Louise Glück

“Brilliant, passionate, thwarted women”

– Louise Glück on her public school teachers (brilliant women in her time apparently married lawyers and doctors, unable to have that profession themselves, and instead taught at schools)

I went to the Louise Glück poetry reading at Parker, as well as listening to her speak to my poetry class in school. I was wary going in to the event because great artists are often a bit painful: narcissistic, entitled, pretentious etc. Somewhat surprisingly, she was truly honest, about her experience, her life, and her work. She was definitely intense, suffering bronchitis after a week of not sleeping, writing poetry because she was suddenly inspired. But her poems are very intense, so her character isn’t surprising.

            As a teen, she suffered from anorexia. It was especially interesting to hear from her perspective in her essay, “Education of the Poet,” because at the time, anorexia was not such a common ailment. Glück’s anorexia developed from a need to border and define herself through will. Unfortunately, she had copious stores of will, and realized at sixteen, “at some point I was going to die.” Anorexia is interesting, from a psychological standpoint while being heartrending. But what made Glück’s portrayal of an oft-discussed illness unusual was its defeminization. Never did she mention, ‘body image,’ or ‘media pressure’ (though those causations should not be diminished.) Although the effect of anorexia is to become painfully, dangerously thin, the cause is not usually a desire to become painfully, dangerously thin, rather, a need to take ownership and control over oneself. Men have eating disorders as well, and this feminization of a gender neutral illness is arguably unsafe.

            Louise Glück’s lack of femininity in general was refreshing. Woman poets suffer dismissal even contemporarily (as you can read about here on my friend’s intelligent blogspost: http://civicengagementellory.blogspot.com/2015/04/elise-cowen-archetype-for-sexisms.html), but Glück didn’t discuss this at length, she seemed to define herself first as a human being. I don’t mean to say women who talk about their identity as women are less valuable, but it’s refreshing to hear a woman in a profession speak mainly about her profession, rather than her role as a woman.

            An audience member mentioned that Glück’s work must take courage, to which she responded, “There really is never any courage involved… you grab power from the world.” As well as being an unusual comment (most people vie to mention their courage,) I found it to applicable advice as a woman. You have to take power, whether you have courage, or lack it.

A favorite of her poems, "Mock Orange": http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/179759

Some scary truths about women in the art world: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/8971-women-artists-still-face-discrimination#

Sister Helen Prejean on the Death Penalty and Prisons

“If we hide suffering, we can do anything to them (prisoners) behind bars.”

– Sister Helen Prejean

I walk in to a Depaul church: relatively old, but made to look older. It’s full of a mixture of older women and Depaul students (the event counted as class credit.) There was laughter amongst the students and disorganization as it was so packed many had to stand. In the back there was an exhibit with photographs by Lloyd Degrane, and letters from inmates serving exceptionally long sentences to life. The laughter before the event felt out of place, and much of the reverence felt false.

            Sister Helen Prejean’s introducer brought some of the basic questions our society should be asking about prison, but doesn’t. For instance, what the base purpose of prison is. A punishment, a rehabilitation center, or in his words, “a settlement to keep people who would otherwise disturb our society.” The shaky definition of the purpose of prison is what drives many of the issues in prison legislature. Prisons evolved from public torture and executions, which served as deterrents to crime. Floggings and hangings and burning at the stake were brutal practices, but so is prison. Prison just takes away the public element of torture, hiding it so that the public doesn’t have to dirty their thoughts. Arguably, we have prisons to keep things in order. He said, “schools and prisons strive to create docile people.” But they take people out of society, fail to reintegrate them, and then blame them for ending up back in prison.

Is it really ok to take away everything, dignity, privacy, responsibility, friendship, and ultimately life? I don’t think it is. It’s surprisingly similar to the way women have been treated in history. In arranged marriages choice, privacy, and control over your own body is stolen from you. Even today, I see people’s mothers interrogating their daughters more than their sons, and giving stricter curfews and rules. Obviously some degree of that is about safety, being a woman is more dangerous than being a man, but still. Women have been prisoners for a long time.

