sex & the ivory tower

Oklahoma Hates Women: Important links for those upset about Personhood bill in Oklahoma

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 14:02:43 -0500

Oklahoma Hates Women: Important links for those upset about Personhood bill in Oklahoma:

After the OK state senate’s ruling regarding SB 1433 The Personhood Act a lot started happening across social media sites. Let’s do a quick rundown of some of those groups/pages/organizations etc. that will be important to know about when it comes to turning online disapproval of this bill into…

Chickens 4 Colonel Sanders: Personhood Passes OK State Senate

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 15:59:20 -0500

ok4rj:

For those of you who haven’t heard, Senate Bill 1433, otherwise known as the Personhood Act, passed the Oklahoma Senate on Wednesday, 34-8. The Personhood Act seeks to define life at conception and extend the same rights to the “unborn” child as a… bornchild, I guess?

Apparently the rights extended to children don’t add up to much in Oklahoma, according to Democratic Senator Jim Wilson of Tahlequah, who pointed out that if a woman needed to take her uninsured child to an emergency room for an ear ache, she would need to shell out $600.

Read More

I wrote this for OK4RJ after SB 1433 passed the OK Senate on Wednesday. The lolz are the one of the only things getting me through this legislative session!

celluloidlove: fridaphile: fields-of-matt: Here’s a thing I...

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 00:06:05 -0500

celluloidlove:

fridaphile:

fields-of-matt:

Here’s a thing I noticed.

ha! marxist swag.

holy shit

cultureofresistance: Arundhati Roy What kind of resistance is...

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 00:18:35 -0500

cultureofresistance:

Arundhati Roy

What kind of resistance is effective?

“Non-violent resistance movements are given a lot of air time, a lot of publicity, a lot of space. But it’s also because it makes the state comfortable. It makes the comfortable, comfortable.”

Everyone Gets Abortions: The Maturity Myth

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 19:47:19 -0500

ok4rj:

As I’m slowly transitioning into my late twenties, I’m getting invited to more weddings, buying more baby shower gifts, and hearing more “I think he’s the one!” convos. Hooray! This really just means more cake and champagne for me! But there’s one other thing I hear…”Even though I’ve always been pro-choice, I’m glad I won’t ever need to think about abortion again.”

Hold. Up. One. Second.

Read More

Etagere: So... what do you do?

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 17:35:26 -0500

Etagere: So... what do you do? :

iamherkind:

Inspired by my good best Judy, Sandra’s recent post on the ever-awesome OK4RJ blog, I’d like to spend a moment and address what has become one of the biggest thorns in my ass: answering the seemingly innocent “What do you do?” cocktail party question. I was just victim of such an incident this…

My baby g Rachel’s take on the “what do you do?” question: political arena style!

So You Want To Be An Activist: Cocktail Party Edition

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 17:32:00 -0500

ok4rj:

Sometimes I’ll be at a party and someone will inevitably ask the small talk question to end all small talk questions: what do you do? I hate this question for many reasons (I kind of want to troll and respond with “Y SO EXISTENTIAL?”), the most important of which being that my answer is NSFST (Not Safe For Small Talk). I’m not an accountant or a teacher or an engineer. My answer has to change depending on the situation.

Sometimes I’m evasive and tell people I do non-profit work. Other times, I’ll get more specific (in a really vague, inaccurate way) and say “women’s rights stuff.” If I’m feeling a little saucy, I might say “abortion shit.” I always end up feeling somewhat disingenuous; these are all things I do, I suppose, but they are merely aspects of a much larger project. Perhaps I should start carrying around hard copies of Jen’s Reproductive Justice 101: Oklahoma Edition to save myself some time and anxiety.

Here’s the thing I have to remind myself: I’m at a party, where allegedly I’m supposed to be having fun. If ranting and raving about reproductive justice isn’t doing it for me on that night (this is rare, but it does happen!), then it’s okay to be evasive. I don’t have to represent the cause everywhere I go.

