Everyday Responsibility?

At the grocery store where I work in Ohio, my co-worker made a racist remark, then denied that it was racist, then justified the remark because her anger made her say it, then apologized to me because my boyfriend is black, then assured me that she didn’t have a racist bone in her body. 

After some sort of misunderstanding and altercation with a black woman, my co-worker complained to our manager (who is black), and waited for him to walk away before saying that the woman was a “ghetto black bitch.”

I was shocked. I asked her if she had actually just said that. She repeated it to me, with emphasis. I demanded to know what ghetto meant. She shrugged, and said, “Ghetto.” No, I said, what does it mean? She raised her voice: “It means trash.”

At this point a customer came to me, and I heard my co-worker saying to herself that this was “fucking ridiculous” (I think she was referring to me). She disappeared for about half an hour. During this time I called my boyfriend to tell him what happened, and that I was going to say something to her when she got back.

Perhaps to be expected, she acted like nothing had happened when she returned. I immediately told her that I couldn’t let go of that very offensive thing she had said. She looked both confused and surprised that I had brought it up. “So?” she demanded. For a second I had an honest loss of words. She continued: “I’m not a racist. I don’t have anything against black people.”

Though I was not the first to use the words “racism” and “racist,” I was happy to explain her racist comments to her. Why say “black bitch” if you didn’t mean for “black” to inform the “bitch” part? Why say “ghetto”? In a few seconds time, I was able to make the case that she must have thought blackness made the customer an even more despicable “bitch.” She denied all of this, and said she would have used the phrase “white trash bitch” if the woman had been white. And the woman is black, she argued, so why is this fact a racist thing to point out?

Another co-worker, overhearing our conversation, jumped in to tell me that her friend is not a racist. She said that she herself was living with a black man, and so was her sister. Wait, who? I said.

“Me.”

I was confused. “But you’re not the one who said ‘ghetto black bitch.’”

My point didn’t seem to matter. As someone living with a black man, she can attest to my co-worker’s racism-free thinking. Both began speaking in exaggerations about how she isn’t prejudice against anybody. The choice of “I don’t have a racist bone in my body” seems to indicate that she views racism as something ingrained, something with which you are born, or aren’t. It’s in our biology.

The incident of course showed me the continuing problems with racism. If she didn’t call the woman the n-word, then it wasn’t racist. It is also easy to see how the irresponsibility of people who know better can coincide with the problems of racism, sexism. If I hadn’t been around to hear my co-worker’s remarks, she probably would have had a much better day, feeling defended and justified by the body of workers there that rushed to her defense. Though I’m not looking to be comforted or congratulated myself, there is certainly something discomforting about knowing that (at least at my job), for every person who says, “Hey, that’s offensive, do you know that?” there are a few, or more, who privately harden their conviction against being wrong.

Response to Senator Obama’s Statements on Abortion (July 8, 2008)

Senator Obama recently explained a component of his position on abortion, saying “serious clinical mental health diseases” and “physical health” are exceptions to the rule that, in the third trimester, a woman cannot legally abort a pregnancy. He attempted to clarify by adding that “feeling blue” does not justify a “partial birth abortion.”

We might, in the aftermath of this statement, expect some women and feminists to remove their support from Obama’s campaign. While I disagree with following through with that reaction, I understand why women are disappointed and alarmed by Obama’s statement. In some women’s eyes, Obama just became another man philosophizing on the political terrain that is a woman’s body. Somewhere there are women to whom these “exceptions” apply, and they might be watching these male politicians on TV, or might be in the audience at an event as two men who know nothing about their lives or bodies talk, talk, talk. By avoiding us as people and ignoring the complex realities of our lives as women, male politicians might find talking about and around us much easier.

Some are also disappointed about Senator Obama’s statement because now that Senator Clinton is out of the running, and Obama should win the divided women’s vote, he does not seem to have much ambition to win it. He must really not care, some of us are thinking. We might also observe how, as a voting bloc, we are repeatedly taken for granted and viewed as push-overs. We resent that, and we resent that he does not seem to be fighting hard enough. We believe it indicates that nothing will change under his presidency, for us anyway.

We resent when men patronize us. We resent when men talk about us and legislate and make policy like we aren’t there. We resent that Senator Obama doesn’t defer to women on this one. And finally, “partial birth abortion” is a fake term. It is not medical, it was created by Republicans so that they could politically identify a procedure that in reality almost never happens, then they banned it, with exceptions for those cases that required the existence of this procedure in the first place: to preserve the health or save the life of the woman. And Senator Obama, our democratic candidate, used that term.

Maybe some women just won’t vote, or will vote for McCain.

Much of this is understandable, but I would offer a more cautious approach, and perhaps a better way of thinking about Senator Obama.

