"I'm already pregnant so what other kind of shenanigans can I get into?"

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I finally saw Juno. I think I am the last feminist alive to see it but I am not a big movie goer. Not really in the mood to go into an analysis of it but I enjoyed it a whole lot. If not for the atrocious indie-gross sound track I'd even go so far as to say I love it. By the end I felt like I was going to puke if I heard one more f-ing mopey guitar riff.

Maybe I'll write more later but for now I'll just say that I LOVE any movie about teenage pregnancy that does not make the young woman look like a victim. Yay!

Getting to Know Your Feminist Blogger: Blogging for Choice

I know it is a little bit late but here is my contribution!

In so many of my Women's Studies courses throughout the years I have been asked to write about the formation of my feminism. I will share that story here because it has so much to do with why I vote pro-choice.

My feminism evolved out of my realization that pregnancy should not be compulsory. I attended Catholic school from kindergarten through eighth grade. With no knowledge to the contrary, I assumed that all people were Catholic. Upon entering a public high school, my entire world changed. I met people who practiced a variety of religions and even a few who had no religion. When I encountered my future best friend for the first time, she told me that she was outraged by the continuing struggle for reproductive rights. When she told me what an abortion was, I had a light bulb moment. Being Catholic, sex had always seemed scary and dangerous to me, I knew that it was related to pregnancy and I certainly did not want to be pregnant! Once I realized that pregnancy is not an inevitable part of heterosexual activity, I felt enormously liberated. That is until I realized how abortion and other reproductive rights are consistently in danger. That is when I started advocating feminism. That moment literally changed the course of my life.

Body politics are a huge part of what I discuss on this blog. Why are bodies presented the way that they are in mass media? It is increasingly difficult to tell whether media influences reality or reality influences media or whether it is some combination of the two. It is certainly easy to see how deeply held ideologies play out in media. Control of women's bodies is a theme that advertisers just cannot get enough of. And reproductive control is a large part of that.

I recently got into a heated debate with an old friend about why I vote pro-choice. This friend was upset when I said that it is unlikely that I will ever vote for a candidate who is not pro-choice. He suggested that other issues were more important, like privacy from governmental interference into our private lives. (It will not surprise you to know that he is a Ron Paul supporter.) I suggested to him that as a woman I feel that my uterus is about as private as it can get and that if that is such a pivotal issue, than this candidate is just an enormous hypocrite. Why is bodily sovereignity only a pivotal issue until it is a pregnant body? Why is this enormous hypocrisy so unimportant to Paul's supporters?

Choice is among the most important issues that I consider when choosing a candidate. I know that reproductive control is woman hatred, misogynistic, and backwards. I trust women to make their own choices. And I know that anti-choicers are also anti-contraception leaving women with NO choice. I know that I would never be able to enjoy heterosexual intercourse again if I knew that if the condom broke, if I forgot a few pills, if my diaphragm slipped or we just got careless that there would be no safety net. I believe that sexuality should not be dictated by the government and that without Roe V. Wade the privacy of one's body and bedroom would be no more. I also see major hypocrisies that even so-called progressive people are choosing to ignore because of their (male) privilege.

And finally, I know that abortion rights are not the end all of feminism because so many women do not have access to even minimal health care that choice seems like privileged feminist rhetoric and I think that that is also woman hatred, misogynistic and backwards.

I am thankful every single day for the reproductive rights granted to me by Roe Vs. Wade but like so many other bloggers today, I recognize that a lot of work still needs to be done to ensure that abortion rights are not just a mirage for so many women.

More Guest Blogging for Choice

Another of my fabulous friends wrote a great piece for Blogging for Choice Day. Erika is a friend from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She is working on her undergrad. at UWM in Nursing with minor in Women's Studies. I think her perspective is so important because she has a foot in both fields when it comes to the issue of choice.


What Roe V. Wade Means to Me

You want to know what Roe V. Wade means to me? Not much actually, especially if you’re asking me as a Wisconsin woman. Wisconsin is a pretty progressive and accepting state, which is little known to people who live outside of it. The state of Wisconsin in general, allows a woman to have a choice, until you look a little closer. If you live in Madison, Milwaukee and Green Bay (and their surrounding areas) then maybe you do have a choice. But for 80% of Wisconsin counties you probably will not have access to this choice because doctors are not licensed (by choice) or clinics where one could have a choice are not there. So you tell me what choice is it for 80% of the young, poor, and immobile women of Wisconsin is there to make? And that is not even half of the battle. Every weekend I can drive down Farwell Ave (in Milwaukee, WI) and see people with giant posters of aborted fetuses chanting about sins and wrongs women are doing just by entering a clinic. How accessible is that? Do I think I would want to walk into that clinic knowing with what I would meet just outside of it?

