Miscellaneous Marxist Manifest@

To my awesome readers,

    Thank you for being a part of this semester as I have learned and grown in so many ways.  This is my final post for this class (though I will try to continue posting in my post-grad life as well!), and I hope it serves to tie together some thematic strings of these reflections.  Today's post is a little different, however.  It is a "Manifest@" - a profession of my beliefs and commitment to working toward achieving the change I want to see in the world.  I wrote the following (longer than usual) document in collaboration with Monzong Cha and Lauren Kramer.  Together we comprise the "Miscellaneous Marxists," which is a nickname we acquired during the course of this class because of our mutual focus on broader systems of oppression, even in micro-scale analyses.  I hope you enjoy and, more importantly, actively engage with what we've composed.

The Miscellaneous Marxists

"our own lived experience"

    We are the Miscellaneous Marxists, a group of students who believe that the way capitalism manifests itself in our world is inherently oppressive and contributes to every issue that we have encountered throughout this course.  We are “Miscellaneous” because we each come to this collective with our own lived experience, perspective, and passion.

    This is a “Manifest@” because language reflects culture, and we want to subvert the Western inclination toward linguistic androcentrism: the mistaken belief that the male stands for the whole. When we repeat androcentric phrases, we validate androcentrism.

"everyone is welcome"

However, the power of language can also be harnessed as a vehicle for profound social change; when we reject the lexicon of androcentrism and replace it with gender-inclusive language, we deny that ideology its power. We use the “@” symbol to replace androcentrism with gender-inclusive language; in feminist Spanish-speaking circles, people replace “a” and “o” with “@” for mixed-gender groups or people who have not self-identified as a man or woman. Our use of “@” symbolizes that anyone and everyone is welcome and necessary in our struggle.

    The purpose of this manifest@ is to declare what we believe, expose the problems that feminism must confront, and propose ways of enacting change.  We identify as revised radical Marxist anti-racist feminists, and we recognize that every liberation is tied up with every other liberation.

The Manifest@

1.  The biggest issues facing women today are structural in nature.  The oppression we experience is not only individual, but also systemic and institutional.  We reject liberal feminism, which preserves oppressive patriarchal structures, simply aiming to bring women “up” to the normalized status of (a certain type of) men in society, rather than challenging hierarchy itself.  We reject choice feminism, which posits that any “choice” a woman makes is a feminist choice because it refuses to acknowledge the constraints on women’s options and avoids the fact that the personal is political.

"inextricably interconnected"

2.  All systems of oppression are inextricably interconnected and cannot be treated as isolated phenomena.  These systems include racism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, ageism, classism, cis-sexism, and every other way that a group of people are privileged or disempowered because of their identity.  These oppressive structures have infiltrated every facet of our lives, even the way we speak about them.

3. In the process of our liberation, we recognize, validate, and hold to be central, the voices and experiences of trans*, lesbian, bisexual, queer, genderqueer, intersex, asexual, and other marginalized groups and individuals within the feminist community.  Their issues are our issues regardless of whether or not we belong to those categories ourselves.

4. We must free ourselves of the oppressive ideologies that have pervaded our cultures and our own minds.  To do so, we must actively decolonize and decapitalize our minds, liberating ourselves of patterns of thought and action that perpetuate the systems we will eliminate.

"continually self-reflective"

5. Our liberation will necessitate constant intentionality.  We must be continually self-reflective so that we are conscious of the implications of all we do.  There must be purpose to each of our actions, and the action must match our values to the fullest extent.  We consider our means to be equally as important as our ends, which involves perpetually cultivating and practicing mindfulness.

"Education reform is essential to liberation"

6. Education reform is essential to liberation.  This begins with access. Education, including higher education, needs to be free for all and equipped to support all students. It is immoral and unacceptable to fund schools differently based on property tax revenues or student performance rates. We must equally distribute resources, including teachers, to each school to ensure that all students have at least comparable learning environments. In addition to access, we demand that the curriculum taught in the classroom and the way this curriculum is presented validates a variety of peoples and experiences, not just white male imperialist patriarchs.

"demolish the prison-industrial complex"

7. We must demolish the prison-industrial complex and the existence of privatized prisons.  The United States has the world’s highest incarceration rate.  The system of mass incarceration is a system of racial control that traps poor people of color in second-class status for a lifetime.  Policies that encourage racial profiling need to be eliminated because they contribute to the unjust mass incarceration of people of color, and in addition, they are not grounded in fact.  Ex-felons should not have their basic rights, especially the right to vote, taken away because of their status.  

8.  Everyone has the right to live comfortably without having to worry about meeting their basic needs.  The wealthiest U.S. households need to contribute their fair share to the benefit of the rest of the population. We must tax unearned income at the same rate as earned income and return to the taxation rates effective in 1953, in which the wealthiest portion of U.S. earners paid a top tax rate of 92%. In addition to altering taxation rates, we also must reconsider the way our tax dollars are utilized.  We must employ fair redistribution practices so that the lower-income members of our society are able to live the lives they deserve.

"Healthcare is a human right"

9. Healthcare is a human right. Everyone should receive high-quality and free care, which includes not only biomedical treatment, but also preventative and overall wellness care.  We unequivocally demand reproductive rights, including the right to contraception, safe, legal abortion, prenatal care, and postnatal care, regardless of age, gender, marital status, or any other factor.  We also believe that the production and distribution of a male contraceptive pill is of vital importance to the liberation of women.

