So apparently this month is LGBT Pride Month. I therefore snagged this from ontd political which gives the info that it was first put together by students of Earlham College and then link-enhanced by the current poster. Do I need to mention the part where ‘phobic assholes of any kind will be summarily deleted and banned? Oh who am I kidding? Homophobic, transphobic, any ‘phobic assholes of any kind will have their comments summarily deleted and be considered for banning depending on the severity of the offense. That having been said…on with the show.

I can be pretty sure that my roomate, hallmates and classmates will be comfortable with my sexual orientation. (Example: “Gay bulling in schools ‘common’” – BBC | Campus Climate for LGs – The Task Force).

If I pick up a magazine, watch TV, or play music, I can be certain my sexual orientation will be represented. (Example: More gay characters on TV now than before – Variety | LGBT Character Shows May Lose Tax Credit – SD G&L News).

03. When I talk about my heterosexuality (such as in a joke or talking about my relationships), I will not be accused of pushing my sexual orientation onto others.

04. I do not have to fear that if my family or friends find out about my sexual orientation there will be economic, emotional, physical or psychological consequences. (Example: PFLAG Rejection Statistics – PFLAG)

05. I did not grow up with games that attack my sexual orientation (IE fag tag or smear the queer). (Example: From Bullies to Heroes: Homophobia in Video Games – Student Pulse.)

06. I am not accused of being abused, warped or psychologically confused because of my sexual orientation. (Example: “Camp that ‘cures’ homosexuality” – Times Online.)

07. I can go home from most meetings, classes, and conversations without feeling excluded, fearful, attacked, isolated, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, stereotyped or feared because of my sexual orientation. (Constance McMillen Wanted to Take Her Girlfriend to the Prom, So the School Board Canceled it – CBS News.) It’s also worth noting that CBS probably chose the worst picture of her to pair with that article. It’s hard to say if that was motivated or not.

08. I am never asked to speak for everyone who is heterosexual.

09. I can be sure that my classes will require curricular materials that testify to the existence of people with my sexual orientation. (Example: Banning Gay Books – Alternet).

10. People don’t ask why I made my choice of sexual orientation.

11. People don’t ask why I made my choice to be public about my sexual orientation.

12. I do not have to fear revealing my sexual orientation to friends or family. It’s assumed.

13. My sexual orientation was never associated with a closet.

14. People of my gender do not try to convince me to change my sexual orientation.

15. I don’t have to defend my heterosexuality.

16. I can easily find a religious community that will not exclude me for being heterosexual. (Example: Homosexuality and Religion – Religion Facts).

17. I can count on finding a therapist or doctor willing and able to talk about my sexuality. (Example: Rekers and the Barbarism of Anti-Gay Therapy.)

18. I am guaranteed to find sex education literature for couples with my sexual orientation.

19. Because of my sexual orientation, I do not need to worry that people will harass me. (Largest Ever Study on Anti-LGBT Harassement – GLSEN).

20. I have no need to qualify my straight identity.

21. My masculinity/femininity is not challenged because of my sexual orientation. (Examples: Are Gay Stereotypes true? – ABC).

22. I am not identified by my sexual orientation.

23. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help my sexual orientation will not work against me. (Example: ‘Doctor Shock’ – Huffington Post.)

24. If my day, week, or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it has sexual orientation overtones.

25. Whether I rent or I go to a theater, Blockbuster, an EFS or TOFS movie, I can be sure I will not have trouble finding my sexual orientation represented. (Example: Before ‘Bruno’: A brief history of gay characters in movies and TV – NY Daily News).

26. I am guaranteed to find people of my sexual orientation represented in the Earlham curriculum, faculty, and administration.

27. I can walk in public with my significant other and not have people double-take or stare. (Example: Kiss Off: A gay couple cited for holding hands on Main Street Plaza – Salt Lake City Weekly).

28. I can choose to not think politically about my sexual orientation.

29. I do not have to worry about telling my roommate about my sexuality. It is assumed I am a heterosexual.

31. I can remain oblivious of the language and culture of LGBTQ folk without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.

32. I can go for months without being called straight. (I suppose this depends on where you are and who your friends are.)

