feminist blogs

...I got it. Bad.

Once I get over the flop sweat and panic attacks, I will be posting more frequently.

Until then, I am listening to Al Green and drinking valerian tea (when I'm not drinking something stronger).

Excerpt from chapter six, "The best feminist in the world":

[In the early spring of 2005,] the following letter was sent to every major pharmacy chain in the Twin Cities:

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing because I am hearing alot in the news about pharmacists being able to deny a prescription to a customer because of their beliefs. Is this your company’s policy? I’m worried about what this might mean for my family. It seems somewhat unfair.

Sincerely,

Sharon Black

Both CVS and Walgreens wrote Mrs. Black quickly, informing her that the corporation did agree with her that it was a bit unfair to refuse to fill a customer’s legally obtained prescription, but these companies felt obligated to allow employees to act on their sincerely held beliefs. Interestingly, Target Corporation demanded to know the location patronized by Mrs. Black before they would offer an answer. Whether this was an attempt to identify Mrs. Black as a crusading phony or a hot-to-trot slut with a year's supply of Ortho Tri-Cyclen, I didn't know.

“Has no one pointed out the obvious?” E sighed. “If you don’t believe in the Pill, maybe a career in pharmacy isn’t right for you, idiot!”

“I don’t believe in Viagra,” K offered hopefully. “But that’s probably just because I’m a lesbian.”

“As someone who hopes to have hetero sex when I’m old, I’m for it,” I said. “But if a guy can control his sexuality with Viagra, a gal has the right to control her sexuality too.”

E brightened. “Viagra is not for procreative sex!” she shouted, as our alarmed waiter dropped a plate of tater tots on the table and ran. “A religious nut would deny the Pill should also deny an 80-year-old man his Viagra! He’s not planning on being a father!” She scribbled these thoughts in her notebook, the place where she cooked up her best plots. E was, in fact, bypassing me for the Best Feminist title. That’s easy to do when you’re not constantly distracted by pregnancy-related constipation--the Grumpy’s appetizer menu was wholly fiber-free.

I told E and K the story of panicking at my own pharmacy several weeks before [during a scary second trimester bout with the flu], certain that my pharmacist would yell across the store that this SICK, DISGUSTING PREGNANT LADY was trying to procure CODEINE in a twisted attempt to GET HIGH and DESTROY HER BABY’S BRAIN!!! After all, we’d heard of restaurants refusing to serve obviously pregnant women wine, whether in the glass or in the soup. “You’re absolutely right,” E said. “It won’t stop with contraception. They want to regulate everything about our lives.”

“Would a pharmacist be able to deny the drugs that treat HIV?” K asked. “Because the person who needs them is a sicko gay pervert and he deserves to die?” She paled.

E looked up from her notebook. She had a determined, patriarchy-smashing smirk on her face. “Oh, it’s on, ladies,” she said. “The new CVS in north Minneapolis opens in two weeks and we will be there.” Best Feminists do not debate; they decide. E’s troops could only chew on tater tots and await their instructions.

Our marching orders were to round up all of our friends, print up a batch of signs and appear at the new CVS on the date she assigned. I allowed Matt to take Elliott for the morning, but I recruited my sister and her three-year-old son to join us. Like Elliott, he was a good recruit for any action involving stomping and yelling. This morning he was more sluggish than usual, preferring to snuggle into his stroller while he snacked on the donut holes I provided. I waddled over to the crowd and flipped over my sign for E’s approval. In black sharpie against a yellow background, I wrote: NEED THE PILL FROM CVS? THIS COULD BE YOU! I rubbed my chubby, overalled belly for effect.

[unfortunately, the glare on this photo obscures the top half of my sign, but trust me, that's what it said.]

"Holy shit," E said. “Shannon, you are the best feminist in the entire universe.”

I thought so.

....is not explained in my latest Minnesota Women's Press column, entitled "Candidate Confidential," but regular readers of my bloggery over the years can guess the reason.



George is correct. My language is sometimes "unseemly," if not downright "saucy" (and remember how that haunted unelectable Al Franken!). My campaign would only appeal to felons, vegans, 12-year-old boys, radical feminists and other fringey types.

I do accept contributions, however.

