I never thought we’d return to the same vacation spot every year: Falling in love with Block Island

I never thought we’d return to the same vacation spot every year, but my husband and I have fallen in love with Block Island, a tiny little island about 14 miles off the coast of Rhode Island.

You have to really love this place to put up with the hassles of getting there. Demand for rentals exceeds supply, so to rent a house you need to book in January and book your ferry reservations in January as well. Whenever the weather is bad, the ferry doesn’t run and you’re stuck sometimes for days waiting for service to resume. (This happened to us this year and we wound up spending 3 nights in Jamestown, R.I.)

But Block Island is worth it—gorgeous uncrowded beaches, unspoiled meadows and woodland, great restaurants--the perfect chill-out place. We rent a house big enough to invite friends and relatives. Rick is from Rhode Island and it’s an opportunity for him to see some of his RI friends and relatives and we always invite some of our Philly friends . Part of the fun is sharing Block Island with good friends.

The view from our deck:



The view from our deck at sunset:



Last year I wrote a post defending our low-key vacation. In a sense I was arguing with my younger self. From last summer’s post:

I remember giving my sister a hard time about her Jersey shore rentals: “For the kind of money you’re spending on these shore houses, you could be going to Europe!”

I no longer think our choice needs defending. We’ll go to Block Island every year as long as we can drive.

I love the ocean and for years tried to interest Rick in the Jersey shore. I’m a Philly girl so the Jersey shore is fine with me. And the Jersey shore is only an hour and half away!

But I have to admit the Block Island beaches are far more beautiful than the Jersey shore and I’m hooked--and I'm not at all apologetic about going there year after year.

If a summer goes by and I don’t spend time at the beach I get really depressed. I don’t need a whole summer—a week will do. But I need that ocean fix. (Freud was onto something when he referred to religious/ spiritual experience as that “oceanic”feeling.)

I noticed that I’m no longer constantly second guessing decisions and subjecting everything I do to hypercritical scrutiny. Psychologists tell us we get less neurotic as we age--compensation of sorts for the wrinkles, aches and pains that come with one’s 60’s.

Maybe this is what’s going on with me. I don’t feel guilty about not going to a foreign country and learning about a different culture. So what if we want to go to the same low-key vacation place every summer!

The over-planted garden

This year my husband, Rick, and I were judges in the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society city gardens contest. The requirements to be a judge are not that stringent— membership in the Horticultural Society and attendance at a training session for prospective judges.

At the training session, we were shown examples of good and bad gardens, including a photo described as “an over-planted garden.” I didn’t understand what the problem was; it looked good to me.

When I got home, I looked at my garden and realized I had created one of those horticultural no-no’s: "the over-planted garden." Rick said if the Horticultural Society trainers could see our garden, they would never let us be judges. Probably so.

Thanks to my friend Fran Waksler, I’ve learned the trick of taking photos of my garden when it’s especially wild and unkempt: close-ups.

Here’s the star of my August garden, crape myrtle:



And when my garden’s really a mess, there’s the close-up of the single flower. This amazing dahlia (variety unknown) begins as a rosy lavender and gradually morphs into a blazing orange:



It’s clear my garden will never win a prize in the city gardens contest. Rick made me feel a little better about it; “Think of a garden as creating an environment—a place you want to be—not a showpiece which meets the highest standards of the Horticultural Society.”

I thought I had made my peace with the messiness of my garden and wrote a post last August in which I proudly stated: “ I can deal with the fact that some of my friends think my garden is a chaotic mess… It took me a lot longer than it should have to get to this state of acceptance, but I think I’m there.”

Well, I’m not quite there yet, but I’ll keep working on making peace with my garden’s imperfections. It’s a lot easier than creating the perfect garden.

The White House Project in the Age of Sarah Palin and the Mama Grizzlies

I attended the White House Project workshop at the 2010 Blogher conference although I had been feeling increasingly ambivalent about non-partisan efforts such as the White House Project and the Women’s Campaign fund, “She should Run” Campaign.

After the White House Project workshop, it was a relief to see Emily’s list put out a frankly partisan attack with its hilarious video “Sarah Doesn't Speak for Me” .

For the past several decades, electing women has been a major focus of my activist life. I first heard Marie Wilson at a Womens Way conference in Philadelphia in 2004 and was convinced she was on the right track. I attended Emily’s List training sessions and over the years participated in numerous local workshops on women in politics. I organized a series of workshops in Philadelphia to encourage women to run for committeeperson, and worked on numerous campaigns to elect women candidates, etc.etc.

So why was I doing all this? It wasn’t just the belief that both genders should be represented in roughly equal numbers in positions of political power. I saw gender parity in politics as way to achieve a progressive agenda. More women in power would mean redirecting funds from a bloated defense budget and investing instead in human needs. Sure, there were the Margaret Thatchers, but I explained them away as women who had clawed their way to the top in a male-dominated political culture. When women achieve critical mass, they will support each other and make it possible for more progressive leaders to emerge.

Well, it turns out the Thatcher types have their female support networks too. And focusing on women does not automatically lead to advancing a progressive agenda.

In this context the White House Project did not resonate with me the way it did in 2004. I understand that the White House Project is a 501c3 and cannot be overtly partisan without jeopardizing its tax exempt status and funding sources. And I grant that the kind of skills-oriented, non-partisan training the White House Project provides is valuable for women new to the political process.

The speakers were excellent. Jill Miller Zimon who described her journey from blogger to elected official was really inspirational and Kathryn Poindexter who did the practical “everything you need to know to run for office” workshop provided all kinds of useful advice. She encouraged everyone at the session to think about running for office.

But not everyone should run. Over the years, I’ve seen workshops like these encourage women who lack the skills/ temperament /the politics which are good fit for their district take up supporters’ time and money on doomed campaigns.

Every successful woman candidate needs a good team behind her and that’s the role I’ve played, but I have become increasingly resentful of candidates with little or no chance to win asking me for my time/money.

After Poindexter’s session, I expressed some of my reservations. She had some good answers: there are so many women out there who have difficulty thinking of themselves in this role. We need to get more women running if we are ever to get that critical mass. Gender parity changes the political dynamic. So if we encourage some weak or inappropriate candidates, that’s a small price to pay to get the word out to large numbers of women.

She and I are on opposite trajectories. Poindexter said she began her career as a campaign consultant, focusing on candidates with progressive /feminist politics—-not on the candidate’s gender. The 2008 election was a real turning point for her; when Cris Matthews said that Hillary Clinton just didn’t sound "presidential," Poindexter decided she’d had enough and wanted to focus on advancing women.

