Higher Ground, Not Common Ground: Our Lines in the Sand

Lines in the sand... What are yours?

Our lines are the values and principles that motivate and inform our lives, inspire action and require resistance and sacrifice.

The theme of the new edition was provoked by today’s too-prevalent sentiment to compromise principles in the interests of seeking “common ground” and reconciliation with opposing views. In these articles we explore the feminist and progressive values that must be held tightly, the “lines in the sand” that we refuse to erase.

- Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Merle Hoffman says reproductive freedom is “the front line, the bottom line and the everlasting line in the sand,” in her editorial “Higher Ground, Not Common Ground.”

"Our bodies are lines in the sand. Each one of us proclaims that the power of the state stops at our skin when we lay our bodies down for an abortion, saying, with that action, that it is we who will decide when and whether to bear children,” she says.

- Gloria Feldt in “To Run the World, Power Up Feminism,” argues that constant action is what’s needed to achieve gender parity. Feldt says now is not the time for complacency. Her specific goals include:

1. Elect feminists
2. Promote feminists to appointive office
3. Mobilize grassroots support for women’s rights

- Pam Chamberlain reminds us that compromise brings consequence. In her piece “Common Enemies: LGBT, Abortion Share Foes,” Chamberlain discusses The Third Way, a new group that attempts to merge evangelical Christians with progressives. Chamberlain argues that compromising from the progressive standpoint is dangerous as it only allows the right to chip away slowly at abortion rights and reproductive freedom.

“They [the right] appear to be conciliatory, while negotiating to get federal funds to block abortion access,” she says.

- Irasema Garza revisits the Equal Pay Act in “Second Bill of Rights: Economic Security.” Garza points out that even now, years after the bill became law, women are still working for less than men. Garza says the time is now for a “second bill of rights” to focus on achieving economic equality for women.

- “Those who violate women should not get away with it,” says Charlotte Bunch in “Listen Up: UN Must Hear Women on Violence.” Bunch discusses UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon’s new campaign to end violence against women all over the world and argues that feminist voices must be central to any UN involvement.

- On The Issues Magazine focuses on women-produced art as well as political and activist issues. Our new book editor, Christine Hutchins, reviews Ending Slavery: How We Free Today’s Slaves, by Kevin Bales and The Reproductive Rights Reader: Law, Medicine, and the Construction of Motherhood, ed. Nancy Ehrenreich.

- In this edition, art editor Linda Stein features the prints of East Coast artist Judith K. Brodsky. Her piece, One Hundred Million Women Are Missing, offers a global and feminist reflection on Lines in the Sand.


LINKS TO ARTICLES MENTIONED

“Higher Ground, Not Common Ground” by Merle Hoffman
http://www.ontheissuesmagazine.com/2009spring/2009spring_publisher.php

“To Run the World, Power Up Feminism” by Gloria Feldt
http://www.ontheissuesmagazine.com/2009spring/2009spring_8.php

“Common Enemies: LGBT, Abortion Share Foes” by Pam Chamberlain
http://www.ontheissuesmagazine.com/2009spring/2009spring_2.php

“Second Bill of Rights: Economic Security” by Irasema Garza
http://www.ontheissuesmagazine.com/2009spring/2009spring_10.php

“Listen Up: UN Must Hear Women On Violence” by Charlotte Bunch
http://www.ontheissuesmagazine.com/2009spring/2009spring_11.php

Art by Judith K. Brodsky
http://www.ontheissuesmagazine.com/2009spring/2009spring_art.php

Contact Information

Georgia Kral

Outreach and Editorial Assistant

On The Issues Magazine

Contact via E-mail