abortion

Ourselves Unborn: A History of the Fetus in Modern America

mandy — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 20:00:00 +0000

Sara Dubow navigates the complexities of an impassioned and divisive issue in Ourselves Unborn. She takes a calculated historical look at how Americans have interpreted the fetus and pregnancy throughout ever-shifting political realities. Her thesis: Americans have cast their social and cultural anxieties onto the fetus, which often results in abortion-related policies that serve ulterior motives.

Dubow explains that, for centuries, Americans’ insecurities about racial, social, and economic issues were projected onto the bodies of pregnant women. In the nineteenth century, for example, when White Americans were consumed with taking over western territories, abortion politics became paramount. Women were urged to reproduce in order to populate the expanding country, and the fetus became not a private symbol of a growing family, but a social symbol of a growing nation. Racial tensions about the decreasing fertility rate among White Protestant women were played out on the fetus, and women’s role as mothers became even more of a national imperative.

I’m glad the author points out that these biased sentiments are not linked to one historical moment; instead, she writes that this theme resonates in recent Islamophobic statements about the need for Christian women to increase their fertility rates to match those of Muslim women.

Dubow explains the many ways in which otherwise inexplicable phenomena were projected onto the fetus. Unsure about the scientific and medical aspects of human development, social ills were found to be rooted in pregnancy. Dubow shares information about how social problems from drunkenness to criminality were traced back to mothers’ emotional states during pregnancy. The mother was always the culprit.

Stretching into the twentieth century, Ourselves Unborn is punctuated by cases where pregnant women were considered medically incompetent. These cases highlight how the medical and legal professions painted pregnancy as a mysterious state where the fetus takes precedent and a woman becomes simply a vessel for new life. Dubow describes how the “fetal pain” and “abortion trauma” mantras of the 1980s played into this narrative.

Dubow ends her discussion with the 2007 Gonzalez v. Carhart case, a 5-4 decision that upheld the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act without an exception for the health of the woman. The decision portrays Dubow's points with stark clarity, as Justice Kennedy supports his decision is by claiming the Court is protecting women from a decision they would later regret. Readers can understand that Kennedy is not concerned with the unborn, but with the proper place of women in society. That proper place, as dictated by centuries of policy, is a child-bearer.

Using Dubow’s lens, today’s abortion controversies relate to larger questions about the interplay of race and gender in American politics. This can be seen in the GOP’s recent attacks on Planned Parenthood and state laws that curtail abortion rights. Dubow’s theories illustrate how these and similar anti-abortion efforts stem more from policymakers' discomfort with women’s agency in making their own medical choices rather than from a sincere desire to protect fetuses.

Written by: Andrea Gittleman, April 7th 2011

Revenge

payal — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Taslima Nasrin

The Feminist Press

Revenge sketches the transformation of Jhumur, an educated, ambitious Bengali lady who after marriage transforms into a meek, obedient wife. Taslima Nasrin has portrayes Jhumur as a strong yet submissive woman who married Haroon for love and is bewildered to see the change in her husband’s attitude after the wedding. The book keeps us pondering on the ideas of right and righteous acts.

When Jhumur married Haroon, little did she know that the life she dreamed would remain in her fantasies. Haroon was just another orthodox husband with little respect for her dreams or ambitions; he expected her to do the cooking for the entire family, despite having maids to do the same. He insisted her to cover her head and was not allowed to stand in the balcony or travel alone or to her parents’ place. He defined Jhumar’s life by setting a code of acceptable behavior befitting a daughter-in-law rather than seeing her as a woman yearning for his love and companionship.

When Jhumur conceives after six weeks of marriage, Haroon forces her to abort, as he does not believe that the child is his. This was the ultimate betrayal to Jhumur. Her husband had destroyed the truth, trust, and purity of their relationship. Jhumur realizes that she hates him and webs plans to get revenge by falling in love with Afzal, the painter living downstairs. Their mutual attraction leads to physical intimacy, and Jhumur plans to have a child fathered by Afzal. She connived by avoiding her husband during her ovulation period and keeping a physical relationship with Afzal.

By the time Jhumur becomes pregnant for a second time, Haroon is a totally changed man. He excludes her from all household chores and involves her opinion in all the decisions. He believes the child to be his beyond any suspicion and acts like a doting father, taking care of all the baby-related chores.