10. Corporate media limits the audible spectrum of voices and conversations heard by the broader populace.  The mainstream media is increasingly and unacceptably implicated with economic and political elites, refusing to confront those same people who hold power.  Independent media breaks down the barriers to equal representation, opening access for marginalized people to speak for and accurately represent themselves.  Dominant media conglomerates must be broken up, and the number of channels and stations that are owned by corporations must be matched by those owned by independent collectives.

"prioritize demilitarization"

11. As a collective committed to nonviolence, we demand that our communities and our nation abide by the same principle. We prioritize demilitarization of the United States because the military industrial complex squanders resources, destroys peoples and the planet, and maintains exploitative imperialist colonial practices.  We demand to cut the military budget by at least 50% and redistribute that money to fund a federal jobs program; to close overseas bases and end the corporate natural resource-driven wars, attacks, and conflicts; and to teach non-violent conflict resolution and the value of consensus-based decision-making.

"enable us to create"

12. We demand election reform in order to enable us to create the society that we want. We must eliminate the two-party stranglehold and the Electoral College, abolish the Commission on Presidential Debates, introduce an Election Day national holiday and extend the voting period over a weekend, prohibit corporate funding of any candidate or party, and amend the constitution to ban corporate personhood.

13. These points are just the beginning of the large-scale revolution for which we stand.  We have extremely large goals, and we are conscious and proud of that fact. In order to make these changes happen, we are willing to take small steps to get there (if necessary).  We will be intentionally straightforward; we will not sugar-coat our stances and experiences. We refuse to skirt around issues that need to be dealt with openly and explicitly:  we are calling out the faults of our society, and we are calling on our society to change them.

"we are calling on our society to change"

Passionate Politics, Potential Futures

    Today in class we watched the first part of a documentary called Passionate Politics about the life and works of Charlotte Bunch, an feminist activist on the international level.  Charlotte Bunch is known for her work to include lesbian issues in the feminist movement, being a strong advocate for coalition-building among different social movements, and bringing the slogan "Women's Rights are Human Rights" to the main-stage of the feminist movement and other international movements (although that quote is often attributed to Hillary Rodham Clinton).  Though I certainly wouldn't claim to be near Bunch's level, I saw a lot of similarities between her story and my story.

    In the documentary, Bunch discusses being raised in an activist household, one whose motive for service was derived from their Methodist faith.  I wouldn't call my house an "activist household," but I was definitely raised with that same sense of justice and fairness based upon my family's morals, which were more often than not faith-based.

    Through her church she was introduced to the idea of global service, and she went to college planning to be a missionary.  In that respect, Bunch and I are the same.  I knew of global service from my church and my family, and I fully intended to pursue a missionary career in which I could combine ministry, medicine, and foreign travel.  Coming into St. Olaf College, I was on the Pre-Medicine track with Biology and Spanish majors.

    In college, Bunch was exposed to the Civil Rights movement, and she was slowly radicalized.  Beginning with pray-ins at segregated churches and leading towards speeches at major rallies, Bunch became a true activist.  It wasn't until she graduated, married, and entered the workforce and graduate programs that Bunch became aware of the dire need for the Feminist movement as well.  Though I'm certainly not immersed in a social environment like that of the 1960s, there have been several things that have slowly radicalized me as a college student.  From classes that I have taken to situations I have encountered (like those I talked about in "Making a Sustainable Movement"), my time at St. Olaf has transformed me into a woman who understands much more of the realities facing the world and what I can do about them.

    After pursuing her activism in the U.S., Charlotte Bunch took on the ever-precarious effort for an international feminism.  Pursuing her initial desire to travel the world, but with a much different lens of how service ought to be, Bunch became a leading force for creating a global feminism.  Bunch worked on a macro-scale, engaging the United Nations, and on a micro-level, developing relationships by listening and learning from others.

    Next year, as I have mentioned before, I am moving to Mexico City with Young Adults in Global Mission.  As I prepare for that experience, I am channeling the ELCA's model of service:  accompaniment, which is "walking together in solidarity that is characterized by mutuality and interdependence."  Hopefully a mindset of servanthood through accompaniment will allow me to go out into the world and, like Charlotte Bunch, develop relationships of solidarity, ones that will teach me what global feminism can really look like.

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A footnote:  This is my last regular blog post of the semester; there will be an upcoming "Manifesta," but this is it for normal posting.  I hope you have enjoyed it - I sure have!

Safe Spaces and Support - Exclusively Virtual?

    For this Monday’s class we read “It Takes a (Virtual) Village:  Mothering on the Internet” by May Friedman, a graduate student writing her dissertation on “mommyblogs,” and we had a guest in class! Molly Westerman, who describes herself as “a recovering academic,” is the author of the blog First the Egg which is “a nonsexist space focused on pregnancy, birth, and helping children grow up whole and happy.”  Both Friedman and Westerman discussed some of the complexities of being a mother who blogs – from the positives to the negatives and the downright odd.  (We also read Our Love/Hate Relationship with the Term “Mommy Blogger” from The Broad Side for perspective on the language we use.)

    One of the things that struck me most about the article and the speaker (especially the speaker) was the way that these online blog communities (1) make safe spaces for certain types of people to be open about their experiences and (2) become support systems for the writers not only virtually, but concretely as well.  In her talk yesterday, Westerman presented stories that prompted each of these thoughts.

