In my November contribution to the “Catalyst” section of The Chronicle of Higher Education, I wrote about how I typically deal with some rather minor instances of being insulted — specifically as a woman — in a professional context. I have written about this topic here in the blog as well, so I was not surprised by the various responses.

In the essay, I did not discuss major harassment or discrimination — just the routine type of gender-specific insults. Even so, there was the usual comment saying that readers should not assume that it is common for women to experience this type of thing. For example, Woman X is Y years old with Z years of experience and has never ever been insulted or experienced any type of disparagement related to gender etc. etc. and therefore wants younger women to know that my experiences are unusual.

OK, that’s great that some women never experience anything even remotely resembling sexism or obnoxious behavior related to gender, and it is worth noting this. Even so, all of us (me included) need to be careful about not extrapolating from our own experiences to the rest of the universe.

I am sometimes reminded of this — in the opposite direction on the harassment spectrum — by some of the e-mail that readers send to me, relating horrific tales of long-term, systemic discrimination, harassment, and abuse that is ignored and even encouraged at an institutional level. This is occurring today, in the US and elsewhere.

The problems described by these women are far beyond my experience, and they are far beyond any simple fix. They are at the level of class action suits or other courses of legal action; they are at the level of alerting the media and trying to get someone to expose the abuse.

The data are there — there are documents detailing the abuse, there are numbers showing the career trajectories of women at these places, there are records showing the non-response or ineffectual response of upper administration to repeated examples of severe problems.

This is not the experience of all of us, but it should not be the experience of any of us.

As the recent example of Penn State has shown us, even crimes against children may not move the upper administration of some institutions to take action if apparently sacrosanct segments of an institution are involved. So what then can be done about situations that are not as shocking but that nevertheless should not be allowed, such as a pervasive culture of mistreatment and harassment of women and the perpetuation of a hostile work environment?

A question I have asked before but need to ask again:

• What can a woman, or group of women, do in these extreme situations, other than quit/leave?

What if you don’t have the energy, resources, or time for a lawsuit, but nothing else has worked? — that is, when no amount of presentation to upper administration of documented evidence has brought anything resembling a constructive response.These incidents are not confined to any particular kind of institution (public/private, large/small), but it does seem that women at certain types of private institutions have fewer options for pursuing their complaints. (Discuss..)

There should be a mechanism for investigating these situations and finding a reasonable remedy, and if there is no institutional will to do so, there should be outside pressure, from the legal system, the media, donors, and/or the public. And in an ideal world, those who bring such suits or actions would not have their careers destroyed in the process.

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a way to do this without causing harm to the people — in this case, a group of women — who are already being harmed.

What to do?

A recent study published by the Walter Annenberg Communications Institute at USC (researchers Stacy Smith, Marc Chouetti and Stephanie Gall) was recently released.  The study surveyed the top 100 grossing films for the year 2009. The results are revealing. The researchers examined 4,342 speaking roles. Of these roles,  32.8% were female and 67.2% were men (evidencing the ratios of genders in films – a topic for another article) or approximately a 2.5/1  male -female ratio.  There were few gender-balanced films.

In the study it was revealed that, despite what I had presumed were some strides towards the contrary based on anecdotal evidence (the author works as Executive Vice President at Continuum Pictures on the Paramount lot), films continue at a strong pace to marginalize and sexualize women. In fact, the most astounding and troubling statistic is the same prevalence of actions occurring to young women in the 13-20 year old category as with their older sisters.

The survey found that 33.8% of female characters were in sexy clothing, 28% showed exposed skin, cleavage or upper thigh regions.  This is compared to 5.3% of males in sexy clothing and 11.2% showing skin.  One can only assume that these images increase the objectification of women in society and a commensurate reduction in self worth, anxiety and other similar results.

