So I was reading this post on women of color and the porn industry at Brownfemipower’s, and ended up being smacked upside the head with the cluestick.
(Anyone who thinks that I’m going to suddenly burst into song praising the flaccid excuse for sexuality that is Hugh Heffner and his corporate Playboy logo, the Suicide Girls, Girls Gone Wild, or the system of female sexual service and male consumption as the liberating and one true way of the sex should stop reading right now. Seriously. You’ll be disappointed.)
No, the cluestick smack happened as BFP said this:
** As with other “choiceâ€? debates (abortion is the biggie), “choiceâ€? rests its foundation on the beliefs that 1. the person making the choice is valued by society and 2. the choice the made is valued by society. In the abortion debates, people like Dorthy Roberts (and lots of other RWOC theorists) argue that “choiceâ€? is harmful to women of color (and other marginalized women) because it continues the agenda against women of color such that women of color are systematically violated for making the “wrongâ€? choice. For example, the choice to have a baby is certainly available to all women in the U.S., but it is generally only poor white women, disabled women and women of color that must contend with back to work programs, sterilization without consent, losing children through child protective services, imprisonment, etc. Also, many times, under the guise of “feminist choice” white feminists employ violent and harmful policies of reproductive control over women of color–for example, the unquestioned support of Planned Parenthood (a corporation with a proven track record of systematic “population controlâ€? policies.)
I found myself nodding along in agreement with the idea that choice is bunk when your options are limited. And then found myself getting really defensive over this paragraph. So I did what I usually do when I get defensive in response to what someone from a very different background from me says–and I walked away and thought on it.
And you know what? As far as I’m concerned, she’s right.
I am pro-choice (including the right to have a child). In my own case, I’m pro-abortion. Being a White woman, this is a horrible thing for some people. I’ve been informed by some folks that I’m wicked and selfish for not having children. That it’s my duty to have children. That I’m unnatural for not having them. And I want to say, What business is it of yours, anyway? It’s my life and my choice.
But the idea of choice, like it’s the Pepsi Generation, just sets my teeth on edge.
For women who are expected to have children (thankfully, my parents are not among those folks who dog me about this), we see choice as the right to have children or not. White, middle-class women from “good” families, whose babies are adoptable, whose wombs are public property unless they’re married–then it’s property of the husbands. We want another choice, and it’s a “choice,” with the scare quotes around it. Because even as White women, we’ve got double-standards (sexual, work, and family), violence, and economic inequality to contend with.
Yet this is nothing compared to what women of color and poor women face. It’s not that you make seventy cents for every dollar a man makes, it’s that you may not even get an interview, or even have the opportunity to go to a decent high school or get into college. You are more likely to be poor, and thus not have the opportunities that other people have. You have more violence to contend with–state-sponsored violence against you and your loved ones. You are blamed for crime. You are blamed for unemployment. You are despised as a welfare queen if you have children and need food stamps. You are hypersexualized in the media, pilloried for this stereotype, and exhorted to show some self-respect. You are the perfect scapegoat for White people.
Dorothy Roberts pointed out that we cannot talk about reproductive rights (not choice) if we do not talk about race and class.
In contemporary America there is a prevalent belief that poor black women shouldn’t have children. And that their having children is the cause of black people’s problems, well, indeed, of America’s problems. I think for a long time the denigration of black women’s reproduction was just ignored by mainstream feminists because they had the image of the white mother in mind. Even though there are restrictions on white mothers, it’s a fundamentally different kind of regulation. And then there are other feminists who are so wedded to abortion rights as the most important issue and to abortion as the be all and end all of reproductive freedom that there s a resistance to seeing coercive birth control policies as also being oppressive. They don’t get that distributing Norplant and Depo-Provera in poor communities and telling women, “This is what you should use,” could be oppressive.
A perfect example is sterilization. In the seventies, a group of feminists opposed waiting periods and rigid informed consent procedures for sterilization. Women of color said, “Let’s put limits on sterilization because doctors are guilty of abuse.” But this just didn’t register with some of the mainstream reproductive rights groups that had been pushing for greater access to sterilization for white, middle-class women. While poor black women were, in some cases, forcibly sterilized, sometimes without their knowledge, let alone consent, white women had a hard time getting sterilized. There were all sorts of formulas to figure out if you should allow a white woman to be sterilized. This exemplifies how diametrically opposed the experience of the struggle for reproductive rights has been for these two groups.
When we have punitive laws aimed at poor women, the rhetoric of choice rings hollow. When we have a history of pushing sterilization, Norplant, and Depo on mainly poor women of color (and damn the ensuing health problems), the rhetoric of choice rings hollow. When we hail lower birthrates among the poor as what will save the poor, and ignore things like economic justice, the rhetoric of choice rings hollow. When we insist on punishing addicted women for not magically kicking the habit while pregnant and simultaneously turn them away when they seek help (since, you know, we have better things to fund with our tax dollars, like the Iraq war), the rhetoric of choice rings hollow. When we threaten to take away the children of poor women (many of whom are women of color) because of circumstances beyond their control, the rhetoric of choice rings hollow. When welfare-to-work policies are coupled with expensive daycare and the demonization of poor mothers as “welfare queens,” the rhetoric of choice rings hollow.
This is pseudo-choice. You can choose between these crappy options, and the people in power can choose to use and abuse you. And that’s crap.
142 Responses to “Psuedo-choice isn’t actually freedom”
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Having been to Planned Parenthoods both in areas that were predominantly white and predominantly minority, I’m not exactly sure what the issue with their organization is. I have never seen a woman given anything less than a full range of options for contraception, nor have I ever seen any particular method “pushed” on anyone…in fact, I saw a lot of discussions of side effects and such for contraceptive methods. I don’t think there’s been some dramatic planned parenthood push for long-term birth control methods…if anything, some right-wing groups have advocated it (like the ones that advertised that they’d pay $500 to addicted women who wanted to be sterilized), but where’s the PP hate coming from here?
If there’s an actual reason beyond knee-jerk “it’s a big corporation therefore BAD,” I’d love to see it because it might change my mind regarding supporting it. But Planned Parenthood has always done a fantastic job, in all cases I’ve seen, presenting women with all their options regarding their own reproductive systems. Now, society might make some of those options harder to take up than others, but it’s not Planned Parenthood doing that. What are these “population control” policies being referred to without reference?
I agree so heartily with most of this post that I’m sorry I have to second molly’s query: what about Planned Parenthood makes it “a corporation with a proven track record of systematic ‘population control’ policies”? This sounds like the kind of trash talk that comes out of anti-choice fanatics trying to shut down PP and claiming it’s “racist”.
I’m not exactly sure what the issue with their organization is
Margaret Sanger, the founder of PP, was a eugenicist; see the many links here.
Sometimes I think I am a eugenicist who does not believe in any kind of force or coercion, which perhaps would gut the definition. I believe people often have an uncanny sense of what is best both for themselves and most of the people their decisions will impact (i.e. their other kids, marriage, etc.). Degree in rocket science not required. When someone has made an independent determination NOT to have a child, there are few instances where that decision is unworthy of social support. At this point in history, the decision to bear and raise a child is far riskier econcomically and socially than the decision not to do so. Maybe there is no way for someone to arrive at this decision “independently” in modern culture. PP is really a tiny bell in the full orchestra of messages about womens’ duty to seek and accept motherhood, regardless of the consequences. Anyway, I don’t buy that modern PP is pushing anyone to do anything they don’t want to - if nothing else they lack the funding.
I found this post very thought-provoking, and I agree completely with the point that poverty is the problem, not poor women choosing to have children. However, until this problem is solved, the poor will continue to have less access to birth control, abortions, childcare, and information on their options. And until poverty is eliminated, motherhood will continue to be a much greater burden on the poor than on the wealthy (don’t get me started on the price of diapers). I would argue that offering birth control directly to the poor is giving many of them more of a choice than they would have otherwise, just as giving them childcare supplies would be.
The essay above expalins why many Black Women do not view themselves as part of any “Feminist” movement.
The truth is that Black & Brown women are never even invited to the alleged disscussion table, I mean really..even in THIS forum, I notice that the words / questions / comments of the few non-White participants somehow always get skipped over. And the White people continue to have THEIR own discussion-even when (and especially when) the discussion IS about Blacks / Browns / Other non-Whites.
Truthfully, I am of the firm belief that most White people who call themselves “liberal” or “non-racist” have very little interest in hearing an authentic opinion from a real live Negro.
Gdr - her statements were taken out of context. I’m pretty sure Amanda addressed this a couple months ago. Also not sure that a google search is going to be extremely helpful, because it will turn up a lot of anti-choice sites which claim many erroneous things without accurate citations. Unless that was your intention? I can’t quite tell.
But in regards to Planned Parenthood, I agree with Jesurgislac. I’m not sure of he answer. However, I have read that low-income and black women are overrepresented in the population of women who take Depo. Check out the Committee on Women, Population, and the Environment (pro-choice, feminist site). It sounds like there are many minority support groups opposed to Depo. Perhaps this has made some people skeptical of places like PP which dispense such birth control? I really don’t know, just throwing out ideas.
Don’t let the PP knock be a red herring. Don’t stay on it because it’s the thing that you’re familiar with.
brownfemipower’s whole post is excellent reading. She also goes into the problems of “choice” and pron. The effects of race and class on perspectives, politics, and priorities is something that doesn’t get enough play.
Thanks Sheezlebub!
I would also like to add this: Whenever I have been harassed or treated unfairly in my professional career–I always had White Women to thank.
Most Black women view White Women as “the enemy”… I also have sufficient evidence to think that White Women view Black Women extremely negatively. They appear to have feelings of superiority.
The truth is, White Women may be superior–but not by much…We are ALL women.Consequently we will ALL always remain divided and conquered: Fighting over the scraps that the men “let” us have rather than joining forces for the betterment of everyone.
rrp: Don’t let the PP knock be a red herring. Don’t stay on it because it’s the thing that you’re familiar with.
I agree with all the rest of it - I don’t honestly have anything to say to the rest of it except a solid yes. That’s why I’m querying the Planned Parenthood knock.
This whole “abortion/birth control/sterilization is a plot against people of color” is a gigantic red herring used by anti-choice people to try to sow confusion in our ranks. Don’t buy into it. As long as no coercion exists, there’s no moral dilemma.
Anti-choice people consistently support political policies that harm poor and minority women. Such women shouldn’t allow themselves to get confused over who their friends (and enemies) are.
I think the pro-choice attitude is to protect all individuals reproductive rights. Those rights include becoming pregnant and aborting a pregnancy. R v. W protects women from the state eugenicist and the cuture of rape.
I make this arguement with those who would use state police powers to coerce women into having babies they do not want. They want the state to make women have babies but do not understand the law also protects them from having state coerced abortions. I think that is an idea the pro-choice movement should exploit when discussing constitutional law. If the state can make women NOT have abortions, then the state can also MAKE women have abortions. That is why it is imperative individuals have no state interference with reproductive rights, and those rights constitutionally guaranteed.
Well, FTR, I fully support Planned Parenthood. But I think the organization alienated some women of color with the push for sterilization without waiting periods and informed consent, as well as Norplant and Depo, (two forms of BC that were marketed to and pushed very heavily on communities of color). If it was a perfect world, I’d think these fears were unfounded, but seeing as how women of color and poor women are often pushed by doctors and society into permanent or semi permanent states of sterility (the risks be damned), I can’t fault someone’s skepticism about PP or other similar organizations. In addition, Dorothy Roberts makes a good point about how other issues that impact many women of color–poverty, civil rights, etc.–are seen as “social justice” but not intertwined with reproductive rights. Yet in the lives of many women of color, they are.
And yes Gdr, Sanger had quite the association with eugenics, as did many liberals and conservatives of her day. The “pro-life” rhetoric about her makes it seem like she’s the only one. And it’s interesting that while pro-lifers go on and on about this and equate her to a Nazi, they overlook the fact that Hitler himself outlawed abortion and made childbearing a duty. Also, many “life” advocates aren’t addressing the problems faced by poor women and women of color.
But really–I’d like to delve more into the issue of “choice” and what it means. Can it mean anything if our options are so constricted? Is there a way we can break out of the typical and tiresome rhetoric of abortion vs. motherhood and focus on the broader issues of social justice, and pushing for all facets of reproductive rights on a larger scale?
Why, yes, Bitter Scribe–those darn black folks had better not start thinking for themselves or anything; you’ve put so much effort into making them your political football, it’d be downright uppity of them to complain.
Quick hint: pretending that “no coercion exists” when poor people are dealing with the system is breathtakingly ignorant.
I’d also like to point out that instead of dismissing what the women of color who have these experiences say, we’d show real solidarity in listening to them and taking what they say seriously. An ally wouldn’t dismiss what they say and insist they should just trust us. So, yes, Bitter Scribe, while many forced birth folks use this rhetoric to destroy access to abortion and BC, there are still valid concerns by women of color, and those concerns are informed by their experiences, not by the rhetoric of so-called pro-lifers.
