JUSTICE FOR LOL

Monday, November 2 and Tuesday, November 3, the "Justice For All" exhibit came to the OSU campus. I won't post pictures here, because they are full of crazy bullshit unbefitting a rad blog run by ultra-academic feminists, but click on the link above to learn more about them. Suffice it to say their display was visible from about a quarter of a mile away. 

Of course, it sucks that this was up at all, but good did come of it: NOW set up a table with literature about Planned Parenthood, pamphlets detailing the fallacies and historical and medical inaccuracies in the Justice For All display and the group's rhetoric, and FREE CONDOMS!

People on campus responded well to our table, probably because the Justice For All does a better job of driving people away from their cause than drawing them in by scaring and intimidating them. A few people even expressed interest in joining us at the Pro-Choice Rally at the State Capitol on Friday and wanted to be on the e-mail list for NOW! GO US.

Thanks to everyone who helped us get this table up (and down) on such short notice:

Caitie, Paige, Danielle, Ally, Dennis, Matt, Amanda, Chelsea, Graeme, and probably a whole slew of other people who handed out pamphlets, taped messages to condoms and condoms to flyers, designed the printed materials - all in less than twelve hours. AWESOME! Make sure to check out Oklahoma For Reproductive Justice's blog and Facebook for pictures of all the feminist greatness from the past couple of days and continuing for the rest of this week.

Inhofe and Coburn Vote AGAINST the Franken Amendment

The Senate passed an amendment (68-30) to the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill which would keep the government from signing defense contracts with companies that prevent employees from taking "workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court." Instead these companies force employees to settle the dispute in arbitration where a supposedly neutral third party rules. The Franken amendment was inspired by the workplace experiences of Jamie Leigh Jones. Think Progress explains:

In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was gang-raped by her co-workers while she was working for Halliburton/KBR in Baghdad. She was detained in a shipping container for at least 24 hours without food, water, or a bed, and “warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she’d be out of a job.” (Jones was not an isolated case.) Jones was prevented from bringing charges in court against KBR because her employment contract stipulated that sexual assault allegations would only be heard in private arbitration.

Arbitration might be an adequate solution in some cases, such as money disputes, but when the "dispute" is rape, it's a problem. Franken argued that "The constitution gives everybody the right to due process of law … And today, defense contractors are using fine print in their contracts to deny women like Jamie Leigh Jones their day in court." This brings up scary questions. Rape is a felony and punishable with fines and jail time. What happens to a rapist in the arbitration process? I'm assuming the company pays a fine to the victim, but is there jail time for the attacker? Is the employee accused and found guilty of rape fired? I tried to find statistics relevent to these questions, but it was difficult. Most arbitration cases are confidential. The details and outcomes are never publicized, so it's hard to know how many sexual assault charges are actually disputed in arbitration and what happens to the accused.

I did find an NPR story from June 2009 about Jamie Leigh Jones' case. It's been four years since her ordeal and the Justice Department has declined to investigate. She also claims that her attackers continue to work for KBR. She never entered into arbitration with KBR (she is suing in civil court for the right to sue in criminal court - gotta love the American legal system), so we can't know if these men would've been fired once the arbitrator ruled. But even if she had entered into arbitration, we STILL wouldn't know what would have happened to her attackers because of the secrecy of the process.

Opponents of Franken's bill claimed that the legislation "overreached into the private sector and suggested that it violated the due process clause of the Constitution." Franken replied quoting the Constitution. "Article 1 Section 8 of our Constitution gives Congress the right to spend money for the welfare of our citizens. Because of this, Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote, 'Congress may attach conditions on the receipt of federal funds and has repeatedly employed that power to further broad policy objectives,'" Franken said. "That is why Congress could pass laws cutting off highway funds to states that didn't raise their drinking age to 21. That's why this whole bill [the Defense Appropriations bill] is full of limitations on contractors -- what bonuses they can give and what kind of health care they can offer. The spending power is a broad power and my amendment is well within it."

Senator Franken and those supporting the amendment took a stand for rape survivors today, and BOTH our senators sided with corporations. This is obviously ridiculous. Tell Senators Coburn and Inhofe to take rape seriously!

Last Night The Strip Was SO GAY

On Sunday thousands of GLBT rights advocates participated in the National Equality March on Washington. Here are some rights they were marching for:

-The right to work jobs and go to school free of harassment and discrimination.
-The right to safety in our daily lives, and protection from hate crimes.
-The right to equitable healthcare, and the right to donate blood.
-The right to equitable immigration policies.
-The right to marry.
-The right to serve in the military openly.