Anything but weak: Athletes, Leaders, Soldiers, Mothers

Recently, Glen Beck had more than just a few words for Jimmy Fallon over his band’s use of a song called “Lyin’ Ass Bitch” as Michele Bachmann was walking onstage for an interview. Mr. Beck pulled no punches, calling Mr. Fallon “despicable” and “reprehensible”, saying Mr. Fallon should be ashamed of himself. Mr. Beck told his co-host, “If you ever did that, I’d fire your ass so fast your head would spin!” Jimmy Fallon and NBC have both apologized.

I was happy to see a high-profile man in the media be so vocal about a woman being treated disrespectfully. I would love to see more media personalities do the same. Unfortunately, Mr. Beck didn’t end his reprimand there. According to the article, he continued, saying Mr. Fallon probably wouldn’t fire his band because he was “a girl…playing little girl games.”

The word “girl” has long been used as a put down to indicate weakness. It is meant to be the ultimate emasculating phrase. In our society, racial, religious, and homophobic epithets have become completely unacceptable, and they absolutely should be. The use of such words gets actors fired and politicians apologizing. Using the word representing my gender as a vulgarity, however, seems perfectly fine.

In April, 2011 Sarah Palin said the GOP could learn something from the resolve of the women’s hockey team at the University of Wisconsin (national champions) and that they needed to, “learn how to fight like a girl.” She was holding up these young women to her party as examples of strength and determination. I love that she tried putting a positive spin on that expression. Dave Briggs of Fox & Friends saw it differently. Referring to that part of her speech, he said, “They (girls) gossip, they do it behind your back! Just kidding, ladies!”

On a recent (11/22) episode of ABC’s “Man Up” one character was teased by a junior high bully with “You have girl hips, that’s why you can’t run!” Years later he’s still traumatized, and when faced with the same taunt by the same bully, a public brawl erupts. It isn’t limited to TV personalities or sitcoms, either. I’m sure we’ve all heard, “You run/fight/throw/act/cry like a girl!” or “Are you going to let a girl outrun/outsmart you?”

This kind of sexist language teaches us all that women have been disadvantaged since birth, that being born female automatically relegates us to a life of mediocrity and “almost, but not quite”. No matter how hard we work to instill a sense of empowerment and pride in girls and young women, it will be diminished as long as being called  ”girl” is an insult. When casually hurled at men as a way to expose supposed weaknesses, we are hearing that women are also weak. Women like Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Michele Bachmann are viewed as exceptions, rather than the norm.

Being female does not equal being weak. “Girl” must no longer be tolerated as another “four-letter word.”

OK, OK, yes I saw the stupid “Futures” story(?) titled Womanspace inNature in late September, I read the comments (many of which are great), and I agree that Nature should not have published this thing, not just because it is offensive, but because it is bad — bad writing, bad story, bad way to crank up traffic on the site — and should not be in a journal, not even in an obscure corner of a journal website. The editor showed appalling judgement.

Many of the ensuing comments are great, and I don’t have much to add, except that some of the comments struck me as outstanding examples of classic responses flung out whenever there is a suggestion that something just might possibly be sexist or at the very least offensive to many people. In the case in question, that something was written (and published in Nature) explicitly for male readers with female significant others, portraying women in general as having certain shopping tendencies, and including generalizations that would be unthinkable to write about people of, say, a particular religion or ethnicity (but are apparently OK if you are writing about women as a group).

One of the classic responses is along the lines of: “I was just joking. If you weren’t so humorless you would see how funny I am.” I have written about these “jokes” before. They have no place in a professional venue.

The other insidious classic response is the “My wife wasn’t offended by what I wrote and she is a woman and not only that but she is also really smart and I sometimes do the cooking at home and therefore my participation in what is traditionally a very female household job makes me by definition a non-sexist, hear me roar.”

Or something like that. Variations on this are “I am that man’s wife and I thought what he wrote was very funny” (so he is not sexist; see the comments in Nature, including the one from the author’s wife) and/or “I am a woman and I wasn’t offended”.. ergo, the author is not a sexist.

I am not sure I am following the reasoning here. Is it that men are only sexist if they say they are, but they never are if someone else says they are? And any woman can speak for all other women (just as we apparently all shop the same way) and therefore if only one woman is not offended, sexism doesn’t exist, even if many women (and men) were offended? That is, sexism can never exist, it can only not exist?

