feminist blogs

Today is the U.S. National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers.

In a different world, doctors who provide abortions would just be regular doctors. In this one, they — along with the nurses, administrative staff, and volunteers who work along side them — are uniquely courageous. For providing routine medical care, abortion providers face harassment, ostracization, protesters, threats, violence, and as with Dr. George Tiller, even murder. Giving up their jobs would be far, far easier than doing them.

But legalization of abortion is absolutely nothing without access. Just like those who try to frighten them out of their work, abortion providers know this. And so they continue, even in the face of danger. They do the best they can, in spite of the restrictions they must adhere to and the roadblocks thrown in their patients’ way, to ensure that everyone has a right to their own body, and that no one is forced to carry a pregnancy to term when they cannot or do not want to. Abortion providers are, quite frankly, heroes.

If you know someone who works in an abortion clinic, take them out to dinner, buy them some flowers, or just sit them down and tell them that you appreciate what they do. If there’s a clinic that performs abortions near you, drop in and say a quick thanks. And if you’re online reading this right now, head on over to the National Abortion Federation website, and write a note of appreciation.

If you’re able, today would also be an excellent day to financially support those organizations that make abortion access possible. The National Abortion Federation (NAF) is a professional association of abortion providers in the United States and Canada, that offers training for abortion providers and referrals for patients. The National Network of Abortion Funds helps women with limited funds to afford their abortions. And Medical Students for Choice work to destigmatize abortion care and make it a regular part of medical training. They would all be worthy of any donation you could give.

(Video transcript below the jump)

Chally recently posted a reminder about International Women’s Day coming up on Monday, March 8th. There are all kinds of events taking place all over the world, but I received an email about one particular set of events that I thought I’d highlight here.

As most blog readers are probably aware, due to war, women in both Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo face incredibly high rates of rape and other violent assault. On March 8th, Congolese and Rwandan women are taking action to demand an end to war and violence against women. Via the email:

On March 8, hundreds of Congolese and Rwandan women will unite on a bridge to demand an end to the violence that has caused 5.4 million deaths and hundreds of thousands of rapes. They will tie together banners of fabric on which they’ve painted their visions for a peaceful future.

To honor and support their resilience, Women for Women International is hosting a global campaign – Join me on the Bridge – which will replicate that meeting at bridges in different cities all around the world in a show of global solidarity. Already supporting the Congolese and Rwandan women in their call for war’s end will be thousands of women from Bosnia, Kosovo, Sudan, the UK and the US.

In New York City, we are rallying people to the Brooklyn Bridge at noon on Monday, March 8. Sponsors such as kate spade new york, Marie Claire and the ONE campaign are also joining us. Project Runway’s Tim Gunn will be in attendance. Self-organized bridge events will also be taking place in other cities, towns and schools nationwide.

Check out the Women For Women International website to see all of the events that will be taking place. The two largest events will take place in New York and London, but there will also be many, many events in other cities. Most are in the U.S. and U.K., but there are also events in countries such as Australia, Canada, India, Mexico, and Nigeria. Almost all of the events will be held on either March 7th (this Sunday) or March 8th (Monday). Please consider attending if there’s one near you.

Video Transcript:

Video shows a collection of images of women from the DRC and Rwanda, including both still photos and video. Images include women smiling, embracing each other, teaching in a classroom, holding their children, and working.

Voiceover: Women across the globe are living amidst violence, yet dreaming of peace. Women for Women International is asking you to join us to honor women survivors of war. March 8th is International Women’s Day. Join me, along with thousands of women and men on bridges around the world. Join us in solidarity with women of both Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who will unite to call for an end to war.

Two women: (speaking into camera, each giving a “thumbs up” sign) Join me on the bridge

Voiceover: Join me. Say yes to peace and hope.

Women for Women International logo

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about these organizations geared toward creating an “old girls network” or groups that aim to train women to run for office, negotiate a promotion, manage finances, get ahead at work, that sort of thing. I’ve been personally involved in handful, the Women’s Information Network, the Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership, and the Women’s National Democratic Club.

