Someone here has already considered contacting the Girl Scouts to create a Bonobo merit badge, right? I have, yes, said Diane Rosenfeld, the author of the must-read (as in now) book The Bonobo Sisterhood: Revolution Through Female Alliance. A Bonobo merit badge for Girl Scouts could generate many transferable traits that human beings share with Bonobos; more on that later.
This past week in Washington, D.C., I had the great honor of being with a stellar group of primarily women, with a smattering of great guys, for an extraordinary event: #MeToo & Beyond: An Evening With Ashley Judd, Diane Rosenfeld and Fatima Goss. En route, I felt the excitement that some delegates must have felt when they traveled to Philadelphia to sign the Declaration of Independence. Their signatures required vision, hope and courage, as they knew their signatures could also be their death sentence for treason.
Similarly, many women are passionate about and ready to be disloyal to the current structure of mostly male autocracy, often fortified by females. However, instead of a Declaration of Independence, we would be signing a Declaration of Inter-dependence with a promise to have all women created equal.
Kathy Spillar, the executive editor of Ms. Magazine, started the evening with a jaw-dropping litany of the accomplishments of the magazine over the past 50 years; Ms. forever altered the gender landscape for individuals, families and society for the betterment of men and boys, too, as well as any gender identification that one chooses.
Ordinarily, I hate panels, but this one, held in D.C.s historic 6th and I synagogue, was an exception. It was elegantly moderated by Frédérique Irwin, CEO of the National Womens History Museum, which sponsored the event. One of the four panelists was Judd, the brilliant mind and brave soul that she is. You may recall that it was her going public about Harvey Weinsteins sexual coercion that boosted the #MeToo movement already underway thanks to its founder Tarana Burke to the next level. Judd was also a student of Rosenfelds at Harvard, and she sat next to Rosenfeld, who was definitely the queen of the event.
The other two panelists are similarly powerful advocates of social change. Fatima Goss specializes in using the law to protect women and is one of the co-founders of the TIMES UP Legal Defense Fund, while Amanda Nguyen, the founder of RISE, uses art to get her message across. Nguyen got the first resolution ever passed at the U.N. to support survivors of sexual assault during peacetime.
How did she do it? She knew that the annual general assembly meeting overlaps with Fashion Week, so she created a fashion show and exhibit, What She Was Wearing, featuring clothes 118 women wore as they endured sexual assaults & then had U.N. delegates sit in the front row to see them. (Fashion Week is a highly coveted event that delegates never get to attend.) Thats why the resolution passed unanimously, and that, my friends, is a Bonobo miracle.
Why a Bonobo miracle? One of the most essential parts of Bonobo society is that they pull together to defend anyone in need. Unlike ourselves and our closest ape cousins, Chimps and Gorillas, who use violence to sustain the status quo, Bonobos have evolved to create societies without war and murder. John Lennons Imagine comes to mind.
Rosenfeld has beautifully and carefully laid out why Bonobo societies disprove the tired canards that boys will be boys, war is inevitable and there will always be poverty all justifications for thats just the way it is and not the way it could be.
Rosenfeld and her Bonobo sisters provided a chorus of Oh, yeah? We think not! We share 98.7 % of our DNA with Bonobos, and if they can have a peaceful society, so can we. Interestingly, the Bonobos have no constitution; they have sustainability instead, insured by female leadership.
So what tasks could the Girl Scouts do to earn their Bonobo badge? The motto Be Prepared is already used by all scouts, so its time to expand on what that actually means by taking cues from the Bonobo. Scouts could train to defend themselves when dealing with unwanted touch while learning emotional, verbal and physical self-defense. They could learn intervention skills to protect others if they see another person in trouble.
They could practice talking through What could I do? They could practice setting clear verbal boundaries and saying No! when they mean no and Yes! when they really mean yes. They could learn to identify people-pleasing patterns of pandering in order not to be manipulated. They could learn to make and share food. They could learn to listen to other females with the same respect that we currently and automatically bestow upon boys and men. They could learn to sing Imagine & but with different lyrics.
They could learn civil disobedience, stances for up with this, we will not put, and peaceful protesting in small or large groups. By doing this, they will usher in a time of no more school shootings, no more malnutrition and no more bullying. They would learn that aging is a privilege and not something to dread.
If youre interested in leading a movement to create a Bonobo merit badge, contact me, and well figure out the next steps. May all your futures be Bonobo-like & you deserve it.
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Ellen Snortland teaches creative writing online and has a few rare openings in her classes. She can be reached at ellen@beautybitesbeast.com to get more information regarding tuition and schedule.
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