So back in June I wrotea post about how much I love Garfunkel and Oates, but that “29/31” was really sexist for pretty much no reason at all.

And people on the internets assured me that they are totally feminist! And they’re just you know, making fun of women who worry too much about getting old/being single.

@misscherrypi My read: they’re making fun, not endorsing. Highlighting how stupid it is to assign women worth by age w silly dichotomy.

— Andrea Grimes (@andreagrimes) June 26, 2012

@misscherrypi Ha! Maybe. It’s definitely not as clever as their other work, but I don’t think it’s meant to be taken at face value.

— Andrea Grimes (@andreagrimes) June 26, 2012

So today I got around to watching, “The College Try”

This isn’t even funny. It’s just “Hey! Vaginas are gross!” It’s the same tired shtick from dudebros you can find every single day on Reddit.

Even though they lyrics say “I swear I’m not homophobic or anti-woman” this song is both. There’s no getting around it. The premise of the song is that women’s bodies are disgusting, and there is no reason for anyone to be attracted to them.

The implications of this “joke” have a real impact on womens lives and health. Despite the best efforts of health educators, some women still use douches which evidence suggests increases the risk of pelvic inflammatory disease and ectopic pregnancy. Even more seriously is the rise of labiaplasty and cosmetic vaginal surgery, about which the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have said

These procedures are not medically indicated, and the safety and effectiveness of these procedures have not been documented. Clinicians who receive requests from patients for such procedures should discuss with the patient the reason for her request and perform an evaluation for any physical signs or symptoms that may indicate the need for surgical intervention. Women should be informed about the lack of data supporting the efficacy of these procedures and their potential complications, including infection, altered sensation, dyspareunia, adhesions, and scarring.

And while that quotation was from 2007, there’s no reason to think that things have gotten any better. Kirsten O’Regan reports at Guernica Mag about “The Barbie”:

Dr. Red Alinsod, a urogynecologist in Laguna Beach, California, claims that his most requested surgical procedure is the Barbie: a procedure that excises the entire labia minora. This results in a “clamshell” aesthetic: a smooth genital area, the outer labia appearing “sealed” together with no labia minora protrusion. Alinsod tells me he invented the Barbie in 2005. “I had been doing more conservative labiaplasties before then,” he says. “But I kept getting patients who wanted almost all of it off. They would come in and say, I want a ‘Barbie.’ So I developed a procedure that would give them this comfortable, athletic, petite look, safely.”

So while Garfunkel and Oates aren’t telling women to fill their vaginas with vinegar or get their labia chopped off, how this song made it past pipe dream phase is beyond me. There are enough people in our culture telling women to hate their bodies. We don’t need to hear it from anyone else.

This post is modified from a talk I gave at my UU Congregation. I have been thinking about this idea for a long time, but it was most recently influenced by “Dear Liberal Allies” by Trung Nyugen.

What I mean when I talk about the toolbox of justice is that social justice movements, like civil rights and anti-racism, feminism and the women’s movement, the GLBT rights movement, the movement for the rights of the poor and disabled are both political and social movements to create change in people’s every day lives, but also tools to understand how we interact with each other and how society works on a personal and on an institutional level.

For example, in 2010, an anthology was published called “Click: When we knew we were feminists” edited by Courtney Martin and J Courtney Sullivan. The book is an anthology of the “click moments” that women of all ages and backgrounds have had that made them realize they were feminists. These moments weren’t always about sweeping political or social change, like fair pay, but rather when they realized that their experiences made more sense through a feminist lens than without it. In my own toolbox of justice, feminism is like a pair of glasses through which so much becomes clear. I remember watching the winter Olympics with a group of friends and one woman asked, “Why are the women’s costumes so much skimpier than the mens?” “Because women’s bodies are decorations!” I blurted out. I could only see that through my feminist glasses.

Men can wear the feminist glasses too. In 2008, my brother remarked, during Hillary Clinton’s concession speech to Barack Obama, “It must be very strange for you. None of the presidents have been women. Does that make you feel weird, or excluded?”

There are all kinds of glasses and goggles and prisms and magnifying glasses in the Toolbox of Justice. And as Trung Nyugen reminds us, they work differently depending on whether or not we are using them to understand our own oppression or our own privilege.

There are hearing aids and decoder rings and Rosetta Stone like primers inside the toolbox of justice as well. These help us understand the sometimes hidden or invisible ways others are excluded, oppressed or discriminated against.

After sparring for years with her atheist son-in-law, my mother walked away from a Memorial Day commemoration wondering aloud why the Catholic priest giving the invocation spoke so specifically about his beliefs Jesus and the trinity. “When you talk in public like that, the prayer is for everyone,” she said. “Who knows if anyone in the audience is Jewish or atheist? “

When I was knocking doors for a political campaign I was volunteering for, I went out one day with an acquaintance from my local Democratic Club – a tall, African American man. He asked me, “Would you please go back to those two houses for me?” I knew he was asking because he had the feeling that the people who lived there might open the door for a white woman, even though they hadn’t for a black man.

