WOMEN’S MARCH
January 21, 2017

10,000 women and men marched in Sarasota to support women’s rights and protest Trump’s Presidency. I was not one of them, and I have been struggling for several weeks to figure out why.

I was raised in a Protestant, traditional Republican family with all the values that implies. Responsibilities trumped rights. I was in college in the early sixties when the civil rights and women’s liberation movements began to be felt in the U.S. With respect to “women’s lib” I read The Feminine Mystique, attended consciousness-raising sessions and subsequently fought against the glass ceiling all my working life. I spoke truth to power – always ready to suffer the consequences, and there were many. I supported the ERA and making birth control available to all women.

But there were broader issues that I struggled with. I could see the “right” on both sides of the later “big” issues – abortion and the death penalty, both involving human life. With respect to abortion, I sat on the fence for years before finally coming down on the side of choice. Had I succeeded in obtaining the abortion I half-heartedly sought when I became pregnant with my daughter out of wedlock, I would have permanently negatively affected the quality of my life and “lost” many descendants whom I love dearly. My father actually offered to take me to Europe to obtain an abortion, but my pregnancy was all tied up in my rebellion against him and the fact that my mother had taught me that the only value women had that was “better” than those of men was that women could have babies and men couldn’t. I yearned to be valued. So I married my daughter’s father – from whom I was divorced ten years later, becoming a single mother.

I held both sides of the Pro-Life – Pro-Choice debate in tension within me for many years. It was very uncomfortable, especially in the context of most people, who held firm views on one side or the other of the debate. I didn’t finally decide that I was pro choice until I had a pregnancy scare myself at age 43. I realized that it would have been extremely difficult and a major sacrifice not only for me, but for my children for me to have a baby then. The father was irresponsible, though in a different way than my husband had been, and not interested in nor capable of marriage at the time. I would have been a single mother – again. My two children were already in college, incurring costly tuition bills, which I was working 50 hour weeks on Wall Street to pay. I was living in New York City in a one bedroom apartment with no savings, and no resources to properly support and raise another child.

Perhaps my thoughts were selfish, but they were heavily influenced by the needs of my existing children. Granted, not survival needs, as they could have left college and we could have borrowed money from my parents and moved out of the city to a place that would have been affordable on a much reduced salary, but I didn’t want that for my children. Fortunately, it turned out that I was not pregnant – just at the beginning stages of menopause. But I had found myself in the shoes of a mother basically living from hand to mouth after college expenses, facing an unwanted pregnancy. Abortion seemed like the only solution. Carrying the baby to term and putting it up for adoption would have necessitated quitting my job, which I couldn’t afford to do without making all of the changes required by having and keeping the child.

Frankly, I remain on the fence with respect to the death penalty. Some criminals are just plain evil and have wreaked havoc, pain, and lifelong damage, even death, on others. I’m inclined to think about the death penalty with respect to them. Others, it seems, while they have also committed heinous crimes, might be able to be rehabilitated, and at the harshest should receive life without parole, and at the most lenient, be paroled and given a second chance. But life is messy, people are unpredictable, and systems are flawed and often unjust. I’m not prepared to take either side. I’ll turn that decision over to God. I’d rather hold both sides in tension. I can live with that tension.

So why did I feel this uncomfortable tension over whether or not to participate in the women’s march?

After a week or so of relative misery, prayer and deep thought, I believe that I have worked it out.

Over the last several years I have engaged in active contemplating. I read daily meditations by Richard Rohr, and participate in a dream group that meets weekly. I have been growing spiritually. This growth has included the process of acknowledging and owning my shadow. These are the aspects of myself that are not very attractive, which I like to hide from my friends and family – and even myself. They include things like anger, competitiveness, and superiority feelings with regard to certain people. In order to achieve “wholeness” – my “True Self,” I have been integrating my shadow into my “better” self and coming to own these feelings. Prior to this, I would project these feelings onto other people, when they were often really my own. I am still working on it.

