Okay so you might remember an entry I wrote a few weeks back about a radio commercial, where a woman calls Vatterott college and talks about how excited her husband is about technical education:
http://spacefem.livejournal.com/560002.html

Well the other morning I heard the commercial on the radio again.

They changed it!

No joke... before I wrote that entry I must have heard it half a dozen times. I was sure what was said. Now the phone conversation is similar, same two voices, same topics. But the woman is talking about how "we're so excited about your HVAC seminar" and the college employee tells her "you BOTH should come in and learn more about our programs". No husband-exclusive language, nothing to imply that one gender or the other is more likely to be interested in technology. It's nice now.

This means I'm not a crazy out-there feminist after all, somebody else noticed. And what's more, somebody else listened and understood and made the move to change the dialog!

I'm very proud. I kinda wish I knew more about the story... who got it changed, who needed convincing, lessons learned along the way. I've brought up little concerns here and there where I work before, but I've never changed anything. I usually get the "thanks for your opinion" smile-nod-dance. I want to know how somebody got the attention of those in power, so much that they found budget to re-record a commercial that was already running. Wow, right?

There's this commercial on the radio these days for Vatterott College that goes something like this:

Lady on the phone: Is this Vatterott College of Wichita?
Lady 2: Yes how can I help you?
Lady 1: I just wanted to thank you for your seminar on saving energy and home efficiency, my husband is so excited about it!
Lady 2: Well then he should check into our HVAC curriculum, he can finish a degree in less than a year and make money doing what he loves!
Lady 1: Well we both love it when he makes money!

Wait whaaa? If you're paying for airtime and every second counts, wouldn't it be shorter to make this story about two characters? Why couldn't they have just had the guy calling for himself? Then I never would have noticed anything wrong, it would have seemed perfectly logical. Or even better... they could have had the woman call up and say she was interested in an HVAC program. Is that so crazy? Why did they take extra precious seconds to make it clear that the woman was calling for her husband?

Most days, I go to my fun engineering job thankful that good feminists in the 60s and 70s paved the way for women in technical fields. Then I hear something like this and think the road isn't so much paved as sort of mowed down and marked with a flag every five miles. "Ladies, welcome to the 21st century! You don't have to wait passively while men learn valuable technical skills, you can call the tech school for them to help speed up their enrollment. What more could you possibly want?"

So this article made me eye-roll today: http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/HomeMortgageSavings/WantSecondDatePayForFirst.aspx

The author basically says, "I'm a feminist but I think men should always pay on first dates, maybe that makes me unfeminist, I'm attracted to men who pay for things, men should show their love by supporting us..."

What?

First, if you feel yourself being naturally attracted to people who buy you dinner, you're not a "bad feminist" or a "natural woman". You're a human. Who doesn't like feeling special?

Second, splitting the check is tacky and complicated and of course I'm not going to go on a date with someone who thinks otherwise. If you invite someone out to dinner you should pay for it. If you somehow mutually agree to go to dinner without either person initiating the idea, just flip a coin. But don't split checks! Even with my girlfriends, I like to pick up the check and figure she'll get next time. Yeah, if a guy asks me out and doesn't pay, I'll wonder what's up with the cheapness.

Always watch out for the the "I'm a feminist but" articles. I'm a feminist but I shave my legs. I'm a feminist but I like dresses. I'm a feminist but I like men buying me dinner." I like it when people self-identify as feminist, but hearing those things makes me feel like there's a wall somewhere. I mean just subscribe to Ms. and read Backlash, you'll realize that real feminists are focused out at the world around them, asking questions and trying to frame questions to get people to think differently about the gender roles around them. There's not this invisible wall between the leg-shaving feminists and the rest of us, that's just not what it's about.

When you look backwards and say "Well traditionally men are providers, and I'm comfortable with that, so obviously I'm GENETICALLY DESIGNED THAT WAY" you're not doing a good job asking questions. When we use biology to explain why gender roles have to be a certain way, we can't go anywhere, the conversation stops, we just have to look backwards and stick in the same ruts we've always been in. In the early 1900s when women were trying to get the right to vote, a lot of their critics brought up the number of women who didn't want to vote. Did they have a point? Was that a good reason to hold us back?

Being a feminist is not that complicated. Are you mad that female human rights defenders in Afghanistan are getting death threats? Are you happy that a girl in little league pitched a perfect game against an all-boys team this week? You're on your way.

