In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Month: February 2011

YES.

Good news this morning: Mubarak has stepped down.

Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, has resigned from his post, handing over power to the armed forces.

Omar Suleiman, the vice-president, announced in a televised address that the president was “waiving” his office, and had handed over authority to the Supreme Council of the armed forces.

Suleiman’s short statement was received with a roar of approval and by celebratory chanting and flag-waving from a crowd of hundreds of thousands in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, as well by pro-democracy campaigners who attended protests across the country on Friday.

The crowd in Tahrir chanted “We have brought down the regime”, while many were seen crying, cheering and embracing one another.

“Tonight, after all of these weeks of frustration, of violence, of intimidation … today the people of Egypt undoubtedly [feel they] have been heard, not only by the president, but by people all around the world,” our correspondent at Tahrir Square reported, following the announcement.

Pro-democracy activists in the Egyptian capital had marched on the presidential palace and state television buildings on Friday, the 18th consecutive day of protests.

Twisty nails it on “women-only” spaces

I do think there’s something to be said for creating women-only spaces, under certain circumstances and for certain purposes. Twisty at I Blame the Patriarchy has decided to make her blog all-woman all the time, and received some immediate push-back in the vein of “But what about trans women?” To which I would reply, “Did you see the part where we said this is a women-only space? By definition that includes trans women.” And yet there still seems to be some debate about this? (I use the term “debate” loosely here, because that term implies some sort of actual good-faith argument from two or more sides, and that’s not really what’s happening here). Twisty takes on said “debate,” and it is a thing of beauty. You should read it. I’m a little iffy on the Dworkin bit at the end (Point 3 in particular), but overall it is an excellent post. Just don’t read the comments — they are extremely bigoted and may be triggering.

Thanks, Lauren, for the link.

The Meaning and Value of Mercy

Mary Vargas shares her heartbreaking story about abortion, choice, and why the option must remain open — even late in pregnancy:

When I was 22 weeks pregnant with my very much wanted second son whom we had already named David, he was diagnosed with a fatal form of Potters’ Syndrome. His kidneys had stopped working and atrophied. As a result, his lungs could not develop. We prayed that we could hold him, regardless of disability, but our options were unspeakable.

We could terminate the pregnancy, if we could find doctors and nurses willing to provide care, and if we could pay for it out of pocket, since my husband’s insurance was restricted from covering abortion care. Or we could wait. We could allow our son to suffer without comfort, to feel his bones being crushed and broken in the absence of amniotic fluid, until he died in utero, or at delivery, suffocating to death in the absence of developed lungs. Two specialists confirmed that he had no chance at life.

We struggled with the moral questions, the ethical questions, the religious questions, the practical questions, and how to explain to our living child that his brother would not be coming home. We questioned the meaning and value of mercy.

We “chose” to end the pregnancy – not for us, but because choosing mercy was the only thing we could do for our unborn son. I would have liked to have held him. Yet, I know our decision was the right one for our child. I know because of this experience that many times the choice to terminate a pregnancy is made because a woman values life: because she or her unborn child, or both is dying, or because they are suffering towards no purpose.

It wasn’t a choice I would wish on my worst enemy, but I’m grateful the choice was mine.

On Labor

Ta-Nehisi Coates writes a perfect piece about the work of pregnancy and childbirth:

For reasons beyond me, childbirth–in the popular American mind–is swaddled in gossamer, gift-wrap, and icing. Beneath the pastel Hallmark cards and baby showers, behind the flowers, lies a truth encoded, still, in our wording, but given only minimal respect–the charge of shepherding life is labor. It’s work. And you need only look to the immediate past, or you need only look around the world, or you need only come close to losing the love of your small, young life to understand a correlating truth–pregnancy is potentially lethal work.
…
This is the era of internet intellectuals, mostly dudes, who excel at analogizing easily accessible facts to buttress their points. It’s a good skill to have, and one I employ myself. But it isn’t wisdom. Like most people, I have deep problems with the termination of life–and that is what I believe abortion to be. Still a decade ago, I learned that those problems were abstract, and could not stand against something as tangible and imposing as death.

My embrace of a pro-choice stance is not built on analogizing Rick Santorum with Hitler. It is not built on what the pro-life movement is “like.” It’s built on set of disturbing and inelidable truths: My son is the joy of my life. But the work of ushering him into this world nearly killed his mother. The literalism of that last point can not be escaped.

Every day women choose to do the hard labor of a difficult pregnancy. Its courageous work, which inspires in me a degree of admiration exceeded only by my horror at the notion of the state turning that courage, that hard labor, into a mandate. Women die performing that labor in smaller numbers as we advance, but they die all the same. Men do not. That is a privilege.

