Women

The impact of evolutionary nuns on shaping the next culture

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The nuns provide a model for all who are exploring ways in which humanity can reconstitute itself and forge a post-industrial culture that radically departs from the paradigm of industrial civilization. Members of Sisters Of The Earth are deeply involved not only with social justice issues, but with local organic food efforts, permaculture, the Transition movment, raising awareness on climate change, economic justice, and sustainable living.

Mother: Caring for 7 Billion (documentary film review)

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The documentary takes a penetrating look at overpopulation, what fuels it and why the world has become complacent about the issue after making a good start in addressing it during the late 60s. The film dispels some key myths about overpopulation – chief among them the belief that it’s long been solved – even if it stops short of admitting the inevitability of a world population crash as the Earth’s resources deplete. And it conveys its message in an engaging, visually immersive style that finds just the right balance between hard facts and ordinary human involvement.

Gender roles and descent

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All of us will need to work cooperatively to become more self-sufficient as we restructure of our culture post fossil fuels, which requires more time at home, making the juggling all the harder if we refuse to give something up. And women are not good at giving things up, as evidenced by our current quandary of too many roles to play.

Pink Attack!

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Ultimately I’m not convinced you can have any kind of functional relationship with consumer culture — even though, of course, I have one. I live in large measure off the waste of industrial society, a waste that will probably dry up some day.

The Next American Revolution Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century

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Grace Lee Boggs, a legendary figure in the struggle for justice in America, shrewdly assesses the current crisis—political, economical, and environmental—and shows how to create the radical social change we need to confront new realities. A vibrant, inspirational force, Boggs has participated in all of the twentieth century’s major social movements—for civil rights, women’s rights, workers’ rights, and more. She draws from seven decades of activist experience, and a rigorous commitment to critical thinking, to redefine “revolution” for our times. The daughter of Chinese immigrants, she is 95 years old.
[Her ideas sound remarkably like Transition and similar movements.]

Peak Moment 209: Growing up in the first Great Depression

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Janaia’s mother Rowena grew up in a blue collar family during the 1930s. The kids helped their mom in her own pie delivery business while their dad did construction odd jobs. In this cash-only society, they lived on what they could pay for. She recalls losing her only pair of shoes and envying a school girl’s daily peanut butter-and-jam sandwich. But she didn’t feel deprived: people generously gave groceries and hand-me-down clothes. Kids entertained themselves with outdoor games, and later, from adventures emanating from the home-built radio. Her frugality, self-reliant attitude and do-it-yourself skills went on to enrich the family Janaia grew up in.

Review: Falling Through Time by Patricia Comroe Frank

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Since its beginnings, the sleeper-awakes scenario has been one of the most commonly used frameworks for introducing fictional utopias and dystopias–yet somehow it doesn’t feel overdone. The reason, I suspect, is that the sleep is incidental to the story, the true focus being the new world order and how it compares with the old. That’s certainly the case with Patricia Frank’s Falling Through Time, the story of a woman who travels into the future and takes us on a sort of guided tour of it. Her name is Summer Holbrook, and she’s a prominent advertising executive who goes missing while vacationing in Alaska. After suffering a spill down a glacier crevasse, she freezes, falls into suspended animation and is found and rescued by a band of expeditioners in the year 2084.

Women Creating Caring Communities in Detroit

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Philosopher, author and lifelong activist Grace Lee Boggs encouraged…women to re-imagine education, work and the things they do to care for each other and their families.

“All over the planet more and more people are thinking beyond making a living to making a life, a life that respects Earth and one another,” she said. “This is the next American revolution.”