The toolbox allows us to hear the bigotry sometimes referred to as “racist dog whistles” like when politicians immediately decide that their top priority is immigration once they know their opponent will be Latino, or to understand why well meaning organizers sometimes ask my brother or my father or I how they can “get all the Hispanics to help them.”

The toolbox helps us to understand seemingly nonsensical news stories – like why the University of Notre Dame has spent more resources talking about their reaction to Manti Teo’s imaginary girlfriend than the suicide of Lizzy Seeberg, a 19 year old student who alleged that she was raped by a member of the Notre Dame Football Team.

The toolbox of justice is what connected Seneca Falls, Selma and Stonewall in President Obama’s inauguration speech.

Sometimes you find tools you didn’t know were there. A friend of mine from graduate school has Cerebral Palsy and she has done a lot of research on accessibility for people with disabilities in public parks or historical sites. I nodded along with moderate interest until last summer. My mother was suffering from tendonitis in her foot after a knee replacement surgery and I was spending Fourth of July weekend pushing her wheelchair around Atlantic City. It will be no problem at all! I thought. Lots of older people vacation there who have trouble with mobility, and after all the Americans with Disabilities Act was over 20 years ago! For the most part I was right. But when we were trying to get into a theater to see a show we had bought tickets for that was starting in 5 minutes, and the elevator wasn’t working, and the phone number on the elevator just lead to a busy signal, I felt totally helpless and angry, and I wasn’t even the person in the wheelchair. Luckily a security guard came to help us – there was another elevator just a little of the way down the hall. We thanked him profusely and I asked him to add a sign to the elevator explaining how people could access the theater. I enjoyed the show, but when I reflect on that experience I find myself thinking about all of the people for whom this type of frustration is a daily occurrence. We might see a wheelchair ramp at the entrance of a building and think everything is okay. But if we think that one ramp is enough – we are not using all of our tools.

The toolbox of Justice is a way that we can live our principles.

The inherent worth and dignity of every person.
Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;

Privilege is, in part, not having to notice the attacks on the dignity or the injustices done of others who are not like us. But if the toolbox allows us to recognize them, then we can take steps to support our brothers and sisters in fighting them

Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;

It’s important to hear the lived experiences of people who are different than we are. Sometimes it’s difficult to understand why someone feels excluded or hurt but we must make an effort not to be defensive or to make assumptions – we do this by listening with open hearts.

A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;

The toolbox of Justice allows us to see the truth of others lives.

The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;

The toolbox of justice is one of the ways in which we can build that world.

In April of 2012, I published a blog post called “Revelation is Not Sealed.” In July 2012, I led a service at my UU Congregation that expanded on this post. Here is the sermon I gave in full:

As the years go by and my identity as a Unitarian Universalist solidifies, I feel my appreciation of my new tradition deepening all the time. At first I was drawn to a place where I could be spiritual with others who accepted me. And this congregation is a community where I can share common values, but also where disagreements do not mean fear of expulsion.

But something I have been thinking about recently is the UU doctrine that “Revelation is not sealed.” What this means is that while there might be some good lessons in the holy books of other religions, people can still learn truths about morality, human nature and the world in a multitude of ways. As Mark Christian, from the UU Church of Las Cruces said, “we must be open to new and higher truths.”
What this also means is that Unitarian Universalist Ministers are not limited to a single volume, written in the past during a different time and place to find the words to inspire and guide their congregations.

I think of the scene in the Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line where Jack says

Look, J.R., if I’m going to be a preacher one day, I gotta know the bible front to back. I mean, you can’t help nobody if you can’t tell them the right story.

To a young boy of strong Christian faith, this makes perfect sense. But in my mind, his earnestness is immediately contrasted with Julia Sweeney’s remarks in her monologue Letting Go of God about the priests who have to live this reality of trying to tell people who need their help the right story. She says,

[L]ike a big ocean wave, the force of all that I hated about this Church welled up in me; all the pompous, numbing masses, the unabated monotony of the rituals, all the desperate priests trying to tease out something meaningful from a very flawed ancient text.

I first thought about this problem after a Sunday service here about Leymah Gbowee, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for her activism in stopping the Second Liberian Civil War.

I wondered how a Catholic priest could talk about Leymah Gbowee if he wanted to. There was a priest in the parish my family belonged to when I was in high school, who loved to talk about “the power of prayer.” Sometimes he quoted guests on Larry King Live or something he read in Reader’s Digest to make his point. But, as a Catholic priest, he was limited in when and how he could broach this subject – or any subject. The Catholic Church has selected Bible readings for every Sunday of the year – This lectionary is the same all over the world – on a three year cycle. So any priest only really needs three years worth of homilies for his entire life. If he wants to write more than that he can – but the readings never change. Unlike Jack, who was a protestant, Catholic priests do not even have the entire Bible at their disposal to refer to during Mass.