Are you able to frame questions to ask why gender roles are the way they are, look honestly at what makes you a woman vs. what makes you a human, think about whether your question could change society for the better? Then you're also on your way.

I'd rather you call yourself a feminist and get it wrong than not call yourself one and get it right. Most of the ones I know get it right, and using the label is a first step in getting help from all of us along the way, opening up the dialog, and learning... which is what feminism is all about. Baby steps.

I wrote the most recent feminism article on my website this weekend about National Sanctity of Human Life day. It's a holiday that our beloved g-dub signed us up for yet again this year so we could celebrate the unborn... although if you're over 18 and there's a war on, life isn't so sacred? But whatever. I linked to the press release on whitehouse.gov to prove how stupid the world still was.

Then today an alert visitor tells me that the link is GONE. Big 'ol 404 error... google has a cache but who cares? New staff! New .gov website! No more stupidly hypocritical holidays!

It's the little things that make you love the day.

in my forum, someone posted a link to _allecto_'s journal and it's got me thinking about radical feminism.

The first sign of a radical feminist is that he/she labels all (or most) heterosexual sex as rape, because women don't hold the privilege necessary to consent. I mean, if a guy holds a gun to your head and says to have sex with him, that's rape - you don't have the power to make an independent decision. If a professor or psychologist has sex with a student or patient, that's grounds for dismissal. Same story. So a radical viewpoint asks, "Why draw the line where most of society is comfortable? If we recognize that one member of a relationship has more privilege and power than another, than the sex is an invasion. Every time, every relationship." Societal privilege is a gun to a head, and taking the big aspects of our culture and funneling them down to two people in a bedroom doesn't remove that.

There are other aspects to radical feminism, of course, it's not all about sex, but that's usually the one that gets people fired up.

Obviously I disagree with this because, well, I love men, one in particular. My husband and I have a lot of long talks about race and gender, we're both very open to ideas about what our privileges give us. I'm white, he's male, neither of us deny that these things effect who we are, how we look at ourselves, and how we're treated by the world. The open dialog is what's important, though. There are white men I can (and can't) talk to about this. And there are black women who I can't (and can).

The entry we discussed in the forum was one written about the TV show Firefly, where she says it's anti-feminist and anti-woman. My basic response was that if you set the bar high and say "Documentaries about Andrea Dworkin are feminist" then Firefly isn't going to look very good. But the show makes me happy, because it portrays very real male and female characters, something you don't see every day.

But more and more I don't think radical feminism is an awful idea to have around. It's viewpoint diversity, for one thing - new ideas, new perspectives. It makes us all look at ourselves and where we are, and drives the left end of the spectrum further left (so I look REALLY moderate). And as long as we can get to a place where people say, "There isn't ONE type of feminist and I'm okay with that", it's healthy.

I have to admit... last night I watched "Corrina, Corrina" for the first time and I was a little creeped out by the relationship at the end, probably because of the viewpoints I've read this week. The story: white man hires black woman to take care of his daughter, and there's kissing by the end. I mean, the guy's been taking advantage of her the whole movie (she works extra hours for him, he doesn't pay her extra). It's set in the 1950s. I understand that it tries to send positive messages about tolerance and understanding, but it's still about a time when one race and gender DEFINITELY held all the privilege in society... there's no ability to independently say "no" to that. At the end, they have a romantic relationship but he makes all the first moves, that's what got me, what's could she say if she wanted it to stop? He sees her as powerless because that's what she is, he can't pretend he's not influenced by the culture. So the fact that she's happy and the relationship seems consensual doesn't seem to improve things for me... she's still heavily disadvantaged.

get what I mean?

I was at a candidate debate once where a question came up about disability. It turns out that Kansas is one of the worst states in the nation, in terms of allowing people to go on disability. Your right to disability is determined by a judge, who reviews material from doctors but holds the ultimate decision making power. Both the people at the debate and the candidates agreed that it takes years to get on disability, and people occasionally die waiting to get on it. I read on this website that the average time to get a hearing is 17-21 months, and even if you get a hearing, there's about a 1/3 chance that you'll be denied.

Which makes me wonder... if we make abortion illegal, except in cases where the health or life of the mother is in danger like so many people support, who will decide that she's in danger? Will we leave it to a judge, since there are legal implications to making the wrong decision? Will it take 17 months to get the case before the judge? Will the woman just have to choose between death and jail?

