The Implausible Dream

Today, I had an awesome opportunity.  I was interviewed by WBAL, a Baltimore news station, as a voice of the #occupywhatever movement.  Fellow media teamer Spencer decided that I would be a good candidate, based on my blog yesterday. 

I did not say, “I feel that we’ve reached a critical juncture, and we must act now in order to keep our momentum going.”  I did not say, “People need to look around and realize that our current system is not working, and let the government know that keeping it the same is not an option.  If all we’re doing is sitting in the park, it’s still an option.”

I did talk with my hands a lot, and bounce back and forth.  I did say, “If I weren’t here tonight, I would be at home, sitting in my room – the same room I lived in when I was in high school – and, like, reading.”

I said a few other things that were hopefully more relevant and less stupid, and I hope those are the ones that make it on the air.  I know it was better that WBAL get the basics of the occupation rather than an articulate insider critique.  Still, I know that more people will see that broadcast than will ever read this blog, and I can’t help but feel disappointed that I awkwardified my chance to speak for the 99%.

Check out this article I wrote on SlutWalk Bmore!  My goal was relatively unbiased, across-the-board coverage of SlutWalk (locally and internationally) and the race and gender politics surrounding it.  At last Saturday's march, I bravely clutched my borrowed digital recorder and accosted people as they attempted to protest.  Everyone agreed that rape culture had to go, but that was about it.

Things I did not write in the article:

- GOD DAMN, did it feel good to shout about something I believe in!  And shout we did.  The night before, I tossed and turned with vision of awkwardness (seriously) dancing in my head.  I was sure that the turnout would be low, that people would try to start chants and fail, and that bystanders would sneer.  Instead, I convinced several people to join the march, and experienced the rare exhilaration of mass unity.

- I was so busy interviewing people during our stroll down The Block that I don't know what to believe.  Some people said the sex workers came out and chanted empowerment slogans with us, some people said they looked askance at our gaudy display of privilege and ignorance.  I'm sure it was both, but I feel like a prize fool for not witnessing it firsthand.

- Never Have I Ever was uncomfortable.  I enjoy that game, just as I enjoy drinking and sleeping around, and I don't care who knows it.  However, I could tell that some of the people in that crowd felt differently.  Sex positivity is the future, and Lucé Tomlin-Brenner is hilarious and super cool.  But making people divulge personal information if they didn't want to stand out wasn't a good idea, especially with so many survivors of sexual assault present.

- The racial composition of the march was pretty depressing, but honestly, it was a little better than I expected. 

- My own feelings about the word 'slut' are pretty mixed.  As much as I would like to reclaim it, I want to defer to the people who continue to be hurt by it, because clearly it matters more to them.  (I did some flyering for SlutWalk Bmore in Towson and Mount Vernon, and I sometimes felt uncomfortable saying the event's name in front of children or while alone with large men.  Almost no one had a problem with it.  The worst were the coffee shop liberals, who always felt the need to snidely inform me, "I know what SlutWalk is.")

- Did anyone consider SkankWank as a titular alternative?

It's hard to think of a supposedly gender-neutral profession that hasn't been described to me as a "boys' club."  I think I first heard that phrase from my mother, complaining long ago about being in state politics, and most recently from my friend who works as assistant technical director of a theatrical scene shop. 

Today, the Supreme Court ruled that 1.5 million women who claimed to have experienced gender discrimination as employees of Wal-Mart could not join together in a class action lawsuit against the evil mega-corporation.

"Here, [the group of women employees] wish to sue about literally millions of employment decisions at once," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote.

"Without some glue holding the alleged reasons for all those decisions together, it will be impossible to say that examination of all the class members' claims for relief will produce a common answer to the crucial question 'why was I disfavoured.'"

