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Jane Fonda's Speech at the National
Women's Leadership Summit
Washington, D.C. June 12, 2003
Before I turned sixty I thought I was a feminist. I was in a way - I
worked to register women to vote, I supported women getting
elected. I brought gender issues into my movie roles, I encouraged
women to get strong and healthy, I read the books we've all read. I
had it in my head and partly in my heart, yet I didn't fully get it.
See, although I've always been financially independent, and
professionally and socially successful, behind the closed doors of my
personal life I was still turning myself in a pretzel so I'd be loved
by an alpha male. I thought if I didn't become whatever he wanted me to
be, I'd be alone, and then, I wouldn't exist.
There is not the time nor is this the place to explain why this was
true, or why it is such a common theme for so many otherwise
strong, independent women. Nor is it the time to tell you how I got
over it (I'm writing my memoirs, and all will be revealed). What's
important is that I did get over it. Early on in my third act I found
my voice and, in the process, I have ended up alone but not really. You
see, I'm with myself and this has enabled me to see feminism more
clearly. It's hard to see clearly when you're a pretzel.
So I want to tell you briefly some of what I have learned in this first
part of my third act and how it relates to what, I think, needs to
happen in terms of a revolution.
Because we can't just talk about women being at the table - it's too
late for that - we have to think in terms of the shape of the table. Is
it
hierarchical or circular (metaphorically speaking)? We have to think
about the quality of the men who are with us at the table, the culture
that is hovering over the table that governs how things are decided
and in whose interests. This is not just about glass ceilings or
politics as usual. This is about revolution, and I have finally gotten
to where I can say that word and know what I mean by it and feel good
about it because I see, now, how the future of the earth and everything
on it including men and boys depends on this happening.
Let me say something about men: obviously, I've had to do a lot of
thinking about men, especially the ones who've been important in
my life, and what I've come to realize is how damaging patriarchy has
been for them. And all of them are smart, good men who want to be
considered the "good guys." But the Male Belief System, that
compartmentalized, hierarchical, ejaculatory, and centric power
structure that is Patriarchy, is fatal to the hearts of men, to empathy
and relationship.
Yes, men and boys receive privilege and status from patriarchy, but it
is a poisoned privilege for which they pay a heavy price. If
traditional, patriarchal socialization takes aim at girls' voices, it
takes aim at boys' hearts - makes them lose the deepest, most
sensitive and empathic parts of themselves. Men aren't even
allowed
to be depressed, which is why they engage so often in various forms of
self-numbing, from sex to alcohol and drugs to gambling and work-holism.
Patriarchy strikes a Faustian bargain with men.
Patriarchy sustains itself by breaking relationship. I'm referring here
to real relationship, the showing-up kind, not the "I'll stay with
him
cause he pays the bills, or because of the kids, or because if I don't
I will cease to exist," but relationship where you, the woman, can
acknowledge your partner's needs while simultaneously
acknowledging and tending to your own. I work with young girls and
I can tell you there's a whole generation who has not learned what a
relationship is supposed to feel like - that it's not about leaving
themselves behind.
Now, every group that's been oppressed has its share of Uncle Toms,
and we have our Aunt Toms. I call them ventriloquists for the
patriarchy. I won't name names but we all know them. They are
women in whom the toxic aspects of masculinity hold sway. It should
neither surprise nor discourage us. We need to understand it and be
able to explain it to others, but it means, I think, that we should not
be
just about getting a woman into this position or that. We need to
look at "is that woman intact emotionally," has she had to
forfeit
her empathy gene somewhere along the way for whatever reason?
And then, of course, there are what Eve Ensler calls Vagina-Friendly
men, who choose to remain emotionally literate. It's not easy for
them - look at the names they get called: wimp, pansy, pussy, soft,
limp, momma's boy. Men don't like to be considered "soft" on
anything, which is why more don't choose to join us in the circle.
Actually, most don't have the choice to make. You know why?
Because when they are real little (I learned this from Carol Gilligan),
like five years or younger, boys internalize the message of what it
takes to be a "real man." Sometimes it comes through their
fathers
who beat it into them. Sometimes it comes because no one around
them knows how to connect with their emotions (This is a
generational thing). Sometimes it comes because our culture rips boys
from their mothers before they are developmentally ready.
Sometimes it comes because boys are teased at school for crying.