33. I’m not grouped because of my sexual orientation.

34. My individual behavior does not reflect on people who identity as heterosexual.

35. In everyday conversation, the language my friends and I use generally assumes my sexual orientation. For example, sex inappropriately referring to only heterosexual sex or family meaning heterosexual relationships with kids.

35. People do not assume I am experienced in sex (or that I even have it!) merely because of my sexual orientation. (Example: GLBT Stereotypes – GLBT Social Sciences).

36. I can kiss a person of the opposite gender on the heart or in the cafeteria without being watched and stared at. (Example: Is Main Street USA Ready For Gay PDA – ABC News).

37. Nobody calls me straight with maliciousness. (Example: John Mayer’s Apology Wanted for Use of Gay Slur – Aceshowbiz).

38. People can use terms that describe my sexual orientation and mean positive things (IE “straight as an arrow”, “standing up straight” or “straightened out”) instead of demeaning terms (IE “ewww, that’s gay” or being “queer”).

39. I am not asked to think about why I am straight.

40. I can be open about my sexual orientation without worrying about my job. (Example: Bias in the Workplace: Consistant Evidence of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Discrimination [.doc download] – UCLA).”

Can you add more?

Linkspam: Unpacking the invisible knapsack Straight privilege edition -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

I’ve been struggling with writing this post for some time now. On the one hand there are things I feel need to be said about the treatment of Caster Semenya (especially in light of the news that she has been placed under a suicide watch), on the other hand I don’t want to add to the ridiculous, offensive, dehumanizing treatment that she’s been receiving to date. There is this sick undercurrent to the coverage reminiscent of the treatment of Saartjie Baartman (better known as the Hottentot Venus) particularly with the framing of the discussions of her body. There has been a rush to compare Caster to “real” women with pundits pointing to the size of her breasts, her shoulders, even the shape of her jaw as “proof that she is a he and should be disqualified” because somehow there’s a specific concrete metric for “normal” femininity.

And if you’re deemed to be outside the range of “normal” all the basic rules we were taught as children about polite behavior and common courtesy fly out the window. If the press coverage is any indication many people feel entitled to poke and prod and discuss her body like she’s specifically on display to satisfy their curiosity. After all it’s not like she’s human or anything, what with her having the temerity to (maybe) be born intersexed. Instead she’s a freak with no feelings, no right to privacy, and above all no right to her own body. Right? If you’re staring at your screen right now and contemplating asking if I have lost my everloving mind? I totally understand that reaction. Because it’s how I’ve felt every single time I’ve read an article about Caster’s “condition” or seen someone expounding at length on her body without once pausing to consider that her humanity is being questioned along with her gender. Looking at the descriptions of the treatment of Sara Baartman I’m sure a modern reaction would include an acknowledgment that the way Sara was treated was abominable.

Of course it was abominable and shameful and disgusting. So is what’s happening right now to Caster. And it’s not just about the treatment of Caster Semenya. Yesterday I got into a long protracted discussion about someone wanting trans people to explain the workings of their sexual organs so that they could include a sex scene in a story they were writing. And I explained over and over again that no one should feel entitled to such intimate information, especially to satisfy what amounted to prurient curiosity. And all the basic arguments from the bingo card were laid out (including my favorite “Well how else are people supposed to know if they don’t ask?”) because apparently for a lot of people it has never occurred to them that they don’t have a right to someone else’s body or to their experience. It has literally never occurred to them that people who are not like them have boundaries. Because they’re curious about the “freaks” and their curiosity trumps any delusions of humanity or equality.

Between the misogyny and the racism and the privilege and the sheer entitlement on display this is one of those areas where intersectionality cuts to the bone and then beyond. Being human isn’t about fitting into a box designed by someone else. It’s not something other people get to define for you. And if you think that the way Caster has been treated makes sense because she’s a public figure, or you think you have a right to treat people like an exhibit to satisfy your interest in their experience? You’re directly using your privilege (whatever it may be) to oppress someone. This idea that examining and inspecting and discussing someone else’s body is acceptable behavior because they are “different” is so reprehensible. But, it is also an idea that permeates our culture. That’s the point of tabloids and gossip and fatphobia and every other ‘ism I can think of right now. That’s why a friend just posted about having to tell someone repeatedly that they were not going to be allowed to touch her hair only to be met with questions about why she was refusing. As though she owed this person access to her body.

