Poverty – Page 2 – Feministe

Because the poor really do have it too easy these days

In a conservative intolerance one-two punch, Rick Santorum gives it to the poor and the obese in a single tweetable comment. The comment came at an Iowa town hall where he explained his plans to cut the federal food stamp program, should (God forbid) he be elected president.

“If hunger is a problem in America, then why do we have an obesity problem among the people who say we have a hunger problem?” Santorum asked.

I am so totally fucking serious, y’all. He said that. Where people could hear. The government obviously needs to cut food-stamp funding, because the fatties haven’t yet starved down to a Santorum-approved weight. Seriously.

It’s a spectacular show of ignorance from a man who obviously understands neither poverty nor nutrition, and it’s an example of the classic conservative thinking that unless you’re sitting in a cold, dark one-room apartment and scrounging in dumpsters for food, you’re not actually poor. It’s also an example of classic thinking–not exclusive to the conservative end of the spectrum–that obese people are obese simply because of an overabundance of food.

A man who’s likely never wanted for a meal in his life, Santorum lacks both the frame of reference and the basic empathy to understand the concepts he nonetheless continues to speak about. He isn’t inclined to understand that even if obesity were caused by excessive eating–which it isn’t–and if it really were a “crisis” in and of itself–which it isn’t–it wouldn’t be solved by giving people less money to eat with.

Affordable health care would help people stay healthy. Urban areas where people feel safe leaving their houses, public transportation, and well-maintained sidewalks would help people stay healthy. Making healthy food readily available in low-income areas, rather than continuing to subsidize corn and other nutritionally bankrupt crops, would help people stay healthy. Castigating people for their weight as if it’s a inerrant indicator of physical health doesn’t help people stay healthy. And literally expecting people to go hungry, because obviously obesity arises from untold riches and abundant food, is not just ineffective but full-on beastly cruel.

Poor people are poor because they’re lazy and unworthy. Fat people are fat because they’re lazy pigs. Starve them and deprive them of any form of physical comfort, and they’ll learn the errors of their ways and bootstrap themselves into health and wealth. Once we’re a nation of Oliver Twists, our economy will flourish and peace will reign across the land.

Dr. Erik Fleischman and Involuntary Sterilization

Via Femonomics, we find a really disturbing post from Dr. Erik Fleischman, an American doctor practicing in Tanzania who brags about participating in an involuntary sterilization, calling the doctor who performed the procedure a “hero.” After a pregnant patient’s heart stops beating on the operating table during a C-section (because they screwed up the epidural and then didn’t monitor her vital signs), Dr. Erik performs rib-cracking CPR, and his partner doctor ties the patient’s tubes:

“Daktari, the epidural injection must have gone too high and paralyzed all her nerve function,” I said as I started doing chest compression over her sternum.. I heard a rib crack with a loud POP under my hand and I winced.
“Yes Daktari. I believe that is correct,” said Dr. M. She is a young woman and this is her fifth baby. She has a good heart.”
Fifth baby, I thought. Holy shit. All I could think of was five orphans.
“C’mon, cmon,” I said to no one in particular, “this cannot go down like this.”
As I pumped on her chest I saw Dr. M working inside her belly with his one good hand. With her body heaving back and forth from the chest compressions it must have been like trying to do a tattoo in a car on a bumpy road.
“How’s she doing down there, Daktari?” I asked.
“Fine. I am tying her tubes. I think she does not need another baby after this.” Dr. M was a cool character. I was wondering if she was going to survive the next five minutes and he was already doing family planning.
“Cmon, cmonnnnnnnnnnn…………..”

Suddenly her eyes opened up and she gasped loudly like someone inhaling a first breath after nearly drowning. I felt her heart. It was beating again. I”m a Buddhhist, but I reflexively said: Jesus.

“Daktari, she’s back,” I said, “She’s back.”
“Excellent work, Daktari. It is good that you were here tonight. It is good that I hurt my wrist.” His version of Tanzanian karma, I suppose. “Daktari, I think we should finish quickly.”

I quickly washed my hands again and we finished up. I even closed the incision on her skin with a neat plastic surgery closure. This point of finesse would ultimately never be noticed through the stretchmarks and redundant skin of five babies, but it was the right thing to do. The patient didn’t remember anything that had happened. It was like she went away and then came back. We told her she had a baby boy. She asked why her chest was hurting. Dr. M told her not to worry about it. She was wheeled into the recovery room. Dr. M. told me to go home. He would handle it from here.

