Women's Rights | The Direction of Intention

The Epicenter of Dumb [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on May 3, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The message here, girls, is clear: yes, if you marry the son of a billionaire, you too can have the life of a medieval peasant!” ~ Van Badham, The Guardian

If you wonder how far down the rabbit hole* we’ve gone, you need look no further than “MAGA Republicans marking Women’s History Month by pushing a bill that could block millions of women from voting just for changing their last name after marriage.” It’s called the SAVE ACT. Restricting a woman’s right to vote was a top priority of the Republicans and the new administration.

Here’s all you need to know: “In every presidential election since 1996, a majority of women have preferred the Democratic candidate.”

So, welcome to the Womanosphere. Branding servitude, scrubbing the 19th Amendment. Moving women back into pre-Civil War times. Apparently greatness necessitates a glossy paint job covering over women’s suffrage.

I suppose I can understand why white guys with big tires on their Silverados voted for this dangerous nonsense. I will never understand why women, people of color, veterans…or anyone with a half a brain, a sliver of heart, or a remnant of moral compass thought this Project 2025 march-to-authoritarianism was legitimate or remotely a good idea. The elimination of Constitutional and Civil rights, the gleeful resurrection of segregation, a broad brush white-washing of our history. The devaluation of women.

I’m dumbfounded. I’m staring at the very epicenter of dumb. It is brutal. It is dark. It is ugly.

I’m going to go make Kerri a sandwich.

*“Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” is often interpreted as a symbolic journey of growing up and facing the uncertainties of life, particularly during adolescence. (AI Overview). In other words, MAGA world refuses to grow up and face the uncertainties of life – like free and fair elections. It’s apparently easier to rig the elections, throw up obstacles to voters, than it is to come to the table with honesty, with ideas to legislate that serve the greater community. They are swirling in perpetual adolescence; stunted growth. The Womanosphere (insert eye-roll) is just the latest jaw-dropping example.

read Kerri’s blogpost about the WOMANOSPHERE

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Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: 19th Amendment, artistry, civil rights, constitutional rights, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dumbfounded, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, SAVE act, smack-dab, story, studio melange, suffrage, the melange, voter rights, womanosphere, Women's Rights | 4 Comments »

Take It Back [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on October 4, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Last evening, watching the sky transform from brilliant pink to deep purple and orange, we ate an entire bag of Lays Wavy potato chips. Kerri called it, “political angst eating”.

20 told us that he had to stop watching The Handmaid’s Tale because it was too close to the reality we currently face in the nation.

This morning two relevant-to-the-moment pieces of art rolled across our screens and collided. The first is Lighthouse, a new song by Stevie Nicks. In this mind-boggling time that women’s rights are under attack – that women are under attack – it is a call to action. “Is it a nightmare?” she asks. “It is unless you save it/ and that’s that/Unless you stand up/And take it back…”

The second, ROED, a short 10 minute documentary film by Dawn Lambing. It takes a page from Project 2025 and imagines what the nation will look like for women if the authoritarian maga get their wish. While watching it I realized that it is already the present reality for women in many red states. Watch it. This is no longer an exercise of “what if”. It’s here.

The Atlantic recently published an article, The Republican Freak Show: Like the man who leads it, the GOP is not just incidentally grotesque. It is grotesque at its core. In the article, Peter Wehner writes, “Since 2016 they have been at war with reality, delighting in their dime-store nihilism, creating “alternative facts” and tortured explanations to justify lawlessness and moral depravity and derangement of their leader…None of this is hidden…No one who supports the Republican party, who casts a vote for Trump and for his MAGA acolytes, can say they don’t know. They know.”

They know. It is the answer to the question we ask each day after our daily horror-troll of the news: “How can they not know.” It’s time to ask a better question. It’s time to stop pretending that they are ignorant or continually justifying their unwavering support of their depraved candidate with generous excuses like,” They just don’t see it”. They do see it.

They know. It is what they want for our nation. Women stripped of their fundamental rights. Mass deportations. The suspension of the Constitution. Book bans. The gutting of Medicare and Social Security. The elimination of the Department of Education. It goes on and on. Dangerous stuff worthy of a dystopian novel. Yet here we are. If you believe the polls, nearly 50% of our nation think the freak show is the way to go.

They know.

It is what makes Kerri and me eat entire bags of Lays Wavy potato chips. It’s why 20 stopped watching The Handmaid’s Tale.

“Is it a nightmare?” Stevie Nicks asks. Yes. Yes it is. “And that’s that/Unless you stand up/And take it back…”

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blogpost about PINK

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Filed under: Art, KS Friday, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, authoritarian, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, depravity, derangement, freedom, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lighthouse, lighthouse by stevie nicks, MAGA, Peter Wehner, reality, rights, ROED, Stevie Nicks, story, studio melange, The Atlantic, The Constitution of The United States, The Handmaid's Tale, the melange, The Republican Freak Show, truth, Women's Rights | 3 Comments »

A Constant State [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on June 3, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

The word that stopped me was “nevertheless.” All the same. Even so. Still.