I agree we have a real problem here and grant that at least Sarah Palin and her Mama Grizzlies help to normalize the idea of women in high political office. But with their emergence on the national scene, I’ve begun to question my earlier focus on electing women as a kind of magic bullet.

Yes, I want gender parity but don’t want to achieve that critical mass of women leaders through electing women like Sarah Palin. I want to elect more feminist women (and men). Sarah sure doesn’t speak for me.

New York City: The New American Heartland!

My husband and I just spent a few days in New York City for the Blogher 2010 conference. (More about that later.)

Over dinner, I happened to use the term heartland as shorthand for white, small town, Christian America and Rick said, “I think you’re sitting in the heartland.” He may be on to something here.

Walking down the streets of Manhattan (especially lower Manhattan) you see in what sometimes appears to be roughly equal numbers, the descendents of Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. And a casual glance at the street scene confirms that so many of the children of recent immigrants (with their unaccented English, their dress, their friends and partners) are clearly part of our ever-evolving American culture.

I always feel a little more alive when I’m in NYC and the cultural mix is a major part of the reason for that "center of the universe" feeling I always get in Manhattan.

When my husband and I retired, we planned to get to NYC more frequently but we haven’t done it nearly as much as we intended. We’ve resolved to change that. Rick has always thought of himself as a New Yorker in spirit and we always spend his birthday in NYC. We’ve tended to avoid the city in July and August and wouldn’t have come this August except for the Blogher conference. But I’m beginning to rethink that. The NYC street scene in August has its charms; people move a lot more slowly and seem more relaxed.

Not only do I love the cultural diversity of NYC, I love the relative lack of age segregation. You see so many really old people in their late 70’s, 80’s, even 90’s out and about in on the streets of Manhattan. They’re at the museums, the theaters and restaurants. This has a lot to do with NYC’s public transportation—plentiful taxi’s and accessible buses. A good friend told me her 89 year old mother who just had a hip replacement goes all over the city by bus. For older people who can afford to live there, NYC is a great place to grow old. I never noticed this when I was a young woman coming to NYC for all the excitement Philly could not offer, but as a retiree in her sixties I sure notice it now.

I find it especially gratifying to see women in their late 70’s, 80’s going to the theater alone and enjoying every minute. Sure, it’s much more fun to go to the theater with a friend, a partner. But for people who live alone, it might not always be possible to find someone who wants to see a particular play or be available for an impulse theater trip.

An elderly theater lover can probably easily find a friend who wants to see West Side Story or South Pacific, but it’s not so easy to find someone who might be interested in seeing an off-Broadway production like In God’s Hat described as a “noirish tale of loutish people.” So there she was, the elderly women in the front row having a great time at the theater by herself.

We’ve been going to more off-Broadway shows of late and it’s not just because of the ticket prices. There is so much theatrical talent in NYC and much of it is found off-Broadway The acting in In God’s Hat was astonishingly good. I think somehow it will live beyond its 4 week run at United Stages.

If you like seriously good theater at relatively low prices get on the mailing list for United Stages or for the Atlantic Theater. We’ve seen some fantastic productions of interesting, albeit flawed, plays at the Atlantic. There are far more good productions than there are good plays. But for me there’s nothing like the excitement of live theater and an interesting play that doesn’t quite work can still be a wonderful theatrical experience—and can lead to really great post theater conversations.

This is the main problem with going to the theater alone, but I bet the woman in the front row went home and engaged in the online discussions of the play. So many ways to connect now.

Anyway Rick and I are determined to make more frequent trips to the new heartland!

MY BOOK IS DONE AND MY GARDEN IS A MESS

I just received the following post from my friend Fran Waksler. August is a really tough month for gardeners and most of our gardens look a mess, but at least Fran has finished her book!

Hibiscus that self-seeded to a place it loves.


Tall phlox that Karen gave me from her garden many years ago

As you’ll notice, the photos are close-ups because any broader view would seem to be of an abandoned lot. But first, to my book.

In April I got a contract from University Press of America for a book I’d completed called The New Orleans Sniper: A Phenomenological Case Study of Constituting the Other, due out in December. As the title suggests, it is not destined to be a million seller, but it does have a niche in phenomenology, sociology, and criminal justice. UPA publishes scholarly books with small runs and thus asks authors to provide camera-ready copy. It’s possible to hire someone to produce such copy, but, hey, I’m retired and can do it myself. I did not, however, entirely understand what I was undertaking. Fortunately, very fortunately, I enjoy detail work, but it ended up being a rather complicated job. I learned more about formatting that I was aware there was to know. Fortunately UPA provided great support and the book is now in their hands. So from April to August I spent most of my time revising, formatting, getting permissions, and doing a hundred necessary bits and pieces.

And thus the state of my garden. Actually, the book was only one of three reasons that my garden is a mess. The weather has been extremely unaccommodating, alternating between too wet and too miserably hot. And then my dog, who always spends time in the yard with me, pulled a muscle, and was on the doggie equivalent of bed rest, i.e., no yard play. Without her beside me, gardening is much less fun. I even began to wonder if I was no longer as interested in gardening. But the day I mailed off my book, I found myself back in the yard, my now healthy dog at my side.

There is no way I can catch up with all there is to be done in the yard so I’m doing my best to deal with the things that are most offensive to me. The weather has produced many of these things: trees have been losing leaves (it looks like autumn), plants have died, the grass is brown (no amount of watering seems to help with days at 90 degrees), and the weeds have run amok. Some things have done well, too well: in my narrow north side moss path the hydrangea has gotten so big that it hits me when I walk by and if I swerve to the other side I get hit by Concord grapes. The Rose of Sharon has had a spectacular year and a wild red rose has been blooming non-stop. But all this is happening surrounded by weeds so nothing looks as pretty as it should. I do find weeding peaceful so my main goal is to pull as many weeds as I can before they reseed, do lots of pruning, and look to next year, when my garden will be immaculate.

The next book I write will be in the winter!

Electing More Women: Just how much of a difference will it make?

Since I’ve spent the past few decades working on ending the under-representation of women in politics, I welcomed the opportunity to attend the Blogher pre-conference workshop led by Marie Wilson, founder of the White House Project . I was once an enthusiastic supporter of the White House Project. I’m still a supporter, but recent events have made me less convinced that electing women per se is going to make the enormous difference I once expected.

