Hairy

I just read this: http://fuckyeahgenderstudies.tumblr.com/post/23608368667/more-on-leg-hair-tw-rape "I was just googling to try and find some perspectives on women going to work with hairy legs. I couldn’t find much. I found an article from a woman who used not to shave her legs but now does; she believes it’s unprofessional, slobbish and ugly not to. And then I found an article, apparently trying to be “satirical”, from some bloke Yahoo contributor stating that women who don’t shave their legs don’t get raped. I.e. “rape can be prevented IF you are prepared”; “what guy is going to rape you if you have hairier legs than he does?”, etc. etc. ugh. So I’ve abandoned the google search now. This whole thing is so depressing." I haven't shaved my legs or pits in 18 months and that isn't going to change anytime soon. I don't wear pants or tights to hide it, I shouldn't have to. Nobody at work has ever said anything, they don't care about how anyone looks so long as you don't reek. My lovers either love my hair or don't care - generally, they appreciate most that I use my time and energy for more productive things. It's HAIR! It doesn't do anything other than grow and keep you warm, which I need since I'm cold all the time. What people do with their hair, whether on their legs or heads or crotches or pits, is nobody's business but their own. No amount of hair is gross. Self-love, whether one's personal comfort is hairless, trimmed or free-flowing, is more important.

Women's Politics...again...???

I recently watched the Penn & Teller's Bullshit episodes about abstinence, teen sex and family values. They pointed out something poignant about the conservatives involved in these topics: they're not accustomed to having people disagree with them. There are, in fact, subgroups in this country that are so cloistered that any foreign lifestyle is completely unknown. The higher-ups who oppose abortion, for example, may very well be unfamiliar with anyone who's open about a beneficial abortion (or who's life was made unbearable by not being able to get one).

And then this happened: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/07/wisconsin-s-repeal-of-equal-pay-rights-adds-to-battles-for-women.html
Scott Walker signed bills that:
- Block insurance companies from covering abortion
- Remove contraception from the sex education curriculum
- Overrule the objections of the Wisconsin Medical Association to interfere with doctors on counseling women on abortion
- Eliminate the states key protection for women trying to get equal pay for equal work.

These are symptoms of a large national shift which had most visibly arisen when the House nearly removed government funding from Planned Parenthood (which gave me a free pap smear and IUD thankyouverymuch).

Don't get me wrong, Scott Walker is a fucking idiot. No argument there. But I wonder if other politicians have really just been sheltered from people who benefit from Planned Parenthood, from comprehensive sex ed, from access to legal and healthy abortions (and who talk openly about it), etc. Where are the loud feminists? Who's upfront and vocal about what our lives need when a "traditional marriage" isn't an option or even wanted? Ask a few people who don't relate to feminism to name five things Hillary Clinton supports, if they know who Jessica Valenti is, why so many Women of Color refused the SlutWalk, etc.

Spreading Books

Up until the middle of college, I was an avid television watcher. On average, 5 hours of my day were spent watching tv. I also read happily - whenever I was in a place where tv wasn't. I thought that my love of tv was normal, and even took pride amongst my classmates that I was "allowed" to watch so much.
It was only after graduating college and getting rid of tv that I realised how damaging this addiction was. I wasn't "allowed" to spend the majority of my waking hours outside of school watching tv, I was put in front of the screen because it was a convenient way of getting rid of me. Other people were considered threats to the authority of my guardians and tv kept me from realising just how few people were in my life.

In high school, my obsession with tv had finally become clear to my mother as a destructive force. She told me, especially when I began thinking about college, that her friends in college read and discussed books as entertainment. It didn't seem to occur to her that it wasn't the motivation for literature debate that I lacked, but the fellows. My friends and I in high school were Wiccan and we exchanged many books on that, but any socialising outside of school was forbidden to me. People will leave tv on to "make their pets feel less alone" while they're at work, it was used the same way for me.
Still, whenever I wasn't at home, I took every opportunity to read. And exchanging books with my friends, however small the genre, delighted me. This continued in college, though I was irked by how many people in this supposedly advanced academic atmosphere loathed reading. More often than not, recommendations were never taken nor followed up with discussion. My poor professors, who couldn't get most of their students to read the material, let alone ENJOY it.

Only within the past year (graduated college 05/09), have I found a social circle in which books are passed around and enthusiastically discussed. Middlesex by Eugenides, Lolita by Nabokov, The Bell Jar by Plath, Where Good Ideas Come From by Johnson, Sex at Dawn by Ryan & Jetha, The Morning After by Roiphe, The Hunger Games by Collins, Good Omens by Gaiman & Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment by Pratchett, Sacred Clowns by Hillerman, Siddartha by Hesse, John Green, The Secret Garden by Burnett, Anne of Green Gables by Montgomery, Karen Armstrong, Jessica Valenti, The Ethical Slut by Easton & Hardy, etc.

Wisconsin Women's Health

Illinois Healthy Women provides medical insurance coverage for my reproductive/sexual health - they paid for my Paragard IUD in full.

