feminist blogs

They claim to be about "getting the government off of our backs." The problem here is that the Tea Party seems to be salivating at the opportunity to enact on the state level laws that prohibit equal rights for gays, women and even racial minorities. Listen past the opening salvos about big government and you realize that what the tea baggers really want is to replace federal government authority with state government authority. Their central assumption is that states have inherent rights but individuals do not.

Witness their reactions to last week's court ruling striking down the Defense of Marriage Act as applied to Massachusetts:

A spokeswoman for one of the biggest Tea Party umbrella organizations, Tea Party Patriots, said that social questions were not part of their mission.

“As far as an assertion of states’ rights goes, I believe it’s a good thing,” said Shelby Blakely, executive director of The New Patriot Journal, the group’s online publication. “The Constitution does not allow federal regulation of gay marriage just as it doesn’t allow for federal regulation of health care.”

“But I don’t want to come off saying I support gay marriage,” she added.

No of course not. In fact, the social gains of the past 50 years seem to be in the crosshairs of tea baggers from Rand Paul to Sarah Palin to Sharron Angle.

And then there's tea bagger heaven: Arizona, where "papers please" is not a line from a Nazi in a World War 2 movie but rather a populist mantra.

This is not libertarian. This is authoritarian.

Let's look at a definition of Libertarianism:

Libertarians believe that individuals should have complete freedom of action, provided their actions do not infringe on the freedom of others.

—Encyclopedia Brittanica

Libertarianism describes a range of political beliefs that advocate the maximization of an individual's ability to think and act with few constraints from large social structures, such as government,[1][2][3] and the minimization or even abolition of the state.

—Wikipedia

An advocate of the doctrine of free will

—Mirriam-Webster ("libertarian")

The Tea Party, with it's stated goal of establishing greater authority to state governments, is not libertarian. In fact, when you look at the code words, off-the-record remarks, and actions of Tea Party leaders and supporters, it becomes clear that the Tea Party is actually about authoritarianism. To the Tea Party, the federal government's oppression is that it prevents them from oppressing gays, oppressing women (especially with regard to healthcare), and oppressing racial minorities.

And yet the Beltway crowd seems to buy into the claim that the Tea Party is libertarian.

E.J. Dione seems to think the Tea Party makes the common mistake:

The rise of the tea party movement is a throwback to an old form of libertarianism that sees most of the domestic policies that government has undertaken since the New Deal as unconstitutional. It typically perceives the most dangerous threats to freedom as the design of well-educated elitists out of touch with “American values.”

In a fascinating article analyzing the Tea Party — and the prevalence of women tea baggers — Ruth Rosen identifies some disturbing characteristics:

One important difference, however, is race. At Tea Party rallies you don’t see faces with dark complexions. Another important distinction is that men and women are drawn to this sprawling movement for a variety of overlapping but possibly different reasons. Both men and women seem to embrace an incoherent “ideology” which calls for freedom from government, no taxes, and an inchoate desire to “take back America,” which means restoring the nation to some moment when the country was white and “safe.”

She goes on to note how the conservative brand of "feminism" isn't quite the feminism that states that "Feminism is the radical idea that women are people." On the contrary:

Here is a great irony. Since 1980, when the backlash began attacking the women’s movement, young secular American women have resisted calling themselves feminists because the religious right-wing had so successfully created an unattractive image of a feminist as a hairy, man-hating, lesbian who spouted equality, but really wanted to kill babies. Now, Palin is forcing liberal feminists to debate whether these Christian feminists are diluting feminism or legitimizing it by making it possible to say that one is a feminist.

When I read what women write on Christian women’s web sites, I hear an echo from the late nineteenth century when female reformers sought to protect the family from “worldly dangers.” Frances Willard, leader of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, urged millions of women to enter the public sphere in order to protect their families, to address the decadent consequences and casualties of capitalism, to win suffrage, and to fight for prohibition, all in the name of protecting the purity of their homes and families.

For many contemporary evangelical Christian women, their motivations are similar. They want to enter the public sphere or even run for office to eliminate abortion, protect marriage, contain sexual relations, oppose gay marriage and clean up the mess made by the sexual revolution. [Emphasis added.]