Jhumur’s life changes also. She no longer has to cover her head, is allowed to travel alone to meet up with her old friends, and decides to work as a eacher. Haroon no longer controls her and accepts her as an intelligent woman strong enough to make her own decisions.

Taslima Nasrin has narrated the emotional turbulence that Jhumur suffers after marriage very vividly. Jhumur faces a myriad of emotions, from the bliss of being married to the man she loved to the shock knowing his abusive nature to her insecurities and helplessness to realizing she didn’t love Haroon anymore. Jhumur opts out of divorce, as she had seen how divorced women are treated by her society. (Even their parents treat them worse than the maid.) She accepts that her life and fate is tied with Haroon, but she can’t let him off the hook for the distrust he had shown her.

Nasrin tried to portray Jhumur as a determined modern woman, though occasionally one can feel the contradiction in the character. Jhumur hates her husband well enough to have a child from another man, yet she says she doesn’t hate him enough to leave him. She decides to free herself from the traditions, yet she is traditional enough to consider marriage was for life and couldn’t live with the “disgrace of divorce.” Other than slight discrepancies in setting boundaries to Jhumur's thoughts, the novel is an uncomfortably wonderful read.

Written by: Sunitha Jayan, October 29th 2010

Apple Core

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

By Kendl Winter

K Records

So much folksy lady rock, so little time. Add Kendl Winter’s Apple Core to the ever-lengthening list of guitar-loving, country-inspired singer-songwriters with a flair for bluegrass. It may not be terribly original, but Winter makes a fine effort on her fourth solo album. At times, her work is hauntingly beautiful; at others, it’s frustratingly cliché.

“Everyone’s so avant garde,” Winter sings on “Made It Through the Yellow,” perhaps referring to the sudden rise in folk hipster chic that makes committed musicians cringe. Should there be more beards and flannel on stage or in the crowd? On “Waiting for the Taker,” a would-be somber track about death with a jaunty guitar riff, she reminisces about apple pies, loyal dogs, and droopy-eyed cowboys.

A tribute to the late abortion provider, “Dr. Tiller” is clearly a lovely sentiment, if not the most enchanting song. Descriptive lyrics about the doctor’s murder feel more appropriate for some sort of spoken word tribute. In a song, phrases like “I’m walking through a mob of pro-lifers just to get a pap smear” feel awkwardly earnest and self-referential without any possibility of reaching people unfamiliar with the story or less than sympathetic about George Tiller’s fate.

Winter is a great talent. It isn’t her fault that so many artists in the last few years have grabbed washboards and banjos and sound oh-so-similar in their nature-themed crooning. While I’m perfectly content listening to Apple Core, if I’m looking for folksy jams, I’ll admittedly seek out albums by Mountain Men, Fleet Foxes, or even some old Wilco first.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, October 16th 2010

Willing and Unable: Doctors' Constraints in Abortion Care

admin — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Lori Freedman

Vanderbilt University Press

Ninety-three percent of all abortions are done in abortion clinics. Only three percent of non-metropolitan counties in the United States had an abortion provider in 2005, while thirty-one percent of metropolitan counties had at least one. After completing their residency, half of physicians who plan to perform abortions as part of their practice actually do so.

These startling facts prompted Lori Freedman to embark on the study summarized in Willing and Unable: Doctors' Constraints in Abortion Care. Freedman is a sociologist working for Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH), a collective of researchers and scholars at the University of California, San Francisco. Through this study, she “primarily wanted to find out what keeps physicians who feel positive about providing abortion from doing so.” She interviewed thirty ob-gyns—twenty-two women and eight men—who graduated between 1996-2001 from four residency programs in which abortion training is routine. The interviews, along with historical context and analysis, make up the core of the book.

While some may assume that doctors don’t “have the guts” to do abortions or are primarily afraid of violent retaliation—which is understandable given that eight abortion clinic workers and/or doctors have been murdered since 1993—the reasons are more complex and wide-ranging. The reasons Freedman uncovers include the managed care currently regulating doctors’ services, the stigma attached to being labeled an “abortionist,” the fact that abortions do not often result in a significant amount of revenue, the efficiency and quality of care provided by abortion clinics, and the extent to which physicians see providing abortion as a professional duty.