Depending on your point of view, last week was either a fabulous or terrible time to drive the tykes out to western South Dakota to explore all that the National Park Service has to offer. 24 hours before we left, I participated in a little Minnesota NOW business, then offered a few sentences of support to a candidate team that I like. I didn't realize that while we winding our way towards Mount Rushmore, pausing to admire the Corn Palace, the Akta Lakota Museum, and (shudder) Wall Drug, the media back home were going beserk.

Minnesota NOW endorses Entenza, not Kelliher (MinnPost)
DFLer Entenza get's women's group nod in governor race (Minnesota Public Radio)
Entenza gets nod from Minnesota NOW (Minnesota Independent)
MN NOW snubs Kelliher (Secrets of the City)

Of special interest are the comments, in which NOW is once again taken to task for not being supportive of terrific women leaders like Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin, for being old and stodgy with no members under the age of 55, etc. I was also accused of taking money from Matt Entenza's wealthy wife, which was especially hilarious considering I was tootling down I-90 with my husband and two children in a Hyundai Accent. A TWO-DOOR Hyundai Accent, I might add. If I were truly on the take, I'd be riding in a fucking Hummer.

Luckily, the chair of MN NOW's Political Action Committee authored a fine press release that allowed me to enjoy the mountain faces in peace.

Minnesota NOW endorses Kelliher, too (Minnesota Independent)
NOW MN endorsement WTF just AP reporter's goof (City Pages)

On our last day in Rapid City, I received a message from an editor at MPR who asked if I could spare a moment to write about my thoughts on the endorsement kerfuffle. I puzzled over this during the interminable stretch between the Black Hills and the Missouri River, which has absolutely nothing to recommend it (I remain shocked that a state so heavily dependent on touristing families has no Burger Kings in its boring midsection. Don't they know how much kids look forward to their goddamn mac & cheese meals?!). In a fleabag hotel in Oacoma I composed the following:

When feminists gather to endorse a candidate, surprise--views differ (MPR)

I imagine that this will likely be the last word on the subject, not because I am some kind of genius, but because the media moment has passed. Minnesota news junkies are already noodling over whether Norm Coleman will challenge Michael Steele for the job of RNC chief, if Lino Lakes' proposed English-only ordinance is racist or merely practical, if liberals should boycott Target for its support of batshit loonball Tom Emmer, if we should be excited that the 2011 Netroots Nation conference will be held in Minneapolis, a town teeming with Burger Kings.

It's nice to be home.

Excerpt from chapter six, "The best feminist in the America":

I was born in 1971, a great time to be a feminist baby. It was the Free to Be...You and Me era, and my parents were two baby boomers who, while not quite flower children, took to heart the political upheavals of their generation. We wore that record out. In our house, all people were equal and everyone had unlimited potential.

Outside of our house was another matter. Outside of our south Minneapolis bubble, the world didn’t look quite as free as Marlo Thomas promised. As much as I adored Princess Leia (and felt the first stirrings of heterosexuality whenever Han Solo smirked), I didn’t fail to notice that she was the lone girl in a literal universe of boys. Despite the big-ass weapon she wielded on the Tantive IV, she was still captured and imprisoned, wholly dependent on a hot space cowboy to rescue her. Little did I know that by the third movie she'd hardly be clothed.

Free to Be…You and Me provided a much-needed inoculation, but it failed to protect me completely. In one of my greatest regrets in life, I passed on the chance to study the drums in fourth grade because I dared not be the school band’s only girl. Instead, I took up the clarinet. I played it semi-happily for three years, unhappily for another three, then gave it up forever, despite my guidance counselor’s advice that music would look good on my college applications. All the while I listened to Gina Schock bring the thunder on my Go-Go’s albums, slapping out the beat on my thighs and wondering what she had that I didn’t.

In ninth grade, I talked my dad into letting me take a six-week crash course in guitar at the local Schmitt music. Included in the cost was rental of an imitation sunburst Fender strat with an amplifier the size of a large toaster. As the only female in the dingy practice room, I felt the disapproving stares of my all-male class every time my “Smoke on the Water” came out wrong. The male instructor said I needed to clip off my the nails of my left hand in order to hold the chords correctly. Trimmed nails?! Was he insane?! I was a fifteen-year-old hetero GIRL, for god's sake! I wasn't free to be anything, and that included a girl with short nails!

After the session I didn’t re-enroll.