This doesn't sound like liberty. It sounds like vesting greater freedom to state governments so they can oppress entire classes of people with impunity.

Am I wrong? If so, I'd love to see some proof.

Aimée Thorne-Thomsen, Executive Director of the Pro-Choice Public Education Project, says:

Many of us who believed in the ideals of hope and change thought that we could achieve universal health care, if not in policy, then certainly in practice. That didn't happen. Poor people, immigrants, and women, among others, were all used as bargaining tools from the very beginning. As often is the case, women's bodies and health, was the ultimate battleground. The Stupak Amendment and then the Nelson Amendment in the Senate banned the use of public funds for abortion. Both were unnecessary and redundant because the Hyde Amendment, which has been renewed every year since it was first introduced in 1977, remains in place. But that wasn't enough. Stupak and Nelson went further by also barring women who would use the exchanges from getting insurance that would cover abortion. When that still did not satisfy Stupak and his anti-choice cronies, the President agreed to sign an executive order barring public funding of abortion in return for their support for the overall bill. Women's health was traded away for a handful of votes.

I've heard it said that the Democrats love women, unlike the Republicans who obviously hate us, so that's why women should vote for the Democratic candidates. Well, of course, they love us. If it weren't for women, they wouldn't have anything to trade off for votes in case of need. Today, whenever you need some conservative support for your legislation, all you have to do is to humiliate women and deprive them of their rights even more.

I keep wondering what would have happened in this respect if Clinton had been elected instead of Obama.

This is not just a public health scandal; it reflects widespread violations of women’s human rights. Patterns of marginalization and exclusion in this society are exacerbated by a discriminatory and dysfunctional health system. - Alicia Ely Yamin at Amnesty International’s blog Here is a conundrum: the US has one of the worst rates of maternal mortality in [...]

And a good thing, too, because I couldn't take the suspense any more. The whole process of waiting for the news and seeing the struggle for the votes has been brutal. Of course, the bill has been watered down like crazy since its initial version but I guess at this point it's better than nothing. But finally one can think and read about something else than the bill.
The main reason why I'm happy about it is because I really wanted something to work out for President Obama. With Congress and Senate filled to the brim with corrupt politicians, he has not been able to make anything work. It will be good for the morale of his presidency to win something finally. We'll see how well this bill works. Of course, anything is better than the horrible system that was in place before.

Why the US cannot go the way of all developed countries (for example, Canada, which is close enough to be learned from and imitated) and institute a normal, nationalized healthcare system, is beyond me. But this is something.

Kudos to President Obama for not giving up. I have a newfound respect for the perseverance of this admirable man.

I thought this was a really interesting interview. Moore and Maddow discuss Moore’s new film, the Stupak Amendment, the hesitation of Democrats to get things done, and more. Its too bad more people can’t be as bold as these two.

Getting a prescription for birth control pills is an incredible pain in the neck. Normally, you are required to see a gynecologist once a year to get a year-long prescription. Even that is stupid because there is absolutely no reason to make birth control into prescription medication. But the doctors need to make money and this is one way of making sure women are forced to see them and pay exorbitant sums for these unnecessary visits. Now, even that silly system doesn't often work the way it is supposed to.

Since I moved, I went to a new doctor for my prescription. I was only given one for 3 months and asked to come again for a new one because I am a new patient. My health insurance paid the doctor $132 for this 10 minute long visit. The entire visit consisted of me engaging in the following idiotic conversations with the nurse (I didn't even get to see the doctor):

Nurse: Have you had any pregnancies?
Me: No.
Nurse: Any abortions?

I don't know what she thought I could have aborted since I had already said I'd had no pregnancies. This mystery remains unsolved. Then we had the following exchange:

Nurse: Have you been married for a long time?
Me: A month.
Nurse: Huh! That's strange.
Me: Why?
Nurse: You look like you have been married a long time.

I still don't know whether to take this as a compliment or an insult.

Now I have to go back for more inane conversations in the same style. I swear to God, it's easier to get access to heroin than to simple harmless birth control. Of course, nobody is interested in making these unnecessary visits to a doctor disappear as part of this so-called healthcare reform.