I’m no longer so certain that women will be more likely to advance pro-women and family-friendly issues. In the past there was considerable evidence supporting that hypothesis. In 2000, in Madam President: shattering the last glass ceiling, Eleanor Clift and Tom Brazaitis wrote:

There is evidence at every level where women have played a role in governing that their politics overall tend toward the progressive side. Research by the Rutgers center for the American Women and politics shows that a conservative woman is more likely to favor somewhat more progressive policies than her conservative male counterpart. If only women’s votes counted in congress, the Family leaves Act and other family friendly legislation would have passed years earlier.

In 2000, when I read Madam President: shattering the last glass ceiling, I thought it was self–evident: if we want family friendly polices, we must elect more women. I have been making this argument for years at political meetings/Women’ Studies conferences/my Women’s Studies classes, and didn’t expect I might have to rethink what I so firmly believed to be the case.

What a difference a decade has made! A new breed of Republican women is upending my expectations about women in politics. There have always been women on the right, but not so many, not so visible. It’s much harder to think of them as outliers. And as Katha Politt in her must-read Nation article, “Grisly Mamas” reminds us:

There are lots of conservative white women voters in America. In 2000, white women went for Bush by one point; in 2004, 55 percent chose Bush over Kerry; and in 2008, after all we'd been through, 53 percent chose McCain over Obama. In a way, when we feminists and progressives talk about "women voters" in that rah-rah EMILY's List way, we are buying our own propaganda, because really it's women of color, especially black women, who push "women" solidly into the Democratic camp...

This mindset explains why so many are surprised that the Tea Party is full of women...A widely cited Quinnipiac University poll reported that the majority of Tea Partyers—55 percent—were women... According to Gallup, women are 45 percent of the Tea Party, but whatever the exact figure, it's safe to say there are a whole lot of Mama Grizzlies out there.

Given these numbers, it should have been no surprise that right wing women such as Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman, and Sharron Angle should emerge. And not only are they challenging my old belief that women have different political values, but also challenging the idea that women bring a different style. Women were supposed to bring a kinder, gentler, more conciliatory style to the political arena—not act like a pit-bull with lipstick, in Palin's memorable phrase.

This is one consequence of the success of the feminist movement that I didn’t foresee(although I certainly should have): women of all political stripes are entering public life and in some cases building successful political careers based on opposing a women’s fundamental right to control her own body. As Katha Politt puts it:

These days conservative women work, and fundamentalist stay-home moms want to be in public life. They have the same desire for power and respect and a place in the sun that liberal women do.

So if it longer holds that electing more women is a win for feminist values, then does it matter?

Well, yes. Right wing women like Palin, Bachman, Angle do their part to normalize the idea of women in public life. It matters that young girls see women in all walks of life and political persuasions aspiring to and winning high political office

As long as women are under-represented in American political life, I’ll continue to work to increase their representation, but the rise of right wing women has caused me to rethink the probable consequences of gender parity in politics.

True, those societies where women are strongest in political representation have some of the most family friendly policies, but it’s not clear what’s cause and what's effect. Do the Scandinavian counties have generous social welfare policies such as high quality, affordable childcare because relatively high numbers of women are involved in public life? Or do both the policies and the high proportion of women politicians stem from deeper cultural values?

Many feminists have focused on the gender gap in voting patterns–-and it does persist and even widened somewhat in the last election. According to the Center for American Women in Politics :

Obama won the support of a clear majority of women voters (56 percent) compared with Kerry’s very slim majority among women’s voters (51 percent). In contrast, McCain did worse with women voters, attracting only 43 percent of their votes, compared with the 48 percent of women’s votes that George W. Bush won in 2004.

With Obama winning the votes of 46 percent of white women but only 41 percent of white men, a gender gap among white voters was clearly apparent. Obama’s share of white women voters in 2008 also exceeded Kerry’s in 2004 (44 percent).

A gender gap was also evident among Latinos, where 68 percent more of women versus 64percent of men cast votes for Obama. An overwhelming majority of both black women (96percent) and black men (95 percent) supported Obama.

But the gender gap is insignificant compared to the generation gap. According to Pew Research Report, Young Voters in the 2008 Election :

While Obama captured 66% of the youth vote, compared with McCain's 31%, voters age 30 and older divided roughly evenly between the two candidates. Among those ages 18-29, Obama took a majority among whites (54%-44%), and captured more than three-fourths of young Hispanic voters (76%-19%) and a margin of 95%-4% among young black voters.

Maybe the focus of feminists should be on getting more young women into the political pipelines.

Bottom line: I’m still committed to equal representation, but no longer so convinced it will lead to a kinder, more egalitarian nation.

The real reason I retired—more time for political activism!

The real reason I retired—more time for political activism!

I started my blog in order to write about retirement issues—the decision, the process, and the actual experience of leaving the paid work force. However, I find myself writing increasingly about politics rather than on retirement life.

When I looked at posts archived by subject I have: 22 posts for Politics/World Events; 15 posts for FEMINISM; 16 posts for Retirement LIFE; 10 posts for Retirement: the decision and process.

This blog is clearly tipping in the direction of a political blog—not my original intent at all.

I just re-read my earlier posts about my reasons for retiring. The main one was fear of burn-out. I wanted to stop teaching before I was totally burned-out, a spectral presence creeping along the hallways, the ghost of my former self. (There are already too many of them at my former work place.)

I didn’t realize how close to serious burn-out I was until I stopped teaching. One of my colleagues who has seen many of his age cohort retire told me, when you retire “all those dissatisfactions you repressed--so you could keep on going day after day--rise to the surface. When you’re no longer facing years on the same job, it’s safe to acknowledge that you’re burning out."

Aside from my fear of burn-out, I had a long list of projects I wanted to do. My pre-retirement laundry list included: writing this blog; finally finishing a research project on second wave feminism in Philadelphia; learning Spanish; doing a little traveling; staying involved in the feminist/ social justice movement; getting my garden in shape; reading all those books I want to get to before I check out; and hanging out with my wonderful husband.

So how has it worked out? I’ve been doing a lot of hanging out with my husband and good friends and doing some traveling. The blog has been great fun and I’ve made some progress on my history of second wave feminism—although I need to step up my pace if I’m going to finish this while I still have a few brain cells and eyesight left.

Sad to say my garden doesn’t seem to be in any better shape than it was in my working years. That trip to New England got in the way of fall clean-up/bulb planting. And that trip to Peru came at the very worst time for a gardener—April. Instead of trekking about Machu Picchu, I should have been fertilizing and dividing hostas.

I’ve read far fewer books than I expected and haven’t been all that serious about Spanish—although I’ve improved a little.

But I have been doing a lot more political/feminist activist stuff.

And it’s not just that I’m doing more; I’m enjoying it more. In my final working years, I was missing more and more meetings. In my last year on the job, just about the only meetings I went to were those I had to chair.

