May

27

Help Send Single Mothers to the Allied Media Conference

Filed Under action alert, activism, events and excursions, media | 2 Comments

speakThe Allied Media Conference, which is about “[sharing] tools and tactics for transforming our communities through media-based organizing,” is being held this July.  I’ve never been, but I know that it’s a really important event to a whole lot of womanists, feminists and radical women of color.

And I’ve just learned through BFP’s blog that the AMC needs a lot of money to help ensure that single mothers, who so often get left out of conference events, will be able to attend and participate.  She writes:

Why do we need single mamis at this conference?

It’s funny you should ask. Mamis of color are leaders in creating media that services the communities most in need radical media justice. They’ve created zines, blog communities, news papers, radio shows. They write and speak with children on their hips, on their breasts, and with the most limited resources possible. They can make a meeting happen with three people in three different cities, one car, and an awesome white dude. They don’t leave their neighbors behind because it’s a car with four seats, they make more seats in the car.

This is leadership. Single mamis of color are the leaders of the media justice movement, and I really am not sure why or how we would have a conference if they weren’t there.

So they need your help getting these women there in July.  Click here to contribute by buying a SPEAK! CD. The CD itself includes all kinds of amazing stuff.  And the suggested donation amount is $12, but you can also choose to donate more than that — as much as your heart desires and your wallet will allow.

Go, now, donate! And then put the call out on your blog, your twitter, facebook, whatever it is you use, and get the people you know to do the same.

cross-posted at Feministe

May

7

Equality and Justice for Whom?

Filed Under LGBTQ, activism, events and excursions, legislation, politics, trans, transphobia and trans misogyny | 16 Comments

Last Tuesday, I attended Equality & Justice Day in Albany.  It is the LGBT lobby day for New York, run by the Empire State Pride Agenda.  I generally had a good time, and was glad that I attended to show my support.

But I also noticed something throughout the day that, while I may not be in the best position to do so as a straight and cis person, seemed to me to deserve a strong critique.

I wrote earlier that the main bill I am concerned about seeing pass is GENDA. The Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act would protect people from discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression in the areas of employment, housing, credit, and more.  Right now, in New York, no such protections exist for trans or otherwise identifying gender variant people — despite the fact that such protections are in place (as they obviously should be) on the basis of sexual orientation.

Last year after Equality & Justice Day, I was surprised and pleased to see that GENDA, while it did not ever reach the Senate floor with Republicans in charge, was given seemingly equal attention to marriage equality and DASA (Dignity for All Students Act).  It could be that I’m simply more aware of trans issues and their marginalization within supposedly LGBT communities than I was last year — though I was already aware of this issue last year, and for that reason made a specific point to watch out for its presence.  But whatever the reason, I noticed a significant shift, and I feel obligated to mention it.

It started, or at least it became noticeable to me, when Governor Paterson came out to give his speech as the first official speaker.  It was a great speech, it really was, and I was happy to see him there.  Except.  Well, it was a great speech if we were only there to talk about marriage equality.  Because that’s all his speech was about.  And that’s not the only reason we were there.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that the Pride Agenda had no control over the content of the Governor’s speech.  When it’s the governor speaking, does an organization have any say in the topic of his remarks?  I really honestly do not know.  But it seemed to set a tone.

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Apr

30

Pro-Choice Event in NYC

Filed Under events and excursions, feminism, parenthood, pregnancy, reproductive justice | Leave a Comment

I got an email about an event in NYC, apparently a part of a series being run by NARAL Pro-Choice New York, called “Choices.”  Check out the info below:

Choices: Parenting
Thursday, May 7th
6:15-8:15 pm
Sistas on the Rise
835 Dawson Street
Bronx, NY 10459

NARAL Pro-Choice New York presents “Choices”, a six-part series of events examining the full range of reproductive choices available to women.

The second installment of the series will be “Choices: Parenting”, a look at the work being done on the ground to ensure that parenting is an accessible and supported reproductive choice for all. Co-sponsors and presenters include Sistas on the Rise, Baby’s First Home, The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), and the Red Hook Initiative.

Free with RSVP to lhoward@prochoiceny.org or 646-520-3506.