Current events did come up in homilies on occasion. The Catholic chaplain at my university campus often spent Sundays relating that week’s gospel to the unjustness of the Iraq War. And I will always remember the Christmas Eve Mass I attended in 2001, where the priest spoke of the Olympic Torch in Rockefeller Center, on its way to Salt Lake City, as a light of hope – we should see it as symbolic of the light of Christ – and a symbol that we would heal from the horrors of September 11. Several members of our community had been killed in the attack, and many people were comforted by his words. But they were his own words, and had little to do with the story of the Nativity he had just read.

That homily was not the norm. Most of the homilies I heard as a Catholic were much more generic. I understand perfectly what Sweeney is talking about when she refers to the “desperate priests trying to tease out something meaningful from a very flawed ancient text.”

When a priest wants to speak about an issue facing his community he faces several hurdles. First, how to relate that issue to the week’s Bible passages prescribed by the Vatican. Second, there is the possibility that the topic he wants to explore is not relatable to any of that years readings or the entire three year cycle of readings at all. Aside from a few Christmas and Easter services, I cannot remember which Gospel readings went with any of the Catholic homilies that have stayed with me through the years. The purpose of the homily is for the priest to relate the message of that week’s Bible passages to the community. But the two types of homilies I remember hearing most often were either interpretations which were exceedingly vague platitudes about being a good and forgiving person, or insightful discussions which only tangentially relate to that week’s Bible reading. It was very rare that a homily was both inspiring and clearly related to the text.

Unitarian Universalist ministers do not have this problem. I have heard UU ministers read from the Bible, or from another holy book. But more often than not they read a passage of poetry, prose, philosophy, or history that speaks to them. Sometimes these readings are written by other UU’s – and sometimes they aren’t. Sometimes a reading during a UU service is not a piece of text, but music or a work of art. In this way, a congregation can address its needs, and is not frozen in time. When we believe that revelation is not sealed, we are open to learning about the world and about ourselves from every source around us. In not limiting ourselves, we can continue to grow unrestrained, and search for truth.

And the search for truth is not an easy task. As some of you may know, my husband and I both write internet blogs. Recently, anyone who reads or writes about religion online was shocked when a well known atheist blogger, Leah Libresco announced her conversion to Catholicism. As I turned her words over in my head, I found myself with a lot of questions. What would be the ideal Unitarian Universalist response to this news? Leah seemed so joyful! Was I wrong to leave the Catholic Church? But her reasoning really didn’t make any sense to me. Should I reconsider my rejection of atheism? What is Unitarian Universalism, and am I doing it right? Could I be doing it wrong? Are there some truths I will never understand?

I felt like a cat chasing a laser pointer.

But all of this thinking and questioning lead to more reading and thinking and writing and questioning. And I felt comforted that unlike both the metaphorical cat and laser pointer I’d probably be able to figure something out, and unlike Leah, I had more than just the Bible to guide me.

One thing that I have found, while reading about Unitarian Universalism, is that some of us are fond of making jokes about our denomination. One of them seems particularly relevant here:

Each religion has its own Holy Books:
Judaism has the Torah,
Islam has the Koran,
Christianity has the Bible,
and Unitarian Universalism has Roberts’ Rules of Order.

Like most UU jokes, this pokes fun at our argumentativeness and our sometimes painful earnestness. But I like the truth hidden within this joke. Roberts Rules are used to moderate discussion and bring order and equity to a heated or chaotic argument. I like the idea of using guidelines for respectful discourse as a sacred text.

This joke gets at the heart of our belief that revelation is not sealed. It says that instead of an established holy book, what we revere is a process, a journey to discover what is true and to grow spiritually.

That revelation is not sealed is a truly radical and unique idea among the world’s faiths. It is anathema to almost every other religion.

The ancient Greeks told the story of Pandora, the first woman. She is given a gift by the gods, and told not to open it. Out of sheer inquisitiveness, she does. She is human after all. And she unintentionally releases evil into the world.

Similarly, in Abrahamic traditions, Eve is told not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but she does so anyway – the Devil himself igniting her curiosity. And this is the cause for humans expulsion from paradise, pain in childbirth, toil in farming, and original sin that will stain the souls of every person born thereafter – wanting to discover the truth.

Entire books could be, and have been, written about Pandora and Eve and how they have been used to demonize women specifically, but today, I am more interested in what these stories tell us about other traditions attitudes towards the quest for knowledge. The message is made explicitly clear by the Book of Proverbs, chapter 3, verse 5. It is written,

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.

My own understanding, the power I have to learn and understand new things is a source of great joy in my life, and has been at times a spiritual experience. I remember feeling a deep sense of reverence in my high school biology class when I learned for the first time how cells replicate their DNA. Cells multiply for any number of reasons, when a new animal or person is gestating inside an egg or their mother’s womb, to repair injuries or to replace older, dying cells, the process is called mitosis. And in part of this process, a complete copy of the entire DNA of the individual organism must be made for the new cell. Specialized enzymes “unzip” the DNA, copy it, and create two separate but identical double helixes. When I finally grasped the concept, I felt like I was looking into a treasure box, that some precious secret had been revealed. My own understanding made me feel close to God.