Curiously enough I think we can all agree that we expect our boundaries to be respected. That we expect people to have some sense of manners and decorum and not stare or point or generally treat us poorly. So then, why are we as a culture so comfortable deciding that the Other (as defined by us) is supposed to accept our intrusion? What is this idea that that they should explain their experience to the world at large? It’s always framed in terms of normal and different, but other than being a member of the majority what gives us the right to define normal? The oppression inherent in turning the public’s gaze to someone and demanding that they explain themselves is often waved away as just a part of life. Because somehow the public’s desire to know has become the public’s right to know. And the idea that knowledge is power has been turned on its head to give the “normal” the power over those that they deem to be Other. It’s unacceptable behavior no matter how you frame it and we should all be ashamed of ourselves.

Race, Gender, and the Oppressive Public Gaze… -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

The first thing that we are going to need to know, is, what exactly is Intersexuality?

Then we are ready for the history behind sex testing. Transgriot starts off with Gender Drama at the 1936 Olympics

Robert Ritchie, John Reynard and Tom Lewis continue with Intersex and the Olympic Games

In the following 30 years, the sporting media speculated that several other female athletes had DSDs because they possessed physical attributes which would generally be associated with the male sex. Still without formal gender verification, these rumours remained as such, fuelled by the media who were fully aware that there would be never be any scientific evidence to disprove them. Thus, journalists reported that genetically male Eastern Bloc athletes were binding their genitals and competing as females. Gender controversy also surrounded Irina and Tamara Press, two Russian sisters (Figure 2) who were dominant in a variety of female track and field events during the 1950s and 1960s. They won 26 world records and six Olympic gold medals.
As media hype [eyeroll] reached fever pitch, compulsory gender verification in the form of a gynaecological examination was introduced prior to the 1966 European athletics championship. In these so-called ‘nude parades’, athletes were forced to stand naked in front of a committee and were subjected to an inspection of their external gentalia. 243 women attended for examination and no abnormalities were reported. Neither of the Press sisters attended and they were never to appear in athletic competition again. Their absence was widely interpreted as evidence they both possessed abnormal external genitalia. It is still not known whether the Press sisters deliberately misrepresented their gender or, as seems more likely, they both had a DSD.

….

Notably, gender testing in athletics has never identified an individual deliberately misrepresenting their gender.^11,12 Testing has, however, created controversy and embarrassment for a significant number of female athletes competing, often unknowingly, with some form of intersex disorder. Indeed, there is no evidence that female athletes with DSDs have displayed any sports-relevant physical attributes which have not been seen in biologically normal female athletes.^6,12 MORE

EDIT: In the above article, there is a use of the word “psuedo-hermaphrodite” which I missed the first time. It is offensive, and I do apologize for not catching it and pointing it out. I am currently on the look out for another article that makes the same point without the offensive language.

Need a couple of examples of athletes who have been fucked over by this ridiculous system? I am so glad you asked! Thats a man:Ewa Klobukowska, Erika Schinegger, Maria Jose Martinez Patino, Santhi Soundarajan More on Santhi Soundarajan.

But there is more to it than that, although, frustratingly, I missed my chance to present it to you. There is an essay that was online up to last week. It is one of the best essays on the history of this topic that I have read, The Olympics: The Early Days of Gender Testing, by Patrica Nell. Unfortunately, she has taken it down. It is in her anthology, though, and I for one think that that essay alone is worth the book price.
Let me give you a hint. Pay attention to the bit on the Cold War

Sociological Images out with a great post The question of Caster Semenya’s sex

If you were to try to decide what qualifies a person as male or female, what quality would you choose?
I can think of eight candidates:

1. Identity (whatever the person says they are, they are)
2. Sexual orientation (boys dig girls, vice versa)
3. Secondary sex characteristics (e.g., boobs/no boobs, pubic hair patterns, distribution of fat on the body)
4. External genitalia (e.g., clitoris, labia, vaginal opening/penis and scrotum)
5. Internal genitalia (e.g., vagina, uterus, and fallopian tubes/epididymis, vas deferens, seminal vesicles, prostate, etc)
6. Hormones (preponderance of estrogens/androgens)
7. Gonads (ovaries/testes)
8. Chromosomes (XX/XY, the SRY gene)