    The first of said stories was about a fellow blogger, author of Navigating the Mothership.  At first glance (and second, and third) her blog seems to be your stereotypical, prototypical "mommyblog" - a white, upper-class, heterosexual, married woman writing about her two beautiful children who somehow are always followed around by a professional photographer.  Although she is all of those things, she is also a woman who has suffered postpartum depression (PPD) after giving birth to both of her children.  According to Westerman, Navigating the Mothership has given women who experience PPD a safe space and supportive community to express and explore their feelings and experiences.  The unique venue of being a blog allows some level of anonymity in order to create that freedom.

    This unique blog situation can then grow from being a safe virtual space to concrete actions.  Westerman told us about how much her online community meant to her and how supportive they had been in her various endeavors to have children/find a job/etc.  She gave the example of mentioning that it had been a tough week, and a couple days later she received an encouraging care package from an online acquaintance with chocolate and coffee.  Similarly, Friedman talks about bloggers whose readership held baby showers for them or who raised money via PayPal to help when a spouse had died of cancer.

    Thinking about the unique position of these types of blogs ("mommyblogs" or otherwise), I wonder how and why they are able to generate support that in-person groups rarely can.  There are certainly factors of anonymity and common interests or experiences that make these virtual communities possible.  So what are the implications of that?  How can those spaces and support systems be formed so that they are more inclusive to the broader community?  Is it possible to create the same sense of a safe space and the same kind of investment in a community that is non-virtual?  Or are these features exclusively virtual?

Mikolajczyk and Me - Nebraskan Liberals

    Again, no readings this week, so today's post is going to be a continuation of my thoughts I shared back on March 1st. In my blog post that day, I reflected on the role of women in the Midwest, especially in my home-state of Nebraska. I couldn't (and still can't) quite figure out why the region of this nation that pioneered women's rights in terms of suffrage and education is now a stronghold of regressive politics that oppress women and suppress their voices.

    This week, however, I was alerted of a new development regarding progressive politics in my usually regressive state. Right now, Lincoln, Nebraska is holding its City Council elections, and Meg Mikolajczyk (Mike-o-lie-check) is a candidate. Mikolajczyk is a 27 year-old attorney who has her own firm and primarily does pro-bono work advocating for the LGBT community and low-income individuals and families. 

    As the woman who comes home and is immediately labelled as the "raging liberal" (not entirely falsely), this woman's successful campaign came as a huge surprise. I have almost never heard mention of LGBT issues in a Nebraskan political conversation, and absolutely never in a positive manner. When asked for an article in the Lincoln Journal Star to summarize her campaign message in a Tweet, she wrote: "New leadership for a growing, vibrant Lincoln," and, boy is it ever!

    Besides the fact that we will soon (23 days) share a degree in anthropology, we also take a similar stance on many issues - especially housing policy, LGBT rights, and the importance of evaluating what is best for all members of a community (not just the powerful ones). I often feel stifled and alone in my home community unless I am on the University of Nebraska - Lincoln campus, but listening to Mikolajczyk talk about issues facing Lincoln and the kind of inclusive growth she wants to see happen in it gives me hope. Maybe with more women like Mikolajczyk taking leadership roles in our communities we can start to "reassert the independence, strength, and innovation of Midwestern women." And maybe, just maybe, I won't feel so alone.

A Functional, Feminist Multiculturalism

(As we haven’t had readings for this week, my blog has some extra free-reign today.  So I’ve decided to contemplate multiculturalism for this entry.  Let’s see where this goes!)

    Some feminists argue that multiculturalism, the belief that no individual has the right to judge or change a culture to which they do not belong, is a way to dodge difficult issues and implicitly oppress women.  Others argue that multiculturalism is necessary to limit cultural imperialism and oppression.  I believe that multiculturalism is useful in moderation.  Yes, it can tempt one to evade tough topics; however, it’s necessary, especially for those of us who belong to the “West” (the United States and industrialized Europe), to attain cultural humility.

Here is my model for a functional multiculturalism:

    The first aspect of multiculturalism is dialogue.  Rather than allowing multiculturalism to suppress individuals’ opinions, it can be employed to ensure equality of representation.  People are entitled to state their opinions of different cultures’ practices and beliefs, but they must do so with an attitude of reciprocity.  In exchange for sharing their ideas, they must be willing to hear other cultures’ assessments of their own culture, and they must grant those opinions equal value.

Assumptions and Accusations

    One issue in need of this reciprocity is the ongoing Western obsession with veiling.  Within Western discourse, the veil is seen as a tool used by male tyrants to oppress women, creating slaves to patriarchy.  However, most women who wear a veil choose to and recognize the multiplicity of meaning behind that garment and its various forms.  Anthropologist Lila Abu-Lughod addresses this fixation, claiming that Western reduction of the various forms of headgear worn by women in other parts of the world down to ‘the veil’ has “artificially divided the world into separate spheres…where women shuffle around silently in burqas,” distracting the public from real issues at-hand.  The West doesn't allow differentiation between ‘the veil’ as worn by Turkish, Afghan, Yemeni, or Algerian women.  Lazreg calls this “a new form of reductionism” in which “difference becomes essentialized.”  That is, a variety of human existences are reduced to one category of “victim” which can be “saved” by Western “liberators.”