I think I am beginning to develop a hypothesis. Maybe Nature will publish it?

“…he [suggested] that after the horrendous sexual assault of a CBS News reporter, we should send Hasselbeck to Egypt.”

Though Hasselbeck is the token conservative on the show, I found it horrific that her sister cast members would not make any kind of a stand against this kind of despicable and violent rhetoric, whether or not these other women agreed with her politics. Maher basically suggested that Hasselbeck, because of her conservative political views, should be sent to Egypt to be gang raped.

I had been a Democrat my entire life, but was likewise horrified when comedian Sandra Bernhard threatened Sarah Palin with gang rape in 2008 “if she dared set foot in Manhattan.” This is not about politics. This is about decency.

Maher, not surprisingly, hid behind the veil of “I’m a comedian” i.e, ‘relax, ladies, it’s only a joke.’

If a shock jock and hate monger misogynist like Maher face ever faced even the threat of the ills he wishes upon women, he might change his self righteous posture. I highly recommend watching this video if only to see his defensiveness, cowardice and unwillingness to apologize for something that clearly crossed the line.

What is even more grotesque is that the rest of the women on this show, knowing how much violence women face in this country and around the world daily, either sat in silence or did their best to try to smooth over the awkward moment and make Maher feel comfortable – as if Hasselbeck was being unreasonable.

Barbara Walter goes so far as to offer that she had to “endure” being called “Baba Wawa” her entire career, as if that compares to wishing unspeakable and horrible violence upon a woman. Shame on her for acting like a protective “mommy.” This is why overgrown spoiled children like Maher continue to practice this kind of behavior, while a network TV show holds up “Applause” screens to egg this on.

Uniformed US Army Nurse Corps, US Navy Nurse Corps, Women Assigned to Voluntary Emergency Services (WAVES), and Women's Army Auxiliary Corps.

Back in 2008, when Hillary Clinton was running for president, I came across an old black and white pictorial on American women from the late 1940′s at a used book fundraiser. Since I was feeling more than a little dispirited over the fate of women at the time, I bought the book hoping for inspiration from the “Rosie the riveter” generation of women. I was also, I must confess, intrigued by the title:

“Women Are Here to Stay: The Durable Sex in its Infinite Variety Through Half a Century of American Life”

The author, Agnes Rogers (Allen), denies creating a catalog of womanly accomplishments in her introduction:

“It is my intention to demonstrate that there are a great many different kinds of women…and that it is almost impossible to generalize about them – tempting though it might be…I am not trying to summarize ‘women’s accomplishments,’ since that seems to imply that women have a life of their own apart from the rest of the body politic.”

And yet it is hard not to come away with the impression that the author was, at least subtextually, reassuring women of the validity of their achievements through the book’s title, while staking a claim on as much territory gained by women in the arts, sciences, sports, military, business and politics as possible with the photographic documentation in her book. After all, why wouldn’t women be here to stay? And was our durability really in question, when even then women lived longer than men on average?

Most tellingly, “Women Are Here To Stay” was published during an unusual period in American history for women. By the end of World War II, for the first time, a large portion of middle and upper class women had experienced at least temporary employment outside the home and many in previously traditional male jobs. Working for pay was nothing new for poor women, of course. They had always worked outside the home, usually starting at a young age, whenever the need to support themselves and their families arose.

Employment, though, proved to be a difficult transition for many leisure class women. Not only had the demands of the times and needs of their family, society and the nation required that they rise to the occasion and go to work. But then, having learned to flex their muscle and harness their intelligence, creativity and endurance in support of their nation’s war efforts and their families survival during the Great Depression, they were forced back to the narrow confines of tending hearth and family when service men returned home following WWII.

But that new found knowledge of their own capabilities along with the sudden loss of freedom left these women with an increasing restlessness to produce something other than just off-spring.