Willing and Unable begins with the introduction of Freedman’s research question and methods, establishes the various factors influencing physician autonomy, and provides context for the debate over abortion. Most notably, Freedman points out that the loss of fetal life is not, in fact, the most morally offensive element of abortion for those who rabidly oppose it—despite their propensity to wave around graphic pictures of aborted fetuses—since many support abortion in the cases of rape, incest, and fetal anomaly. Rather, the element of abortion that rankles many anti-choicers is “the notion that women can shirk the mother role. Deeply embedded in American society is the belief that women who have sex implicitly become obligated toward parenthood more so than men.” Therefore, any woman who avoids this responsibility is assumed to be irredeemably selfish.

From here, Freedman’s book covers a wide span of topics. The next five chapters trace the history of abortion care in U.S. medicine, the various ideological reasons why doctors are willing or not to provide abortions, the choices surrounding “learning, doing, and having abortions,” the various manifestation of the “institutionalized buck-passing of abortion care,” and the dynamics of miscarriage management within Catholic-owned institutions. The concluding chapter recaps Freedman’s main points and outlines ways to increase the number of abortion providers and integrate abortion into mainstream practice, both of which would lessen the stigma attached to abortion.

Freedman’s balance between analysis and physicians’ interviews is highly engaging. In chapter four, she teases apart the variety of choices involved in abortion care—not simply a woman’s choice to have an abortion or not—through the prism of Dr. Rina Anderson’s experience. After initially opting out of abortion training, Dr. Anderson chose to re-enter the program, then chose to perform abortions in private practice primarily in the case of fetal anomalies, and finally, chose to carry her own pregnancy to term despite the fact that her baby had a fatal condition and would die soon after birth. Dr. Anderson’s story is not only moving but also reveals the layers of choice involved in abortion care for both provider and patient, especially when they are one in the same.

While Freedman’s book explores a unique perspective within the abortion debate, I couldn’t help but want more—more interviews and information pertaining to a wider sampling of physicians. Perhaps I wanted more because what Freedman provides is so compelling. These are memorable portraits of physicians who find themselves confronted with the “choice” of either providing abortions or practicing obstetrics and gynecology, which—like the options available for many women faced with an unwanted pregnancy—isn’t much of a choice at all.

Written by: Dr. Jennifer A. Smith, August 21st 2010

The Blessing Next to the Wound: A Story of Art, Activism, and Transformation

admin — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 01:00:00 +0000

By Hector Aristizabal, Diane Lefer

Lantern Books

As a survivor of government sanctioned torture in Colombia, Hector Aristizabal was left with unsettled anger and fear. His wariness towards both his country and his future there worsens when one of his brothers is murdered by paramilitary soldiers. Aristizabal is eventually able to cast aside his bitterness, and find ways to aid others in their struggles by holding workshops for prisoners and victims of violence in the United States. While the dust jacket of The Blessing Next to the Wound gives the impression that it is a memoir of surviving both torture and a corrupt government, the book's focus is actually splintered. It tells many stories connected through Aristzabal’s drive to aid others set both before and after his imprisonment and torture for alleged political ties.

The Blessing Next to the Wound begins with Aristizabal aiding his pregnant girlfriend and other young women seeking an illegal abortion. While Aristizabal boastfully lists the many women he seduced throughout his life, he also offers sympathy for the plight women face in a country with limited birth control resources. This later motivates him to undergo a vasectomy following the birth of his own two children, admitting that while he may not always be faithful to his wife, he will never impregnate another woman. While Aristizabal shows himself to grow, his treatment of women is never shown to be fully resolved. As a feminist, I fruitlessly waited for this to be given some resolution during the course of the book.

Each chapter tells a different vignette from Aristizabal’s rich life experience. While this approach causes the book to lack a clear focus, and often a sense of chronology, the bits and pieces he shares from his life are nonetheless captivating and often moving. During the course of the memoir Aristizabal chronicles the hardships faced by his homosexual brother who eventually dies of AIDS, the effect of the cocaine industry on Colombia, the many human rights violations that exist in the United States, and how his theater-based therapy work aids others in places of crisis in their lives. Now and then Aristizabal will make a connection between the chapter’s experience and his time spent imprisoned and tortured; these connections serve to lessen the fragmented feel of the work.