Roe Vs. Wade was supposed to mean something and should mean something, but does it really? The reason Roe V. Wade will stay in “limbo” amongst politicians, “friendly” debates, and bloggers is because it has somehow found its way in an untouchable place where it can blindly keep both sides happy. We supporters of choice think we’ve won! Aha! We have a choice, and if you don’t agree, too bad we’ve got Roe V. Wade in our hands to prove it to you pro-“lifers” that we have the law on our side. I just hope that excitement and your choice (if you live in WI) will last ‘til you get to the clinic (if you’re fortunate enough to get to one) and are met with people telling you “All babies want to get borned” and that your baby probably “has fingernails” (Quotes from Juno). There is no choice, when there has already been one made for you. This needs to change and not just be a luxury for women who are more privileged.

Why Choice Still Matters

When I started this blog I had hoped that I would have the opportunity to include additional voices. Since I started graduate school and have made fabulous new feminist friends I opened an invitation to some of them to post at my blog. Here is Elizabeth's contribution to Blogging for Choice Day. You can expect to see mine later tonight or tomorrow.

Why Choice Still Matters

Today marks the 35^th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, which in itself is a great cause for celebration! Often we hear about abortion discussion coming from the Christian right; however, we often as progressives fail to continue the discussion on our end. We dismiss the evangelical arguments but then fail to let our arguments be known. We assume that because it is legal, it doesn’t need to be talked about anymore.

So, on this great blogging for choice day, it is important to look at the reasons to celebrate the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. While this landmark case did make abortion legal in the United States, it is not simply a day to celebrate the option of abortion only. We have to look at what access to abortion means in a larger social context. For women in the U.S. the main rhetoric for making this procedure available is for the choice to have the procedure if wanted/ needed. The point is that a woman should have control over her body and have the means and services available to her to make that choice. It is not about being pro-abortion but about being pro-choice. It is the choice that matters, which is why this case was so important.

While pro-choice advocates celebrate this day, it is important to look at choice for women not only in the U.S. but also around the world. If we look to reproductive justice, which includes access to not only abortion but all reproductive and health services for all women, regardless of race, class, sexual preference, etc, we can gain a better understanding of how the U.S. compares with other parts of the world. With this understanding we can look at examples around the world where women are not given control or choice over their body. In China, women are encouraged to have abortions after they already have one child and fined if they have two or more children. Additionally, the social services available to these women when they have one child are taken away when they have any further children. Likewise, transnational migrant workers from the Philippines in Taiwan face losing their job and being sent back to their home country if they continue with a pregnancy. Again, abortion is encouraged through the system, which again does not give women control over their bodies or a choice of any sort.

When a system traps women into a particular decision, whether to have an abortion or not, there is a problem because individual women do not have control over what happens to their own bodies. So, while we can celebrate that women in the U.S. have access to abortion, we also need to look at the comprehensive idea of reproductive justice and make sure it is available to all women. Additionally, we need to look at what it means in a global context so that we as progressives, do not lose sight of an issue even when it is not our hot button issue.

Happy 35^th Anniversary!

Cross Posted at Faithfully Liberal

Childlessness

Not my nephew.

I do not encounter many children in my day-to-day life in Chicago. I cannot believe how much I have taken that for granted. It is easy to forget why I do not want children of my own when I never see them.

As I may have mentioned, I am in Green Bay with family indefinitely and unfortunately that means lots and lots of time with my 16 month old nephew. Now don't get me wrong, I love him very much and nothing makes me happier these days than seeing his chubby smiling little face. However, OMG he is so annoying!!!

Every morning I am rudely awakened at about seven by his screaming if he is unhappy or his squealing if he is happy. Then constantly for the rest of the day it is one or the other of those two. I have been popping ibuprofen like vitamins. AND if he is not making noise he constantly needs to be watched because he can get into anything. Because he requires their undivided attention, I have not had a decent conversation with my parents since I got here.

I don't want this to just be a laundry list of complaints about the child. Again, I am his aunty and I love him but it was really great to get this reminder of why I am so dedicated to childlessness in my own life. I just do not have the patience or temperament for it. Of course, I might reconsider this decision if I could have a wife....

I finally saw Waitress.

It has been a week since I last posted so I figured I should get back to it. Considering how I feel this shall be quite the undertaking. Please bear with me, my posts may not be the greatest for a while. So on that note:


I finally saw Waitress. (Spoilers ahead!!) I have wanted to see it since I heard about it long ago, especially since I had been a waitress all through high school. Anyway, Waitress was a tough film for me to stomach. I just got angrier and angrier throughout the film and kept hoping that it would redeem itself. As is crept toward the birth, I thought there would be no redemption but, alas, there was..... kind of.

The film is about a young woman who is married to a terribly emotionally and physically abusive man. While I understood the necessity of making him so horrible, his character was so awful it was actually quite unbelievable almost like a caricature of every abusive husband one could think of.