Married at 19, I was free – living outside of the comfortable, secure Republican nest made for me by my parents, and discovering that the real world was much more complicated than my parents’ world view. I slowly learned that while my mother had effectively taught me to love my neighbor, she neglected to teach me the other half of that Biblical “golden rule” – to love myself. She also unconsciously taught me that we were better than the “other,” by judging and stereotyping them. So my “love” for my neighbor for a long time was more enabling than truly loving. Free of the nest, I met, came to know, to work with and respect people who were not Protestant, white, upper middle class, and the children of educated parents who lived on the “right” side of the tracks. In many cases I preferred to be with these “others” than with those who were like me. They were often more gifted, talented, interesting, brighter, and deeper than I or my friends who were like me. They seemed better able to experience joy. I came to truly love them. My life was richer and fuller for their friendship. My political journey had begun.

Over time (precipitated by the Clarence Thomas hearings and the treatment of Anita Hill by him and the Republicans on the Judicial Committee) I moved away from the Republican party, the party of my father and the party of Responsibilities. A party that seemed mean-spirited at its extremes. I was not ready yet to become a Democrat – the party of compassion and Human Rights, which reflected my mother’s Christian values, and so I registered as an Independent and remained an Independent for decades.

Integrating the best of my mother’s values with the best of my father’s has been a lifetime challenge. As the parties began to polarize, I realized that I was more comfortable with the extremes of the Democratic party than the extremes of the Republican party. As the gap between them widened, I filled it with love. I came to love myself, and to love and trust others. I was simultaneously supportive of Democratic and Republican values. The extreme and destructive polarization of the parties had a silver lining for me. It revealed to me that the positive side of the Democratic party was the perfect antidote to the shadow side of Republicanism and vice versa. I believe that we will be unable to achieve a “more perfect union” until we have fully integrated the best policies of both parties. This will involve listening, dialogue, compromising, vision and leadership.

When moderates all but disappeared, I had to choose one or the other. I had all my life voted both Republican and Democratic depending on my assessment of the candidates’ values and competencies, but to vote in the primaries I had to choose. I could no longer be an Independent. Twelve or so years ago I finally changed my party registration to Democrat when a good friend ran for office as a Democrat. But I’m truly a moderate – a hybrid.

During the 2016 campaign I found myself unable to support Donald Trump (or most other Republicans, for that matter. Bernie Sanders was just too far left of the moderate range for me. But I had trouble becoming wildly enthusiastic about Hillary. During the course of the campaign I came to like and admire her increasingly, but was never able to connect with her the same way I had connected with Obama. She didn’t seem authentic to me.

Perhaps I was projecting some of my shadow onto Hillary, or perhaps I saw too much shadow emanating from her and not enough light.

With the election of Trump, his identification of defense and national security nominees to his Cabinet, and the positions they have taken during the Senate confirmation hearings, I began to see the “right” of some of the old line establishment Republican views again. I’ve always believed in the importance of responsible American military power in the world. And in this world today, a strong defense. I believe in peace through strength. And I also strongly believe that it’s right for nations to take responsibility for their own defense – either by paying for it through organizations such as the United Nations and NATO, or by developing their own defense systems. The United States has been enabling most of our Nato and UN allies for decades. It’s time for them to beat their addiction to our military power and financial strength. I believe in an ability to pay scheme that all sides accept as fair and just. After that Democratic value is established, then the Republican values should be enforced.

Another example of integration of values is in the area of people power. The Trump rallies created people power by appealing to the dark side – the fear and hatred of those who are different. These are the people Trump was speaking to in his inauguration speech when he said he was going to give power to the people. He unwittingly awakened the people power of those who have felt oppressed. They came together for the Women’s march, which showed the power of diversity and love. What bothered me was the “we-they” message of the protest. Trump’s opponents are so entrenched in their own positions that they cannot seem to see that his supporters are also hurting and marginalized – victims of corporate power and greed. When the gap is filled with love, what a world it will be!

Admittedly both Republicans and Democrats have their shadow sides, and each party needs to identify and own them so as not to project them onto the other party and continue the gridlock of the last eight years. Evidence that is happening will be apparent when dialogue, compromise, and bipartisanship return to our national political culture and are valued. And I don’t mean by compromise a settling for lesser goals. I mean offsetting the negatives of one policy with the positives of another policy. The offsets will likely come from across the aisle, which is why communication is so important.

I will continue to hold both the Republican and Democratic values and goals of strength and power within me, and will pray that light will prevail from both sides, that each side will own its shadow, and that we can achieve integration and wholeness/unity.