feminism and the church

I grew up in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas. My parents divorced when I was five years old and after living with my mom and grandparents for two years I moved in with my father who raised me as a feminist. He always told my sister and me to be independent, to not rely on a man for anything, and to get an education and career before ever thinking about marriage. “Books not boys!” he would always tell me as I was growing up.

Then I fell in with a bad crowd and got lost. I had always considered myself a Christian but never really fully believed, just went along with the flow. Then when I turned fifteen I went to a church that my crush went to (stupid reason I know) and I found Jesus all over again. Sadly, I also found an extremist way of believing.

Growing up I had feminist ideals and was raised in a church that said homosexuality was not a bad thing and that God loves us all. I believed these things until I went to this new church, where they told me that a woman’s place is raising children. I wanted to believe in Jesus with my whole heart and do right by him so badly that I started to blindly believe these things. While I feel that my time with this church was beneficial in that it kept me out of trouble, I’m sad that I was not true to who I was – a feminist who wanted out.

You can be a Christian feminist. I consider myself one now. But at the time I was told that you can’t be one, that it was against God. You had to be pro-life because that’s what Jesus would want, and you had to be against homosexuality because that’s what the Bible said, and you had to get married because it was a sin of lust not to. Then a few things happened that changed my mind.

The first thing was my sister got pregnant by an emotionally abusive man. She had to leave her town to move in with us. My mother took her to Planned Parenthood as well as to the other “Christian” option. My mother told me that the Christian option was crazy because they actually told girls not to use any sort of birth control. They said that using the pill was just as bad as having an abortion. At first I was upset that my sister would go to this sinful place called Planned Parenthood. I was told by my church that it was where women would go to have abortions. I had no real facts about it until my sister told me what really goes on there and says that they don’t even perform abortions at these places, but they helped my sister make her own personal decision that was right for her, which turned out to be keeping her baby.

This was just a small stepping stone for me. I started to think about girls like my sister, who were either too poor to a raise a baby or who had a horrible boyfriend or husband. Wouldn’t abortion be the right choice for them? So as I continued to think about it, as well as talk to some women who actually had abortions, my ideas changed.

As this happened I stopped going to church mainly because I did not feel comfortable going anymore. I did not agree with the majority of what they said. I also took a religion class that changed my thoughts on how literally I took the bible. My teacher told us that there was no way you could possibly believe that the Bible was literal because then we would have the same knowledge as God and that is sacrilegious in and of itself. We also talked about homosexuality and how Jesus didn’t really talk about it, in fact he didn’t really seem to care because he loved everybody. My views on that changed, and I became a fighter for equality.

I leave you with this: keep fighting, because who knows who we will change. I did, hopefully others will too. I especially hope there is change among men, that they will fight with us, and realize that feminists are not the enemy and that we want to get rid of gender roles for all, not just women. Hopefully that day will come, but until then I will listen to my anthem, “I Am Women Hear Me Roar” and continue on changing for the better and praying that others do the same as well.

Ever since Roe vs Wade legalized abortion, the fight against it has been strong, and in a lot of attempts successful. The Hyde Amendment prohibited federal funding for abortion, unless it fit certain criteria established in the bill. This year, a new bill has been proposed by the GOP which will limit the rights of women once again. This new bill proposes a new definition of rape. It states that only women who have been “forcibly raped” will receive federal funding for their abortion.

It’s very difficult and disturbing to pin point what counts as “forcible rape,” because it is my understanding that the meaning of rape according to Merriam Webster is “to seize and take away by force.”  There is that word “force” right in the definition. How dare anyone try to redefine the word when it comes to a right given to every women by her government? Every woman seeking an abortion after being raped now has to fight for her right to choose. She has to prove that her right to choose her sexual partner was taken away from her in order for her to have the right to choose which was given to her by Roe Vs. Wade.

I urge everyone who not only supports abortion rights, but anyone who supports woman rights to sign the petition on moveon.org to stop this bill in its tracks. The passage of this bill will not only limit abortion rights, but undermine the power of women, by saying putting a price on an event as traumatic as rape.

