Regaining the Fucks

I'm sure that, by now, our readers around the world have gotten an earful about U.S. Congressman Todd Aiken and his unbelievably medieval remarks about rape and biology. I've spent the past few days in a haze of disbelief and rage, including a memorable moment when I burst into tears over a stupid commentator on National Public Radio. I've been avoiding the news ever since, knowing that any mention of His Idiocy (or the idiots that believe him) will set me off again. I'm exhausted from caring to the point where, as Erin Gloria Ryan so eloquently put it, "So many more fucks need to be given, and I have exhausted my fuck supply. The fucks are on backorder." I just can't do it anymore. I can't take the overwhelming tide of misogynistic crap that American politicians somehow keep spewing.

In some ways, it's a bit of a wake-up call. Cis women of any race have never really had it easy during my lifetime- marital rape wasn't federally codified as a crime in the U.S. until I was eight, for example- but all the same, I was born with a lot more rights than my mother and grandmother were. It was never a question that I would be eligible to vote when I turned 18. Going on to university, and later a job, was not only an option for me, but also the preferable one. It never had to cross my mind that being raped could result in a forced marriage. Plenty of cis women in the U.S. and around the world can remember times when they had to fight for these rights- or still look forward to a day when they may have those rights respected. The fact that one fool's lack of basic biological and social knowledge can cause such an uproar in my home country ought to be a sign of hope. Elsewhere, beliefs like Aiken's have been legally accepted for decades and residents of those countries have been working their butts off to change that, with limited success.

At the same time, however, my natural optimism is silent. I guess that's largely because I had believed that, once rights are recognized, they won't be taken away. It's an incredibly naive and privileged perspective to carry, I realize, but I've always been the Scarlett O'Hara type anyway, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to counter it. Hell, I'm in a profession where optimism is an essential trait for survival. I've finally been shocked into (relative) silence by the shattering of that most beautiful illusion. As much as I thought I'd overcome the tendency to take hard-fought rights for granted, I'm learning I have been. What I'm experiencing right now is the abrupt and terrifying realization that yes. It can happen to me.

It can happen to me that I'll be a citizen of a country that will progressively strip away the rights that my foremothers fought so hard to gain.

It can happen to me that I'll live in a country where policymakers make important decisions about my body based on a complete lack of knowledge.

It can happen to me that visiting other, more feminist-friendly countries will mean visiting places where cis women are very much more privileged than I am.

It can happen to me that a potential representative of my country would (and did!) suggest that rape is just another method of contraception.

I can hear a lot of you readers laughing at my naive perspective, and a few others shaking your fists (wait, what? A White American feministmissed something? Never!), and a couple of others telling me to join the grown-up club already (in which case, keep your arrogance to yourselves). I can also hear a lot of our readers from around the world shaking their heads and sighing because you're all much more accustomed to the back-and-forth misogyny that takes rights away as readily as it grants them. I know. I've been living a pretty privileged perspective. It happens a lot to Americans.

With this realization in mind, I'd like to subvert the age-old American feminist tendency to believe that "we" have it right by calling on the rest of the world: how do you get your fucks back? In less cavalier language, how do you find the energy to carry on when you feel utterly overwhelmed by the challenges facing your movements? It's obvious to me that I- we- can't afford not to care, not with so much at stake, so the only answer is to keep on caring enough to do something. But how?

Go Girls (and Go Folk) the world over are a daily reminder that we're all moving, shaking, and changing the world with every step on a plane, every backpack zipped, every tijn spent. Somehow, wherever we're from and wherever we're going, we always manage to keep ourselves in motion. It's unbelievably inspiring. So as a movement, as a tour de force, let's brainstorm. How can we keep ourselves going against not logistical odds, but sociopolitical odds? How can we make and preserve lasting change?

How can we get our fucks back?

Snatchels

The cutest vagina you'll ever see, knit in my own living room.

I have a long history of struggling with strong feelings for my country and trying to balance my loathing for its incredible capacity for stupidity with a deep appreciation for the autonomy I'm theoretically granted here. Over the last two weeks, this challenging see-saw has become extra-wobbly as a series of proposed bills and speeches by state and federal legislators has reduced my personhood to some combination of whore, cow/pig, and rights-less incubator. If you think I'm joking or exaggerating, please check out those links because, unfortunately, most of that is verbatim.

It's one thing, I think, to grow up female/woman in a country where you know your basic civil liberties are only a handful of decades old, while simultaneously being aware that other women around the world would do an awful lot to have those same opportunities. There's a lot of pushback against people like me who campaign for an end to social discrimination because "feminism isn't necessary anymore." Truthfully, a lot of disenfranchised Americans (female or otherwise) can identify with that basic sentiment; with voting, education, and employment available, many of us are a lot better off than our ancestors 100+ years ago. But that doesn't mean that feminism, or activism more broadly, is redundant. The personhood amendment up for grabs in Colorado, for example, would prevent someone from seeking an abortion even in cases of rape or incest. The long-and-short of it is that, while the amendment protects a foetus from being "killed for the crime of his or her father" (direct quote), it doesn't protect the mother from the same.

