Birth Control is a Minor Issue?

Since birth control issues were raised in the context of the requirements for health insurance companies to provide insurance, we've heard pundits say that women will vote for what really counts, the economy. They are not interested in such trivial issues. Here's the problem. Our issues (jobs included) are always seen, through sexist eyes, as trivial. Therefore, birth control is trivial. But I have news for you - There is nothing small or trivial about birth control. Without birth control, women do not have the ability to control what they can do in their lives, when they can do it, or even start to leverage how much they want to earn doing it. Period.

Birth control affects our ability to complete high school, college, graduate school, and to find work. How many teenagers can't finish high school because of child care? How many women can't finish college because of young children? We know that having a B.A. allows one to earn over a hundred thousand dollars over a lifetime over one who only has a high school diploma. How many women can't study what they want to because of children? How many women are challenged in their work everyday from child care? We love our children. We would not have our lives any other way - but we do want to control over what we're doing in our lives and when we're doing it, and the inability to access low cost birth control directly impacts this because we can't control when we're having kids. Young children take a lot of resource and deciding when you take on raising young kids matters! So before we continue to insult women while we're at war, politicians and pundits need to take note. Birth control is no minor issue. It impacts our economic possibilities. Of course, if men took responsibility for where their stuff ended up, this might be less troublesome. But until then, hands off of our birth control! Just sayin'.

Trayvon, I love Skittles too!

And I'm still trying to figure out what to tell my son and when. You did not die in vain!

Trayvon Martin

No pictures on this posting today . . . maybe I'll throw in a hoodie.

I must say that I can barely bring myself to look at this story. It occurred to me it hits too close to home.

I have a Black male child. He's 7 and will turn 8 in June. He's tall - 2/3 of my height and I'm 5'10".

A story ran in the New York Times about how Black males are disproportionately targeted by the police. I used that article as a teachable moment. When you become of a size that's much closer to mine, the police may do this to you. Please just do what they say. This has nothing to do with you. They target Black males. The people who are police officers are very scared and take action in this frame of mind.



I was criticized for scaring my child. I responded that as a Black male, he needs to know early and often how to handle himself in public. I know it's scary! It's probably scarier if you don't have a clue.

And then there's Trayvon Martin. George Zimmerman isn't a police officer. He killed this child and the police didn't even bother to investigate because he invoked self-defense. Trayvon was shot for holding skittles and a drink.

Now what do I tell my son? What do mothers tell their Black boys? How should we portray those who do these things to us?

James, don't run in public. Don't wear hoodies. Don't wear loose jeans. Don't hide your hands. Keep ID on you. And know that I have to let you be in this world. I can only warn you. And I want you to be all of you.

I can't go to the hoodie march tonight. I have to teach. I will be there in spirit. Because my son is a black male.

Just sayin'.

Every Sperm is Sacred

I'm tickled pink! Really, and this is no reference to Susan Komen. Finally I see the glimpse of a discussion requiring men to take responsibility for their sexual behavior. Really.

As a society, we've been greatly concerned about women and the lives we are capable of housing. We have beautifully dodged how the lives got there in the first place. Many legislators who voted for laws requiring vaginal ultrasounds and targeted Planned Parenthood because it provides abortion but spends much more of its resources on contraception, failed to recognize how important contraception was to us. Regulating when we bare children has enabled us to take on remarkably different things in our lives.

But with legislation perculating in the states protecting sperm, we have a window to look at how these pregnancies occurred in the first place. A sperm fertilized an egg! The egg did not fertilize itself. Further, it was sexual contact with a male (generally, I understand the logistics surrounding artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization) that caused the sperm to get there to fertilize the egg in the first place. So now, through legislation setting up conditions under which men may purchase viagra, cialis, and other related laws, we have to confront male (mis)behavior.



When men have all of this indiscriminate sex enabled by these medications, with no intention of bearing children, they are hampering the ability to create life, an unacceptable by-product of such drugs. Surely the Catholic Church (of which I am a member) will closely evaluate this situation! Further, men don't really grapple with the potential of spreading sexually transmitted diseases among many partners. I think this legislation should mandate monthly STD testing for every month they take the medication in addition to the affidavits of prior sex partners vouching for the man's impotence. (I'm serious!) This allows us to keep tabs on who men are sleeping with. Finally men, by law, would have to be responsible for their own behavior.



Also central to this debate is the way legislators discussed this issue. It sounds like taxpayers are paying for birth control, and therefore, are paying for drugs treating impotence. In these laws, I think that we should make it clear that taxpayers are not required to pay for this. Indeed, the government is setting conditions that health insurance companies must follow in selling their products, such as covering people with pre-existing conditions, but they are still private health insurance companies bought by employers or individuals. So this would be no more of a burden than insurance companies covering birth control! Any insistence that tax payer dollars are involved is simply a political bastardization of the health care law. At least make sure you're critiquing the problem that exists, don't make up a new problem. If taxpayers were paying for this, it would be a single payer plan! And that's socialism.