There were no Obama Hilter or Glenn Beck posters at this tea party!

SODA organized Stillwater's very own march on Washington (Street) last night. The group of about 40 advocates started at Crepe Myrtle restaurant and ended at the Student Union where students shared their coming out stories. Read more about it here. A few NOW members attended the event also. If you attended, feel free to share your experiences in the comments section.

DELINQUENT ON BLOG PAYMENTS

SO, school started, and Pearl forgot she had a blog. Here are a few tidbits from the last week, a la "Feministing weekly reader":

There is some more bullshit anti-abortion legislation making its merry way through the Oklahoma state senate. Surprising? Not really.

The first-ever piece of FEDERAL legislation benefiting the LGBT community specifically passed the House other day (they voted to add sexual orientation to the list of things you can get hate-crimed for).

And in totally rad news, the antithesis to Sally Kern is running against her. I hope they duel.

Apparently all I can think about is legislation/legislators. Yaaay democracy!

OMG MEETINGZ Y'ALL

Tonight is the first meeting/officer elections for feminist organizations on campus! We were a little slow on the campus orgs uptake, which is sad, but SO JAZZED about helping out with ALL THIS STUFF:

-Bringing Jessica Valenti to campus
-Bringing The Vagina Monologues to campus
-Raising date-rape awareness through a local Take Back The Night event
-Exposing fake clinics in Stillwater
-STRAIGHT GETTIN' IT FEMINIST STYLE

Further bulletins as events warrant!

Can I Have My Receipt For That Derogatory Term Please

Whenever someone uses the phrase "taking back the kitchen" or "taking back 'bitch'" the only thing brought to mind is someone standing in line at Customer Service holding entire cooksets, like, "Um, someone gave me 100% of domestic duties for my wedding, I think it's because I am a ladie, but can I have some intellectual credibility instead?" 

This post is really about cognitive dissonance of two types: one occurs when we call other women names like "slut" and "bitch," and the other when we feel "feminist guilt" for enjoying things like quilting and baking (the "tools of the patriarchy" or whatever). 

The first type is definitely the more legitimate, real-life guilt. It's true that giving derogatory terms legitimacy is dangerous and harmful: if women are calling women - and not necessarily even sexually promiscuous/active women - "sluts" AND MEANING IT, why can't men do it, too? And - we know where this is going - this just makes the "slut/stud" double standard even stronger. One solution is to stop using the term, and ask your friends to stop using it, too. The more fun way (and the more realistic and less feminist-dogmatic way) is to "take back" the term, playing with its intersecting meanings. In keeping with the example, "slut" is not just a word that "the patriarchy" came up with to "keep us down." It's not even a conscious attempt to degrade women. It's a word that has been assimilated so deeply into our culture that it means something different to every single person. 

SO: maybe someone gets called a slut because she had two one-night stands in two weeks. Somehow, she doesn't seem insulted - in fact, she laughs and jokes, seems at ease and even proud of herself. This is probably a woman who has internalized "slut" and re-defined it as "a woman who is confident in herself sexually and has a healthy attitude about casual sexual encounters." Again, this is just one possibility, and sort of a "Taking Back Terms 101."

The second type of cognitive dissonance we might feel is that little voice that tells us, "don't bother learning how to bake! that's just another time-consumer, keeping you in the mixing bowl instead of mixing it up in the real world!" This is a vestige of the Second Wave, which rejected all superficial forms of "patriarchal oppression," even though some people just (gasp!) ENJOY making cookies (and then eating all of 'em) or, more seriously, MUST learn to cook and bake because they don't live in an urban area where takeout and fast-food are readily available. Again, this is 2009, and we can define "everyday feminism" - that is, not our theories about social structures, but the actions we take, the hobbies we choose, and the jobs we do - in any way we desire. If making a full-size quilt makes us feel accomplished, creative, and powerful, that's a form of feminism (albeit a feminism that only includes those who have the time and resources to undertake such a project). 

There's a documentary out called "Handmade Nation" about the D.I.Y. craft culture that burgeons on sites like etsy.com and in ReadyMade magazine, among others. It's clear from books like Stitch n' Bitch and Subversive Cross Stitch that crafts are no longer just busy work for housewives, but are proving a very fruitful area for the D.I.Y. girls to reclaim. 