I don't want to get into the semantics of the lawsuit, because that's certainly not something I'm qualified to debate.  But this decision, written by the notoriously regressive, sexist Antonin Scalia, highlights the federal government's refusal to acknowledge the war on women.  Even the White House won't admit it.  Moreover, Scalia effectively dismisses gender discrimination as a driving force behind injustice in the workplace.  He's telling us that in order for all these cases to have misogynistic motivation, they must follow the same pattern, have the same excuses, and manifest in the same kind of sexist behavior.  In reality, sexism takes more forms than I could ever hope to list, and the crucial question 'why was I disfavoured' will have a million answers with a million different interpretations.  But they're all part and parcel of the underlying assumptions in our society that women are weaker, less capable, and less deserving of success than men.  

The news media and blogosphere are always buzzing with incensed coverage of the War on Choice, but, as usual, the dialogue is intensely slanted on the side of privilege.  I should know, that's the side I live in.

While I have nightmares about the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, and grapple with the even realer fear that statewide legislation will whittle down my chance to abort to a two-day window following insemination, I don't really believe that I will ever be denied my right to choose.  Even if I never find another job and run deep into debt, I have incredible family and friends who would front me whatever money I needed to travel and pay for an abortion.  And this is true for most of the women who write about abortion rights on the internet.

The aggressive outcry over Planned Parenthood's defunding took a decidedly problematic turn when advocates decided, early on, to shift the focus from abortion.  "Planned Parenthood does other stuff too!" they cried.  "Just look at all the medical care they provide for women with familes, women who love their children and just want to be healthy enough to raise them!"  What they ignored was the fact that taxpayer dollars SHOULD be paying for women to get abortions, just like they pay for other medical procedures and healthcare services.  The right to choose is not just for people who can afford it.  And the sooner we bring that fact front and center instead of brushing it under the carpet, the closer we'll be to embracing a feminism that isn't racist or classist or otherwise elite.

That's why it made me so angry to see this post on the usually-progressive reddit the other day (emphasis added):

Why do people continue to be hypnotized by the red herring of abortion? Abortion has been legal for nearly 40 years and that's very, very unlikely to change regardless of who's president. Stop encouraging debate on abstract bullshit... let's focus on real issues.

...

Let's stop allowing candidates to debate soft topics like abortion and spend more time on real topics that require actual action like the wars, economy, foreign policy, etc.

And despite the significant feminist outcry, the majority of the top-rated comments agreed with the OP.  I left some angry responses, linked to this article (if you don't click any other links, click this), and went to bed a little more disillusioned than when I woke up. 

Then today, a MotherJones article by my indomitable hero Mac McClelland directed me at this cheery piece of news.  The Ohio Senate has decided that not only can public hospitals no longer perform abortions, but public dollars can't even fund healthcare plans that cover the procedure.  And the kicker?  It only applies to rural, unincorporated counties.  This means Appalachia and the Rust Belt.  It means Lorain County, my place of residence for the past four years, and Athens County, where my mom grew up.  It means all the tiny towns I spent the last week canvassing, wondering how on earth it feels to live hours away from the nearest Target - let alone an abortion provider. 

I started this blog by mentioning the time I slapped a lecherous drunk man in the face, and last night I decided I wasn't done talking about sexual harassment.  I wasn't sure why I felt such an urge to write about it, when there are already enough good blogs like this one that say what needs to be said.  Then, something happened today that completely validated my preoccupation.

For the past week or so, as part of my job at the Oberlin Summer Theater Festival, I've been covering rural Ohio with three different kinds of posters: a skull, a house in a flowerpot, and an illustration from The Little Prince.  That endeavor alone has been a fun sociological experiment, and I've had a lot of great interactions with very cool shop owners.  And some scary ones, like when the owner of an ice cream shop called Heavenly Delights: Jesus Saves glared at me until I said the magic words "family theater," then let me hang a poster under his four-page printed diatribe about the intolerant homosexual liberal agenda.  I didn't feel very safe in West Salem after that, but it was nothing compared to what happened this afternoon, right around the corner from my tiny liberal arts college town.