Even with prescription insurance, a packet of pills (that lasts a month) costs $28. It is so frustrating to hear all the anti-abortion propaganda in a society where access to legal birth control is so painful and expensive. How can anybody expect a teenager from an underprivileged background, for example, to have money for this prescription and the endless visits to the doctor to get it in the first place?

I'm back.  Today I say good bye to all my flu rituals and my flu lifestyle.  The bottle of NyQuil I had on top of the microwave, as well as my digital thermometer, the bottle of aspirin, the Vitamin C--- are gone.  The Gatorade and left over chicken soup in the fridge--- gone, too. The worst symptom by far was fever.  I would wake up drenched in sweat, running such a high fever, that I couldn't tell on some mornings if I was really awake or still stuck in a nightmare.  I would take an ativan to calm myself down, swill the NyQuil, take a warm shower, then an alcohol sponge bath.  I would set out with Molly just to reconnect with the real world.  Back at home, another shaky attempt at taking my temp and more alcohol rubbed all over my body.  By noon, the fever had dissipated, but I was exhausted.  I wrote down the times I took medication b/c I couldn't trust my addled brain.  In the afternoons, I slept.  Then watched more movies than a film critic at a festival; 21 Grams, An Affair to Remember, The Taking of Pelham 123 (the remake), White Castle, and others I'm sure I'll never remember.

It was disheartening because I had been very, very cautious.  I made sure I exercised.  I took Vitamin C and most of all, the hand washing and the hand sanitizing.  Flu notices are posted all over the Lehman College Campus.  I took them seriously.  All of the teacher's rest rooms had fresh soap, hot water and hand sanitizer.  There were dispensers all over campus.  I always used them.  I ate well. I got plenty of rest.  No late nights.  Three days into it I wanted to call my go-to doctor.  Dr. Hecht.  I've been seeing her for ten years.  She knows me really well.  But she doesn't take health insurance.  Her office visits are $250.00.   In the past, if I didn't have the money, I could make payments.  Believe me, she is worth it.  She's old school.  First a 20 to 25 minute consultation.  Then a thorough physical examination.  Then another 20-25 minutes discussing what to do, plus most importantly allaying my fears. 

But I couldn't do it this time.  I wouldn't.  Debt is debt.  And I'm swimming in it.  I called my primary care physician's office--- covered by my health insurance.  To be honest, I think of that office as a prescription and referral factory.  They don't know me, I'm just another number.  I'm another piece of paperwork pushed from one corporation to another.  I explained my symptoms to the receptionist, and she called me back two hours later and told me a prescription for Tamiflu was waiting at my pharmacy.  This is the doctor who prescribed Cipro for a sinus infection which exploded in my stomach five hours later.  So I researched Tamiflu and discovered its a waste of time after 48 hours.  I called again.  Was told--- don't take it anymore.  WTF?

Dr. Hecht would never have prescribed Tamiflu.  She would've mapped out diet (in great detail), vitamins, and a precise method for reducing fever--- for me.  Because she knows me, knows my body, my history, my likes, my dislikes.  The wonderful, compassionate, Dr. Hecht would also call me every day to check on how I was doing.  For a woman who lives alone, this is invaluable.  She the consummate old school family doctor. I once called her at 4:30 a.m. on a cold winter morning.  She returned my phone call fifteen minutes later.  After I described my symptoms, she told me I needed antibiotics. I said I was too sick to go out, the dead of winter.  She found a pharmacy in the East Village and I called a friend who delivered them to me. 

This is medicine.  The rest is just dreck.  I'm fine now.  Ready to get back to work.  Relieved that I didn't add another $250.00 to my already crushing debt.  But honestly, its ridiculous I had to weather this alone.  My "health insurance" did nothing for me, and quite possibly made things worse.  I'm a hard working woman with a full time job and health insurance, and yet I couldn't call my doctor. 

Love.

That was what I saw when I went to the home page of Smith & Nephew: UK & Ireland. I saw love, even thought that’s not what Smith & Nephew said was one of their organization’s core values.

Smith & Nephew is a medical products company that makes, among many things, wound dressings. I went to their site this morning, as part of my effort to learn more about the organizations where AuthenticOrganizations.com’s readers come from.

