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October 2010

Rant of the Week: Rape at Schools by Darling Nikki, at Ankh Feminist 3:37 pm / 29 October 2010

I hope you all have been keeping up with the news lately and seeing the disgraceful way schools have been treating sexual assault or the threat of sexual assault. I can’t even convey my anger about it (it would make this blog explode, I swear to you), but I can explain to you from a feminist perspective why this is wrong and perpetuating rape culture in our society.

First on the list: High School Cheerleader



A girl at a high school was sexually assaulted by a star athlete. She refused to cheer for him during a basketball and was ultimately kicked off the cheer squad. She said, “As a team, I cheered for them as a whole. When he stepped up to the free throw line, it didn't feel right for me to have to cheer for him after what he did to me.” When a woman (or a man … a person really) has been sexually assaulted, it can take an emotional, physical, and mental toll on them. Especially when that person has to go back to high school – a rather small, intimate setting if you think about it. She has to see him on a day to day basis and she’s even being harassed by other students in the cafeteria to which the administration responded by telling her to just stay out of the cafeteria. Obviously the school district doesn’t want to go through this whole legal debacle that has unraveled, but the young woman is going to keep fighting. "If everything works out the way that we're hoping … then it makes a point that it's not all right," she said. "And if we keep fighting for that, then maybe other people will too."

Second on the list: Yale Fraternity Delta Kappa Epsilon

A fraternity at Yale had their pledges go through the Old Yale Campus blindfolded (where most of the first year female student housing is) and they were told to chant, “No means yes! Yes means mean anal!” and “My name is Jack! I’m a necrophiliac! I fuck dead women!” They were promoting anal rape and having sex with dead women …. Now, this might be a little overzealous in deconstructing their statement, but if I were a freshman at Yale in those dorms I would be terrified. I would be thinking that they were going to come and kill me and then fuck my dead corpse.

The fraternity since then has apologized for what they have done, they have spoken to the campus Women’s Center and tried working with them. The Yale Daily News then came out talking about what was the right kind of feminism. First off, there is no such thing as the “right kind of feminism” (feminism is supposed to be all encompassing for men and women in order to better our world for gender equality for all). The news paper went on to say, “Feminists at Yale should remember that, on a campus as progressive as ours, most of their battles are already won: All of us agree on gender equality”. No. The battle hasn’t been won. If the battled had been won, then we wouldn’t need to address rape culture at an Ivy League College … a college that is supposed filled with the best and brightest.

Third on the list: Columbia…



An all-male a capella group called Kingsmen on campus posted images of a fellow member with the caption “rape me” underneath it. This was right after the Yale debacle. Wow. Stupid much? They even issued a statement saying it was “[an] utter lack of judgment and an embarrassingly complete sense of tunnel vision.” Which sounds exactly like what the fraternity said after their chant, “a serious lapse in judgment by the fraternity and in very poor taste.” Yeah, poor taste doesn’t even begin to describe how disturbing both of these events are. The word “rape” is being tossed around like a rag doll these days. When someone gets angry about the usage of such a strong, hurtful word, it’s totally justified.

What irritates me is that these schools (the high school not included) thought that by apologizing for this was the end all of the situation. Good for you. You found out you were wrong. Now do something about it. Take action. Go to Take Back the Night at a local campus. Speak out against sexist comments within your group/community. I hope that all of these organizations can learn something from this and understand that rape isn’t a joke. It’s an epidemic.

In light of the high school event, I’m really glad that this young woman is taking the initiative to fight against the status quo. She wants to let people know that this isn’t okay. It’s not. Rape culture is so engrained in us and these events just make it clear that our society doesn’t take rape as seriously as they should.
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Birth Control is Clutch! by Repo Repro, at lsrj.org 1:17 pm / 26 October 2010

For many RJ advocates, the Affordable Care Act was a mixed bag. On the one hand, it covers 95% of Americans by 2014, with all sorts of improved quality measures. On the other hand, the Nelson Amendment dealt a severe blow to advocates who felt that this was a real chance to provide comprehensive reproductive health services to women.

