectives,” “[t]he Baha’{ stand- point succinctly promotes the development of the feminine qualities over the mascu- line.”*> Mahmoudi further argues that soci- ety must enable these qualities to flourish: Therefore, the singular unanswered question, affecting both women and men as well as the survival of this planet, is how soon will the present antiquated, mori- bund global system enable the feminist qualities, characteristics, and perspective �[Page 30]30 WORLD ORDER: WINTER 2001-02

to become equally manifested within its

social structure and organization?

To answer the question Mahmoudi raises, we must consider social norms about tradi- tional “masculine” qualities. As Kimmel ar- gues, “we equate manhood with being strong, successful, capable, reliable, in control. The very definitions of manhood we have devel- oped in our culture maintain the power that some men have over other men and that men have over women.”*

The Baha'i scriptures indicate that what ultimately is needed is “balance” between qualities traditionally considered feminine and those traditionally associated with masculin- ity. These distinctions are, to a great extent, symbolic and result from how men and women are socialized to act and think. However, it can be argued that, instead of focusing on striking this balance, we often think about working toward gender equality by advanc- ing the position of women within the exist- ing system and without transforming the pa- triarchal system that is inherently oppressive to women. In the words of Momen, we tend to view gender equality as the transformation of women into “honorary males” within the patriarchy’s structure.*° Thus, while focusing on women is important, we must also focus on men. We might ask, “How can men become more feminine?” In other words, how can individuals aspire to embody all of the best qualities of both men and women? The Baha’ call for a balance between the mascu- line and feminine in society should not be interpreted to mean that men should be “masculine” and women should be “femi-

34. Mahmoudi, “From Oppression to Equality,” Journal of Bahai Studies 1.3 (1989): 35.

35. Kimmel, Gendered Society 230.

36. Momen, “In All the Ways that Matter,” Baha? Studies Review 4.1 (1994): 37.

nine.” Rather, this “balance” must be mani- fest in each individual. Both men and women need a “balance” of traditionally labeled “femi- nine” and “masculine” qualities. As Woolf argues, feminism is a claim for the rights of all, both men and women. To consider how both men and women can become more “balanced” with the qualities of love, service to others, mental alertness, and intolerance of violence, the focus must become wider.

Asking men to develop more “feminine” qualities or attributes is no easy task, espe- cially given the prevailing stereotype that “feminine” men are less than “real” men. Therefore, we must also work to challenge current notions of masculinity. How can we expect the deconstruction of patriarchy with- out a redefinition of masculinity? If men feel that, to “be manly,” they must have power over women, if “being a man” means em- bracing violence, how can we establish peace? To promote a culture of peace, opportunities for change must be made available to both men and women.

To repeat, equality, according to ‘Abdu'l- Baha, means that both men and women have access to all things pertaining to humanity. Societal definitions of “manhood,” “manli- ness,” and “masculinity” have denied men access to what are commonly held as “femi- nine” interests or qualities. These might include but are not limited to empathy, com- passion, consideration, communication, ser- vice to others, and rejection of violence. Men do not have access to all things pertaining to humanity because they are expected to reject anything that could be qualified as “femi- nine” or lay themselves open to ridicule. This ridicule may come from both men and women. As Kimmel argues, the “notion of anti-femi- ninity lies at the heart of contemporary and historical conceptions of manhood, so that masculinity is defined more by what one is rather than who one is. Historically and developmentally, masculinity has been defined as the flight from women, the repudiation of �[Page 31]femininity.”*” To create a society that is more balanced in masculine and feminine attributes, as ‘Abdu'l-Baha says, both men and women must allow men to embrace more feminine qualities.

Conclusion IN THE decades that have passed since the publication of Three Guineasand since ‘Abdu l- Baha’s public talks in Europe and North America, many of the same inequities be- tween women and men still persist. Women, at least in Western societies, have entered the portals of higher education, but Woolf’s argument can still be made—unless higher education makes a real difference, it is not sufficient. Women have entered the profes- sions, but the professions are resistant to change. In fact, they may be better at chang- ing the women. Peace has not been achieved, not even under the least rigorous of definitions as its being merely the absence of war. We continue to be, as ‘Abdu'l-Baha has said, “steeped in our fanaticisms,” and we still “cling to our prejudices”; we are “bound and

37. Kimmel, “Masculinity as Homophobia,” in Gergen and Davis, Toward a New Psychology of Gender 231.

38. ‘Abdu'l-Baha, Promulgation of Universal Peace 369.

