Here’s what struck me the most about the front page of the paper last Wednesday. Above the fold was a story about a Bethel doctor, Jill Seaman, who earned a MacArthur fellowship genius award for her work in southern Sudan. She first went to Africa in 1984 to help out in famine starved Ethiopia and has been returning to Africa ever since to offer what medical care, solace, compassion and help she could to some of the most needy and wretched populations on earth.
Dr. Seaman never used being a woman as an excuse for doing anything less than heroic work for the people she cares so much about. She could have gone to Bethel and stayed there, justifying her life as working in an underserved rural area that needed her medical expertise. She could have done that and no more and still been a hero for her dedication to those less fortunate. But she didn’t. She made a conscious decision to be of more help to more people in whatever way possible.
Contrast that with the story below the fold that day in which Beverly Masek’s lawyer pled for leniency in her sentencing based on the fact that she was apparently the most hapless, helpless, clueless woman on earth. He would have us believe she was nothing more than a pawn in the hands of her allegedly abusive and overbearing husband, as well as being a poor drunken Native lady who didn’t have a clue about how things worked in Juneau or, for god’s sake, how to find the restrooms in the capital without assistance and a map.
I can only hope that every girl in this state who reads about that self-pitying, self-serving excuse for criminal behavior also hears about Dr. Seaman and understands that being a woman is not an automatic handicap in this world.
I think what bothered me most about Masek’s truly pathetic attempt to get off without any real punishment was the message it seemed to send about Native women. Yes, there are Native women out there in our villages and cities who come from abusive backgrounds, who have addiction problems and who cannot cope with life because they are simply unable to find the dignity that has so often been beaten out of them and which they need to stand up for themselves.
But here’s the thing. There are other Native women in this state – strong, proud, intelligent and capable women – who are running corporations, colleges and non-profits and are blazing the trail for the next generation. Some of these women come from what society would define as good homes; homes with intact families and no drinking and abusive behavior.
But some also come from the kind of homes we read about all too often when the discussion arises about Alaska Native families; the homes where drunken, drugged violence is a fact of almost daily life and no adults, male or female, are available as role models. Women from these homes picked themselves up by their bootstraps and decided to make a better life for themselves and their children. They actively chose life over the thousand daily deaths that come with an abusive, addictive lifestyle.
They did what many thought Beverly Masek had done during all her terms in the legislature. They made a life for themselves without asking for anyone’s pity or charity. It’s a lesson that Beverly apparently wants us to believe she never learned. I’m guessing her former constituents are shocked to hear that. I’ve got to assume they thought they were electing a competent legislator to represent them, not a whiny, “poor me”, helpless female.
Dr. Jill Seaman shows us what one person can do, regardless of gender, to make the world a better place. She shows that strength comes from inside us and allows us to send the human spirit soaring on wings of love, compassion and devotion.
Beverly Masek shows us that one person can revel in their own wretchedness, blame everyone else for what they did, and ultimately cast a shadow on a whole group of women in this state who deserve better.
Do not ever mistake Beverly Masek for a typical Alaska Native female. So many of them are so much better than that.