The opposite idea, that revelation has been sealed, has stunted humanity’s growth in countless ways both spiritual and material. Limits on the creation of “graven images” slowed the development of artistic techniques. Prohibitions of dissection impeded the progress of biology and life saving medicine. Today, Biblical literalists would curtail the rights of women and LGBT people throughout the world – all because of the command to lean not on our own understanding, but instead to trust that all we need to know is contained within a single volume.

By contrast, in Unitarian Universalism, we have the freedom to cherish these texts as holy if we choose, but we are also free to follow our conscience if they are teaching something that is not right. This is an awesome freedom, as the possibilities are endless, so it should be treated with respect.

As UU’s we have real power to use what we learn not only in our day to day lives, but in our congregations and in our denomination. Unlike those of other faiths bound by unchanging texts in a constantly changing world, we can change our ways in response to new understandings, and we have come to believe that there are times when we MUST change.

This is why UU’s were involved in the Civil Rights Movement, in the Feminist Movement, and why we were among the first denominations to marry same sex couples in the United States. This is why UU’s from across the country have protested Arizona’s unjust and dehumanizing immigration law. This is why we undertake extensive projects to learn how to unlearn all we have absorbed from our toxic culture of bigotry and hatred. Our ability to learn from past mistakes is what has inspired our campaign to stand on the side of love.

I am proud to be a Unitarian Universalist. And I am inspired by the idea that the universe contains truths that I have yet to learn. When we say that we believe that revelation is not sealed, we are saying that we are open to spiritual growth. When we say that we believe revelation is not sealed, we are saying that we know that we could be holding ideas that are wrong, and that we are open to changing them. When we say that we believe that revelation is not sealed, we are saying that we accept the awesome responsibility of our search for truth.

Last week, the entity previously known as the “Lingerie Football League” made an announcement. It will now be known as the “Legends Football League, and

-Performance wear replaces all lingerie aspects of uniform.
-New design of logos removing any sexy female figures.
-Redesign of shoulder pads to increase protection.
-Brand tagline shifts from ‘True Fantasy Football’ to ‘Women of the Gridrion

To be honest, I expect the new uniform to be just as revealing – the video accompanying the announcement shows women lifting weights in sports bras and short shorts instead of frilly bras and panties.

I don’t object to the idea of skimpy uniforms just because they are skimpy. There is nothing wrong with the idea of erotic performance in general. But I do object to the LFL on the grounds of workers rights and human rights (Hat Tip, Fit and Feminist):

1. LFL Players don’t get paid a salary. They get a percentage of the box office for each game, depending on whether or not they win, and this money rarely amounts to minimum wage.

2. Playing a full contact sport in a uniform designed for sex appeal rather than safety is extremely dangerous. LFL players frequently suffer rug burns from playing tackle football in their underwear, which can lead to nasty infections.

“We were sustaining really severe turf burns … because we had basically elbow pads and knee pads that you could just buy at the dollar store,” said Poles, who added that she got a staph infection from the burns after the league’s championship game last February.

Even more serious is the risk of head and neck injury. The players do not wear Football helmets that other leagues use, (even women’s leagues who wear traditional uniforms) and their shoulder pads have not been adequate for the game they are playing.

“We were given shoulder pads but no helmets, and were engaging in contact at practice,” one player told me. Players say they observed multiple injuries that they believed to be concussions during practices.

Even after helmets showed up, the head injury concerns didn’t abate. According to players, the league sent them helmets that were totally inappropriate for football and had them modify the helmets themselves in dangerous ways.

“Two weeks before the game, we were sent hockey helmets and were asked to drill and attach football chinstraps and visors ourselves,” one player said. “The coaches, of course, helped. This drilling compromised the integrity of the helmet.”

Players said the safety concerns went well beyond just the helmets, though.

“More extreme concerns arose when our shoulder pads arrived a month before the game, and they were boys’ pads with a maximum weight restriction of 120 pounds,” one player said. “The majority of girls on the team weigh more than that.”

Although the recent press release notes that the shoulder pads have been resdesigned, there is no mention of a change in helmets, and this is a matter of life or death.

3. Medical treatment for injuries sustained during games or team practices are not covered by the league.

A player’s primary insurance policy is used to cover any injuries resulting from a league-mandated practice or game, according to a 2010-11 Chicago Bliss contract obtained by the Star. If the player does not have a primary policy, she can opt to pay $250 (U.S.) for a league policy that covers injury up to $10,000.

“A $10,000 cap is not going to cover any type of severe injury,” Poles said. “There are a significant number of players that are no longer playing because their insurance didn’t cover injuries.”

