Yes, No, Maybe So: A Sexual Inventory Stocklist

Hey y'all,
Tomorrow we'll be talking about consent and sexual violence.  We'll be passing out the first two pages of this yes/no/maybe checklist from scarletten, but I wanted to share a link to the full list in case anyone was interested.  It's a great tool to reflect on your boundaries, triggers, and desires around relationship models, safer sex, sexual practices, and body boundaries. Check it out!
http://www.scarleteen.com/article/advice/yes_no_maybe_so_a_sexual_inventory_stocklist

Dean Spade on Trickle-Up Social Justice and Impossible People

Hey y'all,

I just went to this really inspiring lecture by Dean Spade, the first trans law professor in the country.  He talked about approaching feminist and queer issues like sexual violence and hate crimes in a way that does not depend on the criminal justice system.  And a lot of other things.  Here are some youtube videos that I found, to share some of his wisdom with y'all.  Let me know what you think. 

Tampons

Hey WCRG,

Here's the poem I read in class. I think it is an entry point for a more positive and empowering relationship to menstruation.

Love Rudi

Tampons, By Ellen Bass (1985)

My periods have changed. It is years

since I have swallowed pink and gray, round

chalky midols from the bottle with the smiling girl.

Now I plan a quiet space,

protect myself those first few days when my uterus lets

go and I am an open anemone. I know

when my flow will come. I watch my mucous pace

changes like a dancer, follow the fall

and rise of my body heat. All this

and yet I never questioned them, those slim white handies.

It took me years to learn to use them

starting with a jar of Vaseline.

I didn't even know where the hole was.

I didn't even know enough

to try to find one. I pushed until

only a little stuck out and hoped

that was far enough.

I tried every month through high school.

And now that I can change it in a moving car–

like Audrey Hepburn changing dresses in the taxi

in the last scene of Breakfast at Tiffany's–

I've got to give them up.

Tampons, I read, are

bleached, are

chemically treated to

compress better,

contain asbestos.

Good old asbestos. Once we learned not to shake it–

Johnson & Johnson's – on our babies or diaphragms,

we thought we had it licked.

So what do we do? They're universal.

Even macrobiotics and lesbian separatists are hooked on them.

Go back to sanitary napkins?

Junior high, double napkins

on the heavy days, walking home damp underpants

chafing thighs. It's been a full twelve years

since I have worn one, since Spain when Marjorie pierced my ears

and I unloaded half a suitcase of the big gauze pads in the hotel trash.

Someone in my workshop suggested Tassaways, little

cups that catch the flow.

They've stopped making them,

we're told. Women found they could reuse them

and the company couldn't make enough

money that way. Besides,

the suction pulled the cervix out of shape.

Then diaphragms

It presses on me, one woman says.

So swollen these days. Too tender.

Menstrual extraction, a young woman says.

I heard about that. Ten minutes

and it's done.

But I do not trust putting tubes into my uterus each month.

We're told everything is safe

in the beginning.

Mosses.

The Indians used mosses.

I live in Aptos. We grow

succulents and pine.

I will buy mosses

when they sell them at the co-op.

Okay. It's like the whole birth control schmeer.

There just isn't a good way. Women bleed.

We bleed.

The blood flows out of us. So we will bleed.

Blood paintings on our thighs, patterns

like river beds, blood on the chairs in

insurance offices, blood on Greyhound buses

and 747s, blood blots, flower forms

on the blue skirts of the stewardesses.

Blood on restaurant floors, supermarket aisles, the steps of government

buildings. Sidewalks will have blood trails,

like Gretel's bread

crumbs. We can always find our way.

We will ease into rhythm together, it happens

when women live closely -- African tribes, college sororities --

our blood flowing on the same days. The first day

of our heaviest flow we will gather in Palmer, Massachusetts,

on the steps of Tampax, Inc. We'll have a bleed-in.

We'll smear blood on our faces. Max Factor

will join OB in bankruptcy. The perfume industry

will collapse, who needs

whale sperm, turtle oil, when we have free blood?

For a little while cleaning products will boom,

409, Lysol, Windex. But

the executives will give up. The cleaning woman is leaving a

red wet rivulet, as she scrubs down the previous stains.

It's no use. The men would have to

do it themselves, and that will never come up

for a vote at the Board. Women's clothing manufacturers, fancy

furniture, plush carpet, all will phase out. It's just not

practical. We will live the old ways.

Simple floors, dirt or concrete, can be hosed down

or straw can be cycled through the compost.