When I came up with the idea for this post, I was hoping to give some constructive advice about what to do if you’re in this situation, but then I realized that I really don’t have any hard and fast rules for maneuvering the “what do you do?” conversation. But I do have some really fun coping mechanisms!

Have another drink! A cocktail! A mocktail! An energy drink! Anything to distract you from the awkwardness!

Make up a fake, preferably obscure profession: Cartographer! Snail Trailblazer! Party Favor Connoisseur!

Have two more drinks!

Start an “ABORTION ON DEMAND!” chant! This actually works really, really well, though it did get me kicked out of a place once. Just once, though.

Don’t go to parties.

Yell at them and then cry. (Note: from personal experience, this is actually not particularly helpful)

Have a calm, collected discussion about the kind of work you do. Steer clear from shots or anything that requires chugging. Remember, you can opt out of this conversation at any point. Or just say, “JK, I’m a cartographer!” and have another martini.

Uh oh, someone doesn’t get the cartographer joke and is belligerently insisting on talking to you about it? A nice diffuser is “Can we not talk about this right now? I’d like to enjoy this party and you’re harshing my buzz,” or something in that vein. Also, you can continue to insist that you are a cartographer.

All facetiousness aside, I think the point that I’m trying to express here is: relax! Do what makes you feel comfortable and what you think is the most fun. If that includes any combination of my list, knock yourself out (that might literally happen if you’re a fan of #1 or #3; I think I should warn you, those often result in #6).

This is the first installment of Sandra’s “So You Want To Be An Activist” series, which is an actually a thinly-veiled attempt at processing her activist emotional baggage under the guise of giving advice. For more bizarre emotional processing, you can follow her on Twitter.

I wrote this for OK4RJ! Oh, what weird fruits the tree of writer’s block creates.

So You Made A Rape Joke

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 13:21:20 -0500

ok4rj:

So you made a rape joke and now people are, like, really, really mad at you. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt; maybe you were at a party and the booze made your common sense slip away from you or maybe you were making what you viewed as a flippantly humorous remark on Facebook. Either way, you probably didn’t mean any harm, right? So what’s the big deal?

Read More

I wrote this for OK4RJ! You should check it out.

Why I won’t buy your “Save the Tatas” Shirt now or ever. | OK4RJ: Oklahomans for Reproductive Justice

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 14:23:34 -0500

Why I won’t buy your “Save the Tatas” Shirt now or ever. | OK4RJ: Oklahomans for Reproductive Justice:

ok4rj:

If you’re anything like me, you dread the month of October. It’s not the cooler weather (we didn’t even have that in Oklahoma this year), the problematic halloween costumes (though those are always icing on the cake of my October-hate), it’s not even the start of the exhausting holiday season. No, my October-hate can be summed up in four simple, seemingly harmless words: breast cancer awareness month.

Talking about breast cancer, of course, is important. It is a disease that effects over 200,000 lives every year, and that’s just counting the ones that are diagnosed with it. All cancers and serious diseases effect not only the patient, but their care communities, families, workplaces and really, any other social grouping they are capable of being a part of. Cancer and its diagnosis effect entire communities, so it would make sense that there are community events, organizations and campaigns to bring breast cancer to the forefront of community discourse for a month. These happenings are more than well-meaning; they attempt to bring light to the struggles of patients and survivors and provide them a public venue to talk about their stigmatized experiences while raising funds that, hopefully, aid them in the economic crises that almost always accompany any serious medical diagnosis.

However.
The intent of these programs does not give them free reign to say whatever they want for the sake of the cause. I hate Breast Cancer Awareness Month because it is offensive. It is sexist, belittling, hurtful to myself and survivors, family members, patients and countless other people who have been effected by the illness. I’m talking primarily about the “Save the Tatas” and “Save Second Base” campaigns, but that doesn’t mean that Susan G. Komen’s Walk for a Cure or any of the other feel-good October events are in the clear. These boob-centric campaigns are simply the worst offenders. Let’s turn our critical thinking brain-parts on and dissect the messages of these campaigns, shall we?