Roe v. Wade

My awareness of Roe v. Wade goes back to high school (a few years ago) when in a 12th grade English class we were given a list of important events that occurred from 1960 through present day. We were told to investigate and report on one event as “unbiased news journalists.” The supreme court decision of Roe v. Wade was on the list, and I picked it as my research topic. At the time, I had a very scant inkling of what Roe v. Wade was. From what I can remember, I only knew that it meant women were free to choose child-free lives, and at the time, with four siblings, I was all about never having kids – -so Roe v. Wade it was!

I didn’t know squat about the topic, so I researched and researched until my eyes practically bled. I found a lot of disturbing images and rhetoric, a lot of honest advice and scientific data, and a lot of different philosophies surrounding the controversy. Once I had all of my information gathered, I started on the next part of the project, which was to tape interviews of your classmates on their opinion of your topic. Several of my friends were pro-choice and begged me to let them have their say on camera. I picked two of my friends – a boy and a girl – who both declared it was the individual’s right to choose and Roe v. Wade should be upheld.

To counter my friends’ opinions, I found the most prominently religious student in my class. I chose a boy whose family had intervened when he was supposed to be in sex ed, closely monitored his relationship with a girl who he had met in church, and even gave him a bible to carry around school at all times. I also interviewed a boy in my class who considered himself “a vanilla gangsta.” That’s really what he called himself.

To my surprise, “Vanilla” was staunchly opposed to abortion, citing that he was adopted as a baby and had his birth mother chosen abortion, he wouldn’t be alive. Mr. Religious, who all my friends touted as a “bible thumping twit,” also shocked me. As the camera panned from all the previous interviews and landed on his face, everyone in my class stiffened. Some people snickered and others looked on with absolute fear at what he would say. Even the teacher raised his eyebrows.

When the question “What’s your opinion of Roe v. Wade?” was posed, he looked directly at me and said, “While I’m personally against it, I don’t feel like I have a right to infringe on the lives of others. It’s not up to me to judge”.

With that statement, the class somehow deflated. They were expecting a production of religious fervor, complete with crying and citing biblic passages from the religious kid and a speech of support from Vanilla. Instead the interviews reflected the wide range of opinions that surround this topic and showed that you never can tell how somebody is going to feel about it.

All I can say is I’m grateful for Roe v. Wade. Truly, I am. While I hope I will never be faced with this decision, I think we need to be able to have the choice if we want to think of ourselves as a modern society of free thinkers, and acting agents of ourselves.

In honor of the anniversary of Roe v. Wade (which was officially January 22nd), check out Amplify’s Roe v. Wade blog-a-thon.

Being a feminist with a large number of not-so-feminist pro-life friends does tend to give you some perspective. Today, having a heated argument with a friend over abortion, was one of those times I really felt our difference in perspectives.

Later, after the debate, reflecting on the exchange when my temper had cooled off, I found that I was more upset than angry. I really value my friendships and I hate it when issues like this come between us. But the pro-choice cause is something that I care about passionately and there are times when you have to make difficult decisions about your priorities. The only thing you can do is hope that, after all the anger has passed, you can still recognise the people you care about in the rubble your conflicts, and be truly happy to find them again.

Abortion is difficult. Really gut-wrenchingly difficult. And as Frederica Mathewes-Green once said, “No woman wants an abortion as she wants an ice-cream cone or a Porsche. She wants an abortion as an animal caught in a trap wants to gnaw off its own leg.” Often abortion is very emotionally difficult for the woman and any family involved, and I wish with all my heart that no woman ever had to go through that sort of distress and the stigma that is often attached to such procedures. Everyone wishes that pregnancy happened only to women who really want a child, who feel emotionally, physically and financially ready to care for that child, who have the necessary support to bring up that child well, and whose lives will be enriched as a result of their pregnancy. But it’s when we assume that this is the only appropriate response to a pregnancy that we run into difficulties.