39. Carol Gilligan, lecture, Harvard Graduate School of Education, 19 Dec. 2000.

40. ‘Abdu’l-Baha, Promulgation of Universal Peace 144,

RAGS, PETROL, AND MATCHES 31

restricted by ancient fables and superstitious of the past” and “handicapped by superan- nuated beliefs and the ignorances of dark ages, waging religious wars, fighting and shedding blood, shunning and anathematiz- ing each other.”** Clearly, as Woolf suggested, men and women must lift the needle off the annoying “record” of patriarchy. Feminist scholar Carol Gilligan has updated this anal- ogy, arguing that patriarchy is “the story we are set to repeat unless we change the set- tings.” Not until this happens, not until women and men “lift the needle” and “change the settings” will world peace be possible. A new kind of education and a new approach to professions, both valuing a balance be- tween the feminine and the masculine, will point the way to peace. Women, Woolf ar- gues, cannot prosper in a patriarchal society; but neither can men. To ‘Abdul-Baha the solution is more fundamental and more radi- cal: All conditions and requisites of the past unfitted and inadequate for the present time are undergoing radical reform. . . . New remedies and solutions for human problems must be adopted. Human intel- lects themselves must change and be sub- ject to the universal reformation. . . . We must investigate the divine source of these heavenly bestowals and adhere unto them steadfastly. For if we remain fettered and restricted by human inventions and dog- mas, day by day the world of mankind will be degraded, day by day warfare and strife will increase and satanic forces con- verge toward the destruction of the hu- man race.” �[Page 32]32

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Perspectives on Population, Environment, and Development

A REVIEW OF DANGEROUS INTERSECTIONS: FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES ON POPULATION, ENVIRONMENT, AND DEVELOPMENT, ED. JAEL SILLIMAN AND YNESTRA KING (CAMBRIDGE: SOUTH END P, 1999) XXIV + 283 PAGES

BY JIA-YI CHENG-LEVINE

TT: CURRENT state of the environment has invoked concern on the part of, and action from, various political parties, nongovernmental agencies, and religious organizations. Several decades of effort in defending women, minority groups, and the natural world against further harm have led activists to believe that environmental, minority, and gender issues are interrelated and that the problems are perpetuated by the unbalanced relationships between humans and nature, men and women, and one culture with another. The intersections of racism, sexism, and classism have prompted many feminists interested in the environment to investigate the full range of women’s rights issues and to work at local, national, and global levels for social and environ- mental justice. The collective efforts of an international, multicultural, multiethnic alliance of well-known and highly respected feminist activists and scholars from the Committee on Women, Population, and the Environment have resulted in a collection of thirteen critical essays— Dangerous Intersections: Feminist Perspectives on Population, Environment, and Development, edited by Jael Silliman and Ynestra King. Although the contributors to this book are not writing from a Baha'i perspective, their beliefs in human rights, in the equality between women and men, and in the elimination of all forms of prejudice such as racism and sexism are similar to Baha’{ teachings on the topics. Baha’ is will recognize in this collection a valuable step in what must necessarily be a long journey toward a more enlightened understanding of the nature of, and the interrelationship between, humanity and its place in the environment. Moreover, Baha’i readers and, indeed, all forward-thinking readers will find this collection of essays both interesting and encouraging. In effect,

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it reflects the collaborative spirit essential to the core of the Baha’i community, as urged by Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Baha’i Faith.

Dangerous Intersections examines how gender, race, class, and environmental issues intersect within their political, historical, and socioeconomic contexts. The book calls for new approaches to current global issues and problems such as women’s rights, the environment, and population control. The essays reveal the racism, sexism, and classism hidden behind the population-control rhetoric common to many politicians and nongovernmental organizations in which overpopulation and immigration are seen as the source of the world’s envi- ronmental problems. The authors of these essays offer alternative approaches at all levels of society, which allow and encourage women to become agents in control of their own lives and promoters of the health of the planet.

Jael Silliman, women’s rights activist for the past two decades and author of several articles on women’s health, population, and environmental justice issues, explains in her introduction to Dangerous Intersections that the mission of the Committee on Women, Population, and the Environment (CWPE) is to investigate “the reasons why a variety of environmental, social, and security issues are defined or presented as population problems.” CWPE “rejects the simplistic projection of population growth as the major source of environmen- tal degradation.” It is a belief, Silliman argues, that ignores other historical causes and structural problems such as “complicated histories of colonialism, corporate extraction, government policies and subsidies, economic inequali- ties, and growing fundamentalism worldwide that are, in fact, more pertinent [to environmental degradation and other poverty problems] than overpopu- lation.” In Silliman’s view, the process of globalization, the abuse of economic and political power by international corporations, and the encouragement of privatization of land have debilitated the poor, people of color, and women. Silliman points out that the failure to analyze current policies leads to a concomitant failure to understand properly the structural and ideological causes that disenfranchise and impoverish the poor and women.

