Choice Words

Last week, Jana Mackey was taken from us in an unspeakable way. I am still having a really hard time wrapping my head around things. It all seemed so impossible and surreal. I mean, I JUST saw her a few months ago when I was back in Lawrence. How could she be gone? Nothing seemed to add up in a way that would help me understand.

I first met Jana my junior year of college. I was trying to find my way in the movement and she was a bright and shining light to guide me. Matter of fact, she intimidated me, because she was so steadfast and sure about what she was working towards, which made me want to be just like her. She treated me as a friend and a colleague and pushed me to persevere through some of the toughest situations. Jana was a kind person who effortlessly navigated the intersections between many movements –—all with a smile, even while facing the most conservative of opposition.

Services for our dear friend Jana Mackey have been scheduled for July 9th at Liberty Hall in Lawrence, 2pm. It will be followed by a celebration of Jana’s life at the Replay Lounge beginning at 8pm. Donations will be taken at the door and given to one of the many funds created in her name.

The family asks that in lieu of flowers, please contribute to:

Jana Mackey Support for Public Advocacy Fund
c/o Dean of Law
Green Hall
1535 W. 15th St.
Lawrence, KS 66045

Jana, you’re missed.

I’ve made pretty good friends with the patriarchal beauty standard. I’d love to defend myself here, but I realize that while I love shaving my legs, for instance, because I like the way they feel when they’re smooth, it’s also in due in part to the fact that society tells me that yeah, to be considered attractive, I should shave my legs. So, I shave my legs. I realize this. No action takes place in a vacuum, and everything we do is influenced, at least in some degree, by patriarchal norms and expectations.

But things I didn’t know? That the way I perform certain grooming tasks that are expected of me can have a damaging effect to my psyche.

So when I realize that, oops, I’ve got a little peach fuzz on my face, and don’t have the time to Nair or wax or what-have-you, and pick up my razor to do some quick hair removal, I’m actually seriously confusing myself. Cause, y’know, face shaving is such a masculine activity.

I don’t really get how face shaving is so masculine. It’s something that’s always confused me. Actions are gendered - this is a female action, this is a male action; ignoring, of course, that gender falls along a spectrum. And if gender didn’t fall along a spectrum, and if we lived in a world where things were either boy or girl, well shit! If I’m shaving my face on occasion, then it’s obviously not a guy thing to do, it’s an everyone thing to do.

But, that’s a lot of thinking to do for someone who’s obviously been sent to the brink of insanity by picking up a razor and getting rid of a stray hair or two on my face. I’m losing my grasp on reality. I’m starting to think I’m a guy, and can have all the perks that guys get - you know, that whole equality thing. I am clearly unhinged. See what forgoing waxing, plucking, and laser hair removal treatments in lieu of a quick “one-two” hair removal method will do to you?

Funny, isn’t it, to note that the recommended hair removal methods for women all involve some measure of pain? Shaving is easy and quick, unless you cut yourself. That must just be a coincidence, right?

Heidi Hartmann, writes about the differences in attitude toward social security. A recent survey showed that women are much more concerned about social security than men. And this spans across class and race.

Why are women so much more worried? Hartmann lists three reasons:

“First, women have the children and generally rear them to adulthood, whether men help out financially or not.”

“Third, women live longer than men.”

Given these realities, shaky economic times always worry women more than men, and for good reason. Unemployment rates are nearly always highest for single mothers — perhaps because they face more constraints on which jobs they can accept or encounter more discrimination in the labor market or both. In a survey of American Workers conducted in 2007 by Yankelovich at the request of the Rockefeller Foundation, one woman in five reported she lacked money to fill a prescription, one in eight said she could not afford to take a child to a doctor, and one in 14 said she went hungry in the past year. Women experienced these hardships at about twice the rate of men in the nationally representative survey.

Women are still second-class citizens in our country and no one wants to admit it. If this many women cannot afford to fill a prescription or take their child to a doctor, then there’s a huge lack of basic health care for the majority of our citizens. But we already knew that didn’t we…

If we can’t afford medicine, how are we supposed to use contraceptives? If we can’t afford to bring our child to the doctor, how are we supposed to raise children? This is a huge reproductive justice issue. These “shaky economic times” will only bring even more injustice when it comes to reproductive health and rights.

Get this: Pete and Ashley Wentz (cause she’s not Simpson anymore, no way, nuh-uh, cause she’s a woman and that’s what women do when they get married) are going to have some seriously traditional (and may I say, screwed-up) kids when it comes to gender roles.

The latest gem comes courtesy of Pete, who explained his desire to know the baby’s sex before it’s born:

I’d like to know the sex of the baby. It would be a bummer if you bought a boy a whole bunch of pink stuff.

Yeah. Cause if you bought a baby boy pink stuff, it would totally be the end of the world. It’s this super secret power babies have: intuitively knowing the color of their belongings, even before they can even crawl.