The reality is that for many women, a child is the last thing they want. They may not feel they are old enough to bring a child into the world, they may be unable to provide financially for a child, or they may just decide, in an equally legitimate decision, that they just don’t want to carry another human inside them for nine months. And we should accept that, because whatever the reason a woman has for wanting to terminate her pregnancy, she damn well knows better that you or me or a group of men sitting in a room making up laws, what the best choice for her is.
I’m going to say something now that may anger some fellow pro-choicers: I don’t personally like the loss of life involved in abortion – if “like” is the right world, or, indeed, “life!” (which is a separate issue I won’t go into now). I would like to see every pregnancy brought to term, and lots of happy mothers dancing around hospital wards with their chubby, smiling babies. I would prefer it if we didn’t have crematoriums and graves full of aborted foetuses or pregnancies what don’t result in happiness. And that’s what pro-lifers want too, so I guess we have some common ground! The problem is that pro-lifers can’t see any further than that. For them, the foetus is the beginning and end of the issue and the woman housing it will always take second place.

But, in my opinion, the foetus in question is only a small part of the equation. In a perfect world where all children are wanted, loved and born into a world which welcomes them, where there are no women enslaved to their own bodies, where there is no abuse and neglect, no war or drugs or poverty, no failed birth control, no rape victims, no young survivors of incest, no women who make honestly regretted mistakes, maybe there would be no abortion. In a perfect world, financial difficulties would never be a reason for a woman to have an abortion because the Government would step in at once to make sure that she wasn’t forced to undergo any procedure just because she was poor, and would make sure she could adequately provide for that child once it was born. In a perfect world, society would make it okay for a woman to say “no” to sex she doesn’t want and to have the power in a relationship to make sure that her and her partner are using birth control that works for her. In a perfect world, for a woman to have a child would not restrict her freedom or her ability to fulfil her own hopes and dreams. In a perfect world, we would be so medically advanced that the diseases and disabilities that may lead a woman to decide on an abortion could be sorted out. If the world was really like that, maybe we wouldn’t have abortion.

The pro-choice community doesn’t just see a foetus, but a whole complicated, unfair, often sad world where we can’t solve everything. We see the abused, neglected children who are born to parents who never, ever wanted them, and those who go hungry because their parents are unable to provide for them. We see the rape victims who, upon having their control over their own bodies torn from them once, often find themselves, victims of pro-life families and friends, having their right to choose stripped of them once more. We see the women, driven to desperation, who perform abortions on themselves with often tragic results. We see the women for whom “no” isn’t enough, and we fight for them. To be pro-choice is to truly care about others. To choose not to give birth to a child you feel you are unable to care for is, far from taking the easy way out, an act of immense courage and morality. To be pro-choice is to work towards a world where abortion can be safe, legal and rare and women who choose such a path can be supported rather than judged.

I wish that I had said this to the friend who now thinks I’m a sadistic baby-eating monster. I wish I could show him how much common ground we share. We both want a world which is fair, just and happy, we just don’t agree on what that world would look like. What I wish he understood, above all, is that pro-life is the first step to pro-choice. I am pro-life for as many potential human beings as possible. I am pro-life for those who can truly gain something from being alive. I am pro-life for the women who choose to bring a child into the world and those who make the often difficult choice to carry on living as they did before their pregnancy. I am pro a full, happy, beautiful life for all people, and this is a life that is only possible with care, compassion and, above all, choice.

Gloria Feldt

Gloria Feldt, a former teen mother, was the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood. She is currently an activist, author and leading expert in women’s rights, leadership and politics and blogs about these topics. She has a special passion for encouraging young people, through the media, to participate in the political process on behalf of their own rights and health.

It’s hard to believe that Gloria Feldt, accomplished activist and fearless leader for women’s rights, wasn’t born a radical feminist, ready to slash the patriarchy. In fact, until she was a young adult, Ms. Feldt was set on a more traditional path. A teen mother and young wife living in Texas, it wasn’t until she experienced sexism in her own life that she began to think about feminism.

“I started trying to stick my toe into the world of employment. I realized how limited I was,” Gloria told the FBomb. “I wanted to get a car loan and I was making as much money as my husband at the time and I couldn’t get a car loan without his signature. I couldn’t get a credit card in my own name. And it really ticked me off.”

But the true experience that set Ms. Feldt on her feminist journey and later crusade for women’s rights? Direct access to the birth control pill. “I could actually plan my own life and I used that newfound freedom to start college. And that’s where I started getting more involved in what was going on in the larger world. It didn’t take me too long to realize women have civil rights, too.”

The same thing that so many teens and young adults alike take for granted today revolutionized Ms. Feldt’s life, and allowed her to revolutionize ours. “For young women today, the availability of birth control is like the air and the water. For me, it was this miraculous new thing,” Feldt stated.

