Ellen Papazian

Resistance Through Writing: An Interview with Victoria Law

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

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

Personal Politics

admin — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:09:00 +0000

Interview with Rebecca Walker

The Feminism 101 dictum “the personal is political” has been writ large across third wave feminist founder Rebecca Walker’s work since she published her first book, the 1995 anthology To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism—her generation’s response to second wave feminism.

Since then, she has written memoirs and edited anthologies that explore her own biracial identity (Black, White, and Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self), raising a son (What Makes a Man: 22 Writers Imagine the Future), and first-time motherhood (Baby Love: Choosing Motherhood After a Lifetime of Ambivalence).

Her latest book—the anthology One Big Happy Family: 18 Writers Talk About Polyamory, Open Adoption, Mixed Marriage, Househusbandry,Single Motherhood, and Other Realities of Truly Modern Love—is a re-envisioning of the American nuclear family, partly inspired by Walker’s memories of her own “fragmented” family (her parents are feminist icon Alice Walker and civil rights lawyer Mel Leventhal). The collection features essays by Dan Savage, Dawn Friedman, Min Jin Lee, and asha bandele, among others.

Walker’s recent work has ignited some debate, including discussions about whether there’s a difference between loving an adopted child and a biological one (Walker says there is) and whether a mother-daughter estrangement as dramatic as the one that played out between Walker and her mother signals a greater generational “rift” between the second and third wave feminist movements.

Feminist Review recently interviewed Walker about her new book on families off the “hetero-normative grid," the power of disclosure in her work, and why she never anticipates controversy.

You’ve written two memoirs and edited three anthologies, including your latest, One Big Happy Family. How are these processes different for you?

A collection is more like a prism than a magnifying glass. Anthologies are more democratic—everyone has their say. The form is radical in that it implicitly acknowledges many voices; the truth of multiplicity is built into its DNA.

In terms of process, I work with other writers the way I try to work with myself—to get to the heart of the story and support its birth. I try not to get too focused on craft. If I meet someone who can’t write a paragraph, but has a true, moving story, I’m there. I encourage that inside voice and coax it out. I do that for myself, and yes, I would say it is a joy, an honor even, to do that for others.

Who is the audience for One Big Happy Family?

One Big Happy Family is for you, your neighbors, the Supreme Court, and your uncle Robert. It’s for anyone doing family differently than the way it’s done on TV or at their grandmother’s house. It’s for people who are making up their version of family as they go along, following love and their own longing for connection. One Big Happy Family is for those who refuse to let love be defined by anything other than the truth of its existence. It’s a kind of Dr. Spock for the millions of people living life off the nuclear, hetero-normative grid.

You open the anthology with a piece by Jenny Block about her polyamorous marriage. Why that particular piece as the opener?

Polyamory has a PR problem—people think those who love more than one person at a time are part of a seamy scene, nymphomaniacs, or delusional, at best. Jenny Block, who wrote the essay, is so not any of those things. It’s one of my favorite pieces in the book because she is so honest and accessible, brave and tender. The essay does a great job smashing the stereotype, and I like that. Putting it front and center pushed the envelope.

You wrote in Newsweek about how President Obama has changed our concept of manhood. Do you feel he and Michelle Obama will shift national discourse on family values?

Modeling partnership between mutually adoring and respectful equals certainly feels like a step in the right direction. I’m encouraged by their apparent openness to families of all kinds, and by their insistence on putting the health and well-being of their children first. It seems so simple, and yet, so many do not do the work.

You’ve written memoirs that have raised the curtain on your childhood and, with Baby Love, your estrangement from your mother. Many writers choose to keep their private lives to themselves, while others make the so-called private, public. Why have you chosen disclosure for your work, and how do you feel it has served you as a writer and activist?

As a child of feminism, I think the real question would be why wouldn’t I choose disclosure? Feminism 101 teaches that the personal is always political—this does not stop being true because the personal may negatively impact the matriarchy.

My work has given voice and agency to many. Like the feminist writers whose work I’ve devoured for decades, I prefer to live my own life, and tell my own story, than have it presumed, projected, or in any other way defined by those who would benefit from my silence. I think my readers resonate with that and are encouraged and emboldened to do the same in their own lives. In this area, you could say I’m classically second wave.

You’re a feminist leader who produces work that sends ripples through some feminist communities. To Be Real shifted the focus of second wave feminists to include young women’s realities. Your statements about the difference between loving a biological child and an adopted child caused a bit of controversy, as did your writing about your estrangement from your mother. In a sense, your personal choices, beliefs, and experiences have become political for many. What do you think of your ability to provoke such a response—and is this a burden, a blessing, or neither?

It’s fascinating, surprising, frustrating, and revelatory. What’s odd is that I never anticipate controversy. I suppose that is to say that my point of view is not calculated in any way. I am nothing if not brutally honest, emotionally raw, and deeply hopeful. I tend to anticipate the best in people, to expect them to—no matter how challenging to their ego or ideas about who they are—rise to the occasion of simple listening and acknowledgment of different viewpoints. This expectation is a blessing, certainly. It sets a bar to which I, myself, aspire.

A burden? Not for me.

Written by: Ellen Papazian, July 8th 2009

Subversive Art Star

admin — Sat, 30 May 2009 10:52:00 +0000

Interview with Jerilea Zempel

Artist Jerilea Zempel turns brutal machines of war into “warm and fuzzy” sculptures through her subversive crochet projects. She achieved brief Internet stardom via The Colbert Report when Stephen Colbert called her “a dangerous returning American”—aka an artist who crochets covers for SUVs and tanks—after she was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers, who discovered her artist notebook replete with line drawings of SUVs and crocheting plans.

Elevate Difference recently talked with Zempel about just what happened at the U.S./Canadian border, her daylong Colbert Report shoot, sexism in the art world (yes, it still exists), and what’s so subversive about needlework.