Natasha Lindsey, a former quarterback and captain for the Seattle Mist from April 2009 to October 2010, is suing the league for $10,000 worth of unpaid medical bills. Lindsey tore ligaments in her knee last October during the Bliss’ season opener and said she spent $16,000 on surgery plus rehab costs.

“During my injury, I was not given any insurance information by the league to help pay for any bills, although the league kept my paycheque for the first game for the ($250) insurance deductible,” she said in an email. “It took the league three months to get me an MRI and another three months to contemplate even paying half of my surgery.”

4. The league opposes the creation of a players union. Most other professional sports leagues in the United States are unionized, even niche ones like the WNBA, MLS and professional lacrosse.

***

Until serious changes are made to the actual terms of employment and safety protection of the players, it doesn’t matter if the name has changed from “Lingerie” to “Legends,” or if the uniforms now cover a few more inches of skin. That no player has yet been killed or paralyzed during a game is a matter of sheer luck. It’s clear that LFL puts profit and fan enjoyment/titillation over the health and lives of the players, and this is unconscionable.

The anti-choice movement in the United States is one that seeks to outlaw abortion. This is not only morally abhorrent in terms of denying women bodily autonomy, but also incredibly poorly crafted public policy. Very few of its proponents can explain how this prohibition would work. The pro-choice movement would do well to understand exactly how weak this position is from a practical standpoint.

There was a long period of American history when legal abortion was not available. Leslie J Regan’s book When Abortion Was Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867 – 1973 documents the history of the era well. Often, doctors would perform abortions in secret and with varying degrees of safety. Women died of infections, and were often refused medical treatment in hospitals unless they would reveal the name of their doctor. The Story of Jane: The Legendary Underground Feminist Abortion Service by Laura Kaplan tells the story of the secret group of women who provided abortions in Chicago in the late 60’s and early 70’s. The book tells the stories of the women who took great personal risk to get the abortions they needed and of the women who organized the illegal abortions to make them as safe as possible. From these books and other historical documents we can see that even when abortion was illegal, women still sought them out. Even in the present, abortion rates are generally the same, regardless of the legality of the procedure.

Although it was only 41 years ago that these laws were in place, the anti-choice movement seems to have a very short term memory as to how the law used to be – and a surprising difficulty in articulating what exactly the law should say if they were in charge.

Anti-choice protesters can’t explain whether or not a woman who gets an abortion should go to jail and why.

Rick Berg (R-ND) won’t say whether or not a rape victim who gets an abortion should go to jail.

Even if we concede that anti-choicers would eventually decide on legal punishments for doctors and/or women involved in abortion, as they had done in this country in the past, it is also important to ask questions about how this law would be enforced. Would the tactics of the past be used? Would we codify that women admitted into emergency rooms for complications due to an illegal abortion be refused treatment unless they reveal the name of their doctor? Would a woman caught attempting to abort her pregnancy be placed in jail until she gives birth? Would we look to the models in place in other countries?

In communist Romania:

Monthly gynecological examinations for all women of childbearing age were instituted, even for pubescent girls, to identify pregnancies in the earliest stages and to monitor pregnant women to ensure that their pregnancies came to term.

This is a horrific violation of human rights. But it is robust public policy. This type of draconian enforcement is necessary to actually eradicate abortion, instead of just making it more difficult or more dangerous as was the case in America’s past.

In fact, this same policy is used in China to force women to get abortions in order to uphold their one child policy:

Every village has a family planning committee and in some, women of childbearing age are required to have pregnancy tests every three months.

In El Salvador, women who go to the hospital for miscarriages are investigated because they are suspected of procuring an abortion. Would American anti-choicers go this far? What would constitute probable cause that a woman had an abortion? A late period? A miscarriage? An infection? Who would keep track of all American womens’ bodies?

Whenever a person declares that abortion should be illegal in the United States, these are the facts we must present them. These are the questions we must ask. They must know the logical conclusion to the policy they are proposing. Even if they think they are speaking of religion or morality – they in fact suggesting a radical change to our laws and to our way of life. This must be made clear. That they have not thought it out this far suggests an ignorance as to how government works, and fantastical belief that simply declaring something to be wrong means that it will stop happening.

***

For further reading – How Would A Rape Exception Work?

Last week, I had a comment of mine deleted from /r/feminisms by a moderator. Someone had posted a link to several blog posts by Natalie Reed of Freethought blogs about transfeminism. Several commenters showed up who appeared to be “TERFS” (Trans* Exclusionary Radical Feminists). They suggested the ridiculous and bigoted notion that trans* women are trying to usurp feminism.

The discussion also touched on the following tweets by Julia Serano:

I am a sex-positive feminist who is pro-contraception, pro-choice, and fiercely defends women’s reproductive rights and bodily autonomy….

