three disparate things.

1. I'm reading The Handmaid's Tale again.  After a particularly difficult year of high school, I asked a favored English teacher what to read that summer, knowing that she had to have good taste because she'd done her masters thesis on e.e. cummings.  She suggested Atwood's book. I loved it. It got me thinking about woman's place in the world.

As an undergraduate I pursuaded another kind English instructor to let me do a paper on it. The course of that research introduced me to Phyllis Schlafly, the ERA, the Christian Right, and the LDS Church's efforts against the proposed Amendment. It revealed to me that dirty word: feminism. As a graduate student I've done work on the Eagle Forum and am now working on the Moral Majority. The Handmaid's Tale was written in a very particular moment, and that moment has come to define my career and how I spend my days.

And to think it all stemmed from a very casual book recommendation to a teenage student.

2. When I was living in the dorms at college, I embarked on a mission to a suburban Macy's for a bathrobe. I left the store with a piece of fluff the color of buttercream frosting. It was one of the first times that I said, "damn the costs," and bought something because I liked it and I knew I would need it for a long time.  Now that it's suddenly winter bathrobe season, wearing it puts me back in Pflueger Hall, back in the steamy smell of Dove body wash, back next to the drafty window where I used to sit after my showers. It puts me back in a time before I was an aunt and before my relationship with Mormonism got so fraught. I put on this bathrobe and I go back in time, back to before I knew anything about how good life could be.

And yet I kind of like that my cozy bathrobe takes me back to that time of not knowing any better.

3. Yesterday I went to New York City for the first time. It was big and bustling and dense and busy and shadowy. I only saw a few rushed snippets of the city, and I didn't like it all that much. How do people live there?  Why would anyone choose that? 

And then I remembered that I was in New York City, where I had never been before. That I made choices- a lot of them, big ones- that got me there. That I'd better enjoy right where I was because I'd never get to go to New York City for the first time ever again. Times Square got a little prettier and the people seemed a little nicer. 

New York made more sense to me when it was a myth, but at the very least, there I was. And Philly seemed so blissfully quaint when I returned.

this is genius.

and now she sews people up too.

heroic women, part one.

Seeing this picture today inspired me to do a post about how awesome Michelle Obama is-- and then I realized that International Women's Day is on Sunday and really, that requires a commemorative series of blog posts because I don't think we can ever do enough to build each other up and honor each other for what we do. So the first woman I'm saluting in my "heroic women" series is Michelle Obama because she is First Lady.

WASHINGTON - MARCH 05: U.S. first lady Michelle Obama serves lunch at Miriam's Kitchen which provides meals, case management services and housing support to nearly 250 homeless men and women March 5, 2009 in Washington, D.C. The visit was a part of the first lady's effort to connect with the Washington, D.C. community and also highlight the city's best practices. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Michelle Obama is a woman who commands respect. Sure she is gracious and lovely and fit-- but I love that when I see her I am reminded that she is a successful, educated woman who, in front of the whole country, juggles being a wife and mother alongside her job as First Lady. If we couldn't get a female president this time around, I feel like Michelle Obama is everything one could ask for when it comes to promoting powerful womanhood in the Executive branch. I love how Oprah described her in Vogue, "Michelle Obama is a full-blown, grown-up woman. An authentically empowered real woman who looks and feels like a modern woman in the twenty-first century, allowing us to see the best of ourselves in her." Amen Oprah!

love is... never having to equate equal rights with shoveling poo.

I submitted myself to a few hours of mindnumbing microfilmery today and the only things keeping me interested were the number of Love is... cartoons dispersed throughout the paper (1975 Ogden Standard-Examiner!), the fashion trends as manifest through the ads (very similar to what you'd see right now actually) and puff pieces like this:

Having equal rights really is like shoveling shit all the time! Somebody make this lady a candidate for vice-president, stat!, and for goodness sakes, make feminism stop!

cuteness sandwich.

I was looking for something that would give me a pass for passing all this other saddie stuff that showed up on the internet. Here it goes:


Cuteness.

Now:
You may remember a while back I linked to some NPR reports on transgender kids. The Atlantic did an article too. It's interesting to me when theory meets science and people's real lives.

