parenting

Beautiful Boy

mandy — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Directed by Shawn Ku

Considering how common the tragedy of school shootings has become in our society, it is strange how infrequently this phenomena appears on both the silver and the TV screen. Perhaps this is because understanding these incidents is difficult, even when it comes to fiction. In Beautiful Boy, director Shawn Ku attempts to explore unanswerable questions by depicting a married couple who are torn apart by the death of their son, a college student who is both the victim and culprit of a massively fatal school shooting.

Maria Bello and Micheal Sheen play Kate and Eric, a married couple on the brink of separation. Despite living in the same home, the two move in completely separate spheres: eating dinner apart, sleeping in separate beds, and conversing with one another from different rooms. Their coldness to one another seems to have spread to their sole child, Sam (Kyle Gallner), who is attending college away from home.

Beautiful Boy opens with Sam reading a short story aloud, sadly recalling a long gone happy memory of his family at the beach. Eyes large and heavy with sadness, he calls his family from his dorm room and tries to communicate his frustration. His parents, however, are completely distracted by their own troubles, and unable to register his need for help.

The next morning the couple’s routine is interrupted by news of the shooting at Sam's school. Panicked, Kate fruitlessly attempts to get in touch with Sam. When the police finally come to their door, Kate and Eric learn that the truth is more terrible than even their greatest fear: not only is Sam dead but he is the sole perpetrator of the shooting.

With the media waiting on their doorstep, and the phone ringing incessantly, the two find themselves unable to carry on with their normal lives. Unsure of who to turn to and where to go, Kate and Eric walk away from what they knew. At first this tragedy seems to push Kate and Eric further apart, but eventually it's the only thing big enough to hold the couple together.

The question that haunts Kate and Eric, and no doubt the parents of real-life shooters, is how they could have created a child capable of carrying out such an unspeakable act. The two are forced to face this question amid intermittent snippets of television footage showing their son explaining his actions. Defying cliche, Sam is never made out to be overly angry or monstrous; rather, he is shown to be a boy ripped apart by the seemingly bleak world around him.

In the end, it is the raw and unsettling internal examination of a disjointed couple’s struggle to reunite in the midst of an an overwhelming crisis that is the sole focus of this film. Bello and Sheen give incredible, understated, and emotionally bare performances in which they portray the anguish of their characters without seeming overly dramatic. Both prove themselves to be immensely gifted actors, skilled at lending realism and believability to the most unbelievable of moments.

Written by: Adrienne Urbanski, March 13th 2011

I'm a Registered Nurse, Not a Whore

tina — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 20:00:00 +0000

By Anne Purdue

Insomniac Press

My grandmother was a nurse. She's retired now, but I remember how she used to chastise her grandchildren, scolding us about washing our hands, eating certain foods, and getting exercise. Above all, she was straightforward about our bodies. When we were too shy to put on our swimsuits in the changing room at the pool, she used to say, "We all got the same thing you got.” Another time she scolded me for cringing at a violent scene in a crime show, "Well, we all have to go sometime, sweetheart."

Because of her, I have always associated nurses with a sort of grandmotherly sass and frankness about the human body. This immediately came to mind when I picked up Anne Perdue's I'm a Registered Nurse, Not a Whore and I can honestly say I was not disappointed by the book. With episodes ranging from dental self-surgery to an accident involving a vat of wax, Perdue's plots often revolve around physical crisis. Her stories are not for the squeamish. Perdue uses unhesitating honesty for her descriptions of people and their bodies, offering up characters that are flawed and deeply compelling. The result is a collection that shows us the painful—and often darkly funny—conflicts of friendship, marriage, and parenthood.

Perdue's stories typically begin by introducing us to a common scenario: a couple on vacation or a family at dinner, but then she shows us how the character’s smoldering inner desires and regrets build up into a violent climax. In "Inheritance," a Botox-injected car salesman fantasizes about his youthful dreams of becoming a musician while building a deck for his house. As he’s working his children torment and disobey him, but we are privy to his inner thoughts. The story culminates in a relative's fall, a lost tooth, and a backyard grill tragedy. "Inheritance" introduces two of Purdue's common themes; one is regret. Characters in I'm a Registered Nurse, Not a Whore lament a youth subculture ("Theories of Relativity"), bad marriages ("CA-NA-DA," "Inheritance"), and failed careers in musical theater ("The Dry Well"). The other common theme is parenthood. There are some sympathetic parent-child relationships in these stories, but parenthood in I'm a Registered Nurse is often more painful than it is fulfilling: Children are distant and unappreciative, defying their parents' efforts at reconciliation.

Perdue's prose is crisp and direct, presenting fresh ways to describe our physical selves ("Bodies aren't a whole lot different from houses. They're made of matter and they crack and tear and sometimes things grow in them that shouldn't") and reinventing old clichés ("If we are what we eat, Leona was oxidized, fused to the vegetable crisper, ripe for fruit flies"). She writes engaging dialogue, transferring from one character's head to another with a sometimes absorbing and sometimes vertigo-inducing speed. Perdue is at her best when she stays with one or two characters throughout a story, as in my favorite piece from this collection, "Pooey." "Pooey" follows the relationship between Jackie, a single woman pursuing artificial insemination, and her sick and aging mother, Leona. "Pooey" masterfully blends pathos and dark humor—you cringe as Leona takes a drunken fall on her seventieth birthday, as Jackie falls over the punch bowl at a bridal shower—but you root for these women all the way. In "The Dry Well," the marriage between new homeowners Heather and Keith slowly unravels as the house around them floods and falls apart. The story transitions between Heather’s and Keith's thoughts, using crawling mice, leaking roofs, and sinister repairmen as the backdrop for the story.