Self-Reflexive Dialogue

    Obviously, multiculturalist dialogue is in order.  First off, women who wear a veil need to speak for themselves about their reasons for it and have their voices heard.  Secondly, the West could use an outsider’s critical reflection on women’s dress in its own cultures, such as bikinis, business suits, and hair-care.  Reciprocity of dialogue is necessary to overcome monolithic assumptions prevalent in dress-discourse today.

    The second step of multiculturalism involves restraint in action.  If change occurs in a culture, it must arise from within the changing societies, and the process must never leave the control of that society’s actors.  Even after reciprocal critical dialogue, conclusions still might be unattainable, leaving only assumptions.  Acting upon assumptions instigates cultural imperialism.  However, if members of another culture ask for action to be taken of their own accord, you can consider it.  Multiculturalism in this instance is enacted by the outsiders meticulously following the insiders’ instructions, respecting their autonomous choices.

    In moderation, multiculturalism is not bad for women: it enables autonomy and recognizes agency.  It should not be used to escape tough issues, but rather to engage in critical, reciprocal dialogue that illuminates various perspectives.  As Shareefeh Hamid Ali, one of the original members of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, pointed out in 1935, “help and friendship…will be far more effective and will be cordially reciprocated” than “any arrogant assumption of superiority or patronage.”  Thus, actions taken by outsiders of any culture must await and obey specific requests of the insiders.  Multiculturalism requires seeing others’ lives as meaningful, accepting others’ contributions to and critiques of one’s own culture, and respecting the autonomous choices of another in determining their own destiny.

Making a Sustainable Movement - is it Possible?

     Today's readings were a little bit too real for me right now.  We looked at Power in a Movement by Judith Stadtman Tucker, the same author I talked about in Market Logic Motherhood and founder of The Mother's Movement Online, and The Mother's Movement:  The Challenges of Coalition Building in the Twenty-First Century by Patrice Diquinzio, Associate Provost at Washington College and former professor of feminist philosophy.  These two articles detailed the way that social movements ought to be structured in order to be sustainable and effective.

     As a co-organizer in the recent "Enough! - The New Face of St. Olaf" movement on campus, the suggestions and shortcomings of these two articles were extremely relevant to my own life at this very moment.  As I stated in an article released in the Manitou Messenger yesterday, "Rather than simply talk about the issues, we culminated our event with a call to action, beginning the student-led organization that has evolved" into what it is today.  Unlike John Mayer, we are not "waiting on the world to change," but making the change happen.  As Tucker stated in her article, "I'm no longer satisfied with writing and talking ... I want to get the job done."  And that is exactly what we are trying to do.

     As I read the articles on activism, I couldn't help but compare our movement with the ideals outlined in the texts.  One of the first requirements that Tucker lays out is that we must think beyond ourselves.  As a group comprised of a wide variety of different people organizing around an even wider array of issues (racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, religious intolerance, sizeism, etc.), I think we pretty adequately fit that description.  The second requirement is balancing talk and action.  In our initial forum on March 11th and our open letter published online on Tumblr and Facebook and circulated around campus in print, we "talked" a lot.  Now we are trying to take the information we have presented and move toward "action" on our propositions for change.  Next Wednesday, May 1st, 2013 we are organizing a Solidarity Rally in the Quad to bring these issues up in public and show just how many people are affected, personally or indirectly, by discrimination and hatred at St. Olaf College.

     Tucker then talks about "building on-ramps to activism" as a means of sustaining a movement, stating that "multiple entry and exit points for first-time and seasoned activists" are essential to success.  This is one area of our movement that I think is struggling somewhat.  Although we would love to have more people engaged in the daily tasks of organizing, we haven't found an effective way of reaching out to new students and keeping them involved.  After our original meeting with 150 attendees, 102 of whom signed up to be a part of the movement.  But by the time we had finalized our open letter, only 20-some of us were regularly attending meetings.  Many other students continued to check in with those of us who were regular attendees, explaining that school, work, meetings, and other commitments kept them from being actively involved - all of which are totally valid reasons.  However, this analysis leaves me wondering how we can build as much flexibility (identified as essential by both Tucker and Diquinzio) as possible into our movement from here on out.

     Similarly, I find myself wondering about how well we have executed the coalition-building discussed by Diquinzio.  Though at the start we invited every single student organization and academic department to our presentation (I literally emailed every alias or contact person), we have proceeded largely on our own.  This has not been out of any separatist motive, but simply a function of how we proceeded.  As we wanted to keep the movement student-led, we did not pursue official recognition or faculty leadership.  In so doing, we kept our autonomy, but limited our resources.  As we move on in a more public way - the Solidarity Rally, supporting Carleton's similar efforts, meeting with administrators, etc - we can hopefully become a more interdependent, coalition-based movement.

Ultimately, I think our struggle to be the most effective, sustainable movement we can be comes down to the wise words of Maya Angelou:

Do the best you can until you know better.

Then when you know better, do better.

Enough! is doing the best that we can,
and as we know better we will do better.

Motherwork and Republican Motherhood

     This Monday’s reading was the article “Racially Conscious Mothering in the ‘Colorblind’ Century:  Implications for African American Motherwork” by Camille Wilson Cooper, an associate professor in Educational Leadership and Cultural Foundations Department at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.  In the article, Cooper elaborates upon the struggles and strategies many African American women employ as they raise children in the United States today.  Going off of Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s term “color-blind racism” in his book “Racism Without Racists,” Cooper explores how the newly conceptualized racial order impacts African American mothers’ childrearing.  Ultimately, Cooper comes up with the category “motherwork” – racially conscious mothering that seeks to empower children through a meaningful racial identity in a society that systematically degrades and oppresses people of color.

