Fiction, Faith & Young People

A blog devoted to books every young person wishes an adult would read.

Who Will Be Our Next Susan B. Anthony?

Susan-B-Anthony

I wish there were a cabinet level position devoted to protecting the rights of women, because when it comes to creating laws that promote equality our government is pretty much broken.

I have not given up on our democracy. I teach history and English and my students know I’m a fanatic when it comes to politics, equality and what history can teach us about both. The DNC last week was my Superbowl and as I watched the delegates nominate the next president, I listened to Joe and Kamilla talk a lot about women’s rights. Lots of politicians talk about women’s rights, but many of them just don’t know how hard it is to pass equal rights legislation.

But history is on our side this week. It’s the centennial celebration of the 19th amendment, that gave women the right to vote and no real-life superhero embodied that fight more than Susan B. Anthony.

There is a poster of Susan that hangs on our classroom wall (correction: used to hang on our classroom wall. I don’t have a classroom anymore. I teach now from a “pod.”) But when I had walls there was a portion of our classroom devoted to “Real Life Superheroes.” (A poster of Susan could be found between the pic of Catherine the Great and Joan of Arc.)

The media remembered Susan and her battle for emancipation as if she were born to lead a crusade, preeminently chosen the way we’d like to believe all our heroes are chosen for their larger-than-life roles. Many reported correctly that Susan was arrested for casting a ballot while posed as a man. But they failed to mention that it took forty-two years after her arrest for the 19th amendment to become law.

Forty-two years is a long time, and that’s not unusual when it comes to challenges as big as gender rights. Change does not come easily, especially change that requires the ruling class — not just rich people, not just white people — but all men to give up something they see as a birthright: Power. Domination.

I ask my students to vote on who can lead us on the next great crusade if not for equal rights, at least, the protection of those basic human rights that are blithely violated with rape, and workplace harassment. When you study the all too real people who demanded emancipation you don’t find perfection; that is, you don’t find all the natural gifts of oration and charisma you’d expect from a leader.

A real superhero can’t cast a spiderweb or leap tall buildings in a single bound. Many are not always naturally gifted. Some are deeply flawed. And many of those so-called flaws are what motivate them to take a stand in the first place.

Our current president is the leader of what can only be called a party of White Domination. Nevertheless, he found a clever way to redeem his misogynistic reputation by pardoning Susan for her arrest. (If only Susan were alive to see this spectacle. What do you think the feisty suffragette would have done to a man who is known as the Pussy-Grabber-in-Chief?). But the PGIG isnt our only problem. Donald Trump may be evil. Donald Trump may be the anti-Christ. But he didn’t create gender inequality, we all did. And we need to admit that if we want to see lasting change.

How hard is it to make a lasting change when it comes to equal rights? Imagine you are the sole crusader for a cause in your favorite video game. When the game begins all the other players are against you. And they have all the weapons. And I don’t mean flashy lasers and stun bombs but real, primitive weapons like the rocks and gas-filled bottles that are being thrown around the county now.

I doubt there will ever be a constitutional amendment guaranteeing women’s rights alongside their right to vote. But why not a cabinet level position? We have secretaries devoted to our Health, Education and Welfare. Isn’t the mental and physical health of young women dependent on her safety? What kind of education system ignores teaching that promotes the rights of women?

My students and I couldn’t agree on a title of the cabinet position. Secretary of #Metoo? Department of Gender Equality? So, I ask you to help us with a title and tell us who would be the person you think would be best to fill the role.

She probably has to be a lot younger than I am because it will take another forty years for real change to take place. And I doubt she’ll be perfect. In fact, knowing history, I think the best choice would be a young person who knows that humility and vulnerability just might be the new superpowers we’ve all ignored.

Times Up, Donald. But we’ve still got a long way to go. Who would you nominate to promote gender equality in the next administration? I really want to hear from you.

Why We’re Afraid of Fearless Girl

On Wall Street there’s a bronze statue of a girl who looks about the same age as the sixth graders in the middle school that I teach. She looks pretty fearless as she’s standing up to a raging bronze bull; and she’d better be, it doesn’t take much to see that bull represents men, greed and the lack of women in positions of financial power. The artist Kristen Visbal, maintains that the statue of a child posed with her fists on her hips represents “the power of women in leadership.” Many feminists who don’t like the statue claim she’s a cheap corporate-centric ploy to hide the real issues like equal pay and reproductive rights (the piece was commissioned by State Street Global Advisors).