Simple clothes, none in summer. No more swimming pools.

Swim in the river. Yes, swim in the river.

Dogs will fall in love with us.

We'll feed the fish with our blood. Our blood

will neutralize the chemicals and dissolve the old car parts.

Our blood will detoxify the phosphates and the

PCBs. Our blood will feed the depleted soils.

Our blood will water the dry, tired surface of the earth.

We will bleed. We will bleed. We will

bleed until we bathe her in our blood and she turns

slippery new like a baby birthing.

Pregnant Women Under State Control

Since we didn't get to discuss last week's topic, I thought I'd share this article. It's a pretty important topic to be aware of in the women's consciousness world. Thoughts?

"gender liberation beyond feminism" blog

What do you think about Pelle Billing's blog? I frequently tend to adore it. He really encourages male voices to help move into gender/sex liberation discourse. He's also just an absolute treasure of a person. I met him doing a week long workshop seminar on youth leadership a few years ago.

His core beliefs are:

- Gender liberation is a good thing
- Feminism is too one-sided to ever achieve gender liberation
- Men’s voices need to become part of the gender debate
- Both sexes have been oppressed by their gender role, not only women
- Gender roles have developed as a functional fit to historical circumstances

His most recent post is interesting - outlines a Cornell study about how women's choices, not abilities, are behind why women are not in more math-intensive fields. I ask - what inspires those choices though? - Social expectations affect personal decisions, right?

Cool to have on hand for anyone who starts spouting off that "chicks aren't good at math"!!!

s.

polite café talk or hardcore activism?

Hey consciousness-raisers. . . this post is about an experience I had just yesterday. Not a link, but one of my actual real-life consciousness raising experiences that was slightly shocking and disturbing - but salient.

What can happen when we take consciousness-raising to the streets? Perhaps it's not always good; which brings to light the importance of women's strength in numbers, and creating spaces that are safe to talk about and play with identities and expectations, and the importance of having clear boundaries and containment around those spaces and times we create to do this kind of transformational work.

So this person at a Berkeley café last night is sitting next to me. We start talking because I apologize for having a slightly long cell phone conversation in the cafe kind of near hir and I know ze's studying. I knew I was quiet enough, I knew it was fine - but I felt like I should apologize. Why should I apologize when I've done nothing wrong in a public space? In cafés people talk, and I was speaking even more quietly than a lot of other people were. Does my constructed idea or assumed gendered identity of being a 'nice' [woman] or 'sweet' [young lady?] have something to do with this? Or is it just that I'm a genuinely nice person? I've known males who are kind of unnecessarily hyper-courteous in the same way to the general public. Is it just a personal choice, gender-related, circumstantial/contextual, or psychic/spiritual, even - what motivates us to behave the way we do in any given moment? Sometimes over-apologizing can be an assertion of class, and sometimes an expression of submission. And sometimes it can be genuine concern for others, or an obsession with self.

These are the kinds of head trips I go through, dradz [is there a non-gender substitute for 'dudes'?]. . . . [case in point].

Ze starts asking me a lot of of questions. Ze's a political science major, I'm a sociology major, there's some crossover - OK, cool. I'm humoring hir, kind of. I need to study but I'm letting it go on for a few minutes. I start noticing everything is cool about our conversation except there's a tendency now that I notice coming up where ze doesn't let me finish a sentence to the full end - like ever. Ze's basically nudge nudge nudging me the whole time. But overall we are laughing, smiling, I can tell ze thinks I'm attractive, and I am trying not to be too charming because ze is getting a little excited about our conversation and I don't want it to go that way.

Now, WCRG, you know me. I'm not easily silenced or controlled in conversation, to the point of annoying other people sometimes. Furthermore, I've been doing research and calls to domestic violence hotlines all week, so I've got a keen eye out for typical dominant or controlling behaviors. This can start so subtly in conversations, with small motions, imposed assumptions and expectations of common gendered behavior in others.

Ze asks me what I want to do after graduation and is now acting a bit shocked that I say I want to work to support female leadership in general everywhere because that's where I think a balanced and peaceful world will truly begin: in balanced equal leadership, social relations, and institutions. Ideology is formed by institutions, not the other way around, as is so commonly believed - for more on this read Chapter 7, Fighting Poverty in the US and Europe:The Ideology of Redistribution (Alesina and Glaeser 2004).

Well this is obviously upsetting to hir. What? ze asks. Well. Hm. What do you think of Hillary Clinton?