Despite the obstacles. Despite the opposition. She persisted. She continues on. She perseveres.

She.

A female judge gave her some advice: “As a woman, it’s not enough to be prepared. You have to be 200% prepared.” She was speaking from experience. “It hasn’t changed since I graduated from law school,” she added, “And that was over 30 years ago.”

So, she prepared. And prepared. And prepared.

Perseverance in the movies comes with a soundtrack. It also comes with inevitability. In real life it’s not that way.

Her day to be be heard finally came and she stepped into a foregone conclusion. All the males in the room were afforded the opportunity to speak. She left the building at the end of the day still waiting to be heard. The men spun their tale, objected when she opened her mouth, and then called it a day.

“Systems usual,” she said, upset but undeterred.

I wanted to buy this small dish for her. Nevertheless she persisted. An encouragement.

“It’s what all women have to do,” she said, looking over my shoulder. “We don’t need a reminder. We walk through the world in a constant state of “nevertheless”.

Nevertheless, she.

read Kerri’s blogpost about NEVERTHELESS

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Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective, Seeing | Tagged: artistry, continue on, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, giving voice, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, obstacles, old boys club, Opposition, perseverance, persist, persistence, resilience, resilient, she, story, studio melange, the melange, voice, Women's Rights | 1 Comment »

Fulfill The Promise [on KS Friday]

Posted on May 13, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Look up the word “suffrage” in the dictionary and you’ll discover it means, “the right to vote.” Synonyms include “voice,” “enfranchisement,” and “choice.” It took a hundred years of protest for women to secure the right to vote in these un-united United States. As we prepare to take a giant step backwards it should not be lost on us that the battle for a woman’s voice to be heard continues to this day.

The size of the tide rising against a woman’s right to choose has a long root in suffrage. A woman’s choice. The crusty old ideal: “The Cult of True Womanhood, that is, the idea that the only “true” woman was a pious, submissive wife and mother concerned exclusively with home and family.” is yet again rearing its ugly head.

I’ve written before of my experience in a jury pool. I was in the third group of 50 to be called into the courtroom. The judge gave us a single instruction: “Raise your hand if you either have been or know someone who’s been the victim of sexual assault.” Every member of my group raised their hands. The same had happened with the previous two groups. Out of 150 potential jurors, 150 had either been or knew intimately someone who had been the victim of sexual assault. “How am I ever going to seat an impartial jury,” the judge said to us and to himself.

It was a great question. Here’s a better question: why is sexual assault so prevalent in our nation?

The cult of true womanhood is, of course, a man’s idea. What about a powerful woman, with full protected rights and choice over her body, makes (a minority in) this nation froth and scream? What exactly are these few trying to control?

Equality. Actual equality. A promise unfulfilled for so many.

To my long ago judge I would say that we cannot seat an impartial jury until we experience an impartial court and a governing body willing and able to protect the rights of all citizens equally. It’s the ideal, the organizing principle of this nation-of-promise. Or is it?

A woman with an equal voice and equal pay, with the same protections a man enjoys, will, of course, express fully her equality. It begs the rhetorical question: What exactly are these few afraid of?

Suffrage. Enfranchisement. Choice. Equality.

Kerri’s music is available on iTunes & streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blog post about MADE FOR WOMEN

Filed under: KS Friday, Perspective, Possibility, Uncategorized | Tagged: abortion, artistry, choice, culture wars, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, enfranchisement, equality, ideals, impartial court, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, planned parenthood, rights, sexual health, story, studio melange, suffrage, the melange, women, Women's Rights | Leave a comment »

Surface The Pattern [on DR Thursday]

Posted on September 23, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

Steve read my book and said he didn’t really understand the thing about pattern. His comment at first surprised me but then I realized he was actually reinforcing the point: we are unconscious to our patterning. We think in patterns. We see in patterns. Culture is pattern. Pattern is invisible and making it visible is a necessary first step in change processes.

The people who surface pattern are often seen by the mainstream as deviant or rebellious. Women demanding equal pay are attempting to make a pattern visible. The BLM movement is attempting to make a cultural pattern visible. Shining a light on longstanding oppression is never welcome in the halls of power.

The people who work to repress the visibility of cultural pattern, conserve the norms, generally claim a righteous superiority. They are keepers of the culture and feel threatened, even victimized, by the sudden visibility of cultural pattern. Exposure is always a threat to the existing pattern and no one relinquishes power or privilege without a fight. The current raft of voter suppression laws – made possible by the fantasy of a stolen election – is a great example. The Big Lie is a textbook example of how far people in power will go to hide a privilege-norm. It is, for us in these un-united states, not a new phenomenon; it is a longstanding well-guarded pattern.