So now instead of falling asleep during meetings I’m actually enjoying them—especially the social dimension. The NOW meetings are so much more enjoyable now that I no longer have to chair them. And I can now come late and leave early just like everybody else!

I’ve always been something of a participant/observer in my activist role. I’m fascinated by the group dynamics and the motivations of political actors. Crazy as it might sound I think one of the main reasons I retired was that I could go to more political meetings. My job was getting in the way of my activist projects.

Will this continue through my later retirement years? My guess is it will now that the internet allows us to be political activists (of a sort) without ever leaving home!

Now it’s not all fun and games. Working within the Democratic Party can be seriously depressing at times. And the most depressing part is not so much when the bad guys are up to their dirty tricks but when the good guys wimp out and shrink from confronting them. A comment on my post at Daily Kos from Bill W really gave me pause:

I'm in Northern NJ, and for the first time in over a decade, I won't be on the ballot for County Committee. I've given up any hope of seeing a reform movement wrest control from the corrupt county machine. A few years back, they found a novel way of removing Committee members who were not loyal to the boss -- they forged letters of resignation from five members. This kind of crap goes on all over the place, and it's driving good people away from the party.

I worry that I'm wasting my time (and time is precious at this stage of life) on electoral politics. But for now I intend to soldier on.

The Philadelphia Democratic Party is worse than I realized; it looks like I have another volunteer project.

The Philadelphia Democratic Party is worse than I realized. I’ve been a committeeperson for decades in the liberal oasis of Philadelphia's 9th ward. Curious about how the Democratic Party works outside of the 9th ward, I decided to step out of my comfort zone and run for Pennsylvania Democratic State Committee. (This may turn out to be one of those careful what you wish for experiences.)

A recent incident in Southwest Philly reported in City Paper made me think I should be focusing on my own backyard rather than State Committtee . Holly Otterbein’s “When Elections Don't Matter: The city Democratic Party doesn't always care what voters think” ”is a must read for Philly progressives.

Six residents of the 40th Ward, in Southwest Philadelphia, decided to run for Democratic committee positions. Most of them were community leaders but new to politics. They said they were motivated by a desire to improve the appallingly low voter turn-out in their neighborhood and to improve the quality of life in their community.

The Democratic Party challenged their petitions and 5 of them were either kicked off the ballot or withdrew. Tracey Gordon survived the petition challenge and she won the election with 38 votes. Here’s where it gets really interesting. According to Holly Otterbein,

...on June 7, at the ward's first post-election meeting, deputy chair Gregory Moses suggested that the committee oust Gordon. He cited a bylaw to support his position:

"If at any time in the opinion of the majority of the entire ward committee, a member is unfaithful to the Democratic Party and the best interests of the party, or refuses, fails or neglects to work in harmony with the ward committee, the ward committee shall be empowered to remove said person from its membership."

The committee agreed, and unanimously voted Gordon out......

Gordon asked for a copy of the bylaw she broke. That request was denied. She also phoned the DCC, Philly Democratic kingpin U.S. Rep. Bob Brady and the Pennsylvania Democratic Party about the meeting, but heard zip back.

"How can a ward go against the will of the citizens who elected me?" she asks.
She still doesn't even have a copy of the bylaw used to toss her out.

What I found especially interesting is that the party officials would not produce a written rule: I had a similar (although far less outrageous) experience at Democratic State Committee. See My new volunteer project: The Pennsylvania State Democratic Committee

It turns out this rule does exist in written form in the Party’s by-laws. We progressives must protest Democratic City Committee’s unseating of a duly elected committee person and demand the removal of the clause which allows a ward committee to overturn the results of an election. To quote again from the City Paper article:

Though Gordon and the group's plight might seem like small potatoes, it speaks to a larger, more troubling issue: If the DCC can so easily push out an elected committee person simply because she wanted to bring in new blood, how will potentially corrupt elements in the party ever be weeded out?

There is the argument quoted in City Paper that "Parties are essentially private,” and can do whatever they want. Granted they are technically private organizations; however, in a one party town like Philadelphia the Democratic party fulfills a quasi public function. Almost all our elected officials-- the mayor, district attorney, controller, most city council representatives and all local judicial candidates-- hold office by virtue of winning a Democratic primary. The way the Democratic Party operates has consequences for all our citizens.

Well, it looks like I have another volunteer project. I’m trying to interest some organizations I belong to to form a network of Philly progressives who work within the party structure. Often we do not know of each other’s existence. We have no way of communicating with each other and supporting each other.

If we were organized, when the party does something egregious, there would be an organized group which could take some action and try to combat the cynicism and apathy which allows the Democratic City Committee to get away with making a mockery of democracy. If we achieve modicum of success, it might encourage more progressives and fair minded citizens of all poltical persuasions to run for committee person slots.

Bottom line: We have to speak out against what happened in Southwest Philly. If those of us who are committee people and thus representatives of the Democratic Party in our neighborhoods, don’t speak out, then we’re complicit.

Thoughts on the 2010 NOW conference and the future of the feminist movement

The National Organization for Women conference was an upbeat experience this year. As far as I could determine, the wounds from last year’s bitterly contested election have healed—or so it appeared. At the end of last year’s conference I was really depressed and thought the defeat of the candidate I supported was a major setback for the organization.

What a difference a year makes. The sky has not fallen. The new team led by Terry O’Neill is doing a good job and the defeat of the team I supported no longer seems like a major tragedy. There’s a lesson here, I suppose.

The speakers at the plenary sessions were inspirational and the workshops filled with useful information and lively discussion. But I had hoped for more hard strategic thinking about the future of the feminist movement. What should be our priorities? How do we frame our message in a more effective way? What alliances should we build?

I attended the plenary session "State of the Women's Movement: Feminism Today and Tomorrow” seeking answers to these questions. The first speaker, renowned scientist and president of Wellesley College Kim Bottomly, had a compelling personal story. When she began her academic studies, she entered a scientific world devoid of women. She has dedicated her life to changing that world. Her focus was on helping individual women to advance—critically important but not directly relevant to building a feminist movement.


The next speaker, Professor of Communications and media critic Susan Douglas. described the dangers of “Enlightened Sexism”---the title of her new book. Enlightened sexists acknowledge the gains feminists have made, but make the specious claim that full equality has been achieved. Since sexism is a thing of the past, we can all lighten up and spend our time on shopping for make-up, sexy clothes and other girly pursuits. Douglas made a powerful case that much unfinished business remains and ended her presentation with a call to action but it wasn’t at all clear what that would involve.