At times I wanted to know more about the victims of the violent outbursts in these stories, about the world after the catastrophe. Perdue's structure can feel a bit redundant—near the end of I'm a Registered Nurse, Not a Whore I found myself patiently waiting for the fire, the fistfight, or the flood that would come and sweep the story away. But these stories also give us splendid moments of release, moments where the passion of inner life mirrors the explosive and painful physical action of the stories. Perdue's stories are edgy and fresh, providing just the right dose of sympathy and satire.

Written by: Barbara Barrow, January 30th 2011

Twenty-first Century Motherhood: Experience, Identity, Policy, Agency

barbara — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Edited by Andrea O'Reilly

Columbia University Press

Motherhood is often a topic of confusion or contention among feminists. The process of birthing demonstrates just how awesome and powerful women’s bodies are. However, the institution of motherhood is constructed in ways that oppress women and privilege certain classes, races, and sexualities. In Of Woman Born Adrienne Rich writes, “We do not think of the power stolen from us and the power withheld from us in the name of the institution of motherhood.”

Taking their cue from Rich, writers of the new volume Twenty-first Century Motherhood: Experience, Identity, Policy, Agency look to reclaim some of this stolen and withheld power. This volume, which explores current issues in the burgeoning field of motherhood studies, shows how women have begun deconstructing motherhood through the practice of “empowered mothering” that has transformed this institution. Editor Andrea O’Reilly’s introduction to the volume gives readers a clear and succinct foundation of feminist theories surrounding motherhood studies including Sara Ruddick’s revolutionary idea that mothering is a practice and therefore a verb as opposed to a noun.

While O’Reilly’s introduction is much needed for motherhood studies amateurs such as myself, the essays in Twenty-first Century Motherhood range much further than a mere introduction to this exciting field. This volume, true to its title, explores how recent changes have altered forever the experience of mothering for women everywhere. The essays are divided into four sections— experience, identity, policy, and agency—and cover a huge range of topics which seem to particularly affect mothers in the Global North. The articles range, quite incredibly, from Chicana mothering and GBLTQ parenting to the role that the internet and biotechnology play in familial relations.

I was pleasantly caught off guard by Ana Villalobos’ thought-provoking essay, “Mothering in Fear: How Living in an Insecure-Feeling World Affects Parenting.” Villalobos does an excellent job exploring the question: what mothering strategies do parents use in reaction to today’s perceived fear and risk-abundant environment? Villalobos shows that while some mothers have become overly protective, others have developed inoculating parenting behaviors—exposing their children to the risks of the world. While these parents have often been criticized as lacking an intense love and care for their children, Villalobos shows that just the opposite is true. These inoculating parents believe that by exposing their children to moderate, but manageable, risks they are better caring for their children by allowing them to learn how to navigate such a complex and dangerous world.

In “Brown Bodies, White Eggs,” Harrison touches on some very pertinent issues surrounding race and labor in matters of cross-racial gestational surrogacy, when the surrogate female giving birth is of a different race than the child she is carrying. In her essay, Harrison proposes that while the inter-relations of people of different races in this process of birthing may seem to efface racialized gender hierarchies they actually do much more to enforce them.

Lastly, I was quite impressed with Rachel Epstien’s essay, “Queer Parenting in the New Millennium.” Toward the end of her essay, Epstien poignantly comes to the difficult question: how do queer parents obtain both the public recognition they desire as lovers and parents while at the same time persist in resisting the norm and questioning that which society sees as recognizable? In answer to this question, Epstien writes, “let our children learn that “sexuality and gender are varied, fluid, complex, messy, exciting, scary, fun and always changing.” Epstien here makes an excellent point. At the end of Twenty-first Century Motherhood however, it is easy to see that along with sexuality and gender, motherhood should also be taught as “varied, fluid, complex, messy, exciting, scary, fun, and always changing.”

Written by: Colleen S. Kenny, January 30th 2011

Vegan Baking Classics: Delicious, Easy-to-Make Traditional Favorites

mandy — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Kelly Rudnicki

Surrey Books

Kelly Rudnicki describes herself as a “busy mother of five young children,” the oldest of whom was “diagnosed with life-threatening food allergies to dairy, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, and legumes.” Incorporating material from her blog, Rudnicki’s first book, The Food Allergy Mama’s Baking Book, began as Vegan Baking Classics. Although the title of the book situates it in vegan media culture, I found Rudnicki’s writing style, interests, and recipe descriptions more typical of parenting and food allergy books.

Rudnicki lacks the edgy, almost punk style of some of the best vegan cookbook authors, like Isa Chandra Moskowitz, Terry Hope Romero, or the Sarah Kramer and Tanya Barnard powerhouse duo. Moskowitz and Romero’s Post-Punk Kitchen public access television show and website define the ways in which veganism is a playful way to be an anarchist in the kitchen without hurting anyone. And Moskowitz’s *Vegan with a Vengeance includes an anecdote about feminist potlucks, heightening what I see as a unifying tenant of many cookbooks: a sense that food is part of a larger set of political concomitants.

That is not to disparage Rudnicki. Her desire to feed her son the doughnuts, muffins, cakes, and cookies she remembers from her childhood offers a powerful testament to her mothering. She expresses her own activist interests in the book when she suggests that she wants doctors to find a cure for the allergens that plague her son. Rudnicki is concerned about health, and she offers tips for lowering the fat in baked goods, such as replacing some of the oils with apple sauce.

The recipes in Vegan Baking Classics are just that—classics. They are comfort foods made in a form consumable for vegans, people with food allergies, and anyone who wants to eat a variety of pastries, cookies, cakes, pies, and other delicious sweet treats.

The notes that accompany the recipes tend to be repetitive and, therefore, a little boring. At times, they even make the end result sound unappealing. As someone who eats my fair share of energy bars, I found the description of Rudnicki's Cranberry-Chocolate Drop Cookies, which she says remind her of her “favorite nutrition bars,” a bit off-putting. I have sometimes wished my energy bars tasted more like cookies, but I rarely wish a cookie tasted more like an energy bar.

