Somewhere in a comments section this afternoon, I found a link to an article in Religion Dispatches Magazine. The article, basically an interview of Mormon feminist Judy Dushku, by Joanna Brooks, is titled, "Mitt Romney's Best-Known Mormon Critic Tells it All. One Last Time." I wrote a previous diary about Dushku, who broke the story in 1994 about Romney pressuring a woman in his congregation not to have an abortion even though her life was in danger.
Once the story came out, Dushku says --
Mitt said, "What are you trying to do to me? I thought we were friends. And now you've come out from the woodwork. You've never been active in politics." I told him, "I've been very active in politics; you just don't know what I do. I teach politics, my office is next door to the state house, I've been in the Massachusetts women's political caucus." Mitt said, "Well, I didn't know that." I said, "That's not a surprise; you've never asked."
More after the pumpkin vines.
Dushku spoke about how she'd often felt like an outcast as a member of Romney's congregation. She was a divorced single mother in a church that put the traditional family (husband, wife, kids) above most else. She knew that some families loved Romney,
But I was different, somehow. I was not "weak" in terms of "to be worried about in a pastoral way," but different in that I had needs, but had some idea of ways I might be served. I felt that he wanted to tell me what I needed without my input. He did not want to hear what I said.
Sounds very familiar, doesn't it?
Dushku is a busy woman, these days, "founding an initiative to foster economic self-sufficiency among women in Uganda." She is asked often by the media to tell her story, and agreed to the interview in hopes that she can set the matter to rest.
I kept interviewing about Mitt. It was not that I had specific horrible stories to tell, it was that I felt people should know that he was not a caring man, particularly when it came to women. He once said to me, "Judy, I don't know why you keep coming to church. You are not my kind of Mormon."
There have just been so many things that were said -- so many indicators of his disinterest and a certain attitude towards frivolousness of women's issues, that I took that away with me and it stayed as my image of him.
In the article, Dushku also speaks about how she came to be a feminist. How she grew up as an "military brat" and later fell in love with teaching, then during the Vietnam war became more introspective about power and social class. She spoke out in the interview partly to convey her views of the war on women:
I don't like it that we have come to be represented by a man who has no interest in a social safety net and blames those in need for being in poverty or without work. Mormons don't believe that. He is not us.
Link to article, which isn't long and which is well worth reading in its entirety:
http://www.religiondispatches.org/...