Change happens when the patterns are surfaced. There will always be a tide that rises to extinguish the light of exposure. In the long run, those hardy voices that were, at first, branded as deviant or dangerous, we come to honor and respect. They refused to be silenced. We claim them as our heroes. MLK. Gandhi. Rosa Parks. Cesar Chavez. Susan B. Anthony. There are so many. It is no easy task to surface the patterns. The path of a light-shiner is dangerous and difficult.

John Lewis gave great advice for those dedicated to surfacing unconscious patterns: “Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America.” He also said that, “…transformation will not happen right away. Change takes time.”

Opening eyes to unconscious pattern, to what is obvious yet unseen, is an artist’s path. Seeing beyond what you think you see…seeing beyond your field-of-dedicated-belief, being curious enough to question what you are being told – can you imagine anything more necessary – more vital – in our age of rabid-misinformation and desperate-pattern-suppression?

read Kerri’s blog post about PATTERN

In Dreams I Wrestle With Angels, 24x48IN, two panels, mixed media

Filed under: Art, DR Thursday, Edges, Heroes, Pattern, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, BLM, Cesar Chavez, change, conservative, culture, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Equal pay, Joehn Lewis, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mahatma gandhi, MLK, norms, pattern, privilege, redemption, Rosa Parks, studio melange, Susan B. Anthony, the big lie, the melange, threat to power, Women's Rights | Leave a comment »

Turn And Take A Hard Look [on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on June 2, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

Systems are living things and like all living things will fight to the death when threatened. It is, I believe, what is at play in these un-united-united-states.

I love the irreverence of the questions taken from a mock conference agenda, published in the October 2017 issue of Real Simple Magazine. Who bears the bulk of moral responsibility and what’s the appropriate punishment? Beneath the humor, the real question is made clear: why are women expected to mold their bodies, often in torturous ways, to fit an impossible ideal? It is a centuries old phenomenon.

There is a very telling photograph from 2017 of an all male White House task force discussing health benefits that included women’s health issues. This photograph is nothing new. The ideal represented within it, is ubiquitous. A headline from The Guardian reads “These 25 Republicans -All White Men – Just Voted To Ban Abortion In Alabama.”

A system is a living thing. It will fight to the death when threatened.

This paragraph from Rolling Stone Magazine [May 17, 2019] captures the essence of the fight, the core of the system that is under threat: The Republican movement behind forced-birth bills is truly ignorance allied with power, as James Baldwin once warned us about. The rhetoric may be more vociferous and reckless now than it was when the religious right was first revving up, but it is no less cynical. Even if it escapes the lips or is written or signed into law by women like Governor Kay Ivey of Alabama, the primary goal of that revanchist talk has always been to take America back to a time when the word of white men went all but unquestioned.

“The unquestioned word of white men.” The system as designed is now being questioned. And so, ignorance allies with power. The Big Lie. The Republican party is afraid to investigate-and-talk-about what happened on January 6th because of what an investigation will reveal. Ignore-ance.

Taking America back to a time when the word of white men went all but unquestioned. We never actually left that time but had certainly broached the subject of progress toward the promise of equality for all. And so, the system is fighting. It is threatened like never before so it is fighting like never before. Voter suppression laws. The legal assault being mounted on a woman’s right to choose. Fearmongering BLM rhetoric like Ron Johnson’s inanity.

Black Lives Matter. Women’s Rights. Voters’ Rights, Civil Rights…all embodiment of the ideals that we espouse and yet, all are threats to the system. All ask questions of the unquestioned white men.

In a speech yesterday, President Joe Biden said that America is based on an idea. “It’s the greatest idea in the long history of humankind. An idea that we’re all created equal in the image of Almighty God. That we’re all entitled to dignity, as my father would say, and respect, decency, and honor. Love of neighbor. They’re not empty words, but the vital, beating heart of our nation.“

Division is the control-mechanism designed into the system to keep the word of the white men unquestioned. Colonists everywhere installed the same mechanism in their colonies. Powerful women, powerful citizens of all colors and sexual orientation, united, are a threat to the system. And so it fights. It lies. It blocks scrutiny. It screams that Black Lives are a more dangerous threat than a white insurrection on the capitol. Antifa! Socialism! Fear! Divide the people. Keep them fighting each other. It’s a strategy that’s worked for centuries.

It is more than time that the idea of America, at long last, punch through the wall of the system and fulfill its promise, its highest ideal. What is there to fear in equality?

Pre-torn jeans made of elastic. Who bears the bulk of the moral responsibility? Beneath the humor, the real question comes clear: do we have the capacity, at long last, to stop molding ourselves in tortuous ways to fit an impossibly conflicted system? Can we turn and take a hard look at our empty words and fill them with the promise, the beating heart of the idea? Equality. United.

read Kerri’s blog post about Pretorn Jeans