Shameless Self-Promotion Sunday March 23, 2014 Jill Promote yourself. Netiquette reminders: Want to recommend someone else’s writing instead? Try the weekly signal-boosting thread. we expect Content Notes as a courtesy to our readers for problematic content in linked posts and/or their comment threads (a habit of posting only triggering/disparaging links may annoy the Giraffe (you really don’t want to annoy the Giraffe)) extended discussion of self-promotion links on this thread is counter-productive for the intended signal-boosting – the idea is for the promoted sites to get more traffic. If it’s a side-discussion that would be off-topic/unwelcome/distressing on the other site, take it to #spillover after leaving a note on this thread redirecting others there.
This week I’m blogging about how to get girls interested in science. (One solution: send your daughters to a girls-only science summer camp!) The post also discusses how influential women scientists are being systematically ignored and marginalized in phallocentric textbooks and by prize committees: http://www.femitup.com/getting-girls-excited-about-science/ And over the last few weeks, I’ve blogged about EuroMaidan’s bad ass Ukrainian heroines, sexist reporting on the Ukraine revolution by the NY Times, and why everyone needs to donate to Women’s eNews now (so we can save it’s Arabic-language site): http://www.femitup.com/support-the-womens-enews-arabic-site/ http://www.femitup.com/euromaidan-ukrainian-women-are-heroes-too/ http://www.femitup.com/euromaidan-women-rising-in-ukraine/ Plus, how Qatari women are advocating for their rights: http://www.femitup.com/cedaw-review-qatari-women-demand-their-rights/ And how male experts discount female guests on news shows by describing them as “young women”: http://www.femitup.com/dont-write-me-off-as-a-young-woman/ Enjoy!
thanks for the link on science camp for girls. I’ve been looking for something like that for my daughter.
This week I weighed in on the “We are all Oxford” controversy. Also, my post on school dress codes was posted on a few other blogs and got a lot of traffic and feedback, which was incredibly flattering and encouraging.
Hello! I am 16 and have recently started a blog about feminism/music etc. My latest post is about Lilly Allen’s recent anti-feminist ramblings. Would love if you took a look x
Westboro Baptist Church has lost its prophet and the infighting begins. Lauren Drain was exiled for unsuppressed heterosexuality, when her duty was to be a lifelong virgin who turned all her wages over to the cult. What’s scary is how normal these people could seem– Escapee from Phelps Hate Cult Tells All
New at Human with Uterus this week: “Legal Human–and Pregnant” Wisconsin’s efforts to grant the rights all people are supposed to have to pregnant people. http://humanwithuterus.wordpress.com/
I reviewed Inside Llewyn Davis: http://film-nut.tumblr.com/post/80465188265/inside-llewyn-davis-2013 and chose weekend links: http://film-nut.tumblr.com/post/80468431975/the-weekend-5
Last week at Bitch Flicks… A Long Time Ago, We Used to Be Friends: The ‘Veronica Mars’ Movie How to Write a Good Female TV/Film Character ‘Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me’: Being a “Difficult” Older Woman Remembering Věra Chytilová Marshmallows and Promises: ‘Veronica Mars’ and the Hard-Boiled Heroes of Neptune ‘It Felt Like Love’ (or Something): One High School Girl’s Sexual Exploration Seed & Spark: Don’t Let Me Off the Hook In Honor of ‘Veronica Mars’: A Spotlight on Father-Daughter Relationships
[Content Note: the protagonist of the linked work was known to have expressed racist, eugenicist and colonialist views (CN added by moderator)] What does Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger, have in common with the X-Men, Batman, and Wonder Woman? A life so action-packed, that it just had to be made into a comic book!
As is true with many other historical figures (including almost every feminist icon), Sanger obviously did both good and bad. If we’re going to celebrate the former, we ought to at least acknowledge the latter. From Anna’s link, it appears that the author of the comic book, in an afterword, does address the latter — but characterizes the criticisms of her racism and her eugenicist philosophy as “lies.” I don’t know enough to form a firm opinion, but I suspect that as in most cases, the truth isn’t so simple, one way or the other.