But the politics don’t end when the President signs a bill into law. Federal agencies, in this case the Department of Health and Human Services, exercise power in implementing legislation by issuing regulations. The issue confronting HHS now is whether regulations implementing Sec. 2713 of the Affordable Care Act (the Women’s Health Amendment) should include family planning and birth control in the definition of mandated “preventive care.” Advocates are fighting for and against a comprehensive definition, but the decision belongs to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Birth control is preventive care. First, as a medication or device that literally prevents pregnancy, birth control is preventive medical care. But birth control also fits into the RJ framework. I believe that because birth control enables a woman to control her fertility, it empowers her to decide whether and when to have children. Without access to birth control, RJ becomes unworkable because a woman’s fertility has the capacity to control her decision making. It should be the other way around: women should be able to choose whether and when to parent in the context of all their other life circumstances. Without affordable birth control, RJ becomes a big question mark.

Secretary Sebelius has the power to make contraception affordable for all women. If we take RJ seriously, we should demand that she do so. Do you agree?

Lucy Panza

The views that this writer expresses are her own and should not be construed to reflect those of her past, present, or future employers.

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Election 2010: What’s on the ballot for California (and what does it mean to feminists)? by alice bee toklas, at burst market 8:40 am / 26 October 2010

Election day is this Tuesday, November 2nd and will be an important one for feminists in California. Here's a voter guide presented by the Women's Foundation of California that justifies it's endorsement of certain propositions, including Prop 19 (legalizing marijuana), Prop 21 (creation of a revenue stream for state parks), Prop 24 (business taxes to enhance educational funding), and Prop 25 (2/3 vote to pass state budget). Two of the most crucial decisions on the ballot are the spots for Governor and United States Senator.

Governor
In the Gubernatorial race, Jerry Brown (D), California's former Governor and former mayor of Oakland, is running against Meg Whitman (R), former CEO of eBay. Campaign spending is incomparable, with Whitman's campaign spending reaching $140 million through the end of September while Brown spent about a tenth of that at $11 million (and Whitman is the "fiscally conservative" candidate?!?).

In fact, Jerry Brown was branded a fiscal conservative during his two-term governorship from 1975-1983. During his eight years in office he employed more women and minorities than any previous California governor and left California with a $5 million surplus. He opposed the Brigg's Initiative, "which would have required local school boards to dismiss gay and lesbian teachers whose sexuality was 'likely to come to the attention of school children and/or other employees." He's consistently committed to protecting the environment. As Attorney General he fought in the Supreme Court against Prop 8 and for "a lesbian who was refused treatment by her doctor on account of her sexual orientation." He also joined
a lawsuit against the Federal Government to stop the Bush Administration from adopting a "midnight regulation" that jeopardized a woman’s right to contraception, even emergency contraception given to rape victims.
Jerry Brown has experience governing the state of California which has included both protecting civil liberties as well as generating wealth. He knows Californians and has been called adaptive to our changing needs.

Whitman, on the other hand, is running on the promise of a "new California," one that is apparently concerned with banning gay marriage and doubling worker furloughs. She has been called an "oddity among Silicon Valley Republicans, who tend to be social moderates more concerned about lowering taxes and less government regulation than opposing gay rights." Her campaign attempts to palliate her voting in favor of Propositions 8 and 4 and her proposed "tough as nails" (to say the least) immigration policy by issuing statements characterizing Meg as "a big believer of equal rights" (but, as she points out, not a feminist). Why the doublespeak? It appears Meg's grasping at straws for votes after employing an "illegal" housekeeper for 9 years, firing her, making comments that she should be deported, and expressing "sadness over having to fire Ms. Diaz." The cloud of bad press doesn't end there--Whitman donated $30 million to Princeton in the form of a residential housing complex a year after her son, Griff, was accused with rape at the school. Not surprisingly, the charges were dismissed. In a similar instance, Griff broke a woman's ankle at a bar and again, Meg "posted $25,000 in bail and the charges were eventually dismissed."

Senate
The Senate race will come down to Barbara Boxer, California's Senator since 1993 (after spending ten years in the House of Representatives) and Carly Fiorina, law school dropout with a Bachelor's degree in Medieval History and zero political experience. Boxer has a liberal voting record and is dedicated to women's and civil rights issues while Carly Fiorina is in opposition to the Roe v. Wade abortion rights ruling AND even the most basic gun control measures. In the words of Mercury News, Carly's positions on critical issues are "so far right they make Boxer look moderate." With the new policy revoking restrictions on campaign funds, Barbara Boxer ads are hard to come by these days (try finding ONE on YouTube) while Fiorina's over-the-top anti-feminist ads are everywhere.

