Spiritual Courage and the Power of Partnership: How One Coastal Community is Changing Women's Health Care

Abstract

Helping Our Women (HOW), a small 501(c)3 nonprofit organization serving women living with chronic or serious health conditions in the rural coastal region of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, US, has been operating as a partnership model for thirty years. This article reveals how Riane Eisler’s “right mindset” was present in the community culture that fostered HOW’s formation and is still present in its organizational DNA and explores how economically challenged rural communities value caring as essential work through their generosity and altruism. Rick Mauer’s Levels of Resistance model is used as a tool to explain some of the challenges of actualizing Eisler’s partnership ideal. Eisler’s foundational emphasis on mutual respect, accountability, spiritual courage, and equity is recognized as the through-line of continuous evolution and community resilience.

Keywords

• health care
• women’s health
• health equity
• Cape Cod women
• Helping our Women
• women’s health care