There's clear aggression and only a small portion of genuine curiosity being offered here in these two questions.

I say, rather authoritatively, though aiming for the tone of a real United Nations diplomat (and failing a bit I think, in honest reflection) -

I don't think that the larger domain of the greater effects of balanced global female leadership should be analyzed piecemeal by critical analyses of individuals. I think that idea - an obsessive focus on the individual rather than the collective - is part of the overarching problem. It takes away focus on collective responsibility, collective bargaining, collective reasoning, and collective interests. Sure, I have some good things and some negative things I could say about Clinton, but the whole of her contributions to society can not yet be accurately defined or praised by dissecting any manifestation of her persona or politics on any given day, past or present. Change is inherent, and no one person is ever to blame, punish, or praise: I think this awareness needs to be brought into politics and social discourse of all kinds in general in the States. And I think adding more female voices will lead to that kind of holistic analysis. And I think that's when we can even begin to start analyzing what is working and what isn't.

Behind every movie star are cinematographers, writers, Port-o-pottie clean up crews, friends, parents, teachers, directors, trailer maintenance crews, lovers from years ago that brought depth to a small special gesture now infused into words spoken under a camera.

Isn't the source of true grace nearly untraceable? I am not talking Jesus here, for the record.

[OK, I didn't say the movies/grace/Jesus part to hir. And ze probably wouldn't have understood me anyways. Maybe you don't either. That's fine, ask me later if you feel like it.]

Anyhoo. Ze was hardly going to allow this epic monologue to occur without interruptions beginning less than halfway through - whatever, fine, I roll with it, I'm being what again? - 'nice'. Hmmm.

Ze relentlessly, though somewhat gently, continues bullying us on in conversation, bringing to light that society is so much more sex-imbalanced in other countries than the U.S.; ze is shocked that I might suggest that things are so terrible here still.

I cite that domestic violence occurs much more frequently to females in this country than males. I don't have the exact statistics, but I am absolutely sure of it. But I ask hir, if ze believes things are better here, wouldn't the impetus continue to be on the American people to support every last inch of women's full equality - if we are to "set a good example" - or however one might choose to (non-arrogantly) phrase it - for these other extremely polarized countries?

Ze asks me how I will do all this. (Awesome question!) Where the hell should we start? Well. . . talking to each other is the best way, I think and say. Then I mention that I do agree what many Americans are expressing now in that altering our legislative process and electoral system is a huge first step towards better social equality since, again, institutions and policies shape ideologies, personal lives and individual opportunities. I explain that I want to lobby for no lobbying, basically. Not much different than much of what we are seeing many Americans want right now, and have for years: I want corporations and media-driven politics out of government. I want real democracy.

Ze is supportive of this idea. Ze tells me ze might want to study law. Fantastic. Cool, let's both take Reich's public policy class next semester! - ze says. I think we're working up some energy and a similar platform to work with and then. . . .

oh, then.

I begin to look up the class, my laptop on my actual lap. I have trouble for a moment with it and then ze takes my laptop off my lap and starts searching for it hirself.

In those first moments I act natural but wonder why I suddenly feel invaded. Then I realize, oh, it's because my property has been appropriated and controlled without my permission. [I could insert a lot here about my issues regarding the construction of the illusive idea of "private property" at all. . . but I'll save that for another diatribe.]

It's obvious that ze doesn't want to steal the laptop, but that ze simply got frustrated that I didn't pull up the information quickly enough (for hir!). Ze finds the department name in the schedule list quickly and then I say, I'll take my laptop back now - with some gravity in my voice. Ze looks surprised, just totally unaware of what just happened.

Didn't you just take my laptop from my hands without permission just now? I'll take it back, thanks.HA! - I say - see, I'm guessing (I get clearly abrasive for a moment)that you would never have done that to a man.

Ze hands it back to me. Ze's clearly beginning to feel offended. We discuss what happened for a moment and then ze lectures me with a good deal of threat in hir voice that I have no idea how real Mexican machismo would really have reacted with in that moment, that I know nothing about what true domination is, or feels like. I voice my agreement with hir: they are two different things. But experience is relative - and here we are in America, and I'm just saying - this is why I want to raise consciousness. See? - I say - you probably didn't even know you had done that, right? I'm just trying to let you know < smile smile smile >.

Ze is shocked! SO SHOCKED! Are you for real?- ze asks. Yes, I am.

Ze starts packing up hir things. I thought you were cool, ze says, I was just trying to be helpful - I - I - I was being nice. If you were having a hard time finding that class, a real machismo man would have started telling you how stupid you are.