Jezebel linked to this article by a woman who went through what might be politically identified as a "partial birth abortion." It's really sad but after John McCain was so dismissive of women's health issues last night, I think it's important to emphasize that choice has a lot of faces. I'm sorry, but fuck you McCain, women's health does not belong in quotation marks. Excuse me while I get on my soapbox folks, but don't forget to vote. I'll leave it at that.

Yah, see, heavy stuff. Here's a unicorn.

this is an outrage.

The following article can also be found here. I have posted it in full because I find the proposed rule so upsetting and despicable.

"September 19, 2008

Op-Ed Contributor

Blocking Care for Women

By HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON and CECILE RICHARDS

LAST month, the Bush administration launched the latest salvo in its eight-year campaign to undermine women’s rights and women’s health by placing ideology ahead of science: a proposed rule from the Department of Health and Human Services that would govern family planning. It would require that any health care entity that receives federal financing — whether it’s a physician in private practice, a hospital or a state government — certify in writing that none of its employees are required to assist in any way with medical services they find objectionable.

Laws that have been on the books for some 30 years already allow doctors to refuse to perform abortions. The new rule would go further, ensuring that all employees and volunteers for health care entities can refuse to aid in providing any treatment they object to, which could include not only abortion and sterilization but also contraception.

Health and Human Services estimates that the rule, which would affect nearly 600,000 hospitals, clinics and other health care providers, would cost $44.5 million a year to administer. Astonishingly, the department does not even address the real cost to patients who might be refused access to these critical services. Women patients, who look to their health care providers as an unbiased source of medical information, might not even know they were being deprived of advice about their options or denied access to care.

The definition of abortion in the proposed rule is left open to interpretation. An earlier draft included a medically inaccurate definition that included commonly prescribed forms of contraception like birth control pills, IUD’s and emergency contraception. That language has been removed, but because the current version includes no definition at all, individual health care providers could decide on their own that birth control is the same as abortion.

The rule would also allow providers to refuse to participate in unspecified “other medical procedures” that contradict their religious beliefs or moral convictions. This, too, could be interpreted as a free pass to deny access to contraception.

Many circumstances unrelated to reproductive health could also fall under the umbrella of “other medical procedures.” Could physicians object to helping patients whose sexual orientation they find objectionable? Could a receptionist refuse to book an appointment for an H.I.V. test? What about an emergency room doctor who wishes to deny emergency contraception to a rape victim? Or a pharmacist who prefers not to refill a birth control prescription?

The Bush administration argues that the rule is designed to protect a provider’s conscience. But where are the protections for patients?

The 30-day comment period on the proposed rule runs until Sept. 25. Everyone who believes that women should have full access to medical care should make their voices heard. Basic, quality care for millions of women is at stake.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is a Democratic senator from New York. Cecile Richards is the president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America."

JOIN WITH PLANNED PARENTHOOD TO TELL THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION THAT YOU--AND THE PEOPLE YOU LOVE-- DESERVE ACCESS TO THE HEALTH CARE THEY NEED.

so basically my answer is "no."

Michaele asked in the comments section what I thought about the selection of Sarah Palin for McCain's veep. My little fingers are exhausted from typing about caribou and I am a little-- no, make that very--cranky as all the bureaucratic mess of last week appears to finally be reconciling itself but I am tired from working so hard this weekend and I was tired when I got the news about Sarah Palin-- where am I going with this... oh yah, I was really caught off guard, and the news of the selection had to make it through all that mess in my head AND then I wanted to come up with an actual cogent answer for Michaele. So it took me a while.

Ok, so she's a woman. I'm glad that the Republicans finally decided to be so progressive, you know, pushing 40 years after the womens movement and ~30 years since they last had a female chair of the RNC and 20 years after the Democrats had a female veep nominee. So yah, first glance it's kinda cool, girl power and women having it all and what not. I was even a teensy bit excited that Catherine Rymph might have to reevaluate her stand on the death of Republican feminism.