Jenna, our protagonist, finds herself pregnant after being drugged and raped by her husband. She is less than thrilled about her pregnancy but in some non-existent scene she decides to carry the pregnancy to term. Similar to Knocked-Up, abortion is never mentioned in this film, not even in the ridiculous joking manner attempted in Knocked-Up. It is just as odd in Waitress because Jenna had long been planning to leave her husband which the pregnancy naturally complicated.

So for the entire movie we watch as abusive husband gets more and more abusive as he discovers her pregnancy and her stash of running away money. At one point he even makes her promise not to love the baby more than him! I nearly vomited through a few scenes.

During all of this Jenna begins an odd affair with her married Ob-Gyn. The affair was also totally unbelievable. She just jumped on him out of the blue in front of his office. As the story progressed I became very concerned that the film was going to end with Jenna being "saved" by the kindly (if piggish) Ob-Gyn or that she was going to be trapped with baby and husband. The film did not leave me hopeful for any other outcome.

In the last fifteen minutes, Jenna gives birth to her daughter, tells abusive husband that she never wants to see him again, tells Ob-Gyn that she is not interested in ruining his marriage and causing any unnecessary pain, and falls madly in love with her daughter.

This ending was unexpected and quite relieving. However, I am concerned that the pro-forced pregnancy movement could see this as a great feminist reason to not have an abortion. "See! The baby actually saved her life!" Which, while it was relieving, it was also totally unbelievable. This is just another instance in which Hollywood gives us a taste of feminism, of empowerment, only to snatch it away. Yes she left abusive husband, yes she didn't end up with a man at the end (amazing!), yes she started her own business and lived happily ever after.

BUT

Her new found freedom came from the elderly patriarch who owned the restaurant in which she worked. Upon his death, he left Jenna with a small fortune.

So there it is. Even a somewhat empowering movie still ends with a big old backlashy slap in the face.

"The Gendercator" and Transphobia

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Tonight I went to a screening of the independent film The Gendercator at the Center on Halsted. This film has been causing quite a stir amongst transpeople across the country and in the queer blogosphere. The film has actually been banned from a few LGBT(qai...) film festivals for supposedly being anti-trans.

I will say that I do not think that this film was anti-trans. I do not think it had anything to do with transgender issues AT ALL. Before I go into an analysis I will give you a brief synopsis. A young non-gender normative lesbian woman falls asleep at a party in the 1970s after smoking much marijuana (or what appeared to be marijuana). She wakes up 75 years later to find that the religious right has taken over. A person can only be a man or a woman and MUST fit into rigid gender categories, brave-new-world-style.

One can have surgery to fit the gender that they prefer but once they are in their new body they MUST comply with the rigid gender roles. This young woman is forced by medical professionals to be surgically transformed into a man. This petrifies her because while she likes women she also likes her androgynous body. In something of a cop-out (on the director's part) the sequence ends up being a dream and she wakes up again to find the 'real' world. Fin.

Anyway, the controversy has arisen because many people see this film as being transphobic. I do not see that. I think the film is a dystopian fantasy in which we see what would happen if the religious right had their way and choice was taken away. This film is very much about force and removal of choice. The surgery in this film was not a result of some deeply felt yearning or life long struggle with one's body image not matching her/his gender identity. This surgery was about a woman being forced to become a man because of her clothing and her sexual object choice. That is something very different indeed.

After screening the film there was a panel discussion with the director, Catharine Crouch, and five other activists/theorists in the gender queer field. The discussion was fascinating. Judith Halberstam was on the panel! She had the most insightful comments, I wish I could have heard more from her. I have long been a fan of her work.

The director defended her film saying that it was meant as a resistance to medicalization of bodies and that straight women are socialized to believe that if they do not look like Barbie they are value-less and that plastic surgery is a way to fit into that norm is scary. She also said that transmen are forced into FTM surgery in order to fit into a gendered norm. Because their bodies are not stereotypically masculine they are not valued as males in our culture. Her argument seemed to be that people should be content with their bodies and not seek surgery as a way of copping out of dealing with non-normative gender.

This is where she got herself into a bit of hot water. NONE of the above things were in her film. These are statements that she has made while on her national tour with this film. The other panelists were rightly upset at the notion that transmen are somehow depoliticized just by virtue of their maleness. Choosing a male body is not a way of avoiding feminism! It is not a way of gaining privilege. It might be a side-effect sometimes, but I seriously doubt that that is the reason many transpeople transition.

One of the things that I enjoyed the most was the reappropriating of the directors notion of medicalization as a tool of the patriarchy. While I agree that it has been used that way (especially in the case of intersexed peoples) it seems to deny transpeople the agency that they deserve. Halberstam argued that medicalization is just a much a tool for trans liberation as it is a tool of the patriarchy.