SO ANYWAY, what I'm really getting at with all of this is that there are not two sides to every story when it comes to feminism and any ladie-type issue - there are about 3 billion. We are all feminist theorists, deciding for ourselves whether to stomp out derogatory terms or just take them under our wing and feed them vegan cookies of questionable tastiness.

(And yes, I did made a big ol' quilt this summer, and I love it. I had no idea what the hell I was doing and stabbed myself with needles a lot, but the finished product was worth it!)

OK LAWMAKERS AND WOMEN ARE NOT BFFS

Props to the founding fathers for designing our government. No, it's not because we have the right to teabag in public spaces; it's because today the balance of power between the three branches prevented Oklahoma lawmakers from enforcing a silly, paternalistic law. A judge ruled this afternoon that a law requiring doctors to give women seeking abortions an ultrasound was unconstitutional. The law also required doctors to explain to the pregnant woman what she was seeing on the ultrasound because, you know, pregnant women don't already know they've got a human being inside them. The judge didn't really address abortion and ultrasound laws but struck down the law because legislators violated a rule when making it. Thanks to Reproductive Services in Tulsa and the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights for challenging the law.

Late Abortion Providers: Heroes or Villians?

Heroes of course! This IS a feminist blog.

Since the murder of Dr. Tiller in May, I've had more and more conversations with friends about abortion providers' motives. Some believe the anti-abortion advocates' carefully-crafted narrative of an immoral, money-hungry doctor, performing abortions for any reason at any stage of pregnancy; many friends were simply baffled as to why male doctors, like George Tiller, would literally risk their lives to perform this service for women. Viewing abortion providers as motivated by greed never made much sense to me because as doctors, they could have made a great living no matter what they specialized in and when you factor in the constant physical and legal threats, it just doesn't seem worth it. Plus, since 1973, the cost of abortion ">has remained almost the same when adjusting for inflation; this is not true for most other medical procedures. It makes more sense to see these people as genuinely motivated by a concern for woman's health and reproductive freedom. Countless testimonials from Dr. Tiller's former patients and a new Esquire article profiling another late abortion specialist, Dr. Warren Hern, seem to support this.

The long, sad Esquire article attempts to humanize someone whom others have worked very hard to dehumanize. We learn that Dr. Hern has a wife, mother and life outside his clinic just like any other doctor in America except most don't work in a heavily guarded facility and most don't have to worry about their mother receiving threatening phone calls. It's strange that late abortion providers are the most reviled abortion providers yet they do the abortions that many identifying as pro-life would actually agree are unfortunate but necessary. It's illegal in Colorado for Dr. Hern to perform a late abortion unless the woman's health is at risk or there is a catastrophic fetal anomaly.

In the strangest part of the article, Richardson reveals that Dr. Hern sometimes gets treated with "contempt and disgust" by patients who are ardently against abortion in any circumstance except their own. You'd think these women, knowing the difficulty of a catastrophic pregnancy, would at least support similarly-situated women having a CHOICE and some control over what happens to their body. Up against such hatred , he explains:

You never get used to this. You can't. I think we're hardwired, biologically, to protect small, vulnerable creatures, especially babies. The fetuses may not be babies, but some of them are pretty close.

Dr. Hern is fully aware of the emotional complexity of his job, and it seems people like Bill O'Reilly have seized upon this complexity and used misinformation and public ambivalence toward late abortion to portray Dr. Hern and his colleagues as greedy, heartless monsters. But after a bit of research, I've found that just isn't true.

Reading this article made me want to do something to change the public's perception of late abortion providers, which if accomplished, would also encourage more doctors to perform the procedure. I'm not sure what can be done, but forwarding the Esquire article or others like it to friends and family members who believe the anti-choice movement's portrayal of abortion providers would be a start. They probably won't be convinced to identify as pro-choice, but they might see that these doctors are actually the heroes performing abortions in circumstances where most Americans agree abortion should be legal.

22% BATTERY CHARGE POST

The little battery icon on my screen is RED which I'm assuming means my computer is bleeding internally, so this is just a quick link to one of the silliest articles I've read in awhile. It's related to my last post, and Regina Barreca's response piece to the original article is worth reading for more on why it's dangerous to believe stereotypes about feminists. To entice you STILL FURTHER, here's my favorite quote from the response piece: 

"I was accepting the male version of [feminists], which was sort of like believing the mouse's version of the cat, since it entailed being given access to a vision that could see nothing besides teeth and claws."