I was profoundly disappointed by Obama’s statements, but I will not withdrawal my support. I’m going to take a second to observe that a president will not solve everything. Some feminists wanted to elect Hillary Clinton to see a woman president before they died. If Senator Clinton had been the nominee, would they have happily sat at home because all the work appeared to be done? I truly hope not. Would she have been the answer to everything? Would our female president have worked for women, represented us, all of us, and made sure all the rights we have now remain intact? Would she lead the movement to get the rest of the rights owed to us? We really don’t know.

More than a president, we need a movement. Where we can make progress, we make it enthusiastically. Where we can forge new relationships and make men our allies (since they do make up the majority of politicians who legislate around and about us), we forge those relationships. We initiate feminist conversion wherever it can happen. And we must begin acting through the perspective that, at the very least, by voting for Obama we give ourselves the continued benefits of privacy as a constitutional right, continued support for cheap, accessible birth control, and an end in sight for abstinence-only “education,” even as all these progressions have been so imperfect and at times supported and rejected without full knowledge of what they are.

For instance, we know that the privacy argument is not enough, that abortion was decriminalized not because women were deemed human enough for full participation and full control over their reproductive capacity without exception, but because the constitution has a privacy clause that, with a certain interpretation, can include a woman deciding to terminate a pregnancy. This is imperfect, and so are distinctions made between arguments for and against abstinence-only “education,” as are those with raising minimum wage and cracking down on employers who have biases when they give out paychecks. Nobody has fixed these problems yet, so why do they fall on Obama because he has proposed changing the system?

Change is happening slowly. As feminists, we have everyday experience telling us it is difficult to change people’s minds. On one hand, I understand the impulse to cast a protest vote, or to opt out of voting altogether. But given that we have two choices in this election, Senator Barack Obama or Senator John McCain, we would do ourselves well to cast a ballot for the candidate we know for sure will at least secure what some of us have come to take for granted, and to be hopeful that with enough insistence, our representatives will work for us. In the meantime, we must add ourselves as a third choice: when we have a president in November, what will we do next?

Sexism is Not the Only Issue (June 4, 2008)

There is a prevalent incomprehension among some older feminists that young women or any feminist could support a man over Senator Clinton. Nevermind who this man is or what his values are or the ways that he has, for many women, adequately proven himself as a politician who supports their causes – without forgetting that they must be supported alongside the causes of black people, Hispanics, gays and lesbians, and the poor. In the “second-wave” feminism tradition, Senator Clinton’s campaign fails to present analyses that address the realities of all women. This detail is not seen as a failure, but rather, as Susan Brownmiller writes in her memoir of the women’s movement, it is regarded as a subject used to guilt white women into believing “they had no right to make any demands for themselves.”

Feminists at the time of the women’s movement rarely considered that racism was a huge woman problem for those who experience(d) it both on the giving and receiving ends. They seemed too tied up in resenting black women standing by their men and accusing them of ignoring siren calls for sisterhood and not recognizing their every-womanness. Robin Morgan, editor of the 1970 anthology Sisterhood is Powerful, wrote in the introduction that black women, “who are obviously doubly oppressed, have, for the most part, chosen to fight beside their black brothers, fighting racism as a priority oppression.” Morgan and her white sisters, presumably not affected by racial oppression, are unable to gauge just how much racism affects a black woman’s personhood. Did women who were born and sold into slavery deny the racial reality of their partners and their sons as well as their mothers and daughters as a prerequisite for resisting the rape and sexual assault by white men? Would prioritizing their femaleness, as if their blackness did not exist, have erased the problems they faced as black people? And with racism not dealt with, wouldn’t their problems as black women persist?

Real problems needing widespread attention like sexism and racism have been divided so that they “belong” to only one group that bears the entire responsibility of eradicating the problem, even as, at times, a group free of responsibility can all by itself perpetuate the problem. Dividing them completely as opposing absolutes makes racism a “black problem” and sexism a “white woman problem,” but it also makes black women into dangerous agents capable of helping or hurting one side or the other; worse, they can even be rendered invisible.

Setting forth with this blindness in the 70s, feminists worried that they would lead an all-white movement that would quickly lose credibility. They worked on “recruiting” black women, a word Brownmiller used in her 1999 memoir In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution. A recording from a formal session on attracting black women to the movement, re-created in text by Brownmiller, shows that some feminists in attendance only seemed to care about getting one “militant Black Power woman,” because “black women hold the cards on oppression…and they let white women know that.” At least until the time Brownmiller wrote her memoir, she seemed genuinely bewildered that more black women were not interested in what developed as an almost all-white women’s liberation movement. Perhaps they tried to pull black women into a political space that inflexibly accepted them and resisted being shaped by their interests and realities. It seemed that only one black woman present as white women developed their ideology was adequate. Similarly, out of over seventy essays published in Robin Morgan’s edited collection, only three are dedicated to the black liberation movement, set-off in a section painfully titled “Women in the Black Liberation Movement: Three Views.”