— but characterizes the criticisms of her racism and her eugenicist philosophy as “lies.” That’s the part that annoyed me. It’s worth actually reading her books if one wants a better picture of her views; this also means you don’t have to go to anti-Planned-Parenthood hate sites to find her quotes like this one (CN for ableism, misogyny, racism): It is said that the aboriginal Australian, the lowest known species of the human family, just a step higher than the chimpanzee in brain development, has so little sexual control that police authority alone prevents him from obtaining sexual satisfaction on the streets. or this one Eugenic sterilization is an urgent need. We must prevent multiplication of this bad stock or this one Birth control must lead ultimately to a cleaner race or this one Our failure to segregate morons who are increasing and multiplying demonstrates our foolhardy and extravagant sentimentalism… which brings with it, as I think the reader must agree, a dead weight of human waste. She wasn’t circumspect about her hopes the the adoption of birth control could ‘improve’ society by eliminating disabled people and racial and ethnic minorities. She particularly hated interracial procreation, and advocated for forcible abortions followed by mandatory sterilization for white women who engaged in it. The fact that Planned Parenthood refuses to admit this and to this day defends her as as champion of all women is basically the one big problem I have with them as an organization.
ldouglas, I think it would be more appropriate to have this conversation in the comments section of the article in question, which I linked to, rather than here. If you decide to do so, I would encourage you to cite your sources for those quotations.
ldouglas, given that the Internet is crawling with fake Margaret Sanger quotations fabricated by fundamentalist and other far-right and forced-birther sources to try to discredit Planned Parenthood, I agree that the nyu project you cite is a far more believable source. But it’s a big website, and it would help if you cited the urls of the specific pages where you found those quotations.
Agreed. Quote 1: https://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/webedition/app/documents/show.php?sangerDoc=304923.xml Quote 3: http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/webedition/app/documents/show.php?sangerDoc=213391.xml Quote 4 is from “The Pivot of Civilization,” available online here. The second quote, however, is not hers but rather from an article published in Birth Control Review, a publication Sanger established and edited. As such, I’ll drop it. That said, considering the other quotes- and I’ll happily dig up a dozen more like them- I’m not sure it matters much. I’m profoundly disgusted by the great lengths that people are going to (not you Donna, but Planned Parenthood absolutely) to try and pretend these things were never written.
My comment is awaiting moderation due to the links- one of the sources is directly cited in a comment below, though.
We try to keep SSPS threads discussion-low. Please take further discussion either to the original linked post or to the current spillover thread.
Margaret Sanger was certainly not perfect, but her controversial opinions made her ripe for character assassination by her opponents — then as well as now. Many of the racist ideas she allegedly expressed or endorsed were made up. I strongly recommend this summary, which gives context and points out many of the problematic ideas that were erroneously attributed to her.
Nearly everything in that document is provably a lie. Contrast: But Sanger always believed that reproductive decisions should be made on an individual and not a social or cultural basis with her writing in “America Needs a Code for Babies: A Plea for Equal Distribution of Births,” in which she argued for the “American Baby Code” that would, among other provisions: Article 3. A marriage license shall in itself give husband and wife only the right to a common household and not the right to parenthood. Article 4. No woman shall have the legal right to bear a child, and no man shall have the right to become a father, without a permit for parenthood. Article 8. Feeble-minded persons, habitual congenital criminals, those afflicted with inheritable disease, and others found biologically unfit by authorities qualified judge should be sterilized or, in cases of doubt, should be so isolated as to prevent the perpetuation of their afflictions by breeding. Source: https://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/webedition/app/documents/show.php?sangerDoc=101807.xml Sanger also entertained some popular ideas of her own time that are out of keeping with our thinking today Fuck you PP. Seriously?
Many of the racist ideas she allegedly expressed or endorsed were made up. I realize you’ve fled by now, but I think I wonder if you consider this passage at all problematic? It is said that the aboriginal Australian, the lowest known species of the human family, just a step higher than the chimpanzee in brain development, has so little sexual control that police authority alone prevents him from obtaining sexual satisfaction on the streets. According to one writer, the rapist has just enough brain development to raise him above the animal, but like the animal, when in heat knows no law except nature which impels him to procreate whatever the result. https://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/webedition/app/documents/show.php?sangerDoc=304923.xml
I just read this book three days ago – a graphic novel not a comic book. idouglas – I suggest that you get a copy from your local library and read it. The author – (Peter Bagge) has some personal politics which I am not fond of. HOWEVER – this work has a generous end section with many cited references and explanations – where Bagge even admits that while he had some disagreements with Sanger the personality that he felt compelled to describe her story as factually as he could. Sanger – while having some problematic views (she was anti-abortion – which is why she fought so strongly for public access to contraception. Her anti-abortion stance was the result of witnessing the aftermath of many botched and fatal abortions as a nurse) was also very feminist. She was also an unconventional individual who believed in things like free love. Please do not dismiss this work until you have read it.
was also very feminist. Read: supported the rights of white upper- and middle-class able-bodied neurotypical women. Which are the women who matter, clearly.
