reproductive justice

Critical Intersections: Reproductive and Economic Justice Conference (9/22/2010)

mandy — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 16:00:00 +0000

New York, New York

On an unseasonably hot and humid day in September, I took the train from Brooklyn to 116th Street to attend the Critical Intersections: Reproductive and Economic Justice conference, which was held at Barnard College's new Diana Center. Having suffered a massive allergy attack due to the weird weather, I shuffled quickly across the Barnard campus and entered just as the conference's feature film and lunch break were finishing up. The film, Justice at the Intersections: Action for Reproductive and Economic Justice in NYC, captured many women activists discussing their projects, goals, and dreams; one phrase that stuck with me was "women as stakeholders and change-makers in the community."

Critical Intersections was cosponsored by Barnard Center for Research on Women and the New York Women's Foundation, its core focus on the inextricable link between reproductive justice and women's economic security. With a sampling of seventeen New York City organizations, the conference provided a wide array of interpretations of “reproductive and economic justice,” with that definition as a point of intersection for multiple struggles: economic, gender-based, racial, and community-specific.

It was tough to pick an afternoon panel to attend (three ran concurrently), as all of the subject matter and groups presenting were dynamic and vital. I chose “Community Leadership in Organizing” to hear about Sistas on the Rise, a South Bronx-based young mothers’ community and activist center, and a project I am partial to. The panel featured representatives from three groups, each centered on a fairly specific issue: Sistas on the Rise generally works for the empowerment of young, low-income mothers and women of color; Sylvia Rivera Law Project provides legal aid surrounding the notion of gender self-determination as a fundamental right; and DAMAYAN Migrant Workers Association fights for Filipino domestic workers’ rights.

While each group had their own specific goals, modes of action, and individual structures, strong threads recurred. Namely, the self-determination of a marginalized group proved to be important for every organization. Both Sistas on the Rise and Sylvia Rivera Law Project explained their collective models, highlighting that, for Sistas on the Rise, “all decisions…ultimately serve the interest of the young women involved.” For Sylvia Rivera Law Project, “people who are most effected determine their own policy” and all collective members serve on the board because “it keeps us accountable.” DAMAYAN is a nonprofit organization, rather than a collective, with both a Board of Directors and a General Assembly, but like the two other groups, DAMAYAN is completely self-determined. It was founded and mostly run by Filipina women who have experienced the abuses so common to the domestic work industry.

We sat in an intimate (and very fancy) classroom and discussed the ins and outs of organizing within communities for structural change, and what our struggles mean within a context of globalization, imperialism, and oppression. Inspired by the actions of these local women, I left feeling excited and more connected to a lively, diverse feminist community.

Soon, we were back in the auditorium for a closing panel on “Creating Systemic Change at the Intersection of Reproductive and Economic Justice.” A less intimate setting, it was still inspiring to see a room full of feminists and activists brimming with excitement at the sight of each other. Moderated by Laura Flanders, founder and host of GritTV, this panel featured remarks from Sylvia Henriquez, President and CEO of National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health; Lynn Paltrow, Executive Director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women; and Miriam Yueng, Executive Director of National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum.

Often when the focus switches from grassroots organizations to national ones, focus on the community can get lost—but not here. Sylvia Henriquez immediately mentioned the importance of autonomy and self-determination, noting that this “is far more than access to reproductive choice” for immigrant women, and that their role in communities and “family needs need to be met.” Lynn Paltrow reminded us that “the pro-choice movement must include mothers [because] most women who get abortions are mothers or will become mothers.” Miriam Yueng continued to emphasize the importance of the local and the national together: “Things look bleak now, but it is in rooms like this—on the local level—that things happen.”

One audience member shared her experience working for a feminist clinic in Tallahassee twenty years ago, where some of her cohorts worked on From Abortion to Reproductive Freedom. She exclaimed how happy it made her to attend a conference years later that is actually about comprehensive reproductive justice. By choosing to focus on the intersections, pairing groups on panels with similar processes of self-determination or collective modeling, emphasizing movement building from the ground up, and most importantly, placing women and trans folks at the center of organizing movements, Critical Intersections proved to be a strong showcase of the multiplicities and iterations of feminisms in 2010.