‘Two statements—one by the Committee on Women, Population, and the Environment and one by the Political Ecology Group (PEG)—provide the philosophical framework for the book. The CWPE statement calls for new approaches in assessing environmental problems and in ensuring that resources and “culturally appropriate and comprehensive” health services are accessible to women, especially women and children of color. These approaches as delineated by CWPE find their counterpart in the Baha’{ Faith’s advocacy of preserving and developing local culture to preserve the world’s diversity. The PEG statement directs the attention of those concerned with the environmen- tal crisis to the wasteful habits and excess consumption of economically privileged countries. PEG advocates environmental policies that will better the lives of the deprived, especially immigrants. Both statements establish the strong links that exist between women’s rights, immigrant rights, democracy, social justice, and the health of the environment.

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Betsy Hartmann: The Environment and Security Betsy Hartmann’s opening essay “Population, Environment, and Security: A New Trinity” focuses on the connection between the environment and security. It critiques Canadian political scientist Thomas Homer-Dixon’s “scarcity- conflict model” (scarcity in natural resources leads to internal and interna- tional conflicts that interrupt security and peace) that has dominated foreign policy, population-control theories, and environmental regulations in the past few decades. This model was eagerly embraced by politicians and scientists who found it convenient for shifting the blame for political turmoil onto population and environmental stresses. Women, with their reproductive ca- pacity, are an obvious and central target of the scarcity-conflict model. Women, the model says, “implicitly become the breeders of both environmental de- struction and violence.” This model was further popularized by journalist Robert Kaplan, whose influential article, “The Coming Anarchy” —published in 1994—adds racism to the theory by describing West Africa as “a hopeless scene of overpopulation, squalor, environmental degradation, and violence, where young men are postmodern barbarians,” a description that reintroduces and justifies racist colonial assumptions about Africa and its people.

Hartmann then questions the motive behind the U.S. military’s involve- ment in environmental activities in Africa. In almost twenty countries in Africa, the U.S. military assists in such environmental activities as game-park preservation and water-resource management. Hartmann believes that envi- ronmental concerns should be addressed by civilian agencies in partnership with local people. It is a fundamental contradiction to have the military engaged in environmental activities when it has been the cause of a great deal of environmental devastation. “Turning the environment into an object of national security risks undermining the positive forms of global environmental thinking and cooperation” and justifies the U.S.’s military control of those countries.

When “violence and instability are blamed on population pressures and resource scarcities,” overpopulation, which leads to blaming women of color, has now become “conventional wisdom in mainstream environmental and foreign policy circles.” For example, overpopulation was a major cause of the genocide in Rwanda. Uneasy with gender and race biased assumptions, Hartmann debunks the population myth by pointing out that the “systematic inequalities” in the distribution of wealth, resources, and power have caused more stress on the environment than women’s fertility has.

Asoka Bandarage: Population and Migration ASOKA Bandarage’s article “Population and Development: Toward a Social Justice Agent” examines the historical development of population and inter- national migration and its effect on the environment. Bandarage lists three key causes of environmental degradation: colonialism, which reenforced the subordination of women and greatly contributed to migration later on; in-

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dustrial capitalism, which increases the disparity between rich and poor; and modern technology, which further aggravates resource depletion. The author, however, fails to provide examples of the three causes. Instead, she gives detailed explanations of how colonialism, which required large supplies of labor, induced migration in the colonies.

Bandarage focuses the second part of her essay on the widening of global inequality based on race, class, and gender. The connection with her earlier discussion about population and migration is not clear, although her research shows clearly the growing disparity in wealth and income between rich and poor countries since 1960. She also critiques the military establishment by arguing that political and economic disparities based on gender, class, and race are exacerbated by militarism, which, through increased arms sales, promotes the economic dependency of the Third World. Bandarage then guides the reader through an important, but often neglected, examination of how mili- tarism and patriarchy have contributed greatly to poverty and environmental degradation in the Third World. As a solution, she suggests that “poverty alleviation and the economic empowerment of women must be the corner- stone of population policy,” which requires a paradigm shift from a world that favors corporate profit and technological advancement to a world that gives priority to the “survival of humans and the environment.” Her perspective on the deleterious effects of militarism is echoed by next author, Patricia Hynes.

Patricia Hynes: The Population Equation and Consumption PatriclA Hynes’ “Taking Population Out of the Equation: Reformulating I=PAT Model,” although a bit tedious to read, proposes an ideological ref- ormation of population policy. The present I=PAT equation argues that “The impact of humans on the environment (I) is a product of the number of people (P), the amount of goods consumed per person (A), and the pollution gen- erated by technology per good consumed (T).” In other words, “I=PAT, where I is units of pollution.” Hynes finds fault with this model and reformulates the equation by first splitting the right side of the equation into consumption based on survival (such as the use of land, water, and forests) and consumption based on luxury (golf courses and private planes, for example). With this distinction, Hynes introduces social justice into environmental protection and criticizes the consumerism model propagated by modern corporate culture. Hynes’ second correction to the model adds militarism to the right side of the equation since the military population has consumed much of the national budget, created pollution, promoted increased extraction of natural resources, and generated problems of waste disposal by its increased production of weapons. One might well add to the list the wars waged against the people and the land of poor countries. Since militarism and modern science are dominated by patriarchy, Hynes suggests taking the “population” of I=PAT and replacing it with “patriarchy,” while adding conservation and restoration as factors in determining the human impact on the environment. She advocates

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replacing the population framework with a feminist framework that promotes ecological education and literacy for both women and men.