But birth control clearly has not solved all of our problems. Feldt points to both societal and political problems that stand in the way of the battle for choice and moreover for the safety of our generation’s health.

“I think a lot of shaming still goes on and that really hasn’t changed,” Feldt lamented. “I think that more girls today may say they are ‘pro-life’ because they have sort of been shamed into it, when the truth is in their own circumstances, or in their friends’ circumstances, they may see things very differently.” Feldt also pointed to the media as the main promoter of such shame. “I think that sort of zeal and harassment of anti-choice groups has been so huge and that’s what gets reported in the media,” she said. “Regular, normal human beings of all ages who are simply going about their lives trying to be responsible get no attention. And that is a real problem.”

But this shame is more than a societal issue, Feldt argues. It may actually negatively impact our health. “When you feel ashamed of something, you can’t own it. And the thing that will prevent an appropriate behavior, that will prevent unintended pregnancy, that will prevent STDs, that will build healthier relationships, is to actually have knowledge. To actually know who you are and what your body is like – to own your sexuality. Then you can be responsible. But if you have been told ‘no, you can’t be responsible because you don’t know what yes means,’ then you can’t own your choices.”

Feldt indicates that programs like abstinence-only sex education are the main source telling us that we don’t know “what yes means.” “I think abstinence only over the long haul will prove to be one of the most outrageously negative things that has been done to young people in the last generation,” Feldt asserts. Truly, she assures, teens need accurate information about sex – they can handle it and access to it would make all the difference. “I think that young people hopefully use the resources of the internet to find good information when they need it,” she qualifies, “but even that information still can’t overcome this negative cultural attitude. It [abstinence-only education] is going to have negative consequences for a long time.” Spreading education and awareness about sex and health was one of Feldt’s main goals at, and is a continuing goal of, Planned Parenthood.

Ms. Feldt’s analysis of sex education really struck a chord with me, personally. I’m a junior this year, and technically my “sexual health” education as taught by my school was over in eighth grade, and yet I don’t remember any mention of even a condom. Worse, my school is technically not on an “abstinence-only” sex education model. We were taught in depth about the effects of STDs, but not the causes, or basic safe sex practices. Truly, I think the shame of the whole topic as felt by my school’s administration prohibited the comprehensive education they promised and may one day affect the health of their students. If this is what is occurring in a school purportedly not affected by abstinence only, I fear for those that are.

But Gloria has a lot of respect and hope for our generation. When asked about our generation, Feldt described us “being more engaged in politics and society and social issue and causes and movements than the next older generation. I’ve decided it must be a grandparent/grandchild thing,” she concludes. But there are still present problems we must overcome. Some of Gloria’s concerns include the fact that, “there’s almost a 1:10 ratio of girls versus boys that say they’d be interested in entering politics.” Our problem, Feldt feels, is rooted in, “the socialization of very young girls that leaves girls feeling less worthy, sort of less capable of doing those things. I think that there is also not a full sense of ownership of the world, to see life with intention. It’s a huge problem and I think the education system needs to be looked at from pre-kindergarten on. And there are probably some very small tweaks that would just make the difference.”

But despite the issues our generation has yet to face, Ms. Feldt ultimately believes in our generation. “Just be proud of yourself and know that you’re doing great important work and that you are not the future, you’re the present,” she said with a smile. “And I’m extremely grateful.”

Barack Obama was my sisters 2010 University of Michigan commencement speaker. He was incredible, but he said one thing that I immediately had a negative reaction to. He said, “Through periods of great social and economic unrest, from civil rights to women’s rights, it has allowed us slowly, sometimes painfully, to move towards a more perfect union.” I turned to my sister and said “Excuse me…Women’s Rights ARE Civil Rights.”

It was something that seemed so ridiculously obvious too me, but clearly Obama, and his speech writers, did not catch it. Why should Women’s Rights be considered as any different than Civil Rights as a whole? CIVIL rights should encompass all rights because they are HUMAN rights and we are all human. Yet, when referring to the these achievements of equality, it is almost always civil rights (referring to african americans) and women’s rights (just to women). This is completely socially acceptable, and I doubt few people other than maybe other feminists at the graduation noticed this blatant ignorant statement.