     As I read Cooper’s work, I found myself comparing her concept of “motherwork” to an earlier concept of “republican motherhood.”  We read about "republican motherhood" in the article "Muslim Motherhood: Tradition in Changing Contexts" by Gail Murphy-Geiss, a professor of sociology and feminist and gender studies at Colorado College.  Overall, the "Muslim Motherhood" article was terrible - full of over-generalizations, Orientalist judgments, and sweeping claims with no self-reflexive analysis - however, the idea of "republican motherhood" was intriguing.  Murphy-Geiss explains that throughout history mothers have been expected to raise a certain type of child for the common good.  In her analysis, she claims that as Muslim women become mothers in the increasingly globalized world, they are "rethinking what it means to be Muslim in non-Muslim contexts" and instilling that knowledge into their children in order to maintain a meaningful identity.

     When comparing motherwork to republican motherhood, it is evident that mothers from oppressed groups constantly have to act as "freedom fighters in addition to being bearers of culture, identity and love" (Cooper) because the dominant culture surrounding them and their families despises, negates, denigrates, and/or ignores their existence and value.  For this reason, Cooper concludes that "racially conscious mothering remains an important form of political resistance."

     While I agree with her, I wonder a few things:

Why mothers - not parents, fathers, families?

What is the experience of children who are told in the home that their race, ethnicity, nationality, and religion are important and valuable but encounter strong messages in the public sphere that counteract their racially conscious upbringing?

When will we, or will we ever, live in a society that doesn't necessitate this type of activist childrearing?

Will women of color, and other marginalized groups, always have to defend their children from attacks on their very identity?

Market Logic Motherhood

(Forewarning, this blog is being written as I participate in a very intensive Discernment Interview Placement weekend, and thus might be shorter and less profound.  I also don't have a way to get my hand-drawn photo onto this post from the retreat center where I'm staying.  Nevertheless...)

As tiny as it may seem to some, something that really stuck out to me from today's reading of "From 'Choice' to Change: Rewriting the Script of Motherhood as Maternal Activism" by Judith Stadtman Tucker, the founder and editor of The Mother's Movement Online, was a relatively unimportant 10-word quote:

"imposing market logic onto the complex moral universe

of social reproduction"

In this sentence, Tucker is analyzing the "rhetoric of choice" - anything is feminist as long as you choose it - as a feminist rationale for stay-at-home-motherhood.  However, what struck me about this quote is that it is yet another way capitalist mentality has invaded our personal and interpersonal lives.  (Now that you know my a little better, this connection to capitalism probably doesn't surprise you too much.)

Yet again, we can see capitalism invading the very way that we think about families and parenthood (specifically motherhood), not just the way that we are forced to live them out due to work-life policies.  From our language ("Time is Money" - I spend time/money, save time/money, waste time/money, budget time/money, etc.) to our logic ("Cost-Benefit Analyses"), market mentalities have slipped into every crevice of our beings.  In Tucker's article she notes how we apply this market logic of weighing costs and benefits of choices to mother in certain ways, rather than challenging the fact that these decisions have to be 'weighed' at all!

What would parenting look like in the United States if we could conceive of it outside the confines of not only the capitalist demands of survival, but the capitalist mentality of the very way that we encounter life - our capitalist hermeneutic?

Cross-Racial Surrogacy and Reproductive Exploitation

     Monday's reading, "Brown Bodies, White Eggs:  The Politics of Cross-Racial Gestational Surrogacy" by Laura Harrison, a doctoral candidate in gender studies at Indiana University, elaborated upon the racial implications of surrogacy.  Now, because gestational surrogacy uses sperm and egg that do not belong to the woman bearing the child, women of color can give birth to 'white' babies.  Harrison argues that despite the increasing potential and popularity of gestational surrogacy, the public discussion of the trend has not adequately handled the racial implications of such technology.

     In her analysis, Harrison reveals the racialized discourse and implications of such reproductive developments through a critical historical, legal, and anti-racist feminist lens.  Women of color, especially African American women in the US, have historically been exploited for their reproductive capacities by wealthy whites - for production of slave labor, nursing white infants, raising white children, and, now, birthing white babies.  Because gestational surrogacy involves a monetary exchange, Harrison categorizes cross-racial surrogacy as an alternate manifestation of the same reproductive exploitation.

     Evidencing the lack of conversation about these issues, I only found one example of racial theorizing about gestational surrogacy in my outside research - a blog post on the Feminist Law Professors website which read:

"One could envision a dystopian future in which financially-needy Black women, who disproportionately comprise the ranks of this country’s poor, are hired to give birth to the babies of rich White couples...It would reiterate the Black woman’s body as a laboring one (on multiple levels) while doing nothing to eradicate discourses in which the poor Black woman figures as an incompetent mother. That is, the Black woman would be empowered to produce children, yet remain disempowered to raise them."

     Although both Harrison and the post quoted above agree about the nature of this dystopic exploitation of women of color, Harrison posits it as a present reality.  She identifies a pattern of cross-racial gestational surrogacy and its problematic consequences, and she labels it the "outsourcing of gestation."  This outsourcing can be international, but is also symbolic - brown bodies carry babies for white folk once again.

Education OR Welfare, take your pick.

