Image courtesy The New York Times
Earlier this week, women’s health advocate Jean Pakter passed away in New York at age 101. The Manhattan born-and-bred physician began working for the city in the 1950s, and was the head of the bureau of maternity services and family planning for the city’s health department from 1960 to 1982.
Jean Pakter’s research and advocacy work helped create a safer, healthier society – not just for women and children, but for families. [Read more...]
Recently, The Washington Post ran an article about anti-choice women. “A Feminine Face for the Anti-Choice Movement” focused on several female anti-choice leaders, including Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List; Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life; and Penny Nance, chief executive of Concerned Women for America, among others.
According to Washington Post writer Lisa Miller, these women were representatives of a “major strategic shift in the abortion war” and not just because they put forth a warmer, less crotchety image than anti-choice leaders like Jerry Falwell. Because while older male leaders were unable to relate to “a poor woman with no support system and a bunch of kids at home” who was facing an unwanted pregnancy, these women are somehow able to relate, simply because they are working mothers.
The idea that no matter how much you disagree with a message, hearing it come from someone of your gender makes it better, is simplistic and sexist. If that really is the belief that the anti-choice movement is working under, then it gives women even less credit than I imagined. [Read more...]
Feminist Conversations is a weekly series at Feminists For Choice. We spotlight activists from across the interwebs to find out what feminism means to them. Willie J. Parker, MD, MPH, MSc, is the Medical Director of Planned Parenthood Metro Washington, and a board member of Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health (PRCH). We met earlier this year at a reception for Carole Joffe, and he has graciously agreed to be interviewed by me twice: first for my book Generation Roe, and now for Feminists for Choice.
1. When did you first call yourself a feminist, and what influenced that decision?
That’s an interesting question. Long before I knew what to call myself, I realized that I had a compulsion around working on fundamental issues of fairness across gender lines. As I pursued my consciousness-raising, I came across a simple book by bell hooks called Feminism is for Everybody. In it, she simplifies the fact that feminism is less about biology than it is about how one perceives and operates in the world regarding issues of gender fairness. As I look back, I conclude that while I have been working for gender-neutral equality for a while, I have self-described as a feminist since reading that book about six years ago.
2. What does feminism mean to you?
Feminism for me is the worldview and effort toward equality based on neutralizing differences in life chances based on gender. I look at feminism as a specific context in which to pursue human rights. I like the definition that I once saw on a bumper sticker: “Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings.”
3. What led you to become an abortion provider? [Read more...]
Feminist Conversations is a weekly column at Feminists For Choice. We spotlight feminist activists from across the interwebs to find out what feminism means to them. Today we’re talking to Yasmin Nair. Yasmin is a Chicago-based writer, activist, academic, and commentator whose work has appeared in publications like GLQ, The Progressive, make/shift, The Bilerico Project, Windy City Times, Bitch, Maximum Rock’n’Roll, and No More Potlucks. She is part of the editorial collective Against Equality and a member of the Chicago grassroots organization Gender JUST (Justice United for Societal Transformation). Nair’s work can be found at www.yasminnair.net.
1. When did you first call yourself a feminist, and what contributed to the decision?
That’s an interesting question because I don’t often refer to myself as a feminist, for reasons I’ll go into in a minute. The word does help to describe my sense of gender politics, and it provides a counterpoint in situations where gender is clearly an unspoken and unacknowledged factor.
I don’t know if I necessarily had an “aha” moment where I recognized myself as a feminist or identified as one. That being said, there have been moments when I have been made aware of the sexism that pervades the world. I once took a computer programming class run by an incredibly sexist man, and there were only two in the class. The men were really friendly until it became apparent that I was kicking their ass, frankly, and the instructor went into a panic and tried to change the grading scale so that I wouldn’t be at the top of the class. So, yes, moments like that have reminded me of the ways in which my gender is perceived as less than or threatening but my response has simply been to, well, kick ass, and fight back.
I see that kind of gender dynamics even in the organizing I do. I’ve organized a lot of events and forums and actions, and there is, as you know, a great deal of thankless work that needs to be done months in advance. Far too often, the majority of the organizing committee ends up being women and the men—even if they’re gay/queer—who show up have tended to try to slide away from their responsibilities and leave the work to us “girls” (whether trans or cisgender)—and then tried to take the credit. [Read more...]
Just a few quick links for you today, and a little Tina Fey video treat at the bottom. Have a great weekend, ya’ll!
Poverty & The Pill: The Impact on Developing Countries – New York Times
< ahref="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&vps=1&jsv=239b&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=117408617889200578854.000486927aa0069856535" target="_blank">Put Yourself on the Feminist Map
Outcry Over Abortion is About Power, Not Saving Fetuses – The Guardian
United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) is a champion for women’s rights and should get significant support from activists everywhere. DFID was created in 1997 to manage Britain’s aid money and ensure that their resources are going to fighting extreme poverty. This includes working towards human rights in order to alleviate poverty and its consequences.
This month with an updated policy report on safe and unsafe abortion was published by UK’s DFID. Observations that should be obvious began the summary of the report.
“First, it is a right. Women have the right to reproductive health choices. Second, it is necessary.” It is absolutely refreshing that one of the governments in world is expressing that the right to reproductive freedom is a necessity!”
Last night I had the pleasure of reading Jamie Whyte’s Crimes Against Logic: Exposing the Bogus Arguments of Politicians, Priests, Journalists and Other Serial Offenders. It really only took me a couple of hours to finish it–despite such important content, it is very accessible and even made me laugh out loud. Its a great book. Everyone should read it. But I digress.
One of the topics covered in the book is British poverty rates and the ways that they are used by politicians and other groups to advance certain agendas. Basically, he is arguing that British social welfare programs ensure that even the poorest of the poor there aren’t destitute. I would have to know more about the British welfare system to argue with him on this.
But the discussion got me thinking about poverty here. I have said, both in my own posts and in comments to other posts that we will never have real choice unless women can choose to have their children and raise them without fear of a lifetime of poverty and struggle. This country, of course, is nowhere near that point.
[Read more...]
A very good friend of mine came to me the other day and asked me to start talking about women’s precariousness under the current health care system out of fear that even the democrats new health care reform will continue to leave them behind. As a feminist for choice I’m even concerned.
I think its pretty obvious to any well informed feminist reading here today that the framework in which our health care system is currently structured is both sexist and exclusionary. Not only do the basic structures of the system ignore the harsh reality that nearly 70% of all people in poverty are women, a large majority of which are single mothers. These are women who are struggling financially, carrying the heavy burden of sustaining a family and earning the paychecks that are necessary to do that. It’s damn near impossible for them to find affordable insurance. With that being said, there is something even more insidious here.
Women’s specific health concerns, and of course they have them, are just outright ignored by private health care policy. My friend came to me about a week ago with the following statement, “I just signed up for individual health insurance… I had to report that I have the medical condition called “menstruation” Um, last time I checked, this was not a medical condition worthy of increasing my health care costs. Am I the only one who thinks that charging women more for menstruating should be illegal?” [Read more...]