Written by: Kate Wadkins, October 8th 2010

In Our Control: The Complete Guide to Contraceptive Choices for Women

admin — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Laura Eldridge

Seven Stories Press

The pill is turning fifty this year, and article upon article is being written trumpeting how hormonal contraception has revolutionized women’s lives. While this is true, perhaps the bigger story is how for many women, the pill is the default contraceptive option – despite potential side effects or inconveniences.

Laura Eldridge wants to change that. Believing that women should take control of their contraceptive health by looking at the political, medical, and social implications of birth control, she set out to write a book that both challenged and informed women about something so few of us actually talk about. Her final product, In Our Control, brings a straightforward, nonjudgmental, and honest look at the pill, the patch, the ring, and, yes, even fertility awareness methods.

In Our Control isn’t content to simply discuss contraceptive options as if they exist in a vacuum. Instead, Eldridge traces the history of birth control development, painting a backdrop of the political context and gender inequalities that are inextricably intertwined with each birth control option.

Nuanced discussions of medical side effects and precautions are deftly arranged between critiques of the medical-industrial complex. Eldridge walks readers through the thought process within her critiques, which allows the reader to become a smart consumer of contraceptive options. For example, her discussion of the HPV vaccination and the pharmaceutical industry’s rush to push it to the public is critical, yet evenhanded and well researched. The chapter on menstrual suppression drugs casts a wary eye towards the way feminist themes of empowerment have been misappropriated in advertising for such products.

While the main focus of In Our Control is on a discussion of contraceptive options, I felt the book really shined in its final chapters on the HPV vaccination, birth control options for men, environmental concerns about contraception, and international issues in contraception. It was in these chapters that Eldridge combined her inquisitive and unorthodox style of writing with a critical look at contemporary issues in contraception. I found myself unable to put the book down through these chapters.

Eldridge’s fresh voice was apparent on every page of In Our Control, and evoked the pro-woman, community-oriented feel of a volume of Our Bodies, Ourselves. By placing exhaustive information about contraception into the hands of her readers, Eldridge is ensuring that women can approach their health professionals fully armed with all of their options, enabling them to have an honest conversation about which method is best for them.Gwen Emmons

Written by: Gwen Emmons, June 14th 2010

Jungle Laboratories: Mexican Peasants, National Projects, and the Making of the Pill

admin — Sat, 01 May 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Gabriela Soto Laveaga

Duke University Press

Professor Gabriela Soto Laveaga’s newest monograph, Jungle Laboratories, is a telling history that unravels the transnational political economy of barbasco yam production in Mexico from its discovery to its use in the early medicalization of synthetic hormonal steroids that created the birth control pill. According to Laveaga, the developing country context of the Pill’s history was so successfully erased from history that even the “peasant” culture in Oaxaca has allegedly forgotten its own crucial role in one of the past century’s most important scientific breakthroughs. Part of what Marxist theorists would call the “false consciousness” of history is revealed in this book.

Although production of synthetic hormones in Mexico predated World War I, controlling the barbasco trade in the the early to mid-1970s became a national project for the Mexican government. After reading Jungle Laboratories, I got the sense that “making the pill” was part of a larger initiative of “making a nation” consisting of “biocitizens” who were not just part of elite scientific knowledge production but were also expected to self-regulate their own population growth as part of President Luis Echeverría’s vision of a new Mexico.

While women were targeted for birth control campaigns, “male campesinos were encouraged to read agrarian law and technical manuals to become better and more productive citizens.” It is clear from these examples that women were positioned as part of the "population problem" to be acted upon by policies, whereas men were seen as the future policymakers and the population empowered by educational campaigns. Although the author could have written a feminist analysis of the nationalist projects, she did not; this is my own feminist reading taken from separate examples in the text that were separated by almost a hundred pages in Laveaga's book.