I've frothed at the mouth so many times this week that I've been rather dehydrated. Discourses about feminism and women's rights, particularly women's reproductive rights, are always entwined with other discourses around social inequality such as racism, classism, and level of physical or mental ability, but I'm sick of how many things seem able to be diluted to the spectra of sex and gender. In the 21st century, in a country that likes to tout itself as being The Most Advanced On the Planet, basic concepts (such as the fact that I am, in fact, a human and not livestock) seem to elude many of our most powerful. To add insult to injury, it often feels as though I'm a lone (or, if not lone, at least very tiny) voice screaming to an uncaring wilderness.

The balancing factor this week has been the discovery of the Government-Free VJJ movement. While the usual course of writing letters to lawmakers and ceaselessly calling their offices can exacerbate the lonely "I'm talking to a wall!" feeling, a cohesive movement to send a message feels somehow more productive. You can recycle a letter or turn off a phone, but it's difficult to ignore the cute and cuddly vagina that's landed on your desk.

That's right! The Government-Free VJJ movement is a craft-centred form of political protest that facetiously suggests that (primarily male) politicians would stay out of our vaginas and uteri if they had a set of their very own. Whether sewing, crocheting, or knitting, each one takes only about 30 minutes to complete and can be made with relatively cheap supplies. The goal is to send at least one to each politician who has been systematically degrading and violating women's personhoods through speech or proposal. The movement itself has already caught some media attention, which is promising; since I've already knit four, I've spent every stitch envisioning a storm of news coverage about how Washington and state capitols have all been inundated with hand-crafted lady-bits. Even better is trying to imagine the press releases coming from these lawmakers' offices in response to the influx: "Representative England is unavailable, as he is currently trying to figure out how livestock learned to knit."

There's something to be said for the medium of choice, for while a hand-held vagina is difficult to ignore, it also uses trades (sewing, knitting, etc.) that are part of the pantheon of "Things That Only (White?) Women Do Because Men Are Too Busy Running the World." In other words, is it subversive or complicitly patriarchal to use domestic activities to make a political point about women's rights? There's a discussion to be had there, I'm sure, but I have to admit that the excitement of giving lawmakers a bunch of vaginas to ponder has short-circuited my critical thinking skills.

If you're crafty, or wish to learn crafty skills in order to participate in the VJJ movement, check out their website. They have a list of patterns to follow, as well as a sample script to include in your cuddly cooter package. When you're ready to mail yours off, use this form to let the movement's organizers know which politicians you're sending them to. The goal, of course, is maximum distribution! Naturally, I highly encourage all of our readers to produce at least one. As a clarification, this isn't about being pro- or anti-abortion rights (although I'm sure you can guess my opinion). This is about drawing attention to the treatment women, as a very generalized group, are given in a male-dominated political landscape.

When you've made your vajayjay or uterus, take a picture and send it in to Go Girl! We'd love to make a gallery of how Go Folk everywhere envision their crafty political engagement in or with the U.S. After all, in how many countries can you use yarn genitals to make a point?

This post also appears today on Go Girl Magazine.

Komen's Big Mistake

We interrupt our regular programming to focus on a rather upsetting issue. Susan G. Komen For the Cure, an incredibly far-reaching breast cancer fundraising organization, has bowed to political pressure and stopped providing funding to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screening and prevention. What kind of political pressure would that be, you might ask? The answer, succinctly put, is the pressure to kill a pro-abortion-rights organization by leeching away the funding it receives for other programs. Don't ask me how that's supposed to work. Never mind that breast cancer is a separate issue from abortions; never mind that funding for one area is separate from funding for another; never mind that this organization is using the well-being of people as a political bargaining chip. This is outrageous and we owe it to women- people- across the country to do something about it. I recommend signing the MoveOn petition to Komen for starters, and if you want more ideas, try sending them an email, posting about this on Facebook and Twitter, and getting more and more people involved. Take action.

Followup: South Dakota

According to the New York Times, HB 1171 has been shelved indefinitely. The article's authors state that the decision was the result of public outcry about the vagueness of the bill's language. For the most part, it sounds as though objections were raised by people in both pro- and anti-abortion camps, which (I think) is a good thing. As one person quoted in the article put it, "It’s a very clear shift in the conversation. We have never had a public conversation about whether it’s right to kill a doctor."

At the same time, however, we still have a few fringe groups who thought that the measure was a good deterrent against abortion:

Dave Leach, an Iowa anti-abortion activist, praised the bill, saying it could end abortions in South Dakota by scaring away doctors or by establishing grounds for someone to kill those who stay.

“There may be something I’m overlooking, but from all appearances, this bill would certainly justify an individual taking the life of an abortionist in order to save human lives,” he said.

Maybe it's because I don't agree with the idea of taking lives to save them, but I have a hard time understanding how Mr. Leach's notion of "taking [a] life...to save human lives" makes any sense.