We can acknowledge this, listen to women of color, take all of the issues this involved as priorities, still be pro-choice, pro-access-to-BC-and-abortion.
Uhura, me too! And I’m white! My reasoning is thus. A lot of women high up in management right now feel they had no “priviliges” or breaks such as freedom from the more blatant forms of workplace sexual harassment or maternity leaves. What is more, they know how to ingratiate themselves with the patriarchial establishment or they would not be in management. At this point, they like being the ‘Smurfette’ - i.e. the only woman in a male dominated enviroment. They feel that if they helped a woman lower down the totem pole, their overlords would see them as threats rather than the benign Gunga Din’s of yore and take away their corner office, they would be giving women breaks they did not get on their way up, and they could no longer enjoy their little niche as the only ‘girl’. Net result? All the help I have had in my career has been from men. I try to change that by mentoring other young women in the profession, but guess what? I’m still the only woman in my office who is not a secretary because (drum roll), the last qualified women we interviewed was seen as too ‘butch’ (someone actually mentioned her non-high heels - you would think she had a skull tatoo on her forehead) and ‘aggressive’ by the equity partners. Job she was applying for? LITIGATOR (um - agressive is kind of a big part of it).
I just realized I was guilty of being self absorbed and not addressing the point about race in your post, Uhura. Given the framework I laid out, it would not suprise me to learn that a lot of white women in managment shit on a lot of women of color - because they can. If it makes you feel any better, we just forced out a white office manager and promoted a black secretary from within to replace her, but I would not say such things are the norm. One of the reasons the white woman got the boot is she was very condesending to my Hispanic secretary (once she pressured her to go to a firm event after hours - no OT and my secretary has child care issues - with the plea ‘it’s at a Mexican restaruant’ - as it you will like that, huh, viva cuervo). You can’t make this stuff up.
The issue with Planned Parenthood is predominantly historical. There’s no sense I get that anyone but anti-choicers (who are mostly racist crackers anyway) believes that PP is some anti-black institution. There were black men in the past who raised concerns about “letting” black women decide when they have kids, but the main issue is whether or not white feminists are too quick to dismiss concerns that black women might have that the concept of “planned parenthood” was middle class, white normativity. It’s a complex issue, to say the least, but I don’t know anyone who is for reproductive rights that doesn’t support the general work that PP does.
But the name, with all its implications (including the connotative disdain for young, unwed motherhood) is mostly sort of dated. Reminds me of something like the NAACP—if it was formed now under its current mission, it would have a different name.
GDR, are you under the incorrect impression that Sanger is still alive and running Planned Parenthood?
Bitter, I’ve never seen any evidence poor women or women of color are prone to falling for these anti-choice attacks. The eugenics slur is made by white people in order to convince other white people that they have honorable goals in restricting women’s rights.
Anyway, I shouldn’t have let this get off-course. BFP is referencing a long, academic issue that is not the main thrust of the post, anyway.
Uhura,
I think it sucks that white women discriminate against women of color, but I have seen it as well. When I was in the military, a white woman who was an upperclassman started going after my friend, a black woman. She decided to move my friend down the hall to a different room that would be closer to her so she could keep an eye on my roommate. Which was totally out of line in the first place. But the weekend she wanted us to move, I was out of town, and since I had to move as well (I had to move in with my friend), we didn’t move.
The woman wrote us both up, but the allegations of insubordination against me were dismissed. My friends insubordination writeup was not. We found this out when she was serving her punishment and I asked what it was for. We were both FURIOUS. It was impossible to punish her for not doing something that she couldn’t do unless I moved first without punishing me too. So because the stupid racist bitch didn’t have it in her heart to punish me, a white girl, we got my friend’s punishment reversed as well.
I think that we white women need to 1) listen and 2) be VERY AWARE
Uhura,
I think it sucks that white women discriminate against women of color, but I have seen it as well. When I was in the military, a white woman who was an upperclassman started going after my friend, a black woman. She decided to move my friend down the hall to a different room that would be closer to her so she could keep an eye on my roommate. Which was totally out of line in the first place. But the weekend she wanted us to move, I was out of town, and since I had to move as well (I had to move in with my friend), we didn’t move.
The woman wrote us both up, but the allegations of insubordination against me were dismissed. My friends insubordination writeup was not. We found this out when she was serving her punishment and I asked what it was for, and told her that mine had been dismissed. We were both FURIOUS. It was logically impossible to punish her for not doing something that she couldn’t do unless I moved first without punishing me too. So because the stupid racist bitch didn’t have it in her heart to punish me, a white girl, we got my friend’s punishment reversed as well.
I think that we white women need to 1) listen and 2) be VERY AWARE of how we treat our black and brown sisters. We get angry when men don’t hire us because we’re not one of the guys and they just don’t feel the same natural affinity for us–we should make DAMN sure that we aren’t doing the same or worse to other women.
And on the listen part, if there are women out there who have been encouraged to make certain reproductive choices that you think may be based on your race or ethnicity, I want to hear about it. Thanks!
Izzy
Anyway, I shouldn’t have let this get off-course. BFP is referencing a long, academic issue that is not the main thrust of the post, anyway.
Yeah. Light dawned on my marble head because I feel the same way about the porn and (pseudo) sex industries, and the rhetoric of choice used with them–women have shitty and constrained options, and some of us call it liberating. When BFP compared that with “choice” and reproductive rights, and how women (especially women of color) have shitty and constrained options, well, the light went on.
I will ask that anyone who comments there *not* divert the thread, which is pretty meaty and interesting about the porn/sex industries.
I’m fine with the name Planned Parenthood.
I think parenthood ought to be planned. I think random parenthood is idiotic.
Some proponents of government-forced maternity appear to think that having a child/having another child is just like picking up an extra quart of milk.
It isn’t.
Argh, I let myself get taken off-topic. Anyway, while I fully agree with the entire problematic nature of the word “choice”, I have to point out that the resulting anger and confusion as that word means different things to different people is a symptom of the larger problem with the soundbite culture. “Reproductive rights” is a much better, more nuanced, more exacting term than “choice”, but good luck getting the media to use it.
The other issue that I see unaddressed is how much of the sense that “choice” doesn’t include the choice to have children if you want them comes not from the word “choice” but from the misleading term “pro-life”, which is anything but. I think most people hear these terms and think pro/anti-abortion. So of course women who are also concerned with those who want to restrain you from having kids think they don’t have a dog in the fight.
Reproductive rights is a better concept in no small part because it resists being taken in the same limited way
coercive birth control policies…Really? How about some specific examples before we get too carried away. And just to be clear, distributing Norplant and Depo-Provera in poor communities and telling women, “This is what you should use,â€? [because X, Y, or Z] isn’t oppressive. It’s advising the patient, and assisting her in choosing the best method for her particular situation.
Re sterilization, I can’t speak for the seventies, but today (and all through my residency) it’s always the poor, disadvantaged women, not the middle-class/rich ones, who suffer [unable to have procedure done when it suits them because of the inevitable mix-up with the paperwork, and having to return to have it done at a later time, with all the inconvenience that entails] because of those stupid mandatory waiting periods for BTLs.
There were all sorts of formulas to figure out if you should allow a white woman to be sterilized.
I’ve never heard of this and I know quite a few older docs and nurses. Granted, maybe it’s something they didn’t choose to share with me, but, still, I must admit this is news to me.
One more thing:
“Let’s put limits on sterilization because doctors are guilty of abuse.�
Just because some doctors are guilty of abuse, doesn’t mean the government should be further empowered to intrude and regulate. Nothing good ever comes of that.
I cannot address the PP issue directly, except to say that when I went to PP back in the early ’90s, in a poor part of my town, there was always a sign up advertising for grants to help women get sterilization.
However, I can address the issue of poor women and Depo. A friend of mine lives in Chicago and goes to a clinic in a poor part of the city. The clientele is primarily Hispanic. She went there after the birth of her second child looking for birth control, but made it clear she wanted a method that required little attention, but was easily reversible, as she was planning to have a third child in another years or two. My friend, btw, is white.
She was told repeatedly that Depo was the way to go, and when she specifically asked how long it took after cessation of Depo before fertility returned, she was told it took usually 6-8 weeks. WEEKS. She stopped the Depo when she ran across an article talking about it taking as much as 18 months for fertility to completely return, and did some more research which confirmed that.
My friend went to her doctor’s office for birth control and was LIED TO in order to get her to agree to the Depo. Now either that doctor was getting some kind of massive kickback from the Depo people, or that clinic has an unstated agenda of limiting their patients’ fertility because their patients are primarily poor.
Got cut off. (Stupid computer.) Anyway, to continue, I think the term “reproductive justice” is far superior to “choice” in terms of accuracy and framing. But from a marketing viewpoint, it’s got problems. It’s not as snappy as “choice” and doesn’t adapt itself as well. For instance, “choice” is the conceptual noun, “pro-choice” is the adjective you get from that, “pro-choicer” is an identifying noun, etc.
I think everyone agrees at this point that reframing what we stand for as “reproductive rights” or “reproductive justice” is better and more accurate. What we need to do now is move into the stage of making the terms user-friendly.
Planned Parenthood Alberta recently changed it’s name to “Sexual Health Access Alberta”, partly, I think, to sort of update it’s image to something more relevant to most people in the here and now (and more relevant to people who never plan to be parents).
Somewhat of a different issue with PP: People sometimes have serious side effects from different kinds of birth control (some the pill, but also depo which has been connected to osteoperosis). Groups like Planned Parenthood often get duped by drug companies into making birth control options that aren’t actually safe available to poor women without making information about the risks available. Health complications from birth control can be more serious for poor women because they have less access to health care. It’s important to remember that while it’s the nice folks at PP who make birth control available to many people, different forms of birth control are mostly developed by the pharmaceutical establishment which has a long history of not really giving a shit about people’s safety.
The other thing I should to mention is that I wouldn’t even know this was a problem if it weren’t for SHAA (which is, as I said above, PP under a new name) so I don’t think this is an assault on the credibility of the organization. Overwhelmingly, they’re trying to do better at things they’ve done poorly in the past.
Thorn — I’m sorry your friend was lied to. This doesn’t make it better exactly, but I think there’s a lot of ignorance among doctors about the nitty gritty details of contraception, even among those who should be the most knowledgeable (OB/gyns). As a med student, I’m capable of seeking out reputable sources and doing my own research and knowing when I’m being fed BS, but it’s crazy to expect that level of background in all patients. So it may’ve been deliberate deception by that clinic staff, or it may’ve been ignorance — both bad, but in different ways.
“I cannot address the PP issue directly, except to say that when I went to PP back in the early ’90s, in a poor part of my town, there was always a sign up advertising for grants to help women get sterilization.”
Amongst the other signs wallpapering the PP I go to, there’s one for cost-reduced vasectomies and one directing women to ask their intake person about cost-reduced tubals if they’re interested. I always figured that it’s the most reliable way to go if you’re sure you don’t want any more kids, but it’s one of the least accessible to the poor due to the fact that you need to come up with the cash up front and all at once. If someone’s having trouble making sure they have enough money for their pill pack and condoms every month, unsubsidized sterilization is right up there with hiring a nanny as far as potential solutions go. It’s a problem if you’re pushing it on people, and it’s a problem if you’re limiting non-permanent choices in favor of sterilization, but otherwise the grants and subsidation just put another option on the table for people who couldn’t otherwise afford it.
‘This whole “abortion/birth control/sterilization is a plot against people of colorâ€? is a gigantic red herring used by anti-choice people to try to sow confusion in our ranks. Don’t buy into it. As long as no coercion exists, there’s no moral dilemma.’
Exactly, sort of like how “Islam is anti-woman and we must defeat radical (no, all) Islam, ergo if you don’t support the War in Iraq you don’t support women’s rights” is a red herring used by the right to sow confusion in our ranks.
Sorry, I should have made it clear that I disagree completely with the views of anti-abortion groups like blackgenocide.org.
Since the first two commenters were wondering what BFP meant by describing PP as “a corporation with a proven track record of systematic “population controlâ€? policies” I thought it would be helpful to provide a brief explanation. I didn’t mean to appear to endorse the views referred to.
This issue of white women in the workplace, I have seen it in action. Like previously mentioned the smurfette syndrome was frequently the cause. But those same women would throw any women under the bus if it suited their agenda. They would attack those they saw less able to defend themselves, minorities, people who were shy as prime targets.
I have been corresponding with some people involved with womens issues in the Native American community. Talk about an eye opening experience. When they start talking about the statistics and real issues going on in their communities you get a very different story than the media ever gives.
