January 29th, 2007
The Cage of -Isms
This is a concept I learned from a workshop conducted by Jona Olsen at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival a few years ago. As you can see, this is a cage. Its bars are made up of the various -isms that hold so many of us back. Presumably there is a back side to the cage made up of bars like “anti-Semitism” and others that I didn’t have room to include here. You could also label the bars with the structures of dominance–white supremacy, capitalism, male dominance, imperialism/colonialism, christianity, etc. Either way, I have found this a useful way to think about the interlocking nature of these phenomena, these expressions of power-over.
At another of Jona’s workshops, she provided an exercise that can’t be represented visually, but was extremely powerful to participate in. The group was asked to stand in a line next to each other, and to hold hands, and to do everything we could to keep holding hands throughout the exercise. Jona then read a series of questions; for each question, an individual person’s answer might require her to step backwards or forwards. For example, “If your family received government cheese when you were a child, take a step back.” Or “If you went to college, take a step forward.” As the exercise progressed, women contorted ourselves in an effort to continue to hold our sisters’ hands. I remember the feeling of how important it was to keep holding on as my arm and shoulder stretched and stretched, as I changed my stance to extend myself as far as possible, in an effort to keep holding on. Inevitably some of the connections were broken.
When she finished reading the list of questions, Jona drew an imaginary line some distance ahead of the women in the front of the group, and said, “Imagine that this is the line that represents all that is necessary for a decent life. Not a life of luxury, not quite just getting by, but a comfortable, middle-of-the-road life. Now turn and look behind you.” We all noticed where we were in relation to others, and who was behind us, and why. The Jona said, “I’ll count to three; on three, you’re all going to make a break for this line.”
This was an incredible, powerful, physical, visceral representation of the way social injustices and inequalities combine to create a profoundly unlevel playing field. Those of us towards the front are so focused on “making it,” on “the American dream,” that that line is all we can see. We forget to turn around and look at those who start the “race” so far behind that the fact that they sometimes catch up and surpass those of us with more advantages is a miracle as well as a testament to their strength and determination. And worst of all, we never notice how the structures of dominance break what could be our greatest source of strength–our connections and solidarity with each other.