SARAH HASKINS IS FUNNIER THAN YOU

Happy Friday, everyone! Oklahomans for Reproductive Justice has a post up today about environmental racism in Oklahoma, which is worth checking out. But for something a little lighter, watch Sarah Haskins of Current TV. Every week she looks at the way gender is portrayed in the media, and if you have any feminist leanings at all, you can't NOT laugh. In this video, she wishes us Happy Period Control because obviously it's just too icky to think about OTHER reasons a woman might be on hormonal birth control.

Intrauterine Devices: Where's the Love, America?

Recently Kate Klonick of State.com pronounced IUDs the best form of birth control for young women, sending the feminist blogosphere abuzz with bloggers sharing their IUD experiences. One thing is clear about this often overlooked birth control method: many people are unclear about the safety of IUDs, particularly for women who have never given birth. It's no wonder when women are getting such conflicting messages from the medical community. Erica Sackin from Planned Parenthood of NYC tries to explain why the message is so confusing.

The IUDs of our mothers' generation were linked to some pretty scary side effects, such as increased risk of pelvic inflammatory disease and infertility, but studies have found that the models on today's market, ParaGard (contains copper but no hormones) and Mirena (releases hormones into the uterus locally but contains no copper), are much safer. Although research shows that the IUDs currently on the market are safe, many doctors still refuse to insert them. Sackin lists possible reasons for this:

1. S/he might still be reading old research.. It’s possible that your doctor simply isn’t familiar with the latest research or is following older clinical protocols.
2. S/he might think it’ll be too difficult. It’s also possible that your provider is under the impression that an IUD isn’t possible to insert into a woman who hasn’t had children because their cervix and uterus hasn’t yet had to expand for childbirth. This also doesn’t mean you can’t insert an IUD into a woman who hasn’t had children, it just means it might be a little more difficult. Plus, it’s different for every woman -- our providers have sometimes had an easier time inserting a device into a woman who’s never had children than one who’s had four children.
3. They might be worried about STDs. Since IUDs don’t protect against STDs, some providers might be hesitant to give them to women who aren’t married or in serious, long-term monogamous relationships. It goes without saying that while you should always be safe and protect yourself against STDs, this isn’t a reason for a provider to refuse an insertion.

As with any birth control method, there are pros and cons which must be weighed based on your specific needs/what you're willing to commit to, and as Pearl wrote earlier, the best person to answer any contraceptive-related questions is a trusted vagina doctor. Of course you will not be protected against STDs with this method, but the pros of IUDs for women in monogamous relationships are impressive: cost effective, a non-hormonal option, nothing to remember to take, put in or take off and most importantly, a 99% efficacy rate in a real life setting. But with so many detractors of this method being doctors and infertility (supposedly) at stake, many young women, including me, are hesitant to take the plunge.

It'd be great if the medical community could agree on the safety of IUDs (I suspect some doctors just have some catching up to do on the research), so that more women know there is another effective birth control option to consider and we could catch up to our European counterparts in usage rates.

We're Toxic, You're Slippin' Under

While I was in Tulsa for D-Fest (short for Diversafest - it's a zany mix of EVERY type of straight white middle- to upper-middle class person in Midtown Tulsa!), I ate at a couple of local establishments: Brookside By Day for delicious waffles and home fries, and Kolam for palak paneer and naan bread. Both places, as many restaurants in Tulsa do, stocked the most recent edition of Urban Tulsa Weekly, an arts and culture zine reporting on all the interesting things to do and think about in the greater Tulsa area. Usually the writing within the publication is smooth sailing - liberal, sensitive to civil rights issues, tolerant, etc. (the ads are a different story, obviously - "Erotic Circus?" Really?) But this time, I came across this gem:

"Many women don't understand or accept how important the visuals are to men, thanks largely to the toxic feminism that's seeped into regular people's lives. While there are lipstick feminists out there, the prevailing message of the women's studies feministollahs is that male sexuality is criminal or close to it, and women degrade themselves by doing anything to appeal to their "patriarchal oppressors." As a result, women like your ex-wife may feel justified and maybe even virtuous for taking the lazy way out with the soccer mom hair cap and the all-you-can-eat fingernails."