Your work is part of a movement of radical, subversive knitters, crocheters, and feminist artists who use traditionally feminine applied arts to create political work. What do you find subversive about needlework?

I started crocheting because I had an idea for an art piece that needed it. I’m not committed long-term to the material or the process; it was just something I wanted to do for one specific project, then another. So I’m not sure I’m part of any movement. Maybe I’d consider myself a part-time member though.

Looking through a long-distance lens, the profession of being an artist has always been a 'guy thing'. All kinds of obstacles were invented to keep women out of the practice of high art. Needlework was a women’s domain and a lesser, minor craft. Now that artists are free enough to incorporate social critiques into the content of their work, it’s a huge temptation to toy with those broad, cultural paradigms. That’s why I think it’s subversive for both male and females artists to incorporate needlework into their work. That’s why I did it.

What was the first object you crocheted for an art piece, and what led you to start incorporating crochet into your art?

A rifle. Guns are really scary, and I’m always terrified in the presence of anyone carrying one. It’s hard to think of them as protection. They’re machines that mean to injure or kill. I sometimes imagine them as unpredictable beings with minds of their own. The idea of making a warm gun, disarmed inside a fuzzy, handmade cover was irresistible. I wanted to mollify the rifle like a fussy, crying baby.

My grandmother died before I was born and she crocheted elaborate lace tablecloths. They were souvenirs of her presence and absence. I still have some and I taught myself to crochet. It’s embarrassing to admit, but I even earned a Girl Scout badge in needlework.

When I got to art school and was taught all the dos and don’ts that came along with formalism, naturally I wanted to break the all those rules. To use crochet in my work was mining my personal history and rebelling against my education at the same time.

Your sketches for your project “Homeland Security (Blanket)” led U.S. Customs and Border Protection to detain you at the U.S. border for more than an hour as you returned home from an art show in Canada. You said the detention led to a “lively discussion” about your status as an artist and art professor. What happened in the discussion, and what did you take away from the entire ordeal?

The woman who stopped and searched my car was very nice, very cordial. But, she had a lousy job that she had to do. She didn’t know what to make of the things she found: yarn, crochet hooks, downloaded diagrams of SUVs, sketches of car patterns, copies of Bitch magazine, and a couple Guerrilla Girl books. To her, I wasn’t just offbeat or odd; I was suspicious.

I decided not to be aggressive or defensive or angry, so I brought up all the most conventional things about myself: I make a living. I’m a teacher. I own a house and a car. I have to be in shows to keep my job. I appealed to her as a working woman, a latent feminist. I offered to leave my reading materials for her. Maybe that’s what softened her. She wanted proof I was really a professor. [I showed my] university ID, and that was the turning point. I was released. Mid-August 2009 was just before the Republican National Convention when another professor, Bill Ayers, hadn’t yet become a household word for terrorist.

I live in upstate New York, and I’ve passed through a friendly U.S./Canadian border lots of times. But this time was different. It became hostile, a sliver of space where my constitutional rights were suspended in the service of fear. How had the U.S., extolled for its individual freedom, devolved to this? I had just spent two weeks in Canada—a gentler culture where the least fortunate are un-begrudgingly cared for by the more fortunate, where health care and education are almost free, where artists are treated like professionals, not weirdo-slackers—and this was what I was coming home to?

Since then I’ve been cautious and a little paranoid about crossing the border. In fact, I half-smuggled that SUV cover back into the US from Canada hidden in an IKEA box, in a borrowed car and through a secondary crossing that all the locals use.

Media attention about your detention at the U.S. border brought a new audience to your artwork and landed you in a satirical segment as a radical knitter on the Colbert show. How comfortable were you making your art work a satirical target at the hands of Colbert Report producers? And what was it like spending nearly a day filming the segment?

I love The Colbert Report, and it was a dream come true to get their phone call. Sure, I was uncertain about how they might present me on a show based on satire. As an artist, it was frustrating that the final product was out of my control. I talked for a long time with the producer, sent him lots of information, and I came to realize the Report isn’t in the business of pissing off artists. They’re creative types themselves. In retrospect, Stephen has always showed a curiosity and respect for visual art. When I finally met him, that was clear. Months after the segment he remembered details of my work. He was sincerely interested in what I did.

I was interviewed on camera, nonstop, for an hour and a half. I was asked all kinds of pointed and leading questions. The film crew followed me for an entire day. Anything I said or did would be fair game for the show. You’re bound to let down your guard for a second.

I sat and chewed my nails alongside a million other viewers the night the segment aired. I chose to be with close friends in case it turned out to be a complete hatchet job. But it was a great take on my work—“Subverting the raw masculine power of objects like these [film clips of deafening chainsaws and exploding tanks].” To have so many people see installations of work that don’t exist any more...it was like a retrospective show at some new international art gallery. The experience demonstrated the democratic power of the Internet as a vehicle to show and discuss art, avoiding the limitations of the art establishment.

Your own art education in the Formalist era discouraged political art, yet you knew early on that you couldn’t separate art from politics. How did you first become politicized as an artist?

I went to Columbia University, and Bob Blackburn, an African American printmaker, was one of my teachers. He told fascinating stories about living through the Harlem Renaissance and how important artists, writers, and musicians were to the identity of the community. It filled me with idealism that artists could affect the consciousness of a culture.

Meanwhile other faculty were jockeying to have shows in the blue-chip New York galleries and sucking up to rich collectors. One of the most cynical lectured me to give up even thinking art could change the world, that it was impossible. When I got out in the art world and realized that women artists didn’t get the same opportunities as men, I got politicized all over again.

You’ve worked with many different materials in your artwork—crochet, condoms, paint, horseshit, tree branches, and, with the Subversive Cookie Society, cookie dough. How do you make decisions about which materials will communicate your ideas?