She was followed by former Senator and Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun, an engaging speaker who focused on the lessons of her 2004 Presidential campaign—not so much on the direction of the feminist movement. She argued that gender trumps race. Not so sure I agree with this, but I am sure we need to get beyond this hierarchy of oppression.

The last speaker, journalist and syndicated columnist Amy Goodman , spoke passionately about the need for independent media “which covers power, not covers for power”-- but not much about the future of the feminist movement.

I got a lot more insight about the "State of the Women's Movement: Feminism Today and Tomorrow" at the next day’s plenary, “Lifting Every Voice: Women of Color and Empowerment.” The speakers addressed the issue of priorities for the women’s movement and modeled a way of talking about race/gender/class which does not rank forms of oppression but analyzes the ways women from different racial, ethnic and socio-economic groups experience gender discrimination.


The first speaker was Irasema Garza , president of Legal Momentum, the women's legal defense and education fund which advocates for immigrant women and for poor women. Garza stated that the public discussion of immigration often ignores the special problems of immigrant women. Also, millions of women have not been in position to take advantage of the legal guarantees which have allowed more privileged women to advance. Garza argued that at this stage issues affecting low-income women, who are disproportionately women of color, must be the priorities of the feminist movement.


Kilolo Kijakazi, program officer in the Economic Opportunity and Assets Program at The Ford Foundation, gave us a sense of the dimensions of the problem and the enormous amount of work we must do to remedy economic injustice. She argued that inequitable public policies are primarily responsible for the wealth gap for people of color—especially women of color. She noted that African-Americans largely missed out on some of the biggest wealth-building opportunities of the past century, as they had limited access to government-encouraged homeownership programs such as the Homestead Act, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, and the GI Bill after World War II.

Dr. Paula A. Johnson, executive director of the Connors Center for Women's Health and Gender Biology and associate professor of medicine, Harvard Medical School, noted that there is still much to be done in health care reform and that many women, particularly women of color, will not be able to access health care because they can’t afford the premiums. She also noted that research into women’s health is still inadequate and that we don’t know how race/ethnicity intersects with gender in understanding women’s health needs.

Andrea Cabral, sheriff of Suffolk County, Mass., and the first Black American female sheriff in Massachusetts history argued for viewing violence a against women as a public health issue. Her approach was similar to Johnson’s in that she focused on the ways women’s experience of domestic violence varied in terms of race/ ethnicity, sexuality, socio-economic class and citizenship status.

This plenary session provided a very useful model for how we have to prioritize and frame issues. But I was disappointed there were no women labor leaders on this (or any other) panel. Garza does have a stint at the Department of Labor on her resume but somewhat to my surprise she did not mention the importance of the labor movement as a means for addressing the issue of women in poverty. We must build alliances with feminists in the labor movement and with organizations such as the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) .

I think the leadership of NOW (past and present) supports the agenda for which Garza, Kijakazi, Johnson, and Cabral advocate, but if NOW as an organization is to effectively support this agenda, it must revitalize its grass roots.

I’m not worried about the future of the feminist movement. See the transcript of Katie Couric’s interview with Gloria Steinem and Jehmu Greene, "Feminism is Alive and Well ... Even Sarah Palin Wants to Be One.” The feminist movement consists of a multitude of organizations focusing on a wide range of issues. And there are all those committed feminists who may not be part of the organized movement but challenge sexism in their daily lives.

But I am worried about the future of NOW. I’ve been going to national NOW conferences for some time now and the faces of the older members are the same from year to year. The younger conference attendees for the most part change every year. There is deep loyalty to the organization among the older members; younger members do not appear to be developing the same sense of loyalty. They may have a powerful connection to the feminist movement, but not necessarily to any particular organization.

So why don’t they stay? One reason is that young people move around a lot. Several members told me they thought the model of virtually autonomous geographically based chapters needs to be rethought. There are some thriving chapters, but far too many chapters which have shrunk to a president for life and an ever-dwindling mailing list.

I was not surprised when my resolution to introduce term limits for officers of state and local organizations failed. Although NOW has instituted term limits for national officers and national board members, many state organizations and local chapters do not have term limits policies and officers have held their positions for decades.

As chapter and state organizations are the training grounds for new national officers, we can’t clog the pipeline by allowing officers to hang on to their positions forever.

NOW of course is not the only organization whose members react negatively to any suggestion for doing things differently from past practice. Too often folks with progressive values turn into the most hard-bitten conservatives when it comes to organizational change.

When I suggested a modest change in the formula for representation on the PA state board—currently a chapter with 50 members has the same number of representatives as chapter with 300 members—I got the response, “We’ve been doing this for 40 years.” End of discussion.

At the same session where I introduced my sure-to-fail term limits resolution a young woman introduced a resolution to allow members to vote by mail for national officers and by-laws changes as many members cannot afford travel expenses and thus cannot cast their vote in person.

A veteran member (in what the young women experienced as a patronizing, supercilious manner) immediately shot her down with: “This is out of order because it would require a by-laws change.” (It’s not clear if this was in fact the case.) After the session, a few older members encouraged her to hang in there and try again, but I worry she may not come back. It seemed it was not so much the failure of her resolution that bothered her but the dismissive reaction.

And so it goes—-the old guard vs. the young Turks. Of course many of the older members (especially those active on the national level) are very much concerned about building new leadership and making the organization more diverse and more responsive to younger members.

Does it matter whether NOW continues to survive and thrive? NOW is the only multi–issue, multi-strategy feminist organization which operates on the local, state and national levels. It has a proud history and I hope a vibrant future.

My evolving feelings about the 4th of July

Reading Julianne Malveaux’s thoughtful column On July 4, hopes for a better nation prompted me to reread my last year’s 4th of July post, Why I feel better about the 4th of July and about retiring now that Obama is President

I stand by that post. There’s part of me which still can’t quite believe we elected an African-American President. I never expected to see it in my lifetime. This generation of young people is very different from my age cohort and it’s largely because of them that Obama won. But will they vote in 2010?

I don’t share the disillusionment of some progressives with our president. We elected a President, not a miracle worker. Yes, I have concerns about some of his policies—-principally the war in Afghanistan. But he managed to get through a stimulus program which brought the economy back from the brink of real disaster. And if we didn’t have such a dysfunctional congress, much more would have been done.

We have a long way to go before we have real recovery, but the dismantling of regulatory agencies at the root of the current economic crisis dates back to the Clinton years. This crisis was many years in the making.

And in this economic climate, President Obama (with a lot of help from Nancy Pelosi still managed to pass a healthcare bill establishing access to heath care as a right of all citizens. Sure, it’s an imperfect bill but just as with other programs (such as social security) which started as deeply flawed, we now have the opportunity to improve the bill. We’re no longer debating the basic right to health care; the debate can now move to making the existing program more inclusive, more affordable.