I was finishing off my sojourn in South Amherst at a small local auto store.  When I walked inside, the three men behind the counter grinned at me a little too happily (alarm bell number one), but as a nervous grinner myself, I gave them the benefit of the doubt and ignored it.

"Hi, I'm Jenny and I'm here from the Oberlin Summer Theater Festival, which produces three free shows throughout July -"

"You must be in the theater yourself," the owner cut in, his black mustache twitching with glee.

"Kind of!" I laughed.  "I'm the Associate Producer.  I was wondering if I could hang one of our posters in your store."  I started to pull the three options out, but he cut me off.

"Give me the manliest one."

Alarm bell number two.  In the brief pause, I considered showing him The Little Prince (which does, after all, feature a majority of male characters), but decided just to make it easy for myself and get out of there.  With a obliging smile I pulled out the skull-sporting Hamlet, and all three men exclaimed approvingly.

When I crouched down to tape the poster to the counter, one of the mechanics came around to watch.  "Not many girls would come into a man's shop wearing short shorts," he said warmly, leaning over me.  "You're pretty brave, honey."

My brain exploded with rage and panic, and my voice was paralyzed.  I had a thousand angry words on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn't make them coalesce into sentences until I was in my car, driving away.  I wish I could tell you that I responded, "If you're the one who thinks the sight of someone's thigh will turn you, werewolf-style, into a rapist, maybe you're the one who should be scared."  Or even better, with a curt "And why is that?", and then made him explain his logic.  I would love to hear about rape culture and slut-shaming from this guy's perspective.

But I couldn't.  I, with a thousand things to say about both those issues; I, who slapped a man in the face for following me down the street; I, who blog about turning blogs into action.  I gave then a clipped good-bye ("Bye, honey!") and hurried out of the store.

As I drove down Rte. 58 with my blood boiling, I realized that I wasn't angry at those men.  I wasn't even scared of them.  No, I was angry at myself - furious, in fact - for failing to retort in an acceptable way.  I mentally accepted and normalized their behavior, and instead blamed myself for not doing anything about it.

When I told my ex-professor, now-colleague what happened, he said that of course I shouldn't worry about it.  "You'll get better at it as you get older," he assured me, and he would know.  I still felt awful, as if I had let down women everywhere.  I thought about all the women who have to endure that mechanic's comments, maybe on a daily basis, and the innumerable others who suffer much worse.  It's not our fault or our job to change this.  But if we don't stand up for ourselves when this happens, who will?

Sexual harassment is a tricky issue because there isn't always an overt threat.  The mechanic today was definitely implying that I was asking to get raped, but sometimes an offhand comment can straddle the grey area between harassment and flirtation - especially depending on how you feel about the person involved.  Some women profess that cat-calling is "harmless" and they like it because it boosts their self-esteem.  (Then, they start to rely on sexual attention from males for a sense of self-worth, and that usually ends well.)  But at the end of the day, it's all perpetuating a culture of rape, fear, and the inevitable sexualization of women's bodies.  So next time something makes me uncomfortable, I'm going to say something.  Maybe I'll even go back to that auto shop and hand them a printed copy of this blog.  But at my housemate's suggestion, I'll wait until our plays are over, so they don't take the poster down.

Well, the protections between the separation of church and state were designed to protect people of faith from government, not government from people of faith. This is a country that in our founding documents says we’re a nation that’s founded under God, and the privileges and blessings at that we have are from our creator. They’re not from our member of Congress. They’re not from our county commissioner.

And 39 of the 50 states have in the very early phrases of their constitutions language like Minnesota has in its preamble. It says this, “We the people of Minnesota, grateful to God for our civil and religious liberties,” and so the Founding Fathers understood that the blessings that we have as a nation come from our creator and we should stop and say thanks and express gratitude for that. I embrace that.