Detroit policewomen 1942

“As job-holder, salary-earner, wage-earner, woman has definitely arrived. In 1900, there were only a little over 5 million ‘gainfully employed’ women in the United States (of whom about one in seven was married); by 1946 the number had swelled to over 16 million (of whom something like a third were married). Not only is it virtually taken for granted today that even the daughter of the rich, on graduating from college, will take a job — until she marries…”

And if she didn’t marry?

Ms. Rogers quotes The Ladies’ Home Journal (Sept. 1916):

” …the ambition of every girl who goes into business as a stenographer — provided she has a goal and does not merely regard her position as a means of filling the interim between school and matrimony — is to be come a private secretary… it is about the most agreeable and lucrative kind of position one can hold…”

Sadly, becoming a private secretary was still considered a high level business career path for women in the 1960′s and 1970′s, decades after women had achieved laudable heights in many areas of sports, arts, business and science.

Strangely, the political arena has always gotten short shrift from American women. Even in 1949, a mere twenty-nine years after American women were granted the right to vote in all national and state elections with the ratification of the 19th amendment, women were struggling to come to terms with the expectations and promise of their vote.

As the author complains:

“The suffrage victory failed to infuse American politics with a new righteousness, as many ardent suffrage orators, in their conviction that women were morally superior to men, had predicted it would. Nor, for that matter, has there ever been such a thing as ‘the woman’s vote.’ But it was an essential step toward complete recognition that women were people, with all the rights and responsibilities thereof. It failed to fill the country with swarms of professional women politicians, as others had foretold…”

How had such a hard-fought decades long battle for suffrage wrought so little in the political arena? Why hadn’t a swarm of professional women politicians filled the country? What went wrong then? And why has it remained virtually unchanged in the last 60 years? Did we women have greater fortitude then? Unity? Perseverance? Maybe not as a voting block, but in our determination to make changes?

How can it be that ninety-one years after women got the right to vote in the United States we still have seen no woman in the office of President or Vice-President of the United States? No where near equal representation of women in Congress or the judiciary. No equal opportunity for women at the highest levels of business.

Ms Rogers didn’t offer any answers in “Women Are Here To Stay” as to what went wrong politically for women. And such was my mood in 2008 and 2009 as first Hillary Clinton then Sarah Palin were mercilessly attacked and vilified (along with their supports) in such misogynistic terms for daring to reach for that highest level in American politics — the White House, that all the other areas of womanly achievement left me with cold comfort.

But strangely enough a recent headline gave me a glimmer hope and got me thinking that Ms. Rogers may have been right to boldly remind everyone of the seemingly obvious. We are not going to slip quietly back into the shadows. ”Women Are Here To Stay!” And this proves it.

Royal succession gender equality approved by Commonwealth: Leaders of 16 nations agree change to allow eldest child to become monarch irrespective of sex

When nations representing 30% of the world’s population, the likes of Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Grenada, Belize, St. Christopher and Nevis, St. Lucia, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Papua New Guinea, come to realize that the dictates of tradition just don’t cut it any more. And that putting women in equal positions of power and leadership is not just morally right, but a way to strengthen and empower their nation…

And when those nations are willing to amend the 1701 Act of Settlement, the 1689 Bill of Rights and the Royal Marriages Act 1772 to give women equal opportunity…

It is the ultimate recognition that women are, indeed, here to stay and will no longer be held “apart from the rest of the body politic.”

So even though we American women face another presidential election with only one woman candidate running for election and history of equality that has been uneven at best over the last ninety-one years…

Even as the push back of women to traditional roles has begun to build with worries that girls are doing better and graduating in greater numbers than boys…that men are losing jobs at a faster rate than women…that the decline of marriage has strengthen women and weaken men…

And even while legislation in several states is seeking to diminish the personhood of women …

I take heart that the coming decade will be a challenging one. Because I am betting on the staying power, durability, versatility, adaptability and perseverance of women. And I think the smart money is betting on us too!

Yes, we women are here to stay!