Overall, Vegan Baking Classics offers a range of delectable and fun recipes that can satisfy a wide range of people whose teeth tend toward the sweet kind. Following Rudnicki’s hints and tips makes baking without dairy, eggs, and common allergens accessible, and every recipe is worth trying… even if her writing isn't as fun to read as the best punk rock vegan cooks out there.

Written by: Emily Bowles, December 12th 2010

The Kids Are All Right

admin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:01:00 +0000

Directed by Lisa Cholodenko

Mandalay Vision

In an attempt to beat the glorious heat last week, I ducked in to the cool air conditioned walls of The Archlight theater in Hollywood to catch an afternoon showing of Lisa Cholodenko's new high femme film, The Kids Are All Right. This movie is so fucking good, and it is refreshing to see a film written and directed by a (feminist, lesbian) woman about a family helmed by (feminist, lesbian) women starring women (who are feminists). The themes in this movie—family, love, sex, growing up—are highlighted by some of the best performances I've seen in quite a while.

Annette Bening (Nic) and Julianne Moore (Jules) play partners who have been together for going on twenty years. They've raised two teenage children, played spot-on by Mia Wasikowska (Joni) and Josh Hutcherson (Laser). When Joni turns eighteen, she and Laser make the decision to track down and contact the sperm donor their mothers used to fertilize their family.

Enter the salacious Mark Ruffalo (Paul). He wears leather, rides a bike, owns an organic restaurant, and scores with chicks. (He's sexy, so sue me.) Anyway... Paul develops a relationship with the clan and the wheel of family discourse is set in motion.

Perhaps the thing that impressed me most about this film was the easy yet indefinable family dynamic. I come from a family that many would have trouble categorizing, so I am always pleased to find films with alternative family constructs that actually work. The fact that these two women happen to be lesbians does not define their characters or their relationships within the family. This is not a "gay movie," nor a "chick flick." No, I would call this movie human, hilarious, heartbreaking, and hopeful.

I left the theater thinking hard about the seemingly random associations with my own family. And a few hours later, I called my mom.

Cross-posted at LA Femmedia

Written by: Kadi Rodriguez, July 27th 2010

Despicable Me

admin — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 20:31:00 +0000

Directed by Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud

Universal Studios

A few years ago my eleven year old sister was writing an essay on violence in schools. During our discussion of different types of violence, she astutely pointed out that not all violence is physical, and that a mean comment can be just as violent as a punch in the face. This led to an involved conversation about bullies in which, at one point, my sister looked at me and said, “I think bullies are mean to the kids at school because no one is nice to them at home. No one is giving them love.”

Despicable Me is the story Gruu (Steve Carell), a young boy whose dreams of traveling in space were thwarted by an uncaring mother and resulted in a grownup bully most proud of being the world’s greatest villain. That is, until he is bested by the younger, sleeker Vector (Jason Segal) and must enlist three orphaned girls in his grand plan to steal the moon. While the title of the movie suggests this is a film about a villain and his despicable acts, it is truly a love story about the bonds of parenthood, and the many ways people create family.

Like many animated features, Despicable Me appeals to both adults and children by providing timely social commentary amidst silly sights and situations. The beauty of animation is that it allows imaginary caricatures to perform acts that are very real, and very human. The title alone is a reflection of the human condition, for any one of us can be the “me” in question, participating in any variety of despicable acts on a daily basis.

As the titular Me, Steve Carell adds another credit to his list of bumbling anti-heroes we love to see succeed. Though his accent is mildly distracting, audiences will recognize the same humble wit that endears us to him week after week on The Office. Segal is equally impressive as Vector, a geek turned villain in response to a consistently disappointed father. But it is the always awesome Kristen Wiig who is perhaps the most despicable of all.

As orphanage headmistress Miss Hattie, Wiig delivers her lines like glass of sweet tea with razor ice cubes—sugary sweet and viciously sharp all in the same mouthful. Clearly a jab at the adoption system, as well as gender and class privilege, she callously sends Margot, Edith, and Elsie out the door with the despicable Gruu, who offers no credentials or identification, but is simply disguised as a doctor.

While the film neglects one of my cardinal rules of feminist filmmaking—having positive female role models—it did call into question traditional roles of masculinity, especially in response to parenthood. Margot, Edith, and Elsie were role models in their own right, emulating and each serving as a manifestation of responsibility (Margot), skepticism (Edith), and unquestioning affection (Elsie). In addition to having some of the funniest lines in the film, the sister’s camaraderie and confidence in their own relationship, as well as their unconditional love for each other and those around them, is what eventually turns Gruu from super bad to Super Dad.

Written by: Alicia Sowisdral, July 19th 2010

Babies

admin — Mon, 17 May 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Directed by Thomas Balmès

Focus Features

I just got back from seeing the documentary Babies. I have to say that it was great! Director Thomas Balmès followed four babies from four countries for a little over a year each. The movie is mostly without dialogue, except for the little bit of the parents' talking. It is mostly shot from the baby's level, and is organized by the developmental stages of babies' lives. This choice was a great way to highlight each culture and keep the movie flowing.

I really enjoyed seeing the differences in parenting and lifestyles. I found Ponijao, the baby from Namibia, to be the most interesting. The parenting style there was extremely community oriented, though men seemed to have no place in parenting there. This collective parenting made it hard to tell who the baby's mother was through much of the movie.

Bayar, from Mongolia, lives on a family farm. It's amazing to see how closely he grows up with the animals and how he is given a lot of freedom. It's also interesting that his parents seem to take a very removed roll. Although the mother is an active parent at times, Bayar tends to be left to his own devices or with a slightly older sibling.