In a second essay, “Consumption: North American Perspectives,” Hynes analyzes the causes of environmental devastation from a different perspec- tive—that of excess consumption. She calls for reducing and changing con- sumption patterns that are hostile to the environment. Research done by Worldwatch Institute researcher Alan Durning on the demographics of con- sumption in the United States, tracing the origins of the “consumer society” to the 1920s, shows that mass marketing has instilled in the American public since 1945 the idea that “greater purchasing power and growing choice in the marketplace guarantee a better (and happier) life.” Economist Juliet Schor’s study shows that, compared to people in the 1950s, people are now reported not “happier” than four decades ago, despite the fact that “people now pur- chase almost twice the number of consumer goods and services.” From both During’s and Schor’s research, Hynes asks the readers to rethink and modify their consuming habits and lifestyles. She offers a “voluntary simplicity,” or “new frugality,” movement—“to live better with less,” a model provided by the best-selling book Your Money or Your Life. Hynes’ two essays are complex, but the patient reader is well repaid by her sound arguments and specific suggestions for changing the fundamentally detrimental ideological constructs that are harming our planet.

Meredeth Turshen: Tanzania and Environmental Deterioration MEREDETH Turshen’s case study “The Ecological Crisis in Tanzania” offers an explicit example of the theoretical concepts proposed in the previous essays. Turshen provides the reader with arguments that refute the World Bank’s assumption that population growth is a major cause of environmental dete- rioration in Tanzania. Examining with a critical eye the international policies and the gender inequality in the social structure in Tanzania, Turshen con- cludes that the Tanzanian government's development policies and its allowing foreign donors to prioritize cash crops are key to the environmental devastation of the country. In her study, the author emphasizes the importance of exam- ining the environment in its local context to make culturally and economically appropriate policy adjustments.

Meredith Tax and Others: Cultural Diversity SEEKING culturally appropriate solutions to environmental problems, Meredith Tax and fifteen other “politically committed” women writers from Women’s WORLD (Women’s World Organization for Rights, Literature, and Develop- ment) coauthor “Power of the Word: Culture, Censorship, and Voice.” Because of their gender and political stance, some of these women have been targets of religious censorship; some have been imprisoned; and some live in exile. These writers argue for the central role of cultural development in all areas of life, such as gender equality, rights to literacy, and environmental policies,

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for culture defines people’s values. The postindustrial capitalist influence in creating a global monoculture has threatened cultural diversity. Gender-biased censorship has muted women’s diverse voices when their views are not in accord with the dominant ideology and has excluded women from political discourse by denying validity to their experience and opinions. Gender-biased censorship has also led to female illiteracy by not investing in girls’ education and by not encouraging girls to have ambitions beyond motherhood: Such cultural practices and values add up to censorship, “for women without education can seldom find a voice.”

After documenting twelve cases of gender-biased censorship around the world, Tax and her coauthors underline the significant role of women writers, particularly those who express their discontent with the patriarchal ideology of domination. As the authors put it, “Women writers are a threat to systems built on gender hierarchy because they open doors for other women.” The cultural development of a country relies on “women’s development as full human beings, ready to speak out and take their place in running society.” Therefore, gender-biased censorship, which attacks women writers for having their own voices, challenging the status quo, and critiquing patriarchy, needs to be fought to ensure the cultural development of a country and the cultural diversity of the world. The authors conclude their argument with this powerful statement:

The progressive response to an imposed monoculture is not censorship, but

the development of democratic, diverse, lively cultures with room for all

our voices. Cultural development . . . is an essential part of remaking a

world in which the dreadful imbalance between rich and poor, strong and

weak, men and women, humans and other species, is becoming a death sentence not only for millions of people, but for the earth itself.

Joni Seager: Patriarchy, Power, Militarism, and Environment JONI Seager examines in detail in her essay “Patriarchal Vandalism: Militaries and the Environment” how “patriarchy, power, militarism, and environmental destruction” intersect and thus make “a culture of destruction” in the name of national security. Considering militaries as “privileged environmental van- dals” and “powerful environmental ravagers,” Seager’s pointed feminist analysis of the world’s obsession with the “militarized ‘cult of masculinity’” uncovers the process of worldwide environmental destruction caused by militaries. She warns that an environmental analysis that does not take into account the roles of militaries at both local and global levels will not be effective. If we want to change the aggressive ideology inherent in military practices, we must “come to terms with gender.” Extremely accessible and impassioned, Seager’s essay is essential to understanding the connection between militarism and a “culture of destruction” cultivated by “hypermasculinity.” In light of the current situ- ation, when the United States and the world are facing international terrorism after the attack on September 11, 2001, and are using “anti-terrorist” rhetoric

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as the driving force in waging war against Afghanistan, Seager’s analysis of the military culture and the nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan is timely and presents an alternate point of view that merits consideration.