Despite its lack of focus, The Blessing Next to the Wound offers a moving portrayal of finding inspiration and direction after surviving torture.

Written by: Adrienne Urbanski, August 17th 2010

The Blue Orchard

admin — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Jackson Taylor

Touchstone

I can't remember the last time a tale of fiction grabbed me and wouldn't let me go. I finished The Blue Orchard by Jackson Taylor over a week ago and it still haunts me during those quiet moments of my day. What drew me in to say 'yes' to reviewing this book was that it is a tale of a nurse in pre-Roe America who is arrested for performing illegal abortions. On top of that, The Blue Orchard is a fictionalized tale of Taylor's own grandmother.

But I have to tell you that I forgot that last fact while reading. I was so consumed by the ups and far too many downs of Verna Krone that I simply forgot she really did walk this earth. The Blue Orchard is a painful tale of a young girl's hope to find her place in the world, only to have too many decisions made for her that ultimately result in heartbreak. The story is far too delicate than I could ever express.

I will certainly be suggesting The Blue Orchard the next time my book group needs to pick a title. Not only is the issue of abortion discussed, but also gender roles, race, class, motherhood, and even a great dose of local politics. Oh, did I love the local politics angle!

Cross-posted from Viva La Feminista

Written by: Veronica I. Arreola, April 20th 2010

Dispatches from the Abortion Wars: The Cost of Fanaticism to Doctors, Patients, and the Rest of Us

admin — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 17:01:00 +0000

By Carole Joffe

Beacon Press

Maybe I’m wrong, but in my understanding of war, combatants will do whatever it takes to destroy the opposing side. And that’s not what has happened in the conflict over abortion. Instead, one side, the anti-abortionists—from the Army of God to the Lambs of Christ, from Operation Save America to The National Right to Life Committee—have organized a multitude of campaigns to stop what they call “the murder of innocents.” Diverse tactics, from the ballot box to the bullet, have been used.

The damage has been horrific: Eight people (half of them doctors) have been killed since 1993 and there have been 17 attempted murders, 175 arsons, and 41 bombings since 1977. In the first four months of 2009—before the assassination of Dr. George Tiller in Wichita, Kansas—the National Abortion Federation logged in 1411 harassing emails, phone calls, and letters; three bomb threats; five suspicious packages; 40 instances of trespassing; and 11 attacks by vandals.

Then there’s the legal stuff. Legislation has been passed in virtually every state to limit when abortion is permissible and require clinics to jump through a multitude of hoops to offer services. This has made the procedure hard to access, especially for women not living in or near major cities. Add in a constant barrage of ballot measures to outlaw the procedure or give personhood status to the fetus, and it’s not surprising that the antis have made inroads in getting people to question the efficacy of the procedure.

And providers? For their part clinicians have defended their turf, obtaining court orders to bar protesters from screaming in patient’s faces, installing state-of-the-art security devices, and working to pass legislation to protect reproductive freedom from further incursions. But war? Not even a skirmish. Instead, the lion’s share of clinicians have dedicated themselves to offering high quality medical care to women, not on retaliating against the anti’s for their belligerence and menace.

Indeed, not a single anti has been assassinated (yes, anti-abortion protester James Pouillion was killed in Michigan last September, but his murder was part of a shooting spree by a deranged gunman) or harmed by pro-choice forces. Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPC) have not had their locks glued shut or been attacked with butyric acid. They have not received letters filled with white powder claiming to be Anthrax. CPC staff have not been followed and berated as “murderers” while buying milk. Their children have not been taunted in the schoolyard because of their parent’s vocation. So I take issue with Carole Joffe’s conception of the “abortion wars.” What we have, instead, is mono-dimensional, a one-way fight aided by religious dogmatists hellbent on imposing their worldview on women and families.

Despite this fundamental disagreement, Dispatches from the Abortion Wars is often riveting. Joffe’s insights into popular culture, alongside her analysis of the recent barrage of ballot initiatives, are spot on in explaining the growth of negative attitudes about abortion. As she notes, the continuous introduction of restrictive legislation reinforces the idea that the surgery is contentious. What’s more, when something is seen as controversial, people tend to back off, fearing schisms they’d rather avoid. “It is a fear of controversy, more than actual moral opposition, that mainly accounts for the stigmatizing situation of abortion today,” she concludes.