In general, Laveaga could have drawn out more of a critical analysis. The introduction gave an anthropologist like me high hopes for the inclusion of social theories ranging from Nikolas Rose’s biocitizenship to Michael Taussig’s theories on the layering of history and the magic of the state. However, with the exception of a couple of mentions, the theoretical underpinnings to this story were almost invisible. Given its gripping narrative, and implications for social theories pulled from elsewhere, Laveaga’s book is a good buy for an undergraduate curriculum such as reproductive health and medical anthropology. It is also an engaging read for women who are curious about the political economy of the pills they are popping on a daily basis.

Written by: Maya N. Vaughan-Smith, May 1st 2010

The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World

admin — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 11:41:00 +0000

By Michelle Goldberg

Penguin

In The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World, author and investigative journalist Michelle Goldberg uses her abilities to uncover the truth about the reproductive rights (and lack thereof) for women around the world. As we grow into a global community, the politics of sex, child bearing, and child rearing are monumental issues that are overlooked for the convenience of those in power. This book explores the reality of the situation, including many real life accounts of the struggles faced by women in countries that span four continents.

Chapter one begins with a heartbreaking tale of the first victim of an abortion ban in Nicaragua. The country deemed that abortion in any form was illegal. Jazmina Bojorge began suffering a miscarriage and due to fear of legal repercussions the doctors, against their better judgment, gave her medicine to stop the labor because helping her with the miscarriage—that is, terminating the pregnancy—would have been illegal. The delay in action caused her to die. If the doctors could have performed medical assistance in ways that are associated with abortions, it would have saved Jazmina’s life.

The book goes into great detail about the various issues that surround women’s rights and the laws and culture that repress them. Topics include contraception, pregnancy and childbirth, AIDS, female circumcision, abortion, sex-selective abortion, rape, and the role of women in society. The political stances of both the Left and the Right are dissected with suggestions of what should be done and how women can stand strong together to fight against the torment we collectively endure.

The Means of Reproduction is a hard hitting read. Goldberg opens the eyes of the reader to the unjust treatment of women due to reproduction. Feminist activists will be motivated to take stronger action after reading this book. Anyone else will be hit with the realization that they can no longer choose to be ignorant. The facts are stacked up, and it’s time to take action.

This review is cross-posted on Girl w/ Pen.

Written by: Sarah Eve Nichols-Fulghum, March 23rd 2009

Speaking Truth to Power

admin — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 06:02:00 +0000

Interview with Jennifer Baumgardner

“I’m no longer scared to hear people’s truths, and that has been incredibly liberating,” says feminist writer, filmmaker, and activist Jennifer Baumgardner. Truth-telling has been at the heart of Baumgardner’s work since she left Ms. magazine in the late-90s to become a prominent third wave feminist leader. Since then, she’s published books on young women and feminism (Manifesta, with Amy Richards), feminist activism Grassroots, also with Richards), and bisexuality (Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics)—and created an abortion campaign that literally asked women (in the form of her “I Had an Abortion” T-shirt) to insert the private into the public in the name of reproductive justice. The shirt created some controversy, brought women’s testimonies back into the national dialogue about abortion, and led Baumgardner to create another campaign: “I Was Raped.”

Baumgardner’s recent book, Abortion & Life, is the final part of her “I Had an Abortion” campaign, which also included a documentary film that she co-produced. The book features a history of abortion, portraits by photographer Tara Todras-Whitehill, and testimonies from Ani DiFranco, Barbara Ehrenreich, Gloria Steinem, and others about their own abortions.

Baumgardner recently spoke with Elevate Difference about the genesis of her “I Had an Abortion” campaign, what women tell her about abortion and rape, and how the act of “just listening” has transformed her.

Abortion & Life is part of a larger project you’ve done on abortion that includes the “I Had an Abortion” T-shirt and documentary film. What sparked the idea for this project and—looking back on it now, four years after it began—would you have done any of it differently?

The project had many inspirations. Some were conversations I kept having with second wave feminists on this listserv called History-In-Action, where the women would talk about how infuriating it was that their experiences of abortion—often trauma-free and liberating—were not part of the media presentation or common understanding of the issue. Some were conversations with my frequent writing partner, Amy Richards, who is brave and open about her experiences with abortion. The final inspiration was frustration with how activists (myself included) yell loudly about abortion rights, but rarely place ourselves in the issue. What experiences have pro-choice and pro-life leaders and senators and congresspeople personally had with abortion?