"#Occupy Movement Is Unsafe for Women: Attacks and Threats ..." (click image for more)

In most locations, protesters have set up camps where protesters have stayed.

Unfortunately, the environment of some of these camps has become unsafe for women.

The “Occupy Wall Street” protest in New York City has become a setting where violence, rapes and sexual harassment has occurred.

Beyond this, last week, three men threatened to kill a young woman for desiring to report an assault to the cops:

Three young punks threatened to kill a 24-year-old Occupy Wall Street protester for pressing charges over an assault at the group’s Zuccotti Park encampment, police said.

“You got our friend arrested. We’re gonna kill you! Watch your back!” the trio warned the young woman on Monday – two days after her complaint led to the arrest of Garfield Leslie, police said Tuesday.

Leslie, 19, of Brooklyn, had offered to sell the woman drugs at the downtown sit-in, police said.

When she declined that offer and his romantic advances, he punched her in the face and then dished out more blows to a friend who had come to her defense, police said.

A kitchen worker at this protest has been arrested for groping a female occupier and is a suspect of rape as well. Things have gotten so troublesome that women have set up female only tents to help prevent further problems of sexual harassment and assault, as the New York Post reports:

It’s a safe house from the sex fiends.

Zuccotti Park has become so overrun by sexual predators attacking women in the night that organizers felt compelled to set up a female-only sleeping tent yesterday to keep the sickos away.

The large, metal-framed “safety tent” — which will be guarded by an all-female patrol — can accommodate as many as 18 people and will be used during the day for women-only meetings, said Occupy Wall Street organizers.

[…]

The safety measure comes amid a terrifying spree of sexual assaults — including an alleged rape — in the Zuccotti Park camp.

Setting up “female only” tents is part of Occupy Wall Street’s attempt to handle sexual assaults internally. The New York Post also notes:

Most protesters have not been reporting all the incidents to police — instead preferring to settle things on their own.

The tent and its all-female security detail is the latest crime-fighting measure, and it is already garnering much interest.

Similar problems have arisen at “Occupy” movements throughout the country and the world. The Occupy Baltimore movement has a security committee as part of their movement’s structure.

Their literature notes that they indeed do not tolerate sexual violence, but they also explicitly discourage victims of such crimes to report it to the police. In Oakland, complaints of sexual harassment have been made at their protest.

At the Occupy Dallas protest, an alleged sexual assault of a 14 year old runaway girl has occurred. In Glasgow, Scotland, a 28 year old occupier was raped in mid-October.

This issue here is not the message of the protest. One of the beauties of America is the freedom of speech and the opportunity to petition for a redress of grievances. To express support or disagreement with such a movement is the right of every individual.

The issue is that the environment of some of these protests has become unsafe for women to express their viewpoints. In the reports of these sexual crimes, the perpetrator is not often identified as a fellow “occupier” or an unaffiliated individual who took advantage of female occupiers. However, the fact that some of these occupy movement locations have chosen to deal with these internally will drive women away from being involved and leave the perpetrators wrongfully unprosecuted.

The movement should foster a safe environment where women both feel safe to protest, but also safe to report to the authorities if they become a victim of a sexual crime. Women who align themselves with the “99%” should not have to fear becoming part of the 17% of women who have been a victim of rape.

The media that morning described a Westchester home so bloody, that it was not possible to discern, who murdered who. Big mystery, right? Even if I hadn’t known Amy, I could have made a very educated guessed. Women account for 85% of the victims of intimate partner violence. Roughly 70-80% of intimate partner homicides who are murdered are killed by a boyfriend or husband (as opposed to 3% of men). In 70-80% of intimate partner homicides, there is a prior incident, and so it was hardly surprising when media stories circulating that afternoon revealed that police had been summoned to the Friedlander Home as far back as 2006!

Cookie cutter domestic violence. A murder which should have been viewed under the lens of a public health issue, because violence against women, so pervasive that it impacts 1 in 4 women, is hardly a private matter. But not for our media, which immediately launched a campaign of victim blame — Blaming Amy.