I chose horse manure when I was asked to make an artwork in a field, and I didn’t think the field deserved the assault some of the other artists proposed: banging metal against trees, pouring huge concrete footings, using toxic materials like fiberglass. I wanted to nurture the site, not destroy it. And horseshit has its own special semantic meaning. I used pruned tree branches because they were castoffs and that was a form of recycling. Crochet and cookie dough were familiar to my upbringing, materials every obedient girl should know about. The condoms, well, they were just naughty and gross as art material.

In 1998, you crocheted a Russian Tank for your project “Guns and Rosettes.” Why did you want to, as you wrote, "transform a brutal machine of war into a warm and fuzzy sculpture?" And what was it like taking on such a project in Poland?

After the fall of the Soviet Union there was a lot of talk about a Peace Dividend, of what could be done with all the money saved by not having to fund a big army. So much for that idea. I started to think about using spent military vehicles as art material. They had a ready-made scale and permanence that solved a lot of problems for a public artist. And they came loaded with cultural content.

I bought a Vietnam era jeep from a military surplus depot in Pennsylvania and shipped it to Atlanta for a show. I covered it with dead pine needles and filled it with living plants. Afterwards I sold it to an architect who changed the battery and drove it away, pine needles and all.

Then I started dreaming of using a tank. It was the biggest, most aggressive land-hugging vehicle I could think of and I wanted to cover one with a material that was a gross contradiction. Crochet immediately came to mind. But there was no way the U.S. army would let me near one. I heard about a lot of tanks in a military museum in Poznan. I got a grant from George Soros’ ArtsLink Foundation, and I had to figure out how to do it. Some terrific Polish art students, who all crocheted better than I did, volunteered. Together, over two years, we made it happen.

Poland was just waking up to Western-style business, politics, and media. In the rush to catch up, there was no one who cared enough to say no to the crazy project. The nascent Western-style Polish media had a field day filming the Tank Girls every day on site. My helpers became TV celebrities for making art. The tank project took on a lot of meanings I couldn’t have imagined. Polish war vets came out to relate their version of the Battle of Poznan in World War II, which they were discouraged from telling for years. Everyday people came around the tank, discussing, arguing, admiring, and criticizing. The art press in Europe and the U.S. largely ignored it.

As an artist, you’ve said that you “find it tantalizing to put two things together that don’t quite fit: cars and crochet.” What is it about the tension in disparate things that you’re so drawn to?

Art in galleries and museums is so polite and well-mannered. The context alone gives gravity and importance that the art work might not really deserve. I like putting irrational elements together to evoke surprise, disbelief, astonishment. It couldn’t be anything but art. And if you put art somewhere it’s not expected, like in a public place, it’s an opportunity to mine a whole new lode of viewer responses. The world-at-large interests me more than the art world.

Your piece “The Lady Vanishes” is part of your series of replicas of masterworks that you create out of horse manure. You dedicated your “horseshit” Henry Moore reclining nude to “all the unknown and faceless young models who obsessed the minds of the modernist geniuses and whose body parts live on forever in art history.” What was your earliest understanding of sexism in the art world, and how do you see it continue to play out today?

I was taught to worship a handful of modernist artists for their formal and technical innovations. They all happened to be male and almost all used naked female bodies as subject matter and that was never really analyzed. It just lurked in the background, like soft-porn. Not much room for me in there. Then I realized the vast, untold history of women artists who had been there all along, figuring out ways to get around all the limitations set up to keep them out of the art world and art history. Their stories were courageous, heart-wrenching, sometimes hilarious, like Rosa Bonheur’s “permission de travessement” that she got from the police to allow her to paint in public dressed as a man to avoid being hassled. It was a bright light going on in a very dark room.

I’m no expert, but there appears to be a crushing glass ceiling for women artists today. While everybody wants them, needs them, at the bottom, emerging, and mid-level—so as not to seem too macho—women drop off, except for a token few, going up the ladder of art world success, especially in the art market.

Women artists have been the majority of art school grads for decades, but they don’t get the same professional resources. That’s bound to have an effect on their practice and production. Next time there are contemporary art auctions, count the sales of living women artists and the prices. Five to ten cents on the dollar of white male prices. And there aren’t enough collectors and artists who care about this inequity, even though they consider themselves liberal.

You’re an art professor as well as an artist. What advice would you give to a young feminist artist just starting out today?

Love your work, make your own art world, and never take no for an answer.

Written by: Ellen Papazian, May 30th 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

Live Through This

admin — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 11:19:00 +0000

Interview with Sabrina Chapadjiev

In the late nineties, playwright, singer-songwriter, and spoken word artist Sabrina Chapadjiev was an impassioned student playwright in college when she experienced an intensely creative period that put her on the brink of self-destruction. She had recently learned that a young, fierce playwright she had long admired, Sarah Kane, had committed suicide, and she was worried. Chapadjiev wondered: “Would the same pull that led me towards Sarah Kane lead me down a similar path?”

It ultimately did not – but it did lead her to investigate women artists’ relationship to self-destruction. The result is Live Through This: On Creativity and Self-Destruction, a standout collection edited by Chapadjiev that features the work of such writers and artists as Nan Goldin, Patricia Smith, bell hooks, Eileen Myles, Diane Dimassa, and Cristy C. Road.

Elevate Difference recently interviewed Chapadjiev about what surprised her most about compiling this anthology, what happens at her current “Rage to Page” workshops, and how editing work on the most dire periods in these artists’ lives led her to see what is most redemptive about self-destruction.