In case you were wondering, that's not the type of choice that us "pro-choice" people are willing to settle for.

back in the day when Hillary Clinton started running for, well, anything, I wasn't thrilled. I hoped our first woman president would be some cool independent outsider who clearly got where she was because of her brains and hard work. And I know Hillary's done good things. But why is she famous? Because of who she was married to. Okay yeah, let's pretend that her becoming first lady is just pure coincidence and she would have definitely won the senate seat had she not been married to a famous Bill... it's still unfortunate that they're married.

Because I think it gives millions of women the message that they can be anything! as long as their husband does it first.

But since I'm a feminist I tried to hold back a little on my hillary-hating, because everyone told me feminist LOVE Hillary, and I believed them. Or, at least, didn't want to piss off too many feminists, because I think I learn a lot from them... even when I disagree with one, I still learn a helluva lot more than I ever could from an anti-feminists, because anti-feminists are just not the critical thinkers that feminists are. I will stand by that statement. But because I'm an american, and americans always believe what they hear from non-feminists even when they try not to, I thought "we" all loved Hillary Clinton and wanted her to be president because she's amazing.

Anyway this post in the lj feminist community shocks me in a good way because they don't all love Hillary like I thought, they don't even agree with Gloria Steinem. It just goes to show how incredibly awesome feminists are, and how even when I assume that I'll make them mad... I assume wrong. I'm still not crazy about Obama. I've been an engineer longer than he's held a national office, and I haven't even been promoted to group lead yet. But that's an issue we can sort out later. For now I feel good because I can write about how I don't like Hillary Clinton, her giant health care plan, her support for the death penalty, her tax hikes, her votes for No Child Left Behind, and especially the fact that she's a democratic party insider who annoys me. Being female never did make up for any of that, the way I see it, and I'm not the only feminist who says it. there.

So... a few days ago I made an entry about women I work with and how they don't like the word "feminist", and most of you replied that it should be okay, they obviously support equal rights and we should dump the label, it's a pain. I got me to remember something about myself and labels.

I used to say that I was not pro-choice or pro-life, I was both.

Because I think abortion should be legal, I think it's necessary sometimes, I don't want to live in a world where I get investigated for a miscarriage. But I also think abortion is a horrible thing that should be avoided. So I since I wasn't pro-abortion, I figured I was pro-life. Then one day a little voice in my head said to me, "Abortion is a hugely political issue right now, and your politics are about choice. Every time tell people you're not pro-choice and why, you're also telling them that pro-choice means pro-abortion and that's why you refuse to identify with it. You're telling them that you think pro-choice people love abortions and want to encourage everyone to have them, even though you know that's not true. You want to act like you're above all these labels because you don't need a flag to fly under, but you're hurting the things you care about most, just for your own image."

and since I realized that, I've been pro-choice.

I've always called myself feminist. My reasons have evolved but the label has always been there. And sure, if you really think we can face our culture's fucked up gender issues WITHOUT focusing specifically on women, you don't have to call yourself a feminist. And if you think that the situation for women in this world is just as bad as it is for men, you don't have to call yourself a feminist. If you think we should just work to improve the lives of everyone in countries where there's no consequence for treating women specifically like property, owning them, raping them, abusing them, and you think that we don't need feminism as a specific discipline to pay attention to those facts, then you don't have to call yourself a feminist.

But if you don't call yourself that because you think the label isn't cool, or you something about the movement once alienated you, or you don't feel like contributing to discussions about what it should be or contributing who you are to the spectrum of feminism... you're just hurting it. You're focused inward, thinking you can support this big concept of "equal rights" without ever drawing attention to yourself by pointing a finger at one privileged gender.

Being a feminism doesn't mean you have to give up on saving the whales or feeding the homeless or improving things for men, it's just a tool. It's a lens that gives you the power to look at the world to see what it's specifically doing to hurt women. You can tell yourself that you can look through one big colorblind, genderblind lense and see the world's problems, but it's hard to fix something that you won't let yourself focus on. If you believe that cultures around the world are set up to favor men, then the only way to fix that imbalance is to pay special attention to women. Paying attention isn't easy on an individual basis. You can't go to Somolia. Paying attention takes a movement.

And movements take labels.

And that's why I call myself a feminist.

the women's networking group that I started at work is doing really well. we've got 140 members on the e-mail list, and it's been really easy to find speakers... I basically ask female managers, supervisors, etc to talk about their career experience and how they got to where they are, and I find it incredibly interesting.