Most of us assume that these criteria all line up. That is, that people with XY chromosomes have testes that make androgens which creates a penis, epididymis, vas deferens etc… all the way up to a male-identified person who wants to have sex with women. We also assume that these things are binary (e.g., boobs/no boobs), when in reality most of them are on a spectrum (e.g., hormones, also boobs, likely sexual orientation).

But these criteria don’t always line up and sex-linked charactertics aren’t binary. Examples of “syndromes” that disrupt these trajectories abound (e.g., Klinefelter’s syndrome). And all kinds of practices, including surgeries, are sometimes used to force a binary when there isn’t one (e.g., intersex surgery to fix the “micropenis” and “obtrustive” clitoris and breast reduction surgery for men).

If these criteria don’t always line up, then we have to pick one as THE determinant of sex. But any choice would ultimately be arbitrary. MORE

Indeed. As links, Where’s the Rulebook for Sex Verification?

HHMI BioInteractive website takes you inside a gender test, with lots of information along the way. (Click particularly on the brief history of gender testing link.)It felt pretty creepy and invasive to me, though, so be warned. The Gender Test

The Third Lane: Intersex and the Modern Athlete contains more info about the different variations in our bodies that challenge the binary that society has, until now, clung stubbornly to.

Because of society’s assholishness in dealing with this issue, it is very hard to find a good list of intersexed athletes currently competing, or having competed until recently. That said, here are a couple:

Edinancni Silva, Brazilian judo, Sarah Gronert, Tennis (That headline writer needs to be hit with several clue by fours, by the way. It was the best article I could find, however. sigh. ) Rob Newbiggen, boxer Just decided to transition to female, hopes to get a female boxing license. You all have anymore to add?

Finally, have you noticed something with these athletes so far? One of their biggest problems come when they beat their opponents…and the opponents promptly accuse them of being men. (by the way, seriously, do read the articles. because they will state that there is NO scientific evidence that any intersex athlete has any advantage over their other competitors.) For a case of tragic schadenfreude, see Nigerian gender chickens coming home to roost: The case of Intersex football (what you all call soccer) striker Bessy Ekaete Boniface

Thats it for today, folks! Next week: Transgender female athletes.

American Women Athletes Part Two: How intersex athletes are punished by the gender testing system -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

I don’t have much time to analyze this, but I don’t really need to, because WHAT THE FUCKING FUCKITTY FUCK pretty much suffices:

Harvard Professor Gates Arrested at Cambridge Home

Friends of Gates said he was already in his home when police arrived. He showed his driver’s license and Harvard identification card, but was handcuffed and taken into police custody for several hours last Thursday, they said.

Oh, and don’t read the comments. Seriously. No, I mean it.

Brother Ta-Nehisi’s on it already, if you want something more coherent than FUNKY FUCKING JEFUCKIFUCK IN A FUCKBUCKET and so on. Also, here’s who Gates is, if you don’t already know.*

ETA1: * And if you don’t know, you need to give back your black card right now. C’mon. Hand it over. You get it back when you read one of his books or watch a video he’s been involved with.

ETA2:Twitter folks, follow #Skipgate for the latest.

ETA3 by ABW: Professor Gates’ official response (via his lawyer) on TheRoot.com. Also, I echo nojojojo: WHAT THE FUCKY FUCK?

No comment necessary. -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

Apparently, not only is Jim Crow alive and well, he isn’t even pretending to be hidden any more. What makes me say that? Well let’s start with a curious incident in Philadelphia. Seem a day camp paid for their kids to be able to swim one day a week at a private club. First time the kids show up to swim? They get booted out for changing the complexion of the club. The money is to be refunded, but I don’t think that’s going to make up for being told that the club doesn’t allow minorities. And then, when a new location offers their pool? The responses to the news article announcing it make it clear that this wasn’t a one off incident. A whole lot of folks in “post-racial” America are still spouting the same old bigotry. And you know, after a good five minutes of yelling (because for some reason I had deluded myself that things were much better than they used to be), I got myself under control and fired off an angry email and had a few unpleasant thoughts about Philly and moved on. I even told myself that as bad as the situation was, at least things weren’t *that* bad.