— Julia Serano (@JuliaSerano) March 3, 2012

…but I have to say that as an infertile woman, all this contraception-centric feminism over the last month has been alienating for me…

— Julia Serano (@JuliaSerano) March 3, 2012

Rather than seeing Serano as calling for inclusion, they saw her words as an attack on feminism itself. It strikes me as sadly ironic that they cannot see their vitriol toward trans* women as being comparable to the racism and homophobia of feminisms past.

In response to a comment that:

feminism at its core is about the oppression of women as a sexual class by men.

I responded:

That’s generally accepted to be the definition of radical feminism.

Colloquially, feminism is a movement for the equality of people regardless of sex or gender.

Reproductive justice is a concept that arises out of feminism, but it encompasses more than just access to abortion, and people other than cis women. It overlaps with movements for racial justice, workers rights and yes, trans* issues.

reproductive justice is a concept that links reproductive rights with social justice. The reproductive justice movement arose in the late 1980s as an attempt by these organizations to expand the rhetoric of reproductive rights that focused primarily on choice within the abortion debate and was seen to restrict the dialogue to those groups of women they felt could make such a choice in the first place. In addition to advocating as do traditional reproductive rights platforms for the access of women to birth control, reproductive justice provides a framework that focuses additional attention on the social, political, and economic inequalities among different communities that contribute to infringements of reproductive justice.

a social justice movement rooted in the belief that individuals and communities should have the resources and power to make sustainable and liberatory decisions about their bodies, genders, sexualities, and lives.

So go be an angry TERF and fade into obscurity. Or join the 21st century, and realize that while cis women are oppressed because some people think of us as incubators – that’s not the only way women are oppressed and it shouldn’t always be the center of feminist discussion at all times and places for ever and ever until the heat death of the universe.

She called me “disingenuous.” And then my comment was deleted. Because:

there is never a need to invoke the “angry feminist” derailment, and it’s extremely disappointing to see a self-avowed feminist use it.

I replied that I was extremely disappointed to see /r/feminisms so friendly with trans* exclusionary radicals.

Yellowmix, the moderator, said I was being “antifeminist.”

I contacted her in private message and offered to revise my comment to get rid of the part where I said the that other commenter was “angry” if she really cared that much about not having tone arguments. She replied that I would also have to remove the terms “TERF,” “fade into obscurity,” and “join the 21st century” because they were “marginalizing.”

In saying that the other commenter was an “angry TERF,” was I making a tone argument? I don’t think I was. My favorite definition of what a tone argument is comes from The Unapologetic Mexican but there are other good ones too. A tone argument is when you stick your fingers in your ears and saying “LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU WHEN YOU ARE SO MAD. MAYBE IF YOU WERE NICE TO ME I’D GIVE YOU WHAT YOU WANT” to a person who is righteously angry about their own oppression. Generally, there’s also a power differential, and the person making the tone argument is privileged as to not experience the harms the less privileged person is speaking out about. That was not the case here. I was saying that if you want to be exclusionary, you will be passed by. Feminism is a big tent, and must be so. She could still keep her righteous anger at the patriarchy, at anti-choicers, at people or institutions standing between her and her rights. The problem is her misidentification of trans* women in general and Julia Serano specifically as being somehow responsible for her oppression as a woman. Serano said she felt alienated by the current discourse. That is in no way a threat to anyone’s rights.

There is also the matter of how to interpret people who are punching down instead of punching up. That is, whether or not the person you are attacking as more or less privilege than you do. It would be unreasonable for someone to say that referring a group of racists as “Angry White Men” is making a tone argument. When I made the comments I did, I wasn’t making a sexist claim that anger isn’t ever appropriate for women or denying that there are legitimate reasons for feminists to be angry. I was making an argument that her energies would be better spent elsewhere, and that her position that trans* women are a threat to feminism is blatantly false, complicit in the greater harms of transphobia, and has no place in the future of the movement.

Finally, I want to emphasize that the reason I wrote this post was because I want to draw attention to questionable moderating policies on /r/feminisms, and to explain the comments I made that were deleted. I’m thinking a lot about what Natalie Reed wrote about the difference between call-out culture and genuine discourse:

When someone says something transphobic or cissexist, that presents an opportunity for discussing that with the person, pointing out how/why what they said was messed up, and hopefully, slowly, gradually, helping steer that person (and those within earshot, and communities and cultures as a whole) towards greater trans awareness and sensitivity.
….
Rather than treating instances of transphobia and cissexism in your communities as an opportunity to show off what an ally you are, and exercise your internet smackdown skills, and hurt someone who “deserves” it, treat it as an opportunity to bring genuine trans discussion into the space, and strategically work towards improvement.

I think I fell short of this standard. I didn’t resort to name calling or slurs, and I wasn’t trying to show off. But I probably could have been more patient.

When you’re a kid, you never question the whole faith thing – God’s in heaven and He’s…She’s always got her eye on you. I’d give anything to feel that way again.

