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This Is Woman's Time!

Posted: 03/ 8/2011 12:00 am

According to reports in World Pulse magazine, investing in schooling for girls in developing countries creates exponential growth for those girls and their communities. The educated woman invests 90% of her income in her family (compared to 35% for men). With seven years of schooling, she'll likely birth 2.2 fewer children and marry four years later in life. For each extra year of primary school, her earnings can rise 20 percent.

I like facts and data because they help me think clearly, beyond the cultural messages that I ingest unwittingly, and sometimes find myself regurgitating almost unconsciously. Facts and data, rather than opinion, are the two cornerstones of problem solving, and yet they are consistently withheld from the people by American media. We must have facts and data in order to recognize where there is a problem!

Women, generally, are the ones who know how to solve problems and how to do it for cheap, sometimes using only a paper clip, or a safety pin. Yet, women have never really been asked how any kind of political situation that ultimately affects them, their families, and their communities could be fixed in order to better build and serve those communities in which they live. This, in my view, is the actual problem: women -- the poor and the uneducated workers, the permanent worldwide slave class, have yet to be considered, much less included at those tables where bankers and speculators and ambassadors and crowned heads divvy up the dough, and the resources.

I propose that the ones who are raped by soldiers from every warring nation, and whose children are terrorized, savaged, and murdered, must be heard and represented in those halls of power. I want to shout to those who can implement real change, now, that the world's permanent slave class of working mothers should be given a voice that will be heard, loud and clear, in every nation where they are presently silenced. I propose that every government, every sovereign nation and institution, immediately fling open their doors and become and remain accessible to women so that we can begin to solve actual problems on this planet, instead of enabling and enriching a certain class of us to simply go around making speeches about the
problem. I am a woman, therefore I am a problem solver.

Anyway, here are some pointed questions we must ask about pressing problems facing the women of the world today, accompanied by some strategies and suggestions for solutions, free of charge, from me, the world's Premiere Grandmother.

1 How do we immediately disarm and discard the war-for-profit machine?

2. How can we get the food to the hungry?

3. How can we make sure the food we grow is actually food?

Women of this planet need some essential resources: wells, seeds and roads. That is primarily all we have ever needed. Added to that, women need righteous and strong men who will help us to use our most cherished gifts: the ability to multitask and problem solve. Men can fill that role, for example, by moving the heavier items and unscrewing lids on jars, and doing other useful tasks with which they are so very good at performing for us. Seriously, we need men who will serve and help maintain and protect those communities that we create. We need strong men who can serve the will of the grandmothers who know how to solve all old problems, which are really at the heart of the new ones, as well. We need to make more men
understand that Nature is not "their bitch"; she is our Mother!

How do we break out of lemming programming that has been foisted on us by obsolete thinkers? How can we remove those who are profiting from the misery of others? Answer: We simply start a nonviolent revolution in which informed, impassioned women are seen in the streets by other women in faraway places. It has begun and is now unstoppable. Women in open protest have become visible to other women, despite centuries of censure and violence against that most essential revolutionary occurrence.

My heart is lifted and I'm inspired when I see the grandmothers out in the streets in Tunisia, in Haiti, in Egypt, often standing behind their husbands or sons or grandchildren smiling up at the cell phones or directly into the video cameras. Yes, we see you, grandmother! We are so proud of out-of-control women who do not bow down to the endless state of patriarchal wars for God, glory or profit. There is more to unite us than there is to divide us. Yes, grandmothers, mothers, daughters, sisters and wives and the good men who respect and support your efforts toward solutions and progress -- we see you! We know you want democracy, and the peace and stability that come from political, economic, and social justice. We know you want freedom, and choices, and to be paid a living wage. Women fed up with oppression and fired up by righteous causes are now visible to other women, in every corner of the globe, and that is just the beginning. Women of the world, rise and unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains! Thank you, sisters!

 
According to reports in World Pulse magazine, investing in schooling for girls in developing countries creates exponential growth for those girls and their communities. The educated woman invests 90% ...
According to reports in World Pulse magazine, investing in schooling for girls in developing countries creates exponential growth for those girls and their communities. The educated woman invests 90% ...
 