Sometimes it's the subliminal messages from teachers and the media.
It can be a specific trauma that shuts them down. But, I can assure
you, it is true to some extent of many if not most men, and when the
extreme version of it manifests itself in our nation's leaders, beware!
Another thing that I've learned is that there is a fundamental
contradiction not just between patriarchy and relationship, but
between patriarchy and Democracy. Patriarchy masquerades as
Democracy, but it's an anathema. How can it be democracy when
someone has to always be above someone else, when women, who
are a majority, live within a social construct that discriminates
against them, keeps them from having their full human rights?
But just because Patriarchy has ruled for 10,000 years since the
beginning of agriculture, doesn't make it inevitable.
Maybe at some earlier stage in human evolution, Patriarchy was what
was needed just for the species to survive. But today, there's nothing
threatening the human species but humans. We've conquered our
predators, we've subdued nature almost to extinction, and there are
no more frontiers to conquer or to escape into so as to avoid having
to deal with the mess we've left behind. Frontiers have always given
capitalism, Patriarchy's economic face, a way to avoid dealing with its
shortcomings. Well, we're having to face them now in this post-
frontier era and inevitably - especially when we have leaders who
suffer from toxic masculinity - that leads to war, the conquering of
new markets, and the destruction of the earth.
However, it is altogether possible, that we are on the verge of a
tectonic shift in paradigms - that what we are seeing happening today
are the paroxysms, the final terrible death throes of the old, no
longer workable, no longer justifiable system. Look at it this way:
it's Patriarchy's third act and we have to make sure it's its last.
It's possible that the extreme, neo-conservative version of Patriarchy
which makes up our current Executive branch will over-play its hand
and cause the house of cards to collapse. We know that this new
"preventive war" doctrine will put us on a permanent war
footing.
We know there can't be guns and butter, right? We learned with Vietnam.
We know that a Pandora's box has been opened in the Middle East
and that the administration is not prepared for the complexities that
are emerging. We know that friends are becoming foes and angry young
Muslims with no connection to AlQaeda are becoming terrorists in greater
numbers. We know that with the new tax plan the rich will be better off
and the rest will be poorer. We know what happens when poor young men
and women can only get jobs by joining the military and what happens
when they come home and discover that the day after Congress passed the
"Support Our Troops" Resolution, $25 billion was cut from the
VA budget. We know that already, families of servicemen have to go on
welfare and are angry about it.
So, as Eve Ensler says, we have to change the verbs from obliterate,
dominate, humiliate, to liberate, appreciate, celebrate. We have to
make sure that head and heart can be reunited in the body politic, and
relationship and democracy can be restored.
We need to really understand the depth and breadth of what a shift to
a new, feminine paradigm would mean, how fundamentally central
it is to every single other thing in the world. We win, everything
wins, including boys, men, and the earth. We have to really
understand this and be able to make it concrete for others so they will
be able to see what Feminism really is and see themselves in it.
So our challenge is to commit ourselves to creating the tipping point
and the turning point. The time is ripe to launch a unified national
movement, a campaign, a tidal wave, built around issues and values,
not candidates.
That's why V-Day, The White House Project and their many allies are
partnering to hold a national women's convention somewhere in the
heartland, next June of 2004. Its purpose will be to inspire and
mobilize women and vagina-friendly men around the 2004 elections
and to build a new movement that will coalesce our energies and
forces around a politic of caring.
The convention will put forward a fresh, clear, and concise platform
of issues, and build the spirit, energy and power base to hold the
candidates accountable for them. There will be a diversity of women
from across the country who will participate in the mobilization.
There will be a special focus on involving young women. There will
be a variety of performers and artists acknowledging that culture
plays a powerful role in political action. There will be a concurrent
internet mobilization. Women's organizations will be asked to sign
on and send representatives to the convention.
There will be a caravan, a rolling tour across the country, of diverse
women leaders, celebrities and activists who will work with local
organizers to build momentum, sign people up, register them to
vote, get them organized and leave behind a tool kit for further
mobilization through the election and beyond.
This movement will be a volcano that will erupt in a flow of soft,
hot, empathic, breathing, authentic, vagina-friendly, relational lava
that will encircle patriarchy and smother it. We will be the flood and
we'll be Noah's ark.