As Senator, Barbara Boxer authored the Freedom of Choice Act of 2004 and was a cosponsor of the Title X Family Planning Services Act of 2005. As Senator, she's received countless awards in recognition of her aid in human rights and women's organizations as well as peacekeeping, environmental, and health care reform efforts. Here, Barbara Boxer answers questions posed by the League of Women Voters. She highlights plans to create jobs in transportation and clean energy, emphasizing ending tax cuts for companies that ship jobs overseas (giving those cuts to the middle class) while investing in our environment and health, crucial focal areas to insure a healthy social and economic climate in the future.

Carly Fiorina stands in direct opposition to Barbara Boxer as a pro-life Prop 8 supporter. Fiorina has likened Boxer's concern for global warming to worrying "about the weather," which makes sense given the campaign contributions she's received from the coal industry. An almost too obvious distinction between Carly Fiorina and Barbara Boxer is Fiorina's lack of political experience, only previously participating in John McCain's 2008 campaign as a "point person" for business affairs. In this interview, Carly Fiorina also answers questions posed by LWV, highlighting plans to invest in the military at a time when our current war in Afghanistan is the longest and most expensive in history, and emphasizing economic growth and fiscal restraint with no guarantee that jobs will actually go to Americans.

With lubricious social conservatives like Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina on the ballot, Fall 2010's stakes are high for feminists. Whether you live in California, Ohio, New York, or Pennsylvania, the League of Women Voters has provided a link that provides access to your sample ballot and polling place. I urge each and every one one of you to vote for what you think is right on Tuesday, Nov. 2nd.
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Rant of the Week: “Mancession” by Darling Nikki, at Ankh Feminist 1:35 pm / 20 October 2010

What the hell is this? I thought we had been in a recession … not a mancession. Since when were men scarce in our society? I live with two. I have a father, a few uncles, a bunch of friends and lovers who are men. I can’t see any recession of men on campus (in fact the frats are taking over with breast cancer awareness month). In magazines they – oh!! Oooooh! Wait…. That’s what this is about? It’s about the image of a man? Jesus … okay. Where do I begin?

So the huge surge of boy-men in magazines and high fashion advertisements seemed to have caused some fear. Fear of what? That “real” men are a dying breed? I’m not more attracted to you because you look like you could chop down an oak tree (and if you boast about that, I will probably turn away from you).

Because of the recession, men have lost their stereotypical gender role of being the bread winner and being “the man of the house” which in itself is an interesting phrase considering that women are usually the ones who run the home. That has always been their sphere to rule even though the man has been the one to provide for it. June Cleaver may have been spending her husband’s money, but she was the one feeding him, taking care of his offspring, and all with a smile on her face.

The recession has created this idea of what it means to be a man or to be a woman. Since women now are 51% of the workforce, there are more men who are considered stay-at-home-dads. Now, I would consider my father a stay-at-home-dad since he was the one usually doing the laundry, the cooking, the cleaning, etc. My mom did of course contribute to these tasks, but from what I can recall as a small child, I identified her as the main money-maker. Without her around, we wouldn’t have lived in the condo that we did, or had food on our table, nor would I have been able to flourish as a young actor. She was the provider and for that, mom, I thank you. Because you are a working woman, you’ve shown me that gender roles don’t necessarily fit everyone (thank god).

Anyways, what I was trying to get at is that even though my dad was around more at home, he wasn’t an less of a man. Hell, I don’t even think my dad cares what defines him as a man, to be quite honest (he doesn’t really pay attention to this stuff…the man wears Hawaiian shirts for crying out loud). Even with the recession and his job of painting houses and fixing them up dwindling down, he hasn’t ever expressed to me that he feels less of a man (but maybe that’s his manly side hiding his emotions).

When reading the NYTimes article about this sudden splurge of manly-men in advertisements, on runways, and fashion spread, I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at the statement from Sam Shahid, creative director of Shahid & Company,"In tough times, people want a strong man.” This is the same man who helped create Calvin Klein advertisements that are degrading to women and create an infantilizing image that young women are supposed to strive for.