I mention these musical failures because when Riot Grrrl appeared in the early nineties, I burned with jealousy when I saw what the women of Bratmobile and Bikini Kill were able to do. These women were my peers--nerdy, silly, college aged kids with a passion for feminism and punk rock. What did they have that I didn’t?

GUTS. And the shame I’ve felt from my tremendous lack of guts has haunted me ever since. Finally learning the drums in my mid-thirties helped, but those years I could have spent rocking are gone and they are not coming back. No one wants to go to the Turf Club to watch a band of Riot Moms, least of all me.

[In 2004 I become pregnant with my second child. Matt and I both fainted with joy when the ultrasound at twenty weeks revealed she was a girl.]I wanted a little ME. I wanted to succeed where my mother, often through no fault of her own, failed. My daughter would learn the drums. My daughter would know that wearing makeup is a choice, not an obligation. She would study physics and engineering and be granted tenure at M.I.T. Or she would study at Yale Law just like her idol, former president (!) Hillary Clinton, and she’d storm her way through the Washington establishment until her appointment to the Supreme Court.

My daughter would be so immune to patriarchy that she would be not only the best feminist in America, she'd be the best feminist in the WORLD!

Except for sex partners, I almost never pick a man for a job a woman can do. In fact, I often use this as a fine example of why I’m convinced sexuality is a biologically determined construct, not a lifestyle choice or a morally debatable behavior. Would I, a radical feminist, prefer to live in a commune of tough, hot riot grrrl dykes that exists totally outside the restrictions and physical dangers of the patriarchy? Hell yeah, I would! Are you kidding?! But they’d drop-kick me out of Amazonia once they learned that I couldn’t help kissing … yeeuchh… real, honest to goddess boys. Heterosexuality meant I was consigned to a life of struggling to maintain my sanity in a world where boys can’t help but gulp down the constant message that girls are objects designed for their pleasure and consumption.

That I ended up married to someone who loves, trusts, and respects me is probably the luckiest thing that has ever, or will ever, happen to me. Remaining married to him, with our love, trust, and respect intact, is what I will look back upon as my life’s greatest accomplishment. That’s how fucking awesome Matt Black is! Yeah!

But when I met him in 1997, I was certain he was gay.

For one thing, he was a great fan of opera, especially the stylings of a petite Italian-American soprano whose “Traviata” made him weep. Listening to opera was dangerous by itself, but enjoying it to the degree that you are able to discern favorite operas, performances, and singers was quite another. At the age of 26, with four years at a very liberal arts college under my belt, I believed in my gaydar. Besides, Matt fit a couple other casual criteria: he was cute, clean, and seemed free of any psychological disturbance. At the age of 26, I knew this type to be gay, unavailable, or both.

My dating history to that point was pretty horrific. I spent my high school years too shy to talk to boys, insisting that it was because I could find none who matched my love for the Replacements: I was just that picky. At college, I crushed on my fellow English majors, the brooding, sensitive types who were mad for Pynchon and Kafka, but I ended up dating science majors, the clumsy, near-sighted types who seemed like they needed me. Ugh.

....[Matt and I] it off immediately, which was yet another ding to my gaydar. But I didn’t know at the time that Matt was compiling a profile of his own. He sought the advice of a friend, the expert on our store’s jazz collection, who advised him that I was, without a doubt, absolutely positively, definitely a lesbian. After all, I wore no makeup, dressed like a twelve-year-old skate punk, and listened to Sleater-Kinney. Baby butch alert! Riot boi gaydar PING!

How on earth would these two crazy breeders ever get together?!

The ability to control one's reproductive organs is a RIGHT, not a privilege that can be legislated away. Am I no longer "pro-choice"? You better believe it.


From the Minnesota Women's Press:
MWP columnist wants to remove the word CHOICE from the feminist vocabulary
by Shannon Drury


CHOICE. A cursory understanding of the modern women's movement might boil down to one word. The choice to wear pants. The choice to cast a vote. The choice to enroll at Princeton or enlist in the Army. The choice to enter the workforce. The choice to use contraception. The choice to terminate a pregnancy.

This is the What Women Want issue, so I'll share what I want: the removal of the word CHOICE from the feminist vocabulary. It's no longer useful in advancing women's rights, for its message has been cleverly diluted, if not co-opted, by those who oppose feminism's goals.

