Feminism/Politics

Why you have to SAY the WORDS

Aug 172010

One of my favorite things about the Must-Read Moms list (besides that I get to be on it) is that one of the fine blogs included in the list is Lesbian Dad. I love this note on the About Page:

les•bi•an dad n, neologism 1. a. A lesbian or genderqueer parent who feels that traditionally female titles (i.e., “mother”) don’t quite fit, and who is willing to appropriate and redefine existing male ones (i.e., “father”): She was a tomboy when she was a kid, so it’s not surprising she’s a lesbian dad as a parent. b. Often a non-biological parent in a lesbian family, whose role relative to the child in many ways resembles that of fathers.

Now I already knew that BlogHer is pretty diverse and liberal but Parenting? Parenting Magazine? Hawkers of baby formula and beauty products and toys to make your baby smarter? Mainstream magazines don’t have the luxury to risk to be progressive, especially not in these troubled times of publishing, which is why I was so excited that Parenting didn’t let that stop them from including a terrific blog.

It made me think about a staff meeting we had at shelter to rework our intake packet. My friend Jodi, who at that time was in a relationship with a woman and self-identified as a lesbian, was the night staff person. She argued strongly that we remove the line about diversity in our “Shelter Overview” page and instead state the kinds of diversity a person staying at shelter might experience. She also insisted that when we make this list we include the word LESBIAN. Because, she pointed out, saying THAT WORD was a way to explicitly say “we welcome you” to lesbians seeking shelter. And it’s a message, too, to someone who is offended by the word LESBIAN because if you can’t read a simple word without offense, you probably shouldn’t stay at our shelter where you might actually have a lesbian roommate. Instead of worrying about being inoffensive, she told us, we had to live our values out loud. We had to SAY the WORDS.

(This argument has stayed with me through the years in other contexts, too, and it’s why I made the policy over at Open Adoption Support to use the term First Parent instead of Birth Parent in any official-type informational pages.)

Anyway, back to welcoming lesbians. I was very excited to read this excellent essay in a recent issue of hipmama: Queer Parenting on the Spectrum by Beren deMotier; I really really really wanted it for Support for Special Needs. Obviously, it’s a killer essay and I would have wanted it anyway (that whole judgment from friends, family and outsiders thing comes up A LOT in our community) but that it has QUEER in the title? Bonus! And thankfully Beren graciously allowed us to reprint it.

Now if we can just get someone to start a Lesbian Mom group on the site…

By the way, Beren has a blog, too, right here: The Lesbian Mom Next Door Check it out!

From Kate Harding: Sarah Palin, False Prophet

Feminism/Politics 5 Responses »

Jun 112010

Feminism did not leave conservative Christian women behind. Conservative Christian women rejected feminism. This is not a trivial distinction.

Heres a story. My late dog, Lucille, hated bananas. But more than that, she hated my dads late dog, Guinness, getting anything edible that could be hers. So one day, my dad drops a banana chunk on the kitchen floor, and we both watch Lucille pick it up in her mouth, make a face, then drop it again. Guinness swoops in for the banana chunk, at which point Lucille immediately picks it up again — only to remember it grosses her out and drop it. But then Guinness moves in once more, so she growls and picks it up. Except… still gross. Drop. Swoop. Grab. Ew! Repeat. Comedy gold, as long as you had nothing invested in that banana chunk.

This is what I think of whenever I hear people talk about conservative Christian women “reclaiming” feminism, or blaming those mean and nasty “traditional” read: “actual” feminists for keeping them out. You don’t even want the fucking banana. But you’d rather turn it into a lump of mush that nobody wants than let anyone else have it.

via Jezebel

Dear Ohio Democratic Party

Feminism/Politics, Homeschooling 11 Responses »

Apr 212010

Listen, I know your volunteers are young. I know most of them are college students because I used to volunteer when I was a college student and I remember looking around the table and seeing a lot of other passionate young folks with occasional retirees. What I didn’t see much at those volunteer trainings were people my age — middle-aged-ish. You know, people with jobs and kids.

And so I understand that your phone bank workers don’t get me and that when they call me to volunteer they are unlikely to appreciate the reality of my life even when I tell it to them. So they may not believe me when I say, “I am extremely busy because I have two homeschooled children and freelance work and volunteer work for another outfit BUT if you have any one-off jobs I can do with my kids, I can do them. Because I’d be happy to give my kids a chance to be involved and I would like to help.”

So this means no data entry. Like I said, I want to do something WITH my kids and I’m pretty sure that the young man on the phone has never tried to do data entry with kids running around like small lunatics or he wouldn’t suggest it. And if data entry is at your office, then it’s even less likely. (I did a night of data entry for the Obama campaign and that was at their offices.)

See, having kids makes things harder. It doesn’t mean we don’t care (so please, could you put away your heavy sighs and guilt-attempting annoyance?), it means we are freaking busy. You want parents — especially working parents — to help you get out the vote? Find a way to involve us with our kids. Let me tell you, a lot of families would love to have their kids lend a hand. Why not have a family night envelope stuffing party? I remember doing this for some Oregon Women’s Fund organization way back when in Portland — they got us pizzas and we stuffed the hell out of their capital campaign envelopes. Kids over a certain age could totally do that and many of them are more than happy to work for pizza. This is your chance to grow your future activists! Teach them about the political process and give their parents a chance to be involved! Because I can do data entry if you can find something for my kids to do while I do it.

