Pointing Fingers

Man Up

Despite a recent article, Budget Showdown: Senate Democratic Women Preserve Party’s Principles by my friend Tanya Domi about those Democratic lawmakers who stood up for Planned Parenthood (and those Republican women who didn't), it's obvious that this problem transcends party politics and national boundaries, and I don't think this global, ugly war on women is about capitalism either, as another friend Joanne Kalogeras suggested among other things (other than the fact that today is Equal Pay Day, reflecting the amount of time a woman must work into 2011 to receive the same pay that men earned in 2010).

The revolting treatment of women is even worse in dictatorships and theocracies, and while the forced abortion policies in China alone say enough about a non-religious domination of women, as does the Soviet treatment of women, the powerful role of patriarchal religions are at the source. And while enlightened people can look at ancient doctrines for a more inclusive, respectful role for women in the church or synagogue or mosque, it’s an uphill battle that is exhausting to even contemplate.

Without any reference to my position on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, people often use this quote, disputably attributed to Golda Meir: “Peace will come when the Arabs start to love their children more than they hate us.”

I believe that this increasingly alarming war on women can only be won by having men join forces which can be achieved by capitalizing on the love they have for their mothers, sisters, grandmothers, daughters and wives. And that this war on women must be recharacterized as a direct attack on families, not just women. Reproductive rights, sexual abuse support systems, medical services etc. etc. must stop being characterized as women’s issues.

Crass is it sounds, let’s leverage misogyny, so that depriving a woman of choices and services is equated with denying a man the right to decide with his family what the best options are. Tackling the misogyny itself can come next.

I read a recent New York Times story about an 11-year-old girl who was repeatedly gang raped (18 suspects so far!) which chilled me to the bone. This wasn’t yet another Sharia-inspired, inappropriately and euphemistically termed “honor killing,” or the horrific story of a fourteen-year-old girl lashed to death for adultery after being raped.

Rather, this is an all-American, poverty-enabled, technology-glorified objectification that showed as much disregard for a young girl as John Boehner’s, Obama-green-lighted attacks against not only women, but families, in the name of deficit reduction.

Men. If you want to call yourselves that, stop attacking, raping, assualting and killing women with such unbridled hate, because they are my mothers, my sisters, my nieces, my grandmothers, my cousins and my friends you attack, and so me.

And trust me; with every weapon in my arsenal, I will fight you back. 

I Am America

Photo by Francesco Fadda, 2010

I Am America

Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards
West Coast Premiere
Friday April 8, 8pm
Performance Art Institute, 550 Sutter Street, San Francisco

Seating is limited, please contact reservations@theworkcenter.org to reserve. $20 suggested donation.

In collaboration with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Stanford University, the Performance Art Institute presents I Am America by the Open Program of the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards. I Am America brings the poetry of Allen Ginsberg to life in a visceral performance with language culled from his entire body of work, intermixed with calls, shouts and traditional songs from the American South. Original music developed in intensive collaboration over a period of 3 years complements and builds upon these sources.

As part of a year-long celebration of its 25th year anniversary, The Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards presents the West Coast premieres of two original and groundbreaking performances in San Francisco, Palo Alto and Big Sur. I Am America and Electric Party Songs by the Workcenter's Open Program, will premiere in April, 2011 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Stanford University, the Performance Art Institute, and the Henry Miller Library. These performances are supplemented with a series of workshops, symposia, film screenings, and work demonstrations throughout April.

The Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards was founded in 1986 in Pontedera, Italy by Jerzy Grotowski, well known as one of the most influential theatre practitioners of the 20th century, firstly for The Constant Prince, which changed Western theater forever, and then later in his life for his paradigm-shifting working method dubbed Art as vehicle. Today, the Workcenter continues its research into the very essence of theatre: the moment of meaningful contact between human beings.

The Open Program is an area of research within the Workcenter's larger mission and was commenced in 2007 by 11 actors from Italy, Spain, Poland, France, Argentina, the United States and Canada, led by the Workcenter's Associate Director, Mario Biagini.

Complete listing of the Workcenter's upcoming public events in California

For more information on the Master Class with Mario Biagini at PAI