Until this morning, when someone sent me a link to an article about Eric Frimpong. Now, I’ve made no secret that feminism and I are not on the best of terms and in a lot of ways I’m more of a womanist than anything else. But, as I read the article and notice the victim rights groups led marches and blasted his supporters for not believing the victim I find myself thinking of a great uncle that I never got to meet. Because he was killed long before I was born. In fact if it weren’t for stumbling into an adult conversation I’m not sure that I would have known anything about him. Why? Because he was lynched for looking at a white woman. And it was totally by accident that after he was killed, her father took the land that he was sitting on when Miss Ann was supposedly assaulted by his reckless eyeballing. At least that was the story around those parts in those days. And I guess have improved if these days a falsely accused MOC gets to live (albeit in jail) instead of wind up as strange fruit. Of course I wouldn’t call that much of an improvement when you consider how much he’s lost as a result of being charged and convicted. And you know, I always hear about the American justice system and how much better it is now. But when someone can be convicted despite DNA evidence that points to someone else entirely? I’m not so sure that Jim Crow isn’t sitting comfortably in the courtrooms too.

As some of you know I’m a mother of two boys. And we live in Chicago (a town with an ugly racial history all its own), and now that my oldest son is a pre-teen we have all kinds of conversations about sex and relationships and other things that make him turn red and me grit my teeth and tell myself that I must let my baby grow up. But, I don’t know how to prepare him for a world where even with DNA evidence pointing to someone else he can be convicted. I don’t know how to prepare him for the possibility that he’ll be turned away from an activity he paid for because of the color of his skin. Then again, I guess my grandmother probably struggled with how to prepare me to navigate life in a city where on top of the gangs and drugs incidents like the the Burge torture cases preceded Ryan Harris case and Lenard Clark cases. Now the last two cases happened after I was already grown and gone, but make no mistake she worried all the time about what could happen to me (I’m the one with a big mouth that had a white cop call me a pushy nigger bitch when I was 12) and to my cousins. Because I have a great uncle that I never met and she had a brother that only lived in her memories. And the last thing any of us want is for Jim Crow to grow fat and strong and sassy again. But he sure seems to be on his way, and I don’t know how to stop him when he’s woven so tightly into the fabric of America.

Hello Jim Crow! -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

Obama has picked Sonia Sotomayor as the next Supreme Court nominee! …But already the bullshit begins:

“Judge Sotomayor is a liberal activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important than the law as written,” said Wendy E. Long, counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network, an activist group. “She thinks that judges should dictate policy, and that one’s sex, race and ethnicity ought to affect the decisions one renders from the bench.”

Riiiiiight. Like sex, race, and ethnicity doesn’t affect the decisions rendered by the white men who’ve dominated the court for all these years. Uh-huh. Yeah.

I’m too tired to really analyze this; just got back from Wiscon, where I got to meet several dozen ABW readers in person (hi, ya’ll!), and where the possibility of Sotomayor getting the nom was the subject of quite a few conversations. But I have to say, I’m bracing myself. Even though some are predicting smooth sailing in the confirmation process, I just don’t see conservatives letting this one slide, because she’s their worst nightmare. They’ve already tried to trash her by appealing to the worst intersectional stereotypes, painting her as domineering, a bully, and “not that smart”. In other words, an angry brown woman, wielding her inferior brown intellect like a girl-cootie-infested bludgeon. I predict this is only the beginning. The mouth-breather chorus has only begun to clear its throat, and I don’t want to see what it’s about to vomit up.

But for the time being, I’m just going to cheer.