If that’s true, it’s time for pro-choice forces to take the offensive, not in war—we can’t descend to the anti’s level—but by defending abortion as the sound moral choice of more than one-third of U.S. women of reproductive age.

Written by: Eleanor J. Bader, February 17th 2010

The Coat Hanger Project

admin — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 08:52:00 +0000

Directed by Angie Young

Comprised of an impressive array of interviews, statistics, and visual demonstrations, The Coat Hanger Project is an informative documentary about the symbolism—and reality—of the coat hanger and its relationship to abortion. Circling back again and again to the coat hanger, the film weaves personal and political histories of abortion and reproductive justice in the United States and around the world.

The film’s strength is in the interviews, which range from SisterSong’s Loretta Ross and SPARK’s Paris Hatcher to pre-Roe v. Wade abortion providers, clinic escorts, lawyers, activists, hotline volunteers, members of Feminist Outlawz, and advocacy organization leaders. Director Angie Young also interviewed a number of women from divergent backgrounds who either personally had illegal abortions or knew loved ones who did—and not all survived.

Throughout the film’s many stories are sobering statistics: 60,000 - 80,000 women around the world die each year from illegal abortion complications, and upwards of five million suffer from temporary or permanent injury. Yet, fewer than one percent of legal abortions performed in the United States result in a major complication. Perhaps most enlightening, some of Young’s interviewees grew up outside of the U.S. and have location-specific stories that shed further light on abortion as a global issue.

The history of underground feminist abortion networks like JANE are also detailed with clarity and sensitivity. These stories are juxtaposed with modern legal cases outlawing or placing restrictions on abortion. South Dakota, which only had one abortion provider as of 2006, is an excellent case study in how government interference still limits women’s options post-Roe. Protest footage from both sides is added to support the activist angle, though like the rest of the film, the clips show a much more favorable example set by the pro-choice protesters.

One anonymous interview with a former female soldier is particularly poignant. Military hospitals do not offer abortion services to women serving in the U.S. military, nor do female soldiers have many options if stationed in countries without abortion services. After inducing her own abortion at home, the female soldier needed care from a military hospital. Sadly, it’s no surprise that her care and treatment was less than sympathetic.

From a technical perspective, the film sometimes leaves a bit to be desired. The interviews were apparently not always linear, which has lead to awkward fading between clips in an attempt to make cohesive sense of subjects’ stories. Some of this may have been unavoidable, but it’s unfortunate that Young was not able to better prepare her interview subjects or re-shoot key interviews. My DVD was also badly compressed, leading to a lot of pixilation. This issue could have easily been solved in post-production and can still be corrected for future copies of the film.

Maybe most interesting, the film highlights unusual—if anecdotal—discrepancies, such as the fact that in some states, feral cat rescue programs receive more funding than abortion services. Not to pit humans and animals against one another—especially since I’ve long been involved in animal advocacy—I found this to be one of the more illuminating examples of how lacking abortion services are across the United States.

Inspiring and rich with important history and contemporary facts and analysis, The Coat Hanger Project is informative whether you’re already familiar with trigger laws or always assumed those “no coat hangers” buttons were worn by anti-sweatshop activists.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, September 22nd 2009

Umbrella

admin — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 17:20:00 +0000

Directed by Cat Tyc

From the get-go, I felt like I was cheating by reading director Cat Tyc’s explanation of her intentions for this film. But how could I not? They were listed directly below the film clip I watched on Vimeo. If I hadn’t read about Tyc’s process, and then later, gone on to read the short story in which the film was loosely based, Fernando Sorrentino’s “There Is A Man in the Habit of Hitting Me Over the Head with an Umbrella,” I’m not sure what I would have taken away from this piece.

The short film depicts a pretty young woman who is—as the title suggests—constantly being followed by a man in the habit of hitting her over the head with an umbrella. Tyc reveals in her written disclosure that the main character is dealing with an abortion, and while there are instances where this is pretty directly clear, they are somewhat fleeting and you could easily miss them, or at least confuse them and take the film to mean something else entirely.

The flashes of babies and children and body parts while she sits in a nightgown on the doctor’s examining table. The out-of-it state the main character is in when engaged in a conversation with her friend; the appointment she alludes to in that same instance, and the carefully worded language the girl uses with her therapist about how the man didn’t exactly bludgeon her, “he was merely tapping, not causing any pain at all.”