Part of me still wishes the group was more feminist-y. I've talked to people about this a lot... when the group first started, I sort of indicated that I thought the previous version of the group wasn't "feminist" enough and people sort of jumped on me. The planning committee said I should probably avoid dropping the f-bomb because it'll scare people away. GREAT. Personally, I'm alarmed when women don't realize what feminism has and can do for them. For me, becoming a feminist is a very eye-opening journey, educational, important. Others see it as just really divisive and that bugs me, and I've been trying to think of ways to help feminism infiltrate my little career group.

example... there are a lot of discussions about work-family balance and how to run a home while having a career. technically I guess this is a feminist issue, we're all women who think that having a career is important. but I work with all men and see how often men take vacation when their kids are sick, worry about spending too much time at work, worry about the schools their kids are in, etc. So I feel like work-family balance isn't really a women's issue, it's a people's issue, and a women's group should be advocating that idea, not just talking about how to pre-prepare casseroles. It's almost like they accept the fact that balancing home life should be the responsibility of women, and I don't see it like that at all.

One could argue that all of these women are feminists whether they admit it or not. They have careers. They've joined a women's group, which basically means they acknowledge the fact that women's voices are important to hear. It's also a nod to the idea that the men at our company get to work with men every day, and this is a privilege, and being around other women for an hour a month on our lunch break is a way to balance that out (nobody but me is thinking that deep about it, but it could happen).

But personally I think that to be a real feminist one should:
1) Use the f-word. you know what f-word I'm talking about here. hell, I think it's more dangerous in the workplace than the four letter f-word we know so well.
2) Admit that we should be ASKING QUESTIONS about why women are a minority in our workplace. No, I don't think HR is discriminating, but we should be asking why so few women go into technical fields and what, if anything, we should do to help.
3) Work on arguments as to why women are important to have around, especially in the technical fields where they're so underrepresented.

I think it should be more than a fun social group, that's what I'm saying, I think it should raise consciousness and wake some people up. But if I express that, I'll scare people away, because these women are not feminists... there are a lot of conservatives in the group, very pro-life people who feel like feminism is useless to them, they just want to do their jobs and be strong in their own way and they don't need Our Movement to help with that. they don't see that they can be strong in that different way and carry the flag of the movement, add who they are to it, and that's more valuable because our culture doesn't see individuals as easily as it sees big trends, big groups, big numbers.

I think for now I just have to take what I can get.

today after work I exercised, then came home and made some pasta with steamed asparagus. I am so good. Then I cleaned for the last two hours. Question of the day: why can't I be good like that on the weekends? Saturday I woke up, went to the farmer's market, and bought the exotic pasta and the asparagus, then returned home and made a box of kraft mac & cheese. then laid around and napped in front of a Scrubs DVD.

I made an appointment to get my teeth cleaned, since I no-showed for my last dentist appointment. Yeah that was great. I called them last week to ask them about something, and they said I hadn't even shown up for my last cleaning... I felt so terrible I didn't even ask my question, I just freaked out and said I had to go. But the more I thought about it, I don't think my dentist office calls to confirm appointments! Every other place does, but they just give you a little card when you make the thing, and then six months later when it's time to come around they send you a postcard. Well, this appointment I missed was like a week after i moved. No postcard for our hero. I don't feel so bad. When I go in if they charge me I'm going to bitch about that. I hope they're cool about it, because I like the dentist.

feminist thought of the day: Last week I asked some questions in feminist about man hate and if it really exists. The conversation got insane, but before all that I gleaned a couple interesting answers by people who said that feminism, and its lessons about appreciating inviduals, actually got them to hate men a lot less than they did before they were feminists. That pre-feminist period was usually marked by some real woman-hate, too. But when you examine women's place, and start appreciating women for what they contribute, and see what we do and don't have in common with men, a much higher understanding sets in.

All the higher understanding aspects that come with being a feminist are seriously starting to kick in with me this year, it's my phase or something. I'm starting to see it as not just a movement, but a lens. This is what happens, kids, when you don't study something in college... it takes you thirteen years to start really understanding what the fsck people are making such a big fuss about.

sort of regarding last nights post about my non-feminist female coworkers... I'm tired of people seeing "feminism" as a more self-centered version of whiney politics.

and so from now on I'm done telling people that feminism means "believing women and men should be equal". Because for that, "equalism" would work, and it's a nicer word that doesn't scare people. It's also less effective, because it's bullshit. The world doesn't improve through equalism, just like my airplane isn't built by engineers. The world is improved by human rights activists, feminists, civil rights leaders, peacemakers, environmentalists. The airplane is built by electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, aerospace engineers, technicians, pilots.