But then I look again and it's like, wait a minute. McCain and the conservative media machine has been waaaaay aggressive in trying to court the jilted Clinton-ites and it was like, oh, duh, isn't that strategically obvious! Thanks for not picking Dan Quayle all over again, but for goodness sakes John, do you really think that I will vote for you just because your VP would be a woman? Do you really think I'm that stupid?

Because frankly, despite the lack of womanity on the Democratic ticket, they actually represent my interests. Palin is anti-choice, has more experience on the city council than as governor, and is in bed (literally?) with Big Oil. She was selected clearly to appeal to women and evangelicals, and with her lack of experience (which totally kills McCain's ability to tout his own) I really don't see her as being selected for any reason other than that she's a woman. And being as she's a woman who differs from my stand on something like abortion (which is I wish was a non-issue but hey, it effects things like sex education and birth control that I do really, really care about) I really don't feel like she would be all that helpful for my agenda. I'm a little peeved that she's calling herself a feminist. While I think there can be a lot of kinds of feminists, I think Joe Biden is more my type. And anyways she should be careful calling herself one because Schlafly and her Eagles will come after her ass for that shit. Whew, this is getting ranty!

So basically I think McCain shouldn't have taken the risk with someone who is only superficially useful. The reality is, I would've never voted for him anyways, but to me this just confirms that McCain is not concerned about solving America's problems at all because if he was, he would've picked someone who actually had the ability to help him. Particularly when McCain's health is so precarious, I am really, really concerned that he was so cavalier in his choice. Who knows, maybe she could surprise me, but really being attached to McCain negates any possible appeal.

So that was kind of a wreckless analysis that definitely merits a rewrite, and wasn't really all that cogent after all.

i thought about it.

So interesting: Tiny Voices Defy Fate of Yemen’s Girls

i practiced the yo-yo because it pleased me to do so.

Ok, so I made the necessary phone call and am feeling marginally better about the future of my project. I have decided not to think about my big picture future too seriously until after my draft is turned in on July seventh. So that was one area in which my crappy attitude was productive-- it got me to the breaking point that inspired proactivity. Maybe I am just being negative because it's hard? Somebody was quoting JFK recently... something to the effect of, "Why do we want to land on the moon? Because it is hard." Well ok then, I'll buck up and do this shit because it is hard, and that can be reason enough. I've got to stop over thinking this.

Incidentally, I was following this discussion on Jezebel today and somebody suggested a particular book of interest with regards to my whole little career Chernobyl I was having earlier. While it wasn't on the shelf where it should be at the library, I did find a book that caught my eye and have started reading it. It is called Necessary Dreams: Ambition in Women's Changing Lives by Anna Fels. It appears to be a slightly refined pop psychology book, but the author seeks to look at how women relate to their ambitions and argues that it is so important for women to have dreams and goals and ideas about their futures, and to really think about it.* I had forgotten that positive psychology is one of my favorite things (Sports Psychology was the best, most influential class I took at PLU, hands down) and Fels starts right out by saying that too much psychology is about the past and should really move towards looking at how people see their futures. I feel the same way about history!**

I have only read a teensy bit of it as I am a little caught up in a work project (for once! I am helping the interviewer meet a deadline and as the song goes, "When we're helping, we're happy...") but I think it will be a really good book for me to read. I am better at seeing myself as apart of other people's lives than as a part of my own distinct, self-determined future. Not that the former is necessarily a bad thing, but you know, I've got to be happy with what I'm doing and the circles within which I move and who I am etc., regardless of the other people in my life and, as Dr. Fels argues, if we are willing to try things out in our head then we can get a better sense of how they can become realities and ultimately, how to make them realities without seeing our aspirations as a burden. Even if this book does reek of Betty Friedan's influence*** I think it will be a nice little diversion for the weekend.


*Not that men don't, but it's different for women, Fels asserts.

**just kidding :P

***have I ever said on this blog how much I hate The Feminine Mystique? How terrible it is despite all it's influential power?! Well there, I said it. That book actually gave me a meltdown when I had to write about it objectively. The result of course, was that I did not write about it objectively. I got a very bad grade and had to rewrite it. It required a lot more self-control than I thought I had.