My irritation with the yelling and the lack of personal stakes in reporting on this issue led me to want to approach it only personally—get right to the women and their stories, their faces and their lives, and get away from their political opinions.

What would I have done differently? I don’t know, because the mistakes are helpful, too. The shirt caused a lot of problems, but I so appreciated hearing from the people it upset and the people who were grateful for a tangible way to acknowledge their common secret.

You embarked on the abortion project with basic queries—such as “How do women experience abortion?” What have you learned—how do you think women experience abortion, now that you’ve spoken to, interviewed, and filmed so many of them?

I learned that every woman (and man) experiences abortion differently and that they revise their feelings over the course of their lives as new things happen to them. At the moment of having an abortion, women often feel relief for having made a decision. There is often some sense of sadness around the fact that the relationship they are in that caused the pregnancy isn’t strong enough to bring a baby into it, the fact that they never thought they’d be in this position. (Many people who get abortions nonetheless do not see themselves as someone who would get an abortion.) There’s a fear that they have “sinned” if they are religious. I have met women who feel some sadness or nostalgia at forty for their abortion at sixteen, when they realize that it was their one pregnancy. I have met women who suffered with self-hatred when they got the abortion and found a way not just to make peace with themselves, but to help other women with their abortion feelings.

What has the reception to Abortion & Life been like in both the reproductive justice community and beyond? You mentioned on your book tour that some venues have pulled out of events due to protests or simply because the word “abortion” appears in the book’s title. Did this surprise you?

The response has generally been positive. I attempted to strike a personal, positive, even-handed tone, and I believe I did that reasonably well. It’s a short, to-the-point book, and I think that makes it accessible, but sacrifices some depth.

I wasn’t that surprised that venues pulled out of events. Like I said, I learn a lot from the push-back. One venue in Fargo got protested and received irate phone calls after hosting a book event with me, but the owner of the store took the protest as an opportunity to explain that he had no interest in undermining people’s deeply held beliefs, but that he wanted to make space for people to simply be able to talk about their experiences without fear of judgment.

How do you see activists and academics using Abortion & Life to push the abortion rights movement forward?

I think it is an example of talking about abortion—and we need more space for that. It’s so easy to scream about this issue, yet so hard to simply talk. The book and film are widely used in university and activist (e.g., clinics) settings. I think its appeal is the power of simply telling stories.

You’ve said that you used to be the “George, get your laws off my body—out of my bush!” type of feminist, but now you’ve opened up your ears and eyes to “just listening.” How has that shift transformed you—how has the listening made you evolve?

As a woman who has had two unplanned pregnancies, but no abortions, I have a lot to learn from women who have had abortions that laws and political treatises can’t teach me. I think that before this project I was at least somewhat scared to hear anything negative about the clinic experience or women’s and men’s feelings about the fetus. I’m no longer scared to hear people’s truths, and that has been incredibly liberating.

In terms of my evolution, I used to think you could not be pro-life and feminist and that speaking of the fetus in human terms was the height of emotional manipulation. I now believe that being a pro-life feminist has tremendous potential and can be done—must be done—in a way that doesn’t sacrifice women’s access to controlling their bodies and lives. I also believe that the fetus has value, and its value increases as it develops gestationally—thus, the costs of abortion, in every sense of the word, increase as fetal development increases. A lot of people I respect are possibly rolling their eyes at both statements, but it is where I am. I am confident I will continue to evolve my positions and I’m eager to have more clarity.

Why do you think the abortion rights movement has been stuck in the binary dogmatism of “pro-life” versus “pro-choice”?

I don’t know. I guess because humans are more comfortable with simplicity than complexity? My beef is that there is such policing of language–“Say ‘pro-choice’ and ‘anti-choice’! Say ‘so-called partial birth abortion!’ Say ‘fetus, not baby’!” It’s fruitless.

You write that the national conversation about abortion has shifted its focus—from “Keep your laws off my body!” to “Let’s talk about feelings and whether fetal life has value”—and that that shift has been tough for the pro-choice movement to acknowledge. Will you explain more about this shift and why it’s been so hard for the movement?