Which leads me to my next point: why isn’t there a fear of a womancession? Where’s the shock and horror at the fact that women are portrayed as objects or infantile children or as stupid, vapid, dumb creatures that need a man’s help? Hello?  Why aren’t women looked at in this recession in a positive light? It’s a great thing that we’re moving up in the work world, right? Why must we immediately go to a negative of a man being less of a man?

Well, due to this huge uproar over men losing their masculinity in the job market, the fashion industry as decided to combat this is by changing the way men should look.

Cue the “Mad Men” theme music.

“What they want, in short, is Jon Hamm. That Mr. Hamm’s square-jawed Don Draper so persuasively resembles an archetypal father on a time-travel visa from an era of postwar expansion and fixed gender roles can hardly be incidental to the success of “Mad Men.””

Yes please. Let’s go back to the 1960s where gender-roles were still clearly defined, women were “lucky” to get sexually harassed at work, they hardly ever worked the same jobs as a man, and they instead were their assistants, waitresses, or wives and mothers to their children. Yeah, I’d love to see a man’s privilege sky-rocket and all that equal rights stuff just flutter out the window like a forgotten Calvin Klein receipt.

The fear of being less of a man because he doesn’t have job seems logical by sociological standard, but trivial at the same time. It’s been a huge staple in our idea of the “American Dream”, but as we can clearly see in history and in our world today, that dream changes with each generation. 
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Barbara Billingsley Has Died, but June Cleaver Lives On by Darling Nikki, at Ankh Feminist 9:49 am / 18 October 2010

Barbara Billingsley as June Cleaver


Just this past weekend, Barbara Billingsley, who played the ever iconic June Cleaver on ‘Leave it to Beaver’, passed away in her Santa Monica home in California at the age of 94. The character she played as the perfect house wife, mother, and neighbor still lives on in our society. June Cleaver is still present in most of the sitcoms and television shows of today where the man does the work and the wife takes care of the children and household chores (Family Guy, The Simpsons, King of Queens, Everybody Loves Raymond, etc).


Modern Family
Now, there have been more recent television shows that depict a more present day image of what it means to be a family such as Parenthood, Modern Family, or The Secret Life of an American Teenager. These sitcoms are “groundbreaking” in the fact that they don’t show the heteronormative household where the father does the work, the mother does the cooking and cleaning, and the 2.5 children are going to school and learning valuable, moral lessons. Instead, the teenagers rebel in all sorts of ways from smoking pot to having a baby at age sixteen. There are a whole range of parents same-sex parents to a single mom/dad. And although most of these families still characterize a white suburban demographic, the media is trying to represent more multi-racial homes. This is a huge leap from the 1950s idea of what a real home should be.



‘Leave it to Beaver’ created a world of prescriptions for people and what they should be. White, suburban, religious, well-mannered, and perfect. Perfect. Now there’s a word that is completely unattainable in the real world. Because women were vying for perfection back in the fifties, they lost a little bit of themselves. Thus, Betty Freidan’s famous piece known as “The Problem That Has No Name” hits the world in 1963. June Cleaver can be perfectly described in the following paragraph:

“The suburban housewife—she was the dream image of the young American women and the envy, it was said, of women all over the world. The American housewife—freed by science and labor-saving appliances from the drudgery, the dangers of childbirth and the illnesses of her grandmother. She was healthy, beautiful, educated, concerned only about her husband, her children, her home. She had found true feminine fulfillment. As a housewife and mother, she was respected as a full and equal partner to man in his world. She was free to choose automobiles, clothes, appliances, supermarkets: she had everything that women ever dreamed of.”

However, there was a huge issue with trying to attain this image of being a perfect housewife; women were actually questioning their lives. There was an issue, a dilemma, a problem that women across the country couldn’t put their finger on. They were wondering what more they wanted from life. They weren’t satisfied with having one option of being a housewife and mother. Because of women like Betty Freidan, Simone de Beauvoir, Gloria Steinem, and Audre Lorde, women have had more of an option than just being a housewife. They can choose a path like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Nancy Pelosi, Rachel Maddow, or Gail Collins (my go to for famous, strong women are usually involved in politics, so forgive me for not mentioning those who are apart of the art, science, literature or outdoor spheres).

