Meeting Dissention with Dialogue
Written by Corey Allison, Executive Director, Huron’s Women Shelter & Women’s Rural Resource Centre
Division without dialogue. This is what I fear most.
A mentor once told me that love gets a bad rap – often written off as a nice warm-and-fuzzy – but said it’s exactly the medicine our world needs to heal. I didn’t know it then, but this was prophetic wisdom for the leaders of today.
Over the last few years that statement has made its way to the forefront of my consciousness many times. A quiet voice saying yes.
When I first started in the women’s sector, I was hungry to see change in action. As the youngest executive director in the area at the time, I was eager to learn from my more experienced colleagues, many of whom were part of the original grassroots shelter movement in the 1980s. When I went to my first meeting of executive directors across the region – it was unlike any meeting I’ve ever been to. There was a steaming pot of homemade soup plugged into the wall, knitting needles clicking faster and faster as we got to the heart of the matter, and a few ‘F-%&@#$’ thrown in as needed to convey the dangerous, insidious nature of it all to the wide eyed and awkward funders in suits joining us that day
I was hooked – the matriarchy had invited the patriarchy over for dinner; the table was ours, the conviction real and raw. This was my first taste of radical love in action.
Personally, the invitation was compelling: welcome to the women’s sector! The wild frontier of social justice, I found myself in the jungle of gender equity being raised not by wolves, but feminists. Little did I know, this vocational upbringing would give me the grit, fortitude and gentleness of spirit to carry forward the movement passed on from these giants.
The paradox of that initial scene is not lost on me: There was hard critical analysis, the anger and anguish of lives lost, the invisible pain and struggle of women, and the commitment to open the eyes of those who didn’t want to see it. This good fight was our push.
And then there was the soup, the knitting, the long starts where we shared what was happening in the lives of our children and partners and parents and communities. Making space for reflection, emotion, meaning-making and story. Giving as much weight to connection and wisdom-mining as time and agendas. Our success was a felt sense of alignment. The relationship, the dialogue – this was our pull.
The tension between the push and the pull is the invitation for humanity today. Like the precious space between inhale and exhale, a pause inviting us to listen into ourselves.
We are at a critical juncture as the greatest institutions, belief systems and structures that have perpetuated inequity are beginning to implode.Our darkest cultural demons and shadow-sides are being revealed in movements like #Metoo and Black Lives Matter. These critical truths hold potential for collective healing if received with an open heart. But as I scroll through my social feeds, the energetic assault hits hard; our relationships with each other reflect so much anger, judgement, and lashing out. Too much division, too little dialogue. Closed hearts – I cringe. The systems of the patriarchy thrive in our division, we pose no threat if we are infighting amongst ourselves.
I ask myself, what is the most loving response we need now? And the wisdom of stillness whispers back . . . be unrelenting and steadfast in the push, and at the same time, be hyper vigilant in the pull. Make truth visible to those who are blind and be committed to dialogue and relationship with them. The tension is challenging. It requires grit. The only container I know of capable of holding both deep dissension and open dialogue is this radical love I experienced working with feminist leaders.
Let me be clear about what love is not. In the same way feminism has been reduced to burning bras and unruly women, love has been undermined as woo and unicorns at best, and toxic positivity at worst. But the true nature of love is tenacious, capable of rage and gentleness, willing to disrupt and be messy for the sake of solidarity and kindness. And action born out of this kind of love represents the greatest threat to the systemic structures that have colluded with oppression, colonization, racism and gender inequity. As we enter an era of higher accountability and more authentic reconciliation, the only way to survive the truth and not collapse in its pain is to root every thought, word and action in radical, fierce love. This is the activism of now.
But what does that mean in practice?
It means we are willing to be counter-cultural. When the feminist movement partnered with funders and government to provide shelter to women in danger, we became beholden to their authority. They asked us to conform, to report, to count, to measure and reduce stories to stats. But the infinite wisdom of the leaders before me was to put on that pot of soup, to insist they meet for a day (not an hour) to really get to know us as partners and discover what we care about. What may have seemed inefficient, a waste of resources, was a radical act of love bound up in strategy; they had the wisdom to make space for connection and make time to build bridges across difference. Through this, we advanced our agenda, and often in more partnership than thought possible.
At a time when sharp division is creating an uneasy silence among us, find the courage to gather round the tables in your life, convene for hard conversations and trust in your relationships to contain the discomfort. Meet dissension with dialogue. Take a stand for love.
Because love is exactly what this world needs now. And maybe a pot of soup at your next board meeting.