Sister Helen Prejean began with a gracious thank you in her slow Louisiana drawl to her introducer. She points out that everyone in the audience has agency, agency to attend this event, and to go home afterward. The prisoners she visits don’t, and the six that she accompanied through their trials to their executions never will. She is currently visiting another man on death row, whom she believes is innocent. Actually, 2 of the men she visited with and went to their executions were innocent. This is one of the many reasons the death penalty is so incredibly wrong.

At the end of the event a woman stood up, she had a husband in prison for the third time, and four sons who she lives in fear for. Her pain was so tangible it put the entire event into a real life context. The discomfort in the room was immense. Even though nothing she said was accusatory, the fact she was a black women, and most of the room was white seemed to elicit a defensive response, just off of the body language. She pointed out how ridiculous it is when we say “they were shot down like dogs” about black men, “There would be a national outcry if dogs were being shot like our sons and father are shot down.” It’s a terrifying statement because of the truth in it.

It was definitely an upsetting event, but one I was glad I went to.

Above are some of the letters written by prisoners. They quash the stereotype that prisoners are uneducated and sloppy. The handwriting was beautiful, and the writing was above average.  

The event was a bit too serious to take a selfie, but here's a view of the church.

Below are photographs by Lloyd Degrane. 

The men desperately wanted to be in a picture, make their lives noticed, so they stuck limbs out of their cells. 

Link to one of Sister Helen's saddest most unjust cases: http://articles.courant.com/2005-01-23/entertainment/0501230483_1_dobie-gillis-williams-death-penalty-wrongful-executions

Sister Helen's twitter: https://twitter.com/helenprejean 

Marie Antoinette at Steppenwolf

This Sunday I went to see “Marie Antoinette” at Steppenwolf, written by David Adjmi and directed by Robert O’Hara. In case you don’t know the history: Marie Antoinette was a woman married to the French prince at the age of 14 in order to better Austrian-French relations. She was accused of spending France into debt. When the French revolution came about, She and Louis XVI were executed and their children died in prison.

The play explicated the inherent sexism in Marie’s portrayal as a “frivolous woman,” and the way society built her to be contemptible. She had virtually no education, and was never given a childhood or adolescence to create herself, how was she supposed to responsibly rule a country. When she crossed the border, she was stripped of all her Austrian belongings, effectively, asked to strip herself of her identity. The French court called her “the Austrian Bitch.” Reducing her to a racial and sexual slur (this still happens to powerful women all over the world.) She was celebritized and objectified, meant to be seen rather than heard.  Her only validation was gained through her appearance; it makes sense that her response would be to extravagantly spend on embellishing herself.

The play shows her personhood being gradually snatched away. Beginning in a figurative prison (the palace of Versailles and court), moving to a literal prison and the separation of her children, ending with execution. Marie was always the headline of France, said to have “given blowjobs to the entire king’s guard,” had lesbian affairs, and engaged in incest. She was constantly the subject of degrading pornographic political pamphlets. It made me think of the prevalence of “revenge porn” in our society, the systematic destruction of someone’s (usually a woman’s) reputation through sharing their sexual habits and revealing compromising photographs.

I couldn’t find out if there is any historical evidence for this, but in the play, Marie Antoinette, speaking from the dead, said the revolutionaries took her head, paraded it on a spike, and then placed it between her legs and left her on a field to rot.” What struck me, apart from the graphic violence, was the way that even in death, her womanhood was derided and she was reduced to a spectacle.

Below are paintings of Marie Antoinette at 12 and 13. Already being sexualized.

An article on revenge porn:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/reut-amit/revenge-porn-terrorism_b_5955830.html

A woman innovatively regaining ownership of her body after her nude pictures were shared online without her consent:

http://www.hystericalfeminisms.com/consent/

Women’s Health: Rewriting the Goals

“Development cannot happen without focusing on women, but women are always an afterthought!” –Purnima Mane.