It’s Sotomayor! -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

That said, I haven’t said much about this before today because my feelings pretty much match Ta-Nehisi Coates’: meh. Maybe it helps to provide some “local context” here, because I think a lot of people don’t get what most New Yorkers do: the Post is crap. It’s a step above the National Enquirer in terms of quality, and that’s only because it doesn’t talk about aliens and its inanity has a focus — which is to be the voice of the substantial contingent of conservatives in this famously liberal city. It’s the paper version of Fox News, which isn’t surprising because it’s owned by the same guy. And because of this, I do not believe for one moment that the editor who approved that cartoon didn’t know exactly how it would be received. I think the Post is getting exactly what it wanted here.

Think about it. These are hard times for the Republicans right now. They’re struggling to find a way to reformat themselves in the wake of the backhand slap they received on November 4th. While the party’s leaders flounder in search of a vision/purpose/direction, however, the party’s ideologues don’t have this problem; they’re still repeating the same message they’ve been parroting for the past 20+ years. But with the leadership gone silent, the ideologues’ broken record is suddenly much more audible than it has been for the past couple of (campaign) years. Which is why we’ve heard so much lately from Rush “Crackhead” Limbaugh. He hasn’t been in rehab all this time, as I had naively assumed; he’s just popular again, largely because many Republican voters are desperate to hear someone, anyone, speak up for their side.

Likewise Fox News and, now, the Post. These media entities are jockeying for control of the party’s soul, in hopes of pushing back the darkness — pun intended — that might, just might, cause the Republican party to reform into something a little more representative of America and less representative of the angry white men who’ve been the party’s guiding light. So naturally we can expect some blatant appeals to the paradigms that have proven so effective for this group in the past. They’re gambling that this “back to basics” strategy will work. And it might. Despite all the slightly creepy “post-racial” camaraderie we’ve been seeing in the nation since Election Day, most of us know full well that racism isn’t dead and that a substantial percentage of the 46% who voted against Obama did so because they hate black people (even the ones who are half white). How does one rally this group in the wake of a national defeat, and let them know that somebody in Republican Land still loves them? This cartoon is one rallying cry. Expect more.

That said, I’m not certain this strategy will still work the way that Rush and the gang think. Sure, there are plenty of folks out there who will respond positively to this appeal to their baser nature. But there are also a lot of Republicans who are taking a hard look at themselves right now, and asking some hard questions about the tried-and-true ways of doing things. Already we’re seeing signs of an unheard-of revolt by some Post staffers in the wake of this cartoon. The Republican base might be OK with it, but the base is still the minority within the party, and it’s growing smaller as time passes. The rest of the Republicans, I’m guessing, are starting to read the writing on the wall: the old ways of doing things have got to change.

Before they do, though, I’m sure we’ll see a lot more dead monkeys.

The New York Post cartoon: this is my unsurprised face. -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

In the meantime, though — I’m cautiously heartened by this.

Mehserle was arrested in the New Year’s Day shooting of Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old supermarket worker from Hayward who was lying facedown after being pulled off a BART train by police investigating a fight. An Alameda County judge signed an arrest warrant alleging murder, and Mehserle surrendered without incident, authorities said.

The shooting, which was recorded by passengers in videos widely circulated on the Internet and television, prompted public outrage, and some viewers said that the shooting appeared to be an execution.

Sources said Mehserle was in Nevada because he feared for his safety after death threats were made against him. Douglas County is 15 miles south of Carson City in northwestern Nevada and includes part of Lake Tahoe.

Mehserle’s attorney, Christopher W. Miller of Sacramento, confirmed early today that his client was arrested on suspicion of murder. He said he would not comment further until a news conference today.

I’m waiting to hear the charges. If they’re anything less than first-degree murder, I’m going to feel very tired again.

If anybody’s going to the protest today in Oakland, can you report in on how it went, in the comments?

Mehserle arrested -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

This article in the NYT is what’s annoying me. It starts off innocently enough with a classic “duh” moment, noting that many women take dangerous risks to end their pregnancies sans medical attention or prescribed drugs. It guarantees a surge in such homemade abortions by pretty much telling the readers what drugs to ask for and how to ask for them, then how to administer them (which sounds seriously problematic to me, but fine, they’re the Times, they can afford lawyers if someone tries it, dies, and the family sues them). It goes further into “no shit, Sherlock” territory by noting the reasons women might do this: cost, shame, a desire for privacy, distrust of hospitals, yatta yatta yatta.

