We do a lot more than just sitting on our lazy asses, thank you very much

Last Tuesday, Debra J. Dickerson wrote a post at the MoJo blog in response to an article in the New York Times on the future of abortion providers about how “today’s feminists need to blog less and work more.” Yes, because all we do is sit on our lazy asses in front of a computer screen all day, nothing else. This was also troubling because it appeared in Mother Jones, a progressive and liberal publication. So what is Dickerson doing writing for MoJo, bashing and discrediting today’s generation of feminists and the current feminist movement?

She also wrote:

But you young chicks maybe need to go the Northern Exposure route, sending folks to med school in exchange for a few years running an abortion clinic. That feminist fire in the belly? I gotta say: Pole-dancing, walking around half-naked, posting drunk photos on Facebook, and blogging about your sex lives ain’t exactly what we previous generations thought feminism was. We thought it was about taking it to the streets. Harsh, you say? Uninformed? OK. Tell me exactly what today’s feminists are doing for the struggle. Besides posting disses against old chicks like me.

Okay, we may not be abortion providers or Planned Parenthood workers, but feminists today are certainly involved in activism. Activism doesn’ t have to be, and may not be, as big as “taking it to the streets,” but it can happen in smaller, still meaningful ways. If the personal is political, we can politicize and infuse activism in our daily lives in various ways, like:

- donating money or volunteering at a organization that supports and promotes women’s rights and equality

- voting for politicians who have pro-women platforms or endorse policies that support women

- spending time with/mentoring boys and girls, or young men and young women and showing or teaching them that they don’t have to conform to society’s suffocating and unrealistic gender norms/stereotypes

- helping parents raise kids free from gender norms/stereotyping

- fighting for comprehensive sex-ed and promoting sex positivity

- supporting gender/sexuality studies classes in higher education by taking classes (or majoring/minoring in) in those departments, signing petitions to save gender/sexuality studies at universities using budget cuts as an excuse to eradicate them

- boldly and shamelessly calling yourself a feminist and explaining what it means and why it matters (like how female physicians make 40% less than male physicians, or how relationship/domestic violence is the leading cause of injury and even death for women nationwide) to your friends, family, co-workers, etc.

- instead of sitting there fuming and seething when someone says something ignorant and offensive (racist, classist, sexist, homphobic, etc), you call them out and try to start a conversation with them why their comment was ignorant and offensive (sometimes people don’t budge, but you try anyway and hopefully that plants a seed for them)

- creating safe and supportive spaces where people can talk about feminist issues in a constructive and intelligent way (thank you, Women’s Centers and Women’s Studies/Gender & Sexuality Studies and yes, even the feminist blogosphere!)

- respecting the women in your life who have been positive role models thus far and letting them know that they are acknowledged and appreciated

- pointing out the pervasiveness of rape culture to your friends when they casually throw around the word “rape” or joke about it

To add more insult to injury, yesterday Dickerson posted “Don’t Trust Any Feminists Under 30″ about how young feminists today are cocky and refuse to heed the advice of older feminists. Dickerson, again, makes some egregious claims here. She says:

All of that to say this to the young feminists so offended by this elder’s critique: One day, you’ll have your own Jim story to tell. One day, when you’ve lived through more of this bitch called life, but without all that youth and vigor, you’ll hear yourself saying something like, “These young women today just don’t get it. Not like we did.” When you’ve made hideous mistakes you know were because you talked the feminist talk but didn’t walk the feminist walk. When that day comes, if I haven’t keeled over at my desk, please have the grace to call me up so we can laugh together at youth’s callow overconfidence and refusal to listen with respect, if not agreement.