The post has been taken down, but it’s cached here if you want to read it.

7 Billion

Today, the world’s population hits 7 billion (well, not exactly today, but that’s as good an estimate as any). PSI, a leading global health organization, has extensive coverage of this milestone in their latest magazine. On their blog, you can read posts about the population boom by Feministing’s Lori Adelman, global health advocate and blogger Alanna Shaikh, and yours truly.

It’s a fantastic site that contains a wealth of information. Read, comment and enjoy.

You can just. . .

Via Karnythia’s tumblr, I found this post that summarizes Chef Karl Wilder’s attempts to feed his family for two months on the allotment a family gets on food stamps. Wilder, who did this as part of an awareness campaign for the San Francisco Food Bank, documented his and his family’s experience on his blog.

Now before I go on to the meat of this post, I’ll point out a couple of things–he found it very difficult to feed his family on the amount equivalent to a food stamp allotment, found the foods that fit into the budget boring, and while he lost weight, found that his actual physical health had gotten worse. As in: higher levels of cholesterol, body fat, blood sugar, and triglycerides.

Go see The Interrupters

I caught this new documentary by Steve James (Hoop Dreams, Stevie) & Alex Kotlowitz (There Are No Children Here) during its sold-out run at the Siskel Center last week.

Trailer: The Interrupters

Imagine walking down a street where everyone is armed – with guns, rocks, knives – and a fight is breaking out. Imagine walking into the middle of that fight armed with nothing but your own love, your own courage, about 40 hours of conflict and anger management training, and the lessons of your own violent past. Imagine pulling the participants apart, listening to their grievances, and talking them into being a little bit better than they think they can be, and if you do your work right – if you can listen hard enough and love hard enough – maybe no one dies today. That’s what the Violence Interrupters of CeaseFire do. They are former violent criminals who are trained to defuse violent situations in their communities. Their criminal pasts lend them insight, wisdom, and instant respect and credibility in the communities they work in. It helps that the three Interrupters the filmmakers follow closely (Ameena Matthews, Cobe Williams, and Eddie Bocanegra) are also people of great personal charisma and honesty.

If you want a traditional, official film review, check out the AV Club review and Roger Ebert’s Sun Times review.

If you want a messy personal story with some flailing about and crying, keep on reading.

An appetite for moral panics

Anthony Bourdain has had freakouts over Rachel Ray, Sandra Lee, Alice Waters, Guy Fieri, and now Paula Deen. The most recent pissiness–the carping on Deen–was because (he said) she is beholden to corporate interests and she features foods (southern foods, by the way) on her show that are “fucking bad for you” (both true, by the way).

Now, I don’t give a shit about Bourdain per se, he’s known for talking smack about everyone (especially Food Network stars–dude, seriously, find another hobby) and I mean really, Deen’s grown and can take care of herself. But this does point to a particular strain of upper-class righteousness. Frank Bruni pointed out the hypocrisy of food personalities (I hesitate to call any of them chefs) who sniff in disdain at the likes of Deen using butter or cream but salivate over duck confit or pork rinds in the latest hot chef’s dish.

However, unlike Bruni, I call bullshit on all these jokers.

First, it’s nothing more that a bunch of wealthy, well-known White people getting into more dramz while the actual people they claim to champion (oh, please) are still coping with the grocery gap, working longer hours for less pay, or chronic unemployment. Organic, farm fresh food is not easily obtainable for many people, and getting the time (or the money–butter is really expensive) to make Paula Deen’s dishes is no cakewalk either. This is nothing more than two sets of elites with different audiences and PR strategies duking it out.

Second, people on both sides are engaging in the moral deathfat panic, and it’s not helping anyone. Foodies, the frugal, lefties and right-wingers all seem to agree that being fat is horrible and a shameful thing, indicative of self-indulgence and a lack of discipline, and then all sides engage in shaming people who point out that it’s not just a matter of making the correct and moral choices. They also seem to miss the point that if the only marker of health you use is thinness, people will do some really hazardous stuff to get thin, and they will be assumed to be healthy. Look–I was very underweight up until about 12 years ago when I finally hit a normal weight. I can guarantee you that when I was underweight, I snarfed down junk food and fried crap, eschewed vegetables, drank entirely too much caffiene (still do, actually) and never worked out. But no one gave me crap because hey! I was thin, therefore I was healthy.

