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.