Simultaneously, the recruitment attitude appeared to be “I don’t care who you are, if you’re a woman, you should join this movement.” Nevermind that at times, the women’s movement advocated separation from men, a full and free exploration of careers, education, child-free lives, all made possible by nannies who were poor women and women of color, for whom financial support and leisure time might have been an improvement in their lives, not what it was for educated white women: a manifestation of oppression that was universalized as every woman’s plight. Failing to address this discord, Brownmiller used her memoir to adamantly stand by the claims made in the 70s: “no movement agonized more, or flailed itself harder, over its failure to attract vast numbers of women of color.”

Perhaps these “flailings” were insincere. Some feminists certainly might have agonized over not attracting all women without seeing that they had not continued the anti-racist work of understanding the realities that make all women’s experiences of sexism much different from white women’s experiences in particular. They might have believed they had already, in the words of bell hooks, unlearned racism. They also loved the movement and benefited too much from it to be entirely critical, even in hindsight.

Now, in the 2008 presidential primary, Senator Clinton’s campaign attracts this feminist support. Not questioning the nature of the support or attempting to shape feminism as a movement that ends sexism for all women, Senator Clinton has gained a lot of popularity among feminists. I would ask, when did she become this feminist mother, a savior for women? She did not. What happened was the realization of this woman as a possible female president, an end to forty-year struggle and the desire for pay off, not a continuation of hard-won feminist gains in a widespread movement wherein women of all ages and color and background act for gender equality in all the ways it can be realized for all people, even if this means electing an exceptional man to the highest office.

The problem is that many who were active in the movement do not trust young women to do feminist work today. We have been accused of apathy toward our right to abortion, to birth control, to careers and/or to family life. We have been accused of aversion to power, even as the definition of female power has changed and is constantly changing to include objectification, cosmetics, motherhood, involvement in politics, having sex before we are ready, having it when we are ready, wearing designer sunglasses, staying thin, going to college. The mixed messages are amazing, and older women have thrown more than their frustration at those young women who step bravely or without burdening self-consciousness into the realms etched out for us, realms whose boundaries seem to have been carved deeper against feminist gains.

Is it this hopelessness in the younger generation that makes some veteran feminists use their name recognition and their writing to burn us by neglecting issues that will affect us and our partners, daughters and sons, to demand payment for their lifetimes of work not with their daughters’ and sisters’ continued health and welfare, but with the static image of Senator Clinton at her inauguration?

Many women who support Senator Clinton say they want to see a woman president in their lifetime, claimed even in the midst of the impending weakening of our reproductive justice laws, pay discrimination, sexual harassment, the neglect of women’s health, a quarter of young women having an STD, abstinence-only programs, rape, the feminization of poverty, young women’s declining access to birth control, domestic violence, prostitution, sexual slavery, sexual objectification. One adamant fifty-something Clinton supporter on the Huffington Post commented that she will take her chances on Roe and vote for McCain if Clinton loses the nomination.

Robin Morgan writes in her introduction to Sisterhood is Powerful that the women’s liberation movement “is the first radical movement to base its politics – in fact, create its politics – out of concrete personal experiences. We have learned that those experiences are not our private hang-ups. They are shared by every woman, and are therefore political.” Nevermind that they are not shared by every woman and are, for that reason, political. Nevermind that celebrating personal experience and interests by privileging them reinforces the “I” and “she” pronouns found in Senator Clinton’s campaign, demonstrating that her campaign has much to do with her and might, with that starting point, have little to do with the masses of women who do and do not support her, but who would nonetheless be recipients of whatever harm or good she may accelerate as president. It would be a mistake to privilege what I want based on my own perceived experience with “second-class citizenship” without even questioning where my experience falls in the spectrum of human plight. I would inevitably produce what could be the unintended effect of eclipsing the experiences of others; yet this is what Senator Clinton’s campaign has encouraged through those feminist messages characterized by demands for gender loyalty and of our votes as gratitude.

As we debate who feminists should vote for and debate who black women should support, we have taken a moment of privilege to ignore the real problems that have not suspended themselves as we talk. During this entire election season, with a woman running for president, we feminists have not demanded very much from her. Instead, many seem to be overwhelmed by unwavering loyalty and resist criticizing her.

Why have we not demanded more? What about a formal debate about those reproductive issues unique to women? Especially as Republicans get airtime to discuss ways women should be punished for getting abortions “when Roe is overturned.” Why have we not forced Senator Clinton to talk about women? She might mention “the hard-working waitress in the Midwest” or “the little girl who can now dream of being whatever she wants to be,” and we feminists swoon at the nods. But they are just not enough. For this reason, I have difficulty supporting her as she openly discusses sexism so late in the campaign. First, I am skeptical because I always thought she could take whatever the misogynists would throw. And she has! There is no question that Senator Clinton is a strong woman capable of defending herself when an attack is low. Second, even though all sexism is a problem for those who experience it, it is not the same for everyone. By redefining sexism as unwarranted attacks against women in power positions, her campaign and her supporters draw back the extent to which feminism as a political movement is relevant. If I am a feminist who cares about reproductive justice, anti-racist activism, women affected by violence, pay discrimination, and sexual harassment on the job, Senator Clinton hardly represents the ultimate resistance to sexism. Should I give up on my president and government if I am told that it is not their job to address these problems, or should I demand more from my president and my government? Especially when the front-runner for the Democratic party has demanded more and has asked us to demand everything from him and from ourselves.