Justine Smith: Native American Communities SEAGER’S analysis in “Patriarchal Vandalism” of military forces complements Justine Smith’s article on Native Americans. Smith’s article examines various aspects of frequently misunderstood issues in Native American communities such as repatriation, self-governance, and gaming. Smith points out that many Native reservations are close to military bases that produce large quantities of lethally toxic pollutants; some of these reservations suffer from the exploitation of multinational corporations such as Exxon that violate the treaty rights of Native Americans by polluting the water through mining or drilling. Smith refers briefly to the danger of isolating social justice and human-rights issues from the environment and native sovereignty. When social-justice movements focus on “divide-and-conquer tactics,” what they achieve is to “win the battle but lose the war.” Smith and Native Americans believe that the sovereignty framework (which guarantees to Native Americans their treaty rights; their rights to mining and fishing, which are essential to many Native communities’ survival; and their rights to self-governance and regulation) recognizes the complex issues within a comprehensive paradigm. By citing a violation of a mining treaty by Exxon Corporation in northern Wisconsin, Smith shows how the effects of mining can be felt “from the classroom to the doctor’s office.” Smith then shows how native sovereignty can impact social- and environmen- tal-justice movements on the global level, for the degradation of the environ- ment that threatens Native Americans’ survival, she emphasizes, does not stop at the political borders.

Marsha Darling: Self-Determination and Medical Treatment

for Black American Women

Two essays that focus on the social construction of sexuality among black

American women provide a hard look at historical accounts that document

the denial of black females’ self-determination and at the history of the

medical mistreatment, the malpractice, and the experimentation inflicted on them.

The first essay—Marsha Darling’s “The State: Friend or Foe? Distributive Justice Issues and African American Women”—examines laws and policies in the United States that have denied to black women the right to speak for themselves. Drawing on ample examples of “eugenics racism” and misogyny, Darling also shows that laws and policies have proven to be hostile to black women’s sexuality and reproductive capacity. Using a rhetoric designed to control impoverished black women’s fertility “for their own good,” local, state, and national policy, the press, much of the social-science scholarship, and popular culture, by depicting black women as promiscuous and lazy, Darling

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argues, have boxed them in with negative stereotypical images that degrade them. These agencies increase the marginalization of poor black women and deepen poverty for black children.

Darling questions two things: (1) the exercise of constitutional rights to privacy and equal protection; and (2) the possible abuse of poor black women in the field of genetic biomedical technology. Darling shows how public policies have been “inimical to the rights of privacy in motherhood, medical confidentiality for at-risk women, and civil-rights protection from coercion in the context of informed consent and choice” for poor black females. As white public officials warn about the declining white fertility rates, black women’s fertility is much feared. Genetic biomedical technology, therefore, steps in to introduce the use of contraceptive drugs, the promotion of which among black women, Darling argues, “continue[s] to blur the line between coercion and choice.” Darling’s essay shows how racism and sexism are com- bined to suppress black women. Unfortunately, although Darling’s essay succeeds in exposing the problem, it lacks a workable solution that will allow black women to break away from the vicious cycle imposed by the societal infra- structure that Darling views as inherently racist and sexist.

April Taylor: Contraceptives and Black Women DaRLING’s concern about biomedical technology is shared by April Taylor, whose essay “High-Tech, Pop-A-Pill” exposes corporate attempts to target black women’s bodies for profit. She offers critical examinations of two con- traceptives: Norplant, a problematic and controversial implant that suppresses ovulation, and Depo-Provera, a synthetic hormone the functioning of which resembles that of Norplant. Marketing these contraceptives, especially to the black community under the mask of “control,” “freedom,” and “choice,” without properly warning potential users about the risks of prolonged use, Taylor believes, further disenfranchises black women. Addressing issues similar to those discussed by Darling, Taylor suggests solutions for black women. She wants them to educate themselves and work together so that they can question “the medical-industrial complex, which manufactures a corporate vision of health” at the cost of their mental and physical health. This essay is particularly interesting in that it educates women in general on the danger of certain contraceptives. However, it does not provide a clear connection between the contraceptives issue and environmental destruction, the core issue of Danger- ous Intersections.