**In the introduction to Live Through This, you write about your earliest understanding of brilliant and self-destructive women artists. At what point did you decide to explore women artists’ relationship to self-destruction in a full-fledged collection? **

I started exploring my own relationship to self-destruction during my sophomore year in college while writing a play entitled Whatever Happened to Savannah? It was a pretty out-there play, with dueling pianos and dance pieces standing in for actual characters. I had each of these crazy little scenes linked by a psychiatrist, who explained how these scenes formed the mental landscape of a patient named Savannah. I was asked to put it on again when I returned my senior year (I didn’t stay in college for my junior year), but wanted to flesh out the piece into a more accessible play, with a severe plotline and characters. I realized I could write Savannah’s part easily, but I couldn’t get a handle on writing from the psychiatrist’s perspective. So, I started researching by going to the bookstore and reading all these psychiatry books.

Since I came from a world that intuitively understood self-destruction so well, reading about the analytical experience of it floored me. There was a total disconnect; their description of self-destruction didn’t match mine at all, but I could see how, in their diagnosis, it was right. So, you have these doctors diagnosing self-destructive experiences as bad, but then I had my own personal experience, in which [these experiences] honestly felt like the first time I had been in control of my life ever. Since then, I’ve been interested in bridging that gap.

Who is your intended audience for the book?

There are two answers to that: one public and one personal. The public answer is that I wanted this book to reach out to anyone currently struggling with these issues who feels that they don’t have any control or perspective on why this is happening. There are so many books out there that talk about cutting, depression, suicide, and such, but most of them are either damning the tendencies without seeing the power inherent in them, or they make it seem like being a cutter will become your entire identity. None of them talk about the fact that these self-destructive acts are being performed by powerful hands that, if [they] held a different tool, could perhaps shape a different identity.

The personal answer is that I put this book out for myself when I was in college ten years ago.

Many of the contributors have a radical feminist sensibility. How did you seek out and select the writers and artists for Live Through This?

I went to my personal superheroes – the artists and thinkers that I think are the most cutting-edge, brilliant women working today – and asked them if they had a story. It’s definitely a hard question to ask: “Hey, I really admire you. You wouldn’t happen to be self-destructive and want to write about it, would you?” I approached possibly sixty women that I admire and then sent calls out through avenues that I wasn’t getting responses from. Three of the essays came from those calls for submissions, which I sent out to playwright forums, dance forums, and just generally spread around any way I could. However, a majority of the women are ones that I simply asked to be in the book. Of course, some of them said “no” many times. In fact, half of the artists in the book originally said “no” to me, but I was beyond persistent, and they finally came around.

When you compiled the collection, did you receive any contributions from women whose work you’ve long known that completely surprised you?

Yes. The one that I was most surprised about was the submission by Patricia Smith (“A Little Hell Breaks Loose”). I am a huge Patricia Smith fan and only knew her from the spoken word scene. She is undoubtedly the best spoken word poet I’ve ever seen. She’s like a bomb that knows how to explode, word by word.

I had no idea if she had a story that she would want to share for the book. I wrote and asked her, and her response was, “I don’t know if I want to go down that road again,” making it seem like she’d already written about it. I didn’t know what she was talking about, though. I had to ask her about three or four times to write, and each time she was a bit hesitant about writing her piece, but I still had no idea what she was going to write on.

When I received her submission, I was floored. I had no idea that she had been a journalist at one time, and had no idea she had survived a very public controversy. I also could never imagine that someone as strong and brilliant as Patricia Smith would ever think of killing herself. Same for bell hooks. I am honored that these women are giving enough of their personal trials that we can learn from them, especially since they themselves seem so absolutely solid and effortlessly revolutionary now.

How has publishing this collection changed your own understanding of self-destruction?

It’s funny, when I was trying to get submissions, I wasn’t sure if I would get any. I knew what I wanted. I wanted women I thought were so strong to tell me of a time when they weren’t, so that there’d be hope for people currently dealing with these issues. I wanted to hear stories of triumph, survival, and personal enlightenment. But as I worked with the authors, I was very careful to not have the exact same story every time. I made sure that they spoke of their journeys, but also tried to focus it, so that they would speak on different themes: isolation, medication, desire, and creation. In fact, every piece has a different undertone, which started to get me thinking of the different elements that encourage both self-destructive and creative habits.

For me, though, the most incredible revelation was understanding that the difficult periods these women went through often formed the base root of their strengths today. Seeing how these periods, or these continuing trials, have shaped them in a positive way made me understand how important it is for a woman to survive her own struggle – not only for herself, personally, but because, ultimately, her struggle is tied in with an element of society that has put her there.

Certain critiques of the collection center on its exclusion of male voices, with one reviewer saying that the book perpetuates the idea that “all women’s art is therapy.” How do you respond to this type of critique, and did you ever consider including male voices?

I did consider including male voices for, like, a second. Then I was like, “That would be a completely different book!” Although men certainly have their own ways of self-destructing, women most often internalize their feelings and take it out on their bodies – instead of taking it out on the world. I felt like I wasn’t equipped to handle editing a book about men’s relationships to self-destruction, though I think that’d make a terrific book and that someone should take that concept and run to a publisher with it.

As for the reviewer saying that the book perpetuates the idea that “all women’s art is therapy,” well that reviewer did something that is common with people who review this book: instead of actually writing a book review, she used it as a stepping stone to further her own ideas about women, art, and genius. This has happened a few times with reviewers, mostly because the people interested in reviewing Live Through This often have some personal vested interest in it. Sometimes they forget to review the book at all, and simply use it as a platform to express their own frustrations and theories on this subject. Keeping that in mind, I can’t respond to her comment, as I don’t feel she was actually responding to the book at all, or what I was trying to do with it.