Unfortunately, even though I had time to come up with this great pizza party idea and the time to type it here, I don’t have time to organize it. But you, dearest college student likely without a job with the adorable apologetic and awkward phone manner who called me last night, you do. I know this because I had time when I was a college student even when I was working full-time. Because you know what is a bigger time suck than exam week? Every dang week with kids. I am not even kidding. You can’t believe it now but I am telling you that it is true. So don’t question me about if I’m sure I can’t do this or that, don’t offer me jobs I can’t do with my kids when I told you that my kids are part of my volunteer deal — come up with something! Talk to your supervisor! Say, “There is this untapped source of energy and it is called PARENTS WITH CHILDREN!”

Otherwise, sure, keep me on your list. Call me closer to the election. Like I said, I’ll hang door signs because I can bring my kids but you can keep that data entry to your own self.

(We told the library this, too, when Abby was mounting her nonfiction re-shelving advocacy effort and they said re-shelving would be hard on their staff and we said we had library-loving kids who would help. I tell nonprofits all the time that they should look to the homeschooling community because most of us are passionate about whatever advocacy is floating our boat — being people who act on our strong feelings as evidenced by our pulling our kids out of school or never even sending them even though Good Morning America and our far-flung relatives and random people at the grocery store think we’re nuts — and we have free labor in the guise of kids who are willing to work for the pure love of learning something.)

Call for Submissions: Visions 2042

Race 3 Responses »

Mar 302010

I’m busy celebrating Madison’s birthday (I might even post about it tonight — we shall see) but wanted to post this for a friend of mine! I know several of you might have something fantastic to share!!

Visions 2042 Project

A CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS (1000-2000 words due Monday, May 17, imagine@race-talk.org)

Visions 2042: Notes toward a Racial Order Transformed

Imagine that the year is 2042 and that surely, dramatically, and transformatively, the racial landscape of the United States has changed over the course of the century. The long-forecast end of the United States as a white-majority country in that year may or may not be an important part of the story. Race still matters, but operates now much more to unify rather than divide us. Many trace the change to the Obama era that ended a quarter-century earlier – not necessarily because of any big new federal policies implemented during that president’s time in office, but also because of other social and institutional developments that took seed or began to flower then. Some social justice oldtimers recall that they wept when Obama, our first nonwhite president, first took office. They did not know that even more meaningful developments were just ahead.

We invite you to elaborate this vision.

What would a United States another giant step or two toward racial equity and justice look like? What specific and notable markers of racial change would we see, hear, and feel? If some seeds of change indeed are in place right now, in 2010, and/or just around the corner, identify one or more of them for us. What sorts of things do we need to do to get from here to there? Who must play what role in moving us along?

We encourage a range of perspectives and emphases. You may want to tackle just one aspect of the challenge – what this future looks like, what the seeds-in-place look like, how to move from here to there – or a combination. The scope of your ideas may range from the local to the national; from matters of politics and policy to questions of spirituality and art; from pieces that emphasize the well-being of a single racial or ethnic group to those that discuss implications for us all; from attention to a single institution (say, schools, faith organizations, workplaces, or professional sports) to more encompassing perspectives. That’s up to you.

Please send your 1,000-2,000 word entry to Imagine@race-talk.org by Monday, May 17. Include your full name and a sentence or two identifying yourself: e.g., “Andrew Grant-Thomas is Deputy Director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race & Ethnicity, a national policy-oriented research institute located at the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.” Articles will be posted to our well-trafficked Race-Talk forum beginning Monday, May 24. We will post as many pieces as possible. However, given our uncertainty about the volume of responses we’ll get, we reserve the right to post only selected articles. (Of course, the normal rules of respectful engagement apply.) We’ll let you know whether and when your entry will be posted.

Please feel free to forward this notice to others. All thoughtful visions are welcome.

Let’s look ahead!

Andrew Grant-Thomas, Kirwan Institute Deputy Director,

This reminds me of a kid I knew

Feminism/Politics 9 Responses »

Mar 152010

… [A] recent survey found that the most severe hunger-related problems in the nation are in the South Bronx, long one of the country’s capitals of obesity. Experts say these are not parallel problems persisting in side-by-side neighborhoods, but plagues often seen in the same households, even the same person: the hungriest people in America today, statistically speaking, may well be not sickly skinny, but excessively fat.

via The South Bronx, Plagued by Obesity, Tops a Hunger Survey – NYTimes.com.

When I taught daycare there was a child in our class who was fat and who was always hungry. His mother, acting on the advice of their pediatrician, told us that he was not allowed seconds at lunch. He got one serving of the (mostly) balanced meal and one serving of the Goldfish crackers or raisins or cheerios at snack. One serving and that was it no matter how much he begged.

He was fat but he was hungry.

I remember one time when a substitute accidentally gave him seconds.

“Dawn, Dawn!” he called, his 3-year old face lighting up. “Look! I got more!”

Eventually I started babysitting for him in his own home and that’s when I realized why he was hungry.

There wasn’t much to eat in his house and what there was to eat was processed foods. Fruit snacks instead of fruit. Frozen meals with processed cheese food sauce instead of fresh vegetables. Packages of ramen. He was fat but he was probably also malnourished. His mom was so skinny that I bet she never ate (to save money maybe?) and judging from the ‘fridge and cupboards, her son was the focus of her grocery list since every happy-looking package was pasted up with kid-friendly slogans and graphics. No wonder he wanted seconds on our (not much better but at least USDA-approved) lunches at daycare!

I was only twenty and dumb and didn’t know I could do anything about this (like find some nutrition information to share with his mom) so I didn’t. But I thought of him later when I met fat clients at the shelter who were getting their meals from food banks (boxed dinners, canned spaghettio-s). And I also think of him when I hear about doctors taking a glance at a kid’s growth chart and advising, “Don’t let him eat seconds” instead of having the time and inclination to sit down and say, “Now what all do you folks eat in a regular day?”