At some point along the line somebody decided that you can't move forward by drifting towards some big light, you have to break the issues up into little bites. One of these bites is feminism. And here's what I've decided it's going to be...

• Feminism means actually admitting that society is set up, in a lot of ways, to favor and encourage men. Feminism means admitting that we have to focus on the conditions of women, specifically, if we want to make things better for both genders.
  
  
• Feminism means reminding your politically active friends that there are countries where it's legal or acceptable to kill your daughter if she's dishonored her family, and that the United States government continues positive diplomatic relations with these countries.
  
  
• Feminism means telling your coworkers that you're sick of women with families being seen as not as career focused, or "struggling for balance", when a man who puts a picture of his kids on his desk is seen as a good family man.
  
  
• Feminism means asking why men and women still seem to gravitate towards different professions, and society just can't seem to value or pay as much for the professions that are traditionally women.
  
  
• Feminism means reminding women that if they're tired of feeling like they "have to do it all", they need to ask why others in their lives expect this from them and how changing attitudes about women can help the situation, instead of blaming feminists for overloading them with choices about how their lives go. When men struggle with life paths, personal journeys, and coming of age, we write books and movies about it. When women do it we ask why those bad feminists made their lives so hard.
  

because we thought their lives were worth the journey. that's why. and we're right.

thanks,
sf the militant

I went to the recycling center yesterday. I'm actually pretty happy with how my new apartment recycling efforts are going. When I lived with the roommates, we threw everything away, and any attempts I had to recycle were just sort of lost in the shuffle. There were weeks when our big dumpster wouldn't even close. I felt bad about that. Now in the apartment, I take a bag of trash out like once a week or so. Friday night when I had the party, that resulted in a bag of trash... but one, mind you, I've been at places where we spend the whole night compacting and bagging up trash. I used normal plates and glasses, not throw-away stuff, I had boxes out to recycle glass, aluminum, and cardboard. I felt good about it. And recycling still blows in wichita... there's no curbside anywhere, you can drop stuff off in grocery parking lots but they don't take glass, the recycling center where you can take anything is only open from 9-3 on Saturdays. But so far it's worth it. A guy in my office is one of those conspiracy theorists who says recycling takes more energy than making new stuff so we should throw everything away and stop buying into the touchy-feely bullshit, but for a lot of things that's not true... from what I've read, glass and aluminum are almost always more efficient to recycle, and for other things like paper, if you consider the fact that the stuff you throw away is taking up space in a landfill forever, the cost of recycling doesn't look so bad. But he's a typical guy I work with who's sure he knows everything so I didn't start that whole debate.

also, nearly everyone I know who recycles is more generally aware of the packaging they consume and tries harder to reuse things and buy less overpackaged crap. because we know recycling isn't a magic wand, we know it uses energy, but just the act of looking at what you throw out makes you more aware. Progressive thinking feeds on things like that, all the time. Every single feminist I know is much more aware of race and socio-economic issues than every annoying "I'm an equalist" non-feminist... they love to point fingers and tell us we focus in on narrow issues, but in truth when you focus in on a narrow issue it makes you much better at seeing everything surrounding it. Whereas if you just look at the whole world and decide not to do anything for a specific cause because that would be too unequal, you end up just sitting on the couch every night. Personal experience talking here, I don't have hard facts to back it up, it's just how I feel.

Speaking of nebulous progressive movements, we watched Happy Feet and I hated it. The animation was sort of good but the plot was predictable and stupid, and all the characters were from, like, some CharacterMart they must have at hollywood. I picture these plastic boxes you can buy with "young rebelious different guy... as seen in Footloose!" and "fearful fundamentalist bad guy... includes deep male voice!" I checked it out on rottentomatoes and critics actually liked it which was weird because usually I agree with critics on movies.