“Save the Tatas”–but whose?
Did you know men can get breast cancer? All kinds of men–trans men, bio men, queer men, straight men, young men, old men, men who wear tuxedos and men who wear sweater vests. But most men don’t identify with the possession of “tatas” (some do, by the way, and that is awesome!). The language of these campaigns immediately gives the impression that breast cancer is a women’s only disease, which definitely contributes to the projected 450 men who have died or will die of breast cancer this year. Yes, women are significantly more diagnosed and more women die from breast cancer, but that’s still 450 people who died from a disease they probably had no idea they could even have until it was too late, and that’s 450 deaths that make me uncomfortable with the way we talk about breast cancer. Young and old women can get it too! But most pre-pubescent (and even post-pubescent) young girls don’t identify with the possession of “tatas” (heck, I’m 19, and I definitely don’t think that word describes anything that I am in possession of). This language is similarly exclusionary of older women, whose breasts don’t fit into the world’s ideas of what we “want” tatas to look like.

More than that, when we talk about “saving the tatas” and breast cancer awareness in general, we’re talking about an extremely whitewashed movement. When you google image search “save the tatas” (note: doing that is probably enough to put you in a rage all day), the people present are almost all young, white women, when breast cancer disproportionately effects women of color. More than that, women of color, in particular black women, are more likely to be diagnosed late and die from breast cancer than their white counterparts. You would think that would make “awareness” campaigns more likely to address women of color, but it’s clear that their representation in these programs is marginal at best. How can you even have an awareness campaign that doesn’t address the most effected individuals?

“Save the tatas”–but at what cost?
This idea that breast cancer prevention and treatment will “save the tatas” is, to me, the most insulting, sexist and belittling part of the whole campaign. Not only are these programs sexist and subtley racist, but they sexualize and trivialize the experiences of breast cancer patients and survivors. This phrase signifies that the most important part of a woman is her breasts and that those are the most important thing to save when they are put into life-threatening situations. I mean, really, in what other situation where a woman’s life is at stake do we find it appropriate to say to her and the world, “please, dear god, have mercy and SAVE HER BREASTS.” None. And it should be even less acceptable to say it to women whose treatment plans can and do include masectomies. Are those survivors no longer worth saving once their breasts are gone? I’d like to think that’s not what the general consensus is, but judging from these atrocious slogans, it just might be the case.

Which “tatas” are we saving–and why?
The money raised by these campaigns is generally thought to go to research or more awareness campaigns, and occasionally funding support or possibly some specific people’s medical costs. However, they never discuss the economic burden of being diagnosed and treated with breast cancer. It’s clear that these campaigns are committed to saving almost exclusively white, bio and self-identified “women”, but it seems to me that they are also only concerned with, frankly, rich boobs. The “save the tatas” campaign is kinda racist, pretty sexist, extremely cis-sexist and almost definitely classist as well.

There’s so much more to talk about here. The commodification of breast cancer(sometimes with products that are known to contain carcinogens), the price we put on cures, the overwhelming statistics offered with little to no actual information (for all of the events and programs I’ve been a part of, I personally still have no idea what a tumor in my breast could even feel like) and the godawful gender essentialism tied into the fact that everything having anything to do with breast cancer awareness must be coated in a layer of cotton candy pink. The breast cancer awareness movement is so wrong, for so many reasons, so why do we keep giving its machine our money? It’s time to stop. The means here do not and cannot justify the ends, especially when these ends have little to nothing to do with finding an actual cure or helping actual survivors. It’s time for us to put down the pink, put down the t-shirts and bracelets and pink celophane-wrapped nonsense and start caring for the survivors in our own lives. The fact is, if we really care about breast cancer, we need to start doing just that–caring, caring for survivors and caring about how the way we frame and commodify their disease effects their lives. These campaigns are supposed to be about them, and it’s time to make that the reality, rather than encouraging the opposite.

Elly is really tired of saying the word tatas and will probably get breast cancer in her lifetime. She may or may not have flipped off someone trying to sell her a “save second base” shirt during the horrible, horrible month of October.

rethinksocialism: “To all the women who quietly made...

