You can't make this stuff up: Republicans' recent asssaults on women's rights

While we're on the topic of threats to women's human rights - and in light of International Women's Day coming up - I've posted the list below, courtesy of MoveOn. It lists the top 10 Republican assaults on women's rights in the US. If you're interested in the list of sources for these claims, let me know in the comments section, and I'll post those links.

1) Republicans not only want to reduce women's access to abortion care, they're actually trying to redefine rape. After a major backlash, they promised to stop. But they haven't.

2) A state legislator in Georgia wants to change the legal term for victims of rape, stalking, and domestic violence to "accuser." But victims of other less gendered crimes, like burglary, would remain "victims."

3) In South Dakota, Republicans proposed a bill that could make it legal to murder a doctor who provides abortion care. (Yep, for real.)

4) Republicans want to cut nearly a billion dollars of food and other aid to low-income pregnant women, mothers, babies, and kids.

5) In Congress, Republicans have proposed a bill that would let hospitals allow a woman to die rather than perform an abortion necessary to save her life.

6) Maryland Republicans ended all county money for a low-income kids' preschool program. Why? No need, they said. Women should really be home with the kids, not out working.

7) And at the federal level, Republicans want to cut that same program, Head Start, by $1 billion. That means over 200,000 kids could lose their spots in preschool.

8) Two-thirds of the elderly poor are women, and Republicans are taking aim at them too. A spending bill would cut funding for employment services, meals, and housing for senior citizens.

9) Congress voted yesterday on a Republican amendment to cut all federal funding from Planned Parenthood health centers, one of the most trusted providers of basic health care and family planning in our country.

10) And if that wasn't enough, Republicans are pushing to eliminate all funds for the only federal family planning program. (For humans. But Republican Dan Burton has a bill to provide contraception for wild horses. You can't make this stuff up).

Reading Food at the Downunder Feminists Carnival

The latest edition of the Downunder Feminists Carnival features some great blog posts that touch on how we produce food, who produces it, and what we eat, including:

• Helen Razer criticises PETA for their use of sexism and racism in advertising campaigns, and argues that real argument is needed to change people's minds about meat.
• Tammi Jonas talks about some of the debates surrounding the relationship between feminism and the local food movement.
• Steph writes about the 'Hear Me Roar' forum, which considered 'the parallels and intersections between equal rights and animal rights in society and law'.

What does feminism mean to you?

My 15 year old cousin asked me on the weekend 'How come you knit and sew and cook and stuff even though you're a feminist?'

I would love to live in a world where that was a surprising and naive question. Instead, I've come across the same assumption over and over again: being a feminist means eschewing anything to do with traditional femininity. Someone told me recently: "I'm not a feminist because I enjoy being able to stay at home with my children". I wish I'd been shocked.

I came across a similar assumption today in a new and unexpected place: in Wired.com's critique of Ridiculous Life Lessons From New Girl Games. While I entirely agree with the author's complaints that most of these games teach girls to focus on fashion and adventures, it seems that games can only win approval for teaching girls to engage in "non-stereotypically female activities" or to have "masculine qualities".

For me, feminism is about valuing qualities and activities that have traditionally been associated with both masculinity and femininity. I love having a place in academia, being able to teach and present my research. A hundred years ago, that would have been hard for a woman. I also love being able to make and fix things with my hands, whether it's crocheting a scarf or adjusting my bicycle gears. I want a world in which men and women (and those who don't fit our gender binaries) can choose to engage in 'caring work', where people have the same opportunities in the workplace and in the rest of their lives, no matter what gender they are.

Women in the West have it relatively easy, compared to women (and men) in the rest of the world, but we're not there yet. Women get paid less than men, mothers are less likely to be hired and are paid less, and a myriad of subtle gender structures shape and limit the possibilities that both men and women have available. For me, feminism is about changing this while connecting with and supporting other struggles throughout the world, including those in the Global South.

What does feminism mean for you?

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Picture from Cross-stitch ninja.

Building Bridges

Following on from my recent reading of Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands/La Frontera, I've been making my way through This Bridge Called My Back, a collection of 'writings by radical women of color'. It's a challenging and inspiring experience.

One part of the PhD experience is getting heavily into a few theoretical fields or issues. You read and read, trying to make sure that you know all the important authors and perspectives. All of the debates and struggles seem to be world-shaking. Then, you step outside the field for a second and realise that there are a whole range of perspectives that just aren't represented in that world-view. There are whole other worlds: worlds where black lesbians in South Africa face horrific violence,where 39% of Indigenous Australians still live in 'low resource' households, where the women who make the electronics we use every day work in horrific conditions.

Reading This Bridge Called My Back has been reminding me of other struggles, other perspectives, that need to be addressed. At times, the authors' claims that white women (including white feminists) are racist strike a nerve with me. Sometimes it's so easy to let race disappear, to stick with the concerns that are familiar to me from my own life.

Most of the authors in the collection are open to and value collaborations with white women, but they make the persistant demand that white women educate ourselves. They expressed frustration and disappointment that they, as token representatives of various third world 'minorities', were continually being asked to speak to white women at conferences and other events. Those who are in a position of (relative) privilege have a responsibility, and the resources, to find out more about others' struggles themselves.

I feel embarrassed, sometimes, that I know so little about the ways in which Indigenous Australians are trying to resist the racism they have faced, and about the alternatives that they may offer to dominant Australian politics. I want to know more about the work of movements in the South: women's movements, farmers' movements', movements of adivasis and queers and intellectual property activists.

As well as my own reading, I hope that the Bluestocking Institute will become another way to build bridges between different perspectives. Through projects like the Community Scholars program and VOICES we're trying to reach out across the gulfs that divide us. Along the way, I expect to learn as much as I teach.