Anti-Life: This is What an Angry Feminist Looks Like.

I don't remember the specific moment of epiphany when I realized this, but it becomes more and more clear the more I educate myself on legislation that relates to reproductive/sexual health and federal funding for women and children's programs.

It dawns on you slowly at first, but then becomes crystal clear and even painfully obvious. The epiphany? Right-wingers are against life. The moment you get out of the womb, they absolutely do not give a shit about you.* Okay, maybe they care if you're white, rich, male, and abled, but god forbid if you're female, disabled, poor, or any shade besides lily-white. They are as thoroughly against living as you can be. This is shockingly evident in HR-1, the Republican proposal to (de-) fund the federal government.

If Republicans were for life, and for the lives of women and children in particular, would they vote for HR-1, which slashes $747 million dollars from WIC, the Special Supplemental Program Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children? This program provides food and counseling for low-income mothers and families. It saves the lives of infants whose parents literally cannot afford to feed them.

Yup. It keeps babies healthy, happy, and alive. 

Aren't anti-choicers really into that stuff? Isn't the lives-of-babies thing like their whole bag? Funny...I don't hear the Family Research Council, or the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, or any other conservative group talking about the fate of the millions of women and babies who receive assistance from this program. Hm- this seems a lot more like hating on poor people and single mothers. How strange.

If Republicans cared about children the second after they exited the womb, would they cut $1 billion dollars from Head Start and $39 million from childcare programs? These programs provide a safe place for parents to put their children while they work. Without programs like these, children will get left alone or with incompetent caregivers, which negatively impacts their safety. Imperiling children...doesn't sound very pro-life to me. It fact, it sounds like another stab at poor people and single moms (the ones who are most likely to need childcare so that they can go to work to, you know, support their children).

When Republicans start caring about life in all its forms, I will respect their position on forcing women to carry pregnancies to term (well, I won't, because it's awful, but at least it will make logical sense).

When Republicans start fighting for nutrition for babies, for responsible care for children, for prenatal care for all women regardless of documented status, for the abolition of the death penalty, for the end to wars (what else is more anti-life than war?), for sound environmental and wildlife policy (do non-human lives matter?), and for the lives of the poor and the disenfranchised, maybe then they can call themselves "pro-life." When women's and children's lives are respected as much as rich male ones, then they can call themselves "pro-life."

Start caring about the quality of my life, guys, and the lives of my future children. Then call yourselves "pro-life."



*I am specifically talking about the folks in Congress who consistently work in this direction, as well as the people at various conservative organizations who directly lobby for these causes and call themselves "pro-life." I realize that not every single lay Republican holds these views, but find me a dozen of these law- and policy-makers who are against these specific positions and have said so publicly, and I'll give you five dollars.

Pink and Blue: From the Mouths of Babes

So I take care of kids for a living. (This statement is somewhat facetious, as I am lucky enough to have parents that pay for a bunch of my stuff). So not really a living per say, but you could say it is my main trade. Childcare is one of my most accomplished and marketable skills. I have a ton of experience doing it, and have worked as a full-time nanny for the last two summers.

And it makes me twitch when I see the extent to which children are gendered. From their earliest moments, before they are more than wrinkle-faced blobs, kids are subject to adult assumptions of how they should behave based on the gender they are assigned at birth. And these tiny people have ears, and they begin to internalize what you say to them before they can speak themselves. Children are sponges, and this comparison extends far beyond the fact that both things are clingy and often slightly damp. At a very early age, you will find them trying to figure out how gender works in our culture.

One of my frequent charges, who for the purposes of the internet we will call L, is male (as far as I know), five years old, and possesses the largest, roundest, and bluest eyes you've ever seen before. He asked me something very interesting when I was watching him recently. He had been remarking, with a sage and furrowed brow, on the oddness of the fact that I was wearing boxers which were slightly visible above my sweatpants (it was 8 AM, so sue me) and the fact that I had short hair, yet I was referred to as female.

He asked me, "Do you think you're a boy or a girl?"

Now consider the wisdom in that statement, delivered to me from about three feet off the ground and from behind a large gap where two front teeth are missing. Behind that adorable face, the wheels are turning like crazy as he tries to figure out all this gender stuff. He doesn't even know the word "gender"! But- he used the word think. Did I think I was a boy or a girl? How did I feel about the matter? Never mind everybody else, what did I think, personally?

L. wanted to know how I felt about my gender, and that is more courtesy than most adults will give you. I speak broadly and I certainly do not speak for everyone, but I believe the average gender-variant/transgender/genderqueer individual would kill for that kind of consideration from the world at large. I consider myself to be somewhat genderqueer, though generally comfortable with female-oriented labels, and nobody would ever think to ask me this. I was stunned, and in the best possible way.

I managed to steer the question away from myself (as prescient as he is, the concept of genderqueerness is still a little heavy for a first-grader) and instead took the time to talk to him about how we are all allowed to like whatever we like, and how there is no "girl stuff" or "boy stuff" or even really sharp divisions between "girls" and "boys," but instead there is just "stuff," and "people." He took it all in better than any adult to whom I've ever had to explain the gender spectrum.

What I'm saying- "my point, if I had one," as my father would say- is that despite all the binary messages that children get from the world at large, they are sponges. They will listen if you speak! And if you tell them not to worry about boy/girl and pink/blue, then, when they grow up, we might find ourselves with a generation that is easy in their minds, in their bodies, and in their genders- whatever those genders may be.