To simplify, I think it is a hard rhetorical shift because, legally, the pro-abortion rights argument is based, in part, on the fetus not being nearly as important as a person/woman, so to begin ascribing value at all seems to be undermining the legal principle. Roe, too, is based on enshrining a woman control over her own body up through the first two trimesters, although you can restrict after one. Women are still getting comfortable with having that right.

Also, it was different emotionally when the choice was “abortion: legal vs. illegal.” Women who knew a time when abortion was illegal understandably felt pretty clear-cut and unambivalent about abortion decisions. Women today have been raised with much more access to sex education, birth control, and a belief that they are agents of their own destinies. I think that makes it easier to blame oneself for getting pregnant and needing an abortion.

Who do you think is getting it right in the reproductive justice movement?

Sistersong, the collective of women of color who came up with the Reproductive Justice framework; Marlene Gerber Fried, cofounder of the National Network of Abortion Funds and director of the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program at Hampshire College; Aspen Baker and the rest of Exhale; Peg Johnston and the rest of the Abortion Conversation Project. Countless others!

You recently created a new project—the “I Was Raped” T-shirt and documentary film—whose framework resembles the “I Had an Abortion” campaign, but is different in that it asks survivors to disclose an experience they did not control. What do you hear from people wearing the shirts, and how do you think this project has shifted discourse about rape?

I’m not sure there has been much impact yet as I have only launched the shirts and am midway though making the film. Still, I have heard from TONS of people. Any speech I make where I mention I am working on this project, at least three people come up after the talk with personal stories of sexual assault.

The people who have worn the shirts have said that they feel unbelievably vulnerable and judged. There was an article [about the shirt] in the Times and Christen Clifford, the woman who wore the shirt, said that even though she has made art about her rape experience, wearing the shirt was scary—even though nothing happened to her. The reporter, on the other hand, was totally freaked out because Christen wore it to go pick up her son at pre-K, and the reporter thought: “People are going to think she is so crazy—both because we think rape victims are damaged and because she would wear a shirt like this.” I think it challenges the wearer, for sure, but it really challenges the viewer.

I know that the shirt, like the abortion shirt—which also made people feel vulnerable and judged, not least by themselves!—is shocking. I think owning and getting to the point of wearing it is a journey wherein, ideally, one confronts all the stigma and shame and blame that oneself feels.

You’ve documented countless stories in both the abortion and rape projects—is there one particular story that’s impacted you the most?

Hmmmm. I cry the hardest when I hear from the women who had terrifying illegal abortions in some garage by a guy who then molested them, or the 20-year-old Vassar junior who held the hand of the thirteen-year-old Albany girl sent down to D.C. alone by her parents for an abortion in 1965 and wondered if they were just lambs to the slaughter. The risk and humiliation that many women went through pre-Roe astonished me. Again, I always knew the general contours, but when you hear someone tell their story, it’s different.

Having said that, I learned more from the women who had legal abortions. Illegal abortion is so clearly fucked up, but legal abortion is really complicated with room for improvement, too.

Right now, in the rape project, I’m very struck by a young woman, Annie, who tells of her dad incesting her. She kind of laughs throughout its telling, and her embarrassment and nervousness and how raw her story is convey to me how lifelong of a process dealing with sexual abuse is or can be. She’s very together, yet also just barely dealing with what happened to her (or so it seems to me). Her bravery in confronting a big taboo is striking to me, too.

You’ve been a feminist organizer for fifteen years and have spoken to countless women and men across the country. What do you continue to find remarkable about the feminist landscape in our country?

I am amazed by how many people are out there living feminist lives, but not calling it feminism, either because they haven’t had an entry point to the movement or philosophy or because they see it as redundant. (If you’re liberated, you don’t need to say you’re liberated to make it true.) I see sexism and misogyny all over the place, of course—in fact, I’m still reeling from how people responded to Hillary Clinton last year, and [Sarah] Palin!—but I love how much feminism and resistance I see. I feel really hopeful. I hope I’m not deluded.

Written by: Ellen Papazian, January 10th 2009