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Halberstam was clearly annoyed with Crouch. Crouch seemed to be rather ignorant on trans issues and this is what is getting her into trouble. She is going around the country in the name of starting a dialogue and than openly admitting that she has no idea what trans identity is! She certainly should not be a spokesperson for this community by any means. The film was not anti-trans but the director might well be. As Halberstam suggested, she would do well to read much, much more queer theory before taking on such an ambitious tour.

Finally, I want to say that I think this film is mis-named a satire. There is nothing satirical about it, it is a dystopian fantasy about an extraordinarily conservative regime. Possible? Maybe. Likely? Probably not. All I know after listening to this panel is that Crouch ought not claim to have made a movie about transpeople when it clearly is not. And she probably would do well to pick up some queer theory.

On Ron Paul's Scary Cross-Over Appeal

I am increasingly concerned about the relative popularity of republican candidate Ron Paul amongst progressive and liberal people. This Saturday I went to a peace rally and marched down the streets of downtown Chicago. Of course, such a rally was bound to be rife with people pushing presidential candidates. The ones that I saw the most of were Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul. Hell, Ron Paul's people even had an aerial banner! The general feeling that I got from these pacifists, hippies, liberals, and general anti-war types was support for this anti-war constitutionalist. Dr. Paul is a dangerous candidate precisely because of his growing cross-over support. Here is a some of the scary stuff I found over at his campaign website:

I am also the prime sponsor of HR 300, which would negate the effect of Roe v Wade by removing the ability of federal courts to interfere with state legislation to protect life. This is a practical, direct approach to ending federal court tyranny which threatens our constitutional republic and has caused the deaths of 45 million of the unborn.

Many talk about being pro-life. I have taken direct action to restore protection for the unborn.

I have already discussed my concern with his popularity amongst liberal television personalities. But I should also say that I am concerned with the depoliticization of reproductive rights issues. I did a little bit of research and had a hard time coming up with a position on women's issues and LGBT issues on the part of ALL of the candidates. Why are liberal folks turning their back on Roe v. Wade? I know it is a messy political area but we need protection now more than ever and I have to say, none of these candidates are really sounding very good to me.

Why is choice not an important issue for 'liberal' TV show hosts?

I have been watching "The Colbert Report" and "The Daily Show" online rather than doing my homework. In so doing, I have noticed something very disconcerting. There is a certain amount of admiration for republican presidential candidate Ron Paul. Yes, Ron Paul voted against the Patriot Act, yes he opposes the war, yes he opposes government intervention into people's private lives, and yes he says he is a constitutionalist and will fight to maintain the integrity of the American constitution. Liberal guys like Jon Stewart seem to be just eating up Ron Paul's rhetoric.
What they continually fail to mention is that Dr. Paul is strongly anti-choice. He claims that he wants to uphold the constitution and that he wants to keep the government out of private affairs but yet he stops short of considering women to be people. Women do not deserve bodily integrity or bodily privacy. This MAJOR discrepancy continually goes un-noticed. And that is not a first for Colbert and Stewart who love to stir the political stew but don't want to bring gender issues onto the table.

I love both of these shows and am very disappointed by this trend.

Things My Mother Taught Me About Being a Woman (#1)

"Don't put a tattoo there, you will regret it when you get pregnant!"
"That belly ring will ruin your belly when you get pregnant."
"You won't be pro-choice once you get pregnant."
"You have to get married, I want grandchildren!"
"Don't worry, you will still be able to breast feed."


I am so sick of people constantly assuming that I am a breeding machine. I am not. I am a human being, I have thoughts of my very own and a body of my very own, or so I thought.
Since "I do not like children" apparently is not an adequate reason not to reproduce, I have decided to make a list of conditions under which I would consider becoming a fetus incubator.

When responsibility for child care is completely equal between parents.
When I can maintain a life of my own AND be a mother.
When I and my child are guaranteed adequate lifelong health care.
When my child is guaranteed high quality, affordable care while I (and my partner...) are working, etc.
When I know that my job will not be at risk if I become pregnant.
When I know that if my fetus has a major defect (or if I change my mind) that I can get an abortion without restriction or shame.
When my child will have access to good schools and higher education regardless of my income.
When being a single mother is no longer equated with living in debilitating poverty.
When it is socially acceptable for children to NOT be gendered from the moment they spring forth from the womb.

This is just a short list, I could go on and on. The point is, I am going to print this onto business cards and hand them out every time someone says one of the above things to me. (I have noticed an increasing incidence of these things as I am getting older.) Even if these were my only conditions, I don't think that motherhood would happen for me in my lifetime. It would require radical social change and I have seen more retreat than progress in my adult life. Ergo, my body remains a fetus-free zone