Now, this is part of an "advice" column (read the entire thing here), and it IS someone's opinion, and that's fine. At first, I got offended by her claims about women with short hair being "lazy" - I have short hair, and now, instead of fiddling with bobby pins and blow-dryers, I can spend my time doing things like organizing charity events, editing a magazine, and actually READING about feminism, which the person quoted apparently doesn't have the time to do. Which brings me to this: what really bothered me about this was that the person who writes this column is assumed by her readers to be more culturally aware than almost anyone else, especially about women's concerns (she's called the "Advice Goddess"). And if people who are purportedly culturally aware think that any legitimate academic feminist would teach that "male sexuality is criminal," we have some serious work to do. As far as I know, the third wave has been happening for, oh, at least fifteen years now, and "Advice Goddess" would do well to humble herself a little and do some background research before telling someone that feminism is "toxic" and anti-male. 

This is also another perfect example of a woman being anti-feminist because she feels that feminism does not include her "type." If "Advice Goddess" read even the first few pages of Manifesta or Full-Frontal Feminism, she'd see that it's simply impossible to put a face on feminism. It is an abstract concept that has morphed into an ugly and very real (and very hairy and man-hatey, I assume) monster in our collective cultural conscience. Not many people would be surprised if I walked around with a "This Is What a Feminist Looks Like" t-shirt on, but there are plenty of feminists out there who definitely don't "fit the bill" (and by "the bill" I mean "the hairy-legs, short-hair, no-makeup, no-manicure stereotype"). 

Well, gotta run, my witch's cauldron full of "toxic feminism" is overflowing all over this blog.

Is Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg a proponent of eugenics?

NO. Does this even need to be asked?

While browsing my news feed on Facebook today, this article from the Tulsa World posted by OK4RJ caught my attention. In it Jonah Goldberg, author of the dubiously-titled book Liberal Fascism, wonders whether Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has eugenic sympathies based on a quote from a recent New York Times interview. As usual, actually reading the quote in context helps clear things up. Here is her entire statement about the court's 1980 decision to uphold the Hyde amendment which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions:

"Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion. Which some people felt would risk coercing women into having abortions when they didn’t really want them. But when the court decided McRae, the case came out the other way. And then I realized that my perception of it had been altogether wrong."

Goldberg conveniently omits the last three sentences in his article. In context, Ginsburg is merely admitting that she initially perceived possible eugenic motives behind Roe v. Wade but now thinks that perception was "altogether wrong." Still Goldberg uses this opportunity to discuss Planned Parenthood's less than admirable history and imply that Ginsburg's initial perception of Roe v. Wade was correct.

Bringing up Margaret Sanger's ties to the eugenics movement and then implying that modern day Planned Parenthoods have similar goals is a common tactic of anti-abortion advocates. I'm not denying that Sanger was a racist. She promoted birth control not as essential to a woman's reproductive freedom but as a way to curb "racial degeneration" in society. The latter was a much less controversial way to talk about birth control, but it's clear Sanger did not link the birth control movement with the eugenics movement for purely political reasons. She did differ from her eugenicist colleagues in that she thought racial deterioration was caused by social factors not biology.

For this reason, I think it's unfair for conservatives to say that Margaret Sanger's goal in establishing birth control clinics was to eliminate minority populations. Law professor Dorothy Roberts provides a more nuanced view of Sanger in her book Killing the Black Body. She describes Sanger as:

"motivated by a genuine concern to improve the health of the poor mothers she served rather than a desire to eliminate their stock...Sanger nevertheless promoted two of the most perverse tenets of eugenic thinking: that social problems are caused by reproduction of the socially disadvantaged and that their child-bearing should therefore be deterred. In a society marked by racial hierarchy, these principles inevitably produced policies designed to reduce Black women's fertility. The judgment of who is fit and who is unfit, of who should reproduce and who should not, incorporated the racist ideologies at the time."

Sanger may not have been an outright bigot, but it's hard to deny that her family planning policies negatively affected Black women. Still it is dishonest for Goldberg to invoke this history, take Ginsburg's quote out of context and use them both to accuse her and other abortion rights supporters of being racist. I don't deny that there are people who would promote abortion to further racist eugenic aims, but even Ginsburg, who was initially a skeptic, does not believe that this is what was taking place in 1973.