If this campaign were really about the women Senator Clinton claims to lead for, she would have addressed their experiences with sexism a long time ago. As sexism becomes dolls that crack nuts, demands to cook and iron, and men discussing her “cackle,” what is it when the women who most need access to abortion are met with policy that restricts it? When those women also have difficulty accessing birth control? And then, with children, when those women cannot seek the education or the wage that would make them less dependent on a male partner whether or not they have one? What is it called when they work and are likely to experience sexual harassment but feel forced to keep the job because they need it? While that system and others are in full-force all day, every day, we focus instead on the tragedy of some old-fashioned men who do not like Senator Clinton. When they call her a “bitch,” we should regard it as a compliment: they probably cannot debate Clinton’s policy and they know it is difficult to win an argument with her. They have nothing else but “bitch.”

We need to laugh off the name-calling. We cannot risk redefining sexism so that America does not have to address poverty, reproductive justice, and the experiences of American women everywhere. We risk seeing those problems only in the context of race and class and may not even consider them in light of gender anymore.

As feminism reemerges as a topic of discussion during this election season, we have missed the opportunity to talk about the interests women really would want a woman candidate to address. Senator Clinton has not stood up as a leader for women; instead, for the purposes of her campaign, sexism became the only issue at stake once she could afford to address it. Ironically, gender loyalty has been the only channel through which our support should flow. Is it possible that her campaign might inadvertently work to secure conditions that negatively affect more women than her symbolic win would positively affect her feminist supporters, some of whom gained fame in the 70s and want to see a woman elected president before they die?

Where have the real issues been? Where is the urgency? Why are we resting? Maybe we can afford not to address them, but there are more American women than make up our own privileged sect who cannot afford it.

In a recent piece called “Goodbye to All That No. 2,” Robin Morgan chastises young women who cannot identify with Senator Clinton and who do not feel compelled to call themselves feminist. Equal attention should be paid to Clinton, who does not declare that she advocates feminism or is a feminist. Investigate her ability to be the feminist you want her to be among the men who would reject her for it. Make sure that the choices she makes (which sometimes identify with sexist thinking) actually function to eliminate gender inequality as experienced by masses of women and men who do not want to run for president or do not care about politics.

Throw them away as misled young people with divided loyalties, as her supporters did to women of color and others in the 70s? Or reach out, be willing to listen to and believe them, and begin to lead for them all? I will wait for improvements in her continued service in the senate or in some other political capacity, but I reserve my right to withhold my feminist support of Senator Clinton for President of the United States.

Feminism, Essentialism, and Hillary Clinton (May 7, 2008)

Heralded as a great leader for women that feminists have been waiting for, Hillary Clinton received an endorsement from the National Organization for Women in March, 2007. NOW Political Action Committee Chair Kim Gandy did not use the endorsement speech to indicate how, as a woman, Hillary Clinton would lead any differently. There was actually little substance in the speech, with high points escalated by noble language: NOW will urge “women and men across this nation to stand up and say ‘I’m ready’ for a woman president,” NOW will work at all levels “to elect feminist candidates and make our dream of a woman president a reality.” 

In similar language, feminist activist Gloria Steinem called gender “the most restricting force in American life.” Her support for Clinton is based, among many things, on Clinton having “no masculinity to prove.” Steinem’s mistake is not so obvious. Citing gender as the most restricting force, Steinem seems to have forgotten about gender when she claims that as a woman, Hillary Clinton does not have to prove she is as tough or worthy as a man; to Steinem, men have masculinity, women just don’t, or don’t have to prove that they do. Did Steinem intend to say that sex, not gender, is a restricting force?

Clinton supporter Paul Gibson recently said that this country needs a president with “testicular fortitude,” verbally handing over those honorary testicles that are meant as a compliment to powerful women. Her supporter is saying that fortitude does not come from ovaries or breasts. It does not come from a woman’s heart. When women give birth, is it easy? Surprisingly, they do not need testicles to do it. 

Feminists have tried staying away from essentialism when referring to their own capabilities and personal worth. They are hesitant to say that women are naturally better at anything. For so long, differences between women and men have been presented with values attached to them; we learn that values associated with women are deficient, and values associated with men are appropriate and human. Feminists know that merely reversing the values is ineffective: everything women do, they do it better than men, who only cause damage and destruction. This paradigm never worked because it is untrue; yet Hillary can make up for her female deficiency by acquiring “testicular fortitude.” It must be acquired–it does not come naturally for females. In this sense, can one be woman without being female? Is gender not the most liberating force in American life then? 