She might have been getting tested for STDs, or following up on a previous doctor visit, her condition unknown. If the viewer blinks his or her eyes a few seconds, the main character might have been dealing with a death in the family, a bad dream, or a memory from her childhood she had since blocked out.

The short story also paints a picture rather vague in its meaning, not to mention with a varied gender setup. “There's a Man in the Habit of Hitting Me on the Head with an Umbrella” has a distinct emotive quality and certainly reoccurring themes, but these too remain ambiguous and largely up for interpretation. Readers had varied guesses about the author’s intentions. Guilty conscience, bad habit, and severe addiction were among the top choices. Laughter was key, as well, yet some found the story to be of the utmost seriousness.

Personally, the film itself struck a chord in me that was different than any I had read about regarding the story. I thought the umbrella, if not too obvious of a metaphor, represented the constant nagging we carry around with us at all times—not guilt exactly—but pressure and anxiety that comes from responsibility, conflict, and perhaps past decisions we’ve made that follow us around constantly and haunt us.

The power of the umbrella seemed to snap the girl in and out of reality, as if to show the two contradictory emotions she forever struggled with. One is to come to peaceful terms with the man, to accept the constant tapping, as it isn’t painful to her necessarily, but certainly annoying, as she admits. The other, of course, is to feel utterly bothered by this ever-present and inescapable force lingering around her. Whether abiding closely with the director’s intentions or choosing your own viewing path, Umbrella absolutely succeeds in creating an emotional piece of work. I can only imagine this short conjures up whatever it is the man in the habit of hitting the film’s star over the head with an umbrella, represents for you.

Written by: Jesse Sposato, August 22nd 2009

Vanishing

admin — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 09:09:00 +0000

By Candida Lawrence

Unbridled Books

Upon receiving my copy of Vanishing, Candida Lawrence’s writing was relatively new to me. The fourth offering in a series of standalone memoirs, Lawrence’s stories cover various stages in her life, from childhood father-daughter power struggles to marriage and child-rearing to aging. Her writing covers a vast array of life experiences and the resulting emotions.

Lawrence vividly describes experiences that have happened to many other women. In a story about abortion, she presents all of the female characters with dignity. Their distinctive personalities explain their own reactions, giving flavor to their diverse backgrounds.

The piece about her elderly parents was too much for me to swallow—I don’t do well with geriatric indignities—and I had to put the book down several times during that part. I managed to finish it, but it just reaffirmed my belief that when my own body starts to decay, I’m walking off into the ocean, or something like that.

Despite the serious nature of many of the painful topics in Vanishing, Lawrence injects the writing with frequent humor. Even amidst the bowels of sagging flesh and dementia, I found myself laughing.

One topic that I was curious about concerned her pieces about sexual intercourse and infidelity. She has a dream about her guy, Jack, with another woman. Packing her dog up, she heads out to his home to see if her dream was correct. Watching the two, she describes their sex as rather bland and mechanical with no kissing. In another story, she sleeps with Jack and it’s about as electrifying as doing the laundry, although there is a loving embrace from their years of being together.

I wanted to know whether sex was that boring for her generation, or is her writing simply mechanical when it comes to the more risqué scenes? Despite that question, her honesty about how she sees the world is engaging. There is an acceptance of life and the unpredictable. Lawrence does not resign herself to the struggles and give up, but pushes forward.

Some of these stories are not for the weak-hearted, or those in denial. Proceed with the expectation to feel many emotions.

Written by: Nicolette Westfall, June 7th 2009

No Country for Young Girls

admin — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 10:26:00 +0000

Directed by Nupur Basu

Life on the Edge

No Country for Young Girls is a twenty-five minute question posed to India: "How can this country move forward while there is still profound gender discrimination against females?"

Director Nupur Basu introduces twenty-seven-year-old Vyjanthi, a mother of a three-year-old daughter. When she becomes pregnant with another girl, her husband and in-laws pressure her to an abortion. She flees to her parents’ house to weigh her options. Should she leave her husband and raise her daughters on her own? Or should she go back to her husband and accept that India is not a country fit for a mother to raise daughters?

Vyjanthi begins a journey to explore her country, its cultural and religious history, and what other Indian women who live in different regions of India have to say about her dilemma.