It would not be tough to write a book about the illusory nature of choice in any reproductive situation. I’m 35 and a lawyer who will be up for partner in 2 years. In a variety of respects, my reproductive choices are constrained. The same could be said for every woman. Our lives limit our choices, so at some point the choice rhetoric rings hollow.
These individual limitations on choice — and I put forth mine as a particularly trifling one, with full knowledge of the privileges from which I benefit — are less important than structural limitations that disproportionately affect people along lines that we can agree should be proscribed, such as class and race. I applaud women of color and poor women who take the time to educate the more near-sighted of us (myself included) about plights that we have not made as high a priority or sensitivities about which we have not been made aware. While it’s regrettable that we have this myopia, and while I am sorry for suffering from it myself, the variety of voices online gives me reason to hope that we can improve our collective vision and provide more support among all groups of women.
I have long had issues with the 70s-era feminist movement, because its leaders made littel room for additional voices other than their own. Women in generations after that of the Baby Boomers have had little opportunity to consciousness-raise within the established organizations, and deep pockets have been hesitant to fund new organizations on the basis of not wanting too many women’s groups. As a result, the feminist movement became more easily marginalized and more irrelevant, because it became more about a select group of affluent, white women and less about all women. The groups of excluded women, such as women of color and lesbians, balkanized for very good reason (i.e., they were ignored), but it’s up to us, the women who represent the future of feminism, to include all voices and to create a feminism that answers needs for all women, thereby making it relevant for all women. Only then will our movement have a chance against the patriarchy.
“There were all sorts of formulas to figure out if you should allow a white woman to be sterilized.”
I’ve never heard of this and I know quite a few older docs and nurses. Granted, maybe it’s something they didn’t choose to share with me, but, still, I must admit this is news to me.
Actually, younger White women who want a tubal, or White women who do not have children and want a tubal are often refused. Frankly, it is because there were restrictive guidelines for women (read: White women) who wanted voluntary tubal ligations that this disconnect happened when it came to the sterilization law. It was likely formulas and advice for “women” but applied to White women.
And just to be clear, distributing Norplant and Depo-Provera in poor communities and telling women, “This is what you should use,� [because X, Y, or Z] isn’t oppressive. It’s advising the patient, and assisting her in choosing the best method for her particular situation.
When it is “advised” to mainly poor women and women of color, despite the side effects, there’s a problem.
Actually, the doctors didn’t follow the guidelines and they intruded in and regulated the reproductive lives of women of color.
Amanda: I think everyone agrees at this point that reframing what we stand for as “reproductive rights� or “reproductive justice� is better and more accurate. What we need to do now is move into the stage of making the terms user-friendly.
I completely agree with this.
There’s a historical framework for women of color to worry about institutional sterilization abuse and why those posters on the wall may not appear so innocuous.
From the paper referenced above:
Although this is decades old, the potential for abuse remains, which is why the waiting periods and other safeguards still exist. Though this may seem like an unnecessary hindrance to a woman with resources and who’s had the time to think it over, it’s a essential safety net for women to resist social and professional pressure to be sterilized.
See-that’s just it: White Women “represent the future of Feminism” and, as a Non-White woman, my concerns are to be an “inclusion” or an “add on.”
I am not going to be your pet NegroFeminist. And I know other non-White Women aren’t chomping at the bit for the job.
Truth be told: Black men have always helped with domestic chores, and Black married couples have the most egalitarian relationships of all. The final battlefront of Feminism is in the home right? Well, I’m already ahead in MY home. Can you say the same?
White Women are a trip.
[…] This is why I think women who are willing to make $200 an hour wrestling another woman at a bachelor party are irresponsible. (See also: the New York Press article) And now, I’m off to my cootchie doc. […]
Unplanned parenthood is idiotic? Seems a bit judgmental and reductive, me-thinks. Perhaps commenter “No Blood for Hubris” considers an unplanned life equally idiotic? But does not a planned life = robotic?
Surely there is a middle ground. These issues are not so black and white. And I mean that in a racial sense, too.
Signed,
Half-breed
Yeah, I’ve seen the smurfette syndrome (what other folks call The Queen Bee syndrome) in action at a lot of places. Not so much where I work, which is a public library, where most of the employees are women, but at law firms, schools, hospitals, etc. At the top, it’s white men with the occasional white woman, (doctors, lawyers, principals) and at the bottom it’s usually women of color who are doing the grunt work (typing, filing, cleaning, etc.)
It’s funny how my conservative friends like to spring “Margaret Sanger was a eugenist!” on me to discredit Planned Parenthood, like what a dead woman thought a hundred years ago has any impact on an organization today. I usually say “And George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves. Does that mean we should disavow our American citizenship today?”
That usually shuts them up.
ekf, I was a bit bewildered as to what you meant by this
Who ever needed funding to start a group? It kind of takes the whole grassroots thing out of grassroots organizing. Honestly, if everyone who has problems just waits around for rich people to notice and give them money, we’re never going to get anything done.
Uhura, reverse racism isn’t going to make your point.
Uhura, that’s not what I meant at all. I meant that women of all races represent the future of feminism — because, hey, I knew that women of different races were participating in the thread, and so the “we” was meant to all of the “we” women of different races. Feminism is incomplete if it does not include concerns that groups of women have. Period. If Jewish women aren’t represented, it’s incomplete. If poor women aren’t represented, it’s incomplete. I don’t want you as some goddamned pet anything, and if you don’t want to be a part of feminism because you feel it’s some white bitches’ club, then I know I’ve fucked up in using exclusive language or concentrating on issues that are important to you. I apologize if I offended you.
Uhura, that’s not what I meant at all. I meant that women of all races represent the future of feminism — because, hey, I knew that women of different races were participating in the thread, and so the “we” was meant to all of the “we” women of different races. Feminism is incomplete if it does not include concerns that groups of women have. Period. If Jewish women aren’t represented, it’s incomplete. If poor women aren’t represented, it’s incomplete. I don’t want you as some goddamned pet anything, and if you don’t want to be a part of feminism because you feel it’s some white bitches’ club, then I know I’ve fucked up in using exclusive language or concentrating on issues that aren’t important to you. I apologize if I offended you.
[on edit: I think I’ve double-posted, with an error in the prior post. Please delete.]
“Just because some doctors are guilty of abuse, doesn’t mean the government should be further empowered to intrude and regulate. Nothing good ever comes of that.”
This strikes me as very ignorant.
Sheelzebub already quoted sterilization stats above. I would add that my understanding of the sterilization of women of color as it was prevelent in the 1960s and 1970s was appalling in many other regards. Women were told they would not be able to keep their children if they did not consent to sterilization. They were sterilized in the midst of other procedures. They were given consent forms to sign while they were heavily anesthetized, and told that the forms were something else. They were harrassed repeatedly to sign forms while they were drugged. They were sterilized at age 18, when the age limit was 21. They were given full hysterectomies, rather than tubal ligations.
Some of the numbers I’ve seen are higher than what appears in Sheelzebub’s excerpt also.
To say that the government should not intervene to stop these abuses is to turn your back on the women to whom this has happened. To suggest that there is not an implicit social sanction that promoted these occurrences is to deny systemic racism. If social justice demands that we promote policies that will help create equality, then we must surely heed something as dramatic as the forced surgical sterilization of women of color (a common occurrence in Native American communities, as I understand, as late as 1975) and take whatever remedy is most expedient to stop it.
Hmmm, general dumbassery isn’t going to make yours. I’m just saying.
The term “reverse racism” is officially over. It is moldy and reeks of mothballs. Hearing it is equal to a sign that says “WARNING: HYPER DEFENSIVE WHITES AHEAD.”
As someone who has recently come to the table that all y’all have been sitting at for years and years, I’ve noticed this division and it simply doesn’t seem to make sense to me.
To me, the entire issue is freedom–not just the choice to have children or not have children or to be sterilized or not sterilized but total freedom, the sort enjoyed by men for centuries. To have sex with whomever we wish, to work where ever we wish, to be a homemaker if that’s what we wish to do. Or not. To me, it seems that feminism is about supporting women’s rights to run their own lives and bodies without interference or pressure by patriarchal norms, the government, “society” or men. To then force our sisters, black, brown or white, to fit some monolithic idea of What Feminism Is Fighting For/About is simply trading one leash for another.
IMO, worth precisely what you paid for it, until we as a group begin to back each other’s choices–whether we agree with the choice or not but with her right to make it–we will never be free. That means, instead of heaping yet more opprobrium on women who are strippers or porn stars (I mean, really, these women are getting it from all sides), feminists would be better served to a) help those who wish to leave as some on the right already are and b) help them organize into unions. Let them demand better working conditions, better pay from the clubs or how about any pay at all from the clubs. Just the act of organizing themselves and asking for more than nothing would do much for many whose self-esteem is at rock bottom. That’s just an example, but you get my point.
Another example is fighting just as vociferously for poor and black women’s right to be able have children as we would for any woman’s right to not have children. Yes, there is a consistency–women should be allowed the same freedoms that men have always enjoyed–namely the right to do with her body as she wishes. Period. There is no compromise on that right.
The economic pressures of class are not something that can be easily dealt with–although getting back some regulation and strengthening unions and dealing with the inequities in international trade issues would go further than one might think. On that front, the right has all but won the war.
labyrus, my comment was based, in part, on personal experience. No, you don’t need money to start a group. You need money for a group to have staying power and make a difference. Since the Internet has come along, the amount of money needed for a group of people to effectively communicate about ideas and try to make a difference has changed enormously. But back in the day (when dinosaurs roamed the earth and we marched two miles to and from school, in the dark ages of 10 years ago), getting attention took resources for distributing information and getting attention of even well-meaning folk who felt they had used up all of their feminist time/attention/money allocation by giving money to NOW.
I found myself nodding along in agreement with the idea that choice is bunk when your options are limited.
I would have hoped that Pandagon bloggers would have at least troubled to familiarize themselves with Amanda Marcotte’s superlative debunking of the idea that Planned Parenthood is somehow “tainted” by “racism” because they haven’t managed to simultaneously solves the problems of racism and poverty along with providing women with options for reproductive health. But the author of this post should probably familiarize herself with these
http://pandagon.net/2006/07/08/more-smearing-of-margaret-sanger-corrected/
http://pandagon.net/2006/03/04/abraham-lincoln-was-a-racist/
before concern-trolling the pro-choice movement.
Dear Pandagon:
I liked this blog much better before these “activists” came on board and spoiled all of my fun. These mean and awful politically-correct bloggers who rain on my parade are so very tiresome. Forget the links and evidence they provide. Forget the fact that Sheelzebub said she supports and rather likes PP. Forget what any woman of color said about the subject–their views are tantamount to concern trolling!
We miss Ezra.
A 1974 survey of 42 large teaching hospitals across the country found that 27, or 64% of them to be in gross violation of the regulations, including two Chicago hospitals who subsequently claimed to be in full compliance.
1974?! That’s over 30 years ago! Are there no more recent studies indicating that these sorts of abuses continue to occur? Just curious …
And as far as black women versus white women having babies goes …
Isn’t the point of this article is that *as women*, society is dictating just what kind of family we’re expected to produce? Aren’t we *all* being punished for having the kinds of families we *want* - economically, societally, career-wise, educationally? Aren’t we all unhappy with the choices being forced on us?
Uhura, just as you are tired of being “included” or considered an “add-on,” as a non-white woman, so I am so very, very tired of being considered your enemy due to the fact I had the obvious misfortune of being born white. We’re both women. We both face prejudices and discriminations regarding our reproductive choices. Does it really *matter* who “leads the charge,” as it were, if *everybody* benefits?
Boadicea, if the concerns of women of color are NOT taken seriously–if they are NOT prioritized as WOMEN’S concerns, end of story, then how does *everybody* benefit? How does *everybody* benefit when the views and concerns of women of color are either dismissed or tokenized? How does *everybody* benefit when women who are in the minority speak up and are slapped down with defensiveness?
Fucking hell. Look, anyone who’s feeling defensive, well, so did I. Get the fuck over it.
1974?! That’s over 30 years ago! Are there no more recent studies indicating that these sorts of abuses continue to occur? Just curious …
Read this in context. This is part and parcel of the historical attitudes towards women of color. They were pressured into sterilizations, they still have higher rates of sterilization, and there was a huge disconnect in the reproductive rights movement because women of color were concerned about abuses WRT sterilizations, and White women were concerned with our freedoms being curtailed. We’ve had semi-permanent BC with some nasty side effects being disproportionately pushed on women of color (Norplant, Depo), and hailed as a great savior of the community. This, along with other issues–the right to have children, Draconian laws promoting fetal “safety” that punish women of color, welfare (de)form, civil rights, safety, children’s rights (Shaquanda Cotton, anyone?) etc. makes the rhetoric of “choice” ring hollow.
“Does it really *matter* who “leads the charge,â€? as it were, if *everybody* benefits?”
Someone made this argument on feministe a few weeks ago, as I recall.