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 23:40:25 -0500

rethinksocialism:

“To all the women who quietly made history.”

Damn straight.

Thinking about comparing abortion to genocide? Don’t.

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 22:57:22 -0500

Thinking about comparing abortion to genocide? Don’t.:

ok4rj:

Carly gets real about the recent trend of antisemitism in pro-life propaganda, the inspiring Jewish women in feminist history and her own life and what it really means to call abortion a “holocaust” (it probably shouldn’t take you a dictionary to figure that one out, though).

Cissupremacy 101: Here’s one queer transman’s perspective!

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 17:34:37 -0500

Cissupremacy 101: Here’s one queer transman’s perspective!:

ok4rj:

Check out this awesome Cissupremacy 101 blog by Kale, who’s part of our OK4RJ chosen family and an organizer for Norman Queer Alliance!

How I Learned That Babies Are Not Tools Of The Patriarchy | OK4RJ: Oklahomans for Reproductive Justice

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 13:36:17 -0500

How I Learned That Babies Are Not Tools Of The Patriarchy | OK4RJ: Oklahomans for Reproductive Justice:

ok4rj:

Two years ago, having just spent the summer not only hand-making a full-size quilt but planning two charity events, starting and finishing at least one printmaking project per week, and kick-starting OSU’s chapter of NOW by forcing every feminist I knew to hang out with me, I felt conflicted. I had just made a kick-ass quilt without ever touching a sewing machine – a gigantic, functional, beautiful piece of work that made me feel super-capable. But the handmade quilt is a powerful cultural signifier. I started questioning my own motives for mastering such an icon of gendered domesticity. Writing was one way that I worked through those thoughts (you can find that blog post here). Working with my hands is empowering, especially when I’m becoming impatient with other areas of my life. Even a long-term project, like the quilt, satisfies a need to make things literally take shape before my eyes. This is what the current DIY culture is about – it can be subversive in very personal ways, though it still includes stuff like zines and embroidered depictions of vaginas.

The next few months were all about scarves and seminar papers for my last semester of college. Once I got some free time to check up on craft blogs, I was shocked to see thatLena Corwin, bastion of Ladies Who Make Stuff and Are Their Own Boss, was makin’ a baby with her husband. On purpose. At this point, stepping that far into what I saw as traditional gender role territory (inhabited by white weddings and Disney princesses and strange men telling you to smile) was unthinkable. But here was a real role model, a totally self-determined lady, doing just that. And it wasn’t just her – suddenly, everywhere I looked there was another rowdy DIY-or-die lady that I looked up to, just kickin’ out the babies like so many subversive cross-stitched pillowcases or backyard chicken coops.

Listen, I have been terrified of babies for my entire life, presumably including when I was a baby. I spent a ton of time in college focusing on how wrecked my life would be if I got pregnant. Pregnancy was something that happened TO you. As of earlier this year, I have a steampunk womb* that will kill all the sperms for the next ten years, so fears of an unplanned pregnancy are nixed. I also finally started liking (some) small children. It’s a lot easier now to see how making any reproductive choice for yourself qualifies as self-determinism, not oppression. Of course, learning that poor women and women of color have been forcibly sterilized in this country, in recent history, helps a lot, too.

Did you ever struggle with the idea that making the choice to have a child is a valid expression of agency, rather than something that keeps women entrenched in rigid gender roles? Also, does the “trend” I present – more women in the counterculture having children – actually exist, or is this something that has always happened?

Personhood Amendments Will Harm ALL Pregnant People

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 21:37:30 -0500

Personhood Amendments Will Harm ALL Pregnant People:

ok4rj:

OK4RJ editor, writer, law student, and all-around badass Mallory breaks down why Personhood Amendments like the one that’s being voted on in Mississippi tomorrow affects all pregnant people’s rights, not just ones that seek abortions:

”Granting personhood from conception would limit a pregnant person’s right to liberty, right to medical decision making, right to privacy, right to bodily integrity, and even right to life. This is not just a slippery slope, dystopian future theory that would never happen. The past experiences of pregnant people show us that states are already using the same rationale behind personhood legislation, protecting a state interest in fetal life, to harm people, carrying their pregnancies to term.”