Starting the very first night, the media began its exploration of what Amy could have done to cause the gentle, unassuming, mellow Sam Friedlander to sedate his children, walk down to hall to the master bedroom and bludgeon Amy with a wooden instrument over her entire body with such force that an autopsy was needed to confirm her identity, walk back down the hall and shoot the children in their bedrooms, and then shoot himself.

The first perpetrator of victim blame was the local media, The Journal News (owned by Gannett). That first night, as the national and international news outlets were looking to local media for insights, here’s the top search engine result: “Cross-River murder-suicide described: friends suggest wife’s ‘belittling’ of husband played a role.”

For this thoroughly unprofessional piece of ‘journalism’, The Journal News interviewed two of Sam’s law school friends — and none of the victim’s friends — for a story line exploring why Amy was responsible for her own death. Feminist website Jezebel, which captured the contents of the article before it was pulled offline, described The Journal News piece as:

…an article that should go down in the annals of victim blaming.

Then, Mr. McDonald just stopped responding to complaints altogether.

By then, it was too late. The Journal News had given Sam’s two law school friends, David Pine and Michael Borg, a springboard and the two would go on to be quoted in The New York Times, The New York Post and The NY Daily News, the latter of which wisely amend its story to remove this line by Borg (emphasis added):

He said if Friedlander had only killed his wife “I would have baked him a cake with a file in it” but he could not imagine why his “gentle” law-school buddy killed the kids.

Borg’s atrocious quote would be memorialized on picket signs at a rally held by local domestic abuse shelters in White Plains, New York on Monday, October 24th: No ‘files’ in a cake for mass murderers; alongside: Stop Blaming Amy.

Public comments by Sam’s second friend, David Pine, are even more troubling given his circumstances. Pine said of Sam: “He was showing all the classic signs of being emotionally abused…” (The Journal News) and “…was exhibiting signs of being emotionally abused.” (The New York Post).

David Pine also bragged: “I knew that an incident would happen in that household.” (The New York Post) and observed of Sam: “He went into his own cocoon.” (The New York Times).

David Pine’s statements go from troubling to startling because of this: Mr. Pine is, of all things, a county prosecutor for the Passaic County Prosecutors Office — an office charged with holding offenders in domestic violence cases accountable for breaking the law! We will never know what could have happened if Sam’s so-called friends had sought mental health support for him instead of blaming Amy. New York does in fact have one of the most progressive court-order treatment laws in the country. (Please see The New Agenda’s online petition to NJ Governor Chris Christie and NJ Attorney General Paula Dow regarding David Pine’s media statements here.)

A full week would pass before the media would seek out the other side of the story and interview a friend of Amy Friedlander. A woman reporter, Tara Rosenblum of News12, interviewed me — and for the first time in the New York media market, a voice was given to the victim.

Around the time Tara aired our interview, when Pine and Borg were done sucking up all the oxygen in the media, the facts also started to come out. Sam bought the gun he used to kill the children and himself back in April. Sam bludgeoned Amy to death with a wooden rolling pin, which The Journal News noted was: “initially mistaken by police for a broken-off furniture leg because it was covered in blood.” Sam was prescribed anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication. And so on.

Whatever happened, here’s the bottom line: there is no excuse for violence against women. The media’s fruitless search to find cause belies a belief that “if” certain circumstances occur, “then” violence against women is okay. The media is wrong. Violence against women is never okay. We teach our children in nursery school to ‘use your words‘, and failing that, ‘walk away and find a grown-up.’ Advice that serves us well, still, as adults.

Until our media stops victim blaming women and girls who are murdered, raped or beaten up, we will never make progress inholding offenders accountable for their actions. In the end, here’s the simple truth: the victim is never to blame, but the perpetrator is always to blame. The only battles my friend Amy waged on this earth — despite being brilliant, beautiful, gentle, kind, generous and loyal to a fault — was with her weight and self-esteem. Our media’s attempt to Blame Amy is nothing short of shameful.