There is no indication that Hillary would be distinct at leading on the token of her femaleness. As discussed, feminists have avoided saying that she would be different in a set of ways associated with women. Perhaps out of fear of being called hypocrites, feminists have not wanted to say that Hillary would be better, only “as good,” but perhaps better in ways that have nothing to do with her femaleness. This, it seems, correctly envisions equality: to have nothing female trump anything male, because feminists have been fighting a long time for gender equality, not superiority.

If feminists have played down essentialism, they have played up the symbolic gain of having a woman president. Their messages come from privilege and tend to undermine today’s feminist position. After she won the Pennsylvania primary, Hillary Clinton’s speech was dominated by the same noble language of the historical importance of a woman president, relying on an assumed feminist belief: given the choice of a man or a woman leader, feminists choose a woman. Has entitlement to men’s things always been a feminist goal? 

The night she won Pennsylvania, Hillary Clinton spoke to the crowd about women’s empowerment: 

“This is a historic race. And I commend Senator Obama and his supporters tonight. We are, in many ways, all on this journey together to create an America that embraces every last one of us, the women in their 90s who tell me they were born before women could vote. And they’re hopeful of seeing a woman in the White House…the mothers and fathers at my events who lift their little girls on their shoulders and whisper in their ears, ‘See, you can be anything you want.’” 

This desire to have a woman president comes from privilege within the movement. The symbolic gain of installing a woman president seems to have temporarily eliminated all other concerns women have. Quite selectively, Hillary Clinton and some of her feminist supporters have focused on fulfilling the most privileged of possible feminist gains: installing women in the highest leadership positions, where men and women alike are apt to fall out of touch with the concerns and interests of the groups from which they come and which they claim to represent even in their privilege.

Additionally, in place of substantially justifying why there should be a woman as opposed to a man in the White House, Hillary Clinton and some of her supporters implement a narrative of privileged symbolic meanings that is not without racist subtext: privilege is present when Hillary Clinton is reframed so that her femaleness obscures her whiteness, such that headlines play with “Black Man versus Woman,” rather than “Black versus White.” The very real, historical conditions for women do make Hillary Clinton’s candidacy unique, but to obscure her race and privilege altogether distorts the reality of her candidacy. It is not as if, as Audre Lorde said, one can “pluck out some one aspect” of oneself “and present this as the meaningful whole, eclipsing or denying the other parts of self.” The woman who is Hillary Clinton could never be just a woman without also being, simultaneously, white; and whiteness in our culture might be best equated with privilege. Are her whiteness and privilege partially or temporarily excused because she is a woman? While Lorde was seeking recognition for the complexity of our identities, Clinton has profitably obscured the most privileged part of herself. 

For what reasons is it useful to eclipse one aspect of oneself and present the other as if it exists essentially? Is Steinem saying that the possession of the female anatomy determines one’s success in life? It might, but not absolutely; other factors like race and class can determine how much privilege one inherits or acquires. 

It may be beneficial to eclipse unfavorable aspects of oneself for personal gain. It is not difficult for women to identify what kinds of behavior are rewarded by powerful men. That a woman could easily become a spokeswoman for male supremacy seems to have escaped the minds of Gloria Steinem and others. If the feminist position as of 2008 is that a woman should be president, a conversation needs to happen that addresses Hillary Clinton’s ability to be a woman among men.

Privilege at the Level of the Symbolic? (April 23, 2008)

In her speech tonight after winning the Pennyslvania primary, Senator Clinton said that she has met ninety-year-old women who were alive before women could vote and want to see a woman in the White House. She evoked the image of a little girl who is told that yes, you can be anything you want to be, too.

At a recent conference on women and media, panelists from women’s leadership organizations claimed that Hillary getting to the White House is a step for all women. In fact, they warned, if Hillary doesn’t make it, we won’t see a woman president in our lifetime or in our daughters’ lifetimes. 

What privilege we all suddenly have! The symbolic gain of installing a woman president seems to have temporarily eliminated all other concerns women have. Quite selectively, Senator Clinton and some of her feminist supporters have focused on fulfilling the most privileged of possible feminist gains: installing women in leadership positions, where men and women alike are apt to fall out of touch with the concerns and interests of the groups from which they come and which they claim to represent even in their privilege. 

Hillary can talk about health care, about the war, about struggling families. But if she discusses women at all as a particular group, she is likely to remind us that little girls will have an example now, or that for all women, she might finally break The Glass Ceiling. That she seems to ignore real problems women have (how big a loss for women is it – really – if she loses?) indicates to me that she comprehends and wishes to convey such a gain as winning the presidency at the symbolic level, above the real. Out of touch. 

If this is the feminism that I, inheriting the gains of a former movement, am meant to accept and internalize, the feminism that I and other Obama supporters have been accused of betraying, then we would be betraying other women if we didn’t take every step to scrap it and begin again. 