In the news: South Dakota

Back in 2006, South Dakota made the news when its governor signed a bill into law that effectively banned abortions unless the mother's life were in clear danger (note: the linked website isn't accurate in all of its articles, but does give a good overview of South Dakota's HB 1215). The news turned into headlines when the President of the Oglala Sioux declared that, if the law continued to exist, she would open an abortion clinic on Pine Ridge Reservation (read: out of the jurisdiction of South Dakota) to offer women options who otherwise wouldn't have them. The South Dakota law is currently described as being "dead in the water."

Now, unfortunately, South Dakota is back at it- this time with a proposed law that would permit homicide against doctors performing abortions...on the grounds of defense. You read that right. The text of the bill, HB 1171, states that

Homicide is justifiable if committed by any person while resisting any attempt to murder such person, or to harm the unborn child of such person in a manner and to a degree likely to result in the death of the unborn child, or to commit any felony upon him or her, or upon or in any dwelling house in which such person is.

Again, you read that correctly. Someone who murders a doctor performing an abortion, under this law, could legitimately claim "defense of the unborn" in the same way one could claim self-defense in other circumstances.

I'll repeat here what I've said before in this blog: I'm wholeheartedly in favour of abortion rights. I also understand that not everyone is. The utter wrongness of South Dakota's proposed law, however, isn't whether or not it favours abortion rights. It's that it favours- no, scratch that- legalizes the murder of a person who is performing an important and, in many ways life-saving, procedure. Theoretically, someone could extend the law to protect themselves if they murder the person who is pregnant and requests the abortion- after all, they're technically attempting "to harm the unborn child" by seeking the procedure. Could such a loophole, if the law passes, lead to the acceptance of vigilantes who believe it's acceptable to murder a person to punish them for an attempted abortion?

Regardless if the law would be extended to cover such instances...we need to act to discourage its passage.

Legal ambiguity (from Erica)

First: this is our 100th post! Congratulations to us!

Second: I just came across this article outlining a bill that's been introduced in the Utah legislature that increases the restrictions on women's access to abortions to include "reckless" in its descriptions of the "homicidal" behaviour (their language). The general problem (besides the frightening level of erosion of a woman's legal right to medical privacy) is that the language of the proposed law is so ambiguous about what constitutes reckless conduct that it could easily lead to the prosecution of women who miscarry after any number of activities while pregnant- whether or not those activities are proven to be the cause of the miscarriage.

There are a lot of things to be said about the law and abortions, including moral arguments on both sides of the issue. When you look at the law itself, however, it's frightening to see what's being created. The legal arguments in this country that make it okay for a state to interfere with a private medical decision and force a woman not to get an abortion are identical to the legal arguments that make it okay for a state to interfere with that same decision and force a woman to have an abortion. I know that sounds like an exaggeration, and to be fair, I'm not saying that the social climate is such that states are likely to start doing that (I hope). However, the legal framework for them to do so is most assuredly in place. And punitive laws like this one, that attack women in ridiculous ways and don't even glance in the direction of other people causing danger to her fetus (abusive partner? Reckless driver? Chef who undercooks her dinner?), aren't doing anything productive, positive, or good.

From Erica: FGC is out in Uganda!

So my partner sent me a link this morning to this article about Uganda's recent decision to outlaw female genital cutting (FGC) in its borders. I'm simultaneously overjoyed and concerned. Primarily, I'm overjoyed. Having formal recognition from the political leader in a country with citizens that still practice FGC that the practice is dangerous, damaging, and pointless is a huge leap forward.

My concern has to do with the connection between law and practice. The legality or illegality of a practice doesn't change whether or not the practice is performed; it just changes the circumstances of that performance. I'm concerned that making FGC illegal will mean that families will continue to practice it, but in increasingly unsanitary and unsafe conditions. I wonder if a viable option would be an exemption for medical doctors, who could (in theory) perform FGC in conditions that minimize the risk of trauma, infection, and mistakes. Of course, that possibility also raises questions about the consent of the girls who get the procedure done, and the affordability and geographic accessibility of the procedure.

When I mentioned this to Emily, she responded that it reminds her of the abortion debates in the United States, to the extent that the law can make an unsafe procedure safer when it legalizes it under certain circumstances. Without legal codification of abortion rights, she pointed out, women seeking illegal abortions would be putting themselves at high risk for all kinds of infections, complications, and of course, death.

Obviously, the two issues are quite different in a lot of ways; the abortion example is a way of illustrating the ways in which law can protect women during procedures that are likely to continue to occur regardless of their legality. It'll be interesting to see how Uganda's law impacts the procedure over the next few years, and to see how the grassroots organizations that respond to FGC as it is (and here I'm thinking of the organizations that promote alternative rituals to FGC, since FGC has a history of being a significant ritual in the attainment of maturity of girls and young women) adapt their work (or expand it!) under the new policy.

--Erica