There are still a lot of obstacles to combat in this world riddled in sexism, racism, and homophobia. Because of second-wave feminism pushing us forward, many people think that we have already reached equality when in reality, we haven’t. In the article, Women Losing Ground (which part of it can be summed up here), Ruth Conniff explains the atmosphere for women in the office.

“Women now grow up expecting to be full participants in society, with the same career expectations as men. But sexism persists, and society has not adjusted to the reality of two-career families. Women still take the brunt of domestic and childrearing duties, madly scrambling to balance their competing responsibilities. Our country still treats raising a family as a private matter, even if June Cleaver and the family wage are history. At beast, flex time, on-site child care, and family leave are seen as expensive perks, and employees who take advantage of them are often first to be downsized—with repercussions across society.”

So even though women have broken out of the kitchen and into the office, the work world still doesn’t seem ready to accommodate for women who want to have children or already have children. There’s clearly a lot of catching up to do in this country when it comes to equality; wage gap, sexism in the office, promotions, etc. We even have a wage gap bill (aka the Paycheck Fairness Act where you can find me ranting about here). This bill is in line at congress and has been put on the back burner because of the ever chaotic and overly hyped mid-term elections coming up. Even Don’t Ask Don’t Tell – which is a huge issue in today’s media – has been placed to the side. So you can see that social issues are being kicked off the front porch of congress when they are need now more than ever.



“The reality is that most families badly need women’s earnings to stay afloat. The answer is not to muse about how a few affluent women manage their careers and cultural expectations, but how we, as a society, make life workable for families under extreme economic, social, and emotional stress. Men, women, and children alike badly need a more modern approach to these problems. As the current recession hits home, it’s high time we did something about it.” (Conniff)

I appreciate all the work Barbara Billingsley did as an actor. Without her portrayal as June Cleaver, the idea of being a white, suburban housewife wouldn’t have been as accessible to the media. She made it iconic and thus, in some way, pushed feminism into a whole different stratosphere. Women started to question the idea of being more than just a housewife. They went out and got careers, tried to change the workforce to fit their lives, and yet society is being very resistant. Thus, we need to keep fighting, keep pushing forward, and keep cracking that damn glass ceiling in hopes that it’s going to shatter (this is the only time when I will condone breaking something on purpose).


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Canada…Sex Work…Decriminalization by Repo Repro, at lsrj.org 8:33 pm / 17 October 2010

For those law students who have already fallen into the yearly law school abyss, I have some news from my homeland you might have missed: sex work has basically been decriminalized in Ontario. The jist of it is that on Tuesday September 28, Ontario Superior Court Justice Susan Himel struck down three laws that criminalized actions surrounding the sex trade: communicating for the purposes of prostitution, living off the avails of prostitution, and operating a common bawdy house (prior to this decision prostitution was NOT illegal in Canada, only the laws surrounding it were). The rhetoric in the decision is truly unprecedented. Justice Himel recognizes and gives legal value to the protection and safety of sex workers: “By increasing the risk of harm to street prostitutes, the communicating law is simply too high a price to pay for the alleviation of social nuisance,” she said. “I find that the danger faced by prostitutes greatly outweighs any harm which may be faced by the public.”

It is essential that law students committed to reproductive justice in Canada, the U.S., and around the world take note of this decision for many reasons some of which, but MOST definitely not all, I will mention here. First, this decision will hopefully improve sex worker’s access to reproductive health care (contraception access, protection against STI’s, gynecological care) and ability to report cases of sexual assault, as they will be able to do both these things without fear of being arrested. Second, through decriminalization, sex workers will hopefully have less interactions with the criminal justice system; a system where they are likely to receive inadequate or no reproductive health care and where they are more vulnerable to sexual assault. This is especially true for communities that are disproportionally targeted by law enforcement: out door sex workers, indigenous sex workers, trans sex workers, and sex workers of color. Third, the language in the decision is an example of the important role lawyers and law students can play in the fight for sex workers rights and for providing reproductive justice to all. Justice Himel’s reasoning exemplifies how progressive and nuanced rhetoric and legal theories, discussed in law school classrooms, essay’s, and invigorating late night debates, can make its way into a legal opinion that has a practical and immediate effect on the local level and an echoing influence around the world.