- Birth name
- Jane Seymour Fonda
- Nickname
- Hanoi Jane
Lady Jane (childhood)
- Height
- 5' 7" (1.70 m)
- Mini biography
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Born in New York City to legendary screen star Henry
Fonda and New York socialite Frances Seymour Brokaw, Jane
Seymour Fonda was destined early to an uncommon and influential life
in the limelight. Although she initially showed little inclination
to follow her father's trade, she was prompted by Joshua
Logan to appear with her father in the 1954 Omaha Community
Theatre production of 'The Country Girl'. Her interest in acting
grew after meeting Lee
Strasberg in 1958 and joining the Actors Studio. Her screen debut
in Tall Story (1960)
marked the beginning of a highly successful and respected acting
career highlighted by 2 Academy Awards
for her performance in Klute
(1971) and Coming
Home (1978) and 5 Oscar nominations for Best Actress in: They
Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969), Julia
(1977), Morning
After, The (1986) and On
Golden Pond (1981) which was the only film she made with her
father. Jane Fonda's
professional success contrasted with her personal life, often laden
with scandal and controversy. Her appearance in several risqué
movies (including Barbarella
(1968)) by then husband Roger
Vadim was followed by what was to become Jane Fonda's most
debated and controversial period: her espousal of anti-Establishment
causes and especially her anti-War activities during the Vietnam
War. Her political involvement continued with fellow activist and
husband Tom Hayden
in the 70s and early 80s. In the 80s Fonda started the aerobic
exercise craze with the publication of the "Jane Fonda's
Workout Book". She remarried to broadcasting Czar Ted
Turner in 1991.
- IMDb mini-biography by
- Laurence
Dang
- Spouse
-
- Trivia
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Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100
Sexiest Stars in film history (#21). [1995]
Mother of Vanessa
Vadim with Roger
Vadim
Attended Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY.
Is the subject of an erroneous urban legend. When
Vassar was a women's college, the story goes, Jane Fonda refused to
wear the elegant white gloves and pearls that were the attire for
the daily Tea in the Rose Parlor. When confronted, Fonda returned to
the parlor wearing the gloves and the pearls, and nothing else.
Ranked #83 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top
100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. [October 1997]
Retired from acting in 1992.
Married Ted
Turneron her birthday in 1991.
Daughter of Henry
Fonda.
Sister of Peter
Fonda.
Aunt of Bridget
Fonda and Justin
Fonda
Arrested and charged with drug smuggling.
[November 1970]
Her birth was the cause of some interruptions
during her father's filming of Jezebel
(1938) with Bette
Davis.
She was, and still is, an exercise maven.
Mother of Troy
Garity
Fonda was arrested in 1970 after allegedly kicking
a cop when she was found carrying a large amount of what appeared to
be pills. All charges were dropped after the pills were identified
as vitamins.
Atttended Emma Willard School in Troy, NY.
Announced her separation from husband Ted Turner.
[January 2000]
Was offered the role of Chris MacNeil in the
Exorcist.
Jane now openly admits that she suffered from
bulimia from age 13 to age 37. While modeling, she said she lived on
cigarettes, coffee, speed, and strawberry yogurt.
Sister-in-law of Susan
Brewer.
Born at 9:14 AM EST
Shortly after her divorce from Ted Turner, she
announced she had become a born-again Christian. Speculations are
that this may have played a part in their seperation, since Ted
Turner has expressed highly critical opinions on religion in
general.
The suicide of her socialite mother Frances
Seymour Brokaw was kept from her as a teenager, and she was told
that she'd died of heart failure. Household newspaper and magazine
subscriptions were canceled, and the staff and student body of
Fonda's high school were instructed not to discuss the incident.
Fonda learned the truth months later while leafing through a movie
magazine in art class.
Measurements: 33B-24-35 (during "Barbarella),
32B-24-31 1/2 (in 1980), 34C-25-36 (after "small"
implants- 1987), (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine)
Her out-of-retirement movie, _Monster-in-Law
(2004)_ will come out the same time as her autobiography, "My
Life So Far" and the same time her Workouts are re-released to
DVD format in stores.
Protested alongside fellow actresses Sally Field
& Christine Lahti, and playwright Eve Ensler urging the Mexican
government to re-investigate the slayings of hundreds of women in
Ciudad Juarez, on the Mexico-Texas border. (February 2004)
Two sisters, Pan and Amy.
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