ff

more abortion talk?! don't mind if i do!


following last week's superwendy and texas talk, there was an unfortunate budget bill signed in ohio that has some very bleeeh provisions restricting abortion. american dudes! why you gotta be like that?

but! let's focus on a good thing. such as this:

"I support a woman's right to safe, legal abortion because centuries of history shows us that women are going to get abortions whether they're safe and legal or not. And when they're not safe and legal, these women will often die terribly or be damaged irreparably. In my fantasy utopia, there would be no abortion. There'd be contraception readily available and there'd be education geared toward preventing unwanted pregnancies. Adoption would be easier.

We don't live in a utopia, however. We live in a country where scoundrels are certain and nuance is vilified. I opened up my own thought process above to demonstrate that it isn't neat. But it's all taking place unified in one man's skull. And I'm not unique in having a complex thought relationship with abortion. I'm like a lot of people. Most people."

 {rob delaney for the guardian}

* a straight father of two who loves the hell outta his children but totes believes in safe and legal abortion

 "My wife, at her resting state, is heroic, and I am, in essence, just some guy.

If I wanted to, I could split and suffer limited consequences. In the worst-case scenario, I'd give up half my income, or some such paltry nonsense, which wouldn't even nip at the heels of my wife's gift of her body and soul to our children. Not that a father who raises his children isn't a wonderful thing; he is. He just better enter the game with a suitcase of humility and gratitude toward the woman who birthed his child."

i like this. i find it terrifying and sad that there are people out there who can't just automatically understand the complicated nature of abortion. like, i'm not running around being all WEEEEE I WANNA HAVE ALL THE ABORTIONS! cause i think that actually would be really awful and the saddest and oh man, ow my heart and soul. but i still empathize with those who have had to make such a choice before or will have to one day. i can imagine a lot a lot a lot of greyspace circumstances where that would be the best choice. truly. (and some totally clear-cut cases, too. anyway.) but it remains true that a lot of people just can't seem to think of abortion in any terms other than the black and white murder terms. so i appreciate the position from which delaney is writing and i appreciate that he is not raging against his readers. he's pointed but not angry. or angry but not aggressive. anger is definitely a fair reaction to the restrictions being imposed. i think that the individuals at the top who are putting restrictions in place are doing so with shitty misogynist intentions. they deserve just heaps and heaps of anger. but i don't think everyone who is pro-life is in that same space. i think a lot of pro-lifers are well meaning but short-sited or ignorant and misguided. and screaming at them won't help. maybe trying to have a conversation won't change many minds. but if it changes just a few, that's still something, right? i don't know. maybe i'm just feeling chipper-cheerful and optimistic today? earlier this week i was absolutely certain there was no hope at all for the country below mine. so. day by day.

AND TOTALLY OFF TOPIC here's a wee comic that will fill you with gladness. thanks, twitterverse.

happy friday, kittins.

ff

who has a mega girl-crush?! WE ALL DO!!! wendy davis, wanna be my best friend forever?

{thanks to the champions at rookie for this amazing graphic}

if you happen to have spent the whole week in a box (or not in a box that is the internets) then here's the what. wendy davis rocked an insane filibuster in texas to shut down an anti-abortion rights bill that would close down all but 5 clinics in texas. she stood and talked for hours and hours giving testimony from women all over texas and the u.s. and discussing the medical implications for doctors and so on and so on. she didn't make it to the full 13 hour mark, but her supporters managed to slow proceedings and the rock-awesome touchdown was thrown down by a fellow senator leticia van de putte (who had hustled to the senate on the day of her father's funeral so as to not miss the vote) when the president refused to acknowledge her request for attention:

{"at what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over her male colleagues in the room?"}

aaaannnnd mic drop. MAYHEM! mad cheering, totally thrilling. the clock rolled past midnight and blammo, no vote. (although the republican senators did try to claim they got the vote in... and there was a period of real shock and amazement realizing they were going to try to lie with oh so many people's eyes on them.) watching the whole thing go down on live-feed was unreal. who knew i could get that excited and terrified and amped watching senate politics happen? the feed of people watching on youtube read over 200,000. just nuts. and eventually:

so it was a pretty great week for feminism. woop!

of course, things turned for the worse again with governor rick perry calling another special session beginning july 1st so they can pass the bill then. and he also tried to shame our heroine wendy because she was a teen-mom and so she should know better. eeewwwwww. seriously, guy. gross. please please just go away?

so though they're basically stamping all over what she accomplished, it remains that wendy along with her supporters in the senate and the mad-wild-awesome pile of civilian supporters who were there that day, did something really spectacular. she has started something. she is a power house. i love her and i'm so glad she exist.

happy friday, sneakered warriors!

ff

you might remember there being a little teaser last week?

yeah!

on learning and unlearning. or. the impossibility of the latter.

i am just a wee baby of feminism. this is true. i am so so new and all a-stumbles on my under-formed feminist-legs. like a baby deer learning to walk. (i think maybe baby deer should be the blorg mascott... but that's another issue. a cute issue.) but the thing about it is: once you know, you can't un-know. you know?