Event is open to all and space is wheelchair accessible.

While the pro-choice movement does of course support the option of parenting, it’s often one that goes overlooked in our pro-choice discussions about reproductive options.  I think we all know that coerced choice is not a choice at all, but still far too many women feel as though financial constraints leave them with no option other than abortion.  Of course that option should be available to them — but so should the option of parenting when they would otherwise want to carry to term.  It’s something that deserves our serious attention, and not the crisis pregnancy center “here’s some baby clothes, good luck!” kind. The structural, legislative and community-based “how are we going to make this world a more hospitable and just place for all women and their children?” kind.

So this event sounds really interesting and important, and I encourage people who are able to make it out to do so.

Apr

7

WAM! Panel Summary

Filed Under activism, events and excursions, feminism, patriarchy, rape and sexual assault, violence against women and girls | 10 Comments

panel1

So, last Sunday I moderated and presented on a panel at WAM! 2009, with (as pictured left to right) Ashwini Hardikar and Ashley Burczak of SAFER, myself, and Marcella Chester of Abyss2Hope.  It was called Pulling the Plug on Rape Culture One Word at a Time: Using Accuracy to Undermine Dangerous Attitudes and Injustice.  This post took me over a week to finally write, clearly, and ended up being quite long.  So here goes.

We all introduced ourselves, and then I opened up the panel by briefly defining rape culture, and identifying a few ways that it manifests in society: minimizing of rape as not “real” rape (rape apologism), victim-blaming, rape jokes, and teaching boys and young men that sex is not a mutually enjoyable act but something to coercively obtain.  I then explained that our panel was not going to be a primer on rape culture, and it wasn’t going to be able to cover all or even most of the ways that rape culture manifests in media.  Instead, the point of the panel was to provide an overview of some of the most common ways that rape culture is reinforced through media, and some arguments and strategies that can be used to fight back.

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Apr

2

Sarah Haskins Blow Out

Filed Under events and excursions, feminism, fun, marketing, media, pop culture, sexism | 6 Comments

In case you’ve missed them, below are two new Target Women videos for your viewing pleasure.

First up, Lifetime!

(Click here if you can’t view the embedded video.)

You know, I’m sure that the dogs reenacting scenes from famous movies is actually supposed to be a joke on the part of Lifetime (Right? Someone please tell me they’re not serious), but I really do have to agree with Sarah that it ought to be illegal, nonetheless. Somewhere. Soft-core dog porn = so not cool.

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Mar

31

Pulling the Plug on Rape Culture One Word at a Time — Cara’s WAM Presentation

Filed Under events and excursions, feminism, rape and sexual assault, violence against women and girls | 17 Comments

wam logoOn Sunday, as many of you know — and a few of you were actually there! — I moderated and participated in a session at WAM called Pulling the Plug on Rape Culture One Word at a Time with three absolutely amazing and fabulous co-presenters, Marcella Chester of Abyss2Hope, Ashley Burczak of the SAFER blog, and Ashwini Hardikar, also from the SAFER organization.

The session was packed, and though I was nervous as hell, I thought that it went really, really well.  WAM filmed the whole thing, so once the video is available online I will also post it, despite how uneager I am to see myself on camera.

I plan to post a session recap/overview in a couple of days.  (In the meantime, my Feministe co-blogger Jill liveblogged the session — after she finished taking pictures of me like a mother at a school play.)  But while we’re waiting on me to get up off my ass and do that, I thought I’d post my actual portion of the presentation given at the event, for those who were not able to attend and might be interested.

I didn’t read off of this verbatim, adding in some ad libs and clarifications and omitting a few things as well, but it’s pretty true to what I actually said while presenting.  I’ve also added in the slides that I showed at the session, or at any rate the ones that are important to your comprehension while reading, as links — click it, and it will take you to a jpeg file.  They are basically just the news stories that I highlight in the discussion.

Also, I know it’s not the same as a live Q&A session, but I would be happy to take any questions you may have in the comments.

The presentation is below the jump!

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Oct

2

South Dakota Live Action Camp

Filed Under 2008 election, abortion, activism, anti-choice extremism, events and excursions, paternalism, patriarchy, politics, religious fanaticism, reproductive justice, social conservatives, women’s health | 7 Comments

As I noted, I spent the weekend in Sioux Falls South Dakota, working with South Dakota Healthy Families to fight Initiated Measure 11, which would ban virtually all abortions in the state.

You probably remember that in 2006, anti-choicers got the legislature to pass a bill that would have banned abortion, even in cases of rape/incest, and where the health of the woman would be endangered — and when pro-choicers challenged the law and got it sent to a referendum, the ban was shot down 56% to 44%. Leslee Unruh and her ilk did not like this, and so now the proposed ban is back in force — only this time, with supposed and completely bullshit “exceptions” in place.  In a state that is rather anti-choice, this does indeed make the task somewhat harder.  And in a state with only around 500,000 registered voters (this is in fact a high number for a population of about 700,000), every vote really does matter.  Thus, Planned Parenthood (along with other orgs like the ACLU, who was not present last weekend but will be this weekend) has been sending out people to help identify supporters — meaning people who are voting “no” — and there were around 40 of us this weekend.

We started out on Friday evening with an orientation — featuring former Feministe guest-blogger Shannon! — explaining the messaging that SD Healthy Families has been using in their campaign.  Just from checking out their website, you can get a pretty clear idea of how this works.  1. Emphasize the message of “health” 2. Use the word “decision” (pro-choice research has indicated for some time now that the word “choice” does NOT resonate with a lot of people, including many who are in effect pro-choice, but for some reason the word “decision” does in fact tend to.) 3. When possible, talk about families making decisions, or women and families making decisions together and 4. put a heavy emphasis on the incredible fallibility of the supposed exceptions, specifically by pointing out that there is absolutely not a damn thing in there about fatal fetal abnormalities.  As South Dakota apparently has a strong libertarian streak, another major point of discussion is government intrusion on personal decisions.

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Sep

26

Yoko Ono: Imagine Peace

Filed Under Gratuitous Beatles Blogging, events and excursions, fun, media, pop culture | 11 Comments

Last week, my husband and I drove down to Lewisburg to see Yoko Ono’s Imagine Peace exhibit.  I have to say that we were hoping the exhibit would be a bit bigger, but it was still great.  My photos from the trip are below.

Captions are below their respective photos.  To see a larger image of any of these — which I recommend — just click on the picture.

This is basically the first thing you’d see when you go into the exhibit, on the wall opposite the entrance.

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Sep

25

Fighting The South Dakota Abortion Ban

Filed Under 2008 election, abortion, activism, anti-choice extremism, events and excursions, legislation, reproductive justice, women’s health | 6 Comments

I will be leaving bright and early tomorrow morning for Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Through Planned Parenthood, I received a scholarship to head out there for a Live Action Camp, where we’ll be fighting Measure 11, the ballot initiative aiming to outlaw abortion in the state.

Sadly, I do not have a laptop. And in any case, it looks like I’ll be moving around a lot so I wouldn’t have much time to live-blog, anyway. Nor would I want a laptop to deal with while canvassing door-to-door. But, I do have a cell phone. You can follow what’s going on this weekend via my Twitter page. I’ll be sending in updates and hopefully even pictures the whole time. There’s a widget in the sidebar that you can scroll through using the little arrows at the bottom, or you can just go directly to the twitter page. And then, of course, I’ll properly blog about the experience when I get back.

See you all soon . . . and enjoy tomorrow’s post on the Yoko Ono exhibit I visited last week.

Jul

23

I Met Hillary Clinton

Filed Under Democrats, activism, events and excursions, personal and self-promotion, politics, reproductive justice | 6 Comments

And no, I do not lie in the titles of my posts:


Look, that’s me (secondish row back, second from left, white shirt, brown hair)!!! With Hillary Clinton!!!

When we went to lobby day at the Hill, I was more or less expecting the same thing I’ve seen when lobbying in Albany.  State legislators don’t usually bother showing up for those meetings (and in terms of trying to get anything done, this is usually for the better), so I certainly wasn’t expecting Hillary Clinton to attend our little lobby visit.

So imagine my surprise and little freak out when we were briefed before our visit about what was going to happen after Senator Clinton came into the room.

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