It was a man, saying that if men happened to be leaders in the feminist movement, why was that a problem? If men were the best people to determine policy, then that was just how things fell out, and the women should accept it gracefully, because everyone would benefit.
Do you really see no problem in the continuation of the historical dominance of whites, even into a movement that purports to free ALL women? Are non-white women somehow excluded from “all” that their concerns abotu representation should be ignored?
Should women who want representation in economic social justice movements be denied, because poor people are leading, when those poor people happen to be men? And if not, how is this any different from the suggestion that black women who want representation in a movement for women’s social equality should be dismissed becuase at least they are represented by other women?
ekf, I think maybe my real life experience has just been a bit different from yours. I’ve been involved in a lot of fairly successful organising that didn’t have too much outside funding. Obviously it depends on what your project is, how much money you need.
This whole activism-is-hard-work idea is no “back in the day” thing. In my experience, promoting events and ideas over the internet doesn’t really work that well. Most events I’ve been involved in putting on that have been successful involved hours and hours and hours of putting up ordinary paper posters on ordinary street poles. In the freezing cold. Uphill too. I don’t know that the internet changed that much about how activism works (although it certainly makes it easier).
Most of the activist work I do involves a lot of walking, a lot of photocopies, and very little internet (except email, which, I gotta admit, saves a lot of time an energy compared to phone trees). We still raise most of the money ourselves. Bake Sales. Garage Sales. Punk Shows. These are all things a community can put together without a ton of seed money.
Maybe it’s just that I’ve had some bad experiences with getting grants and having to fulfill grant requirements, and with paid activists, and these aren’t reflective of a wider trend, but I tend to think that activism is better when you aren’t beholden to some benefactor. In my experience, though, getting money in the form of a grant usually means you have to limit your tactics to strictly legal ones, you have to be a lot more careful with the press, and you have to put your priorities where the priorities of the grant-giving organization are to some extent or another. Obviously not all grants work like this, but enough that I get uncomfortable at the idea of relying on grant money. It’s nice if you can get it, but it’s not a neccessity.
I know several people who have been totally dicked over by an employer that’s a company that specialises in raising money for social & environmental justice organisations. Not cool.
I’ve also had a lot of problems organizing with the sort of people who make activism their paid work. The people who get paid positions in well-funded activist groups often seem to not understand that the world does not revolve around them. We had one incident in Calgary where someone who was hired by a healthcare access coalition to put on a conference for them called security on one of the low-income women who attended the conference, because she was “causing a disturbance” (actually, asking the federal health minister a question). This woman got arrested and lost her job as a result of the arrest, and the woman who called security to this day doesn’t seem to understand that calling security on your allies just isn’t okay.
I (sarcastically) love how the logic of the whole “Breed more, white women! The masses of colorful uneducated people are going to rise up and overtake Our Culture!” mindset intersects with our highly stratified education system, which is supported by the overall enhanced suckiness of the nation’s public schools and extended by the voucher movement.
If the “problem” is that when poor people have more babies than rich people, no one will be educated - how is it so hard to realize that not limiting good education to the upper classes might be a good solution? Ok, ok, I know, they’re not looking for a solution…. But still, would some internal logic kill the fuckers?
[I realize I’m kind of mixing and matching my oppressions, but class and poverty are so often used as “colorblind” codes for race that it’s hard not to respond to such arguments without adopting the focused-upon terms.]
Thanks, Sheezelbub, for articulating the details of the bonk-to-the-head BFP’s post served as. I had my defensiveness moment with it in a form similar to “That I don’t usually think about this stuff isn’t because I’m ignoring it, I just didn’t know!”
A few minutes later: “Oh yeah, I’m reading this on the internets, which provide access to all sorts of information. Intellectual laziness is no cover for willful ignorance.” Pride swallowed, I set off to do some more reading.
Cluestick, good word.
My question is, how do women who want to improve the status of all women get to a point where the views and concerns of women of color can be a full part of any discussion of/effort towards improving women’s lives without such views and concerns being described as dismissed or tokenized? This is an issue for all manner of ways in which women can balkanize (women with disabilities, women in different socioeconomic classes, LGBT women, etc.), so if somebody’s got a way for the overall pro-female forces to give forceful and righteous treatment to specific sub-groups of women without getting called out for tokenism, I’d love to know it (as I’ve already shown myself to be inadequate in this regard).
Uhura, with all due respect, I call bullshit:
Okay, I’m not a black woman, and I can’t possibly tell you how your household works. If your home is an egalitarian paradise, i salute and commend you, and think you should be profiled somewhere, and maybe give classes to people who haven’t managed to buck their own cultural norms with the same success.
Does your family represent a cultural norm for black families?
I’m a woman of color. I escort at a PP. The protestors are all white men. The people who work there? Women of color, the whole lot of us. It makes for an interesting situation when the protestors try to tell us that abortion is racist.
The patients are mostly women of color and poor white women. Which makes sense. I would NOT assume (as the protestors at PP often do) that they get abortions or birth control or sterilizations primarily because of male influence or the medical establishment’s influence or whatever. They do these things because it’s, for them, the best way of coping with their limited resources, their god-awful financial status, their lack of healthcare, their lack of community support and other things.
Now, poverty is a product of systematic injustice. It’s wrong that these women are in this situation to begin with. But bashing abortion/sterilization/birth control simply denies them a means of grappling with the situation and trying to determine their lives.
I understand that the medical establishment does give differing advice to poor women than to middle class women–but part of the reason for this is that poor women often lack health insurance. And yes, a doctor will advise a woman differently if she says she’s not going to be able to get prenatal care, because that’s a medically relevant fact. It changes certain health risks for her and *should* affect what the doctor tells her. So differing advice is not always malign–it’s the product of a malign society that allows for these women to lack health insurance in the first place.
Is the differing advice sometimes malign? Sure, even today. But focusing on the figure of the doctor who pressures a woman of color into an abortion she doesn’t want misrepresents the main problems that cause reproductive injustice. Those doctors aren’t the primary cause of the problem–they’re neither numerous enough nor powerful enough. The primary cause of the problem goes much deeper, and concentrating on the evil Planned Parenthood doctor avoids the issue.
Back-to-work laws are a huge problem. Lack of daycare, ditto. More than that, though, there’s the whole cultural differentiation between the way we treat black mothers (welfare queens) and white mothers (soccer moms), and between the way we treat black children (potential juvenile delinquents) and white children (precious little darlings). We can’t blame abortion or Planned Parenthood for that.
They don’t get that distributing Norplant and Depo-Provera in poor communities and telling women, “This is what you should use,� could be oppressive.
This is true, no doubt, but saying “This is what you could use. Here are some other things you could use. And here are some things that will help you if/when you do have children” isn’t oppressive. It’s necessary and it’s part of liberation.
To say that the government should not intervene to stop these abuses is to turn your back on the women to whom this has happened.
I have a strong feeling that by “government regulation,” the person you were responding to meant government restrictions on what women do rather than on what doctors do.
I get what BFP is saying, I agree with 99% of it, but I also think there’s a danger of stigmatizing certain issues as “white women’s issues.” I think this is sometimes tied to how women of color are often encouraged by their communities to keep quiet about gender oppression because it makes the community look bad and feeds white racism–to choose race over gender, in other words–and how gender equality itself can be dismissed as a “white women’s issue.”
And I agree completely about discussing the debate in terms that aren’t limited to “choice,” and I think this is already happening–see, for example, the 2004 “March for Women’s Lives.” It was going to be “March for Choice” originally, but it was brought up (by women of color, I believe) that for many women (especially poor women) abortion/contraception/reproductive issues in general weren’t about “choice,” which sounds like a choice between strawberry and peach ice cream. These issues are about life and death. Access to abortion and contraception is about life and death. Prenatal care is about life and death. The right not to be sterilized or paid to be on birth control is about life and death. The right to decide to give birth without a C-section is about life and death. Etc.
I remember, Amanda, that you once posted about a religious woman who was against abortion but who got into a tussle with the government because it wanted to force her into a C-section. She was at some conference for pregnant women’s rights, I believe, and you pointed out that she didn’t much care for abortion specifically or for the rhetoric of “choice”–but when you discussed reproductive justice as an issue of female self-determination and freedom from state intervention, she was 100% on your side.
mandolin said:
Somewhat OT, but as someone lucky enough to have been born with the majority of the classic markers of privilege apart from my sex, I find this to be a useful lens when I get the urge to enter a discussion defensively. If the subject at hand were my experience, would it piss me off to hear a man jump in with what I want to say?
If the answer is “Where does he hypoethetically get off trying to tell us feminists what’s up about being a woman?” or even “That would probably kinda bug me,” I know I need to hold my tongue and, as Sheezelbub said, walk away and do some more thinking.
Also, I think it’s important to bear in mind that the instinct - and the need to get over the instinct - to defensively minimize issues applies just as easily when the speaker is a lesbian, a transwoman, a woman with a disability, etc. as when we’re talking about race and class. As ekf kind of touched on, there are a whole lot of ways we all (both as feminists and as people in a culture that doesn’t much value this skill) could work on witnessing and supporting each others’ struggles.
/an idealist’s possibly somewhat painkiller-induced rant.
Labyrus, I suspect paid activists act like the world revolves around them in part as a defense mechanism. You live in a capitalist world that teaches that your job isn’t “real”, and you get definsive about that.
As long as no coercion exists, there’s no moral dilemma.
Define “coercion”: does it mean “forced to do this or that by an active menace” or “forced by lack of alternative options”.
Sure, nobody *makes* you carry an unintended pregnancy to term, locks you up, prevents you from having an abortion BUT if you can’t raise the money it takes to both travel, pay for, and miss work, you are forced to bear an unwanted child just the same.
Depo Provera was also foisted on women in low income communities, including communities of color, and often *sold* by excluding other options from subsidy or coverage or simply mention. When women experienced side effects that made removal critical for their health (e.g. extreme blood pressure), coverage for removal was denied.
“Also, I think it’s important to bear in mind that the instinct - and the need to get over the instinct - to defensively minimize issues applies just as easily when the speaker is a lesbian, a transwoman, a woman with a disability, etc. as when we’re talking about race and class. As ekf kind of touched on, there are a whole lot of ways we all (both as feminists and as people in a culture that doesn’t much value this skill) could work on witnessing and supporting each others’ struggles.”
Thank you, yes. I agree completely.
Lanoire, interestingly enough the woman who was instrumental into changing the name to March For Women’s Lives was Loretta Ross of SisterSong, which is just a cool organization. She confronted the woman who had the C-section story about her opposition to abortion and it was pretty interesting. The thing I got, walking away from Ross’s talk at the NAPW conference, was that a lot of the perceived divisions between feminists are somewhat silly—we can all get with Loretta Ross’s program, IMO, and the question is why is there any feeling we can’t?
Lanoire - great point about the March for Women’s Lives. I was there and saw a great diversity of people: GLBT, race, gender, age. It was great.
I would hope I’m not dismissive of feminist issues when they’re asserted by women (or even men) of color. So I wonder how can I examine and “fix this” when there are NO non-whites in any of the groups I’m involved with? I attempt outreach a bit at work, here and there, and mostly I find ALL of my non-rich female coworkers agree with my thoughts on discrimination against the indigent, discrimination against single mothers and the importance of access to health care and birth control, but there’s no way in hell any of them would ever spend an afternoon at a Chocolate Madness NARAL get-together, nevermind a clinic defense or lecture on universal healthcare. They’re just not interested. The one Jamaican (now American) pregnant woman in my department didn’t even vote in ‘06. Didn’t even bother to pay attention to the candidates.
I would love to expand the breadth of the feminist issues I deal with, and discussion of the different viewpoints and experiences we all have, but really… How responsible am I for dismissing feminist minority voices, when I never hear any?
[…] Whoosh! Choice! (and agency! And my pet theories on the topic!) […]
Thanks Sheezlebub for making my point. And thank you Lanoir for your perspective. It really helps the conversation.
About old data.
The issue is not whether the same level of sterilization abuse is going on, it’s the historical framework through which women of color might just be more skeptical about the advice of medical professionals. [FYI the percentage of black women who are permanently sterilized is still greater (proportionally) than white women in 1996.]
That doesn’t mean all medical professionals working in lower income environments are consciously oppressive. I’ll bet they’re anything but. Still, as long as poverty is stigmatized and poor women of any color are held to vastly different standards and expectations than middle class (especially white) women, then I would not be surprised if there’s not a bit more inclination to suggest sterilization, etc, to the poor, especially if the provider’s state funded.
Some interesting reproductive data up to 1995
Excellent post and interesting discussion thread.
ekf, an interesting question but I did have a question about part of it.
Who are the “overall pro-female forces” and who are the “specific subgroups of women” in this statement? Oh and also what’s meant by “give” in this context. What concerns me about this statement is what other women have said here already.