Finally, I have to note that the woman working on this legislation in Ohio, Nina Turner, is Black.
I find this fascinating because Black women are often in the cross hairs of birth control/sterilization disputes. During the 1990s, increasing focus was paid to the women on public assistance who were having "all of these children" and taking care of them with money from the state. Not only did the new government programs require women to work for their benefits, but some states required that while they were taking welfare, they would have to take injectable hormonal forms of birth control that prevented women from becoming pregnant for over a year at times. Once again, these women were not allowed to agree to this, it was simply a requirement. Ever since the Reagan administration, welfare moms have taken on a Black face and it is hard not to notice the backdrop of race in this debate. Latina and Black women went through periods in this country went through periods where we were forcefully sterilized - ask the states of North Carolina, Carolina, and ask Puerto Rican women. A woman's autonomy over her body is not merely about abortion and birth control, it is also about the ability to refuse these services as well.

But now that we will regulate the use of erectile disfunction drugs, perhaps every pregnancy will be planned and wanted. No more unplanned pregnancies in our lives, no more unnecessary spreading of STDs. Finally more male personal responsibility for their sexual behavior! Or hopefully, it will start this dialogue. Just sayin'.

Yoga and Male Domination

OK . . . you must be thinking I've lost my mind. Hear me out . . . remember that I studied history because truth is stranger than fiction. With Andrew Breitbart's death (no comment), the Senate barely defeating a moral conscience insurance clause, and the Syrian government pounding Homs to a pulp, I am writing about something that hits terribly close to home for me . . . yoga. Yes, yoga. I practice Ashtanga yoga. It was one of three calming, head clearing forces while I wrote the dissertation. It is currently the activity I have that reminds me to pray and go to sleep (yes members of the far right . . . I am a wayward sinner). So, the New York Times has published a number of articles about yoga and . . . well, its seamy underbelly. Now add this one to the mix (read the article before you continue reading): http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/health/nutrition/yoga-fans-sexual-flames-and-predictably-plenty-of-scandal.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=yoga&st=cse



Many might be surprised that male instructors have taken sexual advantage of their female students. I am not, which brings up one of my favorite themes. I think we need to remember the following: male domination is a factor in every single institution that you can imagine. From the most seemingly benign, yoga, to the most vicious - slavery, the Third Reich, it is an oppressive structure that cannot be escaped. If institutions cannot explicitly examine the ways in which males set and execute their agendas, no number of backbends, downward dogs, and meditation can enforce the yogic principles of ahimsa (non-violence) and brahmacharya (abstinence), and so gurus (teachers) who are supposed to be teaching you satya (truth) will fall short. Ultimately, religion, and yoga as an accompanying religious practice are designed to encourage people to treat each other and the world well. However, when the people who claim the authority to teach religious principles cannot examine basic gendered relationships (remember that males also dominate other males, something that still challenges the Catholic Church of which I am a member), we will continue to mistreat the men, women, boys, and girls in our midst.



I will continue to practice yoga. I will continue to see my teacher . . . he has brought unknown benefits in my physical and spiritual life. Breathing, poses, and meditation cannot be harmed because of John Friend's indiscretions. Those who pioneer yogic methods should consider self-inventory. You are not entitled to anyone else's bodies but your own, no matter how aroused you may feel after your practice. I am not concerned about your abstinence, I am concerned that you practice non-violence. Male domination violates that principle.



Meditate on that! Just sayin'.

The Personal is Very Political

I'm noticing a trend. When women came out publicly and said that they had an affair with Herman Cain, he called them liars and couldn't understand why that might be seen as offensive. Newt Gingrich blamed the media for asking about his affairs. Congress wanted to pass a bill interfering with the FBI redefining rape in ways that would have let people such as Sandusky off at the federal level - it wanted to force them to use a more restrictive definition of rape.
Susan Komen wanted to stop giving grants to Planned Parenthood because it, in addition to all sorts of health care for women including providing manual breast screenings, provides abortions. Conservatives are upset because the Department of Health and Human Services says that institutions such as universities and hospitals that may have a religious affiliation must adopt insurance plans that cover birth control. And finally, one of the co-owners of Staples claims that allowing women to breastfeed their children on the job will kill jobs!