As child and as a teenager my faith was very strong. After reading about Leah Libresco’s Confirmation, I find myself reflecting on my own and how much I looked forward so it. I would finally be initiated into the Church, and I saw it as an important step towards adulthood. They told me it would mean an indelible mark on my soul. The oil the Bishop would anoint my forehead with would be clear, but it would leave a mark – invisible and indelible, I thought. I was so excited to make a commitment to Christ, to live by the Beatitudes, to engage in the Works of Mercy. It was so beautiful.

I remember my confirmation day in November of 1996. I was one month shy of my fourteenth birthday. I wore a white skirt suit. I remembered the etiquette as I had been taught in my preparation classes, I would hand the priest a card with my confirmation name on it (Margaret, more after my late grandmother than the Saint), he would hand it to the Bishop, the bishop would anoint my forehead with oil and say, “be sealed with the gift of the holy spirit.” Then we would shake hands and both of us would say “Peace Be With You.” My godfather was my sponsor, and as we approached the altar, him walking behind me with a hand on my shoulder, I noticed that none of my classmates were shaking hands with the Bishop. Well, I’m going to! I thought, This only happens once, might as well do it the right way. And so after the Bishop had anointed my head, I reached out to shake hands and said “Peace Be With You.” He smiled and did the same, and then I realized why he hadn’t been doing this for everyone. His hand was dripping with oil. And now mine was too.

I thought it was kind of funny, that my eagerness and joy almost ruined my new suit, and I was all smiles as I headed back to the pew to sit with the rest of my family. The tissues in my mother’s purse and my Dad’s good handkerchief were enough to save me from any lasting grease stains. I felt relieved and blessed.

The happiness of my Confirmation Day stayed with me for years. It was what kept me from leaving the Church for a long time. The indelible mark on my soul. But eventually, I thought, well I guess I’m just taking this mark with me – into Unitarian Universalism and wherever I would go from there.

It’s been eight years since my last confession, or since I have received communion. I signed the book on my Unitarian Universalist congregation in January of 2009. But my faith in the Catholic idea of God has receded into a set of morals grounded in Catholic social teachings, the UU Seven Principles and a vague spiritual longing. I struggle with the term “agnostic,” because I long for spiritual connection, and I still find comfort in prayer, even if I don’t believe that it works the way I was taught it does as a child.

I’ve come to realize that the more time passes, the deeper my anger and outrage at the Catholic Church’s moral failings. I am incredulous as to why people I know and love stay in the Church and speechless to those who decide to join.

Lennon Cihak has courage beyond his years for refusing to back down on his support for gay rights, even in the face of not being allowed confirmation. This is exactly what is supposed to happen – no organization should have to accept members who do not believe in its principles. I’m glad that attention is being drawn to the teachings everyday Catholics are expected to live by. But it’s difficult to watch the rejection of a teenage boy by his own community for standing up for love and equal rights. It’s that disconnect – seeing someone punished for speaking for justice that makes me angry.

Savita Halappanavar’s senseless death is something I’ve been thinking a lot about. She was 31, married, and hoping to have her first child. But she died when doctors refused to remove the fetus she was miscarrying. It’s hard to find words to write about this. I think about my own future, and about my friends who want children, and how this could happen again at any Catholic hospital in the United States. No one should ever forget her, or stop being haunted by what happened, because this should never happen again.

The more distance I put between myself and the church, the more I clearly I can see it. At first, I thought, what happened to the church I loved so much? But in reality, I could not actually see it for what it is. I didn’t know about the depths the church went to cover up child raping priests. I didn’t understand that women die in septic wards all the time in South America because they are denied contraception and abortion because of the Catholic Church’s influence. I had an inkling that masturbation probably wouldn’t send me to Hell, but I gave no thought to how the church’s warped teachings on sexuality would effect a gay or trans* teenager. My excuse is that I was thirteen years old. What’s yours?

This post contains spoilers!

Skyfall was mostly enjoyable, but there was a scene that left me feeling very uneasy.

Bond meets Sévérine in a swank casino and tells her that “it takes a certain type of woman to wear a backless dress with a Beretta 70 strapped to her thigh.” Through their conversation it is revealed that she was kidnapped into the sex trade as a young girl. Bond promises to help her escape if she will lead him to her boss. She tells him to meet her on her boat. The appointed time arrives and he is not there.

Sévérine appears to be taking a shower of angst when he steps into the shower, naked. He tells her “I like you better without your Beretta.” “I feel naked without it,” she replies.

The scene was disturbingly creepy on several levels. Forbes (to my suprise) and The Vagenda point out how the power dynamic here makes it questionable as to whether or not Sévérine could consent. This is important, but not the first thing I thought of.

Even if we grant that Sévérine wanted to have sex with Bond, why would someone supposedly as skilled at getting laid as he supposedly is SNEAK UP ON A RAPE VICTIM IN THE SHOWER?!. He couldn’t have waited for her in her room, in his infinitely flattering swim trunks? Or left her a note that she could meet him up on deck for a nightcap in the moonlight?