Oh, and to those who have used this card and it’s often raised in discussions like this one, there’s no such thing as reverse racism. It’s an oxymoron.
I’d be interested in hearing this definition as well and who gets to define it.
It’s not the easiest thing to define because the meaning is different for different people and for different circumstances and there are other factors as well. It comes up in situations that I deal with concerning people who are searched by police officers and feel coerced or along those lines, coercion of women to have sex with a police officer.
For example, a police officer may ask for your consent before searching you but are you in a situation where you can freely give or refuse to give it? A lot of people don’t feel as if they can say no to a man or men with guns and a lot of authority and nealy carte blanche to be able to say what they want about anything that happens and have their version accepted as fact.
Nor do women who are “asked” if they will perform sexual acts or have sex with police officers in lieu of being arrested or taken to jail have the ability to be free of coercision. Even if they agree to do it and I have talked to women who have and the degrees of coercion may differ but all felt it was coercion.
Nor do women who are “asked� if they will perform sexual acts or have sex with police officers in lieu of being arrested or taken to jail have the ability to be free of coercision. Even if they agree to do it and I have talked to women who have and the degrees of coercion may differ but all felt it was coercion.
Depending on the state you live in, a police office soliciting sex this way could be considered “rape under color of authority.” I know we have that law here in California, and I believe it applies to other professions as well (such as your psychiatrist/therapist or doctor soliciting you for sex).
This whole thread is so long that I’m losing track of what I want to say. I really don’t want to get into the perennial “who is a real woman” argument that pits white against black, rich against poor, uneducated against educated, insured against uninsured. Sure, there are feminists and feminist writings that have ignored the issues faced by poor women and/or minority women. So what. There have, historically, been damned good political movements in which white women and upper class white women had little or no input. If that is what floats your boat–go for it. Stop bitching that other women don’t prioritize your shit and get on with organizing your shit.
As for the *specific* accusation that an instance of injustice is the different take on hypothetically pro sterilization/abortion white women from hypotheticlaly anti sterilization/abortion minority women I think this is a very complicated issue. But its not that complpicated.
Absolutely it is the case that upper class white women’s bodies, and white women’s bodies generally in this country, have been treated as a public good whose reproductive powers must be controlled and owned primarily by their husbands for the good of the state. This stems all the way from the earliest colonial period when control over family and the future children was identical to control over the culture of the emergent colonizing state. Refusal to marry within the white/emigrant community would have meant intermarriage with the native american population and the production of (in my mind a greatly superior) hybrid society. When husbands wanted more children, they got more children. When the state wants more white babies/citizens, it discourages intermarriage, contraception and abortion.
But this is and was true of non white women, too. Sometimes the state wants non white babies because it wants more laborers. Under slavery women don’t get to choose whether or not to have children and fertility is encouraged and sterlization and abortion forbidden. And of course historically abortion and infanticide were acts of rebellion against this turning of women into production machines for slave owners.
In both cases this was *in despite* of the desires of the individual woman, and although it is perfectly racially determined results inthe same thing–women were not permitted to control or to space their pregnancies.
When your children are valued, either as members of a master race or as labor, your fertility gets controlled and exploited *against your will* or with your consent. Sometimes they build a huge cultural edifice of chocolate and flowers to force you to accede to natalist demands, sometimes they resort to law and force.
In the post slavery era, and with the rise of a costly welfare state and the decline in real jobs for the working class the valences get tipped on their side. Post the civil war racism has meant, of course, that minority women and men have faced an entirely different challenge to their reproductive rights and their rights as parents. They have been lied to, used, and abused because a racist society has a use for them as workers but no use for them or their children as citizens and equals.
So how do sterilization and waiting period laws fit into that? White women fought for the right to control their own fertility over and agains their husbands and the state. Controlling fertility meant being able to control when, where, and with whom to have children and included being able to make the decision to stop having children and to stop needing temporary birth control. This isn’t proof of a racist denial of other women’s issues, and its not in itself racist. Its just a response to a different set of imperatives. An Irish catholic woman who has eight children and is going on her ninth might legitimately want to get sterilized quickly and without being forced to endure costly and problematic counseling.
Some on this board have argued that the fight for the right for an informed medical consumer to get the medical care she wants is at the same time a blow struck against other women whose medical and social and economic situation is different. I’d agree with that except that the waiting periods and the informed consent stuff seems to apply primarily to *the women* and not to the doctors. The laws on waiting periods and informed consent are only as good as the implementation and I see no evidence that *turning women away* from medical care that they have chosen for a waiting period actually prevents unscrupulous doctors and the state from continuing to sterilize poor women.
I’m really interested in what everyone has to say on this thread but I’m so, so, so sick of having to have race and class acted out here every time. as insupperable barriers or ways to one up each other. Yes, different classes have different interests–but race cuts across class and class cuts across race–white women are also poor and in the under class, divas of whatever race may be above race and class. Yes different races i nthis country have historically different positions on everything and different interests in laws and legal change.
Sure. But we are either in this together as women or we aren’t. I’m very, very, willing to argue that we *aren’t* in this together. And I’m sure willing to say that no one needs to follow my lead or join any movement in which I’m a leader. But the same might be said in reverse. What’s in it for me to join a movement in which my very real legal, social, and political interests aren’t respected? I’ve got no need to work for social justice, or to work across racial barriers, or to ever worry about what is happening to people with different life experiences than my own. I can hear some on this thread saying “well, f*ck off then but that seems to me to be wrongheaded. If we need to work together then lets work together. Educate me, teach me, lead me but stop “process talking” me to death.
aimai
aimai
Uhura, I’ve been wanting to ask you this for a while now, but always felt like I missed the moment, so I’m just going to ask: what do you want from us? Specifically, here at Pandagon, what do you want from the white women posters/commenters? I think I’m missing something important here - I can tell, for the most part, what you want from the movement at large, but I can’t figure out what you want from Pandagon that you’re not getting. Anyone who says that they want to work for all women and all their concerns is asking you to be their “pet NegroFeminist” - is there a way to express the desire to see feminism truly be about all women that wouldn’t make you feel that way? Or do you believe that there is no such thing?
You fascinate me, but I don’t understand. I apologize if I’m being troublesome.
Alert Alert Alert: Full of Shit White Woman approaching.
Does it really matter is I am marginalized and footnoted?
Hell to the Naw…as the great philosopher, Whitney Houston, once said.
Of course not…I shall capitualte and allow Mighty Whitey to lead me in my quest for freedom from The Patriarchy. Because…that has worked so well for me and mine thus far.
“I’d agree with that except that the waiting periods and the informed consent stuff seems to apply primarily to *the women* and not to the doctors. The laws on waiting periods and informed consent are only as good as the implementation and I see no evidence that *turning women away* from medical care that they have chosen for a waiting period actually prevents unscrupulous doctors and the state from continuing to sterilize poor women.”
As I understand it, women of color were being sterilized in the middle of other procedures, on teh basis of consent forms signed while they were drugged for other things, or based on threats to take thier kids away, and so on.
These coerced consent forms allowed doctors to claim that the patient had made real consent.
A waiting period makes this behavior unquestionably illegal. A doctor who gets a coerced consent form from a drugged patient *and then sterilizes her* is doing something that is absolutely, unquestionably illegal. He can not claim otherwise.
This makes it more difficult for doctors to sterilize unwilling women with consent coerced under conditions of duress, where the threat (of taking away children) or the impairment (of drugs) is temporary.
*
With due respect, I’m also not sure it’s valid to tell women of color that they should “Stop bitching that other women don’t prioritize your shit and get on with organizing your shit.”
Clearly, from the internet presence of feminist women of color, there are lots of women of color talking about, thinking about, and organizing around these issues. Telling them that they aren’t organizing it seems reminiscent, to me, of the white male bloggers whining, “Where are the women?” when the answer is “Over there, not being read by you.”
Dear Mr. or Mrs. or Ms. Philly, I find it useful to whittle away at a question like this by starting out with what I don’t want. Generally whatever is left after that is OK:
-To be marginalized
-To be told I am “just too sensitive / a reverse racist / too angry” when I am telling the truth about what I have experienced.
-More posts that are much more inclusive of ALL women, not just the angst filled White ones.
We (feminists of all hues) need a convergence of vision: Just what does feminism mean for ALL of us-and work towards THAT.
You see-back in the day when White women were supposedly fighting for the right to work outside the home, Black women were already working outside their homes-inside White Women’s homes.
BTW-I must ask: Why am I so “fascinating?”
Uhura,
I apologize if I’m misreading you, but:
“-More posts that are much more inclusive of ALL women, not just the angst filled White ones.”
Am I reading correctly that this is something you don’t want?
Aimai said:
So, you’re saying that everybody should bend over backwards to express their gratitude that you’re helping them? I don’t think it works that way. You can’t bring the attitude that you’re doing anybody any favors, because when you’re just reasserting your privilege and power.
Listen, these debates have been going around within feminism for 35 years, and they’re still important. Yes they get tiresome, and sometimes you feel like goddamn, why can’t we all just get along? But there are very real reasons why it’s not so easy for us to just get along.
I think what a lot of white feminists have to learn is not only how to listen to and prioritize the concerns of women of color, but also how to have conversations that are neither defensive nor subservient. In other words, how to have conversations about these issues that are as respectful and honest as any others we have with each other.
Uhura,
I’m glad that’s true in your family, but there is a long tradition of black feminist writing that says different.However, your point about work is right on - a lot of white feminists (see Linda Hirshman) seem to want a feminism that’s built on the backs of other women, and that HAS TO CHANGE NOW.
Mandolin-sorry: It’s late & I am drowsy…That is something that I Do want.
I appreciate that, Uhura. I was horribly afraid that you’d think I was trying to troll you. My followup question is, then, since I’m abusing your generosity:
You’ve posted things before that seemed to me at least to suggest that you don’t think that white women and black women can be allies in feminism. However, your current description seems counter to that. Did I misread some hyperbole, or is there more to this seeming contradiction than I’m getting?
And why you, specifically, fascinate me? To be honest, I think it’s because I don’t fully understand your position, but feel like there’s something big there just out of my reach. You’re also both very angry and very friendly, and I really like that combination.
hugz-
-a clueless suburban white girl
For those who doubt my statement about Black husbands, please visit THIS link and expand your minds:
http://books.google.com/books?id=yTeb2IJdmXAC&pg=RA1-PA87&lpg=RA1-PA87&dq=african+americans+more+egalitarian+marriage&source=web&ots=ydKyELDABC&sig=FyLHbNwWlaPBMbwq64Iy1qnzVQE#PRA1-PA87,M1
Be sure you are on page 87 “African American Families”
Something mysterious happens when women work outside the home on a routine basis…
Well, thanks for that honest answer, but what you view as “anger” I view as “honesty.”
Interestingly-I don’t fully understand my position either. I am a work in progress.
To answer your question about WW & BW:
Most BW and WW will never be allies. Hell-most WOMEN will never be allies because The Patriarchy issues major disincentives for such alliances and rewards the Smurfettes-especially the blonde ones.
Uhura, I don’t find you “fascinating”, I find you interesting. And this blond Smurfette has your back. The “anger” people appear to be hearing from you is the same “anger” men “hear” from women… the distorted hearing of privilege being challenged. Please continue to hang around. We don’t need “pet” black folks, we need participants, and you are certainly a participant, and one with a voice that needs to be heard.
Peeps (not the Easter variety), when someone says “it’s my experience that….”, it is not your cue to discount or challenge that person’s perception. What “everybody knows” in white America is vastly different than what “everybody knows” in black America, and for good reason. The experiences are completely different. As a white American, I didn’t know until last year that it is taken as a given in many black communities that the CIA introduced crack into black communities, that many of the violent or untimely deaths in the black communities never make the papers, even in the obituary section, and never noticed that when a white (suburban) teen dies the papers talk about the essential grief counseling being provided to the other students at the school, while no such service appears to be offered to urban (black) kids in similar situations (perhaps because they’re perceived to be “used” to it.
The white woman– black woman split is very real in feminism and is well rooted in the patriarchy which knows well how to make us fight for its scraps. The second I find myself thinking “but I’m not like that, I try to stop, check my privilege, and realize that it isn’t about me, it’s about the other person’s experience, and that my job in this situation is to listen
I was worried about saying ‘anger’ for fear it’d sound like a criticism, but then I thought, well, she’s got plenty to be angry about, there’s no shame in calling something what it is. I guess in my usual usage, angry and honest often go together
What got me, originally, with you is that I would see a pattern of a (presumably) white commenter saying something to you that would, from my perspective, look like a genuine, albeit clumsy, attempt to reach across the divide, and you would tell them to go to hell and that they were your enemy. I was really taken aback, but I figured since this was the only type of situation I’d seen you react that way to (i.e. what appeared to be irrationally), the odds were in favor of there being something I was missing rather than you just being a ‘crazy bitch’. I hate not knowing things, so I took a chance that you wouldn’t want to kill me in the hope that you would explain and i would learn something.
oh, and: I know many bloggers who don’t cover WOC because they feel like it’d be disingenous or appropriationist for white women to address an experience they can’t have. how would you want to see a balance between being sensitive to that concern and making sure those issues get addressed? in my internets reading experience, a white woman who blogs on a WOC issue always seems to get told that she shouldn’t be doing so, that it’s offensive to women of color for a white woman to talk about their experience. how do we get around that? is it always the case that white women shouldn’t talk about issues that affect women of color? is, for example, this post out of line if Sheelzebub is white?