TWITSPIRATION

Mornings here in Casa Olsen generally begin with a groggy squint in the direction of our cell phones, which greet us with somewhere in the vicinity of TEN new messages. No, these aren't drunk texts or secrets from three time zones away - they're device-update Tweets. One of my personal favorite Twitter users is SarahMorrison, a blogger for Volcom, editor for Missbehave, and general Internet personality. This morning, something like the fourth update down was this:

SarahMorrisonI dont buy THESE ads that say "there's no medical reason for a monthly period." If that was true, wouldnt someone have mentioned it EARLIER?about 8 hours ago from UberTwitter

Since the Internet was already on the brain, a blog post seemed necessary. 
First of all, the fact that there are finally advertisements that say out loud that periods aren't necessary is good news (speaking of good news, the government health service in England is telling school kids, "An orgasm a day keeps the doctor away!"). But I think Sarah's Tweet exhibits the mindset that many women today share, which is one that benefits from the effects of feminism, but is not conscious of the origin of those effects or the problems which we still face. Her argument against the validity of these ads is that it would be irrational for this "secret" to be kept from women for so long - why on earth would anyone want us to keep bleeding?
The answer is simple, actually - for a long, long time, "they" thought that once we realized that oral contraceptives were safe, effective, AND kept the cramps and bloating and Tampons away, we'd all become SLUTS - or at least that was, and usually still is, the common belief (except, of course, among people like gynecologists - you know, DOCTORS). Same goes for the aforementioned ad campaign in England. People tend to see the promotion of sexual activity for-pleasure-only as somehow ethically WORSE than allowing more and more uneducated folks to pass on STDs and have unplanned pregnancies. 
Another issue tied up in this particular problem is this: the notion that women shouldn't know too much about their own bodies. A little research into how the hormones involved in oral contraceptives work reveals that the "monthly period" women get during our "off-week" is not even really the result of ovulation/menstruation; generally, when you're on the three-week active pill, that off-week is really just a waste of time (although it has been known to breed bedroom creativity). But encouraging us to learn about our own reproductive systems might (gasp!) actually make us want to PROTECT them from goofy-ass laws made by old dudes halfway across the country. The proliferation of laws restricting reproductive rights depend partly on an assumption that men know more about women's bodies than women do. Let's fix that. Instead of relying on the birth control ad industry, next time you're at the gynecologist, ask about what exactly your contraceptives are doing to your body, make sure you understand that shit, and act according to what you feel like YOUR OVARIES want. If you were scared of the pill before due to some weird lines you've been fed about contraceptives messing you up or whatever, don't just take that for granted - ASK A DOCTOR. A VAGINA DOCTOR. The idea that YOU shouldn't get to decide what goes on under your own skin is seriously fucked up, obviously. 
So, basically:
pearLOLsen@SarahMorrison no one told us about not needing periods before because birth control makes girls SLUTTY, duhhless than 5 seconds ago from web

ABORTION CAUSES BREAST CANCER, Y'ALL

NOT.

REMEMBER, there are TWO of these places in Stillwater, and NO Planned Parenthood. Seriously. AND there are laws in Oklahoma that allow pharmacists to refuse Emergency Contraception to customers based on personal belief. We also have anti-choice laws such as a mandatory ultrasound when a woman decides to abort (WTF?), and the clinics that DO exist may have a mandatory 24-hour wait - which proves critical when poor or rural women need the clinic's services NOW because they can only take off one day from work or drove ten hours to get to the clinic.

Time to get back to our pink-collar, less-than-minimum wage, raiseless jobs! Later!

SALLY KERN IS STILL AWESOME

Last week openly gay pastor Dr. Scott Jones wrote in the Oklahoma Gazette that he and his boyfriend GOT MARRIED IN THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA. How did this happen?!?! Didn't Oklahoma protect marriage from the gays in 2004? Although the state constitution defines marriage as between a man and a woman, Dr. Jones found a loophole. He basically said, "Screw what the state thinks, I'll just get married in the eyes of God." I've paraphrased of course, but he makes an interesting distinction between marriage as religious sacrament and marriage as civil contract.

In the counterpoint article everyone's favorite homophobe Sally Kern argues that because the Bible defines marriage as between a man and a woman, the government should too. She also attempts to use non-religious arguments to support her point, but they are over-used and easily refuted. Marriage is for procreation only?!?! If that's the case, why are infertile couples and post-menopausal women allowed to marry?

It's clear that her opposition to gay marriage comes from religious convictions. Ms. Kern believes that the Bible says homosexuality is a sin; therefore, it is wrong for the state to legitimize this sin, which would be fine IF WE LIVED IN A THEOCRACY. It would also be fine if marriage were only a religious sacrament performed by churches, but it's not. When the state is involved, marriage becomes a civil contract and cannot be considered a religious sacrament because of a long history of separation of church and state.