-Tim Pawlenty, and it's far from the most horrific quote in that article.  Read him fight the others about who's the most pro-life, using only the word "sanctity!"

(For the record, many of the Founding Fathers were atheists.  Also, the Minnesota Constitution was written in 1857.)

"We know there was slavery that was still tolerated when the nation began. We know that was an evil and it was scourge and a blot and a stain upon our history. But we also know that the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States."

- Michele Bachmann

Kate Spencer's story about punching a man who touched her on the subway went viral across the feminist blogosphere, which makes sense given how ubiquitous sexual harassment is.  It reminded me of that time I slapped a drunk guy who was following me and Amanda in London, and of hearing how Lauren struck a pickpocket in Naples.  We all reached our breaking points at those moments, and it felt both victorious and defeating.  Our stories are awful, inspiring, and - if told at parties - somehow hilarious.  Basically, it sucks that this is the world we live in, it's cool that we're all pretty tough, and it's both fortuitous and disconcerting that none of those men even thought to hit us back.

But what stuck out the most to me from Kate's blog post was this:  "As much as I want to believe my daughter will not have to live with this same fear 10, 20, 30 years from now, I know that she will."  Whoa.  Do you mean to imply that it will take more than thirty years to erase this scary, lascivious facet of sexism from our societies?  Or do you think it will never disappear?

Committing significant time and personal investment to eradicating misogyny (or any other injustice) means staking a certain amount of faith in the human race - a species infamous for its flabbergastingly poor decisions and resistance to any form of change that doesn't involve machines.  Often it means fighting to hold onto the rights we have, rather than pushing for progress.   

Do I believe that it's possible to create an Earth where a woman can walk down the street without worrying who can see her, where a gay couple can hold hands and no one will notice anything out of the ordinary?  Absolutely.  Could it happen in ten years?  Of course.  Is it plausible? 

Therein lies the rub.  Right now, our culture has reached a point where Talking About It is the crux, the big step forward.  Talking about rape culture, talking about HIV/AIDS, talking about queerness in all its various manifestations - it's great.  It's new.  It's exciting and necessary.  Sometimes it takes a while: just look how long we've been talking about race and gender, and how little progress has been made compared to what we want.  But often, I find myself frustrated by how seldom that talk becomes change, becomes action.

In Egypt, an HIV+ man is commemorating the thirty-year anniversary of the pandemic by becoming the first Egyptian to speak openly about AIDS.  In northern India, where arranged marriage is still the norm, a college students is organizing the continent's first SlutWalk (for a great analysis of that movement, check out this article).  This spring, we saw events unfold in the Middle East that some people were certain would never come to pass (I know it's overused by now as an example, but come on, it's true).  Recently, the first female editor-in-chief was appointed to the country's biggest misogynistic newspaper (recent example of said misogyny).  There's no doubt that progress is in process, just as it has been throughout history.  But what, ideally and specifically, am I aiming to see in 10, 20, 30 years? 

I want to see a significant destruction of gender norms in the public sector.  We need more female politicians; we need a female President.  If this doesn't happen in my lifetime, I will experience something far beyond disappointment. 

I want to see an end to religion-based public policy.  Simple and difficult as that. 

I want to see a sweeping decrease in HIV infection rates all over the world.  This means expanding education and resources, eliminating stigma, and holding individuals accountable to public health. 

I want to see mainstream acceptance of "deviant" sexuality.  This includes everything from full legal rights for LGBTQ persons (duh) to the breakdown of expectations like monogamy and fixed sexual identity.

I want to see a massive dent in rape culture.  In 10, 20, 30 years, I would like it to be unheard of that one of my male coworkers would tell one of my female coworkers, at our place of employment, "Nice purple panties."  In 10, 20, 30 years, I would like rape to be so popularly reviled that no one will add it to their daily routines and use it as a weapon of war.  In 10, 20, 30 years, I want to feel safe on a dark street at night.

In 10, 20, 30 years, I would like for the planet to still be around.