When thinking about this, there are a ton of different phrases and terms that SHOULD be dissolved from the English language, but are still here and kickin.

Two of the more socially acceptable, yet idiotic, terms are “Pro-Life” and “Pro-Abortion.” Let me just say this: is anyone PRO abortion? Who seriously sits around and is like, “You know what’s awesome…ABORTION! I think EVERYONE should get one!” The answer is no one…that’s just not what the debate is about. Similarly, I doubt that anyone involved in the abortion debate is Anti-Life. The debate is about CHOICE. So if all people were knowledgeable, terms like Pro-Life and Pro-Abortion wouldn’t be thrown around in intellectual conversation. Instead, the terms “pro-choice” and
“anti-choice” would be the more appropriate ones, because they are the ones that truly describe the two sides of the debate.

Another one of these terms/phrases is “That’s so gay.” I always yell at people when they say this term, because it implies that being gay has a negative connotation. In fact, a couple of years ago I got into a fight with a gay person I know, who claimed that because he was gay, it was okay for him to say “that’s so gay.”

“Actually,” I corrected him, “Doesn’t that make people think that it’s okay to use it in a negative way?” To which he replied, “It doesn’t matter if I say ‘gay’ negatively or not- people are still going to look at me negatively.” So I then asked how using his own sexuality as a negative adjective was going to make a difference in trying to teach these ignorant classmates of his or attempt to curb their homophobic thoughts. To which he replied “Well I’ll probably stop when I come out, but for now I’m going to keep it as a coping mechanism and to deter people from thinking I’m gay. At this point, it’s better than having people think I am gay.”

I told him, “That may be true for now—that referring to something stupid as gay will deter people from thinking you are gay…but to end homophobia, do you really think we should continue to use the term in a demoting way? What will help people overcome their ignorance towards the subject is realizing that someone they know and love is gay, or that someone they know and love thinks that saying “gay” means “stupid” is a negative thing. He then acknowledged my point and said he would make a sincere effort to stop using the term negatively.

Overall, these phrases are interesting to think about. Taking a step back from the things you hear on TV or things you hear your friends say, and actually THINKING about what is being said can prove to be eye-opening. I know this article may do little in the grand scheme of things, but for someone who uses the phrase “That’s so gay” or even someone that refers to Anti-Choice people as Pro-Life, I hope this finds you thinking more carefully about what you say, and the impact it has on the world around you.

Obvious Child

So recently I got an email from Gillian Robespierre, a filmmaker, letting me know about her short film Obvious Child. I’ll let her take it from here, but before I do I have to say I really, really enjoyed this film. It’s so nice to see a new perspective on an issue that has been handled so singularly in pop culture.

I made a short film earlier this year called “Obvious Child” It stars Jenny Slate (the F bomb dropper on SNL). She plays Donna, a twenty-something living in Brooklyn. After getting dumped she has a spontaneous one-night-stand and finds that she is pregnant. She decides that an abortion is the only option for her. On her way to get the abortion, she happens to run into Peter, the one-night stand who got her pregnant. She begrudgingly lets him in on where she’s going. What follows is a great first date in an unlikely location and a happy ending.

After seeing so many films featuring unplanned pregnancies that end in childbirth (Juno, Knocked Up, Waitress, Bella, to name a few), we had become disenchanted with the representation of young women’s experience with becoming pregnant in the media today. While we have enjoyed these films, we have also been greatly unnerved by the ways in which filmmakers (and our culture more generally) have represented the issue of abortion, making it a silent enemy, a choice not to be made. We’d been waiting to see a film in which a woman makes the other choice- and there’s still a happy ending.

Young women need to know that abortion is a responsible choice to make when faced with an unplanned pregnancy. In writing this film, we also wanted to make feminism more mainstream and accessible. We believe more people are feminists than they realize. I think young women don’t want to identify as feminists—because they’re nervous that it’s not cool, and the stereotypes that have been created over the years of feminists being unshaven ball-busters has not been helpful. But I think there are a lot of people who have feminist values: they want equal pay in the workforce; they get upset when they see violence against women; the list goes on. So we wanted the film to be subtle and not agenda driven so, we stuck to the romantic comedy genre. And ultimately we wanted to tell a story with a strong, funny female lead character that has a positive abortion.