More importantly, this opinion shows how we as future lawyers, judges, politicians, and activists, can transplant to the legal system, the needs, ideas, and goals that come from the communities we serve (and are apart of ). What other ways do you think reproductive justice lawyers can play a part in the movement for sex workers rights? How do you think anti-trafficking and sex worker rights lawyers and advocates can work together to further all our goals?

(Also, I want to give a shout out and much love to all the sex workers and sex worker advocates in Toronto and across Canada. The sex work community(s) is (are) incredibly active in Toronto and have been and continue to be at the forefront of the fight for increased safety and decriminalization).

An article about the decision can be found here.

Lara Shkordoff

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Grrrl G33k of the Week/"Dyke To Watch Out For": Graphic Artist Alison Bechdel by alice bee toklas, at burst market 2:53 pm / 17 October 2010

As you've probably figured out, I post a "Grrrl G33k of the Week" maybe every month or few months?, not every week. Frankly, my reasoning for the title doesn't go much further than "it rhymes." I'm sort of unabashedly cheesy (something you've also probably figured out). However, "Grrrl G33k" is not an arbitrary designation; if I deem you a grrrl g33k (of the week), it means I want to be you.

That being said, I was reading Dykes To Watch Out For (link to the strip archive) by Alison Bechdel a little earlier and decided I should share it with my femme-nasties (a term of endearment, I promise). Currently on hiatus, Dykes To Watch Out For is one of the first on-going lesbian soap operas, and is as dear to LGBTQ communities as Maupin's Tales of the City or Feinberg's Stone Butch Blues. Unlike lesbian soap opera The L-Word, DTWOF presents cerebral characters with dynamic gender and sexual identities (and is not a Showtime hit). With the characterization of the "dykes," Lois, a sex-positive drag king and Sparrow, a bisexual lesbian for instance, Bechdel alludes to the complexities involved in identity politics. Bechdel also incorporates political themes and events/movements familiar to those in real-life LGBTQ communities.
Dykes To Watch Out For
Dykes To Watch Out For is actually the reason the Bechdel test exists. In a strip published in 1985, a character says that she'll only watch a movie if it satisfies these three requirements:
1. It has to have at least two women in it,
2. Who talk to each other,
3. About something besides a man.
The Bechdel test gives readers access to movies that satisfy the 3-part "rule" and also allows readers to enter their own reviews.

In addition to Dykes To Watch Out For (running since 1983), Bechdel is responsible for several DTWOF books, Fun Home, an autobiographical graphic novel, as well as exclusive work for publications like Ms., Out, and The Advocate.

In 2006, Bechdel published her critically acclaimed Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. Fun Home, inspired by the probable suicide of Alison's closeted father, chronicles the relationship between the two generations of blood-related gays. It has been on "Best Books" lists in mainstream publications like Time, New York Times, People, Salon, and The Guardian and won the Eisner award for Best Reality-Based Work in 2007.
Fun Home
Visit DTWOF and Bechdel's blog to stay up on her recent work and upcoming projects. She also posts on LGBTQ news as well as some of her own home movies, book reviews, etc. As always, I'd appreciate your feedback. Do you love it?!?
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Non-Consensual Unprotected Sex by Bad Ass Femmes 6:32 am / 15 October 2010

Recently one of my friends called me and posed a question that I haven't been able to get out of my head. It has to do with a man taking a condom off without permission while having consensual sex. Is it rape? Should a man be arrested? Has anyone ever been arrested for something like that? Would the police even arrest someone? Has anything like that ever happened to you?

I wrote about it over on my other new blog Latina Fatale. Check it out and I would love to hear your perspective.


Rant of the Week: Anti-Abortionists on Campus by Darling Nikki, at Ankh Feminist 11:59 am / 13 October 2010




I don't have kids. I don't want kids (right now). If I didn't have the choice that I do now a days, I would probably have had about two or three rugrats running around below my feet. I wouldn't be in college necessarily, or even in Chico for that matter. 