Pam Tebow, the woman from the much-discussed Super Bowl ad last January, had a CHOICE to carry her baby to term (except she didn't really have a choice, as abortion is against the law in the Philippines where baby Tim was conceived). Bristol Palin had a CHOICE, at age 17, to have a baby (though many kids feel so desperate, being in similar circumstances, that they would hire someone to kick them in the stomach for $150, as a Utah girl, Bristol's age, did last year).

I suggest that women quit claiming that exercising our civil rights under the law is a matter of personal choice. When the 19th Amendment was adopted, suffragists didn't say they won the CHOICE to vote, though casting a ballot each November is not required by law and 50 percent of eligible voters choose not to do it.

Rights belong to all-choices belong to a few. This was made clear during the debate surrounding the Super Bowl ad featuring Tebow's story. Like Tebow, I gave birth to a son, but that doesn't mean I think my son, Elliott, will someday win a Heisman. Why, then, should I also expect that every woman who has a pregnancy test will be as thrilled as I was to see the positive result? The experiences of Tebow, Bristol Palin and yours truly are ours alone, and cannot be expected to set the standard for every other woman across the globe.

Rights assume differences. Choice implies similarity. Note that the current debate over health-care policy also uses the language of choice, as in "Rush Limbaugh had the choice to pay out of pocket for high-quality cardiac care." That statement implies that you have that choice, too. Do you?

I don't. A health-care provider I trust recently recommended I visit a highly regarded specialist, but I would have to pay $375 per hour out of my own pocket. According to Rush-logic, I could choose to visit this specialist, though that might make it impossible to pay my car insurance bill. I wonder how Allstate might react? It might insist on its right to get paid. A state trooper might also insist upon her right to issue me a citation for breaking Minnesota law.

Choices assume personal responsibility for every aspect of our lives. Rights assume that not everything will turn out as planned. Rush didn't intend to have a heart attack, did he?

The current health-care compromise asks women to plan ahead for abortions they may never need. Why? Because every enrollee in a health plan that offers abortion coverage must write one check to pay the bulk of her premium, and another check to pay the portion of the premium that would cover abortion services, even if it's as little as 25 cents. Insurers have to keep two separate sets of books.

Wrote the New York Times editorial staff on March 14, 2010: "It would be so cumbersome that it would likely discourage insurers from offering plans that cover abortion."

Because the rhetoric since Roe v. Wade has centered on a woman's choice to seek abortion, it makes it easy for foes to layer subjectivity and moral judgment upon the procedure. Imagine the riots if barriers were enacted to make it all but impossible for overweight male smokers like Limbaugh to access cardiac care!

You have a myriad of choices. Exercise your right to use them or not. But don't take them for granted.

Excerpt from chapter seven of The Radical Housewife, "Sisterhood is too powerful":

As I entered the world of grassroots politics, I was already painfully aware of my privilege. Why didn’t I beat the crap out of my baby when the going got tough? Some would say that I’m just better than that, but my gut told me different. I knew that I stood on a pinnacle of privilege that made making the right decisions easier, including white skin, heterosexuality, decent health, relative youth. I was born middle class, which offers a constellation of other benefits and expectations not limited to my college education. My husband holds a bachelor’s degree too, and together we own a comfortable house in a safe part of town that his salary makes possible. Our legal, heterosexual marriage entitles me to his company’s health coverage. In my baby’s name (and Ms. Friedan’s), I would Change The World. I wasn’t prepared for the clawing I would get on the way.

....honestly, though, I set myself up for my own savaging when I bragged about how my baby facilitated my feminist awakening. A woman’s compassion is considered genetic, not virtuous, for it’s expected of us well before we receive our first baby doll. Nurturing women are the rule, so they are not exceptional. Still, my compassionate drive was special: it would be put into the service of the Greater Good, in my vision of a unifying feminism that has no smaller goal than the complete dismantling of oppressive, patriarchal systems. Judgment would yield to acceptance, alienation would dissolve into inclusion. Equality and happiness would soon follow, etc. etc.

The Nurturing Woman is a female stereotype as vicious as any other. I learned this when self-described feminists sank their teeth in my bones when I suggested my toddler daughter might have a better role model in Hillary Clinton than Barack Obama when I wrote this column: "Imagine a pro-vagina world," May 1, 2008.