Over all President Obama's record is impressive. Of all the criticisms of the President, the most ridiculous is the complaint that he is not going ballistic about the BP oil spill catastrophe. In a widely reported exchange, Obama was castigated by CNN's Ed Henry for insufficient display of anger:

Mr. Henry who made a spectacle of himself at one of President Obama's earliest press conferences when he repeatedly demanded to know why the president was letting other politicians sound madder than he was about AIG's executive bonuses. "So on AIG, why did you wait—why did you wait days to come out and express that outrage.... It took you days to come public with Secretary Geithner and say, 'Look, we're outraged.' Why did it take so long?" Obama's answer: "Well, it took us a couple of days because I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak."

I want a President who thinks before he acts, who approaches difficult issues in a calm, measured way. What’s wrong with that?

So this July 4 (which I’m celebrating in Boston at the national NOW conference), I’m still feeling good about my country and proud of our president and especially proud of the women—especially the young women--I’ve met at the NOW conference this week-end.

One of the worst things about group travel, too many shopping expeditions: The Peru Diaries, Part V

This trip saved the best for last: Machu Picchu and then the magical town of Cusco. This is by far the most beautiful town I have seen in Latin America. It reminded me of the way Quito looked in 1972—before Quito became a big city with high-rises obscuring the view of the mountains. In Cusco wherever we went, the mountains were a powerful presence.

Since we were in a city, we could break way from the group and move at our own (very slow) pace. We stayed with the tour for the half day city tour. It’s always good to get an over view before branching out on your own.

The first stop was the Dominican monastery— built on the foundations of an Inca Temple. A 1950 earthquake revealed the Inca Temple and the rich heritage the Dominicans had tried so hard to suppress. If we had been on our own we would have spent the entire morning there. Rick and I move slowly through museums, but there’s no leisurely lingering with a tour group and we were on to the next stop.

After the city tour, we decided to break away from the group and spend our last day and a half in Cusco seeing the town our way, at our pace. It meant missing a bus tour that included the famous Inca fortress of Sacsayhuaman, but if we had gone on the scheduled tour, we would have been captives on the tour bus and would have had to spend the rest of the day on the shopping trips arranged by the tour company.

I’m not much of a shopper and these shopping expeditions seem to be incorporated into most group tours. Rick and I could easily pass on the silver factory and the vicuna factory, but the tour company knows its customers, and most were very happy to have these shopping opportunities.

To be fair, one shopping trip, to the workshop of Seminario, a well-known ceramicist, was really worth it, and we bought a beautiful ceramic clock for our kitchen—we actually needed a new kitchen clock, as ours died right before we left for Peru. But this tour was too heavy on the shopping and too light on cultural / historical attractions.

So instead of shopping we saw some of the major sites of Cusco—including the cathedral which is actually a complex of churches and a treasure trove of colonial art. When we asked our guide why such a major cultural site was not included as part of the group tour, he said it used to be included but when the cathedral raised the price of admission, the tour company decided to drop the cathedral. Huh?

So, bottom line: we’re not going on any more group tours. If we can’t go some place on our own, then we just won’t go there. I’ve accepted the fact that there are many places I will never see, and that’s okay. My husband and I did a lot of traveling during our working years, so I don’t have all these pent-up travel desires. I wish I had done more adventure travel when I was younger, but you can’t do it all, can’t have it all.

Rick and I learned something about ourselves as travelers, or perhaps it's more accurate to say the trip confirmed what we always suspected: we are just not meant for group travel. But despite all my complaints, I’m really happy to have seen Machu Picchu and Cusco. If I were younger, I’d plan a return trip for some future date, but at this stage of life, travel opportunities narrow. One trip to Machu Picchu in a lifetime will have to do.

My new volunteer project: The Pennsylvania State Democratic Committee

One of the great joys of retirement is being able to devote serious time and energy to volunteer projects. Recent research claiming to demonstrate a link between happiness and political activism just may be on to something.

I recently ran for and won election to the Pennsylvania State Democratic Committee—something I’ve wanted to do for some time but couldn’t manage during my working years. I was already struggling to juggle my job teaching at Community College of Philadelphia with serving as a local Democratic committeeperson and as president of Philadelphia. NOW. There was no way I could take on another project—especially one that involved travel. But last February, I decided that, as a retiree, I could handle it and I trudged about the neighborhood in the ice and snow getting 100+ signatures to get on the ballot.

Many of my neighbors wondered why in the world I wanted to do this. I’ve been a committee person in Philly’s liberal independent 9th ward for 26 years. I don’t think I could have lasted in any other ward. The committee people in our ward are thoughtful, independent-minded folks and it’s been a lot of fun. We do not automatically endorse party-endorsed candidates (e.g., we endorsed Sestak over Specter in last May’s Democratic primary). Individual committee people often endorse candidates not endorsed by the ward and within the ward's 17 divisions there are often conflicting endorsements. The voters in my division are used to getting a letter that says: “Karen endorses candidate x; Hertis endorses candidate y.” This approach fits well with the independent spirit of the voters in our neighborhood.

I've been curious about how the Democratic Party works outside of the liberal oasis of Philadelphia's 9th ward. This past week-end was my first State Committee meeting. It may turn out to be one of those “careful what you wish for" experiences.

First, the good news: there is a group planning to form a progressive caucus. It’s going to be a challenge for this diverse group to come together on priority issues. My guess is there is agreement on issues but not on priorities. I’m sure everyone in the group is pro-choice, pro-LGBT rights, for example, but not everyone would place abortion rights or same sex marriage at the top of their list. Also the degree of disenchantment with the Democratic Party varies considerably.

However, it became clear over the course of the weekend that we all have an interest in a transparent process and should be able to come together fairly easily on process issues. I had an experience which put a crusade for clear Party rules and a transparent process at the top of my list.

The elected State Committee delegates within each Senatorial district were charged with meeting to elect a district caucus chair. My ward leader encouraged me to run for this low-level post and I decided to run, primarily to learn a little more about the inner workings of the State Committee. Win or lose, it would be a learning experience. And so it was.

The vote was a 3-3 tie. A Party functionary came by and said that when one of the candidates in a tie vote is an incumbent, the incumbent automatically wins. If neither candidate is an incumbent, there would be a coin toss. In this case, since my opponent was an incumbent, he was declared the winner.

