Top Ten Essays

Still Needing the F Word by Anna Quindlen
If Men Could Menstruate  by Gloria Steinem
Gate C22 by Ellen Bass
Eyes on the Prize by Seldon McCurrie
My Fight for Birth Control  by Margaret Sanger
The Way It Was  by Eleanor Cooney
Who Wants to Marry a Feminist by Lisa Miya-Jervis
The Politics of Housework by Pat Mainardi
She Said by Mariah Lockwood
Unraveling Gender by Cordelia Fine

Arise, Sisters

OK, I put this one up because I really like the picture and the message. This has been an incredible year with republican legislators enacting bills and laws that are cutting off so many different support systems and rights for women and children. I seem to keep going back to Quindlen's essay on still needing the "F" word but it really is true. The matters she discussed pale in front of the cuts and law changes women are facing today. Luckily women are organizing, but there is a lot that needs to be done. But I think there may be an upside to this republican war against women. Women are becoming angry at the loss of hard fought for rights and benefits and are fighting back. I believe a whole generation that may have taken certain rights for granted now see the need to organize and commit to keep and extend those rights.

Have you seen the facebook site War Against Women? a lot of good info and pictures.

Walk a Mile in Her Shoes

"You can't really understand another person's experience until you've walked a mile in their shoes," is a saying we have heard since we were children. But these men are wearing women's high heel to bring attention to sexual violence against women. Our book reports that a sexual assault occurs every two minutes in the United States, and is largely under reported. The statistics for rape and physical assault are staggering. Georgia ranks 11th out of the 50 states and DC for incidences of forcible rape, but a GA state representative ( republican) wants to amend the state criminal codes, only in the matter of rape, stalking and domestic violence, to read "accuser" in stead of "victim".  In other words, if your wallet is stolen you are a true victim because obviously a crime really happened, unlike rape which is just what the women "accuses" the man of committing. You know, no real proof, she was probably asking for it, blah, blah, blah. It is horrific what the legislators (mostly, if not all, republican) are doing to women this year. Quindlen is right- we need the "F" word.

Travis' Seahorse

Our text book describes tattoos among young women as an example of self-expression. The book goes on to say that tattoos were traditionally a sign of male rebelliousness. But then states that tattoos among women have become so mainstream, that even the act of purchasing a tattoo can be seen as supporting a capitalistic system. The book adds that it would be more reactionary to actually work for social change, all true, I guess.

But our tattoos, my two daughters and I, have a special meaning for us. My son loved the ocean and the beach, as soon as he graduated he moved to Florida to live. He came home in 2008 but always wished to go back to the beach. In fact, he had a trip planned for the day after he died.  We each had a different seahorse tattooed on our arms to remember him by, of course we never forget him, maybe commemorate is a better word. When I see women with tattoos I always wonder what it means to them.

The Way It Was

               Eleanor Cooney in “The Way It Was” describes her own pregnancy at an young age and the horrors during her search for an abortion, pre Roe v Wade. Cooney explains that she waited too long and went to a series of so-called doctors who robbed her and made sexual advances but did not abort the fetus. Eventually, after telling her mother, she was able to have an abortion even at her late stage of gestation. In the essay Cooney describes in graphic detail the procedure known as a partial birth abortion which is often administered late in term. I think Cooney’s purpose in the graphic descriptions is to describe the dangers women face when searching for an illegal abortion. Cooney states a doctor said that deaths from abortions decreased drastically after abortion was legalized. Cooney brings up the late term abortions because she said the largest age group requesting this type of abortion is teenagers. She believes that proper education, and not strictly abstinence based education, is needed particularly around poor and marginalized girls.

                Many states have already, or in the process of tightening anti-abortion regulations. Some states are demanding parent’s signatures even when parental abuse is on the rise. Many states severely limit late term abortions but are also cutting programs that will assist single mothers, an example of “love the fetus, hate the baby” so prevalent in today’s society. Several states have enacted legislation requiring a vaginal wand examination which actually fits the definition of rape. Because the fear that tax payer money may be used for an abortion many states and organizations have cut or are limiting funds to Planned Parenthood making it difficult or impossible to get birth control or an abortion. Poor women, teenagers and women of color are disportiontly affected by these laws and may resort to illegal abortions to prevent pregnancy.

                 Terminating a pregnancy is a private matter, between a women and her doctor, even the laws that allow abortions is based on privacy.  As I have grown older my feelings about abortion are somewhat changing, the viability of a fetus is not quite as black and white to me as before, but my belief  in a women's right to choose has never changed.