Read it all.

Meet the HR3 Ten: Heath Shuler

This is a guest post by Sarah Jaffe. Sarah is the Web manager/Senior Writer at GRITtv with Laura Flanders and an independent journalist and critic. You can find her on Twitter at @seasonothebitch. This piece was originally posted at Champagne Candy.

So! H.R.3 supposedly won’t redefine rape anymore, but the fight’s just getting started. We learned last week that the new Congress followed H.R. 3 with H.R. 358, the Protect Life Act, which would redefine “conscience” clauses to allow pregnant women to die if saving them would require harming the fetus. 

And the thing is, the DCCC and other organizations are blaming this on Republicans. But just like the Stupak-Pitts amendment to healthcare reform, this bill comes to us as a special gift from some Democrats, too. Ten of them cosponsor H.R. 3 and did so even with rape-redefining language; four of those ten also apparently don’t care if pregnant women die. 

So let’s get to know them, shall we? 

Heath Shuler gets my especial ire because he challenged Nancy Pelosi for Minority Leader status in the new Congress. Though she easily won, the fact that an antichoice Blue Dog got 43 votes to lead the ostensible Democratic caucus is telling. 24 of the 58 Blue Dogs were defeated in this round of elections, which should’ve taught them the lesson that some of us have been screaming for years–in a choice between Republican-lite and Republican, voters usually go with the real Republican. We can apparently blame Bill Clinton and Rahm Emanuel for Shuler’s running for office in the first place, and Clinton continued to campaign for him even after he voted against two of his party’s major priorities.

In a week when we’ve been talking a lot about rape and NFL quarterbacks, I think we should note that Shuler is also a former NFL quarterback. Take that how you will. He’s also a member of the Family, the secretive religious group described so well by Jeff Sharlet, and called by the New Yorker a “Frat House for Jesus”. You know, along with such pro-woman great dudes as Jim DeMint. 

The DCCC spent $231,112.63 on Shuler’s reelection this year in North Carolina’s 11th district. The Blue Dog PAC also kicked in $30,000, and Shuler’s largest individual donor was a company called Phillips & Jordan, to the tune of $56,150. (They contribute mostly to Republicans, but Shuler was by far the biggest recipient of their largesse–hmmm. They appear to get quite a few federal contracts, mostly for demolishing things in New Orleans post-Katrina. I’m not even going to get STARTED on that.) 

Speaking of North Carolina, it’s hardly a true-blue state, but it did go Democratic for Obama, and Asheville, the largest city in Shuler’s district, is a pretty lefty spot, a draw for artists and creative types. Ari Berman quotes a few of Shuler’s disaffected constituents: 

“We’re so disappointed in Shuler,” said former Polk County Democratic Party chair Margaret Johnson. “We laugh when we think about all that we did for him.” Kathy Sinclair, the former Democratic chair in Buncombe County—the largest in Shuler’s district—was even more blunt. “I’m not sure he is really representing his constituents of Western North Carolina,” she told me last spring. “I didn’t vote for him last time, and I won’t vote for him next time.”

In 2010, Shuler faced a primary challenge from a political unknown, Aixa Wilson, who took 39% of the vote–and won Asheville outright–despite not taking any donations. That’s right, none. That takes skill. Karen Oelschlaeger, an Asheville resident, told me that Shuler refused to debate his primary opponent, skipping a League of Women Voters forum rather than face the opposition.  In 2008, Shuler refused to debate his Republican opponent outside of one AM radio appearance right before election day–Oelschlaeger notes that the Republican took to carrying a cardboard “Shulerman” cutout to debates. 

Oelschlaeger says “It is my personal opinion and hope that a well-funded moderate Democrat should/could have a decent chance at winning the district if they ran a solid, serious campaign…” 

Shuler’s top earmarks are relatively inoffensive–parks, textile industry, Reading is Fundamental–but there are a few military earmarks in there. Not that that’s not par for the course. 

Let’s talk about his votes, then, shall we? Shuler voted against the healthcare bill and against the stimulus package. He (obviously) voted for Stupak-Pitts before voting against the bill. A blogger has posted a form letter from Shuler’s office explaining his “pro-life” standards, but I’d be pretty willing to argue that if he was “pro-life,” he ought to vote for a stimulus bill that was going to support “life” by putting (not enough) people to work. Also, “life” might have included a public health care option that would have covered more people than the current health care bill, but that wasn’t deficit neutral enough for Shuler, who has a “National Debt Clock” on his website. 