Anyone who knows me knows that I have applauded Senator Hillary Clinton’s political progress. I understand what the gain would mean – for some women. But I hesitate to extend the benefits to the rest of us. Can we even determine what the gain is for our country or for all women? I have also been critical of Senator Clinton’s commitment to the very distinct problems women face, not because I expect her to be committed because of her femaleness, but because she has championed herself as one who fights for women. 

It is this particular fight she described in her speech tonight that so alarms me. In fact, it doesn’t seem to be much of a fight at all for other women. The crowd shouts “Yes, she can!” and tomorrow some more of her supporters will write pieces for the Huffington Post that applaud the fight she’s got in her. They’ll spin it as if it’s a reaction to the white male dominance that these women have been fighting for forty years, even as Clinton consciously stood in this primary as an alternative to a black man.

Clinton supporters have complained about Obama sailing on the “novelty” of his candidacy while old white Hillary gets nothing for her own novelty as a woman. Privilege is there when supporters reframe Hillary so that less whiteness and more femaleness shows. Privilege is there when they say little girls will dream about being president, but ignore what partnerships they will have to forge and what particular trials they will have to endure as women to make it there, or anywhere close. Or anywhere. 

Bring the win down from that unaffecting, symbolic gain: if it can be translated into real-life implications for women, translate it clearly. If it can’t, stop saying it can be. Listen to women, and begin to lead for them all.

Not Spitzer’s Girl (Mar. 15, 2008)

I’m annoyed with the media’s new fixation on Kristen, the woman whose services New York Governor Eliot Spitzer used and got caught paying for. It’s hard to call this fixation “coverage.” Nothing new has happened except the discovery of her MySpace page, a pretty static piece of information: it hasn’t been altered since she was identified as a prostitute, and we should doubt that it was constructed with the expectation of being identified at some point with a very public name.

The presentation of the information found on her MySpace page is interesting in itself. On CNN, a headline related to the scandal reads, “Spitzer’s escort: ‘I love who I am.’” Why write the headline as if this is Kristen’s response to the attention and judgment she has received because of the scandal, and not a quote pulled from her MySpace page? (We do not even know if her statement is directly in reference to being a prostitute.) Read after the scandal, her statement reveals what we already believe to be true about Kristen: she is a defiant slut, acting in that bold, shameless way that is the only way we ever see prostitutes act. Read before the scandal, the statement reveals a confident woman who has a reason to love herself and who, despite any failings or personal disappointments, does not have unreasonable judgment against herself–unlike many if not most women her age. And the media cannot have that.

The appearance of defiance and shamelessness is extended (if not hinged on) the pictures she posted on her MySpace page. The two most commonly shown as “Kristen” on news sites include her in a bikini, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. She wears sunglasses and appears to be on a boat. Easily this picture satisfies assumptions viewers have about her as a prostitute: she shamelessly shows her skin out in the open, and her sunglasses, convenient happenstance for media, might act to show her secretive intentions. 

The other photo that most often appears on news sites shows a Kristen in profile, holding her fingers in a peace sign. Black nails, brown hair on her bare shoulder and down her back, a provocative look we do that, in our self-aware ways, shows we know someone is looking. Compared to the pictures NOT chosen to represent “Kristen,” these two photos are definitely the sexiest of the bunch. In other photos, Kristen puts her head down on a table in a mock sleeping pose, another looks like a senior picture (black and white dramatic close-up), another of her looking goofy with her hair in her face, and another one with even more peace signs. 

No more crazy than the pictures we take of ourselves with camera phones, change dramatically to black and white or sepia, and use for online representation. Look what happens when this woman experiences increased public attention: people view these couple photos chosen by a slut-shaming media and believe all the pieces are coming together–the realization of their assumptions in “reality.” 

But can it get any more ridiculous than the assumption that Kristen will capitalize off the scandal? MSNBC headlines read, “Fame of call girl in Spitzer case grows. Vote: Should Ashley A. Dupre grab her 15 minutes?” 

Gratitude and many thanks for the new audience? How do we know, and why are we voting on it? Given that she has said nothing to media except the self-conscious, “I just don’t want to be thought of as a monster,” and that the media has lifted her whole MySpace page for use in their news pieces in order to gauge the potential reaction “this woman” (as we know her on MySpace) has to the scandal to which she is central, we need to withdraw our judgment along with our fanatical interest in “The Woman Behind Spitzer’s Fall.” 

With at least eight other known events where Spitzer paid for sex, why fixate on Kristen? Why duplicate her MySpace page over and over, combing it for revealing details? And why call her HIS (“Eliot Spitzer’s Kristen”) as if, once her one-time services are paid for, she belongs to him forever and can only be seen as having been HAD by him? 