Japanese Mari was raised in a very Western manner, with her mother taking her to prearranged play dates and having her interact with toys produced by the baby industry. In California, Hattie grows up with a ton of toys and books. She goes to organized baby-centered activities, but otherwise is very solitary. Out of all the babies' fathers, Hattie's seems to be the most involved in his child's life.

Babies does a great job of staying silent; there is no voice-over commentary or focus on the parents apart from when they are interacting with their child. That said, I think the filmmaker intended to create a discussion about parenting, but Babies could easily act as a way to create an Other by creating a divide between Western and non-Western worlds. Although it shows how babies are similar overall, cultural and economic divisions and not providing context and commentary makes it too easy to view those from non-Western cultures as outsiders.

When watching the film it's hard to remember that these are sample sizes of one, which makes it easy to critique the parenting style of, say, the Japanese parents because there are more than a few scenes of Mari being crabby. But she could easily have colic or be teething or it could just be a result of her parents' individual style, not a reflection of Japanese society as a whole. Similarly, Babies makes it seem as though this Mongolian family is completely removed from parenting, when it could be the economic pressures they face that creates a need for both of Bayar's parents to work.

I noticed some negative reactions in the theater. The film shows breastfeeding, which elicited a small gasp from another patron, and there were also some inappropriate reactions to the children in two of the cultures who were regularly without pants. I think these reactions tell a lot about Americans biases, and how these negative views make natural choices difficult for many mothers.

Other than these few things, Babies was amazing. I'd definitely suggest it to anyone who has an interest in children or parenting. I would just make sure the person understands that these are glimpses into the lives of individuals, and while the people featured may represent a part of their culture, they are not necessarily representative of the culture as a whole.

Cross-posted at Squirrely Mama

Written by: Cheryl Friedman, May 17th 2010

The Baby Formula

admin — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Directed by Alison Reid

Wolfe Video

"Why shouldn't we have the chance to make our own babies, have our own children?”

That's one of the first lines spoken in The Baby Formula, a delightful award-winning Canadian mockumentary that took two honors in 2009: the Audience Award at the Toronto Inside Out Lesbian & Gay Film & Video Festival and Best LGBT Film at the Nashville Film Festival. Director and producer Alison Reid is also responsible for Succubus, the 2006 short film that served as the springboard from which the feature-length The Baby Formula was spawned (pun intended).

In the ancient world, Athena was the Greek goddess of wisdom, and Lilith was Adam's first wife, kicked out of the Garden of Eden in favor of Eve. In The Baby Formula, Athena and Lilith are a comfortably settled married couple who are about to become parents. Both are wise, defiant women, and they have decided to do things a little differently. See, these ladies are pregnant with each other's biological babies.

Shortly after the opening credits, we're taken inside the laboratory of two Canadian scientists being interviewed by a documentarian (Alison Reid). Both scientists—Dr. Oldenfield, a balding older man with a Scottish accent, and Jim, his younger awkward counterpart—claim they have made it possible to create life with artificial sperm generated from stem cells. In the wry words of Dr. Oldenfield, “People think we're making men obsolete; we're simply making them unnecessary.” “One day we'll make women unnecessary, too,” replies Jim.

It's a risky and controversial procedure, one that Athena willingly undergoes because she works for the lab and desires a family with Lilith. Athena is the first to get pregnant from artificial sperm created from Lilith's stem cells. When the two scientists are questioned about government approval for the procedure, they claim it won’t be approved for at least a decade, if at all.

While Athena is all aglow with baby on board, Lilith is jealous. She decides to also be pregnant, and gets inseminated with Athena's woman-sperm without Athena's permission. This being a comedy, we know this cannot be the only challenge for our dynamic duo. The tactless documentarian and her persistent crew contact Athena's deadbeat closet-case brother Larry, who swears that Lilith's baby is his. Larry threatens to expose the women, which could in turn expose their unique babies and cost Athena her job. The couple decide on a preemptive strike and gather both of their families together to tell them where their grandbabies were really coming from. As would be expected, that's when things get really interesting.

To say that The Baby Formula is simply a send-up of medical ethics and the lesbian baby boom would be a gross oversimplification. It gets its jabs in everywhere. For example, in one especially memorable scene, the film pokes fun at the cultural appropriation that underpins white middle class neoliberalism. Lilith and Athena are discussing possible baby names following a pregnant couples yoga class. Lilith plans to name her daughter Abigail after her grandmother, while Athena runs down a list of Japanese names. When Lilith points our that neither she nor her wife are Japanese, Athena hilariously defends herself by saying, “Hey, humanity is universal.”

In fact, The Baby Formula manages to achieve something many queer films haven't: a certain universal appeal. By introducing us to the couple's (very different) families, we are reminded of the ever-shifting dynamics every family faces when dealing with pregnancy and children. We see kids and parents learning from their mistakes, new parents quickly shifting gears from giddy to exhausted, and disparate families coming together in love during times of great sorrow. The Baby Formula even ends with a lively holiday party–which is most formulaic of happy family film endings–proving the long-standing hypothesis that no matter how they are conceived, every family borne from love is a real and valuable one.

Written by: M. Brianna Stallings, April 10th 2010

From Rage to Courage: Answers to Readers' Letters

admin — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Alice Miller

W.W. Norton

Alice Miller alleges that "most people (ninety-five percent of the world population) were beaten as children." You might think these are some pretty hefty charges: so did I. This book, in my opinion, does not seem to have any purpose besides encouraging readers to read Miller's other works, and also for blaming bad parenting as the root of every societal illness.

Perhaps I would have better appreciated From Rage to Courage had I been familiar with Miller's research, or if the book provided any empirical data supporting her claims. Instead, I was inundated by Miller's recommendation that readers acknowledge the childhood abuse they suffered, even if they didn't remember it happening. This book encourages everyone to delve into their psyche to try and find some hints of abuse.