His complaint about the stimulus was, of course, “too much spending,” though I can’t argue with him that it needed more infrastructure investment. He also voted against the original $700 billion bailout, so at least he’s consistent. He also apparently thinks the Consumer Financial Protection Agency is a waste of money.

He was one of the original 19 Dems who signed on to Stupak’s original threat to torpedo their party’s biggest priority over abortion. 

He voted with Republicans to end public funding of elections, presumably because he has no trouble raising money. He also voted for FISA extension, giving “U.S. spy agencies expanded power to eavesdrop on foreign suspects without a court order.” 

He also tends to vote with Republicans on war. That’s a very pro-life position, you know. So is wanting Amtrak passengers to be able to transport guns safely. 

He also wants a border fence, to crack down on immigration, and is very concerned with collecting “abortion surveillance data.” Because if you want to get an abortion, and he can’t stop you while Roe still exists, he’s not only going to prevent it from being funded any way he can, but then he wants to know who you are. Slut. 

I don’t need to tell you what all this spells out, do I? The same representatives who have little regard for the life of pregnant people, are often the ones who hate immigrants, who don’t care about health care, who don’t care about jobs. They do care about corporations’ right to spy on you, and presumably for corporations’ right to buy elections. 

And Democrats keep supporting them. They keep campaigning for them and funding them. $231,112.63 of the DCCC’s money just for this one candidate. In addition to Bill Clinton, Debbie Wasserman Schultz went to North Carolina to stump for Shuler–the same Debbie Wasserman Schultz who calls H.R.3 “a violent act against women.”

What does someone have to do to get thrown out of the party? The answer you get from Democrats is usually “Well, it’s better to have an antichoice Democrat than an antichoice Republican.” Better for whom? 

So what do we do about it? 

I’ve got a couple of answers. They both involve calling, emailing, and visiting your Congresscritter. 

You can contact Shuler through his website, or here:

229 Cannon House Office Bldg.
Washington, DC, 20515
Phone: (202) 225-6401
Fax: (202) 226-6422

You can also contact the DCCC here, and tell them what you think of their spending on Democrats like Heath Shuler. 

430 S. Capitol St. SE
Washington, DC 20003
Main Phone Number: (202) 863-1500 

Next up: Mark Critz. 

Monday Reads

Some things to check out this afternoon:

The Argument for Paying Moms Less. This is on my “to write about” list, but I’ll say now that the author of this piece clearly hasn’t done much research into discrimination against working women. Mothers don’t get paid less simply because they “work less.” There’s a motherhood penalty that women face — numerous studies have shown that indicating motherhood on a resume (by listing activities like the PTA or other parenthood identifiers) results in fewer interviews and a starting salary offer that is thousands of dollars less than the offers made to male candidates. Candidates who are fathers are actually offered higher starting salaries, even with comparable resumes. So no, it’s not that mothers are less productive.

Thinspiration on the internet. Particularly interesting: “The major aesthetic theme is fragility. Many girls write about their desire to become ‘fragile’ or ‘delicate.’ … it’s about dainty rather than dangerous.”

Ann Friedman asks, why are we ok with a hierarchy of “acceptable” abortions?

Young women and porn: A look at how the pervasiveness of internet porn impacts adolescent girls and boys. Key quote: “This is the paradoxical fear of many heterosexual 14-year-old girls: that the Internet is making boys more aggressive sexually—more accepting of graphic images or violence toward women, brasher, more demanding—but it is also making them less so, or at least less interested in the standard-issue, flesh-and-bone girls they encounter in real life who may not exactly have Penthouse proportions and porn-star inclinations. (“If you see something online, and the girls in your neighborhood are totally different, then it’s, um … different,” one 14-year-old boy tells me.) This puts young women in the sometimes uncomfortable position of trying to bridge the gap.”

Injustice at Every Turn

The National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) just released a report on discrimination against trans and gender-noncomforming people, and the results are (predictably) horrifying. The report is based on the largest survey of trans and gender-nonconforming people ever taken in the United States, with 6,450 participants. Among the key findings:

-Survey respondents were nearly four times more likely to live in extreme poverty (household incomes of less than $10,000 per year)
-Respondents of color were especially at risk for discrimination (although discrimination was widely reported by respondents of all backgrounds). African-American trans and gender-nonconforming people reported the most severe discrimination.
-Health care access is a major problem. One in four respondents reported being HIV positive. Nineteen percent reported being refused care because of their trans identities, or non-conforming gender presentation. African-American respondents reported even higher numbers of health care discrimination.
-Survey respondents were twice as likely to be unemployed compared to the population as a whole. Half of respondents reported workplace harassment or mistreatment, and a quarter had been fired because of their gender identity or expression.
-Nineteen percent of respondents reported being refused a home or apartment; 11% reported being evicted from their home because of their gender identity or expression. One in five survey respondents experienced homelessness.
-Twenty-two percent of respondents reported feeling uncomfortable asking law enforcement for assistance.
–Forty-one percent of survey respondents reported attempting suicide. Only 1.6% of the general population has reported attempting suicide. The rate of attempted suicide among trans people and gender-nonconforming people is significantly higher even than the attempted suicide rate of people who are diagnosed with chronic depression.