(haha!)

and so that is where i am. i may not have the best language to argue my (our) case. but. i know i need to argue it anyway. because i have started to see it. and now i can't help but see it all the time.* to see that the united states is a terror-fest for women, despite the fact that it isn't as obvious as not-being-allowed-an-education, or being-forced-to-cover-our-bodies-in-a-complete-way... to see how many women and girls i know who are so deeply damaged by years of being told certain things about what it means to be a woman. to see how many men and boys i know who are so deeply damaged by years of being told certain things about what it means to be a man.

and sometimes i wish i didn't see it. sometimes i wish i could laugh at things like 'shit girls say' and not feel sick to my stomach knowing that there is something so deeply ingrained and flawed in the way we mock eachother. sometimes i wish my heart didn't hurt so much so often.

but that would mean i was going along blissfully ignorant. and i no longer have that option. and i suspect there are those amongst you, readers, who are hesitant to open up to the knowing. i can't blame you. it's hard. and there is no going backwards. so. i get it. if you're hesitant to join me... but i hope you will anyways. because we all know that struggle and hardship are what make us stronger humans. or something. and we can only improve things if we see them in the first place.

tra la la.

{our beloved hillary clinton drinks to the feminist of the week! photo from international business times.}

feminist of the week for this extra-special my-birthday-week has been a long time coming. sarah rankin!!! roommate extraordinaire. and feminist educator to the masses. she introduced me to feministe and shakesville, and she taught me to argue and fight when i feel i need to. she also explained this sad-truth of not being able to go back once you're in. and we had a cool talk about consent and knowledge, which maybe i'll have her guest-write about one day when she's done with school for the term... yeah?!

*it is, of course, important not to get toooo carried away, and let it ruin your life completely. and so. kittens.

ff

***** i wrote the following post earlier this week, before the whole susan g komen disaster embarrassment shame fest. (i particularly recommend that last link.) i don't even know where to begin on the rage that comes along with this story. if anyone wants to try and tell me that women's health isn't disgustingly politicized, they can go ahead and jump in a lake. and not a nice lake. a gross, really cold lake. filled with the bite-ingest fish. that is all. *****


oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooof this makes me mad. and also so glad that i do not live in the states. and also so nervous about our own canadian government's conservatism and the possibilities inherent therein...

* birth control like pork chops

let's talk about this.

first of all, how incredibly sickening that that young woman was forced into ovarian cancer despite a proper diagnosis of a treatable condition. because of policy. sick sick sick.
and potentially fatal results aside, the number of women i know who are on birth control for one million reasons aside from stopping pregnancy is crazy high. for me it stops the 3 weeks of period that i would be having cause my body is mega messed, as well as the actually unbearable pain that came along with that. (i know. cramps are lame-o and pretty much everyone has them, and blah blah. no. these weren't normal. mom can tell you. me lying on the floor in the kitchen in a ball weeping and weeping. and i'm a person who chose to have her palm-skin ripped off over and over for the love of the trapeze. i can do pain.) and there's skin issues and hormonal balance issues and so many other things which are easily and effectively treated with this entirely legal drug. and yet. NAY! STOP THE SLUTBAGS FROM SLUTTING AROUND! MAKE THE SLUTBAGS HAVE THEIR SLUTTY BABIES!

aaaallllllsssssoooo. i hope that i am, in fact, correct on the following. (if i'm not. oh god.)
there are religions that will not take blood transfusions and the like, right? it's against their religion. now. if someone in such a religion decided that for whatever reason they did want a blood transfusion, would insurance companies be all 'i don't know...... your religion is bossy pants so we better not. even though YOU are making a choice about yourself and your beliefs and your health.'

does that make sense? i feel like i'm not explaining that example well enough. i guess what i want to say is HOW HOW HOW can 'we' allow any organization to have sooo much power over its members (or people who happen into their general communities due to whatever circumstance) that they cannot go ahead with their own perfectly legal decisions about their own bodies? in a country oh so so screamey about personal freedoms. it's absurd and terrifying. is what i think. be terrified.

BUT SOME GOOD NEWS!
this week i would like to shout out joyfully to charlie williams, brother in law elect, who has been a facebook-crusader for feminism!!! you win feminist of the weeeeeeek!!!

{photo by amanda putty}

thank you thank you for first, understanding and second, defending the fact that a gender-neutral title should BE GENDER-NEUTRAL! you are the best and i'm so glad you're part of our family. rock on!