I feel like either there’s no right answer, or there are assholes on the internets who find everything offensive. I’ve mentioned this before, but it always makes me think of this: I was told once by someone on the internets that because i’m white, my very existence is oppressive to people of color. It seemed like a stretch, but I’m white, so what do I know, rite? This seems similar - it seems to me that saying white women shouldn’t blog about issues that affect WOC because they’re white is a stretch, but my perspective is automatically invalid because I’m white.
Needless to say, I’m severely confused.
after all that, I still cut my last sentence short of what I was trying to say - I mean that I’m severely confused as to what to do, what is appropriate, how to even be having this conversation without coming across as rude (as odanu seems to think I am doing?). I hope I haven’t been derailing too much here - I feel like this stuff is important and didn’t know where else to take this conversational thread.
The mainstream women’s movement lost steam when it started to focus rather narrowly on the needs/wants of a scant few women with money and clout. That focus was the reason why I didn’t identify as a feminist as a teen and young adult - what they wanted said nothing to me about my low-income life, and it said even less about the lives of my trailer trash sisters who didn’t have the educational opportunities that I had.
Of course, this also disproportionally marginalized women of color, but it was more critical, in terms of momentum and sheer numbers, that it marginalized working class women across all racial and cultural lines. (including large numbers of women of color).
This is not to say that Hispanic, Asian, African-American women do not have particular cultural concerns with regard to feminism that non-wealthy white women do not have to face. The concerns are undeniably real. It does mean, however, that the kind of exclusive attention to these concerns in the name of being inclusive would result in the same sort of exclusivity which lead to marginalization of a broad swath of women in the first place - just as a rigid focus on the concerns of any single subgroup (including low-income women, working-class white women, etc.) would serve to exclude.
I guess the question is: What is the right amount of focus and address to give the specific concerns of any one subgroup without excluding the concerns of other groups? I do not intend this to be a “numbers rule” question, but it is a practical concern all the same. How do you balance the needs of smaller and marginalized constituents against the larger, pan-societal goals of a movement?
If we need to work together then lets work together. Educate me, teach me, lead me but stop “process talking� me to death.
It’s not women’s job to educate clueless men about feminism. It’s also not less privileged women’s job to educate more privileged women about what it’s like to be a feminist of colour. I’m a big girl, I know how to use google, and if nobody happens to have the time/inclination to midwife me through learning all this new stuff, I can either educate myself, or I can walk away. But if I decide to walk away, I don’t get to whine about how I *would* be on their side if they’d been nicer to me.
P.S. This may be an overly harsh reaction to what you posted. But it seems that there’s some commonality between the attitude which leads clueless men to show up on feminist blogs and expect it to be all about them, and the attitude that women of colour ought to be extra-specially patient with us because we don’t *have to* help them. It’s probably a subconscious thing, but I suspect it comes from privilege. And I know I’ve been guilty of it myself quite a few times. Patterns are hard to change.
Mine’s California and there are indeed statues in the penal code which address rape under the color of authority as there are similar laws addressing excessive force or assault under the color of authority(in this crime, either misdemeanor or felony). But even on the occasions that women report these crimes(and it’s very likely many don’t), very rarely are they investigated(most often by the agency that employs the officer and law enforcement agencies don’t self investigate very well)and even rarer, are they prosecuted. The women are often not believed because the majority of the time they have criminal records, usually drug use or prostitution arrests and/or convictions. That’s one of the reasons why they’re much more vulnerable to rape under the color of authority because the officers know that their credibility will be attacked if they report it. They count on that in case they do get caught.
One officer did get some serious time because there were multiple victims during a 10 year period and his first trial hung against him and he plead out and got 34 years. That’s very rare.
When charges are filed, the officers are usually undercharged in relation to the crime they are accused of committing. And often they walk or wind up with hung juries because jurors want to give them the benefit of the doubt because they’re law enforcement officers and they believe the women are getting them back for being arrested and jailed. It’s like that when police officers go on trial for any crime.
I’ve been to two preliminary hearings dealing with law enforcement officers charged with these types of crimes in the past year. The women were brutalized again during cross-examination by defense attorneys. The trial will be much worse.
Philosophizer
is it always the case that white women shouldn’t talk about issues that affect women of color? is, for example, this post out of line if Sheelzebub is white?
I think one thing it would be helpful to keep in mind is… to get to you, they come through us first. Whether it is laws building up to something like the Patriot Act, or undermining the holy grail of abortion rights, there are usually many steps taken that initially primarily affect poorer people and people of color, but which are eventually felt in some way by the overall population.
In my view, statements such as this one made by aimai upthread display breathtaking cluelessness:
What’s in it for me to join a movement in which my very real legal, social, and political interests aren’t respected? I’ve got no need to work for social justice, or to work across racial barriers, or to ever worry about what is happening to people with different life experiences than my own.
I think in pictures, often, and the one that most comes to mind when thinking of (mostly) White feminists is that of a big, tall pine tree, cartoon style with a narrow top and a wide spreading bottom. Crowded around the pinnacle of the tree (abortion), clinging to it for dear life, are the white, middle class feminists. Scattered through the rest of the tree is everyone else, increasing in number the closer one gets to the widespread branches at the bottom of the tree - where women of color and poorer white women dangle precariously.
And at the base of the tree are the people with the axes, steadily working to chop it down - again, cartoon style, where slices are cut out of the trunk and the rest of the tree just drops down in place, shuddering a bit (causing those at the top to cling ever tighter), but not falling over. Yet.
With every thump and shudder, some might be tempted to look around and think “Wow! The mountains are growing, the other trees are getting taller, this means everyone is coming up to our level!” But no… it’s to be hoped that eventually they will realize that with every new law that is enacted, every woman who is arrested for testing positive for substance after delivery of a baby, every child that is tossed into a detention center because their parents ‘broke the law’, every forced cesarian birth, every sterilization carried out by force or subterfuge, and every right taken away from women at the bottom of the tree… that it is not others who are rising, but they at the top of the tree who are sinking.
The whole “this doesn’t really affect us, but out of solidarity or the goodness of our hearts, or because we want to seem like good people, we’ll toss it a bone from time to time, if we feel like it and if no one upsets us too much.” type of thinking among some feminists has always puzzled me. I imagine if one has enough money that that really is the case, that there is always an out, although I am not exactly sure what sort of feminism that qualifies as? Me, me, me, as opposed to we, we, we, I guess.
Anyway, the point of my long ramble is basically - issues that affect women (and men) of color are issues that affect women and will, eventually (as they have been historically), be the basis for getting to those at the top of the tree.
I have a favorite saying, by Lilla Watson, that sort of covers my way of thinking:
“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time… But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”
I agree that it’s important to listen to each other talk about our experience, but at some point there has to be a search for common ground or else all the talk is useless. I’d like to see ACTION. (I don’t think anyone here disagrees with me on this, it’s just a general comment).
Nanette, you said that this question by aimai was clueless:
What’s in it for me to join a movement in which my very real legal, social, and political interests aren’t respected?
I think you may have misunderstood what she was saying. Basically, I understood aimai to be saying that right now, white middle-class women are encouraged to be brood mares and poor women to be irresponsible sluts who should be discouraged from motherhood. I think aimai was saying that a movement that didn’t fight for the right of white middle-class women to have sterilizations/abortions/etc. (even as it fought for the right of others to NOT have these procedures) was not one she wanted to be part of.
I think she’s right about that, more or less. I think that often, bashing/trivializing the issues of white middle-class women is a shorthand for arguing that class or race always trumps gender and that women of whatever race should stop whining because gender oppression doesn’t matter. I don’t see anyone on this thread doing that. But it’s a part of the general discourse in many Left circles to make fun of those silly overprivileged hysterical white women who actually think they’re oppressed. And I think that discourse, in addition to be wrong in and of itself, is also harmful in an indirect way to women of color. And we should be aware of it when we talk of racial divides in the feminist movement.
Ms Kate wrote (in part):
I don’t think there’s any good answer to this in the abstract. Instead, I’d like to ask, what are the issues of poor and women of color that aren’t part of the pan-societal goals of feminism? If our issues aren’t intrinsic to the movement, then what is pan-societal about it at all?
Lanoire
Nanette, you said that this question by aimai was clueless:
What’s in it for me to join a movement in which my very real legal, social, and political interests aren’t respected?
I think you may have misunderstood what she was saying.
You may be right. Although I am having a hard time fitting your interpretation of what she was saying in with the next few sentence of what she wrote.
Also:
I think aimai was saying that a movement that didn’t fight for the right of white middle-class women to have sterilizations/abortions/etc. (even as it fought for the right of others to NOT have these procedures) was not one she wanted to be part of.
Admittedly this is a rather long thread and I am tired but I don’t see where anyone at all is advocating that? Or even anything resembling that, actually.
Thanks for the responses to my query.
What it sounds like is (I’m not American) that there have been issues with Planned Parenthood’s focus on reproductive rights that mostly concerned white middle-class women (the right to opt for sterilization: the right to choose Depo-Provera) and its lack of focus on issues that tend to concern black/low-income women (the right not to be sterilized if you don’t want to be: the right to choose whatever kind of contraception best suits you) and a lack of focus on a problem that specifically concerns minority/low-income women: how to have your views heard and respected by the medical establishment?
All of that, if it’s still true of Planned Parenthood now, sounds like good reason to knock it, though it does not justify claiming that it has “systematic ‘population control’ policies” since this sounds like a problem of apathy/ignorance, not positive support of evil.
(Amanda’s already dealt with the historical issues about Planned Parenthood from decades ago.)
Odanu, this dynamic is one I experience as a female and as a Black person. It is extremely exasperating and quite maddening at times.
People are made very uncomfortable and even angry when their privilege is challenged because they have come to view their privilege as the way things should be. When privilege becomes “normalized” it is no longer viewed as “privilege” but as a “right.” So…essentially when woman or a minority speaks up about this to a male or a White person-they are perceived as angry and irrational because only an angry, irrational person would get so worked up about somoene who is simply exercising their “rights.”
Thanks for your support and your honest attempt to comprehend.
E-no prob. Some things come across less than accurately in cyberspace…
Isn’t that description a little extreme?
Actually…Odanu’s comment addressed this, but I will add that you are correct in acknowledging that your view is from YOUR persepctive. What you perceived was an attempt to reach across a divide, but from my perspective, it was White commentators writing form their White position of superiority about how I should feel and what my concerns should be sprinkled with a little “You should be grateful that I am even acknowledging YOU.”
I think that many simply ignore it because it just isn’t on their radar. Again, White people assume a great deal about that world around them, and White feminists are part of that dynamic.
In short: Seek information from the targets of yoru curiosity and then make an honest effort to LISTEN / READ with an open mind.
Told by who? I have heard of this happening, but I have heard about in the same way I have heard about the Easter Bunny or Santy Clause.
I think that this is a divide and conquer thing. We can and should be able to talk about each other’s experiences and needs CAVEAT: when we have dialoged and understand each other’s experiences and needs.
What White people perceive is important because what White people perceive often becomes everyone’s reality. Even though all women are oppressed by The Patriarchy, Women of Color are oppressed by The Patriarchy, their own men, and White women too…Hence the visceral reactions from feminists of Color…
You know, I want to point a few things out.
First of all, women of color are “organizing their shit.” They’ve been doing it for years.
Second, pointing out the reasons why an overwhelming focus on “choice” rings hollow for women of color, and why an overwhelming focus on the interests of privileged, middle- and upper-class White women leaves many women of color alienated, is not bashing on the concerns of White women. Nowhere have I read that White women–or any women–should just give up the fight for abortion and BC access, voluntary sterilization, or anything else.
I’ll also echo what others have pointed out here: I’m seeing a similar reaction by many White women to this as I’ve seen by men when they’re confronted with their entitlement.
Now, to get specific–I’ll address a question Ms Kate had:
I guess the question is: What is the right amount of focus and address to give the specific concerns of any one subgroup without excluding the concerns of other groups? I do not intend this to be a “numbers rule� question, but it is a practical concern all the same. How do you balance the needs of smaller and marginalized constituents against the larger, pan-societal goals of a movement?