 
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
DeniseDuffieldThomas
Coach and Author of Lucky B*tch
01:11 AM on 03/11/2011
Awesome Roseanne - thanks for this beautiful article.
06:22 PM on 03/08/2011
Wonderful and brilliant. Love the three questions. Thank you, Roseanne, for putting yourself out there with such clarity and vision!
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05:15 PM on 03/08/2011
Thank you, Roseanne!!!... Thank you! ... Thank you! ... Thank you!
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
fuel4thefire
05:10 PM on 03/08/2011
Excellent post RB! I made a Daily Thought out of it on my blog Path to Well-Being; Women need to assert themselves more and nurture their own ambition. Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart sing Led Zeppelin's Battle of Evermore: the powerful lyric that Ann belts out is this: Bring it back, bring it back..... to bring the balance back;

Oh dance in the dark of night,
Sing to the mornin' light.
The magic runes are writ in gold
To bring the balance back.
Bring it back.
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02:36 PM on 03/08/2011
Sorry mods. I had a slip up in my post. Meant to include the address of my poems and instead copied the word extraordinarily. Oops.

http://www.youtube.com/user/danpeak?feature=mhum
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multidoc
Re-animating the dead since 1922
02:33 PM on 03/08/2011
"If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them."
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
fuel4thefire
05:17 PM on 03/08/2011
The first thing we need to do is to not require permission to do what we want to do.... men will not "let" us do anything; this thinking is so deeply embedded that even an innocuous like yours is an impediment to progress; on being strong:

Dan Abrams, Legal Analyst with ABC News, is the author of "Man Down." The book's premise: women are the stronger sex. “In nearly every field, statistics and studies show that women are better collaborators, are more cautious and more adept at navigating treacherous terrain,” writes Abrams in his book’s opening statement. “I am not convinced that women as a group play basketball or read maps better than men. The evidence here will show, however, that women are living longer and evolving better than men.” It takes a lot for a man to admit his own weaknesses (there’s a chapter on how women tolerate pain better), so we wondered why Abrams would make the case for women. Interview with Dan Abrams, go here: http://www.shine.yahoo.com/channel/life/why-women-really-are-better-at-almost-everything-q-a-with-author-dan-abrams-2460114/
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multidoc
Re-animating the dead since 1922
07:51 PM on 03/08/2011
That is a direct quote from Sojourner Truth's speech to the Abolitionist Congress in the 19th century, which is why I put it in quotes. Here is a link to it. If you have never read it, it is well worth 5 minutes.

http://www.feminist.com/resources/artspeech/genwom/sojour.htm
02:27 PM on 03/08/2011
Great words... thank you Roseanne.
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02:26 PM on 03/08/2011
Though I am not fighting in the streets of Tunisia or Egypt or in any of the extraordinarily sexist places on the face of the earth- I send my healing energy to those women who are doing so. I have been doing my part here in the states in the face of my own grim reality. Economy, no support, abandonment. To maintain my sanity I started to upload my poems and vlogs on You Tube. I dedicate Orange Slice ships to all us women every where on International Women's Day:

extraordinarily
02:05 PM on 03/08/2011
Great article
12:52 PM on 03/08/2011
My heart is uplifted too when I see women stand together for a change. We need to have a bigger voice, not only for human rights but also a voice in this global economy. Thanks for speaking out, we all must unite and fight for the change that this world needs.
www.happierthanabillionaire.com
12:34 PM on 03/08/2011
i remember reading an interview with Rosanne in the New Yorker back in the nineties. I remember loving everything about it. The same goes for her contribution above! I laughed when she described the role of men opening jars and doing heavy lifting. I got chocked up when she made the plea to the "halls of power." I can't stop smiling. Good stuff!
12:07 PM on 03/08/2011
Never been asked? We shouldn't be waiting to be asked!
09:48 AM on 03/08/2011
Thank you Roseanne. Real change is a requirement for our very survival. Thank you for continuing to speak out on behalf of those who have no real voice.
09:24 AM on 03/08/2011
Yes... it is a womens time...as long as they retain there atrabutes when they get in possitions where they can make changes inplace of what does happen,,, they take on the characteristics of men and blow it... just be women and forget this man stuff If you read these pages here you can see what I mean... men are good at puffing their fethers out on what is wrong in the world but do nothing about it..and the girls jump right in and do the same thing...how about you women not only talk about it but also start to do something...you cant hurt anything because the only way is up were allready down just about as far as we can go awnd stilll sort of function...the old viking
08:44 AM on 03/08/2011
Women must learn to say NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

No to war started for powerful-all-muscles-no-brain boys! No to subordination to men! No to slavery in the work place!

Do it peacefully and invite Al Jazeera.