I asked if this rule was on the party website. The Party functionary did not answer my question, focusing instead on the fact that I was new to the State Committee and didn’t know the ropes. When he finally acknowledged there were no Party rules on the website, I asked if the rule existed anywhere in writing; again he did not give me a direct answer and kept hammering on his point that I was just a newbie who didn’t know the rules. My guess is that he was used to silencing new people by telling them they just didn’t know how the game was played. One advantage of being in your sixties is that you're not likely to be intimidated by somebody telling you to shut up because you’re new!

He clearly did not appreciate my point that it was highly unusual not to have a written rule for dealing with a tie vote. Finally, he said we don’t have formal rules to deal with tied elections. It took a really long time just to get an admission that the rule did not exist in written form.

I had expected when I raised the question, that I would be referred to some handbook which contained this rule. If that had occurred, it would have been the end of that conversation.

I might at a later point have raised the issue of whether such a pro-incumbent bias was in the interest of building a strong party. Changing this would be an uphill struggle given the historic pro-incumbent bias in the Democratic Party. But it certainly would be easier to challenge this if I could point to an actual written rule that needs to be rethought. It was also unclear whether the Philadelphia Democratic Party had jurisdiction (since we were vying for chair of a caucus within the Philadelphia portion of the 4th senatorial district) or whether the Pennsylvania State Democratic Party had jurisdiction (since we were members of the Democratic Party).

Granted, this is a very minor office, but questions surrounding the procedures to be applied in tied elections have larger implications.

If I were still teaching and something like this had happened, I wouldn’t have taken the time and effort to raise the issue. I wouldn’t have had the energy. But now that I have the time, I’m beginning to see a role for myself here—-working to develop a more transparent, open process. This assumes that there will be a progressive caucus to support such efforts.

I grant that there are times when there are real tensions between an open process and presenting a strong united front in a tough election year. A case in point: what we thought would be a contest for party chair and vice-chair was in Congressman Bob Brady’s memorable words “taken care of.” Before the members could vote, several candidates dropped out and a consensus team emerged.

I would like to have heard their competing visions for future of the Democratic Party and their strategies for November, but it looks like that kind of debate doesn’t take place in open meetings.

Pennsylvania State Democratic Committee sure doesn’t operate like the 9th ward! My hope is that a strong progressive caucus will emerge and there will be change. We’ll see.

Is the future of feminism Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina and Sarah Palin ? Or is it Hilda Solis, Mary Kay Henry, and the Coalition of Labor Union Women?

Last week I read article after article about the rise of Republican women, sometimes framed as a triumph for feminism. According to this storyline, the feminist message is now so mainstream that even Republican women embrace women’s empowerment.

I had an experience last week, the annual awards event of the Philadelphia chapter of the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW), which convinced me that the future of feminism lies in a very different direction.

I was honored to receive an award (for my service as past president of Philadelphia NOW) in the company of women who have done so much to improve the lives of women who have not been the primary beneficiaries of the feminist movement, working-class and low-income women, who are disproportionately women of color.

The extraordinary successes of the feminist movement have not been shared equally. Women with economic/educational advantages have advanced in the professions, business, and politics. Of course there is still a glass ceiling in American life, but as Hillary Clinton famously said, “there are now 18,000,000 cracks in the glass ceiling.”

The cultural change has been so pervasive that many affluent white men have been willing to make room for their daughters--the same men who have fought economic policies which would provide opportunities and a robust safety net for the majority of women.

And it’s not just the men of corporate America who block measures that would improve the lives of the majority of women and who demonize low-income women. Whatever you want to call their brand of female power, Republican women like Whitman, Fiorina and Palin clearly do not embrace the feminist goal of equality for all women. From Joan Walsh’s recent Salon article:

I was disgusted by a horrific Whitman anti-welfare ad that was straight out of Ronald Reagan's 1966 campaign. It was demagoguery: She promised to make welfare recipients seek and take jobs – as though California never passed its own historic welfare reform legislation, doing just that, way back in 1986. It was repellent to listen to her demonize welfare recipients, the vast majority of whom are women and children, at a time when California is already slashing services.

This is sure not my kind of feminism! The definition of feminism has always been contested terrain, and now that even Sarah Palin calls herself a feminist, confusion reigns.

Right wing feminists have argued that however society is structured, women should be equally represented in positions of power. A much more inclusive definition of the feminist project demands equal opportunity for all women and a robust safety net available to all women. We’re not going to get that with Republican women at the helm.

That said, I acknowledge that having women like Whitman and Fiorina in positions of power does normalize the idea of women holding top jobs-–in that sense, it’s a positive.

Much has been made of the fact that two women, Barbara Boxer and Carly Fiorina, will be competing against each other to be senator from California. Something potentially far more significant got very little attention: two women, Mary Kay Henry and Anna Burger, were the contenders for the presidency if one of the countries largest labor unions, Service Employees international Union (SEIU).

Mary Kay Henry, Newly Elected President of Service Employees International Union


This is not your father’s labor movement. SEIU represents the fastest growing sector of the labor movement and its members are increasingly women, particularly women of color.

Also, we now have a real friend of working women, Hilda Solis, heading the Department of labor:


Granted, the labor movement is far from perfect and I certainly had my problems with the teachers’ union which represented me, but the rise of women in the labor movement may have far more significance for the lives of most American women than the political victories of Republican women like Whitman and Fiorina.

Machu Picchu exceeded even my high expectations: The Peru Diaries, Part IV

Finally we got to Machu Picchu and it exceeded even my high expectations—more beautiful, more awe-inspiring than I expected and certainly the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.

By luck (rather than design) we were visiting at the very best time of the year; mid April is the end of the rainy season (or the very beginning of the dry season.) At this time of the year, there’s a good chance of sunshine, and Machu Picchu is covered with lush, gloriously green vegetation. If we had gone in March, as originally scheduled, we would have had the lushness but it would have been gray and drizzling. If we had gone in the summer, we would have been virtually guaranteed sunshine but the landscape would be brown.

On our first day we had brilliant sunshine. Rick was still having problems with altitude and vertigo so he wasn’t able to do the 3-hour tour of Machu Picchu. He insisted I go without him. He wandered around on the lower level and took in the spectacular site and glorious weather.


I managed the tour but was in excruciating pain the whole time. Because I’m not used to doing so much walking, and also because of the lingering effects of a really bad accident decades ago, I developed seriously painful corns and calluses on my left foot. I was determined not to let this get in the way of seeing Machu Picchu.

There seems to be something about major archaeological sites which (for me) brings on an attack of corns. Years ago Rick and I were at Pompeii and I had equally horrendous corms on my left foot—-the foot that was smashed when I was hit by a motorcyclist in 1984.