All I can say is that I’m glad that Live Through This may be used in the discussion on women and self-destruction, but I don’t see the book as the tome on “Women’s Mental Health” or even, as this reviewer wanted it to be, a “Theoretical Manifesto on Women’s Artistic Genius.” It is simply a collection of personal stories of triumph and pain, collected in hopes that anyone dealing with self-destruction feels less alone and is able to see the value in their own story. If mental health and art theorists want to use it as a stepping stone for furthering their own personal opinions – fine – as long as it encourages a dialogue and not a diatribe.

You’ve been running “Rage to Page” workshops, where participants explore “themes that surround female self-destruction: shame, power, and control, as well as ways to channel self-destructive behaviors into creative ones.” What’s been most striking to you about connecting with people through these workshops?

I have run these workshops as well as lectured to people of all ages, and I think the most amazing thing I have realized is how the concepts touch people of all ages differently. When doing workshops at a college, where the participants are sometimes seventeen years old, the sense of shame is ridiculous. It’s also strange, because the vehement pride about their self-destructive acts is obvious.

Conversely, one time, a group of four sixty-plus women attended a lecture of mine, and the quiet sweetness they displayed to one another astounded me. There were tears in some of their eyes, with their partners reassuring them, and I realized how they had struggled in absolute silence with this for years when they had only been shamed. They were also able to relate the differences in the mental health community, and how it has changed radically over the years. So, yes, the most striking fact about doing these workshops and lectures is noticing how people of different ages relate to it.

Have you heard from many readers, and are there any reader responses to the collection that have struck you quite deeply?

I have had people write me to say that just the concept of this book has saved their lives. That’s amazing. There have actually been several lovely messages like that, where women write to thank me or to simply say that the book made them feel less alone. One reader took a picture of herself hugging the book and posted it on Flickr. But I will also say that the negative response has been equally amazing, because it has absolutely begun a dialogue about how self-destruction, women, and creation are seen. One reviewer said that “shit happens,” and she didn’t want to hear about these women surviving – that they should get over it. A radio host became very offensive with me when I wouldn’t detail precisely my own experience. She wanted me to show her my deepest scars to compare them with her own. It was strange.

People who want to read this book don’t look at it casually; they look at it guardedly, with their own personal experiences triggered under their sleeves. It often elicits an either love/hate response. And I am totally psyched about that, because, either way, it has begun a dialogue.

What do you want a reader to ultimately take away from Live Through This?

That our “weaknesses” are only signals of the potential of our strength.

Photo Credit: Dave Sanders

Written by: Ellen Papazian, August 21st 2008

Feminist Media Reconsidered

admin — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 05:12:00 +0000

Interview with Jessica Hoffmann, Daria Yudacufski

Some of the most incisive feminist analysis today is being published in the groundbreaking make/shift magazine. Started by three activists – Jessica Hoffmann, Daria Yudacufski, and Stephanie Abraham, who first worked together as founders and editors of the feminist zine LOUDmouth – make/shift is run by an editorial/publishing collective committed to antiracist, transnational, and queer perspectives. Together, the collective publishes “journalism, critical analysis, and visual and text art that documents contemporary feminist culture and action.”

Elevate Difference recently caught up with Jessica Hoffmann and Daria Yudacufski to learn about the meaning behind the magazine’s name, social justice-oriented feminism, and Hoffman’s recent call to action, “An Open Letter to White Feminists,” that lit up the blogosphere.

What is the significance of the magazine's title, make/shift?

Daria Yudacufski & Jessica Hoffmann: It’s about making – making media, making change, making communities, making movements, making art, and making shifts – shifting power, shifting paradigms, shifting society. And it’s about doing it with what you’ve got, in a non-institutional, resourceful, do-it-yourself makeshift way.

**What are the origins of make/shift? When did the idea first arise and how did you manifest it into the magazine we see today? **

Daria: Stephanie Abraham and I founded a feminist zine called LOUDmouth through the Women’s Resource Center at California State University, Los Angeles, where I used to work. Jessica, although not affiliated with the university, contributed to the zine and was an editor as well. As the three of us worked together, we realized that it would be great to do an independent version of the magazine on a larger, national scale. So, based on our experience with LOUDmouth and Jessica’s experience writing and editing for other magazines and books, we realized that we had the energy and ability to make it happen. After about a year of meetings and conversations and brainstorming with each other and with friends, we were able to turn our idea into a reality.

Many discussions about feminism include reflection on one very basic question: “What is feminism?” How does make/shift define feminism?

Jessica: First, we really don’t see feminism as a singular thing with one definition. There have always been multiple feminisms, and _make/shift _is most interested in and excited about the feminisms that look at how systems of power work, how people and communities collectively resist, and creative alternatives to oppression.

What was your earliest understanding of feminism, and what sparked your own consciousness as feminist activists?

Jessica: My earliest understanding of feminism was that it was sexism against men. I thought it was a negative and hateful thing, which is obviously something I learned from anti-feminist mainstream culture. From a very young age, I had been interested in social justice and peace work, and it took a while for me to see that feminism was not hateful, but was actually a lens through which I could see that all of these issues I cared about – from war to the environment to poverty – were affected by the same oppressive types of power. Feminism was amazing in showing me how to look at those things in structural ways, as well as in personal ways.

Daria: My earliest understanding was really through a women’s rights perspective, and the very basic idea that women and men should be equal. Growing up in Monterey, California in, like, 1981, I was about ten years old and out for a walk with a friend. We came across a rally for the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). I was really inspired by all of these people coming together for something which seemed so obvious and necessary. It was at that point that I put an “ERA Yes!” bumper sticker on my elementary school notebook. However, my thoughts around feminism have evolved immensely since then, and for me, feminism is much more about larger social justice issues than women’s issues specifically.

The range of pieces in make/shift is quite striking. The content moves from personal essays to critical analysis to visual and textual art, and even a crossword puzzle! What led you to assemble the magazine in such a way, and was it a response to content you saw lacking in other feminist publications?