     A. Fiona Pearson, a professor of sociology at Central Connecticut State University, wrote "The Erosion of College Access for Low-Income Mothers" based on her research on welfare reform and African American single mothers who were enrolled or had been enrolled in TANF - Temporary Aid for Needy Families.  In her analysis, it is evident that welfare reforms further disadvantage already marginalizes social groups, (90% of TANF recipients are women, and 65% are racial/ethnic minorities) especially single mothers of color, by emphasizing the importance of work over that of education.  Pearson is not the only person to notice this disenfranchisement:  according to the National Bureau for Economic Research, "Welfare reforms have reduced both the probability that women aged 21-49 will attend high school and that those aged 24-49 will attend college, by 20-25 percent."

     Pearson further links race to welfare policy by tracing the history of welfare from its beginnings in the 1930s as part of the New Deal program to support families in the Great Depression and later widows of WWII veterans.  At the time that it was primarily serving white families whose need was deemed worthy, the program was well-received by the general US public.  However,

"as civil rights legislation and increased federal investment in poverty reduction programs in the 1960s allowed more and more low-income women of color to apply for an receive AFDC benefits, both public sentiments and political rhetoric regarding the program became increasingly racialized and negative" (220, emphasis added).

When public assistance helped white families, all was fine, but when it began to help non-white families as well, the public and politicians developed pejorative terms like "Welfare Queen" to describe those in need.

     However, those who claim "Welfare: You work hard so they don't have to." obviously have never tried to get benefits themselves.  Programs like TANF  promote marriage; emphasize paid work over education and, imposed strict time limits on how long you can receive public assistance (220).  According to the 1996 welfare reform guidelines, families can only receive aid for up to 5 years "as long as parents engaged in work or educational activities."  The vagueness of that statement gives states discretionary power to determine which "educational activities" count.  Many decided that securing a job ought to take precedence over pursuing a degree and consequently only pay during the first 12 months of a program that lasts a maximum of two years.

     In her chapter, Pearson recalls several stories of women who wanted to attend college but couldn't balance the strict work requirements of the TANF program with their education and family responsibilities.  In order to continue receiving the benefits that sustained their family, these women were forced to drop out of school to work.  On woman, Nicky, determined to go back to school after dropping out due to TANF, secured a childcare arrangement with her mother and dropped out of TANF to go back to school.

     I can't help but reflect on our country's obsession with work when I hear about the situation of families in need of public assistance. In the United States, people are defined by the jobs they hold. One of the first questions you ask when you meet a person in the US is "What do your parents do?" This is assumed to define who they are and who you are as a consequence of their work.  This is not a universal; in fact, it's pretty atypical.  In most other countries, people ask, "What are your parents like?"  When I studied abroad in Ecuador, people often asked me, "¿Cómo son tus padres?"  But when I answered, "Mi madre es dentista, y mi padre trabaja con refugiados en África." I received odd looks of confusion:  how was knowing that my mother is a dentist and my father a relief worker going to help them get to know me?

     Beyond the complete mismatch between our rhetoric of education (get one at all costs!) and our access to it (pay tons of money and go into debt so that you can work for the rest of your life to pay it off or just get a job instead), I believe that our culture's fascination with work as a way to prove one's worth is to blame for disenfranchising welfare policies.  If we continue to equate one's ability to make money with one's value as a human being, we will continue to exploit those around us and leave people scrounging for scraps under the table.

The Language of Class Conflict

     In the chapter of Reshaping the Work-Family Debate for Wednesday (yes, I read ahead), Joan C. Williams elaborates upon the idea of ideological and material differences between the Professional-Managerial class (PMC) and the Missing Middle class, describing the way that those differences become attacks and foster "Culture Wars as Class Conflict."  As I read the chapter, I couldn't help but notice how much the language of the two classes played a role in the conflict.  Williams provides examples of minor slip-ups as well as major offenses - and illuminates the very real need for diatopical hermeneutic engagement with these issues.

     One example of a minor slip-up that Williams provides is Barack Obama's comment about arugula.  While campaigning in Iowa, Obama famously asked,

"Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately? See what they charge for arugula?"
 

Although well-intentioned, this slip-up evidenced a certain oblivion regarding Missing Middle life (and food).  Similarly, in class today Nadia brought up the implications of saying that you are "Well" or "Good."  In Professional-Managerial and other 'highly-educated' circles, to say "I'm well." is to indicate mastery of 'proper' English grammar.  However, the same phrase said to Missing Middle or other 'less-educated' circles signifies pretentiousness and condescension.

     Unlike the examples above, these minor slip-ups can also turn into major offenses.  Williams uses the example of Clinton and Obama's comments on religion in the Democratic primaries as they attempted to appeal to Missing Middle voters.  When attempting to explain the Missing Middle to his wealthier supporters, Obama said,

"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them ... And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

The insinuation that the Missing Middle "clings" to their religious beliefs due to economic disenfranchisement is not only wrong, but horribly offensive.  This statement was rebuked by Hillary Clinton who, while campaigning in Indianapolis, said,

“The people of faith I know don’t ‘cling to’ religion because they’re bitter. People embrace faith not because they are materially poor, but because they are spiritually rich."

 

     Though Clinton made an okay recovery for the Democratic party, these assumptions, statements, and even phrases or wordings (cling vs. embrace) are not limited to oblivious politicians - they are made by Professional-Managerial class members all of the time.

