By Patricia McBroom
Women Warriors were just the beginning
They call her “Kurdistan,” not her real name. She fights in the sun-dried desert of Northeastern Syria to preserve an extraordinary revolution. Like others in this army of Kurdish women (YPJ), she carries the scars of a brutal beating by ISIS fighters who lashed her back until it was nothing but bloody ribbons of flesh hanging from bones. That experience among others drove Kurdistan to pledge “that no man would ever whip her again.” …
Touching Love in Unexpected places
By Patricia McBroom
A bush spoke to me once a few years ago in a glorious grove of giant Sequoia trees. It was spring. I was walking along going nowhere with the sun filtering through the redwoods when I stopped and touched a bush. Without warning, love struck like a sword along with the name of my former partner. The feeling was so powerful, it almost bent me over and I was sure something had been transmitted to me from that bush — though the experience was completely in my own mind…
Sexuality and Safety are not Contradictions
By Patricia McBroom
Newsletter Issue #2
“When she leaned against the apple tree, her vulva was wondrous to behold….the young woman applauded herself.”
As my fingers typed these words, the tips of them began to burn and I heard a voice in my head. It was my long-deceased mother.
“WHAT did you say?” she demanded. My inner child began to squirm.
“I didn’t say it,” I replied quickly. “Inanna said it.”
“Always blaming someone else,” she said with disgust. “Who is Inanna anyway?”
“She’s the first Goddess in history, long before God was anywhere close and certainly…
By Patricia Mc Broom
Newsletter, Issue #1
Weeks after the inauguration of Joe Biden as U.S. president, I am gulping in fresh air. Sane government, wise policies, freedom from chaotic, senseless attacks on everyone from the mail carrier to the Governor of Michigan. But the fresh air filling my lungs is followed by a gasp because in my mind’s eye, I see a militia just over that hill behind us. It is a militia devoted to preserving an old system of male dominance.
I thought we had left this cultural pattern a long time ago. When Trump was elected president in 2016 over our…
Patricia McBroom
Patricia McBroom is an anthropologist, science journalist and professor of women’s studies. She published two books; earned her degree at the U of Penn.