Very quickly, though, it becomes clear that the article is specifically focusing on a certain subset of women: primarily Dominican women in the Washington Heights area. OK, makes sense; that’s who made up the primary focus of a study by Planned Parenthood cited in the article. But see if you can spot the point in the passage below where I started to get annoyed.

One study surveyed 1,200 women, mostly Latinas, in New York, Boston and San Francisco and is expected to be released in the spring; the other, by Planned Parenthood, involved a series of focus groups with 32 Dominican women in New York and Santo Domingo. Together, they found reports of women mixing malted beverages with aspirin, salt or nutmeg; throwing themselves down stairs or having people punch them in the stomach; and drinking teas of avocado leaf, pine wood, oak bark and mamon fruit peel.

Interviews with several community leaders and individual women in Washington Heights echoed the findings, and revealed even more unconventional methods like “juice de jeans,” a noxious brew made by boiling denim hems.

OK, look. Let’s just get this out in the open. Women have been aborting unwanted babies since the dawn of human intelligence. It probably didn’t take much for homo erectus women to cotton to the fact that “scarce food + 10 other mouths to feed + coming baby = bad idea”, or “trek across continental land bridge + coming baby = bad idea”, or any of the other dozens of equations that might cause them to conclude that a pregnancy should be terminated. That’s the unfortunate consequence of our species not having a nice convenient breeding season; sometimes it’s a bad time, or flat-out dangerous, to breed. As a result of this, every culture has its methods of helping women figure out a solution to this problem. Some of them are cockamamie; I have never understood why any woman would think a coat hanger was the way to go, but those certainly happened, and killed their share of women. When I was a student at my predominantly-white, middle-class, “good” high school, the rumor mill had it you could induce an abortion by douching with Coca-Cola. (I guess the rampant yeast infection that would result might kill everything down there, was the idea.) This is not something unique to any one culture.

And indeed, the people who ran the study seem to get this:

“Some women prefer to have a more private experience with their abortion, which is certainly understandable,” said Dr. Daniel Grossman, an obstetrician with Ibis Reproductive Health in San Francisco, which joined Gynuity Health Projects in New York in conducting the larger study. “The things they mention are, ‘It is easier.’ It was recommended to them by a friend or a family member.”

Dr. Carolyn Westhoff, an obstetrician at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, said the trend fits into a larger context of Dominicans seeking home remedies rather than the care of doctors or hospitals, partly because of a lack of insurance but mostly because of a lack of trust in the health care system. “This is not just a culture of self-inducted abortion,” she said. “This is a culture of going to the pharmacy and getting the medicine you need.”

Emphasis mine. This doctor seems to be emphasizing that self-sufficiency, not a some sort of Latin obsession with terminating pregnacy, is the cultural trait that’s important here. Good solid American value, that, right? (Well, wait. Is there any culture that doesn’t value self-sufficiency in one way or another?) And the studies make other important notes: namely that cost, convenience, privacy, and a do-it-yourselfer paradigm are things which might induce any woman, of any culture, to try home abortion. But here’s where things start to get annoying:

It is impossible to know how many women in New York or nationwide try to end their pregnancies themselves, but in the vibrant, socially conservative Dominican neighborhoods of Upper Manhattan, the various methods are passed like ancient cultural secrets.

Hmm. Why do I feel like the article’s authors almost said “ancient Chinese secret”?

Yeah. I smell some exotification goin’ on up in here.

The article goes on to cite “machismo”, tradition, and other strange, exotic reasons why these women might resort to doing it themselves. While the doctors and others who conducted the study take pains to point out that this is not some unique cultural phenomenon, the article seems to go out of its way to imply the opposite — that this is some bizarre practice in which only those freaky brown women would engage. It might as well replace the term “home remedy” with “witch doctoring”. The latter would fit the article’s tone better.

The Planned Parenthood study concluded that women in both nations “seemed to see inducing the termination of pregnancy, or abortions, as a part of the reality of their lives,” in a community where, as one interview subject put it, “we are all doctors.” The report noted that in a culture steeped in machismo, birth control is generally seen as the woman’s responsibility.