When I landed on their page, I saw this lovely photo. It is accompanied by a brief story of Mario and how he found Smith & Nephew’s product, Anticoat, in his effort to help ease the pain of his chronically-ill wife.

This photo and the story sit right next to the organization’s self description: “We are committed to the advancement of clinically cost-effective woundcare.”

Is “woundcare” really what Smith & Nephew is committed to?

Now, on many websites for pharmaceutical firms, medical supply firms, and hospitals, you get the typical stories of “how our products helped out customers”. And you get the typical statements asserting that the organization’s goal is “helping improve people’s lives”. (That’s Smith & Nephew’s stated mission.)  I’m sure that these statements are reasonably true. And they are often experienced as being kind of superficial… there’s not too much distinctive about “helping improve people’s lives”. Lots of companies do that. So what’s new?

I saw something else at the Smith & Nephew home page.

Look closely at that photograph.

Look at the hands. What do they depict? Partnership. Caring. Love.

Not to get all sentimental and stuff, but this company isn’t about clinically-cost effective wound care. If this picture tells us anything, it tells us that Smith & Nephew, somewhere, deep inside itself, is about love.

Whether this is true or not, I don’t know. I recognize that the photo was taken by an artist, that the site was created by professional communicators, and that the messages Smith & Nephew intend to send are deliberate, strategic, etc. And still, for me, some other message slipped through.

Can you see it in this photo?

Underneath the ‘clinical cost effectiveness’ and the ‘improving lives’, is there love?

That’s one of the things that makes me believe in organizations.

It has been quite a long while since I posted anything on this blog. I've had things building up but I just never have the energy or time to get things down. I will be posting a piece about my birth experience and how I felt about it from a feminist perspective. However, today's blog is more about the struggles of the past few weeks. I am thankful that I have such a good understanding of intersectionality and the various types of oppression that exist because had I not had this understanding I could be buried under an anvil of depression and self-doubt.


The biggest of my struggles of the past few months is financial. The recession has really taken it's toll on my family and the effects of capitalism and this classist society we live in has never been more real.


In an earlier post, I talked about my short term disability not paying for my full leave. I was only paid for 60% of the 6 weeks after birth. I had to leave work 3 weeks before my August 22 due date and my daughter was born 6 hours late on the morning of August 23. So, I had to attempt to stretch $1315 over 9 weeks. On average, over 9 weeks I'd make approximately $3287.50. That's a difference of $1972.50.


In addition to my serious income loss my partner, O'Neil, had his hours cut at his main job and his second job sometimes didn't schedule him at all. Needless to say there were quite a few bills that would go unpaid or paid significantly late. This lack of funds and inability to pay everything that needed paying led to a domino effect. We weren't able to finish paying off the oil bill from last winter, so we cannot get oil until it's paid off, which means that we cannot turn on the heat because our hot water is also fueled by oil. His ex-wife also took him to court about their divorce agreement to split certain debts and most recently had his income withheld for child support (this is a whole new topic I'll explore in more detail at another time because I'd like to address women who contribute to sexism). The newest of this debt spiral is CT DRS garnishment for 2008 taxes despite our paying every month (this apparently wasn't good enough).


There is also the pile of medical bills related to my pregnancy and delivery. I was covered by two insurances. Both of which said the other was primary and continuously denied every claim sent to them until the other paid first. Fun! I have to spend hours and hours of phone calls with each explanation of benefits statement I receive. Even with the insurance issue beginning to be straightened out, the high deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums have left me with a significant stack of bills to pay.


Basically our income is a third of what it is normally and our bills have doubled (mainly because any open line of credit had to be used for essentials like food, utilities, and baby supplies). I was lucky enough to be granted a forbearance until January on my $35,000 student loan debt.


Since O'Neil's second job laid just about everyone off except the part-timers and a select few full-timers, he's been getting a steady 2-3 day schedule. Business at his first job has increased and he is finally on a 40 hour schedule most weeks. He should be on salary and in a management position for all the work he does as a "supervisor." Supervisor in his case is basically someone with all the responsibility and accountability of a Manager but without the salary. Of course with the economy and job market in such array who can afford to make demands for anything they deserve at work.