One last point that I’ll make is that we really are telling just one young woman’s story here—a story that happens to exist in a privileged environment with regard to race and class. We weren’t going to try to tell about everybody’s experience with abortion; instead we thought we’d start a conversation with the hope that others would decide to share their own (very different) experiences through the medium of film too.
It’s amazing how accessible the film medium is and how important it is to continue making poignant and smart movies with women at the helm that are accessible for everyone!

-Gillian Robespierre

Obvious Child from Gillian Robespierre on Vimeo.

abortion in India: not everybody feels this way

As I was reading this post on “Abortion Doulas” I got to thinking about being pro-choice, abortion in general and about abortion in India in particular (as this is where I live). Out here, we tend to look at abortion as something shameful, disgusting, a thing to keep under wraps. No “good Indian” girl ever gets an abortion. If she does, people whisper about her in hushed tones for what she did was indeed disgusting. Interestingly, this is the attitude for abortion only for single women, unwed mothers etc. Within the sanctity of marriage, many women are forced to abort their unborn female fetuses. That isn’t entirely looked down upon. In fact, aborting the girl child is seen as the only solution.

Most T.V ads and posters somehow play on the ‘guilt factor’ while marketing their product. Contraceptive pills, ads for abortion, ads that raise awareness for HIV/AIDS or venereal diseases always have an undercurrent of guilt. Especially if the ad is female oriented.
Even ad companies who make the contraceptive ads (supposedly in favor of female empowerment) show this bias. Take these two ad films for example:

1) This one was aired first. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Hindi, the lady at the end of the video suggests to take the i-pill so that one may avoid an abortion. The ad seems to market the product smoothly enough. I’d like you to observe the expression on the young girl’s face. Each second of this film asserts that aborting a child is WRONG. I ask, why is it so?

2) The second film is a little less negative. This lady advises her daughter on the phone to take the i-pill so as to avoid a pregnancy. What she also says is, “If you’re pregnant, we’ll have to go for an abortion”. See here, the word abortion is used as a threat. If you don’t take the i-pill, we’ll have to abort the child. Now the daughter wouldn’t want that, would she?

On the other hand, ads for male contraception i.e. condoms are always erotic and sensual in nature. Somehow this Ad seems to be reassuring the man the using contraception isn’t going to rob him of his masculinity. See this one for instance. Forget the White neighborhood or the fact that some men weren’t Indian; just wait for the jackpot at the end of the commercial.

While Betty Friedan can cry herself hoarse chanting “Abortion is a woman’s civil right”, we will still continue to look at abortion as a sin. In the light of today’s grim realities of female feticides and girl child murders these words definitely mean squat to the Indian culture. I need to go find an oven to put my head in now.

~ Jaded16

representing the pro-choice side at the super bowl: Scott Fujita

I am a 14 year old girl, and a freshman in high school. I go to a great school, have amazing friends, and have found a love so deep and so early it’s impossible to understand. That said, I am also a feminist. I am relatively new to the feminism sphere sure, but I have always been fast holding in my opinions, beliefs, and ideals. One big thing for me is pro-choice legality.

Today, I mentioned the fact that although I don’t care for either Super Bowl team this year, I am for the Saints because of Scott Fujita and what he stands for. My boyfriend has never taken me for a feminist and thought I didn’t seem like the ‘type’. He likes feminists, he likes me, and so there was no problem with this situation. That is until I brought up being pro -choice and he quickly informed me of his pro- life (in my opinion anti -choice with a nice title) status.

To speak honestly, I was surprised. Not only is this coming from my anti-law/government partner, but also from a boy who is for gay rights and, not surprisingly, pot, not to mention other things. I know this doesn’t seem like too big of a surprise and that I may be overreacting, and that’s what I told myself until, and here’s the kicker, he then said, “If there wasn’t a law against killing, I wouldn’t care. I just think it’s hypocrisy.”

Wait, let me get this straight…I was just informed that if there were no law against murder he wouldn’t care? How does that make sense?

Tell me, how would you handle this situation? For now I’ll let it go but if this comes up again, I hope to have a better handle on how to respond to this situation.