today I would like to talk about my hairy legs. this story starts in high school, when we were reading Thoreau in english class and everyone was acting like they related so perfectly to his non-conformist attitude. he said people should be true to themselves, and everyone was like, "Of course I'm true to myself, I don't listen to anybody, that's why I shop at hot topic!" All I could think about was how we were so trapped by society we didn't even know we were conforming. I looked for obvious evidence of stupid things people did to conform. tried to figure out why people said they didn't care about clothes, but still didn't want to miss prom. why they said they didn't care about what clique they were in, but defended their lunch table seats to the death. and I really tried to understand why we were all the girls shaved their legs.

for years I struggled against this... it's a feminist issue, a naturalist issue, a conformity issue, an american issue. why is leg hair on women gross? we have head hair, eyebrows, hair on our arms, and that's not gross. guys can have leg hair and it's not gross.

so this winter, at the age of 26, with the help of a very busy schedule and an equally supportive "get back to nature" boyfriend, I just quit shaving my legs, and it was awesome. I have leg hair now, people! I don't look like a man... it doesn't look like a man's leg hair, it looks like my leg hair. I'm defensive about it; God gave me hair on my legs. The question now is whether I can keep it up through the summer, when we run around in skirts all the time. Next weekend I'm going to a wedding, where people will wear dresses and hose, and I have to admit that I want to wear a dress, does that mean I have to shave my legs? At this point it's like cutting part of myself off... or like shaving my head.

honestly, I don't expose my legs as much as I used to. I wear shorts for running, but everyone knows they're not really appropriate for too many public places, no matter what your legs look like. When I wear skirts in the summer they go past my knees, I don't like to draw much attention to my legs. I only wear slacks at work. I wear jeans to the nightclubs, partially because I think they look good, mostly because I can dance without worrying about getting molested (if you go to clubs, you know what I mean).

I just can't think of anyone relevant who will think less of me because I have hairy legs. I'm thinking of just going with it. I'm really pissed that it's even an issue. I want to be that cool girl who really doesn't want to give a damn what people think, is that so much to ask?

I didn't used to be so pro-choice, but then I moved to Wichita, where they shoot abortion doctors, and launch radio/billboard ad campaigns that lie about the effectiveness of NFP and tell women they're dirty and unpure if they're on birth control pills. I wish I was kidding, but I'm not.

A woman's entire life depends on her choices regarding when she does or does not have children, that's why this is a feminist issue. If you're like me and abortion makes you uncomfortable, you should be fighting to improve sex ed in schools, fighting to improve health care options for women, fighting for employers to make accomodations for mothers and mothers to be. In other words, give women more choices. Because right now a lot of them don't have a choice, that's really how I feel about the situation, and if we make abortion illegal that makes an even more hostile world with a lot less choice. That's not how things get better, it's how people get hurt.

trying to decide if it's a good or bad idea to write about things I think about when driving down highways alone.

I'm pretty sure when I originally started calling myself a feminist, I did it for myself. I wanted it to be okay for a woman to be an engineer. I wanted a concrete reason why I could be cool and single at the same time. I didn't want to buy trendy new clothes every year because some industry told me I had to. And if you would have asked me ten years ago what feminism would do for me, those are the things I would have listed, and I didn't really expect the list to evolve much. I mean of course I knew feminism was "for" other things and causes, but I wasn't a domestic violence victim or a citzen of a country where women are property, so I think I saw feminism as a very independent, somewhat isolationist kind of idea... it does some thing for every woman.

That philosophy has really changed for me. It's funny, because I predicted that as I grew older my ideas about relationships, career, God, famlies etc would evolve and develop, but I never thought I'd be a different kind of feminist. I guess I didn't think there were different kinds to be. But somehow the movement has gotten me to think of it outside the circle of who I am, and it's gotten me to look seriously at other women and value who they are. Secretly, I really used to write off women who weren't scientists like me, but then started to question why people outside traditionaly male fields were any less valuable. I used to hide the fact that I liked to crochet or write poetry, because those things made me feel "typical" and feminine. Then I started to wonder why society was so eager to pidgeonhole me into being girly or not girly, and asking why it mattered anyway. I mean, I hate people asking how tall I am, why shouldn't I be equally offended at people trying to assign a "feminine" factor to everything I do or say? And when you start thinking along those lines, you can't help but see the same things done to men... gender has to be expressed and categorized and mass-marketed, and mass marketing always means dumbing down and reducing to a lowest common denomiator, am I right?