Jessica & Daria: This was very intentional. Part of believing that feminisms are plural is understanding that feminisms happen in many different voices and forms. In our mission of documenting contemporary feminisms, it is essential to represent as wide a range of voices and forms as possible. We know that this flies in the face of conventional magazine-making wisdom, which suggests that you should have a strong, single cohesive voice throughout the magazine, but we believe it is going to take many approaches and many voices to make change, and we want make/shift to reflect that.

Jessica: And there are very few venues that publish literary fiction that is formally inventive and politicized. I definitely wanted to make space for that in make/shift.

Why a print magazine at this particular time? As you know, there is discussion about the “relevancy” of print versus online media, and these are risky times for D.I.Y. projects, as many magazines have shut down due to financial issues. What is your opinion about the place of print media – especially social justice publications like make/shift – in our culture today?

Daria: Well, I think we both love print and the tangible quality of magazines. It feels so much more personal and intimate and just has such a great impact on me as a reader.

Jessica: We definitely thought about the questions of print vs. online in terms of environmental impact and financial costs and decided to go ahead with a small-scale print publication for a few reasons. As Daria said, we love magazines. I read a lot online, but there are some things that I really want to read in print, like fiction, long-form essays. There are still accessibility issues around the Internet, and while there’s a lot of amazing social justice media happening online, there are relatively few print outlets doing that work, so we thought we’d jump in.

What do your four columnists (Randa Jarrar, Erin Aubry Kaplan, Nomy Lamm, and Mattilda aka Matt Bernstein Sycamore) collectively bring to the magazine?

Daria & Jessica: We sat down and brainstormed who our dream columnists would be, and they were our first choices, and we were excited that they all agreed to participate. They bring an amazing array of ideas and perspectives in their beautiful and thoughtful writing. And we love working with them!

As you note, make/shift is created by “an editorial collective committed to antiracist, transnational, and queer perspectives.” Will you explain how your commitment to these perspectives informs your editorial decision-making process?

Jessica & Daria: Those are the perspectives that we have, and so, every single decision we make is informed by those perspectives. It’s quite simple really. Basically, we’re conscious of all of these issues in every aspect of making the magazine, from how we relate to each other to determining the magazine content to editing in a collaborative way.

**There has been much discussion among feminists about who the feminist movement truly serves. This includes a lot of division and soul-searching lately, as recent discussions about white feminist privilege and women of color marginalization have pushed many prominent white, feminist bloggers, authors, and publishers to speak more publicly about white privilege in the movement.

Jessica, you also wrote an inspiring and widely discussed piece in the third issue of make/shift (“On Prisons, Borders, Safety, and Privilege: An Open Letter to White Feminists”) that deftly examines these issues and more. Will you speak about the origins of that piece, the response you’ve gotten since then, and where you hope the discussion ultimately brings the movement?**

Daria: These discussions have led to a lot of internal conversations and dialogues about feminism and white privilege. There has been a lot of really scary and hurtful stuff put out there by mainstream white feminists, and we have talked a lot as a collective about whether feminism is even the appropriate framework for our magazine. A big part of why we exist as a magazine is because mainstream feminism has totally excluded or marginalized more radical voices, women of color, trans voices, etc., and at the same time, social justice-oriented media often excludes gendered perspectives. I feel like, if we were to stop using feminism as a framework, then we’d let those dominant voices win.

Jessica: These discussions around white privilege in feminism are not new, of course. There have always been skin- and/or class-privileged feminists who have failed to understand or reckon with their privilege and who have tried to lead a movement that centers their needs – a movement that should never have had a center or leaders to begin with. I mean, to get back to the plural-feminisms thing, I don’t even think it’s useful to imagine feminism as a single movement. And while there have always been liberal/mainstream feminists with privilege who have tried to push a movement that would address their needs while leaving larger power structures fundamentally unchallenged, there have also always been feminists with more radical takes. I came to feminism via bell hooks and Angela Davis. The first feminist texts I read were by radical women of color who insisted on an intersectional analysis and offered scathing critiques of white-led liberal feminisms. Those are the feminisms that are inspiring and seem useful to me.

In terms of the open letter I wrote, in some ways it seemed like what I had to say there was really obvious and almost didn’t need saying (and much of it had already been said by amazing radical feminists of color, like brownfemipower and folks from Incite!). But it seemed like there were these privileged feminists who kept saying they had an “intersectional” analysis, or were antiracist or whatever, yet they kept repeating these old habits of movement-making that centered privileged “women’s” needs. I had this feeling that maybe it was worth pointing out some specific ways I was seeing racism and white privilege playing out within liberal/white feminism, while also acknowledging my own experiences of privilege and how that had kept me, at different times in my life, from seeing the way power was really working – to note how problematic it is for people who are not seeing in those ways to be at the center of, or leading, feminist action. Also, I wanted to call out liberalism and strongly say that liberal feminism is a really different thing from radical, social justice-oriented feminism.

I’m not yet totally sure what to make of the responses to it. In some ways I’ve been surprised at how hard people who say they believe in social change want to hold on to privilege, and how unaware they seem to be of what they’re doing. It almost makes me feel naïve for thinking that anyone who believes in liberal/assimilationist approaches might possibly get something out of the article.

At the same time, it’s been heartening to get positive feedback from folks who did feel like they got something out of it, so… I dunno. I take this shit seriously, you know? I really want to believe that there are lots of people who really want to see societies work differently, power shared differently, and who are willing to get honest and uncomfortable and emotional and serious (and playful and loving, too!) in collaborating together to make that happen. I want to hope that. And I think the politics of privilege that call themselves feminism are just a really sad, sorry monster-wave trying to wash away that hope. I guess I was trying to write against that, to hope aloud for something better.

What feminist activists do make/shift admire? To borrow from your mission, who do you feel is best “resisting and creating alternatives to systematic oppression” right now?