Could he have refrained from commenting on and eroticizing that she was now disarmed and could not escape?

There was an SNL skit once where it is explained that a man can avoid being accused of sexual harassment by

Be Handsome..

Be Attractive..

and Don’t Be Unattractive.

Dudes on the internet are especially fond of this and have narrowed it down into a constant drumbeat of “Step One – Be Attractive, Step Two – Don’t Be Unattractive” whenever a woman complains about a man’s creepy or boundary crossing behavior.

But the feminist critique of Bond’s behavior in Skyfall is evident as to why this is really poor reasoning. No one is denying the hunkiness of Daniel Craig. It’s just incredibly unsettling that the movie portrays sneaking up on sexual assault victims in the shower as the height of romance, or at all acceptable with anyone you don’t already know very well.

I’m not totally sold on the argument that Sévérine wasn’t capable of consenting at all. And as last nights on Earth go, she didn’t appear to have a bad one. But creepiness isn’t sexy, and Sévérine’s apparent consent isn’t a pass for Bond or the movie’s creators. James Bond – symbol of sexual prowess – should probably know better. Master of seduction doesn’t mean master of the implication.

There is no war on Christmas.

Okay, hold on, that’s a lie. There is a War on Christmas, but there are not the combatants you think there are.

Everyone has heard about hordes of Atheists trying to quash the wonder that is Christmas by turning it into some sort of happy cultural-sensitivity bullshit festival. That’s not true. Atheists like getting together on cold days the same as anyone else. Every culture on Earth has a holiday to get through the shitty months of their climate. I’m not going to belittle Christmas. Christians have done a good enough job of that, as have retailers.

Firstly: If you’re not in Church, you’ve already messed up. It’s Christ’s mass. Gift-giving traditionally occurs on the Epiphany, observing the night the Magi came to Bethlehem and presented their gifts to the King of Kings (And Lord of Lords). Of course, you might be descended from some group of joyless Protestants, and even refuse to observe that holiday, but that’s a gripe for another day.

Secondly, if you’re giving gifts, you’re probably letting them take over your holiday. People shuffle into the stores and obediently wait their turn to be fleeced by retailers. It’s degrading, and no one likes it. The customers get up early for door-busters. The associates have to trundle to work and break their asses. The managers get chest-pains fussing about numbers. The people who made the product are… well, let’s be honest, effectively slaves.

Thirdly, one day of the year is not a good platform for proselytizing. “Keep Christ in Christmas” stickers merely remind everyone else that Christians are joyless jerks that want to arrange society to their pre-conceived notions. We really need to re-think this holiday entirely.

If you’re on facebook, you’ve seen the little messages circulating that say you should shop locally. That’s a start, as you cannot quit consumerism cold-turkey. There are a huge number of stores that would like your business. They are probably more expensive than the big box stores, but here’s the solution to that sticky wicket… buy less stuff. A lot of products are made for Black Friday and have fewer features, or are intentionally lower-quality, so forget about it.

Also, if you must buy things, and that locally-produced lemon-zest soap is just too silly, buy board games. Why? Because even the first thing you do with a gift is you try it out. You can set up the board game and play with the recipient, and because you have a whole day off, you actually have the time to enjoy the board game with them. They can wear the sweater or play Field-Duty of Heroes IX any other day of the year… and buy it on their own.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

I haven’t done much gloating about last week’s election results. My feelings are more of relief and gladness that we can talk about topics other than the horse race. But in reading the post-election coverage about how so many conservatives who are in a state of shock because they were so certain they would win, I have noticed something disturbing. The undercurrent of racism and hate makes it difficult for me to be gleeful about conservatives loss. It would feel like taunting an injured but still dangerous animal.

Potok, who is white, said he believes there is “a large subset of white people in this country who feel that they are losing everything they know, that the country their forefathers built has somehow been stolen from them.”

I can’t relate to this. Not in the least. I certainly benefit from white privilege. I am committed to being anti-racist. But white privilege can warp and change when it intersects with class, gender, sexuality, and nationality/ethnicity. It’s the latter I’ve been thinking about this week.

When I think about my racial privilege as a white woman with Latina heritage, I think about passing and how sometimes other white people challenge my identity.

“How can someone with your last name celebrate St. Patrick’s Day?”

“You aren’t what I expected. I thought you’d be more, you know [does imitation of Carmen Miranda] ‘Ay! Yi! Yi!’ …authentic.”

It feels disorienting and irritating. My family is real, and there are millions like mine. You don’t get to erase us or deny we exist because of your racist fears about interracial or inter-ethnic marriage, or petulance about losing an election.

they are losing everything they know, that the country their forefathers built has somehow been stolen from them.

My “forefathers” were immigrants from South America, Eastern and Western Europe. Some of them faced racism or antisemitism. To be alive during a time when the people in power are starting not to be monolithic or bigoted validates everything I know. This is the America that my family has built.