Third, people on “both” sides of this argument suddenly discover the magic of the bootstrap and self-discipline-to the point where you wonder how they’re on different sides. They sure aren’t on my side, or the side of my neighbors, no matter what they may claim. You could eat better if you just tried! You’re choosing to not eat beans and rice (forget being underhoused or not being able to afford a freezer to store all those extra helpings of chili and lentil stew you could make). You’re making bad choices–just don’t listen to that elitist liberal on the Travel Channel/that elitist conservative on the Food Network! Parents today whine and make excuses instead of making fresh, healthy meals for their children. And I call BS on that garbage as well. I am single, I don’t have children, and after my commute home (which is long, by the way), I am often too tired to cook. Or I am so hungry that my hands are shaking and so I go for whatever I can make in under five minutes. I’m not sure how lecturing and shaming people about how You’re Doing it Wrong is actually going to get us anywhere, and I’ve seen that on all sides of this.

If I find this cumbersome at times (and I love to cook, and am often gratified when I can take the time to do so properly, and have been grateful to be able to do more of that this summer), how do you think other people find it? The working poor and the destitute? Overworked parents? People on food stamps? People with no easy access to grocery stores, let alone farmers markets (which are often really expensive)? People who don’t have sunny yars or balconies, who don’t have a plot in a community garden (unlike me) who don’t have the transportation to get to a grocery store?

So you know, this concern over elitism and health and corporate interests rings hollow when it comes from these folks. Access and money (yeah, I said it, call me a socialist, I don’t care) would go a long way to solve the problem of the food crisis. But you can’t solve the food crisis or the health crisis (no, I’m not going to call it the obesity crisis, FFS) without solving the poverty crisis and the unemployment crisis and the overwork crisis and the lack of access crisis. It isn’t always about making good choices when the choices you’ve got in front of you are crappy either way. And it isn’t about talking smack about a Food Network personality or a Travel Channel personality.

Class war? Or one-sided attack?

If I don’t have it, why should you?

It’s the basis of the resentment I hear and see on the part of people who snarl about those unions (who get so! much!) those striking Verizon workers, those students on the J-1 visa, teachers, public service workers, and others. Instead of thinking, “Hey, that’s fucked. We should both make a living wage and be treated with dignity and respect by the places we work for, your fight is my fight,” a lot of people seem to think, “Why should you get this when I don’t?” or “You should be grateful for what you have.”

One thing that struck me about the foreign exchange student protest in Pennsylvania is that they were quite clear in their desire to not take jobs away from Americans. Our fight, as far as they were concerned, is their fight. They’re linked.

So when I hear lectures from yet another person who embraces Voluntary Simplicity (something I practice as well, by the way, though I am ambivalent about some aspects of it), I have to roll my eyes at the preaching–“You all are too materialistic. The people in many Global South nations are poor but happy.” And I think to myself, Really? Have you been to an EPZ? I mean, without the official minders flanking you? Have you actually bothered to talk to some of the people there, who are trying to unionize in the face of sometimes brutal repression?

I think sometimes it’s too easy to snark on people and roll our eyes when we perceive ourselves as having less. But the thing is–like with the Verizon workers–what works for one person doesn’t necessarily work for another, and a living wage is more than the bare bones minimum. These jobs are not easy, the people who do them work hard, and it should make us all livid when pundits declare that CEO’s make so much because they work hard (and imply that the striking workers–or any worker–isn’t working hard and that’s why they aren’t making about $6M a year in salary and bonuses). I mean, not for nothing, but the people who teach our kids work hard, the nurses and assistants who care for us in the hospital are working their tails off, the people who pick up our trash and vacuum our offices are not exactly slacking, and the people who ring up our sales and make our coffee do not have what I’d call cushy jobs.

What you get when you point this out is a boatload of contempt–These people could just start their own business, and then they’d be fine. They should work harder! They all have flatscreen TV’s and rip off the system–I know because my sister’s coworker’s cousin saw someone buy steak with their food stamps five years ago. I don’t have the pay they want/their benefits/their job protection, so why should they?

It’s another side to the “I got mine, so screw you,” attitude that poisons the atmosphere. These folks who complain so bitterly about these supposedly spoiled workers never bother looking at the C-level executives, who make millions (I am not exaggerating. Check out their proxy statements sometime–it is eye-opening.) and who get very generous exit packages when they’re fired. The pay of CEO’s went up 27% in 2010, compared to 2% for the average worker. And they aren’t taxed at a particularly high rate on their stock assets or stock sale profits, which are classed under capital gains taxes (which have been slashed since the Regan era). The ultra-wealthy aren’t paying nearly the percentage that any of us do, and asking that they start is making conservatives in the US hyperventilate. Oh, it’s fine for us to pay our share, but it’s horrible and awful to ask that someone who’s making six or seven figures to do the same.

It used to be that US citizens prided themselves on the fact that you could build a good life for yourself–work hard and save, and you could have a decent quality of life. But no more–our income disparity is growing here–and nothing good ever comes from such severe wealth inequality. You want to hear people singing The Internationale? Keep that shit up.

Now, I suppose that makes me a class warrior. Which is funny, since I’m seeing a class war, but it’s more of an all-out attack on poor, working-class, and even middle-class people. And if we want a more just and a more equitable society, we have to know that we cannot stop striving for that if we get a victory for ourselves. As long as working-class people are squeezed out of jobs and denied the right to collectively bargain, my life and my security is at risk. As long as poor people are shamed and vilified for being poor, we’re all at risk for being cast out the minute something catastrophic happens, we lose our money, and we make one “unwise” choice.

Florida: Targeting the poor, refusing to protect children

Two new laws on the books in Florida: One to require drug tests for welfare recipients, and one that makes it illegal for doctors to ask patients about their firearms. Interesting priorities.

Testing welfare recipients for drugs is a massive waste of taxpayer dollars, and a major privacy invasion. It’s been found unconstitutional in some circuits, since the 4th Amendment protects Americans against unreasonable searches. It’s a scary precedent to suggest that receiving public funds should leave you open to government invasion of your body. The argument in favor of drug testing seems to be, “Some people don’t deserve welfare.” Except, really, everyone deserves to eat and to have a roof over their heads — including drug users and addicts. If we want to help folks with addiction, the solution isn’t to make their lives harder and cut off their (already minimal) income source; it’s to fund social service programs for the poor, and make addiction treatment accessible and reasonable for low-income people. And as a practical point, if the goal is saving money, drug testing doesn’t do it — testing every welfare recipient is more expensive than maintaining aid without testing. But of course, this isn’t about saving money. It’s about targeting and punishing the poor.

Also on the Florida GOP target list? Children’s safety. Florida has passed a law preventing doctors from asking patients about their firearm ownership and use, which on its face sounds silly — why would your doctor ask you about your guns? — but is actually relatively important in pediatric care. As Dahlia Lithwick details:

The scuffle over “docs vs. Glocks” seems to have started when a pediatrician in Ocala asked the mother of a young child whether she kept guns in the home. She refused to answer because, as she put it, “whether I have a gun has nothing to do with the health of my child.” When the doctor told her to find another pediatrician, the women threatened to call a lawyer. Consider: According to a suit filed this week by the Brady Center, 65 children and teenagers are shot every day in America, and eight of them die; one-third of American homes with children under 18 have a firearms in them; and more than 40 percent of those households store their guns unlocked and a quarter of those homes store them loaded. What was it that mother said again? Oh, right, guns have nothing to do with the health of our children.
…
Pediatricians are trained—indeed, they are explicitly advised by the American Academy of Pediatrics—to inquire about the presence of open containers of bleach, swimming pools, balloons, and toilet locks in the homes of their patients. It’s part of their job to educate parents about potentially lethal dangers around the home. (Pediatricians have also been known to ask about menstruation, painful sex after childbirth, birth control, and the travails of potty training, all in the interest of patient well-being, by the way). So one might wonder why an inquiry about guns is the place to draw the line in the sand, the ultimate threat to personal privacy.

It’s not like pediatricians can take away your guns, but that’s what the NRA and the GOP seem to think — the NRA initially suggested that the punishment for violating the “no asking about guns” law should be prison time or a $5 million fine. Seems reasonable. I think we should institute the same punishment for wasting everyone’s time and money on stupid laws that actively harm the most vulnerable. The NRA alone could solve the U.S. debt crisis.

#DearJohn: The GOP Seeks to Re-Define Rape and Restrict Reproductive Health Care

It’s not surprising that with large numbers of Republicans elected to Congress, we’re seeing major assaults on reproductive rights. What is shocking is how aggressive and heartless they are. A new bill, which has a good chance of passing, will deny abortion services to rape survivors; cut abortion care from private insurance policies; and remove exceptions for abortions that preserve a pregnant woman’s health.

The “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act”, which is sponsored by vocal anti-choice republican Chris Smith, does the following:

-Re-defines rape. As it stands, federal dollars do not cover abortion, except in instances of rape, incest or a threat to the pregnant woman’s health or life. This bill requires that the rape exception only cover “forcible” rape — so if you’re 14 and you’re impregnated by your 30-year-old “boyfriend,” that’s not really rape and you’d better start saving up your allowance if you want to terminate the pregnancy. “Forcible” isn’t defined in the bill — if you’re drugged and then raped, that might not count, since there wasn’t force involved. There’s also an incest exception, but only for minors — so if your father rapes you and you’re 18, too bad.

-Removes exceptions for the woman’s health. This bill allows federal funds to cover abortion if a physician certifies that the pregnancy will kill her, but allows no exceptions for the pregnant woman’s health. So if, for example, continuing a pregnancy will damage the woman’s kidneys so badly that she’ll need to be on dialysis for the rest of her life? Too bad, that’s not life-threatening.

-Requires that the government continue to fund entities that discriminate against women and endanger women’s health. The text of the bill reads “A Federal agency or program, and any State or local government that receives Federal financial assistance (either directly or indirectly), may not subject any individual or institutional health care entity to discrimination on the basis that the health care entity does not provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions.” So health care facilities can not only refuse to provide abortions, but can also refuse to refer women out for abortion coverage — even, I assume, if it’s an emergency situation and the woman’s health or life is on the line — and the federal government cannot withdraw funds. This is particularly troubling when the term “abortion” is being regularly re-defined to include even birth control and emergency contraception. It’s already law that doctors and nurses don’t have to provide elective abortions, and that health care facilities are not required to offer abortion services. But this bill gives any health care provider full reign to discriminate when it comes to reproductive care. If, for example, you’re a rape victim and you go to the emergency room of a Catholic hospital, not only does that hospital not have to offer you emergency contraception, but they can also refuse to refer you to a hospital that does. We’ve seen how this can play out — in Arizona, a nun who worked on a hospital’s ethics committee was excommunicated when she allowed an abortion for a woman who would have died without one. This bill seeks unprecedented protection of health care entities that refuse to provide a full range of health care for pregnant women.

-Cuts tax benefits to any organization or individual that selects an insurance policy that covers abortion. As it stands, most private insurers cover abortion care. This bill, though, cuts tax subsidies that are given to small business owners if those business owners select insurance plans that cover abortion. The same is true for individuals who purchase insurance. This bill would virtually ensure that private insurance companies drop abortion coverage — even where abortions are medically necessary.

This is very, very bad. So we’re organizing an opposition. Here’s what you can do:

-Contact your representatives. You can find them here. Tell them that this bill is unconscionable. Tell them that re-defining rape in “pro-life” terms is disgusting and cruel. Tell them that disallowing funding for abortions to preserve a woman’s health is horrifying. Tell them that the federal government shouldn’t be encouraging private insurance companies to offer less coverage.

-Spread the word. Yes, there is a Twitter hashtag — #DearJohn. You can also tweet directly @JohnBoehner. I tend to look at Twitter campaigns with a bit of a jaundiced eye, but this bill is so outrageous that ringing the alarm through social media could do some real good. Anti-abortion measures like this one tend to get branded as simply no longer allowing taxpayer dollars to pay for abortion (see, e.g., the name of the legislation). But that’s not what this is about at all. This is about targeting rape survivors whose rapes weren’t violent enough to please Chris Smith or John Boehner. It’s about deciding that lasting physical damage to a woman’s body isn’t enough to merit an abortion. It’s about blocking businesses and individuals from selecting insurance policies that cover all of their necessities. Keep that message going, loudly and in public.

-Put some fire under the feet of the bill’s co-sponsors. Here they are. Let ’em have it. Tell them exactly what it is that they’re sponsoring (and tell everyone else, too).

Sady has more about how we can mobilize. So let’s get on it.

Tag: Poverty