October is NDVAM

I know it’s just barely September, but preparation involves advance notice, and so I’m here to talk about October—National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. You’ve probably seen and read and heard a lot about verbal and physical violence against women lately—conversation about sexual assault (especially on college campuses) and the new domestic violence policies in the NFL have been center stage. There’s a lot you can do to educate yourself about what’s happening in your community and communities around the nation and world—this month, next month, and every month.

Are you a student? Think and talk about the violence against women on your campus.
Are you employed? Think and talk about the violence against women in your workplace.
Are you a voter? Think and talk about the violence against women in your government.
Are you a sports fan? Think and talk about the violence against women perpetrated by professional male athletes.
Are you a person of faith? Think and talk about the violence against women in your sacred texts, your denomination, your congregation.

Where I live, the organization my family and I routinely support is the Community Resource Center—check it out, especially if you’re in San Diego.

Wherever you live, somebody is working to end violence against women and children. You can, too. Start with these websites if you don’t know who the changemakers are in your community. 
Find out what you can donate, when you can volunteer, to whom you can listen, to whom you can speak out. Let me know what you find.

www.ncadv.org
www.nomore.org
www.ncdsv.org 
www.thehotline.org 
www.incite-national.org 
www.futureswithoutviolence.org

www.vday.org 

#YesAllWomen

I've been a little busy (you know, graduating from seminary) and so I haven't been here, addressing all the things that have caught my attention in the last few months. My newfound freedom (this week has already been sprinkled with "what now?" and "I think I'm bored" more than once) allows for some words on #YesAllWomen, and what that has to do with me.

I've been mulling over just how I want to talk about it, and a lot of that has to do with how everyone else has chosen to talk about it. If you've been on the internet in the last week, you've seen a lot more think pieces about misogyny than you're used to (unless you're me and you follow feminist writers who rarely put down the subject). You've seen the responses from men and women in support and in opposition. I don't really want to give you the scoop on who thought it was great and who thought it was stupid--you have the rest of the internet for that information. What I want to tell you is how I experienced it. Because this is my blog and that's what I do here.

On Saturday night (5/24) I crawled into bed after a wonderfully busy day of graduating and celebrating. I checked Facebook and Instagram to like some more of my classmates' pictures, and then perused twitter to see what had gone on that day, since I'd been largely absent. My feed was full of tweets and retweets tagged #YesAllWomen, sharing stories of harassment and trauma and the added terror of never being heard.

Women empowered each other to tell the world just what it is that we suffer day in and day out. We talked about everyday street harassment: catcalls, demands for smiles, lewd gestures, being followed, additional harassment for refusing advances. We talked about bars: unwanted chatter, drinks that demand something in return, being anonymously groped, additional harassment for refusing advances. We talked about dates: fear of the semi-stranger we'd agreed to meet, escape plans, "got home safe" text messages.

We talked about things like the number of men who hadn't called us for a third date after we'd said "no" to sex on the second. We talked about male friends who regularly use "rape" in sentences that are not about rape. We talked about male friends who think catcalls are compliments. We talked about talking to our friends and partners about our experiences, and about their less-than-thoughtful responses. We talked about how we hadn't necessarily thought about all of these things as misogyny before, but recognized the implications that our bodies were something to which those men felt entitled, and their ability to brush off our worst fears.

In addition, of course, to talking about all of our fears, we talked about why we have these fears in the first place. We talked about stranger rape, and date rape, and partner rape. We talked about intimate partner violence of all kinds. We talked about being attacked on the street and having onlookers literally look on. We talked about stalkers and about police departments who couldn't help until there was a crime committed.

The point is that we talked. We learned more about each other, we learned more about our common lives, we learned more about how to talk to children and adults about the realities of violence. I learned about how common my experiences (and the experiences of my friends) have been. It's hard to explain how gross it feels to feel lucky that I have never been raped. It's a little bit grosser to debate with myself about putting a "yet" in that sentence.

If you're male, think about the ways in which your behavior could be perceived as scary to women. If you can't think of any examples, ask a female friend or your female partner, if you have one. She may love you, but she can probably think of one. And when she next tells you about the harassment she received on her way to your house, worry about that. And when you're next with your male friends and one of them says or does something you think even borders on sexism or misogyny or harassment, say so. That's what it takes.

If you haven't spent time in the #YesAllWomen hashtag, mosey on over and read for yourself what's up. Think about the ways in which you interact with your fellow humans. I know, right? That's really all I'm asking.

What do you think about school vouchers?

I'm taking a class from the Jesuit school called "Religion and Politics in the United States" and it is way awesome, as you might imagine. Every week, I want to write about what happened but I'm like so fired up and so I just speak to people about it in real life. I just remembered, that, in real life, I spoke to Anne about class last week and told her I'd write about it, too. So here we are!

In class, we talked about how the first amendment establishes freedom of and from religion. A major subject of this week's conversation was education, particularly school vouchers. For those of you not familiar, vouchers are part of a system where the government gives parents money to send their kids to a private school that they would not be able to afford otherwise, in order to provide their child with the best education available.

There are so many sides to this story, but mine starts with being pro-public school. I freely admit that I grew up in an upper-middle-class neighborhood and went to great public schools because they were funded by upper-middle-class tax dollars and upper-middle-class PTAs, etc. So I recognize that I come from an ideal public school situation. But it is my goal, then, that all public schools could be like my public schools. Instead, many public schools struggle to pay teachers, keep class sizes reasonable, give students proper attention, and the myriad other things it takes to run a school with successful students.

For the most part, private education in this country is also parochial education. Many people want to send their children to school in their family's religious tradition. The Catholic Church has been most successful at this model. And, of course, not all students at religious schools are practitioners of that religion.

The problem that I have with school vouchers is that they overwhelmingly go to support parochial schools. To me, this is a direct violation of the establishment clause. Though, certainly, the vouchers are accepted at secular private schools, most kids end up in religious institutions. Secular private schools tend to be more exclusive and more expensive. If a family is already receiving a voucher to send their child to private school, it's unlikely they're able to cushion it with so much of their own money to attend an expensive secular school.

The point is, most kids who go to school on vouchers go to parochial schools. I think this is wrong.

But! When I spoke to Anne, as a teacher, she reminded me that the best thing you can do for students to send them to school where they will be successful. If they will not be successful in public school, they shouldn't be forced to fail there. If being at a religious institution will help them graduate and become who they want to be when they grow up, we ought to make sure that's what they get.

So I'm torn! Because I want to give every child what she needs in order to be successful. But I don't want kids to be at parochial schools unnecessarily, and certainly not on the taxpayers' dime.

Admittedly, I went to a religious college. But I see a huge difference from religious primary and secondary education to religious higher education. Daniel and I were talking about this during the week sometime, and we agreed that the ELCA is really into colleges -- they're all over the midwest! -- but not so much with the elementary and high schools. We don't even know if there are any. (LCMS is all over it, but that's far from the point.) We decided that the reason for this is that the ELCA is in to fostering religious education, certainly -- but once you're able to choose that exploration for yourself. We're not about indoctrination. And you may argue that Catholic schools are not about indoctrination! And maybe, on paper, they aren't. But how many of your parents have Catholic school horror stories?

Anyway, the point of this is really just to pose the question to you. Should the federal or state government give money to parents to send their kids to private schools?