So, a couple things – one, I would like to hear about more groups like these. They can be incredibly valuable. It’s been ten years since I attended the Woodhull retreat and I still regularly think about the public speaking portion. In the comments, tell us about a local women’s network you’re a part of.

Two, there’s a new group launching in DC. It’s called Next Step:

Next Step is a bipartisan professional development program geared towards young women aged 23-27 with 2-4 years of work experience and a passion for politics. Our purpose is to provide practical, hands-on training aimed at developing professional confidence and fostering the advancement of the next generation of women political leaders. These women can expect to leave the program self-assured with a thorough understanding of the professional political environment. We are the bridge to help women get from where they are to where they want to be.

The 2010 Next Step program will be held at The George Washington University from June 2-6, 2010.

They’re having a launch party here in DC on March 4, worth checking out. As a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, I have to smile at their special guest Dana Perino, but hey. I’d still be very interested to talk to only the second female White House Press Secretary.

I feel like I should pass this along for those of you still optimistic we can get something good through Congress… from MomsRising:

For the last week, a group of health insurance company survivors has been walking from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. in honor of Melanie Shouse, a healthcare activist, who had breast cancer and recently died because she couldn’t find affordable healthcare.

When they get to DC, we need to be there to meet them and send a message to Congress: Listen to America’s families, not the insurance companies. Pass healthcare reform that works for us, now.

Can you join us? Here are the details:

Where: In front of Union Station – Washington, DC

When: Wednesday, February 24th – 12:00 pm

Please RSVP to: donna@momsrising.org

We will meet the marchers at Union Station at 12 pm and march with them the last mile to Capitol Hill, where we’ll have a rally at the Dirksen Office Building (Room 50) with Members of Congress at 2 pm.

(Make sure to arrive a little early at Capitol Hill so you have enough time to get through security, and please don’t bring any large bags, it can slow down the process.)

We need to stand together and make sure Congress hears us! No more excuses. No more politics. We need healthcare reform now!

We’ve got to stand up and make sure they don’t turn back now, not when we’re so close.

Can you join us at this rally? It’s crucial we get this message out that Congress must get reform done, and get it done right.

Hope to see you there!

I’m old and cynical now, but when I was young and idealistic, I was all about this kind of thing. I still love a good training. I’d love to hear from someone who attends.

The National Women’s Law Center is now accepting applications for the 2010 Progressive Leadership Advocacy Network (PLAN) program.

PLAN supports a diverse group of emerging advocacy leaders working to make positive change for low-income women and their families.

Emerging leaders across the country are encouraged to apply. The deadline for applications is February 8.

Apply today!

The PLAN program experience includes:

* Participation in the intensive, three-day PLAN Spring Institute for new members;
* Ongoing strategic leadership, policy, and advocacy learning opportunities; and
* Access to individualized technical assistance from NWLC policy and advocacy staff.

By strengthening their leadership and advocacy skills and in-depth policy knowledge, the PLAN program helps advocates sharpen their abilities and deepen their understanding of the steps they need to take to be effective leaders.

A couple of weeks ago, I shared a video for the No Abortion Ban campaign by Center for Reproductive Rights. As I mentioned in that post, there was a call for others to participate by sharing what they don’t want their tax dollars spent on. The people have spoken, and here’s their response. (A transcript is available after the jump.)

[Jay Smooth, speaking to camera, with the words 'Last Time...' on the bottom left corner.]

Smooth: There are some members of Congress who are committed to stripping abortion coverage from our health care, and the Hyde Amendment is how they do it. Everyone in America disagrees with where some of their tax money goes, but nobody else ever gets to pick and choose where their tax money goes, so we need to speak out on this right now.

[Text on screen says: 'And you did.'
Instrumental music starts playing and continues to play in the background for the rest of the video.
Rectangular frames with rounded corners appear on top of each other so that you can see the top frame and part of the frames below it. Each frame features a different responder their their name in caps. When the clip is over, the top frame peels away and shows the one below it. The effect resembles turning through a pack of photos.]