I am skeptical of Miller's proposition that ninety-five percent of the world's adults suffered childhood abuse, but what really struck me as odd in this book is the claim that victims must embrace rage and shun forgiveness to cure themselves. I believe that anger can be a very liberating emotion, and I agree with Miller that victims of abuse should acknowledge the perpetrator's role in hurting them. However, I do not think a lack of forgiveness and a permanent angry state is even remotely healthy. My experience with anger leads me to believe that when a victim holds on to grievances, she is the one punished—not the abuser. Anger leads to bitterness, and both poison a person from the inside out. Forgiveness is not something that excuses the person in the wrong: it is a means for the victim to make peace with their past and go on to live their lives without dwelling on their pain.

According to From Rage to Courage, abuse victims need to dwell on this pain in order to "free" themselves. Without an explanation as to how this is accomplished, however, the book just sounds like an exhortation to permanent resentment, without any means to get to the next step of recovery. Perhaps Miller outlines this in her other works, but as a book considered in its own right, this one doesn't stand up.

Make no mistake: child abuse is horrifying, and probably occurs much more than is reported due to the helpless nature of its victims. I fully support awareness of this issue, as there is no doubt that child abuse affects people negatively all their lives. Alice Miller's collection of her own letters just seems a bit melodramatic to affect any change, and her goal seems more to increase her book sales than to offer solutions.

Written by: Sam Williams, March 20th 2010

Gay Fatherhood: Narratives of Family and Citizenship in America

admin — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 09:00:00 +0000

By Ellen Lewin

University of Chicago Press

In this well-written ethnography, Gay Fatherhood, Ellen Lewin examines the choices and the decisions of gay fathers in America, focusing particularly on men who choose to become fathers as gay men, rather than coming out after having had children in a different-sex marriage. Lewin, also the author of the 1993 ethnography Lesbian Mothers, works centrally from Chicago but has found research participants of impressive diversity with respect to race, religion, socioeconomic background, profession, number of children, and relationship to community. All of these elements make for a fascinating read.

The central question in Lewin’s book is one that has become increasingly pertinent and visible, particularly in queer communities, as the gay marriage debate advances in the United States. Does “being gay” simply mean being a man who loves and is sexually attracted to men, or does it imply another separateness, an inherent incompatibility, with a world that is and will always be predominantly straight? And does asserting the latter negate the identity of gay fathers, assuming "father," even "parent," to be the province of the straight world alone? Or does a gay man who chooses to be a father give up his right to identify as "gay?" Or does "parent" come to overshadow, to render irrelevant, the identity “gay”? And if none of the above are true, are there factors beyond the sexual orientation and gender of the parents that would specifically identify a family as a "gay family?"

As is often the case in anthropological research, Lewin explores these questions without ever fully answering them. Given the scope and depth of Lewin’s writing, however, no answer seems to be demanded. By simply displaying the complexity of the lives and relationships of gay fathers—relationships with partners, relationships with children, relationships with other parents, extended families, communities of friends, religious communities, communities of residence—she demonstrates that this is not an issue to be bullet-pointed or oversimplified. Lewin uses her ethnography to delve into the lives of gay families, and to show the complex nexus of identity at which they reside, and at which they must, in contemporary America, continue to reside. A true writer and a true anthropologist, she leaves the prescription of actions to her readers; there is no doubt that engagement with her writing will lead to more considered, and therefore better, action.

Written by: Gemma Cooper-Novack, March 1st 2010

Gringa: A Contradictory Girlhood

admin — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 01:02:00 +0000

By Melissa Hart

Seal Press

When Melissa Hart was eight years old, her mother fell in love with Patricia, the woman who drove the school bus. Soon, Hart’s mother left her husband and moved in with Patricia, taking her children with her. Within months, however, Hart learned a heart-wrenching lesson when she discovered that the family courts of the 1970s didn’t regard a woman involved in a same-sex relationship as a fit mother. Hart's dad was given custody, and her mom was left to see her children every other weekend and a few weeks in the summer.

Living in the upscale Manhattan Beach with her upper class father and, after a short interlude, her new stepmother, the author longed for her too-seldom visits to her mother in Oxnard—a place not only geographically distant, but as culturally dissimilar as two places in Southern California could be. This split in her reality left the young Hart understandably confused about her own identity. In Oxnard, she was attracted to the culture of the predominantly Latino neighbors: their lively parties, delicious food, and the warmth that she perceived to be missing from her Manhattan Beach home. As she grew older, Hart longed to emulate her mother’s sexuality. But much to her chagrin, Hart discovered she was attracted to boys, and as much as she yearned to belong to the Latino culture, she was an outsider there as well.

While the writing is skilled and evocative, and the scenes are vivid, Hart gives us a book that doesn’t quite deliver a satisfying, cohesive story. Despite the themes that she revisits (one of the major themes of Gringa is the search for belonging by a girl whose mother was cruelly ostracized from her children by the legal system), her account lacks a defining arc. In some ways, this is not surprising. After all, this is a memoir, and real life is, by nature, episodic. What marks a skilled memoirist is her ability to sift through the events of her life and distill the story. Unless this is accomplished, her readers will ask themselves, “Why should I read this?”

While I was keenly interested in the problems Hart encounters as a result of her mother’s absence, her experiences as the daughter of a woman in a lesbian relationship, and the challenges she faced living with her often angry father and her new stepmother. I was far less interested in her account of getting a new car, her brief high school acting career, or her interlude as a student in Santa Barbara. A more judicious editor would likely have advised taking much of this material out because, while the writing is competent, it fails to overcome the problems in these chapters: a lack of narrative momentum, a clear relationship with the central story of the memoir, and a compelling conflict that makes the reader care.

Hart’s memoir is important in that it adds to our understanding of the impact of anti-gay prejudice and the bitter price children of lesbian and gay parents have been forced to pay; this is evoked with great emotional resonance in the book. Unfortunately, the strength of the memoir is diluted by the inclusion of material that seems extraneous.