My concern is that the attention on Kristen gives Spitzer way too much respect. Do we imagine that Kristen recognized the Senator and felt privileged to be at his service? Do we imagine that anyone “like her” would have to jump at this chance to cheaply promote herself (the singer and artist) within the confines provided to her by a media that loves to bash sluts?

People who knew Spitzer or knew of him have been bemoaning his “fall” day and night all over the news. To be tied to a prostitute forever! Sure, it’s not good for your reputation. Spitzer is done. He mourns “what might have been.”

Kristen, a twenty-two year old artist, still has her whole life ahead of her. After watching the focus on Kristen growing sharper and sharper, it’s hard to feel badly for Spitzer anymore–not that I can’t see the damage done to his career, not that I can’t imagine what must be going on inside his home with his family. But he can’t do much to reconcile all this, and he probably won’t ever save his political identity. 

Kristen, on the other hand, might have had her future career and public image ruined because of this negative attention. It might just be too bad that she, rather, will always be tied to him.

This one hurts: “Clinton Accepts Donation from Troubled Firm” (Mar. 2, 2008)

When I first saw the headline, I withheld judgment until I looked at the details. Senator Clinton accepted donations totaling $170,000 from individuals at a company that has a long history of sexual harassment. 

This particular bit really bothers me: 

“Sen. Clinton’s spokesman, Howard Wolfson, told NBC News in a statement that the senator decided to keep the funds because the lawsuit is “ongoing” and because none of the sexual harassment allegations has been proven in court.” 

The choice of language reminds me of that legal terminology “alleged rape” and “alleged assault.” Meaning, it has not been proven, and somewhere a woman is struggling to be believed and going through ridiculous personal turmoil compounded by what it takes to bring something like this to court. 

With at least 103 women employees who had the experience of being sexually harassed for years, I don’t see why a lawsuit won in their favor marks the point at which it is absolutely, completely inappropriate for Senator Clinton to take that company’s large donation. Drawing that line is arbitrary when you consider that many women who have been sexually harassed, assaulted and raped seem to speak into a void when they go the legal route for injuries that deserve legal recognition.

When our legal system is set up such that we must prove our injury, women get the shaft. When a man’s wallet is stolen out of his back pocket, he can prove that he doesn’t have his wallet (and he will not be subsequently blamed for having vulnerably kept his wallet in a place where it could easily be taken). Having identified the thief, it might be easier to get his wallet back. 

I use the somewhat silly example of a stolen wallet since I can’t find a definitively male violation comparable to, or existing inside the same hierarchical/sexually political conditions as female violations. Now, sexually violated women cannot prove their violation, cannot materially produce for the court’s viewing the real and truly felt dignitary harm. Therefore, if it cannot be proven, it must not have happened.

This defines the premise of Senator Clinton’s decision to keep the donations. I’m sure she will promptly return them if this ongoing (six years and counting) lawsuit is resolved and it turns out 103 women really were sexually harassed, just like they said they were. There will be 103 women saying, “You could have just believed us when we said we were sexually harassed.” 

So how do you evaluate Clinton’s decision, especially during election time when she needs donations? It seems a presidential candidate at least tries to display a sense of judgment, a sort of “I’ll stand for this but not for this.” They seem to know their own boundaries. Was Ron Paul going too far by taking that white supremacist’s donation and saying, “I’m going to keep it and use it to spread freedom”? Should I trust that Senator Clinton wouldn’t normally solicit the support of this company that has found sexual harassment permissible for so long? Perhaps I should trust that she would take the money but really cultivate, in time, through a presidency, a sharp attack on those conditions that permit sexual harassment…

Of course no statement like this was made by Senator Clinton (at least Ron Paul tried). Which, again, worries me: do I believe that she, too, doesn’t believe women unless the law finally does?

My letter to Emerson College’s “Berkeley Beacon”

On January 31, the Berkeley Beacon ran an uninformed opinion piece, “Unhappy Anniversary: Roe turns Thirty-Five.” The article ignored the diverse contexts in which women make the choice to have an abortion. By ignoring those contexts (or, being oblivious of them–this is where my work comes in), the arguments that we have proof of life in the womb and that it is immoral to kill are legitimate so long as we continue ignoring how women are likely to become pregnant. The condescension of this argument is startling: as if it takes a few pro-life activists (most likely men) to sit a pregnant woman down, explain that it is life inside her (as if she didn’t know), and watch the miracle as she changes her flighty little mind. Given that the bodies which house the life are our bodies, and given that the pregnancy is ours, the persistence with which pro-life activists labor on their point seems unproductive among more important, ongoing conversations that attempt to help women prevent unwanted pregnancies. 

Let us keep in mind that abortion would be rare if we had conditions that better served women than the ones we have now: forced sterilization of women of color and poor women, denial of birth control by our pharmacists, emergency contraception being called “the abortion pill” even though it will not abort a pregnancy if conception has already taken place, America’s proven-to-fail abstinence-only sex education, and our persistently ignored rape culture. It seems unproductive to focus a pro-life plan on extracting the exact moment life begins and holding it up to the pro-choice stance for greater inspection, when pro-choice women are already three steps ahead and saying, “We know. But we still want choice.” 