 

    This morning I encountered a horrific example of the consequences of class-blindness acting out in words when I opened my Facebook.  As a vocal social media utilizer, I follow many progressive Facebook Pages - feminist, anti-racist, pro-queer, etc. - one of which is I Acknowledge that Class Warfare Exists, an anti-capitalist, pro-Palestine, pro-gun control, radically liberal group.  Today they had posted an article about a study which found that conservatives and gun owners are more likely to commit suicide.  However, their caption of the article read:

 

"Finally, some good news."

 

First I couldn't believe it; then I was sickened and appalled.  I understand that we hold very different opinions about a majority of social and political issues - however, it is absolutely unacceptable to insinuate that a person's political beliefs justify pleasure at their death, especially death by suicide. 

 

     After "unliking" the page, I couldn't help but wonder if these were the inevitable consequences of a growing culture-gap between the PMC and the Missing Middle.  If we don't start actively trying to engage in genuine understanding between these classes, we will continue to demonize those who disagree with us - even to the point of dehumanization, moving them beyond compassion, empathy, and hope.

Social Networks and Second-Generation Class Migrants

     In her chapter "The Class Culture Gap," Joan C. Williams addresses the oft-ignored, but ever-important, differing expectations and values between the Missing Middle class (median incomes of $35,000 to $55,000) and the Professional-Managerial class (median income of $125,000 - the top 15% of U.S. households).  One of the major differences that Williams describes is the Professional-Managerial’s focus on their children’s self-actualization versus the Missing Middle’s focus on their children’s self-regulation.

    A consequence and cause of these expectations is a difference in social and employment networks.  Williams claims that the Missing Middle is comprised of smaller and denser social networks.  These relationships, though fewer in number, are stronger in connection and support - often different members of families reside within miles of each other and talk daily.  The members of these communities, whether familial or not, depend on each other more heavily than do members of Professional-Managerial communities.  Professional-Managerial networks tend to be broader and weaker.  They know more people and have more far-reaching connections, but those connections are less maintained and provide fewer direct supports.

    Today's reading about class cultures was particularly striking after having come home from Spring Break.  My mom is what Williams would call a class migrant - someone who was raised in the Missing Middle class, but moved economically to the Professional-Managerial class when she became a successful dentist with her own private practice.  As such, she was raised within the small, dense social network that stresses self-regulation.  I, however, was raised in the Professional-Managerial class and, especially due to my time at St. Olaf College, have learned to navigate the network that relies upon the “strength of weak ties” and tells me to find self-fulfillment.  Due to past networking in order to gain a variety of experiences, I qualified for a job next year that will take me to Latin America - far away from my Nebraskan family.

    As a “second-generation” Professional-Managerial class member, I am still expected by my Missing Middle family to stay close to home, find a stable job, and be successful that way.  By my own Professional-Managerial expectations and peers I am expected to go out into the world, discover my vocation and identity, and achieve self-actualization.  I am moving to Latin America next year, that is decided, but I do feel conflicted about leaving my family.  I cherish our tight bonds, even though I might not be as physically present in their maintenance.  I wonder, do second or third generation class migrants ever fully leave their class background behind?  Should we?  Or is it better to combine the strengths of the two?

AND We're Back!

Hey folks!

Sorry about my unannounced absence.  I have just returned from a much-needed Spring Break and will be resuming regular posting tomorrow!

Sincerely,
~Revitalized Rachel

Gestation and Patriarchy - What If Men Could Give Birth?

"When men have babies, women and men will no longer exist."

     Though a startling proposition, the above statement from Deirdre M. Condit's article Reproducing Possibilities:  Androgenesis and Mothering Human Identity is certainly thought-provoking.  In the article, Condit tackles the controversial and fascinating idea of ectogenesis - reproduction outside of a woman's body - as proposed by Shulamith Firestone by comparing it with discussions of androgenesis - reproduction within artificial wombs in male bodies - by Mary O'Brien, Nancy Hartsock, and Margie Piercy.  Both Firestone and the androgenesis promoters believe that the material reality of gestation, birth, and lactation produce patriarchy.  However, while Firestone believes that the solution is women ceasing to give birth, O'Brien, Hartsock, and Piercy believe that the solution is men beginning to carry, birth, and nurse children.  Ultimately, Condit sides with androgenesis.

     In reading Condit's work, I was engaged by several of her ideas.  The belief that "one comes more easily to the domination of others when one has not nurtured beings in and with one's own self" was, at least at first, convincing.  I happen to be a fairly nurturing individual, and I do agree that Firestone's proposal of ectogenesis buys into masculinist norms by assimilating women to the male standard.  However, upon second thought I realized that this supposedly feminine aversion to "the domination of others" fails to apply to racism, heterosexism, ableism, religious discrimination, and every other -ism but sexism.  White women have had few qualms about dominating black women and men through slavery, segregation, and continual racial injustice.  Pioneer women in the US westward expansion had few qualms about the genocide of indigenous peoples.  Catholic women in Spain had few qualms about dominating, even eliminating, Muslim and Jewish people during the Inquisition.*

     If Condit is right, wouldn't these women have resisted the subjugation, oppression, and extermination of others due to their "sense of self-connection to the world"?  If "nurturing and caregiving are [the] most fundamental values" for those who gestate, why do women with privilege persistently oppress those whom they can?