If I ever get married, it's not going to be in front of an altar and pastor, but my marriage will probably be considered just as 'holy' as someone who, much like Scott Jones, got married by a pastor. If Ms. Kern is so concerned with keeping marriage 'holy,' her time might be better spent pushing for the state to get out of the marriage business because as soon as the state is involved, it cannot be treated as a religious sacrament.

Also Sally Kern signed her morality proclamation today (see post below) amidst protesters at the state capital, but this article says that there were many more supporters than protesters. Sadness.

SALLY KERNS IS AWESOME

IF YOU LOVE BEING ANGRY! (click link to see video and read her "morality proclamation" for the state of Oklahoma). 

ANYWAY, Oklahoma City Gay Pride was a BLAST, with thousands upon thousands of participants and spectators for the parade. It was truly amazing to see the huge crowds cheering as we crested the hill and looked down at the intersection of 39th and Penn in the City. 

BIKE BRIGADE! We are in this shot somewhere.

After the parade, we proceeded to party hearty with every type of person imaginable. We agreed that one thing a person can really take from Pride events is that the diversity of the LGBTQ community is mind-blowing - it really defies all stereotypes. We would love for that to be the descriptor of the word "feminists" - a designation for a group of people who defy all stereotyping. 

In Manifesta, by Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, the authors point out that the word "women" includes not just middle-class white females but also rich black lesbians, Jewish mothers on welfare, etc. - the list is infinite. And doesn't everyone want equal rights and equal treatment? Shouldn't we really ALL identify as feminists? Well, would you call Sally Kerns a feminist, or even NOT anti-woman? Probably not. Same goes for Ann Coulter and a hundred thousand other anti-woman women out there. DEPRESSING!

But there's no use in just sitting around and stewing about it, like me. Go do something about it! Call Sally Kerns and tell her what's up! Work on campaigns for pro-choice, pro-women, pro-gay rights candidates! Let's do this, America!

OKC PRIDE 2009!

The anniversary of the Stonewall Riots is on Sunday, and you know what that means! LGBTQs all over the place, taking over the streets of Oklahoma City, being loud and maybe getting black-out drunk on rye and root beer (hi, Pearl of one year ago!). Kylie and Pearl are currently attempting to wrangle the bikes into the Mini-Cooper in order to ride in the parade (BIKE BRIGADE!). Here are some photos of the festivities from last year:

BIKE ON BIKE ACTION

BIKE MOUNTAIN, PEARL+BICYCLE GANG

OPTICAL ILLUSION: HOW MANY LEGS?

THIS IS A DIFF. KIND OF OPTICAL ILLUSION

DON'T YOU WANT TO GO SO MUCH? I DO.

THE INTERNET

Two weeks ago today, our friend Ali Pullen in Tulsa, Oklahoma - she bartends at the Soundpony, does art, rides bikes, and helps out recently-released-from-prison ladies - gave to Pearl for her 21st birthday a book called Full Frontal Feminism by Jessica Valenti, feminist author and creator of feministing.com (THE INTERNET!). Feminist sentiment had always been present in Pearl and Kylie, but had been languishing in varying degrees of latency for awhile. This particular book, however, probably due to its totally rad deficiency in impractical theory, revitalized those parts of our brains which are now yammering away about equal participation in society instead of just muttering about petty sexism. 

We found two other girls, through Facebook (INTERNET, WILL U BE OUR BFFL? Y/N). We set up a coffee meeting. We drank coffee and let each other know what we thought women in agri-college town Stillwater, Oklahoma really needed. Here are a few things we came up with:

-Exposure of "crisis pregnancy centers," such as Birth Choice and Stillwater Life Services. 

-Sexual education to remedy the damage done by "abstinence-only" sex ed programs.

-Consciousness-raising about the possibility of self-worth that is based on our accomplishments, instead of on our bodies. 

-Redefining "feminists" not as a dirty word implying an exclusionary hairy-legged man-haters club but as a term describing anyone who believes in the totally rad and fun idea of equality of the sexes in society.

This blog will document our "real" activism on our own and with the NOW chapter on the OSU campus, as well as almost anything else we feel is relevant - news pieces, art shows, some guy telling us we actually look pretty when we smile - whatever we feel might strengthen our resolve to advocate for feminism's worth, even in little old Stillwater.