I'm fine if a person doesn't approve of abortion or doesn't think that they would ever want to have one -- but it's their choice. I don't know how much more I can stress that. We all have a choice to receive proper reproductive health care. I like that I have access to birth control, emergency contraception, and, if the case ever arises, an abortion. I would never want to get one, but the fact that I have access to receiving one if necessary makes me breathe a little easier at night. Countless women have fought and died for our choice to have access to such medical procedures and I will not take it for granted.



The group that came onto our campus, has a first amendment right to free speech. I understand that. What irks me is when it disrupts people's days completely and hinders their education. They had posted extremely tall, graphic photographs of what looked like bloody,mangled aborted fetuses. First off, a fetus does not have arms, legs, intestines, and/or eyes in the first few legal weeks when a woman can receive an abortion. Second, if a woman did receive an abortion via medical pills or through dilation and evacuation which is usually done through the second trimester, it wouldn't look like those images; it would look more like a blood clot. The photos were meant to rile up crowds, grab people's attention and receive notice. 

Well they did. 

To the point of a retaliation from the Women's Center by protesting peacefully in front of these gruesome images. I myself even wondered, "Was taking birth control correct? Was it alright that I've taken Plan B before?" Then I stopped myself, took a breather, and reminded myself that I am a feminist for a multitude of reasons and this is one of them: the freedom to choose what I want to do with my body. I want to succeed in life and not having a child right now is the only way that I see it for myself personally. I'd much rather have a child that is raised in a healthy, happy, ready family than one that was received unexpectedly where the parents may or may not be able to provide for them.



Everyone, every woman, has their own perspective on this topic and I completely respect each individual story, background, or opinion. Just please do not impede on my choice on this matter. It's hard enough as it is to make the decision -- but it will be mine when I choose to make it.
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Feminist fashions Vulva Love Lovely and KM Stitchery by alice bee toklas, at burst market 7:26 pm / 10 October 2010

This post was inspired by an indie fashion show I recently attended. I noticed that quite a few of the show's designers were female--Kimberly Souliere of Baby Kakes, Rachel Broussard of Supa Star, and Ally Rose. Although being in the presence of so many talented women was awesome in itself, I didn't find any particularly female-centric or female-positive products, which left me wanting. I went straight to Etsy (hub for independent designers and custom fashions) and came across a few really cool resources for feminist, body-positive products by feminist designers.

The first is an Etsy shop called Vulva Love Lovely. The shop offers vulva and uterus pendants, clothing accessories, soaps, plush toys, and knick-knacks galore. Here's one of Jessica Marie's uterus plushies for reference (in the Frida Kahlo style):Other notable VLL products include eco-friendly cloth menstrual pads, organic lip balm, and custom Vulva portrait pieces (yes, custom as in of YOUR vagina)!
Jessica Marie, body-pos craft queen herself, flies her feminist flag high; if her dedication to sex-positivity wasn't obvious enough, her bio is heartbreakingly sincere. If you love vaginas, you'll have a blast looking through her Etsy shop. And while you're at it, become a fan of VLL on Facebook! You can find new products on the FB page first so follow along to stay up to date.

The next Etsy shop is called KM Stitchery: Eco-Friendly Feminist Fashion. KM's products are recycled T-shirts printed with the faces of feminist greats including bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Gertrude Stein, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Gloria E. Anzaldua, Alice Walker, Kathleen Hanna, Sylvia Plath, and many, many more (including custom orders).


KM Stitchery also holds a monthly contest in which guesses are made as to whom the next T-shirt screen will feature and the winner gets free shipping on any item! Her blog is also really awesome (and going on the blogroll NOW), showcasing feminist music and movies and linking to other sites she's featured on (including Bitch Magazine!) as well as resources for purchasing her products in person. And if you thought Linzee from KM Stitchery couldn't get any cooler, she's in a feminist "dark literary chamber rock" band called The Great Confinement!

Also on Etsy:
- MadamePlatypus' feminist cards, prints, and pendants
- A feminist oil painting depicting a nude woman crammed into a pink box available at Cedric Alessandro
- A feminist zine available at Olivia Arrow
- A vintage Sappho of Lesbos cast bronze sculpture available at see vintage lane
- A vintage Ms. shirt available at Boat On Dry Land

Give these galz a look-see and let me know what you think! Happy guilt-free shopping!

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