On Friday, September 23rd, Bill Maher said this during his HBO show:
“Sarah Palin Would ‘F–k’ Rick Perry If He Was Black.”

This statement is yet another example of Bill Maher’s misogyny. Maher has employed terms such as: ‘dumb twat’, ‘bimbos’, and ‘cunt’ in reference to women leaders including Sec. Hillary Clinton, Rep. Michele Bachmann and Gov. Sarah Palin (read here)….

The petition received close to 1,000 signatures and 1,000 likes on Facebook.

We forwarded the petition to the board of directors of Time Warner, owner of HBO.

TNA’s Amy Siskind also had telephone dialogue with Jeff Cusson, SVP of Corporate Affairs at HBO, to express our continued displeasure with Bill Maher’s misogyny, and our desire, as stated in the petition, that he be fired.

We received the following response in the mail.  We welcome your thoughts and input.

And know that we do have further action planned – stay tuned!

Everyone who has ever been born has had a mother; most women have been mothers; women have been mothering children since the dawn of time. Historically, most women have spent up to twenty to forty years of their lives being pregnant, giving birth, breastfeeding, and tending children and grandchildren. Until recently — and still today — this meant facing an agonizing labor, potential death, or lifelong injury for the sake of perpetuating the human race.

Where, then, are all our MOMs — our Museums of Motherhood? Until last month, there were no such museums, at least not on planet earth. But on Sept 1, 2011, the visionary and energized Joy Rose, a mother of four, a rock musician, the founder of “Housewives on Prozac” (1997-2007,) and an organizer of countless conferences, fairs, and festivals for mothers all over the country, opened the first such museum. It is located not far from where I live on the Upper East Side.

A rare sight to see on the cover of Vanity Fair.

Here at MOM, the Museum of Motherhood, pregnant women, women in labor, and mothers with children are cherished and displayed throughout the museum as brave champions.The subject is not hidden because it is sacred. It is honored for precisely this reason. The cheerful, brightly colored space is filled with artfully painted plaster casts of real women’s pregnant torsos — like so many modern-day versions of ancient fertility goddesses, like so many Venuses of Willendorf.

An increasing number of contemporary women are casting themselves while pregnant. Here, at MOM, they can have an artist paint it to their specifications. The museum also displays and sells a “pregnancy vest” that weighs 40-60 pounds, the amount of weight that many women gain while they are pregnant.

The pregnant woman has also become a source of inspiration for many photographers, painters, and sculptors. The works of Alexia Nye Jackson (who created the installation “Mother: The Job”), Deborah Putnoi, Ella Dreyfus, Jo Jayson, Elizabeth Coe Sheehan and Joy Rose, Paula Rendino Zaentz and Ronnie Komarow are on display. Artist April Bey has been acquiring and painting the mannequins that dressmakers once used to fashion dresses for pregnant women. Bey’s mannequins are vividly striking and boldly colored. They are the kind of work that may soon go on display at the MOM.

By April Bey

I’ve described visiting MOM as a “redemptive” experience. Here’s why.

Before I became pregnant, I did not “see” pregnant women. Somehow, they were mysteriously invisible to me. After I became pregnant — I saw pregnant women everywhere.

Before I became a mother, my ego knew no bounds. I thought I could overcome all obstacles through force of will, not by bending to circumstance, or trusting in forces larger than myself. For me, motherhood was something of a reverse Zen experience. Having a child was a passage from detachment to attachment.

Becoming a new-born mother changed my life. It humbled me, slowed me down, made me kinder, and infinitely more vulnerable to cruelty. I learned that life does not stand still, that it is always changing, growing, dying, being renewed. For years, when I had looked in the mirror, I always looked the “same” to myself. Time became real for me when I began to measure it by my beloved son’s obvious, visible growth. Time became more finite.

I comprehended, in my body, that one day I would die. I quickly came to understand that pregnancy and newborn motherhood was one of the greatest human rites of passage. I needed to read books — even one book — with this perspective as I was going through this experience. It was 1977, and there were no such books to be found. I decided to write the kind of book that I needed to read.