Here is my letter that ran the following week in the Berkeley Beacon in response to “Unhappy Anniversary”…it turns out to be short-hand for what I’ve written above…

I’m confused by anti-choice material by those who write about abortion without writing about women (“Unhappy Anniversary,” Jan. 31). Discussing abortion without relying on the diverse contexts of such a difficult choice inevitably simplifies the issue and distorts the character of that choice to the women who make it. Instead of narrowing the conversation, let’s talk about why women choose abortion–because they have, and they will. If Roe is overturned, women will still attempt to end unwanted pregnancies, but the procedure won’t be safe anymore. Consider that women’s lives are the “precious lives” not regarded as an inherent complexity of the issue. They deserve greater evaluation just as women’s voices on the issue deserve more respected platforms. We’re all capable of talking about the abortion issue without using dismissive positions to erase why women make that choice; to get started, we must become familiar with the range of conditions that have forced women and men into parenthood. We ought to listen to women who have or have thought about ending a pregnancy. We can’t forget that with every choice to have an abortion, there is a woman making that choice; the same cannot be honestly said about how women come to face such a difficult decision. With this in mind, the abortion issue entails that when we talk about abortion, we talk about women’s lives.

North End-Boston Sexual Assault (Jan. 18, 2008)

Last week a man sexually assaulted a woman on Charter Street in the North End in Boston. She fought him, and he ran. I’ve been thinking about this incident a lot, and talking about it with a close friend. I wonder what people think about the solutions/suggestions/thoughts offered up (both law enforcement’s and my own). I’m all about solutions, but I’m wary of ones that continue to re-create conditions that make it difficult for women to make choices. 

I lived for several months in the North End and felt safer walking home there at night than to my Beacon Hill spot two years ago. The North End is…well…friendly. Strangers saying hello on the streets is common, different from that eye-contactless environment in most other areas of the city. It must be this good-neighbor space that re-creates the fantasy that bad things don’t happen in “good” places: 

“Councilor Salvatore LaMattina said he was concerned about the violence against women, but also heartened by his conviction that North End residents will protect each other and their guests in the heavily traveled tourist area. ‘The North End is one of the safest neighborhoods in the city,’ he said. ‘The people will be looking around. They will take care of each other.’” 

LaMattina’s comments to the Boston Globe should set off an alarm in women’s minds. While it’s a comforting thought that North End residents won’t just be watching out, but will also be protecting each other, I’m sure the reality looks much different to the women who have had incidents there. The neighborhood body of the North End didn’t instinctively respond at the moment of the attack, and it won’t for any other attacks we might hear about. Does the North End’s neighborly quality sound a bit overstated? More to the point, does anyone know what to do about sexual assaults without hiding behind the surprise that they happen? 

If North End residents will all be taking care of each other, it sort of lifts the burden from those who might otherwise have to deal with it. This is not to say that police and law enforcement aren’t doing what we are asking them to do, but why not begin asking serious questions about ourselves and about law enforcement. Are residents of the North End – and of Boston, and even of the rest of the United States – doing what they should be doing to stop sexual assault and rape?

I’m wondering, if people in the North End are just going to “take care of each other,” who will be taking care of whom? Will men more assertively protect their female companions? At least until it “blows over,” then things can go back to normal. Women and men can keep pretending that this system doesn’t exist, in which women are physically dependent on either the generosity of the aggressor in the street or on the good man she has at home. (But what if you live alone? What if you don’t believe in men as protectors? What if you’re single? Basically: what if you make a choice against conditions that make it hard for you to make your own choices?) 

If we refuse to ignore that this system exists, whose responsibility is it to stop sexual assault? Law enforcement has an obvious obligation, but because this aggressor is just, as Counsilor LaMattina said, “some creep,” most responsibility is thrown on women. I’m not against precautions, like carrying a whistle or a pocket knife, but the suggestion that it’s dangerous to go out alone at night “as a woman” (as if we could ever be anything else) seems incredibly limiting. That it’s one of those traditional, “common sense” suggestions gives law enforcement and neighborhoods a bit more relief: less women going out at night, less sexual assaults reported, right?

What I’m getting at: if men are the ones committing sexual assaults against women, why are men not advised to stay in at night? Because if sexual assaults are as inevitable as everyone makes them out to be, we would cut them down in a short amount of time if men had a curfew. 

A curfew for anyone is ridiculous, so why is an unspoken one for women considered common sense?

I wonder how other women feel, but I’m pretty tired of living fixed to a routine of preventing attacks against me. Let’s refuse to ignore the ways that we’re dependent. We’re not vulnerable because we’re alone, or because it’s dark outside, but because we’re strapped to this lifestyle that passes as a very normal lifestyle for women.