Jessica & Daria: The contributors and the people and projects that we feature in the magazine, like brownfemipower, Ubuntu, Incite!, Mia Mingus, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, WelfareQUEENS, Young Women’s Empowerment Project – really everyone who has contributed to or been featured in the magazine, but there are so many more. You’ll just have to keep reading the magazine to find out who they are!

What’s next for make/shift?

Daria & Jessica: It’s hard to believe, but we’re almost done with issue four! It’ll be out in September and will include a spread on cooperative economics; a selection of letters between radical women of color, guest edited by Alexis Pauline Gumbs; a beautiful personal essay called “River” by a writer named Davka that you just have to read; a really wonderful photo essay by an artist named O.K. Riley about young women and sexuality; and so much more!

Photo Credit (Daria - left and Jessica - right): Giuliana Maresca

Written by: Ellen Papazian, July 29th 2008

Reclaiming Feminist Motherhood

admin — Mon, 26 May 2008 16:48:00 +0000

Interview with Amy Richards

In 2003, _The New York Times Magazine _published “The Opt-Out Revolution,” by Lisa Belkin, a now nearly infamous contribution to the never-ending “mommy wars” collection of work. The cover story asserted that the nation’s most educated career women were “opting out” of their professional lives to become full-time stay-at-home moms. A revolution it was not—as the piece focused narrowly on select female Princeton University graduates and failed to document a real sea change in the landscape of American motherhood.

Yet seven months after its publication, feminist activist and writer Amy Richards attended a get-together with other feminist moms who couldn’t stop talking about the piece—despite the fact that their lives were, as Richards writes, the “living rebuttal” to Belkin’s claims. Richards - a founder of the Third Wave Foundation who cowrote two popular feminist works (Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future and Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism) - realized that these moms were devaluing their own realities and valuing another’s opinion simply because it was “codified in prestigious print.” Yet she also understood that there was a pressing need for real dialogue about one essential question: “What is feminism’s relationship to motherhood?”

Four years later, Richards answers the question in her latest book, Opting In: Having a Child Without Losing Yourself. The book is both her rebuttal to Belkin’s “Opt-Out Revolution” and her exploration of what it truly means to be a feminist mother. She examines feminism’s relationship to motherhood and asserts a philosophy of feminist parenting that values women’s individual, unique choices over any monolithic expert advice. Elevate Difference recently interviewed Richards, who lives in New York City with her partner and two sons, about her latest work.

Opting In addresses the divide between “feminism” and “motherhood” that has been present in the movement for quite some time. When did that divide become clear to you as a feminist activist—and what propelled you to do something about it?

Since the mid-’90s, I have had an online advice column, Ask Amy, located at Feminist.com. I frequently received questions to the tune of “can stay-at-home mothers be feminists?” or “how can I be a mother without giving up my own identity?”

Simultaneous to receiving those questions, I was traveling the country more and more, lecturing on college campuses, and I was struck by how many younger people had their lives all planned out: “babies and then career” or “career for a few years and then baby.” I was especially shocked that they were factoring babies into their future planning. Of course, when I was in college, I thought about it, but I just assumed it would happen. I took from that that most younger people wanted both or wanted it all and really assumed they could have it all, though maybe not at the same time.

While I was having these conversations, I was also becoming more enmeshed in my life as a feminist activist and started to pay attention to why mothers might feel excluded from the feminist movement. Certainly feminism had prioritized mothers and motherhood historically, but had it perhaps done so at the expense of some mothers (i.e., the way to be a good feminist was to work, have a midwife, and never allow pink or blue into your house)? Most mothers can’t and/or don’t want to adhere to all or any of those standards and thus felt confused about how they fit in as a feminist.

What was particularly challenging for this generation is that not only were women still struggling with society’s definition of what it meant to be a good woman (i.e., marry and procreate), but they were also struggling with feminism’s definition of what it meant to be a good woman (i.e., reject societal expectations).

You write that being a feminist parent was easier to define for your mother’s generation, in the Free to Be You and Me era of parenting. How is defining oneself as a feminist parent today a more complicated endeavor?

In past generations, being a feminist was more specifically about going against what was a prescribed role—for men and women alike. If you were a man, that meant rejecting some of your masculinity, and for women, that meant embracing your masculine side. There was the feminist hope that nurture had a lot more to do with “us” than we initially thought. Now, a generation or two later, we are seeing more scientific research that points to gender differences, thus requiring feminism to switch gears. It’s not about being the same or even having access to the same things, but about equally valuing our differences and our strengths.

Also, feminism initially was more explicitly about ensuring that girls had access to “boy things” (gym class, competitive sports, advanced math classed, competitive jobs). Today, even with that, inequalities persist because we have only made masculinity more valuable by giving boys and girls access to it, but that leaves femininity still marginalized. I also think it’s so much harder today because it’s so much easier to point out what’s wrong than it is to propose how to make it right—and that’s where we seem to be stuck.

As you detail in Opting In, an abundance of so-called “mommy wars” books are published in the mainstream today, and most seem to capitalize on women’s anxieties about motherhood and work. Why does this subject get so much media play, and, at the same time, still provoke people on such a deep level?

People love to see women fight—and that’s certainly part of the reason. We also want to see people’s facade of perfection cracked open. That’s the same motivation behind ogling over celebrity magazines or watching reality TV; we want people to be exposed, and that’s what we are hoping to find.

Sadly, I think we also devour these books - and the hype and controversy surrounding them - because women and mothers are terribly insecure, and socially we have been shown that to make ourselves feel better, we have to make other people feel worse. I don’t agree with that approach, and, more importantly, I want to understand it. And the way I have come to understand it is that many women prefer to shirk their own perspectives in favor of what the books say or what the experts say. They depend on them to say what they are too insecure to acknowledge on their own.