Marisa: Some in congress don’t want federal money going to fund abortion.

Lizz: I don’t want my tax dollars going to fund torture prisons in Cuba.

Xena: Imprisoning and torturing people who have never had a fair trial.

Emmily: I don’t want my tax dollars spent on the fairytale secrets of abstinence-only sex ed.

Matthew: I don’t want my tax dollars spent on discharging men and women from the military because they’re gay. Almost twenty thousand dollars each time.

IAmDrTiller: Some members of congress don’t want tax dollars spent on abortion.

Jen: Well I don’t want my tax dollars to fund the death penalty.

Omer: [holding photo of bomber plane next to face] I don’t want more than a billion of my tax dollars going to fund the F-22 bomber, a plane the military doesn’t even want.

Lee: From now on, I think the defense department should send us each a list of all the crazy stuff they’re doing and, uh, we get to pick which ones we want to fund.

Amie: I don’t want my tax dollars going towards crisis pregnancy centers.

Whole Women’s Health: [group of five in the frame, one speaks] We don’t want our tax dollars spent on

Whole Women’s Health: [one person in the frame] Law enforcement that fails to protect the women we serve.

Leila and Tara: [Two women in the same frame, one in front, one woman a few feet behind her.]
Woman in back: I don’t want my tax dollars spent on keeping me from marrying you.
Woman in front: [cringes and turns to face woman in back] I don’t want to marry you.
[Woman in back looks sideways and slaps knee. Both women laugh.]

[Rectangular frames removed, showing a dark background with text on the screen. Each sentence that follows appears on the screen after a few seconds. Text on screen says: 'Hyde blocks abortion coverage for millions. The new healthcare bill expands Hyde restrictions to millions more. No one else gets to pick and choose where our tax money goes. Stop unjust special treatment. Help millions.']

[Text on screen says 'noabortionban.org' with voice over by Jay Smooth.]
Smooth: For more on the fight for reproductive rights worldwide, go to noabortionban.org today. Thank you.

(Cross-posted at Jump off the Bridge.)

The subject of work/life balance is never far from my mind. Now that I have an infant and a toddler, I spend a lot of time weighing if I have the time to take them to the pediatrician, make it to that daycare parents meeting, or get home at a reasonable hour. I dread them getting sick not only because I want them healthy, but also because I have so little sick time. And under no circumstances can I get sick and stay home myself.

So this year, the women behind Fem2.0 have launched a campaign around work/life in our communities. They’re doing a whole blog radio series from January 25-February 5 (you can hear it here), and a blog carnival February 6-13.

Fem2.0 is kicking off the New Year with Wake Up, This Is the Reality!, a campaign to help change the way Americans talk and think about work and to begin shifting the national narrative away from privileged “balance” and corporate perspectives to one that reflects the reality on the ground for millions of Americans and American families.

…

In the inaugural show, Elisa Camahort Page, co-founder of BlogHer, will interview Joan Williams, director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California – Hastings, and Heather Boushey, senior economist at the Center for American Progress, about their new report, The Three Faces of Work/Family Conflict: Can Americans Care For Their Families Without Losing Their Jobs? To be released later this month, the report considers the impact of work policies on American workers and families at different income levels, revealing the all-too-common, gut-wrenching choices Americans face between being able to care for loved ones and being able to pay the bills.

Future shows are on work/life and men, in the GLBT community, for single women, in communities of color, for seniors, and on and on. Worth checking out.

Via (read ahead before clicking through) Melinda Tankard Reist, via @The_Ausmerican, Australian men’s fashion company Roger David are selling some rather horrific and misogynistic t-shirts. The information I’ve found has been unclear, but these appear to be available through a line, or in association with a label, called “Blood is the New Black”.

I’m not going to show you what the t-shirts look like on here, you can click through to Melinda Tankard Reist’s site if you want to do that. I’ll briefly describe them, though, so if you’re not inclined to hear about it, skip ahead to the next paragraph. The Annie Hollywood t-shirt features a gagged woman; the text on the gag reads ‘Hollywood’. She looks tired and bleak and defeated. The second t-shirt features, in black and white, two women posing in their underwear. One is grabbing her crotch, the other her bare breasts. There is one large black strip placed over both their eyes, as though obscuring (in this case, forcing them out of) their identities. Both t-shirts are quite jolting.