I think that poverty, reproductive rights (all facets of them), economic and social justice, and economic empowerment are things that should be the larger, pan-societal goals of the movement. IOW, making issues that may not affect us directly, but affect other women, priorities is a start.
To this end, keep in mind what Nanette said upthread:
I think one thing it would be helpful to keep in mind is… to get to you, they come through us first. Whether it is laws building up to something like the Patriot Act, or undermining the holy grail of abortion rights, there are usually many steps taken that initially primarily affect poorer people and people of color, but which are eventually felt in some way by the overall population.
Amanda’s said this before, and I think it applies here: It’s not either/or. It’s both/and.
Told by who? I have heard of this happening, but I have heard about in the same way I have heard about the Easter Bunny or Santy Clause.
You obviously never attempted to raise issues about children, school policy, and lactose intolerance on Hipmama (at least around the time when it was disintegrating from an extreme fasciest throught control pogrom)
Mnemosyne,
::ahem::
Orange County, CA
http://www.ocweekly.com/news/news/illegally-park-ed/26661/
“No one disputes that an on-duty Irvine police officer got an erection and ejaculated on a motorist during an early-morning traffic stop in Laguna Beach. The female driver reported it, DNA testing confirmed it and officer David Alex Park finally admitted it.
When the case went to trial, however, defense attorney Al Stokke argued that Park wasn’t responsible for making sticky all over the woman’s sweater. He insisted that she made the married patrolman make the mess—after all, she was on her way home from work as a dancer at Captain Cream Cabaret.
“She got what she wanted,� said Stokke. “She’s an overtly sexual person.�
A jury of one woman and 11 men—many white and in their 50s or 60s—agreed with Stokke. On Feb. 2, after a half-day of deliberations, they found Park not guilty of three felony charges that he’d used his badge to win sexual favors during the December 2004 traffic stop.”
Ahem
Say what?
Uhura,
“Something mysterious happens when women work outside the home on a routine basis…”
Really?! B/c I’m not seeing it.
I knew I should’ve married a black man instead…(c;
Christina, did you read the excerpt?
The long and short of it is this: The family dynamics in Black, Two-Parent homes has evolved quite differently than in White, Two-Parent homes because Black Women have worked outside the home from the beginning-especially at times when Black men were blatantly denied employment-gainful or not-and the family still had to get money to survive.
White men and Black men are also on very different levels within The Patriarchy.
All of this added together and it somehow created a different kind of interaction between Black wives and husbands & White wives & husbands.
Not to be mean-but more likely than not-had you married a black man, your experience would not have been along the lines of what I am describing or what is described in the excerpt for other reasons that I will not get into here.
Uhura, you’re probably right. The difficulties of cross-cultural communication, particularly body language, would’ve made it nigh unto impossible for either of us to convey our true feelings accurately, among many other issues, such as the root of the reason why we are attracted to each other in the first place (as it is in any relationship).
I wonder if that is why (or one reason why) so many of the folks hanging out in race relations forums are in biracial relationships?
It is something of a misconception, though, that white women haven’t always worked. Working-class white women have always worked. Yet that has done us not the least bit of good, since working-class men are among the more misogynistic around.
So, yes, I read it. However, the assumptions being made such as “many of these characteristics are often associated with poverty and so may not be problems inherent in Af-Am families.” (emphasis mine), make me wonder. I don’t think extended family living is a problem. I don’t believe single-parent families are a problem either except in so much as the patriarchy punishes them for not being within the norm, and single parent female headed households really get punishment for not having the penis resident. Proven fecund uteruses should not be running about without male supervision.
However, I meant it as a joke. As if I went husband-shopping with a list or something. HA! (If you knew my husband, you’d know how funny that was.)
Not to be mean-but more likely than not-had you married a black man, your experience would not have been along the lines of what I am describing or what is described in the excerpt for other reasons that I will not get into here.
You were replying to Christina, not me, but I’m confused by the last paragraph. Could you expand a bit?
P.S. Anybody got any good book recs re: the stuff we’re discussing in this thread?
Nanette–nobody on this thread said it, as far as I know. It’s something I’ve seen brought up elsewhere in discussions of this kind, so I thought I’d mention it. Like Sheezlebub said, it’s not either/or, it’s both/and, but sometimes people forget that.
Here’s a question: are there still people advocating that women on welfare be paid to stop having kids and go on Depo-Provera? I know there were not too long ago, but the idea went away from my geographic area and so I stopped paying too much attention to it.
RainCityGirl:
White Like Me, Tim Wise.
Thanks!
I [heart] the intarwebz. Sometimes it’s like taking a class, only fun.
Uhura,
You may not realize it, but several of your own comments on this very thread seemed to fall into this category, particularly this one:
Now, having read the remainder of the thread, I now know that you misunderstood efk, she explained herself, you apologized–no harm no foul. But honestly, had I not come back to read the rest of the thread today, I would have said that you flat out told efk to shut up and butt out because she didn’t know what she was talking about.
While I understand and support the concept that you don’t want to be marginalized, I’m not sure what specifically you want people to do. What specific behavior needs to change so that the marginalization ends?
The stuff that Sheelzebub details in this post, I get that: that’s actionable information. But “don’t marginalize women of color” by itself is not detailed enough to effect any changes with.
RainCityGirl:
Hell naw.
The folks up in here ain’t ready to hear it.
If you “get” the former, why are you having difficulty with the latter and maybe the difficulty of understanding it is on your end?
I’m asking and trying not to be snarky, because just from what I’ve seen on this thread, it’s been much more than, “don’t marginalize women of color”. Uhura’s points make the most sense of anyone’s here. I think it’s most of the others’ points that are confusing me. Maybe I should go back and reread everything.
My internet’s been down all day so after beating up the router, I’m admittedly tired.
Radfem:
If you “get� the former, why are you having difficulty with the latter and maybe the difficulty of understanding it is on your end?
Sheelzebub’s post details specific issues faced by women of color that need to be addressed:
— the problem of “choice” rhetoric when choices are specifically what they don’t have in the situation
— the historical association of contraception in general and Planned Parenthood in particular with eugenicists and abuse by doctors
— the demonizing and “tut-tutting” they get when they choose to have children (or are told they should not have children)
— the problems they face with work issues, lack of health care, lack of leave, etc.
— abusive policies of CPS, welfare, drug sentencing, etc.
Those are all problems that can–and should–be addressed, and different people can easily devise their own approaches to dealing with them, from changing the rhetoric they use to supporting organizations that aid with these problems, to lobbying for changes to government policy.
But how, exactly, can you address “marginalization”? When someone says “Don’t marginalize me”, what exactly needs to be done differently? In other words, in what way does Uhura feel she’s being marginalized and what can we do about it? The only specific example I’ve seen is that Uhura thinks that getting men to help around the house is a trivial issue. OK, fine: it’s not the topic of this thread in particular and not a focus of this blog in general.
Surely that can’t be the only issue under contention, can it?
(bold, mine)
I was going to try to explain what I meant by my question but you provided me with a better example instead. Marginalization 101 is in bold.
Sheelzebub did an excellent job with her post as she always does. She nails things right in the head and she does it fearlessly and she admits her own shortcomings which a lot of us don’t have the courage to do like we need to do on a regular basis. That’s the most important skill of all. That said, I’m still wondering why her posts translate their meaning much more easily for you than do Uhura’s posts because Uhura is doing the same thing in her writing and being very patient I might add. Yet people say they have trouble understanding her and she needs to explain herself?
Actually what happens is she winds up in the position of having to defend herself.
She could do it a hundred times here. It wouldn’t get across until people really listen to what she’s saying. Why do I know this? Because it’s happened many times before on similar threads in different places.
The only specific example I’ve seen is that Uhura thinks that getting men to help around the house is a trivial issue. OK, fine: it’s not the topic of this thread in particular and not a focus of this blog in general.
(bold, mine)
I was going to try to explain what I meant by my question but you provided me with a better example instead. Marginalization 101 is in bold.
Sorry–I was unclear: “it” in that sentence is “getting men to help around the house”.
Uhura’s comment was
If I’m reading the attitude of her comment correctly, Uhura seems to think this is a trivial issue and not very worthy of discussion. But up to this point, “helping with domestic chores” was not under discussion on this thread, nor has it been a constant focus of this blog in general. So the only specific example I saw Uhura cite of focusing only on white women’s problems didn’t seem to apply in this particular forum.
I didn’t mean to imply that I expect Uhura to “defend” herself or her statements. My comments are based on this exchange between philosophizer and Uhura:
Her last two points I understand, but I’m not in a position to do anything about them: those are issues for the moderators and blog owners. As a random commenter, is there anything I can do to improve the marginalization problem she sees on this forum? And, more generally, is there anything I can do as an individual?
It wouldn’t get across until people really listen to what she’s saying. Why do I know this? Because it’s happened many times before on similar threads in different places.
I can’t speak to that: I haven’t been on those threads in those places. If the same question has been answered already, I apologize for covering old ground.
What I see is that people here are focusing on one comment that Uhura made and treating it as if it’s the only thing that’s she’s said and that she just made that comment in a vacuum. If I were in that position, I would feel marginalized by that and I think the comments that were made about men doing that to women were interesting.
This is what she said when she first posted on this thread.
And that in my opinion is most definitely a large part of what the essay by Shleezebub and this thread are all about. Why hasn’t there been as much response to this statement as there has been to her statement about eglitarian relationships between Black men and women which itself was relegated or downgraded by others to being about the division of chores being considered a trivial issue?
Another point she made in response to criticisms about that earlier comment that a lot of White feminists still don’t get was this one.
That’s larger than just the division of chores. It’s one of the realities that White feminists constantly trip over. That’s probably why we not only have problems defining it even when we’ve just heard or read it, but believing it’s a relevent topic on a feminist blog.
Why do I get the feeling that she’s being tried on that one statement when the end result of doing so will be that not only will that essay have explained why many Black women do not view themelves as part of a feminist movement but this comment thread will too?
Even while writing this post, I feel like I’m contributing to that though it’s not my intention to do so. But I would like to see as much interest in the first statement that she made as I have seen on the assertion by some(which I don’t agree) that her contribution to this thread was that she trivilized an issue involving domestic chores.
As to your last point, I don’t see it just as a moderator or blog owner issue, I see it as a blog community issue, not necessarily meaning that this is what a comment thread is, but in the sense that there’s much more that women and men can do in this situation when these forms of marginalization arise on a blog thread than just say, let the moderator or blog owner deal with it.
You make it more “user-friendly” by repetition, by using the term over and over and over again. Whenever you’re about to use a sentence that contains the term “pro-choice” re-work it to use either “reproductive justice” or “reproductive rights”.
Seriously…
Dorothy, it appears that you interpreted my words through a dirty and scratched lens. Let’s review what I wrote–>
This doesn’t say “STFU, you know not of what you speak.” At no time did I challenge the person’s knowledge.
What the statement says CLEARLY “I will not be an ADD ON” in YOUR struggle. Either this becomes OUR struggle or I will not enlist. Even though that is not what E meant-there are enough White feminists who have this attitude to make it a valid statement because it represents the way many Women of Color feel about “The Feminist Movement.” They view is as a White Women’s movement for White Women.
Your interpretation of such a basic concept is troubling. This goes back to Odanu’s point about how Whites tend to interpret challenges to their assumptions about the world around them. If you can’t read / hear what is said and comprehend it for what it really is-especially with blatant statements like the one you selected as an example-I doubt that you’ll ever be able to have a real dialogue with a real live non-White person.
Well, here’s the thing–from what I can see, I’m on the same page as Uhura. And I can totally get her frustration, because the same crap has happened to me in interactions with progressive men.
Here’s what I’ve been seeing:
1) I post something about women of color and the fallacy of “choice” when our choices are already quite constrained.
2) People want to know why I–and many women of color–are supposedly buying into pro-life rhetoric about Planned Parenthood. One admitted moron declared this was “concern trolling” the reproductive rights movement.
The following points are made:
*Women of color should know who their real allies are and should start to organize their own shit. This marginalizes women of color. They certainly *do* know who their allies are. Unfortunately, when we say crap like that, and ignore their long history of organizing and their current activism, it’s infuriating and it does actually marginalize them. (It also makes me wonder about our quali
*Questioning the status quo and the prevailing cultural forces is tantamount to either wanting to turn the clock back, or wanting to ignore White women’s concerns. The message, intended or not, is that this is a zero-sum game, and acknowledging the different experiences and perspectives of women of color will hurt White women, so we just cannot do that. Again, it’s marginalizing.
* The comments turn on Uhura in a way that’s in danger of turning into the wall of defensiveness I saw with Nubian at Blac(k)ademic. Seriously–she’s accused of “reverse racism” (a term that begs to be mocked, BTW) and alienating White women. When it delves into this territory, it isn’t honest conversation.
And note that the majority of the conversation still revolves around the feelings of White women.