Jael Silliman and Andy Smith: Women’s Organizations, Patriarchy, and Population

Two articles—Jael Silliman’s essay “Expanding Civil Society, Shrinking Po- litical Spaces: The Case of Women’s Nongovernmental Organizations” on women’s nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and Andy Smith's discussion “Christian Responses to the Population Paradigm” on Christian responses to

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the population issue—scrutinize existing women’s organizations and frame- works. Silliman examines how NGOs, especially NGOs funded or led by women, challenge patriarchal ideology. However, Silliman cautions women’s NGOs against “replicat[ing] the corporate model of organization” that ignores the principles of reciprocity and community solidarity. Smith reflects on how Euro-American Christian feminists have failed to address many critical issues regarding the population paradigm and women of color because they do not base their research and analysis on the work done by women living in Third World countries. She challenges liberal Protestants to stop distracting them- selves with racist and sexist population theory and to mount a genuine social- justice movement that targets the harmful economic structures promulgated by the corporate world. She states that, if communities of color continue to be subjected to racist population policies, reproductive rights as defined by Euro-Americans will not serve effectively the needs of Third World commu- nities. The reader may find that Smith’s essay leaves one with more questions than resolutions on the topic, for it fails to offer Christian perspectives on this issue, even though the author calls for a Christian ethic that gives serious consideration to the lives and opinions of Third World women. The Christian ethic is never actually explicated in the essay. Instead, Smith focuses on criticizing various Christian scholars’ rhetorical constructs within the discourse of overpopulation.

Marlene Gerbre Fried: The Pro-Choice Movement MarLENE Gerbre Fried’s article “Legal, But . . . : Abortion Access in the United States,” although worth reading for its argument in making pro-choice a right guaranteed to women, especially young and poor ones, seems to be an odd ending to the book, for it lacks a connection to the issues of environment, population, and development that the book sets out to examine. Although the editor, Jael Silliman, states in her introduction that Fried has broadened the issues of coercive population control by untangling the often conflicting arguments between feminist critiques of population policy and the anti- abortion movement’s opposition to abortion, the article seems to be more of a review of the contrapuntal historical development of anti-abortion and pro- choice movements. As such, the final essay in Dangerous Intersections does not provide any resolution to the intersecting issues of the environment, popu- lation, and development.

The Challenge Dangerous Intersections, despite its minor flaws in the choice of some articles that do not establish strong connections to the book’s subject, is a broad discussion of gender, race, and class issues that are inextricably linked to current environmental problems. The book challenges the inherited ideologies that degrade both women and the environment; it reflects on historical events that denigrate women of color; and some articles, such as those by Patricia

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Hynes, Justine Smith, Meredeth Turshen, Meredith Tax and her coauthors, and Jael Silliman, suggest ways in which women can assume control of their own lives and influence the life of the planet. The book’s significance lies in its explorations of the ecological crisis and of women’s roles in environmental and social movements. Although some readers may find it surprising, as this reviewer did, that certain authors, such as Vandana Shiva, are barely mentioned in this collection, the essays are thoughtful, well researched, and well written and cover a wide range of disciplines including history, gender studies, phi- losophy, psychology, human geography, and social sciences. These women want their studies to act as a corrective to the aforementioned issues, and they hope that, through their collective efforts, they can, as Silliman says in the book’s introduction, encourage intellectuals and activists to “work across sectoral concerns,” “to engage in different intellectual dialogues and political conver- sations,” and to work toward a world that is truly democratic and socially and environmentally just, a world where gender equality is no longer a struggle but a norm and world peace is not a dream but an attainable reality.

Intersections and Spiritual Reality IN THEIR effort to address the problems facing the world today, the essays in Dangerous Intersections lack, as does the world at large, the vision to address the spiritual reality of human existence, which is the undeniable spiritual connection between the Creator and the world.

The writings of Bahaé’ullah, the Founder of the Baha’{ Faith, explain that nature “in its essence is the embodiment of . . . [His] Name, the Maker, the Creator” and that it “is God’s Will and is its expression in and through the contingent world”; it is also “endowed with a power whose reality men of learning fail to grasp.”' The relationship between humankind and the envi- ronment, therefore, is a purposeful reflection of the bounty of God; this implies that nature is to be respected and protected. Many environmental problems we face today arise from our lack of accountability: We have a duty to take care of the earth. If we see nature as a mirror of the divine will, we cannot help but preserve its beauty for the sake of coming generations. As for the current problematic paradigm in the relationship between men and women and that among various races and classes, we can look into the most essential Baha’{ teachings: unity and equality between women and men and among all races, as well as universal education. Once we accept these spiritual realities, our task becomes clearer; we have a way to measure and categorize priorities and to resolve conflicting interests and theories.

1. Baha u'llah, Tablets of Bahd’ullah revealed after the Kitdb-i-Aqdas, comp. Research Depart- ment of the Universal House of Justice, trans. Habib Taherzadeh et al., 1st ps ed. (Wilmette, IL: Baha’{ Publishing Trust, 1988) 142.