     Here we come to my conclusion:  Biology is a part of our composition, and important; however, we are not purely biological creatures, and we cannot treat ourselves as such.  We exist in duration, space, and community, and this context is essential to our actions, ideologies, and institutions.  Though I have nothing against male pregnancy, I do not believe that men being able to carry out the same biological functions as women will eliminate patriarchy.  The system of female domination is far too ingrained in our collective psyches to alter with a voluntary medical innovation.  We need more.

*Obviously, these are blanket-statement examples, and some women did have qualms about the examples I mentioned.  However, my point is that the majority of women were not inhibited by their reproductive capacities from inflicting violence and oppression on others.

Blueprint Families - Heteronormativity and Queer Families

"Family" comes in all shapes and sizes.

     For Wednesday's class, we read "Queer Parenting in the New Millennium" by Rachel Epstein - a queer mother and acclaimed activist for queer parenting in Canada.  In this article, Epstein summarizes her experience, both personal and professional, with queer parenting and points out some major concerns with our formula for "family."

     Epstein begins her analysis of the state of "family" with a discussion about the movement for same-sex marriage.  She argues that "the struggle for and realities of same-sex marriage might be creating another 'blueprint,' a framework that privileges one way of parenting over another, that normalizes one way of parenting and marginalizes others" (91).  What Epstein is saying here is that the way we conceptualize families, not only in terms of heteronormative mother-father team, but also in terms of marriage as a precursor and legitimizer of families harms any family form that deviates from the norm.

     The position that Epstein takes is not a commonly-proclaimed stance.  Many people, especially those outside of the queer community, prefer to believe that queer couples want and ought to be just like 'straight' couples.  However, although it is comfortable to think that everyone wants to be like you, it is false, alienating, and oppressive.  Not all queer people want to be 'couples' and not all queer couples want to get married.  In fact, a significant part of the queer community identifies strongly in opposition to these very institutions.  Yet, campaigns towards Marriage Equality, like the Vote No campaign in Minnesota this last year, ignore that constituency.  Consequently, though the campaign succeeded in achieving its goal it failed to represent the full community and further marginalized queer people already on the sidelines (especially Trans* and Bi individuals, along with others).

     Epstein, on the other hand, believes that this effort to attain Marriage Equality results in a detrimental process of assimilation of queer families to a heteronormative 'blueprint'.  This blueprint is one that values two individuals of 'compatible' genders who are married before they biologically conceive their own children.  She argues that, "rather than aiming to win acceptance by the dominant culture," queer families ought to "aim to change the self-understanding of that culture - to broaden the range of sexualities and family forms that are recognizable and legitimate" (100).

     As a child of divorced (hetero) parents with joint custody - I have experienced some of the pains of not having a socially-recognized family structure.  Anything that doesn't meet the standard definition of "Mom, Dad, two kids, and a dog" doesn't 'count'.  I can only imagine what it would be like to have the stress of a 'non-conforming' family complicated by queer parents, 'artificial' insemination, and other characteristics typical of queer families.

     Will our culture ever be willing to challenge its adoration for marriage?  What will it take for singles to be able to parent without complication or stigma?  When will we come to realize that families really do come in all shapes, sizes, genders, and sexualities?

Revisiting Intersectionality and Reconstructive Feminism

Not to beat a dead horse, but I would like to revise my take on William's stance regarding intersectionality.

     In class today we reviewed her claims and where they originated from. I realized that my take on intersectionality came from a very different perspective - based on a manipulation of the original model. My experience with the concept of intersectionality began during a training on privilege. It was the first time that I had been made explicitly and consciously aware of my privilege as a white person in the United States over my oppression as a woman. Consequently, when I think of intersectionality, I think of challenging racism, sexism, heterosexism, and all the other "-isms" that we navigate daily.

     Due to my own background with the idea, I reacted viscerally and dramatically to Williams' claim that intersectionality might have "outlived its usefulness." Though I still disagree with that statement, I now have a much better understanding of where Williams is coming from. Intersectionality was a term originally coined by Kimberlé W. Crenshaw to describe the double-oppression of black women in the US. She compared their situation to an intersection of two roads of discrimination, racism and sexism. It is from this definition that Williams draws her claim that "intersectionality as a metaphor itself reinforces white privilege ... by erasing the fact that women of color are no more and no less at the intersection of race and gender than are white women." Because the model of an intersection deals only with oppression and not with privilege, it does ignore white people's race and men's gender.

     This history allows me to more generously engage with Williams' take on intersectionality. In the context of an intersection of oppressive forces, the tool has lost some of its worth - especially because multiple forms of oppression do not simply add up to a measurable sum.  However, the aim of the tool is still profoundly important in the attainment of equality of representation.  For this reason, the tool needs to be revised, re-imagined, and revitalized.

     When I conceptualize intersectionality, I imagine a system of overlapping spheres of influence.  In the drawing to the right, these spheres of influence appear like a Venn Diagram - do not be deceived!  The overlap is not to represent shared characteristics, but pluralistic influence.  Additionally, I chose the wording with great care. Rather than saying "Race," "Gender," "Age," and "Socio-economic Status," I chose to identify my own positions within those categories.  Thus, avoiding the fallacy that men are not implicated in gender, or that I am not implicated in race, etc.  In my position at the convergence of all of these categories (to which I could add many more) I experience the privilege and the oppression of each.

With this adapted model of intersectionality, I think Joan Williams might be more willing and able to accept that it has not "outlived its usefulness" but outlived its first manifestation.