What follows is a heated letter submitted to the StarTribune on the occasion of my idiot governor's veto of a bill that would offer some legal protections to the surviving partner in a same-sex couple. As much as Sarah Palin was mocked for quitting her job, the alternative that we're living here in MN is a hell of a lot worse. Pawlenty is campaigning for national office at my home state's expense.

Dear Editor:

As a lifelong Minnesotan, I am outraged by the governor’s veto of a bill that would extend “death rights” to the surviving partner of a same-sex couple. It’s obvious that this governor cares more about making a statement to voters in New Hampshire and Florida than he does about the needs of grieving families here at home.

In defending the veto, Pawlenty claims that “marriage—as defined by a man and a woman—should remain elevated in our society at a special level,” yet I fail to see how allowing a gay man the power to execute his life partner’s final wishes threatens my own civil marriage. A lesbian partner’s wrongful death lawsuit wouldn’t rock my Minnesota marriage contract one bit, Pawlenty’s claims to the contrary. If he fears this law’s effect on his own marriage, he ought to spend less time on the road campaigning and more time at the governor’s mansion.

Whether or not heterosexual marriage is “special” has no bearing on the facts behind this bill. Minnesotans, as Pawlenty should know, have compassion for all families that are under stress. If Pawlenty spent more time in St. Paul, he might understand that. By vetoing this common sense legislation, he’s proved that he is either out of touch with Minnesotans, willfully ignorant of their wishes, or both.

Sincerely yours,

The Radical Housewife.

A note from one of the publishers at the Minnesota Women's Press reminded me of my long-delayed intention of talking a bit about a fellow Radical Shannon out there. Namely, Shannon Hayes, she of the Radical Homemaking book and series of articles in Yes! magazine. I appreciate her ideas (for the world needs MORE radical Shannons in it, not fewer) but she and I have totally different practices and goals.

Hayes's subtitle is "reclaiming domesticity from a consumer culture." As a committed pinko, I like anything that questions the status quo. Capitalism exists to make us all desperately unhappy sheep. The short term consequences are increased L'Oreal and Bud Lite sales--long term consequences are entrenched classism, racism, and sexism.

Hayes's book site states that "it is the story of pioneering men and women who are redefining feminism and the good life by adhering to simple principles of ecological sustainability, social justice, community engagement and family well-being." Elsewhere, she writes "in essence, the great work we face requires rekindling the home fires."

And that's where we part ways.

It starts with the word "homemaker," one that I have always found problematic. How does one MAKE a home? I haven't a clue. Is it by washing the floors? Baking from scratch? Quilting? Gardening? Reading bedtime stories? Nurturing relationships? I clean my home. In the interest of sustainability, I recycle and compost like a maniac, carry my cloth bags with me, bike it up, etc. etc. But I don't think that keeping a coop of chickens or canning the beans from my garden is the way towards a more just world.

For one thing, "rekindling the home fires" implies turning inward, reaffirming the family as the basic unit of society, just like the folks at the Christian Coalition. Now, I don't know if Shannon Hayes is religiously motivated. But once you start turning inwards, towards a unit that looks like you, talks like you and thinks like you, you start getting out of touch with the complex systems that conspire against the people who DON'T look like you!

Feminism is about fighting oppression in all its forms. That means we must work outward, not inward. This is why I must place Radical Homemaking on the Mommy Wars spectrum, despite its fine intentions. Examples of Radical Homemakers, the author included, have only been well-off, highly educated white women. Remember "The Opt-Out Revolution," anyone?

A discussion on the subject at Bitch led me to the blogger Vegan Burnout, who wrote: "to frame the choice between working a soulless 9-to-5 or building a backyard chicken coop and learning to can tomatoes as the only feminist options is reductive and insulting." It's easy to choose your choice when you have so many choices to choose from, so that when you do choose, your choice is automatically the best one! It's the Opt-Out argument from 2003 all over again.

So why did I pick the Radical Housewife moniker, then? Because I find the word "housewife" really funny. That's why. When I'm asked to fill in the box marked "occupation," I say I'm a writer and an at-home parent. The damn home can make itself for all I care.

Sorry, Radical Shannon. I just don't buy it (anti-capitalist pun intended).