I was enthralled by Pompeii and determined to see everything despite the fact that my left foot felt like it was on fire. Somehow I managed to do it. Both Machu Picchu and Pompeii were worth the suffering!

The next day was rainy and foggy and we passed up the hike in the rain and hung out at Machu Picchu Sanctuary Lodge while most of the other people in the group went hiking. Rick was still having an altitude reaction and I really needed to give my flaming foot a rest. I enjoyed seeing Machu Picchu enshrouded in mist—-a very different kind of beauty than that of the previous day.

The rest of the day was spent on the trek back to Cusco. I observed a fascinating change in the behavior of my fellow tourists. On the way to Machu Picchu, the tourists were stunned by the beauty of the region. Those unfortunate enough to have seats on the wrong side of the train were standing in the aisles straining to get a glimpse of the astonishingly vertical mountains--unlike anything else I’d ever seen. They reminded me of the mountain scenes I’ve seen on Chinese scrolls.

On the way back—-just one day later--the tourists’ responses were very different. No one was looking out the window. They were chatting, reading, writing postcards, napping. How quickly we adjust; the magnificent scenery had become a backdrop.

To appreciate the architectural and engineering genius of the Incas you need to see more than the marvels of Machu Picchu. What astonished us was how the system of roads, fortresses, and agricultural terraces covered such an extensive area. The Incas terraced an entire region—-managing to turn inhospitable mountain terrain into rich agricultural land.

The bottom line on tours to Machu Picchu: although it would have been difficult to make the arrangements on our own, we could have done it. And there are all kinds of 2-3 day trips which can be booked in Cusco. It’s not necessary to book a whole Peru trip just to get help with arrangements to Machu Picchu. In retrospect, it’s what I wish we had done.

And if you are getting a hotel package, do some research on the hotel and get a guarantee that the hotel advertised is the hotel the group will actually use. Hotels are a challenge at Aguas Calientes, the hideously ugly town where tourists stay unless they can afford the $800.00 a night accommodation at Machu Picchu Sanctuary Lodge.

Our tour company changed the hotel they had originally said they were going to book. I suspect the reason was that hotels are now charging more to make up some of what they lost when Machu Picchu was closed. Rather than eat into their profit margin, the tour company decided to downscale significantly, and put us into the hotel from hell. Given that the company advertises that its hotels are all 4 star, this was an inexcusable bait and switch. The tiny rooms were big enough for 2 small beds and nothing else. Rick and I were among the lucky ones—-our third floor walk-up had a window. Several members of our group had rooms without windows, no hot water, shower doors that did not open, shower doors which fell off. There was no excuse for a hotel like this.

So by all means go to Machu Picchu; but if possible don’t wait until you’re 65, and do careful research if you’re thinking about group tours.

Altitude sickness and other challenges of group travel: The Peru Diaries, Part III

By the time we flew off to Cusco, the disadvantages of group travel were clearly outweighing the advantages.

True, in the airport on way to Cusco we again experienced one of the pluses of group travel—a tour leader to get you through the airport confusion. Although we speak some Spanish, an airport is not the best place to practice.

When we arrived in Cusco, we experienced the down side. If we were traveling by ourselves, we would have immediately checked into a hotel and decompressed. For me, flying is always stressful.

But this was a tour with no rest for the weary, and off we went to see some of the archaeological sites around Cusco before descending into the Sacred Valley of the Incas. The day was spectacular: dazzling sunshine, an unbelievably bright blue sky. Unfortunately, Rick was getting altitude sickness and longed to get off the bus and lie down in a comfortable bed.

Through some quirk of body chemistry, I feel euphoric at 12,000 feet. I think my constant exclamations about the incredible scenic beauty really got on Rick’s nerves.

We didn’t stagger into our hotel until 7:00pm--beautiful hotel, terrible food. Since we were in the middle of nowhere, there were no other options for dinner other than the inedible food at the hotel.

Rick was still having some problems with the altitude, so we did not climb the impressive Inca fortress at Ollataytambo. I tried not to be too envious of the other tourists climbing the steps to the top. We had the spectacular view and enjoyed visiting the sites at the foot of the fortress.



Rick and I were the least physically fit of the members of our tour group—a generally 60 something group. We both resolved to work on this when we got home. (We haven’t)

Then we wandered around the town of Ollataytambo and visited an elementary school. Our tour group specializes in arranging experiences to give tourists some sense of people’s lives. A worthy goal, but I couldn’t shake off the uncomfortable feeling of being a voyeur from a privileged world. (In a global context, we Americans are all privileged although we may not think of ourselves that way)

The children were adorable and on their best behavior for foreign tourists, but the experience was depressing. The school lacked books, basic supplies and there were 12boys and only 4 girls in the class. Although education is theoretically compulsory in Peru, we learned it is not enforced. And although schooling is free, there are ancillary costs which must be borne by parents. A family with many children may have to choose which children they can afford to send to school. No surprise-- they are more likely to send their sons.

After the school visit, the group went river rafting. Rick and I opted out. We needed a respite from the non-stop chatter of the group and we also didn’t want to risk falling into the muddy Urubamba River. We began to realize how much more difficult group travel can be outside an urban area. When you’re in city, you can easily leave the group—just get a bus or taxi and go off to do your own thing. When you’re in a rural area, you are trapped.

And not only are you stuck with the group’s itinerary for the day, but you are stuck with the group’s pace. After a very good picnic lunch, I longed for a siesta, but there was no respite. We were off to see the town of Urubamba.

We stopped at the home of one of the local residents to witness the Peruvian custom of inviting the neighbors for freshly made chicha, a drink made from fermented corn. According to our guide, the small house was typical of most Indian houses in the past. It had a dirt floor, no windows, little furniture, and was filled with animals—mostly guinea pigs. It reminded me of the 19th century crofters’ cottages I saw in an open air historical museum in Scotland.

Fortunately, most Peruvians' lives have improved and the owner of the dirt floor cottage had built a much nicer structure adjacent to the cottage. For reasons I can’t explain, I felt like less of voyeur (and less uncomfortable) at the chicha ritual than I did at the elementary school. This was one of the advantages of the tour group-–a glimpse into another world we could never have entered on our own.

Also, the tour group arranged a home hosted dinner in Urubamba which was by far the best meal provided by the group. The young couple who hosted the dinner were very hospitable; we did not feel like voyeuristic tourists but rather like welcome guests in their home. It was certainly one of the highlights of the tour. So yes, there were positive experiences, but for us not enough to compensate for the loss of freedom.

Next installment: We finally get to Machu Picchu and it exceeded even my high expectations.