Written by: Elaine Beale, February 25th 2010

Parenthood

admin — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 17:01:00 +0000

By Jason Katims

NBC

Based on the 1989 Ron Howard movie Parenthood, writer Jason Katims has revised the premise into a modern day, one-hour drama that explores the many facets of being a parent. The stellar cast includes Lauren Graham (Gilmore Girls), Craig T. Nelson (Coach), and Erika Christensen (Traffic). The intertwining of the many characters is organized by the family connection of the parents, their two sons, their two daughters, plus the in-laws and grandchildren (though the storylines focus primarily on the bloodline brood). It’s the complexity of moderate dysfunction and typical family dilemmas with many points of view—from parents raising young ones, to raising teenagers, to being an adult child dealing with their parents, to being the grandparent that struggles to transition into a new realm of parenthood, and negotiating each of the relationships in the midst of it all.

The pilot episode provides a fast-paced introduction to the characters by diving right into their lives. It immediately builds character development and emotional attachment, and is a surprisingly perfect balance that is sure to leave the audience wanting more. During the opening, you find Sarah Braverman (Lauren Graham) has recently divorced her deadbeat husband. She’s moving back in with her parents and bringing her two teenage children, though first she has to retrieve her daughter and insist she come with her. It’s a refreshing change from the single mother Graham previously played (Lorelai Gilmore), who was more of a friend and less of a mom. Upon Sarah’s arrival back home, you quickly see her place within the family and begin to understand the dynamics at play in the relationships.

The character that intrigues my feminist sensibility the most is Julia Braverman (Erika Christensen), a highly successful lawyer and mother of one, whose husband is a stay-at-home dad. It is clear in this episode that while she enjoys her triumphs within her career, she is saddened that her young daughter is much closer to her husband. Sure, women are capable of doing it all, but the question is whether doing it all makes women happy.

As much as it is great to have all of the options the world can offer, what is often overlooked is the inner turmoil that comes from making sacrifices, especially when it comes to motherhood. It will be very interesting watching how the over-achieving, controlling, people pleasing Julia Braverman navigates her life and deals with her inner conflict.

Parenthood will provide an insightful look into the joy, pain, frustration, and self-discovery that comes with being a parent. After all, no parent or child is perfect, but with a lot of love and striving to do the best with what you do know, parenthood can be a rewarding adventure. And from the looks of it, this new show has the potential to help viewers gain insight as children and parents themselves.

Written by: Sarah Eve Nichols-Fulghum, February 15th 2010

My Baby Rides the Short Bus: The Unabashedly Human Experience of Raising Kids with Disabilities

admin — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:01:00 +0000

Edited by Yantra Bertelli, Jennifer Silverman, Sarah Talbot

PM Press

My Baby Rides the Short Bus is an anthology of articles written by parents about their firsthand experiences of raising children with disabilities. In addition to their common identity as parents of disabled children, the contributors also share another trait: all of them find themselves outside of the mainstream by virtue of identity or political perspective. Together the articles make up a lively collection of authentic voices that speak to the joys and challenges of being marginalized and/or subcultural parents raising special-needs children.

Many of the authors write about how their non-mainstream identities have affected their experience of raising special-needs children. Thida Cornes writes about how she learned to work within the constraints of her own disability, dystonia (a physical disability that causes muscular spasms), to take care of her son, who has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy. A lesbian minister, Maria June writes about becoming, at age twenty-three, the foster mom of a fifteen-year-old with special needs. Amber E. Taylor, a self-described “black biracial dyke with head-to-toe visible tattoos and a bald head” and an adoptive parent of a son with Down syndrome, writes about the backlash she receives from biological parents of disabled children who think she shouldn’t attend support group meetings because she “chose” to parent a special child.

The authors also write about the process of navigating the many institutions ostensibly set up to help special-needs children, but which often end up sidelining them. Several authors write about the experience of diagnosis: the behavioral testing milieu in which young children, separated from parents and subjected to unfamiliar conditions, unsurprisingly fail to show their full range of abilities, and then are slapped with labels that sometimes sound more like death sentences. Authors who spend 24/7 with their children write about the experience of not being believed by “specialists” about their children's abilities and needs, or being subtly blamed for their children’s disabilities. Expressing the frustration felt by many of the authors, Kerry Cohen writes, “Unless I hate the things that make [my son] different from other children, I will always be a wayward mother.”

But not all the stories are about frustration and tragedy—many of the authors write about the creative and energetic ways they have found to help their children thrive, often in direct opposition to the institutions that are set up to “help.” Karen Wang and Heather Newman write about “unschooling”—creating stimulating and safe learning spaces at home, tailored specifically to their children’s particular needs—while Shannon Des Roches Rosa tells how she co-founded a special education PTA that helps parents of children with disabilities advocate for their children in the local public school system.

As so many of us know from personal experience, it can be very difficult to be part of multiple marginalized communities. As one of the authors, Andrea Winninghoff, laments, “In a community of parents with deaf kids, I will always be the single, young, gay mom. Among gay parents, I will always be the one with the deaf kid that they can’t speak to.” While there are many books available on parenting special-needs children, very few of those books offer an explicitly political analysis of the rights of special-needs families and of the systems that do or don’t serve them, and very few of those books acknowledge the experiences of parents who are out of the mainstream, whether due to race, class, gender identity or sexual orientation, disability, political beliefs, or lifestyle. Frank, engaging, and broad-ranging, My Baby Rides the Short Bus is a rare and precious treasury of these too-often invisible stories.