(How ironic: I just received a phone call from a debt collector telling me my auto payment was declined. They tried to take the payment out 2 days early. Had they waited until the actual date, it might have cleared.)

The job market is another struggle. During the first months of my pregnancy I was working 1 full-time job as a server and another part-time job as a tutor, interning at DVCC, taking 4 classes to finish my degree, organizing our school production of 'The Vagina Monologues" and puking regularly due some pretty terrible morning sickness. My idea of lightening my load was to drop one of my classes and take it in the summer. I did finish my degree in my 7th month of pregnancy. After I had the baby, I immediately began looking for a job. I have sent out more than 60 resumes and filled out even more applications in the 10 weeks since her birth. I stopped looking exclusively for jobs in my field and education level in around my second week of searching. I even started looking for food service jobs (which is where most of my work experience is) that at least had better schedule and pay than the one I currently have. I've tried secretarial, receptionist, personal assistant, human resource, and tons of other entry level or 'high school only' required positions.

Of them all, I've only receive about 5 phone calls. One required a car which I don't have. Another hired someone before I even got to my interview and called to cancel. Another decided that despite the minimal requirements posted on the web site that they needed someone with significant experience in a particular area of which I had little. You get the point. Nothing has come through.

I'm back to serving full-time (or at least what they call full-time 23 hours/week) and I have to pump breast milk in the family bathroom. Every time I say 'breast milk' my GM cringes. Everyone seems to get a yuck look on their face when I mention that I'm going to go pump. The sexist remarks fly in all directions. The latest attack on my breastfeeding was the comment that I shouldn't leave my (clearly labeled and dated) breast milk in the walk-in because the Health Department would "close us down." Not to mention how many times I've been looked over for promotions because I was either pregnant or nursing.

So, why am I going on and on? Complaining? A bit, yes. But actually my purpose to give (my 2 or 3) readers a context for the next series of blogs I am going to put write.

Here's a bit of what I hope to cover:
- Classism - how it is apparent in my life
- Forced division of household labor by sex due to economics
- why I'm anti-capitalism
- "Good" mother's have "Bad" thoughts
- My Birth Story - The Empowerment of Childbirth
- Necessity of intergenerational living amongst the lower classes
- Co-parenting (when you have different views, histories and cultures)
- The "Second-Shift" is often the third (or fourth)
- Emergency Assistance & the 'poverty' level

I hope that I will gain some readers and get some discussion and comments going. Towards the end of each of these pieces I hope to write something of about how this relates to Feminist Parenting. So here's today bit about Feminsit Parenting:

Through all of this I think to myself, "At least my little girl is healthy." My partner is health and my little girl is health. It is the one thing that we have right now. I haven't thought much about myself except to try my best to eat healthy (which is not easy when you can afford groceries). I woke up at 2:30am in excruciation pain and rushed to the ER to find out I have kidney stones. O'Neil was terrified it was something worse and relieved that it was nothing life threatening. He and my mother-in-law have taken over feeding my 2 month old, a responsibility that was almost exclusively mine except when I was at work. It hasn't been easy because she can smell my breasts and doesn't want the bottle. This has meant not being able to comfort her at all until the pain medicine is out of my system.

I thought this would be a welcome break since I haven't slept through the night since a few months before she was born. Instead it's been a bit relief and a bit more torture. It hurts not to be able to comfort your child. It feels selfish to be happy that I'm well rested for once! Doesn't this seems odd? Even with all my feminist knowledge, I still feel like the bad mom! Realistically, I know I'm not a bad mother. I had no control over the kidney stones but the feeling is still there. It's not easy deprogramming yourself from these sexist societal beliefs.

I talk to my daughter as if she were an adult (except she responds in coos and giggles). I talk to her about what's going on. I am greatly thankful that she is so young and will have no memory of these hard times. I also hope that there is some (mild) suffering in her future so that she can genuinely understand the importance of feminism. I know that until now, I hadn't had such a profound understanding and intersectionality and I want this for her too.

While I would rather stay away from the healthcare debate going on stateside, I want to address the idea of healthcare reform in small African countries. Women and children, whether in a country in Africa or at home in the U.S., are most affected by the inefficiencies, inadequacies, and lack of healthcare. I came across [...]