Meg Bowman named 2010 Humanist Heroine.

[Blue-Jay]

excerpts from her speech:

I am grateful for receiving this honor as Humanist Heroine. I’m now in my eighties so I’m also just grateful for being here and for my friends who are here. Now that I am in my dotage, however, I’m more opinionated than ever. I’m less tolerant of people with prejudices, those who use sexist language, materialistic jerks, and greedy CEOs. I’m less tolerant of discrimination, misogyny, patriarchy, stupidity, Republicans, and a whole lot of Democrats.

.....

For sure, I know two of the biggest lies or myths perpetrated on humans: Number one is the attempt to classify humans into racial categories. Classification is basic to human thinking and central to human language, but the idea of race is a cultural and historical attempt to classify humans. It’s a social construct. A study in superstitions. Race is a most dangerous myth that leads to thinking some groups of people are superior to others. What a crock!

Having lighter skin is only beneficial for acceptance when we say it is. I know that people with lighter skin, say of European ancestry, enjoy white privilege and are socialized to feel entitled, to feel superior, and these feelings are so ingrained that many don’t recognize it as racism or ethnocentrism or acknowledge that colonialism and slavery and genocide have been justified by that lie. Racial categories, like other cultural inventions, become deeply internalized and profoundly shape the perceptions of our social world. There is only one race, the human race. I know for sure that if we could trace our ancestry back far enough, we Homo sapiens are all related. We are all cousins.

The other lie or myth is that men are superior to women—that men have the innate right to have power over women, over children, and over the earth, and to dominate the serfs, slaves, governments, and corporations, and religions, and education, and the media and, well, everything. In order to sell this myth, the all-boys club needed a hierarchy, and at the top of their hierarchy they needed an all-powerful male god, one big, bad honcho to validate their power and to control the people. Zeus, Thor, Yahweh, Allah, God, whatever. The divine right of kings? Another lie! And because of this myth, the males of our species everywhere are socialized to feel entitled, and these feelings of entitlement are called double standards, sexism, male chauvinism, and patriarchy, which leads to rape, domestic violence, sexual harassment, wage differentials, female genital mutilation, witch burning, burqas, child rape—well, it’s the denigration of women and girls. There will never be peace on this little planet until there is an end to patriarchy.

(Meg Bowman is a sociologist, educator, and a longtime activist for women’s rights, civil rights, and peace. She has escorted groups to UN women’s conferences abroad, promoted educational scholarships for young girls in developing countries, and has authored or edited twelve books, including her latest, Courageous Women (2010, Hot Flash Press).)


Lots more here: http://www.thehumanist.org/humanist/10_nov_dec/Bowman.html