Look. I’m glad most folks here got my points in the post. I’m glad that most folks agree with most, if not all of it. And I’d like to say that if you want to know how marginalization happens, look at the content of this thread. A lot of it mirrors the exact shit we have had to put up with from many progressive men–men who insist we should swallow their shit and align with them because they’re our “real” allies, that we need to start doing things for ourselves (and ignore the fact that we have been), that we need to stop being so mean to them, and we need to give them some good guidelines for interacting with us.
It’s common sense. Don’t freak out on Uhura for snapping at ekf when they have already worked their problem out. Frankly, that kinds of crap happens all the time on the internet, but when it happens between people of the same race or gender, no one lectures the person who took offense that they have alienated people who want to be their allies. I’m sure no one means for this to turn into a pile-on, but that’s the way it’s coming off. I rather like Uhura, and I’d hate for her to feel as if she can’t be honest and ornery. Especially considering the fact that the Queen of All Things Rude and Bitchy (me) wrote the original post.
If we want to stop marginalizing women of color, here are two super-easy ways to start:
1) Don’t make the conversation all about the fee-fees of us Whites.
2) Don’t nitpick one or two things a person of color said and harp endlessly about them and ignore the larger issues.
I don’t have all of the answers, certainly. But I think it would help if we took a deep breath and realized that maybe we’re feeling rather defensive.
I know I’m being harsh. But I’ve run into this same dynamic with progressive men over feminism.
Dorothy, I don’t know HOW you got that impression.
I have been on this forum for quite a while, and I have been an avid and energetic participant in discussions about the unfair division of domestic labor in American homes because I am not just Black-I am an American. And, I believe that the domestic shpere is final battlefront of Feminism. The other thing is that the comment that you are referring to was made within the context of a conversation which you are conveniently choosing to ignore.
Radfem is correct. My first comments were (interestingly) skipped over by some people in the discussion-even though they were very connected to what Sheelzebub said. Sheelzebub’s comments were extremely specific and related to issues that Women of Color face and mine were more related to the way we (White and Non-White Feminists) actually interact with one another–to include the assumptions and the prejudgements that we (White and Non-White Feminists) bring to the discussion table…if we even sit down at the same discussion table at all…
Again, you decided for whatever reason NOT to put things in context so please look again:
Sheelzebub, I think that you summarized that very well.
I am hoping that eventually the message will be received…Part of this conversation has defintely turned in the direction that you illustrated, and it was not about bringing us (ALL feminists of varying hues) together-it was about the hurt (or other) feelings of the White Feminists, when the thread’s original topic was Women of Color. Sigh…
I still have hope though… because there were quite a few folks who made an honest effort to build a bridge of understanding here as well.
I like this quote alot. I believe Nannette provided it in the earlier part of the discussion:
Cosigned.
This discussion highlights more than one problem, IMO.
1) While white women have been discriminated against, we’ve also inherited a large portion of white privilege as well. It’s not Uhura’s job to educate us on a topic in which we are interested. If we are interested in learning more, we need to take responsibility for that and educate ourselves. Books have been written. Documentaries have been filmed. Blogs have been created. There you go. Vaya con Dios.
2) Furthermore, I have not heard that the WOC in America have had any meetings or conventions and elected Uhura the Vice President in Charge of Educating Clueless White Folks about Our Position. It is a racist assumption that all WOC even have the same position–as if they are a monolithic community with one objective, one goal and one mind about anything. Seriously, even taking just white women feminists, do we all think the same about things? No. Why would Uhura be able to answer for all WOC about how to not marginalize them? She can answer for her own feelings and that’s all and she’s already done so.
3) We’re arguing about topics when we all agree on the issue. Okay, so we don’t have the same history wrt to reproductive rights–white women are forced to breed while WOC are forced not to. It’s still the same issue–a woman’s God-given (Goddess-given, Nature-given, basic human) right of self-determination. To do with our bodies as we wish, whatever we wish, however we wish, with whomever we wish, whenever we wish to do so. We’re missing the forest for the trees. If the argument, the movement and the discussion can be re-framed under that umbrella, we’ll find, I believe, that we all really are on the same page and it would not be a contradiction to fight just as hard for poor women and WOC’s right to have children as we do for a white woman’s right to access abortion.
4) To be clear, Uhura never said that domestic division of labor was a trivial subject. She said, if you’ll go back and read it, that Af-Am women had already solved (did not ever have?) this problem.
Uhura:
“Alert Alert Alert: Full of Shit White Woman approaching.
Does it really matter is I am marginalized and footnoted?
Hell to the Naw…as the great philosopher, Whitney Houston, once said.
Of course not…I shall capitualte and allow Mighty Whitey to lead me in my quest for freedom from The Patriarchy. Because…that has worked so well for me and mine thus far. ”
Sigh …
Goodbye.
hey, I finally had a minute to come back, and I wanted to thank you again, Uhura, for going out of your way to answer my questions. I hope I didn’t make you feel attacked or marginalized by the asking - after reading everything between then and now, I get the impression that some people feel I was trying to shut you up, and I sure don’t want to do that. And thank you, Sheelzebub as post owner, for understanding and not having me banned
I don’t have anything wise to say, so I’ll just leave it at that and keep observing.
Bravo Christina.
BTW-I need to correct one thing:
You are correct, I never said that. But what needs clarification is this:
I specifically said that the issue was not a problem in MY home. As far as the general populace goes, I don’t think the problem has been “solved” per se- but in my experience and from what I have read, Black marrieds have found their way towards egalitarian marriage moreso than their White counterparts.
Phily: At no time was I offended by any of your questions.
Boadicea, what? I am huilty of not bowing and scraping enough when talking to The White People?
Too bad.
Step.
Boadicea, what? I am guilty of not bowing and scraping enough when talking to The White People?
Too bad.
Step.
Sorry. Thanks for the correction.
Uhura,
I didn’t mean to ignore your first several statements–I understood them and I agreed with them, but I was taught years ago not to waste thread space with “hear, hear!” comments. I thought the responses to and the historical context of why women of color are suspicious of “population control” programs were dead on and thought provoking. It also made me realize that the many issues that I have internalized as “class” issues or “resource” issues do have a racial component that needs to be understood before they can be truly solved. But I didn’t have anything of value to contribute to the conversation, so I just listened.
Also, I never meant to “harp” on your statements to efk or act like you had to defend them (you two worked it out and it’s none of my business). I honestly only brought it up because you specifically asked for an example of where a white blogger “seemed to be told” not to write about the concerns of women of color. To me, those statements–without the follow-on conversation–counted as such an example.
Based on your reaction (”I am not going to be your pet NegroFeminist”), you seemed to take offense at efk’s attempt to include women of color in the conversation, or at the very least felt patronized and tokenized. If efk’s attempt to include women of color was patronizing and offensive, doesn’t that count as “seeming to be told” to back off, lest she continue to offend?
(Again, I only brought this up because you said in another post that you had never seen it happen. If one cuts off the thread in the middle and moves on, I think it could easily be misnterpreted as having happened.)
For a bit of context: This isn’t about me or “my fee-fees” or whatever. My particular “dirty and scratched lens” is teaching developmental writing and reading, so I tend to think in terms of multiple possible interpretations of any given statement.
Uhura, you said you didn’t know where people got the idea that white women “seem to be told” they should not talk about issues concerning women of color. I wanted to point out that this was one possible interpretation of your conversation with efk. Is it the “correct” one, the only one, or the most likely one? Certainly not. Is it a “reasonable” one? Only if you discount the follow-on conversation. Is it possible that someone read thread before the follow-on conversation and didn’t come back? Very likely. Given those criteria, I think that this could constitute an example of “seeming to be told” to back off (emphasis on the “seeming” part).
As to whether or not domestic equality was a trivial issue to women of color, I read the following statment:
Truth be told: Black men have always helped with domestic chores, and Black married couples have the most egalitarian relationships of all.
In the context of a discussion where issues that affect women of color are ignored in favor of white women’s issues, I understood this statement as an example of the problem: namely, that white feminists spend an inordinate amount of time on domestic equality when this is not an important issue for black feminists. If that wasn’t the intention, then I completely misunderstood why the domestic equality was even brought up in the current topic.
On one level, though, I guess that is about my insecurities. On this thread, at least two different commenters who were not trying to marginalize or patronize accidently did it anyway. The misinterpretation was corrected and apologies accepted, but it still happened.
I don’t want to offend or marginalize anyone, even accidently. If I can understand what it was about those particular comments that were marginalizing, what precisely let them be so misunderstood, then I have a prayer of “fixing” my own dialog before I piss someone off.
Dorothy, I would say one very important word to you:
The next thing I would say is: Let go of what you THINK you already know when attempting to communicate with a Person of Color.
Another thing I would say is: Don’t ask any one Person of Color to be the ambassador for all Persons of Color. Whites are not monolithic and neither are other groups of people.
Finally: You can’t comunicate effectively if you are fearful of pissing the other person off. Fear does not facilitate honest and meaningful discourse.
I wish to GOD that Amanda would change that SUBMIT button to “POST” or something else…
Sorry-It had to be said.
Also, por favor: Could we get a “crib sheet” on how to underline, bold, italicize, etc on Pandagon?
Thanks
Uhura, I would happy to make such a “crib sheet”, if Amanda will find a place to post it for all Pandagonians.
Amanda can contact me at my email address…
In the mean time:
Some underlined text: <u>text you want underlined</u>
Bold Text: <b>text you want bold</b>
Italic Text: <i>text you want italicized</i>
Strike through: <strike>text to strike through</strike>Add a superscript: <sup>text to superscript</sup>
Effects can be combined as well…
“sup” and “u” apparently don’t work. I’ll see if I can figure out where I went wrong…
Don’t ask any one Person of Color to be the ambassador for all Persons of Color.
I didn’t mean that, Uhura. In response to philosophizer, you asked the commenters here not to “marginalize me”–what do *you personally* consider marginalization?
Here, I’m not talking about the obvious things like the “reverse racism” crap. I’m talking about those two or three remarks that you later said you had misinterpreted as marginalizing when they weren’t meant to be. Something about those remarks implied marginalization to you: what was it? And then, more importantly, is there any way to avoid those same implications in the future?
I realize that there may not be. There certainly isn’t magic bullet to perfect communication. But to paraphrase what efk said, if I’ve unintentionally made you feel that feminism is some white women’s club, then I’ve failed miserably. If I don’t know how I failed, then I’ll do it again, and again, and again. And, unfortunately, the next time it happens, the recipient may not be willing to call it out or give me another chance as you did.
In an ironic way, I’m “picking” on you because you are patient and you do engage. If I’ve exhausted your patience, I do apologize.
I was thinking of posting a crib sheet anyway! Will do so tonight.
I was just answering your questions with general guidelines about how to possibly foster communication between White & Non-White Feminists-not anything about you specifically…
Not trying to insult E’s writing style but-to be frank-it was not written clearly enough to convey exactly what she meant. Sometimes that happens in cyberspace in a fast paced thread. The speed of fingers can’t match the speed of thought. Tehn again, I could have been drowsy when I read it.
See refer to the general guidelines I gave you before.
I have a six year old. I am all about patience-most of the time.
Besides-When people ask questions, I don’t feel picked on.
Please feel free to ask away. But remember that what you’ll get is my raw, unwashed opinion; and please also remember that my opinion may or may not be transeferrable to other WOC.
I am all for building bridges as long as the materials for construction do not include bull$hit.
Thanks Mike-Hopefully Amanda will take you up on that. It makes the discussion so much more interesting and it improves the flow…
Yeah, the ending to this prosecution is fairly typical but many similar cases don’t even make it this far including those not reported to police agencies.
I spent last evening in a neighborhood speaking with individuals on police issues with several other women. Some of us who were there last night are White. Others American Indian and Latina. One issue which goes back to Sheelzbub’s original essay is the differences with White women who have encouters with police that might superficially resemble experiences with women of color in terms of traffic stops, searches, seizures of property including vehicles and arrests. For most White women, it’s an individual incident as it is in their neighborhoods whereas for women of color particularly those who are Black or Latina, it’s a systemic process where it happens repeatedly.
And one of the topics to address was the traumatic impact such experiences have on different women. Because White women might experience it once at the most, if they seek counseling or other means to deal with that trauma(and the disparate availability of resources was a topic too) , it’s for that particular incident where for the women of color, it’s the cumulated impact of all the incidents and the reality that for them, it’s not an isolated thing. It will likely be repeated again. It’s an issue that impacts many women and their families but how do you get feminism involved as a movement in addressing these issues if most of the so-called mainstream organizations don’t see it as an issue? Most of them run by White feminists want to pair up with police departments to address crimes like rape and domestic violence without thinking of the impact that their actions and the results have on women of color and their communities. That’s why I don’t give what’s called the feminist movement much thought.
A good book that has a chapter addressing this issue is an anthology called Policing the National Body
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