Everyone loves the image of empowerment represented by a girl standing up for herself in the ruthless, financial jungle our world has become. But, how would some of us men feel if it were a woman standing there? Pretty intimated, right?

But the problem goes deeper than that for men, women and children.

We aren’t just angry at Fearless Girl. We’re afraid of her, afraid for her. We’re afraid because we know in our hearts her future is imperiled. She doesn’t stand a chance alongside a President who is being mocked as “the pussy-grabber-in-chief”; but also brags his daughter (or is that his wife? Even he often gets them confused) is a model–not just for the latest issue of Maxim–but for longer maternity leave. Will our fearless young women be devoured by the wave of sexism that many attribute to the president’s base? Hillary Clinton recently claimed that she lost the election because of misogyny, that America is threatened by having a woman in the oval office. I don’t believe that a majority of us feel that way. I watch young girls stand up for their rights every day in my classroom.

The real problem isn’t just emanating from the oval office. The truth is, Fearless Girl doesn’t stand a chance against the mixed messages the media sends all young women. We want our daughters to be strong, but don’t we also want them to look gorgeous in revealing bikinis? The media thinks so. And the truth is, we who call ourselves “feminists” don’t even know what that word stands for anymore. The most progressive and intelligent young women I talk to at my school don’t consider themselves feminists, because they think it stands for a woman who doesn’t like men and doesn’t enjoy being herself.

To speak against feminism is to speak against basic human rights. But it’s time for someone to admit that the type of feminism that once worked–or at least, forced people to take notice–has changed. Young women aren’t weaker than they were a generation ago, but they’re a lot more confused about how their voices will be heard. Fearless Girl doesn’t just need a woman mentor, she needs an interpreter who can help separate the truth from the bull.

What’s the Real Provenance of this Ring?

On March 6th, 2016, The Telegraph, an English newspaper, announced the following:

“A ring believed to have belonged to Joan of Arc is being returned to France for the first time in 600 years after being sold at auction for almost £300,000.
The gold-plated silver ring was dated to the 15th century by an Oxford laboratory, but the trove of historical documents that came with it have yet to prove it belonged to the famous French martyr.”

If you’re reading my YA thriller, Cease & Desist, you know this ring has great symbolic importance in my work. I fictionalized it’s journey down through Jeanne’s bloodline. I wanted it to symbolize the paranormal power it bestowed upon all the girls who chose to wear it. My story is fiction, but the fact of a ring that belonged to Jeanne d’Arc is real and its description is documented at her trial. Nevertheless whether the ring auctioned recently is authentic is dubious to some–historians, for example, are skeptical about the provenance that was presented by Timeline Auctions–the English auction house that sold it–

According to the auction house, Jeanne gave the ring (or it was confiscated) by her Burgundian captors shortly before they handed her over to the English, and may have ended up in the hands of the archbishop of Winchester, Henry Beaufort, who was present at her trial, and stayed in Britain ever since.

Here are the only facts about Jeanne’s ring we know, from the transcripts of her trial:

The description of the ring–specifically that it contained three crosses and the words Jehsus Maria–were real, as Jeanne described it.

“I think it had on it three crosses, and no other sign that I know except the words Jesus Maria”

“It was a gift from her mother, Isabelle”.

In my version of the events, Jeanne handed the ring over to a Benedictine monk who heard her last confession. This is completely unsubstantiated, but it’s a whole lot more likely than having Jeanne turn it over willingly to Henry Beaufort, the archbishop who, as trial records show verbally abused Jeanne at trial and denied her the right of counsel. (One biographer suggested that he may have sexually abused Jeanne, the virgin as well) . It’s more likely that the ring was taken from Jeanne by her captors before her trial in Rouen.

So, is this the ring “The Maid” really wore? All we know for sure is that the French government refused to participate in the auction, citing concerns over authenticity and the buyer turned out to be an amusement park in France, not considered the typical home for a relic that belonged to the patron saint of France.

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