"You don’t understand why preaching nonviolence is racist because you don’t understand violence. You..."

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 20:00:38 -0400

“You don’t understand why preaching nonviolence is racist because you don’t understand violence. You don’t understand what it’s like to live in a place where you might get shot every time you step outside your door. You don’t understand the violence we experience when the police treat the families of criminals, like criminals. You don’t understand the violence I experience every time I turn on the television, and see my people portrayed as either whores, day laborers, or maids. When I fight back, it’s not violence—it’s resistance.”

- taken from a piece of larger commentary by rosadefuego about the way OccupyOakland has rejected and condemned the violence (i.e. vandalism, ‘anarchistic’ tactics) of a subgroup. (via notaskingforpermission)

Rodeo Round-Up: General Strikes, Population Myths, & Poems, OH MY!

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 17:03:41 -0400

Rodeo Round-Up: General Strikes, Population Myths, & Poems, OH MY!:

Hey, I wrote the weekly round-up for this week at OK4RJ! AND we started a new tumblr, so now’s the perfect time to start following us!

ok4rj:

This has been a pretty big news week, y’all!

The Oklahoma Gazette had a great article about how the OKC gay scene gained visibility and organized around the AIDS epidemic. It’s amazing how the actions of a few individuals can help shape an entire culture! And boy are we ever thankful to them.

Senator Daniel K. Akaka of Hawaii, the U. S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee Chairman has introduced a bill that would “provide Indian Country with jurisdiction over non-Indians who commit crimes on Indian lands, improve the Native programs under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), and improve data gathering programs to better understand and respond to sex trafficking of Native women.” The Stand Against Violence and Empower Native Women Act could probably have a less paternalistic acronym (its referred to as the SAVE Native Women Act), but if it goes through Congress, it could make a huge impact on Native Women’s lives and tribal sovereignty, so we’re definitely rooting for it!

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you may have heard that we hit the 7 billion mark this week. Before you panic, let the wise ladies at Crunkfeminist Collective assuage any racialized fears you may have about the end of the world coming because of too many brown babies. No, seriously, let them! And while you’re at, read this population myth-debunker from our good friends at the Population & Development Program at Hampshire College (who bring us the awesome and amazing CLPP conference every year and served as the inspiration for OK4RJ!). The world may or may not be ending, but it’s not because of population. Obviously, it’ll be when the aliens come in 2012, right?

Well… that’s my pet theory, anyway.

Some of us at OK4RJ have mixed feelings about the Occupy movements, but I know quite a few of us were giddy with excitement about Oakland’s General Strike! The last general strike in US was in 1946 in Oakland (its quite the happening place!) and it was actually sparked by female workers who were striking for fairer wages. Remember y’all, economic justice is reproductive justice!

A little closer to home, early Wednesday morning police raided Occupy Tulsa’s encampment, arresting 10 protesters who were engaging peacefully in civil disobedience and pepper-spraying at least 5. Thirteen additional protesters were arrested late Wednesday night, while 10 more were arrested Thursday night. Whatever your opinions may be about the Occupy movement, I think we can all agree that freedom of speech is necessary to a functioning, transparent democracy and that police brutality is unacceptable. Pepper spraying people who are breaking a park curfew hardly falls under “protect and serve.”

Trust Women, the badass organization that is opening a new clinic in Wichita (my Cleveland, y’all), is holding the Trust Women Summit in Tulsa on Saturday for people interested in reproductive justice organizing to make Oklahoma a better place for all of us to live. Yeah, its pretty much right up our alley, not to mention the fact that Trust Women is run by Julie Burkhardt, a colleague and close friend of our hero, Dr. George Tiller. I can’t think of a better organization to work with Oklahoma! If you haven’t noticed, this round-up has been sadly fart joke free because I’m filling in for Molly, who’s interning for Trust Women and a huge part of the Summit! I work with pretty much the best people ever.