I could not easily find a publisher. One female editor literally said: “What is this bulls***? You can write a ‘real’ book, why waste your time on this non-subject?” A male editor at another publishing house, whom I’d never met, told my agent: “What could she possibly write about pregnancy or motherhood? She’s a feminist, a career woman, she’s not a ‘normal’ woman and she can’t be a ‘normal’ mother.” A third publisher said that the subject had already been “done.” Ah, by whom I asked: Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Cervantes? Proust, Hemingway?

And so I came to study and write about the experience of motherhood for the next thirty three years. I published With Child. A Diary of Motherhood, (1979); Mothers on Trial: The Battle for Children and Custody (1986), and Sacred Bond: The Legacy of Baby M (1988); I have just published an updated twenty fifth anniversary edition of Mothers on Trial with eight new chapters. This work documents motherhood under siege, what “good enough” mothers must endure when their custodial right to mother is unjustly challenged, often by violent fathers, sometimes by “good enough” fathers.

I did not expect to see a museum such as this in my lifetime.

But, then came Joy with her infectious optimism, passion, and deeply spiritual nature, an essence coupled with a very American “take charge, can do” attitude. Joy is tall and blonde and beautiful but she is also incredibly maternal, protective towards other women. She wears a lot of “magic” jewelry (amulets, etc.) and sometimes frosts her hair bright pink.

Joy describes MOM as a “pop-up exhibit,” one which will last for four precious months in a 2,500 square feet space.

The Museum of Motherhood smells good. The air is perfumed. The ambience is a cross between Gymboree (from whom she is renting the space), and a fantasy country fair. It has many different “areas” including a “Greif-fitti” wall, where “stories of grief and loss can create a path to healing.” MOM has visual displays, historical photos of and information about suffragists, information about ancient and medieval birth practices, films, rotating photography and art exhibits, and an arresting list of the tasks which every mother performs and what purchasing those tasks would cost on the open market. Joy Rose and her team (of both men and women) also co-ordinate writing and art workshops, poetry “slams,” musical performances, all-day conferences, and events for children.

I recently took a quick, private tour and was charmed by the mother-friendly, child-friendly, atmosphere and by the sweetness of Joy’s right hand man, Paul White, who helped Joy show me around. Then, I interviewed Joy:

Q: What motivated you to establish the Museum of Motherhood?

A: We have mustard museums, marble museums, car museums, but until now, there have been no museums dedicated to this all important job of creating the next generation of human beings. This museum will give all of us an opportunity to study and understand this most important job of “mother.”

Q: When did you start this work?

A: This has been a project of a lifetime. It has been years in the making and there has been, at any given time, a small group of dedicated individuals who have given generously of their time to make this museum happen. This first exhibit, as part of our Pop-Up museum, brings home to New York City the fruit of conferences, exhibits and festivals around the world.

Q: When did you become interested in motherhood as a subject?

A: The obvious answer is: after I became a mother.

Some things have not changed. For example, quality child care is still beyond the economic reach of most families. Upon divorce, child support payments are minimal or non-existent especially among families where one or even both earners make only minimal income.

But here’s what has changed in the last forty years. In the past career women were often asked to choose between their jobs and motherhood, and were given no time off, certainly not with paid maternity leaves. Now, some are — and there are some paternity leaves, too. In the recent past, universities did not offer courses about motherhood. Now some do. There were never any conferences, academic or otherwise, which focused on this life-changing and life-bringing event. Now there are some. Joy herself organizes many and I have had the privilege of speaking for her. Where once there were few books about pregnancy, labor, newborn motherhood, lifelong motherhood, motherhood under siege — there are now many such books.

And now, we have our first not-for-profit Museum of Motherhood. Please support the Museum of Motherhood’s Capital Campaign so that it can remain open at its current location for the next two years.

Dr. Phyllis Chesler is the author of 14 books and an emerita professor of Psychology and Women’s Studies. She once lived in Kabul, Afghanistan.

She may be reached through her website www.phyllis-chesler.com.