Written by: Ri J. Turner, February 11th 2010

Who's Your Daddy?

admin — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 17:07:00 +0000

Edited by Rachel Epstein

Sumach Press

Postmodern indeed. As a single Black lesbian mother, I assumed that a resource like this wouldn’t yet exist. On searching, I discovered a literary road map to queer parenting and family that is current, diverse and mini-encyclopedic in its breadth. Reading this work made me feel as though I had added to my family of choice. Who’s Your Daddy? documents the adventures and challenges of queer parents, including the parenting experiences of single, partnered, co-parenting and polyamorous parents. Essays from more than thirty contributors detail recent aspects of queer parenting history, including legal victories and challenges in the United States and Canada, the experiences of queer spawn (look it up) as well as the personal parenting experiences of single and partnered individuals including transgender women and men, lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer mothers, parents, and fathers.

Who’s Your Daddy? is not only broad in terms of the contributors and the subject matter covered in the book, but in tone as well. An accessible quality is maintained in the majority of the writing in the book. Sections on the various routes to parenthood, family composition, history and social change, parenting challenges and the legacy of queer families are made even more engaging due to the personal experiences candidly communicated by young queer parents, queer children from transracial adoptive families, one lesbian’s experience of infertility, and dispatches from queer-identified straight children, involved donors and blended families. Contributions in the form of email exchanges, interviews and letters tell stories that are laced with humor, highlight injustices, and relay grave personal loss.

One generation ago, some queer individuals would not have considered parenthood feasible. However, this book shows the many creative ways families have been built and children have been nurtured outside of the nuclear, heteronormative ideal. Open adoption, the experience of queer spawn in schools, the ways in which queer parents challenge gender stereotypes in raising their children and the experiences of involved donors are discussed alongside a transgender man’s experience of being treated at a fertility clinic. A letter to an unborn child lists a mother’s intentions to parent equitably, regardless of the child’s gender, while another piece discusses the importance placed upon biological ties within lesbian-led families.

As stated by Epstein, Who’s Your Daddy? does not attempt to prove that LGBTQ led families are the same or “as good as” straight or nuclear families. The joys, challenges and experiences captured in this anthology display the richness of queer cultures and relationships, values we should treasure, validate, analyze critically and pass on to our children.

Written by: Ruth Cameron, December 12th 2009

Resistance Through Writing: An Interview with Victoria Law

admin — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:56:00 +0000

Interview with Victoria Law

Feminist Review recently interviewed writer and activist Victoria Law on her book Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women. Here Law shares her thoughts on making her book an activist tool, the culture’s blind spot about the prison industry, social justice movements’ responsibility to incarcerated women’s issues, and how motherhood radically altered her own work and informed her upcoming anthology, Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind.

Who did you write Resistance Behind Bars for?

I originally wrote the book, or the college paper that was the start of it, with no audience in mind. I had spent a semester researching post-Attica prisoner organizing and resistance in college. At the end of the semester, I looked back at what I had and realized that every instance, except for one, was about male prisoners. So the first paper was written to explore what women were doing and why their actions weren’t as well-documented, or remembered, as their male counterparts.

When I first had the idea to turn my paper into a book, I had a few audiences in mind: people who were already interested in prison and prisoner issues; those interested in women’s issues; people who aren’t particularly interested in prisons or prisoners’ issues, but are interested in tales of resistance, and incarcerated women themselves. In corresponding with over a dozen women incarcerated around the country, I also wanted to make sure that the book was accessible to them. None of the women I’d reached out to had any idea of organizing being done in other prisons or of the previous organizing, resistance, and riots that had happened in women’s prisons in the 1970s and 1980s. I kept in mind that I wanted my book—and the information in it—to be accessible to someone with an eighth-grade education. The book doesn’t work as a potential organizing tool if those most affected by these issues aren’t able to read and comprehend it.

What’s the response to Resistance Behind Bars been like—and how has it affected you personally and your work as an activist?

I think that because Resistance Behind Bars is a book specifically about incarcerated women—and even more specifically about their acts of resistance—it’s attracted attention and interest from people who normally think of prison issues as male issues and are excited and intrigued by incarcerated women’s resistance. Such an enthusiastic response means that I’ve been kept busy planning and doing events, not only the typical bookstore readings, but also workshops at various social justice conferences and at schools.

My daughter, who was a newborn when I first started researching incarcerated women’s resistance, is now eight years old and knows a lot about prisons, prison and gender, and abolition, probably more than most other eight-year-olds (except, perhaps, for any children whose parents are Critical Resistance organizers). She’s asked me very pointed questions about both realities inside prisons and ideas about abolition, which means that I had to clearly articulate my arguments, thoughts, and ideas.

What was the writing process like for this book?

When I first started researching, I did two things: I set aside all preconceived notions of what prisoner organizing might look like and started reading specifically about women in prison. I found a lot of material covered issues like motherhood and pregnancy. Issues of parenting—and, of course, pregnancy—do not come up in documentation about male prisoner organizing, and so people who are looking at instances of prisoner resistance aren’t going to necessarily look at how they organize around and challenge the realities of parents in prison. Battering and past abuse is another issue that comes up in a lot of the studies around incarcerated women, but again, that’s not an issue that we see impacting men going to prison and thus isn’t looked at as a “prison issue.”

I also scoured the news—and alternative media, mostly prison-related zines—for mentions of actions by incarcerated women. Once I found that someone had done something—filed a lawsuit, complained to the press, launched a hunger strike, etc.—I used the websites of either that state prison system or the Federal Bureau of Prisons to find the woman’s contact information and sent her a letter explaining who I was and what I was researching. I asked if she would be willing to share her stories and experiences with me.

Not wanting to take without giving back, I offered what I could: I offered to look up lawsuits for them and send them copies of court decisions; I offered to look up other resources for them; I offered to send them books via the Books Through Bars program that I helped start here in NYC; I sent stamps so that they could not only respond to me, but also write letters to other groups or people; in some cases, I offered to call their children if they were unable to get through themselves.