Last but certainly not least, Oklahoma’s own Lauren Zuniga was featured in a very moving and funny piece in The Abortioneers this week! It’s so great to read about how Lauren has touched someone’s life, because I know she’s touched many of ours with her words. We’ll leave you with an oldie but a goodie from Ms. Zuniga, a poem that I’ve been lucky enough to see her perform a couple of times! Sandra is covering for Molly, who is stuck in the terlet and will be returning for Round-Up Duty/Doody next week. You can follow @sandraholla for more information about the 2012 apocalypse and @MollyJolene for hourly BM updates.

I'm glad everyone likes our poster campaign :)

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 12:13:43 -0400

saucy-sarah:

There’s more:

Students Teaching About Racism in Society is a Student Org at Ohio University. I’m the President, any questions… MESSAGE ME! :)

Kazoos > “Dialogue”: JFA and party as protest

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 16:16:39 -0400

Kazoos > “Dialogue”: JFA and party as protest:

I wrote this for OK4RJ about why we chose kazoos over “dialogue” in our protest against Justice for All last fall.

How could a group of loosely affiliated students with no real budget to speak of take on an organization that can afford to pay their interns $30,000 a year, train their volunteers with a 100+ page script, and cart around pictures of fetuses whose large scale could only be explained away by shared lineage with, uh, giants?

Excuse the heavy-handed Biblical metaphor, but we needed to find a way to get all David on their Goliath fetus carnival.

complex-brown: BLACK OUT! At Occupy Philadelphia We had a...

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 20:56:58 -0400

complex-brown:

BLACK OUT! At Occupy Philadelphia

We had a Black Out! at Occupy Philadelphia. Why?

Saturday, two sisters were called Niggers by two of the volunteers at Occupy Philadelphia at the cell-phone charging stations. They were also told to go back to Africa, and that each white man should own a slave. When the sista’s called security, security asked them to leave the premises because they thought they were apart of the UHURU movement. Even if they were a part of that movement, they should not have been asked to leave. Especially without any mention of their verbal and spiritual abuse.

So a small collective formed a drummer’s circle and started a rally, only to be met with on-lookers who didn’t understand why there was a Pan-African flag at an “American” event. We were called racist. Many of the people there to support Occupy Philadelphia came to us to tell us that all of us are people and that race is behind us! They told us that we were being divisive.

Bullshit.

When we circled up to come up with a constructive way to address the people, we were constantly interrupted by white people who could not respect our safe space. These people said that it was a public space, and we couldn’t have a group that excuded them. Why is it when black people want to get together to work out our issues in our community we are called out? Sadly, one of the black women who came up to our group suggested we move to another location away from city hall. What?!!

When we wanted to address the people at the people’s assembly, we had to beg to get a spot on the program. They wanted us to wait until afterwards and get on the open mic. Also, we had two people come up to the group and ask if we were going to be violent. Why would be violent?? Because we are black? We eventually told the gate-keepers that we were going to be given the mic, or we were going to take the mic. We eventually got our spot.

As the sister was talking about her experience, there were some members in support, and there were even members who came up to us afterwards to show support. But many of the people were asking us to hurry up, calm down and finish. One white guy used signals to get us to hurry up.

We spoke out about RACISM IN THE 99 percent.

We spoke out about how nobody was talking about the racist foundation of corporate greed.

How do we talk about classim without taking about racism?

We were called racist because we empowered ourselves and stood up for what was right.

AfroLez®femcentric Perspectives: Woman is the "N" of the World?

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 15:49:24 -0400

AfroLez®femcentric Perspectives: Woman is the "N" of the World? :

afrolez:

In 1969, Yoko Ono coinded the term and I quote “Woman is the N****R of the World.” Shortly thereafter, she and her husband, the late John Lennon, wrote and he recorded a song with that same title.

According to Wikipedia (which is ALWAYS questionable), at that time (don’t know where…