In her early career, she was far more radical, and strongly influenced by socialist and anarchist thought (the slogan of one of her publications was “No gods, no masters”), particularly working as a visiting nurse alongside Emma Goldman in NYC’s tenements, when she developed many of her ideas about the importance of woman-controlled birth control due to the amount of suffering she witnessed. And in the teens she worked with the Wobblies. So while she became more heavily and explicitly committed to repulsive racism as her movement grew more popular, it is a mistake to characterize her feminist career as being concerned only with the well-being of middle- and upper-class white women. My understanding is that her radicalism waned after WWI.
Please take further discussion either to the original linked post or to the current spillover thread.
This week, I wrote about the problems with a placenta analogy to describe a possible synod (formal church meeting) of women, and proposed some better analogies.
Letters and newspaper clippings that Laura Madeline Wiseman collected regarding her great-great-great-grandmother, suffragette, Matilda Fletcher Wiseman, have inspired a book of poetry: Queen of the Platform. It’s interesting to see the portrait Matilda Fletcher Wiseman paints of Susan B Anthony in her up-close-and-personal brushes with the icon. Grandma and Susan B Anthony
7 tips for paying attention to what we’re paying attention to: http://humaneeducation.org/blog/2014/03/17/7-tips-paying-attention-paying-attention/
This week on the blog I posted a poem, “Borrowed Dreams,” about how reading Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quartet served as an emotional support for me.
So I wrote about how participating in the #365FeministSelfie project helped me to cope when a racialized Facebook page targeted me for their hate. (Content note – clicking thru shows images that are racist and in some cases nasty.) I also wrote about why it is perfectly okay to ask Pittsburgh’s New Mayor questions about LGBTQ hires and appointments. Unfortunately, I’m not getting any answers. A small update on the vigils for two 24 year queer women of color murdered in Texas, possibly by a family member. Their names are Britney Cosby and Crystal Jackson. Finally, in honor of World Social Work Day, I wrote up the five things people typically say when they learn I’m a social worker. Thank you for reading and sharing your links.
Sue March 23, 2014 at 5:02 pm | Permalink | Reply I also wrote about why it is perfectly okay to ask Pittsburgh’s New Mayor questions about LGBTQ hires and appointments. Unfortunately, I’m not getting any answers. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I don’t mean that it’s wrong for you to wonder– but I’m not sure how someone could comment on his employees’ sexual orientation without seriously intruding on their business. These things seem to tend to come from new agencies that do their own investigations, not from the top.
A Texas GOP leader said women are paid less because they’re bad negotiators. But the case of a professor who attempted to negotiate a better deal and got her job offer rescinded shows the minefield out there for women. I also wrote last week about white people’s (including purportedly left of center ones) making excuses for Paul Ryan’s dog whistle racism.
This week on Kiss My Wonder Woman: Feminism is for everyone – even girly girls! (Legally Blonde) The danger of what you don’t know (The Only Alien on the Planet) Aren’t women supposed to be the same species? (Blacksad) Weird, terrifying, deadly – but realistic (The Women of Welcome to Night Vale) Strong Female Character Friday with Deloris Van Cartier/Sister Mary Clarence (Sister Act) Tune in this week for Divergent, the Veronica Mars movie, The Maze Runner and more.
Teaching Strange Fruit to white and Asian suburban kids, a fantasy email to a kindergarten teacher, two oranges safely packaged.
I took matters into my own hands and started an indiegogo campaign, “The Month of Writing Dangerously.” (CN: Military stuff) My son graduated from bootcamp (CN: Medical talk, penis joke and using homophobia against someone) And my whole family went down to Oklahoma. We all have strange senses of humor. And just for amusement: Join the Army. Build Pillow Forts.
This week I produced a short video about threesomes and dating multiple women. The Love Drive is a show about sex, love, and life that is filmed in my taxi in San Francisco, CA. http://youtu.be/6mUqqrlzbdQ
I wrote a review of last year’s Grand Prize winner at the Cannes Film Festival. Entitled Blue is the Warmest Color, its graphic and lengthy lesbian sex scenes, for many viewers, cross the line from art to pornography. Here is my take.
Hi, I’m a writer for Bitch Flicks. I wrote a review of “300: Rise of an Empire.” It’s gotten a lot of hits, some are even real! http://www.btchflcks.com/?p=9376