Minnesota has a similar program. Unfortunately, I’ve lost the contact information for the person I knew who had gotten her free IUD through that.

I have many friends in Wisconsin who want similar coverage for IUDs. Wisconsin Women’s Health Foundation doesn’t provide this, Wisconsin Well Woman Program works only with menopausal women, and all my searching keep leading back to Planned Parenthood.

Any information regarding birth control coverage in Wisconsin would be very helpful. Or any state for that matter, we could make a map of states’ coverage!

"Satan You Can't Have My Marriage/Children" by Iris Delgado

These two instructional books, "Satan You Can't Have My Marriage" and "Satan You Can't Have My Marriage" by Iris Delgado, are carried in the bookstore where I work. People are free to believe whatever they want to believe and pray whatever they want to pray, but both of these books blame rape and incest on the wife/mother not consenting to her husband's sexual demands.

"Satan You Can't Have My Marriage" explicitly states that a good wife never says no to sex with her husband, no matter how she feels (page 50).

"Satan You Can't Have My Children" tells the wife/mother that it is her responsibility to teach her daughters modesty. If the wife/mother doesn't consent to her husband's desires, it's her fault for driving him to molesting their daughter(s). Also, no matter the daughter's age, she should never be allowed to sit in daddy's lap because it will drive him past the brink. (page 31)

http://www.amazon.com/Satan-You-Cant-Have-Children/dp/1616383690/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329754442&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Satan-You-Cant-Have-Marriage/dp/1616386738/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1329754442&sr=8-3

Again, I respect a person's belief in whatever - this is where I draw the line. It would be nice if customers had the critical thinking skills to resist the messages in these books but, considering their fascination with Kim Kardashian, they don't seem to be functioning on that level. Also, having been raised by Catholic extremists, I've been there: when this is the only reality known, one doesn't question following it.

Egalitarian Catholic Spirituality

The Virgin Mary is worshipped throughout Catholicism almost as much as, if not more than, Jesus. A few years ago, a large group of Catholics actually petitioned the Vatican to elevate Mary to Jesus' level - they were turned down because that's not how theology works.

The hierarchy and doctrine of the Church have a long history of misogyny, heterosexism, and mistreatment of women. Women must be subservient, silent, obedient, and serene breeders (if not chaste virgins for life).

In practice, however, particularly among the lower classes, the spirituality of Catholics is more woman-centric. Check how many shrines to Mary are in your neighborhood, how many rosaries hang from rearview mirrors (or that people wear, which a good Catholic isn't technically supposed to do), how many Mary/rosary tattoos you see. Then all the Catholic woman saints and leaders: St. Joan of Arc, Dorothy Day, St. Barbara, Mother Theresa, St. Ursula, Princess Diana (I'm aware that she was Anglican, but that didn't stop my childhood parish from praying to her), etc. In spiritual practice, Catholicism gets rather egalitarian.

The hierarchy may topple from the scandals in a largely secular world, but people will continue the rituals, symbols, traditions, etc. of Catholicism. Which means the worship of a female icon isn't going away anytime soon.

The Vagina Monologues

The V Day Campaign, the season in which The Vagina Monologues performs, is upon us again. Formed 14 years ago and still going strong, The Vagina Monologues (the play, the book, the movement) balances validating activism, unity, good humor, and welcoming. Through story-telling, awareness is awakened: the personal is still political.

I first read The Vagina Monologues in spring '04, right around the time I graduated high school. Until reading it, I thought that I was malformed and diseased - too mortified and ashamed to talk to anyone about it. The controversy around The Vagina Monologues, years after it began, had sparked my interest in my budding feminism. Oddly enough, I was working as a receptionist in a Catholic parish office when I first read it! (I also read Harry Potter & The Order Of The Phoenix at that job!) Before reading Eve Ensler's magnum opus (opa?), I was honestly not aware that anything between my knees and my neck existed. My physical self-awareness was sparked by The Vagina Monologues, and by no means am I alone in that.
From there came The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan, CUNT by Inga Muscio, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, The Color Purple by Alice Walker, flannel menstrual pads, menstrual sponges, menstrual cups, vibrators, sex positivity, trans advocacy, and everything I have going on today.

Spring '09 was the first time I actually saw The Vagina Monologues play, which I co-assistant managed at my internship at The Milwaukee Gay Arts Center. My all-women college, Alverno, also hosted a student-run performance as well - it was ridiculously difficult to get a performance approved there!! You'd think that an all-women college would have been among the first places to advocate anything that supports women's awareness, but they were so afraid of being pegged as a "lesbian school".
Before seeing the play, The Vagina Monologues really felt like a private, personal, secret thing of my own. It was MY experience, shared with others who didn't seem real. Sitting in FOUR sold-out shows, though, opened up the doors to this community. Matrons, young girls, transwomen, lesbians, sex workers, rape survivors, virgins, allies - all these people seeking validation and finding community. It was a powerful thing, which made The Vagina Monologues more real as a social force powered by shared experience.