No Country for Young Girls is a startling contemporary view of the oldest prejudice in existence: boys more valued and valuable than girls. While sex-selective abortion is illegal in India, the numbers do not lie. In some regions of the country, there are a far greater number of boys than girls being born. The prevalent practice of selective abortion is leading to an imbalance of boys and girls living in India and, many predict, is heading for an unknown but monumental crisis. Girls’ worth is measured in the form of dowries, and infanticide reinforces that gender discrimination is still very much alive in all parts of India.

Vyjanthi takes her story of in-law harassment and unfairness to strangers in faraway corners of her country and finds she is not alone. She meets women in high executive positions, other mothers, regular citizens in discos and informal meetings. All of them raise different points, but all of them agree that India is still outdated in their thinking about gender. No Country for Young Girls asks many important questions, almost too many for such a brief film, that have no resolution or finality.

While the short film is not as engaging as one would hope and the journey for Vyjanthi seems a bit contrived for the sake of making a short film, the issues raised are still very much worth exploring and the reality of gender oppression in present-day India, and this film lays the issues bare for the world to see and debate.

Written by: Lisa Factora-Borchers, April 11th 2009

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

Miles from Nowhere

admin — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 10:21:00 +0000

By Nami Mun

Riverhead Books

Present-day New York City is incomparable to its former seedy and dismal self. It was a city of survival up through the eighties, and as Nami Mun shows in her novel, Miles from Nowhere, people were either crushed by the city or driven to great lengths to make it through the day.

The story follows the teenage Joon, the daughter of a Korean family who immigrated to New York. It’s the early 1980's, and Joon’s father eventually leaves the family for good as he struggles to adapt to a new county. This causes Joon’s mother to mentally breakdown to the point where she becomes emotionally unavailable to her child. From there, the young Joon has limited choices: stay and take care of her mother or leave. Joon chooses the streets of New York and what follows is an at times tragic and at other times laughable yet heroic journey of survival in a big city that seems to loves no one.

What shines about Miles from Nowhere are the characters who will grip at your heart. The other teenage runaways that Joon befriends and falls in love with each have their own dark history yet still summon the courage to leave a heartbreaking situation in an effort to save themselves. From Knowledge, a smart and ethical-in-her-own way girl, to Lana, a transvestite working at a men’s club, we are left to imagine what must have happened in their lives for them to be in their position when Joon meets them.

Over the course of six years, Joon begins supporting herself first by working at a men’s club and then as a prostitute. She later struggles to live clean with average jobs, including selling Avon and working in a nursing home. Joon inevitably falls into drugs, gets pregnant and seeks an abortion, but throughout it all, she strives to attain a better version of herself, whether it is going to drug counseling, keeping a respectable job or even staying in a troubled relationship to another drug addict.

This entrancing story by Mun ultimately makes us ask and imagine what would teenagers have to go through to abandon whatever semblance of normal life they once had in favor or living on the streets.

Written by: Beverly Jenkins-Crockett, March 14th 2009

Our Bodies, Our Crimes: The Policing of Women's Reproduction in America

admin — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 12:00:00 +0000

By Jeanne Flavin

NYU Press

I expected to write a strongly positive review for this book and am disappointed that I am unable to do so. The main strength of this book is its acknowledgment—in a single volume—of the many and layered aspects of women's reproductive health. Part of that acknowledgment includes a recognition (if generally tacit) of the impossibility of separating all white women from all women of color; of separating all economically advantaged women from all economically disadvantaged women, etc. Though not the first volume to explore the breadth of health and social justice issues that must be included in a robust definition of reproductive health, this volume situates itself uniquely within the sphere of criminal justice, and so sets itself apart from some of those other, earlier volumes.

That being said, those other, earlier volumes are better written. Although Flavin does an adequate job of recognizing discrepancies in treatment, the conclusions she draws may end up hurting her overall argument because of her faulty reasoning. I lost count of the number of times she employs slippery slope reasoning in an attempt to demonstrate to her reader the self-evident nature of her conclusions. Further, her position is unclear in ways that can be confusing to the reader. She deplores both the medicalization of abortion and its distance from mainstream medical practice—but what does she propose as a viable alternative?