Every time I see something like this, I wonder how anyone can stomach putting such products on the market. They are putting women’s images and women’s experiences of violence, abuse and objectification up for sale. As though it’s stylish. I think about the large number of people who must have had to design and approve these t-shirts. I think about how a marketing team must have seen fit to send them out to the general public, because they knew lots of people would buy them. The thing is, these are not abstract fashion statements. They’re statements about how it’s acceptable to harm women.

The horror of this is in more than just the commodification of violence against women. It’s not just about the buying and selling of images, symbols of women’s oppression. It’s about the survivors of violence having to endure these t-shirts being thrust in their faces when they walk down the street, at a party, going about their everyday lives. The horror in this is in forcing on these women reminders of their assaults and that their experiences and feelings are just fine to use and make a profit from, so void of emotional hardship as to be suitable fodder for an up-market fashion chain.

There is a contact form on Roger David’s (rather unnavigable, I’m afraid) website which you can use to let them know what you think. A warning: the first t-shirt features as you load the page. Curiously – though it may be the website design – I can’t seem to locate the second t-shirt on the website itself, and the first one only features in the page design rather than in the collection sections. However, it’s been my experience that a company will take offending products off a website and continue to sell them in stores, at least for a time; to the best of my knowledge, Roger David have yet to withdraw the t-shirts from stores. In any case, in addition to the contact form on the website, Roger David has a Facebook page, in case you wish to contact them through there. (It seems that the t-shirts were on the Facebook page and have been taken down.) Feel free to take wording from this post when you write to them.

Re-posting this. Hope many of you can make it tomorrow! Please come say hi if you do.

If you’re in New York, I hope you’ll join me on Friday at a benefit that some friends and I have put together for Hope for Haiti. We are asking for a minimum $10 donation at the door (of course anything else you can give is more than welcome). 100% of the proceeds will go to Hope for Haiti, an organization whose mission is to improve the quality of life for Haitian people, particularly children, through education, nutrition, and healthcare. They are on the ground now and are offering much needed aid to survivors. Perhaps most importantly, they are based in Haiti and will be there for the long run — they were there before the earthquake, and they will be there long after. You can read more at http://www.hopeforhaiti.com.

The details of the fundraiser are below:

What: Hope for Haiti Fundraiser
When: Friday January 22, 2009, 6:30 – 10pm
Where: Gallery Bar: 120 Orchard Street, New York, NY 10002

A representative from Hope For Haiti will speak about the organization, Haiti, and the devastating earthquake — and will share some words inspiration and hope. There will be a DJ and a cash bar. And the lovely folks at Gallery Bar are not only donating their space, but are also giving a portion of the bar proceeds to Hope for Haiti. An informational flier is below.

Hope to see many of you there. And please feel free to re-post widely, and to pass this on to your various contacts, friends and networks. If you are unable to make the event but would still like to give, you can donate here.

Blog for Choice Day is just around the corner. I just (where “just” = “a week ago”) got the email from my friend Molly at NARAL Pro-Choice America:

As in years past, we’ve slated January 22 as the date for Blog for Choice Day 2010 because that date marks the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision, Roe v. Wade. We all know that Roe isn’t a remote court decision; it’s a symbol of the progress we’ve made – and the challenges we still face – in working toward a day where all women realize the promise of making the personal, private decisions that are best for them and their families. Dr. George Tiller’s murder last May 2009 served as a stark reminder of the danger abortion providers face each and every day.

This year, we are dedicating Blog for Choice Day 2010 to the legacy of Dr. George Tiller. Dr. Tiller often wore a button that simply read, “Trust Women.” As we reflect on Dr. Tiller’s contribution and the current state of choice, our question to you is this: What does Trust Women mean to you?

You can read more over on our blog and sign-up here.