Your overall message in Opting In is that change begins with us—and that what is most important for mothers is to figure things out for themselves. Why—after so many years of the feminist movement—do these points even need to be made?

Most women have an easier time believing in change for others more than they believe in it for themselves—hence the popularity of “helping” women in other countries. If we look outside of ourselves, we are exempt from evaluating ourselves. Also, I think feminists initially thought that we would change the world, and now we realize that we also have to change ourselves—an evolution of an age-old problem.

Carol Gilligan’s book In a Different Voice really helped me understand this. She was documenting the status of women post Roe v. Wade—a decision that ostensibly gave women autonomy over their own bodies, a very radical act. But years after that decision, why did it feel like we were regressing? Yes, in part it had to do with a radical-right surge in this country, but it had to do more with women not really believing they were entitled to the change they were advocating for.

We suffer too much from a nice girl syndrome—wanting to please others and not wanting to ask for more, assuming that actualizing that might invalidate someone else.

While your message is that change begins with us, you do not abandon the call for systematic change in society for all families. What would radically improve parents’ lives in the United States?

The Family and Medical Leave Act should be expanded to companies with twenty-five or more employees; as is, it only covers for companies with fifty or more employees. As California has done, and New York has proposed, we need to extend this to paid leave. At a minimum, employers should have to pay into Social Security, even if their employee is taking unpaid leave.

The government should subsidize childcare—not in the form of marginalized publicly funded centers, but in the form of sponsorship to attend private groups. As is, publicly funded day care is so bad that it is known to do harm to children, while the best centers are those with a balance of paid and subsidized spots.

Pressure employers—though tax incentives—to provide options for more work/life, not exclusively work/family, balances. But more than “providing” any of these options, the government must mandate the changes it does enact. What makes Europe so ideal when it comes to the status of child-rearing is less that options are available and more that most people take advantage of them.

The dilemma between working and staying home to raise kids is really a privileged one, as you point out that many women, even if they want to, simply cannot afford to stay home full-time to raise their kids. Your book—and, through example, your own life—illustrates a middle way. What does that way entail?

If both parents are balancing work and family, it’s likely that you will have to sacrifice some financial security, but that can be balanced with the emotional security you gain from being with your family more. For me, personally, I also have to sacrifice some perceived middle class “needs”—how many music lessons, how many summer camps. For women, in particular, we need to relinquish control, and for men, they need to take control.

But what will make a middle way possible is belief that both work and family are essential to men’s and women’s lives. As much as we fought for women to have access to the workplace, we have to ensure that men have more access to home. That is, assume it’s a must for men, as we have always assumed it’s a must for women.

You quote many mothers in your book, but the voices of poor mothers—and mothers who live at the very margins of our society—seem to be missing in the text. How did you make decisions about whose voices to include in Opting In?

Though few poor mothers’ voices are in Opting In, their experiences are. Plus, part of my intention was to stop assuming that the only way to close the economic divide was to give poorer people more resources and access. Yes, we need to do that, but that only ratchets up, and we simultaneously need to put pressure on richer folks to do with less. It’s not enough to give poor people access to excellent public schools without draining the importance of private schools. Another example is giving fertility help to middle class families without examining who can’t afford it. Often that leads right back to a conversation about health care and who does and doesn’t have access to it.

In essence, I want richer people to own the fact that their privileged choices are at the expense of others. In my neighborhood, which is statistically one of the poorest in Manhattan, I increasingly see more expensive strollers. On the one hand, I think, “Great, good for them for having a fancy $800 stroller,” but my more pragmatic side thinks, “Damn those rich people for making them so popular, something they can readily purchase and others have to go into debt to get.”

Your chapter “Friends Forever” on how motherhood changes friendships and the not-so-subtle level of competition that exists between many mothers is something that many women can relate to. Why is true mutual support for parenting choices something that is hard for some feminists to give to one another?

Women naturally see another woman’s choice as a challenge to her own. And sadly, few women are confident enough in their own choices and, instead, hide behind the supposed experts or have to resort to being extra-righteous about their own choices, rather than be sympathetic to why we can’t all make the same choices.

I also think that women can, and should, raise the bar for their friends, and so some of the pressure is coming from a more thoughtful place; we want women to raise their expectations. The challenging of their choices can be an attempt to get them to demand more.

Your book is part memoir and includes passages about your own choices about pregnancy, parenting issues with your partner, and your feelings as both the daughter of a single mother and the mother of two sons. Will you speak about the importance and role of personal disclosure in your work as a feminist activist and writer?

Speaking personally is more difficult than having political opinions. You are certainly vulnerable. Initially, this was hard for me, because I want to be liked, and I know that some of my personal experiences might make people not like me. But I quickly learned that speaking my truths both made it easier for other people to do the same and, ultimately, made me feel better, because what I used to think was an exception I soon learned was more commonplace.

Also, my goal as an activist is to progress the conversation—about women’s status, around abortion, around what it means to be a parent - and in order to do that, we need to have more honesty. In the short term, speaking truthfully can be painful, but in the long run, I think you realize how it serves everyone to have it exposed.

The treatment of Hillary Clinton has really exposed how much people don’t respect women, and it’s not shocking at all to me that elite women are her biggest haters. They are threatened by her. If a woman can have a successful career, keep a relationship intact despite big bumps, and raise a child, that raises the bar for other women to do the same.

I think that as much as some women want equality, they also like the short-term comfort of inequality—less is expected and, thus, they have to produce less. And this is what I see women struggling with. As oppressive as it was not to have choice, this generation is struggling equally with how difficult it is to choose when you have a range. I hope that women can believe in the change they advocate for others.

Photo Credit: Victoria Cohen

Written by: Ellen Papazian, May 26th 2008