Hm, well it didn't look or feel that way to me, I say.

You. . . just. . . eww. . . I don't believe. . . whatever - I can't - ze looks betrayed. Deeply. Ze walks briskly away without saying goodbye.

I say to hir back as ze walks away - wait, like, really?

- Not in a mean-spirited way, just as disbelieving perhaps as ze had been, though more curiously baffled, less aggressive, with less sense of betrayal.

Was this a transformational experience for hir or me, or did it increase aggression and judgment toward women for hir, further entrenching machismo habits or customs from which maybe ze had applied real work in order to depart?

Was it peaceful, or inherently violent even from the beginning, when the nudging conversational pattern began?

These are the questions I'm left with now, and I wonder how much I have to trust others to discover, discuss, define, and share their own honest reflections with me, rather than whistle-blowing on others, or making what I think might be helpful suggestions of things to which to pay attention.

I got pretty scared and called a friend for a ride home. Maybe it was just my own PTSD 'talking' - but it was late, and I had an unshakeable feeling that ze might be waiting somewhere outside to let me know what a real machismo reaction might feel like. Ze was of diminutive size. . . but the emotional landscape that it seemed ze kept rigidly in place seemed enormous.

How can we all be encouraged to mine these powerful emotional spaces? To transform shock and betrayal into bridges of understanding? To heal from even recent past wounds, like myself, and not bleed these things out into casual café conversation?

I'm thinking compassion for self and others is a fantastic place to begin.

Does it begin with self-care? I think so. Then I should get to writing some papers now I guess ;)

s.

supporting women in the world at large

So, I know everyone is privy already to the whole idea of microfinancing, and some people have their criticisms about it too. But after I commented on Dane's posted video about the interconnected nature of women's rights, successes, and consciousness-raising with other issues/markets/fields of awareness, I recalled this article - The Women's Crusade: How Changing the Lives of Women and Girls In The Developing World Can Change Everything. It is definitely heartening to remember that affecting change can happen through investing just a little bit. The exceptional thing about investing in women (their education, businesses, and training) though, is that it more often benefits whole communities. Maybe everyone already knows that too. Well, tell your friends then :)

The most shocking statistic that I frequently rely on when people try to tell me women's equality has been achieved is this one: globally speaking, less than 1% of all property is owned by women. Just that statistic alone can get people thinking. I also like remembering that there's just no way we are utilizing our full potential as a species if some people aren't included as much as others in participating, designing, innovating, and organizing our society.

Call me a feminst ;) - but I think working for women's greater inclusion and representation in society very well might be the proximate way to effect creating new, more balanced systems overall - in politics, families, business, and even (or especially) in our own personal relationships with ourselves. Investing in women's plans and goals even at small levels is a good way to start moving into tackling redesigning bigger institutions (laws, education systems); with every penny comes a message to woman - you can do it and what you do is worth investing in. I think it's especially empowering when women invest in women - both sides get these messages about women in general, then, and start listening to and valuing each other and other women more.

So many women are still told more often that they just generally CAN'T - in both covert and overt ways, by large educational institutes, or even, in my case, some partners I've had. (Oh yes, in the 21st century.) Everyone, to some extent, walks around with fears inside themselves that they "can't" at some level, about something, in a society that really makes it so that some can't and some can.

If you don't have time for the whole article - here are a few snippets I like. The term "gendercide" really hit me reading it again this time around, especially with our DeCal's gender conversations still in my thoughts lately.

"The global statistics on the abuse of girls are numbing. It appears that more girls and women are now missing from the planet, precisely because they are female, than men were killed on the battlefield in all the wars of the 20th century. The number of victims of this routine “gendercide” far exceeds the number of people who were slaughtered in all the genocides of the 20th century."

"If poor families spent only as much on educating their children as they do on beer and prostitutes, there would be a breakthrough in the prospects of poor countries. Girls, since they are the ones kept home from school now, would be the biggest beneficiaries. Moreover, one way to reallocate family expenditures in this way is to put more money in the hands of women. A series of studies has found that when women hold assets or gain incomes, family money is more likely to be spent on nutrition, medicine and housing, and consequently children are healthier."

"In many poor countries, the greatest unexploited resource isn’t oil fields or veins of gold; it is the women and girls who aren’t educated and never become a major presence in the formal economy. With education and with help starting businesses, impoverished women can earn money and support their countries as well as their families. They represent perhaps the best hope for fighting global poverty."