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The beauty of the Baha’i teachings lies in their fundamental spirit of unity and equality and their ultimate goal of promoting world peace. To reach the point of peace and enlightenment, to build a world that is socially and environmentally just, as propounded in Dangerous Intersections, humanity needs first to recognize its foundational unity. As Baha’u'll4h writes: “The well- being of mankind, its peace and security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established.”?

The world has many practical problems to address, but, unless we also address fundamental issues that have to do with our very purpose for being, issues that are essentially spiritual in nature, the world’s problems will remain splintered, intractable, and self-perpetuating. Dangerous Intersections helps to clarify issues related to population, the environment, and development and thus adds to the discourse illuminating the need for a fundamental spiritual vision that will provide the framework for lasting solutions.

2. Bahd’u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, trans. Shoghi Effendi, Ist ps ed. (Wilmette, IL: Baha’i Publishing Trust, 1983) 286.

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AfterWord

NOTES ON CEDAW, AFGHANISTAN, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, AND THE TAHIRIH JUSTICE CENTER

The centuries-old approach to gender inequality is changing. Our challenge is to become part of the efforts to bring about new ways of interacting that will, in the end, ensure justice for women and for men, individually and in concert. We are pleased to highlight three such efforts—international, national, and per- sonal—in this issue.

—THE Epirors

INTERNATIONAL INEQUALITY:

LESSONS FROM AFGHANISTAN

Afghanistan will forever serve as a reminder of what can happen to a society in which half of its population is deprived of fundamental human rights. The events of September 11, 2001, and the ensuing war with Afghanistan turned the world’s attention to the lives of women under a regime that denied its citizens the right to education, health care, economic independence, and political decision making. For the first time in the history of the United States, a First Lady took to the airwaves, addressing her nation and sharing her astonishment at how in the twenty-first century more than 60 percent of a country’s inhabitants could be deprived of fundamental human rights. What comes as an even greater surprise is that the only international instrument that addresses comprehensively women’s rights within political, cultural, economic, social, and family life—the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (Women’s Convention or CEDAW )—has not yet been ratified by either Afghanistan or the United States.

The United States was active in drafting the Convention. President Carter signed the treaty on July 17, 1980, and the Convention was sent to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in November 1980 for a vote on ratification, where it has languished to date. On April 18, 2002, Senator Joseph Biden (D- DE), the new chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, announced that he intended to hold hearings on CEDAW on May 15, 2002. For nearly

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WORLD ORDER: WINTER 2001-02

a decade representatives of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of the United States have served as cochairs of the NGO Working Group for the ratification of CEDAW and, together with more than one hundred human rights, women’s rights, and religious organizations, have applauded the Senate leadership in calling for hearings on this important international women’s rights instrument.

For a treaty to be ratified by the U.S. Senate, a two-thirds majority vote (sixty-seven votes) is needed. The next several weeks and months will be critical in garnering support from the Senators and making sure that the United States is no longer in the company of countries that have not ratified the international “Bill of Rights” for women. To find out how you can help bring about the ratification of the Women’s Convention in the U.S. please visit <http://www.us.bahai.org/extaffairs/cedaw/cedaw_index.html> and play a part in establishing an ever-advancing civilization.

ELIMINATING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE:

EFFORTS IN THE UNITED STATES

On another front, the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of the United States, “In response to the alarming incidence of domestic violence in the United States and in accordance with its responsibilities to promote social justice,” is “intensifying its efforts to increase awareness in the Baha'i com- munity of the importance of gender equality and the devastating impact on families and society of failure to act on this principle.” The issue of domestic violence is situated in pivotal Baha’{ teachings on unity, the interrelationship of all humanity, and justice. When the light of justice is veiled, the result is inequalities based on prejudices that lead to oppression and tyranny—revo- lutions, wars, and crimes against humanity at the international level; domestic violence at the family level.

The challenges of the National Spiritual Assembly’s program lie in our recognizing and accepting that gender equality “is not yet a reality in American society or in the Baha’{ community and that fundamental changes in attitudes and behavior must take place in individuals and families for social justice to be achieved.” The second challenge is more difficult: applying “the principle of gender equality in daily life in the absence of established behavioral models.” The goal is “zero tolerance for domestic violence” and developing “ever more refined models of behavior in keeping with Baha’{ standards of conduct.”

An outgrowth of the National Spiritual Assembly’s work on domestic violence is Lifetime TV’s inviting it, along with other organizations working in the area, to participate in a television campaign to Stop Violence Against Women. Several panel discussions of national and international experts have been taped and will be aired in small segments in the spring of 2002. The panels cover such topics as preventing violence and seeking justice, services

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and employment challenges to stop violence, and the international fight against violence. The latter panel was organized by Leila R. Milani, the National Spiritual Assembly’s External Affairs Liaison for Women’s Issues. Information about getting involved in Lifetime TV’s campaign to Stop Violence Against Women (and about air dates of the panel discussions) can be found at <http://www.lifetimetv.com/our_commitment/violence/index.html>.