As Nancy Goldstein says in the American Prospect, it’s crucial that this survey even happened in the first place:

Currently most surveys — including the census and epidemiological studies — contain zero questions about sexual orientation, never mind gender identity and expression. The consequences of not being counted, of being invisible, is that no one knows who constitutes the transgender community, what its members experience, or what their challenges or needs are. The many costs to transgender people include the fact that they are allotted little if any funding or resources on the state or federal level. That’s even true of resources spread within an LGB community that often forgets the “T.”

Much of this discrimination, it’s worth noting, is entirely legal. Trans people are routinely left of out anti-discrimination laws that protect citizens from discrimination based on age, gender, race, religion, nationality, etc. And the breadth of problems faced by trans and gender-nonconforming people all tie together: It’s awfully hard to keep a job if you can be legally fired for being trans and if your co-workers routinely harass and discriminate against you; it’s hard to stay above the poverty line if you’re not employed; it’s hard to avoid homelessness if you’re living in extreme poverty and if landlords routinely refuse to rent to you; it’s hard to enforce even existing anti-discrimination laws if you don’t trust the police (and for good reason — twenty-two percent of respondents reported being harassed by law enforcement); it’s hard to stay healthy when health care providers refuse to care for you.

This kind of discrimination, bias and hate kills. Trans and gender-nonconforming people attempt suicide at astounding rates. When health care providers refuse to help, patients die (and trans people have died because doctors and emergency workers didn’t do their jobs). When people are desperate for a place to live and for food to eat, and when above-the-board employers won’t hire them, sometimes the only option is to enter underground economies, which (especially for marginalized populations) can bring with them higher incidences of drug use, higher-risk sexual activity and incarceration — all of which may be factors in higher rates of HIV. And of course, trans and gender non-conforming people aren’t just killed by suicide, poverty, discriminatory medical workers and health issues — they are also sexually and physically assaulted, abused and murdered. Back to Nancy (trigger warning):

There’s a direct link between being able to earn an above-board living, having stable housing, and staying alive. The results of facing continual job discrimination, combined with being refused housing (19 percent) or being evicted (11 percent), and having a nearly 1-in-5 chance of being homeless at some point, are not only painful, stressful, or unhealthy but catastrophic. Those who have been fired due to anti-transgender bias are far more likely to enter the underground economy, where sex work and drug sales expose participants to a range of increased risks, including incarceration and a higher incidence of intravenous drug use and HIV (with rates in the survey at four times the national average). No wonder respondents, when asked to list their policy priorities, threw the biggest numbers (70 percent) behind protection for transgender/gender nonconforming people from discrimination in hiring and at work.

Transgender people often suffer harm from the very systems designed to protect most citizens. Twenty-two percent report being harassed by police, but the problem extends beyond law enforcement. In 1995, D.C. resident Tyra Hunter died from entirely treatable injuries incurred in a car accident. First, the firefighters who arrived at the scene stopped emergency medical treatment once they cut away her clothes to discover male genitalia. (One witness reported hearing a firefighter say, “This bitch ain’t no girl. … It’s a nigger, he got a dick.”) Once they stopped joking around and got her to the emergency room, the doctor refused to treat her. She died there of blunt force trauma and medical negligence. Fifteen years after Hunter’s death, the survey’s numbers still stink: 19 percent of respondents reported being refused care because of their gender identity or expression, with even higher figures for respondents of color. Nearly 3 percent reported being attacked in emergency rooms.

This is despicable. Mainstream American society has created the conditions that harm and sometimes kill trans and gender non-conforming people. Federal bills protecting the most basic human rights of trans people are non-starters. Even “LGBT” groups routinely throw trans rights under the bus to accomplish other parts of their agendas.

Do read the whole report — it’s depressing and heartbreaking, but necessary.

FNTT Season 7, Round 2: BOYCOTT vs. blah vs. Rachelle

troll doll

Round Two of the seventh season of Feministe’s Next Top Troll is still underway. Today, vote for your favorite between three winners of their respective Round One brackets. The victor will go on to Round Three, and will be one step closer to winning the crown of Feministe’s Next Top Troll.

Read More…Read More…