Flavin does not have to convince many feminists and advocates of feminism that our concept of reproductive health is not nearly broad nor strong enough to be of great service to most women. Further, arguing that the criminal justice system in America doesn't help with that is not news to many of the same feminists (though her facts and stories are interesting). I worry that her non-feminist critics will throw out the baby with the bathwater of the poor argumentative abilities demonstrated in Our Bodies, Our Crimes.

Written by: kristina grob, February 13th 2009

Revolutionary Road

admin — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 09:42:00 +0000

Directed by Sam Mendes

DreamWorks

In 1997 Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio made cinematic history by starring in the highest grossing film of all time, Titanic. Despite its expensively hokey exterior, Titanic demonstrated that DiCaprio and Winslet have talent to burn and mutually possess an intimate, intense chemistry that keeps audiences coming back for more. Following the success of the picture, both actors skyrocketed to superstar level fame, but neither one of them succumbed to the pressure and rarely appear in mediocre work. Instead, each continues to flourish as an artist by choosing material wisely and challenging themselves to perform difficult characters.

Needless to say, their time apart from one another has been fruitful; both actors have earned critical success as well as multiple Oscar nominations since their initial pairing. The parts they’ve played over the past eleven years have ultimately helped to prepare them for the two most demanding characters of their careers thus far: Frank and April Wheeler in Revolutionary Road.

Revolutionary Road is based on the highly acclaimed novel of the same name by Richard Yates. Though the movie is somewhat plotless, it revolves around Frank and April: a pair of nobodies who think they‘re somebodies living the same 1950s suburban lie as everyone else around them. By meandering through their life decisions, the now thirty-something couple find themselves settled down with two kids in a house with a white picket fence on the prestigiously middle class Revolutionary Road. We get glimpses of who they once were: April studied to be an actress and Frank lived the charismatic life of Riley. They were once happy together.

Seven years later, Frank and April now battle their individual demons by making each other miserable. April is dealing with unhappy housewife syndrome (which would later be coined the feminine mystique by Betty Friedan), while Frank grapples with the loss of masculinity in the mindless workaday business world. They constantly bicker, moan, and full-out fight, but neither genuinely attempt to make their lives or relationship better. Eventually, this lack of communication and understanding collides with the film’s looming pessimism and disastrous consequences.

In this reunion film, Winslet and DiCaprio are full-blown adults struggling to find the beauty within themselves, their marriage, and the seemingly stagnant society surrounding them. A filmed adaptation of the book has been in the coming-and-going stage of creation since the rights were first bought in the 1960s. If you ask me, they should have let it stew a bit more on the page before bringing it to cinematic life.

Sam Mendes, the Oscar winning director of such films as American Beauty and Road to Perdition, was the wrong director at the helm of this project. Revolutionary Road suffers from the same bombastic arrogance that plagues the small-town America depicted in American Beauty. Both films are about contemplation and maturity, but there’s no sense of that within the film’s visual or thematic subtext.

Each character is constantly spouting exactly what they’re thinking, without really thinking about what they‘re saying or feeling. Frank and April feel good about themselves because they understand the societal trap they’re inside, but feel powerless to do anything about it. The film itself is afraid to take flight and actually make a clear statement about the society in which April and Frank live in.

That is not to say that the film doesn’t raise any potent issues and questions. Though presented like quarrels between children playing house, Frank and April’s tit-for-tat arguments with each other do address the surface level problems in the era’s middle class lifestyle. Gender roles, abortion, infidelity, and martyrdom are all nicely compressed into the story, but even those facets are too watered down to make a significant impact. Ultimately, it’s not the melodramatic potboilers that make Revolutionary Road compelling to watch; it’s the fear that every single character possesses that maintains the viewer's attention.

An “Oscar” film contender at its core, Revolutionary Road doesn’t succeed in influencing our cultural understanding of 1950s Americana. We’ve seen it all before and in much better place (Peyton Place, Written on the Wind, All That Heaven Allows, The Best of Everything, The Fifties: A Woman’s Oral History). What you will get out of Revolutionary Road is the pleasure of seeing three absolutely terrific performances by Kate Winslet (who was robbed of her nomination), Leonardo DiCaprio, and relative newcomer Michael Shannon, who steals the show in his limited time on screen. Coupled with Roger Deakins’ masterful cinematography, the performances are what make Revolutionary Road worth watching.

Written by: Sara Freeman, February 8th 2009