ONE PERSON CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE:

THE TAHIRIH JUSTICE CENTER

The Tahirih Justice Center was founded in 1997 by Layli Miller after she represented a woman from Africa whose asylum claim on the basis of female genital mutilation was the first to be recognized by the U.S. government. Miller, inspired by her faith, named the center after a poet, scholar, and Baha’i who fought for women’s rights in mid-nineteenth century Iran. The Center “seeks to bring justice to the lives of women facing international human rights abuses by transforming policies and law though direct services, outreach, and advocacy.” The Center works with abused women and mail-order brides in African, Middle Eastern, and Asian countries. Miller’s approach to violence against women is grounded in her Baha’{ beliefs that call both individuals and society to new levels of understanding and action. In an interview published in the February 2002 Minerva 22, published by the World Federalist Asso- ciation, Miller said, “It’s very important, I think, that women and men be involved at the very, very local level with regard to the treatment of women. Husbands and wives, brothers and sisters need to address issues of respect and treatment and behavior, while at the same time we also need laws and policies to transform the way we operate. We need both at once.”

Miller went on to note that, “if women are to enjoy rights irrespective of local cultural values, they have to have a belief system that transcends local traditional values—“a value system that sees ourselves as global citizens, that sees ourselves as part of one world, and a value system that will allow the transcendence of a pattern of behavior that’s thousands of years old and rooted in a local culture or in a local tribe. So it is important that we view ourselves as citizens of really one world, and that we see our unity both in terms of ideology, and in terms of our caring for each other, our involvement in the issues of each other, and our assistance to each other.” The establishment of the Tahirih Justice Center is an example of how one person can make a difference in the struggle for gender equality.

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Tahirih: Mother (for Anne)

“Tahirih,” scarlet name

with a meaning dogwood white! Tahirih, primal flame

that casts a bridal light!

How many flee from your difficult truth and kill against your call!

O mother of time’s renewing youth,

O mother of us all,

You left your scarf by a crumbling well— white with a rusty stain—

the ring of your poems’ awakening bell, and the cry of delivery’s pain:

I'd take your scarf if my hands were clean and make a manly vest,

but ring and cry both seem to mean

that daughters wear it best.

—Bret Breneman

-—

Bret BRENEMAN is an English teacher who is taking time off for freelance writing and serving as a tour guide for student groups at Colonial Williamsburg.

Jia-Y1 CHENG-LEVINE received her Ph.D. in English from Indiana University and is now Assistant Professor of English at the University of Houston-Downtown. She teaches a wide array of subjects including Asian American literature, Mexican Ameri- can literature, and gender studies. Her research interests include the relationship between gender and the environment in literature.

JEANNE GAZEL obtained her Ph.D. from Michigan State University in American Studies with a special focus on race rela- tions and women’s studies. Since 1998 she has served as Director of the Multi-Racial Unity Living Experience, an undergradu- ate race-relations program at her alma mater. She has also worked closely with organi- zations to implement training and devel- opment programs on race relations and diversity.

FORTHCOMING

ERIN MurPHy-GRaHaM is working toward an Ed.D. in Administration, Planning, and Social Policy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She has an M.Sc. in Comparative and International Educa- tion (with Distinction) from St. Antony’s College at Oxford University. Murphy- Graham has received a number of awards for her work including Outstanding Stu- dent in Latin American Studies from the New England Conference on Latin Ameri- can Studies.

JANET TOMKINS, who holds a bachelor’s degree in English and a Master’s degree in sociology from the University of Nebraska, is a homemaker.

ART CREDITS: Cover design, John Solarz, cover photograph, Stan Phillips; p. 3, Darius Himes; p. 7, Nat Daniels; p. 12, Simintaj Soroushazri; p. 22, 32, Steve Garrigues; p. 43, Simintaj Soroushazri; p.

44, Stan Phillips.

. . » = Marie Scheffer, “Reflections on the Meaning of Career

and Planning”

An Anthology of Poetry introduced by Herbert Woodward Martin Firuz Kazemzadeh, “Years of Silence: A Review”

M. Eric Horton, “Gregory Nava’s E/ Norte” Tom Kubala, “Wholeness as a Worldview: The Impact of Unity on Architecture

= Geoffrey W. Marks, “Reflections on the Completion of the Terraces, Gardens,

and Buildings on Mt. Carmel”

= June Manning Thomas, “Racism an

anG: si

d the Planning of Urban Space”

= A special Fall 2002 issue on the International Criminal Court

ae

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