Woah, slow down there with the elitism! Life is a learning and a growing process, so we are all going to make mistakes. Maybe we young feminists wouldn’t be so offended by “this elder’s critique” if this elder was respectful, gave constructive criticism instead of just petty insults and if she substantiated her claims instead of loosely grouping all young feminists as pole dancers who walk around half-naked, put drunk photos up on Facebook and post the details of our sex lives on the internet (yes, some women do those things but not all women are feminists – why, I’ll never know, for as Gloria Steinem said, “if you’re not a feminist, you’re a masochist”). Besides, Dickerson sounds pretty cocky herself here, not quite the sagacious and respectful elder she paints herself to be.

And then she writes:

I’ve earned my bitchiness and I’ve earned the right to be taken seriously.

On that point, I critcized a group. If you’re going to criticize an individual—namely me—you might want to check me out. Questions like “how many abortions has she provided,” and “how many young feminists does she know”? Please. Also with the ageism; again, please.

Look Dickerson, if you want to talk about ageism, look at the title of your post, “Don’t trust any feminists under 30″! How is that for ageist? Plus, how many young feminists do you know? Probably not many, or none, if you’re making these aggrandized, false claims. And you’ve earned your right to bitchiness? Because your experiences are that special and important that you are entitled to being petty, mean, and ignorant? Besides, that doesn’t do much to terminate the myth that feminists are all angry bitches.

She then continues:

Your generation just seems so complacent, la la la there are no abortion providers in most of the country but I’ll just go auction off my virginity and flash my thong with pride. I’ll excel from kindergarten through Harvard Law, then mommy track myself for a man who is not my equal. Then I’ll breastfeed for eight years, not because I want to but because I’m a bad mommy if I don’t. Unfair, but from love…So, you know, have a little respect and a hell of a lot more humility. We older chicks may be critical bitches but you will be too, someday. If you’re lucky. Would you really rather we didn’t give a damn?

“So…have a little respect and a hell of a lot more humility”? Look who’s talking! She oversimplifies all of the issues she raises and doesn’t speak about or reference them in intelligent ways. Auctioning off virginity is problematic but it also speaks volumes of 1. the premium placed on virginity (a social construct), 2. the obsession with/fetishization of virginity, 3. the ridiculously high and continually rising price of higher education, 4. the simultaneous hypervaluation and devaluation of sex in society (sex scandals always make headlines, yet we lack comprehensive sex ed). Taking the “mommy track” is a tricky issue and larger issues underlying this are: 1. the struggle to balance family and career, 2. “choosing” between having a family or pursuing a career, 3. the devaluation of motherhood in this country, 4. the lack of affordable quality childcare.

Also, what is with her calling feminists “chicks” and “bitches”? That is just plain rude and belittling. What is up with all these anti-feminists posing as feminists? There are already enough haters out there.

What the new Council on Women and Girls can do to be radical and transformative

The American Prospect has an article up by Courtney Martin, one of the feministing bloggers, called A Radical Vision for the Council on Women and Girls. She mentions several important things worth mentioning.

The council was created to address and support bourgeoisie women and their interests/issues, like afforded quality child care, family leave, and flexible work schedules. Meanwhile, women not pertaining to the upper-middle and upper classes and their needs/interests tend to get ignored. What about women who struggle daily living paycheck to paycheck?

As Martin writes:

We need to shift our priorities, and the White House Council on Women and Children can be the catalyst. There are some long-neglected issues that I’d like to challenge the council to take on, namely domestic sex trafficking, the HIV/AIDS infection rate among black women, and a federally funded, comprehensive sexual-education policy.

This is absolutely true – yes, family leave, affordable quality child care, and workplace flexibility are important issues. But gender/sexuality based violence, comprehensive sex ed, human trafficking/sexual slavery, affordable quality housing, HIV/AIDS and other STDs, should also rise to the forefront. These are legitimate issues that often get overlooked. It’s time to stop otherizing certain issues and thinking that they don’t happen as frequently in America, like child prostitution, violence against the LGBTQ community, etc.