Let me make sure I'm understanding this: women never say no to sex, they lie when they assert extramarital sexual relationships, they should not be able to use contraception, and they are stuck with the consequences of unwanted pregnancies. Oh yeah, women are not entitled to basic health care to handle the manifestations of all of this sexual activity and are not permitted to take care of these newborn children.

Two words: male domination! Apparently men are the only parties in our society who should be making decisions about when people engage in sexual activity, regardless of their marital status. Men decide when women have kids. Men take no responsibility for women's health. Men are not responsible for the children born from their seed. Women who would challenge this order in any way, shape, or form are murderers and radical people who are hellbent on society's destruction. We're hellbent on the destruction of sexism. We're hellbent on being able to make decisions about our bodies that work not only for the pleasure of men, but so that we can create lives that are satisfying for all of us.

I understand that not every male feels this way. However, actions speak louder than words. How many times have you had unprotected sex with any woman knowing that she did not necessarily want to create life in that particular coupling? How many times did you take the initiative for birth control, be it abstinence in a particular situation or volunteering to wear a condom? How many times have you walked away from a woman who was pregnant and blamed her for sleeping with someone else and that it couldn't be your child? How many times did you walk away from your partner because she had to deal with the kids?


These are the consequences for forced sex, voluntary unprotected sex (I haven't even gotten to STDs), pregnancy, and childbirth. This is why I will continue to speak out against these draconian policies. Just sayin'.

Belated piece about Lara Logan

While the sexual assault on Lara Logan has faded from the press' memory as she heals from this event, I personally cannot shake what happened to her. I can't shake it not because she's a beautiful blonde, but because it reminds me, all too well, of the risks that all women face when we do work anywhere in the world for any number of disciplines - not only journalists, but anthropologists, historians, musicologists, doctors, lawyers, Peace Corps workers, and the list goes on! Secondly, we cannot underestimate the extent to which male domination is a powerful factor not only in the lives of women, but also men. And lastly, the way that sexism and male domination plays out "in the field" does not diminish our love of what we do and in that way, sexism and male domination hold no power over any of us who love our work.



I am still writing my dissertation, but before I could write, I had to to go "in the field." Doing research in the field meant two things for me. Not only did I have to copy government files from archives located in Kingston and Spanish Town, Jamaica and London, England, but I also had to collect oral histories and conducted interviews with residents of Jamaica's Accompong Maroon community. I could regale you with so many stories of the bizarre interactions I had with men while doing this work (this is a kind characterization). Any woman who would dare to go, by herself, to do this work is fair game. Without a man by her side to make sure someone else's butt would get kicked, we are fair game, whether or not by choice. When Logan's story broke, I could only think but for the grace of God, so go I. But I also knew that many other women had to endure such indignities to conduct their research. The way that we dress, conduct ourselves, decide who we will speak to, develop relationships with so that we can have allies to turn to is a reflection of the threat that (sexual) violence plays as we simply do our work. I know that I have a silver band I always wear on my left hand, 4th finger to signal that there is potentially a man in my life who will make sure things are taken care of. I also know that I'm slightly safer bringing my young son along with me than if I went by myself. SICK!

This only reminds me of the extent that male domination effects all of our lives. Did I really write "male domination?" I certainly did. The process by which a male asserts themselves over another displaying their "power." The important thing is that such an assertion of power is not only experienced by females, but males as well. Nir Rosen, the journalist who tweeted such inexplicably thoughtless and brutish tweets in the wake of the Lara Logan's assault demonstrated this point thoroughly. Not only did he explicitly state that Logan's assault was just an attempt to take the spotlight from CNN's Anderson Cooper (implying that something real had not happened) and implying that it was even deserved, he also tweeted wouldn't it be funny if the same thing had happened to Cooper. Funny?! Is sexual assault (ok, any assault) ever funny?! Under what circumstances? So why would he say this? It would have been "funny" if Cooper had been punked - raped by another man? What disturbed man would imply this? Not only was it ok for men to assert their domination over a pretty gal who thought she could be a foreign correspondent and become a star for her work, but it would also be ok for the same to happen to a pretty, rich boy as well. And the silence about this point was deafening! For people who go in the field, male or female, it is alright to assert your dominance by raping them and . . . well what will we accomplish, Nir Rosen, when this is done? Male dominance is a critical component of sexism and clearly, it does not discriminate whether its target is male or female.

Finally, for those of you who are determined to make the lives of us who do work in the field as painful as possible, know that we are undeterred. We will continue to publish our stories, teach kids, deliver medical care, and write histories because we love what we do. We will do the best we can to flexibly handle the sexism and male domination that crops up along the way. And to Lara Logan, pull your community together and heal as quickly as you can. Many of us are cheering for you. We need your voice and it cannot go silent in the face of sexual violence! Just sayin' . . .