Ugh.

I’m a big politics dork. I mean, huge. When people are getting all starstruck by meeting, say, Brad Pitt, I’m meeting politicians and having really spastic inner monologues and embarrassing myself.

No. Seriously. Once I met Senator Sherrod Brown, and out of habit and nervousness, called him “dude”. That’s right, I called a sitting senator dude. But that’s just because I love being around people who’ve made their career in politics so much (but only those with integrity!) that my mind shuts down and I operate on auto-pilot, so imagine how pleased I was to be at a conference today where Madeline Albright was speaking. I was pumped.

She said something that I thought was really inspirational, and could be applied to anything we think is important - the right to be able to walk down a city street without being harassed, the right to not be sexually assaulted, the right to have autonomy over our bodies and the reproductive choices we make, the right to get equal pay for equal work, etc. She said “Some say it’s cultural, and we can’t do anything about it. But I say it’s criminal, and we have a responsibility to do something about it.”

Sigh. Ms. Albright, I love you. And it’s so true, too. We hear that, oh, well, women make less then men in the workforce because they are normally the ones who choose flexible hours, fields that don’t pay as well, etc. Ignoring the fact that the study accounted for whatever differences there were between “male” employment and “female employment”, the assumption that “that’s just the way things are” is ridiculous. That’s not the Natural Order of Things. So Madeline Albright gets serious props from me for pointing that out in her speech, and tying it to women’s rights.

Ashlee Simpson waxes philosophic on getting married:

I think [changing your name] is something that a woman should do when they’re marrying a man. It’s a tradition that I think is a great tradition.

Aside from using the same word twice in a sentence, which is irritating, she’s also kind of an idiot.

I think you missed a really essential qualifying phrase there, Ashlee - “if that’s what she wants to do.”

The finished sentence looks like this: A woman should change her name if that’s what she wants to do.

Sex and the City is back in a big way, and you know what? I’m excited. Yep, I have plans to get all of my girls together, make some pretty pink martinis and revel in the glory of Sarah Jessica Parker.

And I am a self-respecting feminist. So what gives?! I mean honestly, the entirety of the show was premised on the idea that these women didn’t need a long-term partner to make them happy, they had each other. And somehow, at the end of it all, they all end up partnered, and the cold, unfeeling Miranda is a Mommy! How perfect. What a happy ending. But I can’t wait to see Carrie don a wedding dress and finally tame Big. I can’t wait! I get all mushy and gooey over it.

I see this as the notorious third-wave feminist conflict. Feminists my age are fighting so hard against inequalities in pay, for access to sexual health resources and information, and for equal opportunities world-wide, and yet I am stoked that this movie is coming out and so are many of my friends.

What does it mean!? Sure, I am capable of separating reality from fantasy, and often used the show to escape from my own chaos, but how much of that seeped into my sub-consciousness? Maybe it sounds like I am being paranoid, but how much of that crap have I internalized? I find myself questioning whether or not my happy ending necessarily involves a wedding and children. Settling down. Blecch. At 22 years old, that sounds totally unsavory. But I still swoon over Big (ooh and Aidan). I have a mini-culture war raging inside of me right now.

I think it’s important to continually question the things that our pop-culture throws at us for consumption. I am fully aware of the ridiculousness of the show and have accepted that it doesn’t have to reflect on my own needs and desires.

None of that changes the fact that I already have my shoes picked out.

I don’t think there’s anything anti-feminists love more than to hold up one case of a woman who was involved with feminism, or experienced the movement firsthand, and is now repudiating it. What more could they want! How well that proves their case that feminism is all about hating children, which follows to the logical conclusion of killing those children, promoting early sexual activity, and being so unbelievably strident about their views that they disrespect anyone who doesn’t believe the same things. Well, lucky for them, Alice Walker’s daughter Rebecca, offered them up all that bullshit on a silver platter.

I mean, even the title does it - “How my mother’s fanatical feminist views tore us apart”. I think Rebecca forgets that one person’s experience does not necessarily make a trend. I’m not going to tell her that she didn’t have a hard childhood, that isn’t my place. It sucks that she didn’t feel that her mom cared for her. But to place all the blame on feminism is, to me, shortsighted and a bit intellectually lazy.

Although I was on the Pill - something I had arranged at 13, visiting the doctor with my best friend - I fell pregnant at 14. I organised an abortion myself. Now I shudder at the memory. I was only a little girl. I don’t remember my mother being shocked or upset. She tried to be supportive, accompanying me with her boyfriend.

Although I believe that an abortion was the right decision for me then, the aftermath haunted me for decades. It ate away at my self-confidence and, until I had Tenzin, I was terrified that I’d never be able to have a baby because of what I had done to the child I had destroyed. For feminists to say that abortion carries no consequences is simply wrong.

As a child, I was terribly confused, because while I was being fed a strong feminist message, I actually yearned for a traditional mother. My father’s second wife, Judy, was a loving, maternal homemaker with five children she doted on.

Where do I start here - yeah, it’s terribly unfortunate that she got pregnant at 14. I won’t deny that. But did she want her mom to be shocked and upset? If I were to choose to get an abortion, I’d like my mom to be kind and supportive, not freak out. Of course, that’s a matter of personal opinion. Rebecca just can’t get enough of assuming that her experience means that the entire world feels this way, and pulls out the strawman argument that feminists say abortion is consequence-free, painless, and easy. First of all, I don’t know one feminist who says this. The ones I know realize that it’s a difficult choice for a woman to make, not, as Rebecca seems to believe, a “Whatever!” decision.

The last section of the article is titled, apparently without any irony at all, “What about the children?”

Then there is the issue of not having children. Even now, I meet women in their 30s who are ambivalent about having a family. They say things like: ‘I’d like a child. If it happens, it happens.’ I tell them: ‘Go home and get on with it because your window of opportunity is very small.’ As I know only too well…

Feminism has betrayed an entire generation of women into childlessness. It is devastating.

‘Cause, y’know, every woman, simply by virtue of being a woman, wants a kid. It’s in our DNA, it’s not conditioning or society’s expectations or whatever. I’m not sure I want kids, but I’m so glad I have Rebecca to tell me that feminism is tricking me into thinking that. Bad feminism. I mean, really.

In case we missed her point all through the article, we get it in her last sentence: “I am my own woman and I have discovered what really matters - a happy family,” Sure, that matters to her. Maybe it doesn’t rank as high on the list of priorities to someone else. But now that she’s rejected feminism, a movement that apparently makes women into unfeeling, childless zombies, she’s finally figured out what she (and every other woman) wants: BABIES.

Rene Engstrom, artist of my favorite comic Anders Loves Maria, is back after a short break.

Anders loves Maria includes sexual content and real life relationship situations that doesn’t shy away from the “land down under.” Which, for some reason, gave someone the idea that they were allowed into the artist’s personal life. After receiving menacing calls and comments Engstrom considered leaving the online community. Unfortunately, this isn’t the first we have seen of cyberbullying. Women across the web are becoming increasingly more aware of sexism and sexual harassment online. With disparaging and degrading comments, groups, and threads on facebook, livejournal, and myspace to conversations and slurs about candidates, it is quite apparent that there is no place safe from the -isms.

Thankfully, Rene has taken the time to recover and her comic is back up and running and she should know that she isn’t alone; other women are fighting back as well.

Sparked by the violent harassment of Sierra, one blogger started a “stop cyberbullying” campaign. This was picked up by hundreds of other bloggers and an international women’s technology organization, Take Back the Tech, a global network of women who encourage people to “take back online spaces” by writing, video blogging, or podcasting about online harassment. — Jessica Valenti

Coming from a college town, I’ve encountered my fair share of guys who think it’s just A-OK to yell out their car windows, across the street, and from their porches at me about my appearance. As a freshman, I took it to be a minor annoyance, but as my super awesome women’s studies education continued, I was able to call it for what it was - a way for them to be able to make perfectly clear to me that they had the right to pass judgment on my appearance.

This led to me responding in ways that, looking back, may not have been the most safe, or the most intelligent, but I won’t deny the utter thrill I got when I flipped them off, or screamed back and saw their total look of surprise. Like, “Uh, what? She doesn’t just LOVE it when we yell at her from our car?” or “She actually had the nerve to respond?” I mean, I’ll be honest. It totally pleased me.

Now CNN’s got this story out, and the title says it all “Catcalling: creepy or a compliment?” I’m not really entirely sure on what planet having some random dude yelling at you about how sexy you are, or how hot, or how he would just love to take you home and [fill in the blank] is complimentary. But okay, whatever, I guess this is in the name of objectivity.

One of the quotes in the article is from a woman who is a health-care educator in LA:

“Yeah, it’s objectifying and all, but you know, if I walked down the street and didn’t have men looking me up and down and catcalling, I’d think, ‘Boy, I must really be getting old and dumpy,’ ” she said.

She’s gotten catcalls just walking her parents’ dog in baggy sweats. “I thought it was hysterical, like, ‘Boy, doesn’t take much to impress you, does it?’”

Trust me. They aren’t impressed. They aren’t so taken away by your beauty that they absolutely cannot control themselves. It’s not about what you’re wearing, or about what you’re NOT wearing. It’s about power, plain and simple. And I don’t buy the reason the article gave me about why they do it - “A lot of men have no idea that women don’t like being talked to in this way,”. Uh, what? You mean guys have no clue that women don’t like being treated like body parts rather than a whole person? They think that yelling something like “Shit girl, I’d love to be inside you!” is complimentary? (And yes, I personally heard that one when walking to the bar one night.) Bullshit. I’m pretty sure they know.