Remember what I said about that whole dawn of human intelligence thing? Abortion has been a part of every woman’s life, since about then. Whether she chooses it or not, whether she has the choice or not, whether it’s safe or not, the potential is always there as long as she can walk around and do what she wants with her physical person. So why is it worth noting that Latina women in both the D.R. and America see this as reality? And how, exactly, does a “machismo-steeped” culture differ from any other patriarchial culture in seeing birth control as the woman’s responsibility? Until every nation on earth starts issuing its pubescent boys condoms as a universal manhood ritual, this, too, is something all cultures deal with.

There are a lot of issues for which a culture-specific focus is valid. But, um, last I checked? Every culture has women, however well or poorly it treats them. Therefore every culture has its “home remedies”, its abortifacient folklore, its stupid abortifacients, its traditions. If home aborting was something new, or unique to any one group, the culture-specific focus would be valid, but this is obviously not true. This article’s unnecessary obsession with cultural specifics suggests to me that the New York Times is not actually interested in noting the reasons why women, period, might choose to home abort, period. Instead this article presents yet another chance for the dominant culture to waggle its finger at a strange, scary, “primitive lesser culture” and reassure itself of its own superiority. c.f. Western women griping about “misogynistic” Muslim culture even as they carve and starve their own bodies in accordance with Western men’s wishes; history books which howl about footbinding and neck elongation but never whalebone corsets; and so on.

So often WoC are held up not as people in and of themselves, but as symbols of their culture’s backwardness and need for “guidance,” i.e. domination. It doesn’t make me angry very often anymore, because it happens so damn much I’d blow a gasket if I did. But I’m tired of it. I really am.

S.O.S., Different Year -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

And then.

Well, most of you who read this blog can guess what happened.

Condit Elementary School parent Michelle Raheja said she was not prepared for the backlash she got from helping to write an e-mail to a kindergarten teacher at the elementary school.

She and her daughter have been harassed as a result, she said Wednesday.

“It was a private message to one kindergarten teacher,” Raheja said. “She did not ask me if she could circulate it to others or circulate it to the principal. I don’t think she was ill-intentioned.”

On Tuesday, numerous parents and their children dressed in American Indian and Pilgrim costumes to protest a Claremont Unified School District decision to have a Thanksgiving feast without the costumes that have been traditional for decades.

Another group of protesters, many younger and of American Indian descent, carried signs that said “Racism,” “No Thanks No Giving,” “Respect” and “Don’t Celebrate Genocide.”

…

Raheja said she and about 15 to 20 parents in the school helped write the private e-mail message about their concerns with the dress in the Thanksgiving feast to a Condit elementary teacher. She said the e-mail was redistributed without her knowledge.

At the Tuesday feast, Raheja said her 5-year-old daughter was harassed. A parent dressed up as an American Indian, Raheja said, “did a war dance around my daughter.” The parent then told her daughter and others to “go to hell,” she said.

Let’s pause here a moment.  A war dance.  A WAR DANCE, PEOPLE.

What the fuck kind of ass do you have to be to tell a 5 year old to go to hell?  The same kind of ass who would do a “war dance” around one.

I don’t advocate violence, but if I had seen that, I would have just hauled off and hit that person.

Continuing…

On Wednesday, she said she had received more than 250 “hateful and intimidating” e-mails.

“They go from being anxious about political correctness to calling me (an epithet). They don’t know my daughter’s name, but they’ve said hateful and disgusting things about my daughter.” (Classy! –abw)

…

At Tuesday’s feast, Raheja said she was told “if I had any issue with the school, I need to leave the school, and my daughter would not be welcomed.”

Raheja said, “We love Condit. We love the staff. Overall, we’ve had a very good experience. But the anger and hatred has been unbearable.”

If you have an opinion on this matter, I suggest you express it to the Condit staff and administrators yourself.  Website is here, complete with contact information.  I personally think it’s a little messed up for them to have even allowed parents to act in despicable ways around kids at their school or to distribute that email in the first place.

Google News on the subject here.  Beware clueless people being quoted and yammering on about how horrible political correctness is because it keeps their children from parading around in “headdresses”.  Idiots.

Ignorant Parents In Danger Of Raising Ignorant Children -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman