August 2007 – Page 4

Mariah Lopez Update

I’m late posting this, but Jack passed it along and I wanted to put it up here. I was asked in comments to the earlier post about assistance, and it’s both needed and appreciated:

(I’m really sorry about the linking weirdness. This computer is temperamental. I choose to see it as picturesque. It hates my blog, it hates my blog entries, and it hates this dashboard page.)

http://www.angrybrownbutch.com/2007/08/19/174

Gael Guevara, a collective member of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, is personally organizing efforts to raise money for Mariah Lopez’s bail (see the original story and more recent update.) Note that this is a personal effort and not one being organized by SRLP or another organization; therefore, donations must be made in one of the following ways:

1. Stop by the SRLP office, where Gael works, to drop off the money early next week – 322 8th Ave, 3rd Floor, NYC (the entrance itself is on 26th Street).
2. Make a donation directly from your bank account using PayPal.com, sending it to the account of jesse(*at*)tmcnetwork(*dot*)com
3. Credit card donations can only be accepted through the PayPal account of merch(*at*)tmcnetwork(*dot*)com; however, PayPal charges a fee for credit card transactions, so free bank account transactions sent to the jesse account is preferred if at all possible.

As of early Saturday afternoon, $576 of the $1500 bail had already been raised, with $924 left to go. Since bail is only paid to ensure that the defendant won’t flee the charges, the money will be returned at the end of the trial and will then be split between the New Jersey 4 campaign of FIERCE! and the Safe OUTside the System Collective of the Audre Lorde Project. So your one donation will actually be a donation to three important causes at once.

For more info on the case or the fundraising efforts, please contact Gael at wapinpana(*at*)yahoo(*dot*)com.

Something I never really understood…

With regards to feminism and feminists.

A huge part of feminist thought, or so I’ve been led to believe, is body acceptance for women; the thought that a woman should be encouraged to feel comfortable in her own skin and not deride, dislike, or disdain her own body and appearance. There is a great deal of encouragement for women to learn to if not love, at least like or accept their appearance, and dress in whatever manner they choose, wear their hair as they like, “go natural” (not shave, avoid make up, ect) as they choose. And you know, I think this is great. I really do. If a person is happy with and accepting of their looks, whatever they look like, I think it’s wonderful.

There is also the thought that a woman should not be judged or mocked for her appearance, and while her choices with regards to how she presents herself or what she may or may not do to modify her natural body can be questioned, she should not be judged or made fun of or disregarded because of those choices. One can ask why (or why not) a woman wears make up, or gets body waxes, or gets tattoos, works out or diets, gets piercings, dyes her hair or gets a nose job, exploration into the “whys” is…acceptable…but I’ve often seen feminists say that a woman, no matter who she is or how she looks or what beauty rituals she does, or does not, engage in, well, she should not be judged, mocked, or made fun of.

But that happens, even amid feminist circles. And rarely is the woman who does not shave, or diet, or wear make up who is mocked, it is the woman who does. Often times being thin, via nature or diet or time in a gym is thought of something horrible. The intelligence of women who wear make up or get any sort of cosmetic surgery is guestioned, and often they are made fun of. Women who enage in any sort of “Patriarchy Approved” grooming or body ritual, well, when they admit it, they appologize for it. They are appologetic or ashamed of being thin, or wearing eyeliner, or having blonde hair.

And I wonder why. If a woman is comfortable and happy not shaving, should we not be happy for her and support her? If a woman is comfortable and happy with a body she has because she works out three times a week, should we not be happy for and support her? If a woman likes her “cranberry frost” lipstick and the way it makes her look and feel, shouldn’t we just be glad she is happy with it? If a woman is happy and comfortable letting her hair go grey as she ages, shouldn’t we just say “great”?

I understand that with conventional beauty standards it is important to instill in women and girls that there is more to body comfort and beauty that what the media dictates, because truth is, women of all shapes, sizes, ages, colors, and “styles” are beautiful and that wider realm of beauty and comfort should be encouraged to flourish and grow. No woman should feel ashamed of the way they look or what they wear, but I often feel as if perhaps this has spun slightly out of control in some aspects. When a woman who is naturally blonde or naturally thin is applogizing for it, it seems to me as if something his gone wrong here. It seems like an odd sort of backlash to what was supposed to be a mode of thought that would make women more comfortable in their own skins, no matter their shape, size, mode of dress, or alterations. One can read feminist lit of all types, from books to blogs, and see this odd backlash, feminist people calling women bimbos, porno barbies, sticks; women disdaining their own natural attributes that fall within the realms of conventional beauty, things such as being tall, or thin, or curvy or blonde…

And it makes me wonder whatever happened to women, all women, being happy with their bodies?

Or is this just one of those things I find myself pondering? And if so, what did I miss?

On Ethical Food

To my surprise, my food posts (I am, after all, supposed to be feminist & foodie) have sparked serious controversy ’round these parts. So let’s see what happens today, when we throw religion into the mix.

Interestingly, though, here it is religion that is the issue around which people are converging, or at least a motivating factor for that convergence. Yesterday, the NY Times Dining & Wine section featured an article pithily titled “Of Church & Steak,” which surveyed various religious movements working toward more ethical food production. Movements are emerging among Jews, Catholics, Evangelicals, and Muslims that push not only to slaughter animals in the most humane way possible (a focus of the Jewish kashrut laws or Muslim Halal), but also to ensure that the animals live cage free and that the people who care for and slaughter the animals are treated with respect and are paid living wages (not minimum wage). It’s food as social justice.

It’s not that this blending of green/sustainable/humane living and religion is anything new (eco-Kashrut has been around for about 30 years, as the Times notes, and which finds a modern home here). What’s new is the growing popularity of these movements, and their increasing power within their own religions. In Judaism, for example, the Conservative movement (less tied to the texts of Jewish law than Orthodox but more concerned with tradition and law than Reform) is in the process of creating a new kind of Kosher seal that would take into account issues of sustainability, humaneness during life, and treatment of human workers. (Apologies for the focus on Judaism; it’s what I know most about and would welcome perspectives from other religions on comments).

This change is clear both in the growth of interreligious work on ethical meat and in each religion. In the words of the inimitable Joel Salatin, proprietor of Polyface Farms, and a central figure in Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, put it well in the Times article:

“Ten years ago most of my farm visitors were earth muffin tree-hugger nirvana cosmic worshipers,” Mr. Salatin said. “And now 80 percent of them are Christian home schoolers.”

I can’t preach from a bully pulpit on this issue — I’m headed to Peter Luger‘s tonight, where I doubt they use what I would call ethical and sustainable meat. But for me it’s something to aspire to, for ethical reasons that are both religious and secular.

(also at LGM)

Back When Baby Didn’t Have Back

My daughter noticed something odd the other day. Odd to her, anyway, and, now that I think about it, odd to me too. In different ways, though.

See, she came to visit the other day and as I had to finish something up in the other room she dropped down on the couch to visit with her grandmother, who was watching Soul Train, one from the 70s, on the TV. As I left the room, she was barely containing her laughter at all the “weird” clothing (as if kids today have room to talk) and dances. I don’t think she’d ever really sat and watched the show before. When I came back in, though, she had such a strange look on her face… a combination of puzzlement, disgust and … I don’t know. Disbelief, or something.

I looked to see what they were doing – the people had formed two lines and couples danced down the middle. I don’ t know that they do that these days on dance shows, still… though it WAS the 70s, it didn’t seem too outlandish. Not enough to cause that look on her face. So, I asked her what the matter was.

“What’s wrong with them?” she asks. So, I look again. Okay, so maybe the dances are a little silly looking, all that flopping around, but surely she’s seen sillier ones?

“No”, she says… “look at them! Why are they all so skinny?” And, sure enough, I look again and there are dozens of Black people, men and women, and every one of them thin as rails. I sat down too, then, and we kept looking, pointing out when it appeared that a woman had hips, only to see it was because she was wearing baggy parachute type pants or something; some of them had visible breasts, but not many. Not a one had a “booty”. Even the men were super thin – little muscle tone, and certainly no bulk to them at all. And now that she’d pointed it out, I remembered when that was the look to aspire to.

I don’t have pictures, but here is a short video of a 1974 Soul Train dance line.

All of a sudden she exclaims, “Ugh! They all look like they have AIDS or are on crack.” I then turn to look at her, wondering why in the world she choose those particular comparisons… and then it hit me.

She was born in 1979. Crack invaded many Black neighborhoods in the early 80s and AIDS not long after, plus one barely mentions Africa without also mentioning, or at least thinking about, the AIDS epidemic in many countries there. In the world that young Black people my daughters age and younger have grown up in, a good many really skinny Black people they come into contact with, see in the movies or on the news, are simply not healthy for one reason or another. Some are, of course, there are plenty of healthy, thin Black people, but my daughter and just about all of her female friends that I know of are… curvaceous. Hips, breasts, rounded bellies and, of course, rounded bottoms – and they love themselves and their looks, which I think is a great thing. Not a one (that I know of) thinks she is fat. Far different from the Soul Train crew.

I was reminded of this trip into the past with my daughter by this post of Sewere’s, at Rachel’s Tavern ,where he has a conversation going about the Black Male Gaze causing self-esteem issues, referencing a Post Secret confession. I know there was a study (sort of!) done not too long ago that said something like, contrary to most White women, Black women are actually healthier when they have a little meat on their bones. The message Black women are constantly being sent about our bodies, our health, and our very existence are more mixed than usual, sigh. Still, I have to wonder if part of the reason for the shift in desirable (in all ways) body type, at least among some younger US Black folk, is a reaction to the “skinny = sick” thing.

You think?

(little update: actually, watching the video up above all the way through, at least in this set of dancers there are a few who are curvier. Still, considering that TV adds 1o lbs (or so) to your frame… )

Career women in Japan

I finally have more than five minutes in an internet cafe and I’m going through the massive folder of Feministe-related emails, and finding a ton of great stuff that people sent me that I never wrote about. Apologies. Once I get back to Germany and regular email access, I’ll be better at posting all the interesting articles and links you send on.

In the meantime, check out this article that Fauzia sent me, about the issues facing career women in Japan:

Even with cases of blatant discrimination, lawsuits remain rare because of a cultural aversion to litigation. Another big problem has been that the equal opportunity law is essentially toothless. Despite two revisions, the law includes no real punishment for companies that continue to discriminate. The worst that the Labor Ministry can do is to threaten to publish the names of violators, and the ministry has never done that. As a result, Japan ranks as the most unequal of the world’s rich countries, according to the United Nations Development Program’s “gender empowerment measure,” an index of female participation in a nation’s economy and politics. The country placed 42nd among 75 nations surveyed in 2006 — just above Macedonia and far below other developed nations like the United States, ranked 12th, and top-ranked Norway.

Interestingly (and infuriatingly), the conversation has to turn to Muslim women, with women who are veiled serving as the ultimate comparison point in the Oppression Olympics:

“It’s a pathetic situation,” said Kumiko Morizane, deputy director of the equal employment division in Japan’s Labor Ministry. “Even in Pakistan, where women cover their faces, they had a female prime minister.”

Women getting elected in countries where women cover their faces? Now that’s just crazy-talk.

Articles about obstacles women face in other countries are always interesting, particularly since the American media tends to focus, obviously, on American issues. But the discussion about these articles never fails to get under my skin. Inevitably, someone will point out how backwards and regressive the people of the (usually darker-skinned) other culture are, unlike us here in the USA. Someone will inevitably lecture all the feminists about how we aren’t doing enough to save the women who are really oppressed, and we should stop whining because we don’t have it nearly as bad as those poor, voiceless dears over there have it.

So, you know, read the article and comment, but don’t do the obnoxious oh-those-poor-oppressed-not-like-me-other-women thing.

Greatest Hits: Post-Abortion Syndrome

Originally posted on January 21, 2007.

The New York Times Magazine has a lengthy article on “post-abortion syndrome,” a psychological condition invented by anti-choice choice groups (it isn’t backed by any credible research, and none of the major psychological associations recognize it) that’s now being used to argue for the illegalization of abortion.

The argument goes like this: Abortion is inherently traumatic; all women are traumatized by their abortions, even if they don’t know it; because women are traumatized, they do a variety of anti-social things, making abortion the root cause of many of our social problems; therefore, abortion should be illegal.

It’s a truly strange argument. I haven’t ever heard of attempts to outlaw any other incredibly common medical procedure because of that procedure’s supposed negative psychological effects, none of which were scientifically proven. Pregnancy and childbirth, for example, have been shown to cause or aggravate depression — these findings are backed up by volumes of research. Should we outlaw that?

Housework is so sexy, it’ll make you come

For real.

WOMEN could turn dust into lust — with a sex toy that brings pleasure to HOUSEWORK.

Instead of moaning about chores, they will happily moan as they do them.

The plastic tubular gadget fits on the end of a vacuum pipe.

Its makers say frustrated housewives can place it above their private parts — and orgasm in just TEN SECONDS.

Wedding bells always make me feel disoriented and pro-war, too.

Apparently Jenna Bush is engaged, and some people are suggesting that a White House Wedding will jack up Bush’s approval rating — because women just love weddings.

The thing I find most disturbing is that there is already talk that a White House Wedding will be great politics. It could be a terrific way to hook women — who are the angriest about the war, and one of the biggest problems for Republicans going into the election.

Women — even the angry ones — are going to eat this up. We can’t help it. It’s what we do.

The father of the bride is responsible for the loss close to 4,000 American lives, the lives of uncounted Iraqis, and many thousands of injured and maimed. He has had the big boy office in an organization that has lied, manipulated and ultimately failed at every turn. But on this day, he is the proud and loving papa walking his daughter down the aisle.

Eyes will grow moist, and approval ratings will rise.

