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After 20+ years volunteering with battered, traumatized, and sexually assaulted women, I think anybody who disavows gender-based oppression and inequality needs a big, hot dose of reality.

The political and economic advances of women are meaningful, but in my work these are tokens and totems. Men still comprise over 90% of violent offenders against women. Sexual assault and trauma still affects more women than heart disease and cancer combined.

In a truly equal society, the strong would not overpower the weak. Until men take ownership of this violence and do the work to end it, equality is still in the starting stages.

posted 2 years, 8 months ago
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I just wanted to say what a great, moving show this was. Thank you for the coverage and the array of articulate, thoughtful guests.

posted 2 years, 9 months ago
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Not every religious person subscribes to all of the sanctions and beliefs, both cultural and scriptoral, of their faith. There's a wide gulf between Mother Theresa and Jerry Falwell. And those nuances are important. It's ridiculous to assume that a person of faith must naturally be full of hatred or prejudice, and I think a homogenous, culturally-exclusive education could be expected to foster just such a prejudice.

Prohibition on signs of faith, I believe, prevents the very thing schools should be fostering: a safe place for discourse and a greater comprehension of the multicultural world our children will inherit.  Do Oregon's legislators really want our children to be educated in a completely homogenous environment?

How can we expect our children to express  tolerance, maturity, or respect for other persons and cultures unless we teach them that our communities contain many, unique and diverse citizens - including their own teachers?

posted 3 years, 3 months ago
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