I haven't tried to express these ideas in words much, so it's difficult for me and I struggle with it a lot. Just like I struggle to find my place in this society, and to be an example of the person I've discovered that we should all try to be - one who recognizes all the screwed up ideas about gender, economic status, race, religion, sexual orientation, everything else (they're all equally screwed up). I think that's what I discovered when I decided to be a feminist. It's not so much the idea that if I break out of this traditional sphere of womanhood, I can accomplish things, it's about the idea of reshaping the sphere entirely so it's not this thing you have to break, it's something big enough to fit all of us inside it. It's about free speech and getting everyone to use it. It's not about telling people to think about women, it's about telling people to think, period. It's about publicizing the fact that the media is really fucking wrong when they talk about big life issues... the money issue, the work/life balance issue, the finding your soulmate issue... as consuming only one gender. We are all thinking about these things in our own way, and we can't wrap our whole mind around these things

I became a feminist because I wanted to talk about what I observed, but it gave me more than a voice, it increased my observations exponentially and unpredictably. I think my new goal is to package it like that when I talk about it and tell people to be feminists. It's not just and idea you adopt to raise your status or help women here and there. I mean, it is, but it's more than that. It's something you adopt because without it, you can't grow. It's not about getting the kinds of food you want to eat, it's about getting to eat food you didn't know existed, and never would have known about if you hadn't broken out of the little isolated jars we all get put in.

blogger is refused EC

fabulous (and by fabulous, I mean horrifying) story of one woman's attempts to avoid unplanned pregnancy and abortion by using emergency contraception. She poses the moral of the story as a question, but personally I'd say that the moral of the story is this: If you live in a state where people sometimes judge others according to unfair moral standards (and Kansas is one of those states, local friends), and you're female, and you can imagine a situation where you might need emergency contraception, get a prescription NOW. And if your doctor won't write one, get another doctor. Then find out what pharmacies you'll be able to get it filled at.

I personally think it's very wrong for pharmacies to tell their workers to fill prescriptions for medicine if they feel like it.

I'm an engineer with great experience in the aircraft industry. There are a hundred reasons I'd love to work for Lockheed Martin or Boeing... good money, could lead to aerospace, could lead to NASA, you name it, but I'll never apply at those companies because I don't want to make bombs. I don't even want to work for a company that makes them, even if they told me I wouldn't wind up on a military project, I'm uncomfortable with the whole situation.

What I'm saying is that my company has ethics guidelines that they publish, sets of standards, and it's mostly about the limits to gifts you can get from suppliers and responsibility to report environmental hazards and all that, but my point is that they draw a line, and if I disagree with that line I don't have to work there. If you're uneducated enough to believe that EC is the same as an abortion, and you disagree with abortion, and you're working for a pharamacy that says, "It's okay for us to make money off something half our employees disagree with" then you're in moral gray area, okay? you, the worker. not us, the sex fiends. we know what's right and we're not using subversive, misleading tactics to make people think we're with them so we can turn around and not be.

Last weekend I read in someone's journal that Andrea Dworkin had died. I think it was on wikipedia, but nowhere else... so I ignored it. Chalked it up to stupid internet "rumors of my death have been greatly exagerated" type stuff, since she's only 58 and there are plenty of people who probably wouldn't mind her being dead.

I ran across more stories tonight... she died Saturday. a tragic loss.

here's the short review I wrote of Heartbreak about a year ago. I was a bit torn about the book, since I'm so libertarian, but she described such pure, righteous anger I couldn't help but feel like getting right behind her. In a world where we're surrounded by people who "play politics" and act diplomatic to all the wrong sides, Dworkin was a punishingly honest voice that everyone, especially women, should read.

Wichita is talking about sex. Nothing really new about that... wichita loves to talk about sex: pre-maritial sex, sex ed, birth control, gay sex, you get the picture. With all the sex talk in this town it's a wonder we can still make airplanes. Anyway this month the sex talk is about The Industry... a strip club opened up in Old Town (read: downtown district rejuvinated with city funding to be cool night club hot spot) and the council got their panties all in a wad over it. I guess topless dancing is illegal so they spray-paint their dancers or something? I don't know the issue, never been to the club (but I do frequent Old Town, yup).

So now there's all this talk about not only ridding the city of strip joints but all "adult" businesses... movie places, bookstores, and (God help us) those ever-popular "novelty" suppliers.