VIrgin/Whore: I wish we could stop talking about it

Fellow college-age blogger Abi wrote this post about “purity,” and about kids being kids, over-sexualization, etc., and I have some things to say about it. Her whole post can be found here: http://imhavinsuchagoodtime.blogspot.com/2010/06/what-shame.html

First of all, I don't like “purity.” I really don't like it. This concept has been used right up to the present day,as a way to make women act in a certain and prescribed manner. There should be no expression of sexuality because that threatens patriarchal control over women's lives. These ideas, when run through the modern Christian right-wing movement, make people say things like this, from Abi's post:

“What does it matter if I have sex with every guy I'm attracted to, or even not attracted to? Why shouldn't I? Girls and guys are crumpling to the demands of society, of peer pressure, of lust, and of pure emotion with no backing. It seems we've forgotten the power that comes with purity.”

Falling to peer pressure is bad. And the reason it happens is because society creates this pressure cooker, in which sexuality has to be proven, performed, gossiped over, and salaciously relished.

The problem is, this pressure cooker is, at least partially, created by an adherence to “purity” and virginal behavior as the ideals that women should aspire to. If you're supposed to be a “good girl,” who doesn't exercise her sexuality or flash any skin, and then you deviate from this norm, it becomes a big frackin' deal that everybody has to discuss, gossip, salaciously relish. It wouldn't be salacious if that unreasonable virginal ideal wasn't there, and if we could safely exercise our sexuality with whomever we saw fit.

If we didn't have to fit the modest mold of the virginal pure girl, then we wouldn't have the “bad girl” or the “fallen woman” archetypes, either, and we might have just that much more freedom without the fear of retribution, judgment, and hatred. If we, as a society, didn't create this framework to hold women and femininity captive, wouldn't everyone of all genders be that much freer to explore and play and flaunt as much as they pleased?

So where is the power that comes with purity? I can only see this emphasis on circumscribed sexuality as a highly negative force. Abi goes on to say the following:

“I wore overalls until sixth grade. I didn't wear make-up until eleventh. I was running around and having a super childhood, and I didn't care to be older than I was, wear short skirts, talk on a cell phone, or chase boys. Now I look at young girls and they're all dressing like little whores “

First of all, I can't stand the narrative of makeup as a bad mature thing that you're not allowed to use until you're older. I'm glad that I got a ridiculous shiny purple makeup box when I was around 11 or so that let me turn my face into a work of art. I wanted peacock-blue eyelids and green lips and glitttery cheeks. I wanted to be a chrome-washed robot or a jeweled space alien, and that goofy technicolor kiddie makeup let me express anything I wanted in the safety of the bathroom mirror. Later, when I got involved in theatre, I learned the importance of makeup as a mask, as an illusion, that lets you become anything and anyone. Makeup is just a thing, and it can be used in negative ways just like anything else. But cosmetics are in no way intrinsically bad, and they can be amazing in many ways. Makeup lets you become both the canvas and the artist, so don't demonize the paints.

Secondly, I don't think it's okay to say that “all” young girls dress like prostitutes- or to use the word “whores” in reference to young girls, period. I don't think it's true, for one- in my personal experience as a babysitter and nanny, I have encountered very few little girls who didn't dress their age. The little girls that I've had the pleasure to take care of have been running around in muddy jeans and sneakers (and yes, overalls!), very much enjoying their childhoods. This is where I would say, at least on the basis of what I've seen, that the kids are generally doing all right.

But I do believe that over-sexualization is a problem, especially when it is foisted onto young people at an age when they aren't able to first figure things out on their own, and so they start mimicking what they see on TV and the internet and all the other oh-so-youth-corrupting forces of today. The cultural narrative that frames sex as a performance that you should start on right away if you want to be cool and accepted has obviously got to change.

It is precisely because of this performance-oriented attitude that I think we, as a people, need to stop holding "purity" as the only acceptable way to perform sexuality. If we uphold purity as an ideal, we stifle self-expression and the healthy exploration of an essential part of life.

So, over-sexualization is bad, and so is the imposition of “purity,” and they are two sides of the same coin. Every time we, as a society, impose either side of this dichotomy, we are getting up in young people's sexual business, which is totally unwise and utterly unfair to everyone involved. Don't impose strictures of shame and fear on exploration, experience, and physical learning. Instead, provide open, inclusive, available, and scientifically accurate sex ed, and let kids do their thing. Young people are not idiots, and they have opinions and brains of their own. They are not going to engage in behavior they're not ready for if they're given an open and safe cultural environment where they can choose how to develop and explore their sexual lives. 

It is so hurtful for the norm, the ideal, the aspiration, to be “purity.” That's what you're supposed to strive for, and if you fall short, then you're just a whore. But if you take away that expectation, that don't-you-dare-explore-because-it's-bad mentality? And you have a much more open and free space for sexuality in society, where young people can be sexual at their own pace, in safe environments, when they choose to do so.

This is all from a pretty hetero-centrist perspective, as you can tell. I am talking basically about straight kids, since queer culture (to make a large generalization) usually tends to be more sex-positive and less slut-shamey.

Other people have written about this issue far more brilliantly, so check out Jezebel has to say about a very creepy aspect of this whole business- purity balls.