I arrived at 7:30 and met Ms. Lesak in the lobby of the Standard Club. We were ushered into a room with a bunch of tables for organizations. I spoke to a representative for the “Restoring Family Links program” which the Red Cross is involved in. It is a global program that works to reconnect families with lost members, they pay for sending letters and work to find loved ones. Services are provided to families separated by international disasters as well as those affected by international migration.

http://familylinks.icrc.org/en/Pages/home.aspx

It’s a really incredible program, and especially applicable to women who have lost sons and fathers in wars.

“Healthy Food for a Healthy World”

Next was a keynote panel in a large room with breakfast. I am not hugely interested in nutrition, so I didn’t love this part of the symposium. Although, there were some terrifying statistics mentioned. For instance, ¼ of children in the world are malnourished, and in India 40-45% of children are malnourished. As mothers are usually the primary procurers of food, it’s important to educate women around the world in how to get the most nutrients with the least money.

The most interesting thing I took from this panel was the point that other countries around the world are desperately trying to build this welfare safety net that provides food and care for citizens, while in America, the valuable safety net is under constant attack! The Greater Chicago Area Food Depository gives out 70,000,000 lbs. of food every year, so clearly there is still a need for welfare.

“Global Mental Health”

This topic interests me more than nutrition and the speakers were really fantastic. For whatever reason, women are more likely to suffer from depression than men. As mental illness is heavily stigmatized, especially in the nonwestern world, women face an unusually difficult disadvantage which is worsened by the fact that around the world, women are more likely to endure abuse, sexual, physical, or mental. In the Middle East, women who have survived rape, are often punished. It’s terrifying.

In war-torn regions, PTSD is widespread, and small, remote communities lack the information on what PTSD is and how to treat it. A hypothetical presented by Scott Portman was especially insightful; he said, (paraphrased) “Two siblings come home, both having faced torture. One has developed severe PTSD with flashbacks and night terrors, but the other is fine. The one with PTSD is outcast because the community cannot understand why she isn’t persevering like the other is.” Mental illness is illness, the sufferer cannot necessarily control it.

An audience member asked a valuable question. Since throughout history women have been viewed as crazy, (note the evolution of the word hysteria from the Latin word for womb) is it wise to feminize the issue of mental health?

Both speakers disagreed, although conceded that it is important to stay aware of the history of women with mental illness. Portman talked about how in Columbia, women are often left with the burden of dead male family members. But unlike most other countries, it’s expected for them to struggle with the deaths. They aren’t stigmatized or “feminized in a negative way.”

“Smart Economics: Women’s Reproductive Health”

The three speakers in this breakout group were incredible, especially Priya Agrawal, the executive director of Merck for Mothers. The refrain of the hour was “ It is both the smart and the right to do to provide women with reproductive health services. They deserve it.”

I was sure of this before the hour began, and militantly sure by the end. The usual argument for women’s reproductive services is a sob story, motherless children, drawn out death during childbirth, shockingly low life expectancy for women etc. While that absolutely should be an adequate argument, given the lack of support for this cause, it clearly is not effective enough. So instead, the speakers attacked the issue from an economic standpoint. Women with access to birth control and care have children later in life and ultimately have less children and healthier children. Healthier children means more effective workers, women having them later in life means more productive years, more time for education. It’s estimated that $15 billion is wasted in lost productivity due to inadequate women’s reproductive healthcare. $1 spent towards reproductive health can generate up to $120 in benefits.

In case you’re interested in Merck for Mothers and the value of private sector healthcare: http://www.merckformothers.com/index.html

Two especially interesting articles on the economic effects of reproductive care: http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/dec/04/spending-on-women-healthcare-save-millions-guttmacher-institute-unfpa-sexual-reproductive-health

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2014/feb/17/access-to-contraception-birth-control

WOMEN ARE THE FASTEST GROWING INVESTMENT!

My special nametag

Priya is in the middle, sitting down.