What were some of the most surprising realities about women in prison that you discovered in researching your book?

I remember receiving a letter from the Clear Creek County Jail in Colorado about the re-institution of the chain gang for the women held there. That wasn’t the huge surprise; the surprise was that the woman who wrote me was actually happy to be on the chain gang! She had recently given her newborn son up for adoption, and so I can’t help but wonder if keeping occupied, even if it’s on a chain gang, helps her process losing him. She’s not the only one: women at Clear Creek want to be on the chain gang. It’s tiring, backbreaking work in the hot sun, but it’s also the first chance they’ve been given to get out of their cells, be outdoors, and accrue “good time,” or time off their sentences. Keep in mind that the jail’s male inmates have had the chain gang for a while. They also have other chances to earn “good time.”

What are the most common misconceptions and assumptions circulating right now about women in prison that keep people from understanding what’s really going on inside prisons for women?

In May, I was invited to speak at a New York City high school about women and prison. Having done so many of these talks to people who are interested in prison issues and have some framework about the issue, I forget what the majority of people think or don’t know. I came in ready to talk about historical contexts and what is going on now and started with the question: “What do you think about when you think about prison? Who goes to prison and why?”

One girl raised her hand and said, “Criminals. People who do bad things.”

“Drug dealers.”

“Men.”

I realized that most of the students had no framework about incarceration other than what they had been fed by the mass media, so I had to mentally throw out my outline and start from scratch. I talked about poverty and racial profiling, the history of the prison as a means of social control, how Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon equated the civil rights movements and liberation movements with street crime and started their war(s) on crime to lock up poor people of color before they could mobilize to demand their rights. None of the students had ever heard of the Rockefeller Drug Laws or mandatory minimum sentencing. I hadn’t either when I was their age, and I grew up in New York City too!

I also talked about some of the conditions inside—the lack of health care treatment, the fact that staff members often encouraged prisoner-on-prisoner violence, because it’s easier for them if the prisoners aren’t uniting and fighting for basic human rights, lack of educational programs inside the prison. At the end of the hour, when we talked about what they, as high school students, could do about this issue, one boy raised his hand and suggested that we should lobby for medical treatment for people inside prison. “If I broke my leg in prison—or anywhere—I would want people to help me get it treated.”

Later one of the coordinators of that high school’s community day told me, “Students in your session were really struck by the experiences you shared with them, and there has been a lot of conversation in among students about issues concerning prison.” Some of the students were talking about forming a student club to do work around some of these issues, like the Rockefeller Drug Laws.

You write in the book that calls for reform have failed to adequately address the factors leading to women’s incarceration. How so?

Prisons fail to address the societal conditions that lead to incarceration, such as poverty and the increasing feminization of poverty, misogyny, violence, racism, and the issues that accompany women to prison. How does locking someone in a cage address any of these factors?

You have to remember that people have gone to prison face numerous obstacles in successfully reintegrating into the community when they are released from prison. Oftentimes, they are not only released with the same lack of resources and opportunities than they had before being arrested and incarcerated, but now have a criminal record which prevents them from getting certain jobs, qualifying for certain housing, or social safety nets. The 1996 welfare “reform” banned people with drug felonies for life. Similar legislation banned them from receiving governmental financial aid for college, etc.

We also need to keep in mind that prison issues affect all sorts of issues on the outside, shifting money and resources away from other public entities, such as education, housing, health care, drug treatment, and other societal supports that are needed.

Did motherhood change your own activism?

Before motherhood, I was super-involved in all sorts of political projects and organizing. New motherhood definitely made me sit still! Once my daughter was born, I realized that I had to pick a few issues and focus on them. I also couldn’t risk arrest or bringing my daughter to something where the police might attack the crowd.

I started researching resistance and organizing among incarcerated women shortly after my daughter was born. Being stuck inside during the winter with a newborn gave me a lot of time to read, respond to letters, contemplate ideas and issues—this, by the way, is something I did a lot while nursing—and work on draft after draft of this paper. I don’t know if I would have had this same opportunity if I had tried to do this as a childfree person rushing off from one political [event] to another at various hours of the day and night, or if my daughter had been older, more mobile, and needing more direct attention.

I want to stress that what’s made my continued involvement and even writing my book possible is the huge amount of support I get from my friends and the people with whom I organize. I realize that not all mothers get this type of support, although they should, and that I’m extremely fortunate to have such a wonderful support system.

What are you working on now?

My next book, Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind, will be an anthology co-edited with China Martens, a mother, writer, and publisher of the longest running subculture parenting zine, T_he Future Generation_. Originally, China and I wanted to share our experiences as radical mothers and advocate for community support of all families. We were meeting parents and their allies and hearing their stories and experiences. A few years ago, we realized that we wanted to extend the reach of our message of community support and decided to compile a handbook specifically geared towards allies, or potential allies, of radical parents.

With Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind, we’re addressing the need to support—and build support systems for—families in our own social justice movements. In so many of our so-called radical movements, we’re not providing support for people who decide to have children so that they can continue participating in political work. There’s an individualistic attitude that says, “Well, I didn’t choose to have kids. You did, so you deal with them.”

Even when there’s not an overt resistance to having children in our movements, we need to look at how ways that we organize and socialize exclude parents and caretakers. We lose valuable organizers—and organizing experience—when we don’t take these factors into consideration.

Unlike Resistance Behind Bars, this book will be an anthology of both caregivers and their allies of ways that their movements support children and their caretakers in your collectives, organizations, or communities. We are especially seeking experiences that take into account factors such as race, class, gender, single parenthood, and/or mental health issues, since these issues often aren’t talked about when we talk about building communities and support systems here on the outside. We’re still reaching out, meeting people and collecting submissions, so if anyone out there has stories and experiences to share, they should definitely get in touch!

Written by: Ellen Papazian, November 9th 2009