On the outside I've told my coworkers I'm 100% against this Holy new crusade, but on the inside I'm fairly conflicted. Our city leaders have said that these places are degrading to women, and on a couple points I have to agree. I mean, have you watched porn lately? It has potential to be cool but it's all so horrible... women are always in these submissive poses, acting happy when they get cum on their face. It's not just degrading, it's disturbing. Besides, I'm a feminist. I've read Dworkin, okay? Porn is bad. Now that I have the fundage I buy all my, um, novelties online so I don't have to go into these sleasy stores. I like Toys in Babeland, and Good for Her, The Smitten Kitten ("Put your pussy where your politics are!"). Pricilla's is creepy.

So that's why I'm happy to see the city council putting up a fight against the sex industry.

But here's why I'm unhappy: I hate the moral majority and their bullshit "family values" crusades. The people fighting these stores are the same ones who would probably tell me I shouldn't even be allowed to import a vibrator. I'm a libertarian for many reasons, but among them is the fact that the far right and their "let's protect our families by getting into EVERYBODY'S business!" make me puke. If you don't like ALL ANAL ON THE WESTERN FRONT, don't rent it.

Before the election, one of the steering committee members of my gay rights group gave me a wad of signs to hang up and a list of businesses who might be game. Most of them were coffee shops, bookstores, organic groceries, etc. Others were porn stores, and at first I was reluctant to tie ourselves with them, but when I went in and asked if the signs were okay they were cooler than any other business. The dude working an Excitement Video took down a crotch shot poster (quite vivid, I might add) that had been in an incredibly visible spot was like, "Yes, hang your 'VOTE NEXT TUESDAY' sign here!" It's like... they're my people! Freedom fighters! Everyone can own a gun, if you use your to kill someone, we'll punish YOU, not them. Everyone can buy porn, if you're inspired to become a serial rapist, we'll punish YOU. Hold people responsible! Quit trying to regulate out all crime before it happens! There's a reason Jesus was a carpenter, not a politician, we save the world by who we are, not who we throw in jail!

So the questions remain... is our hero one of those cop-out, pro-porn feminist? Or does she just put freedom and the pursuit of happiness (esp. if said happiness requires AAA batteries) above everything else? Is the sex industry bad for women? Is the anti-sex industry movement bad for EVERYTHING?

Big, crazy, millenium questions here people!

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18493

Interesting article about situations that arise when we start considering a fetus a human being.

When a fetus is the same as a baby, we think of it as a baby. It's innocent, for one thing, and deserves more pity than the woman carrying it. It's also a child in the eyes of the law: it needs our protection. If a child is in danger, the law comes in and removes it from that danger. We don't force kids to save themselves from abuse or neglect. When a fetus is a child, we'll might have to save some of them too, which means more and more forced c-sections, and pushing women to put their own health aside in the interest of the fetus.

When I was first a feminist I didn't understand why abortion was such a huge issue. I mean, it's so tricky to figure it out, there are so many questions, it's so devisive. I've come to learn that it's more the anti-choice movement that's devisive. As women, we know that abortion is a terrible thing to have to go through. I had a friend in college who had one, the decision wasn't easy, and she never, ever felt good about it. We'd all rather give women real alternatives: health care, paid leave, birth control education and access, acceptance by a society that's ready to call an unmarried pregnant woman a whore. Then there'd be less abortions. We don't like abortion. Having a child under the right circumstances is one of the greatest things that can happen in a woman's life. But by making these other, more sociological tactics of decreasing abortion rates the priority, we're called "pro-abortion". We don't think jailtime is the solution, so we're fetus killers. We don't think women should be criminalized, so we're murderers.

We value women as people. When a fetus inside a woman is more important than she is, she's valued beneath that fetus. We are no longer people on the same level as other people. We are only as important as our reproductive system. We are subject to every question. Our health is put in jeopardy the second we become pregnant. Trying to have a baby is no longer a joy, it's an obligation, and if something goes wrong you could be taken to jail. Imagine being on trial for a miscarriage.

Yes, I skipped the march for women's lives last weekend. Watched it on C-SPAN. I attended an art benefit for abuse victims, so I think I did my service to The Cause, but I still felt bad about missing the march. I've come to realize through the years why reproductive freedom is so incredibly important to women. So many things in our lives are influence by whether or not we have children. We've got to be able to make the choice.

And if you're pro-life, you can still be pro-choice, you can still be with us, pro-woman, anti-abortion. We all are. Just don't write the laws to make abortion illegal. Don't be anti-choice. Please.