She concludes:

What will make this proposed White House Council truly radical is if it doesn’t just serve the self-interest of the women with a seat at the table but the young women and struggling mothers who have been given the scraps of governmental goodwill for far too long. With these women as a top priority rather than an afterthought, this council could demonstrate effective cooperation among departments and agencies, acknowledge that you can’t look at gender without also considering class and race (and vice versa), and connect with grass-roots groups doing work on the ground, within their own communities. In short, it could be that transformative.

What could make the council truly groundbreaking and transformative is if it addresses the entire citizenship base, not just those at the upper echelons of society, if it acknowledges the existence, voices, concerns, and demands of disenfranchised women who are lower class or of color, if it acknowledges these women and the struggles they face in their daily lives and tries to work on ways to help them or improve their situations. Helping out those who are at the lower rungs of society will ultimately lift society up as a whole.

Everyone matters: Dignity and Safety for Transgender People

This video, “Everyone matters: Dignity and Safety for Transgender People”, was produced by Mass Equality with Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) and Mass Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC). Upon seeing this I was especially excited since a few weeks earlier I met Gunner Scott, the director of MTPC.

Everyone should/needs to see this video. It features and is narrated by trans people in their own words. It touches on various aspects of trans people’s experiences ranging from workplace discrimination to transphobic violence. Moreover it really drills in the message that transphobic haters don’t get – that trans people are human beings and entitled to the same rights and freedoms as everyone else. Anything less is a human rights violation.

“Women across the world have more champions in American government than ever before”

A lot of the stuff we blog about tends to be depressing… so here’s some rather uplifting news!

Senator John Kerry (D-Mass) chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has a fantastic piece in the Washington Times today where he writes about his creation of a new subcommittee devoted to global women’s issues and the need to push for greater gender equality. He makes several good points, including that across the globe, women are harder hit than men are in times of crisis. He writes (bold emphasis mine):

Women have to contend not only with an economic crisis, but also with discrimination. A UNICEF study found that women in the Middle East and North Africa earn around 30 percent as much as men do and women in Latin America and South Asia earn 40 percent as much. In some countries, outdated stereotyping leads to women being fired first: Men are seen as the legitimate breadwinners when jobs are scarce. During Asia’s financial collapse of the 1990s, South Korea laid off women at 10 times the rate of men.

From there he goes on to mention how women’s exclusion from the formal economy makes them increasingly vulnerable to exploitation like human trafficking and sexual slavery. Furthermore, as families scramble to keep afloat despite economic/financial hardships, girls more than boys are forced to drop out of school and work in order to help sustain the family. Being deprived of education and forced to work decreases their chances of achieving better and brighter futures. It also hurts society as a whole, as he says:

It is common knowledge that a small investment in a girl’s education reaps enormous rewards for an entire society – whether she becomes a doctor or learns to read. World Bank Chief Robert Zoellick has said, “Investing in adolescent girls is precisely the catalyst poor countries need to overcome poverty.”

It is amazingly refreshing and inspiring to have people in positions of power to highlight the importance of addressing gender/women’s issues both across the globe and within the US. After listing these global gender inequities that women face, he writes (bold emphasis, again mine):

These are the precise issues that led me to create a subcommittee on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to deal with global women’s issues. It’s time that we rethink our investment in the potential of more than half of the global population. We must look again at our international instruments and policy and strengthen the ability of women to make their own decisions and compete equally…

…Even as markets plunge, empowering women is one investment that is guaranteed to show enormous returns. If we keep faith with the enormous potential and promise of our young women, they will do things their mothers and grandmothers, and fathers and grandfathers, only dreamed of. And all of us will be better off.

Thank you Sen. Kerry for taking a strong, affirmative stance on women’s rights/gender equality. And thank you Sen. Kerry for emphasizing that women’s issues are not mere women’s issues but larger social issues that affect everyone. It’s about time that we have an administration that respects women and pushes for greater gender equality.

Hopefully this won’t just be all talk and we will actually witness action and results. But the new White House Council on Women and Girls and the subcommittee on global women’s issues is definitely a start, and you’ve gotta begin somewhere, right?

Yay! There is still hope left in this world!