Yes, watching George Bush walk Jenna down the aisle is going to make our lady-hormones go all nutty, and we’ll forget all about that silly war in wherever-it-is, and instead we’ll just focus on dresses! And flowers! And diamonds!

No, forgetting about an international crisis at the drop of a bouquet is not “what we do.” I’m a woman — one of the angry ones — and watching a big fat Bush wedding isn’t going to suddenly make me think it’s ok to invade foreign nations and kill tens of thousands of their citizens. I don’t think most other women are idiotic enough to be swept up in wedding excitement at the expense of actual issues. But who knows. Maybe my less “angry” sisters are easily blinded by white lace. After all, if they aren’t angry by now, they’re already missing something.

Anti-choicer says birth control pills “don’t work;” newspapers don’t bother to correct her.

This is what I mean when I say that the media is failing to do its job. An anti-choice activist is quoted in an AP article run in the Denver Post as saying:

“Let’s face it, they’re in the business to kill babies for profit,” she said. “First and foremost, they get young girls hooked on their birth control pills, which don’t work,” Hanks said.

Now, there are clearly issues with the first sentence in that quote, but I won’t get into those. It’s the newspaper’s reaction (or lack thereof) to the second part that gets me. It is a medical fact that birth control pills do work. And they work astoundingly well. If you use them as directed, they’re 99.7 – 99.9 percent effective. Even the typical use rates are pretty good — BC is 92 percent effective even when women don’t use it perfectly. So this isn’t a matter of personal opinion. There simply isn’t data out there backing up the statement that birth control pills “don’t work.”

When reporting a story like this, the news media does have an obligation to present both sides, and so I certainly don’t fault them for including the anti-choice view. But they also have an obligation to inform the public and not promote false information. If someone is quoted as saying, “Yesterday, the President visited Togo,” when in fact yesterday the President was in Russia, the reporter has an obligation to point out the president’s actual location. If someone is quoted as saying, “XYZ medication will kill you if you take it with milk,” and in fact there is no problem with taking XYZ with milk, the reporter has an obligation to disseminate the facts. And if someone is quoted as saying, “Birth control pills don’t work” when in fact birth control pills work quite well, a good reporter will refuse to perpetuate untruths, and will instead allow the quote to stand next to the actual facts.

Making Blogs Necessary

Nothing like a little self-congratulation to get a blogger going in the morning.

Amanda’s got a post up at Pandagon and Offsprung bemoaning the horrendous job the MSM does addressing or qualifying the false claims made by the wingnuts in interviews, op-eds and other appearances. Case in point: An 8/20 article in the Denver Post about a new Planned Parenthood clinic planned for the Denver area.

Amanda points out the most egregious quote, which the article’s author, Karen Augé, leaves flapping in the breeze:

Leslie Hanks, vice president of Colorado Right to Life, said her organization will continue its opposition to Planned Parenthood and likely would fight efforts to build a clinic.

“Let’s face it, they’re in the business to kill babies for profit,” she said. “First and foremost, they get young girls hooked on their birth control pills, which don’t work,” Hanks said.

And then nothing. There is so much wrong with this quote that it’s hard to know where to begin. First, Planned Parenthood does not “kill babies for profit.” If I have to explain why that’s wrong, you’re probably reading the wrong blog. Second, the quote equates birth control pills (BCP) with an addictive drug with no legit purposes. Given that BCP is neither addictive nor useless, it’s a BS move. Third, BCP does work. I can testify to that myself, as can the hundreds of millions of other women around the world who use it. It’s not foolproof, but then again, neither is abstinence, really.

Amanda has some praise for the MSM on this issue, though it’s short-live and tongue in cheek (at least the first sentence):

It’s good that reporters aren’t helping anti-choicers conceal that they are opposed to the prevention of unwanted pregnancies through contraception, which does serious damage to their strange claims that they’d like to reduce the abortion rate. (Note to idiots: You don’t reduce abortions by increasing the main cause of them, unwanted pregnancies. That’s like trying to reduce the auto fatality rate by banning seatbelts.) Still, the fact of the matter is that this he said/she said style of reporting that’s fact-free creates the wrong impression that it’s all just a matter of opinion, and since these ridiculous, fact-free claims are being trotted out in articles from reporters that are supposed to be trustworthy, it’s all too easy for some readers to think there must be some truth to them.

Bloggers aren’t perfect (ahem), but I am sick of all the O’Reilly style invective calling us name-callers and flame throwers (oh the irony). At a time when it has become abundantly clear that the MSM too often leaves behind its mantle as the fourth estate, it’s bloggers who can fill the gaps.

“Fair and balanced” reporting (something I make no claim to provide) is a good thing, but only when it takes form as something other than a place for people to air their opinions unmediated by the journalist.

(Also at LGM)