The title heading comes from a quote in the book-- Fels, 8. I think it is the most beautiful sentence.

it was so good that i even cried a little.

So I was having this sort of lonely day. I spent most of it at Liberty Park reading The Golden Compass (which I am so enjoying) and bike-watching, and as I was leaving I realized that I was practically the only person there alone, and yah, that made me sad, which is sometimes the cost of living far away from one's family and pursuing one's dreams. So I got back to the apartment and ate some soup and was like, WHAT DO I DO FOR THE REST OF THE DAY? because I had designated today to be sabbath-like and free of work (at my job and on my thesis) because I know that keeps me in a good state of mental health so I can come out swinging on Monday. Pretty soon I had tossed on a sundress and filled my Nalgene and went running off to the Trax.

Admittedly, I had never been to the movies by myself alone before, but sometimes you have to do things to connect to people you miss. Like sometimes I plod around the apartment with really heavy steps because it reminds me of my Gram-E, and sometimes I watch The Royal Tenenbaums because it takes me back to the many times I've watched that movie with my bro & sis and it like, you know, some how, momentarily, fills in the gap between the miles. So I was missing my friends today so the only real natural thing for me to do was to go see the Sex and the City movie. Say what you will about that show and how it conflicts with my feminism-- fuck you, women's lives are too messy for ideology to really work _all_ the time-- I loved it. It was less about sex than any episode of the show ever was, I thought, and more about the journeys women take through adulthood and how everything works out in the end and somehow through everything, there are always the people who made you who you are to come back to. So suck it. I liked it! Kim Cattrall was quoted as saying that the four women are really just the different parts that make up one woman, and I totally concur.

Speaking of Kim Cattrall, I especially liked Samantha in this movie. I have never connected particularly much to that character (I don't want an STD) but I thought she had the best lines and ultimately emerged as the character who was most true to herself and she did it in the most elegant, least whiny manner of all the characters. I thought the Carrie parts of the movie were kind of annoying but Sarah Jessica Parker's acting was generally much better than it ever was on the show.

The part about the movie I loved the most (other than the fashion... OMG it was like another character) was that as I came out of the film, I called one of my BFFs who lives in another time zone (as they all do, duh) AND SHE HAD BEEN AT THE MOVIE AT THE EXACT SAME TIME. We had talked about doing that but never really got around to solidifying it, so I consider it truly serendipitous that that happened-- karma, on the same wave length, whatevs-- I totally take it AS A SIGN. I am clearly more connected than I realized. And then I ate Ranch Pringles at the Trax stop. It was awesome.

p.s. As I was riding home the u-bombers totally got on the same train as me. I didn't join them because I lack a tiny bike and was a little too much on the gintastic side of things (what else do you think I put in that Nalgene???).

more feminism, more thesis. yes, that's all there is for me right now.

Per the usual, I have about eight different things on my mind at once and feel like I'm kind of drowning in all the feelings that have piled up over the course of the day. The highlight of my day was meeting with the woman who now completes my advisory committee-- finally the form that's been on my desk since January can be submitted and this whole thesis operation can assume legitimacy. But she is hardly just a name on a form-- I got to experience the rare privilege of being in the presence of someone I connected with almost immediately. I love it when you find those people-- people who share your interests, people who just seem to get what you're doing and where you're coming from-- I was really impressed. Not only did she give me some great archival leads but she gave me some helpful perspective as to how I might approach my work.

I try to divorce myself from what I do as much as possible; I try not to impose my own feminism on the ladies I study and to strive for the futile objectivity that every post-modernist is supposed to pursue and I don't really think to feel anything about it or really to even form any opinions about the subject. My new committee woman pointed out the emotiveness of the whole ERA struggle and urged me to think about, as I work, how what I read effects me. So of course when I headed down to Special Collections at the library later in the day and noticed that I was slogging through a bunch of documents from NOW and court depositions and the like with my usual air of detachment, I caught myself and really started to look at what was in front of me-- which seemed so apparently irrelevant to what I was supposed to be pursuing. It was this huge moment of clarity-- it was like I finally got a sense of what it was like to be there, on the ground, and what a crushing disappointment the whole business of the ERA must've been for women who spent years fighting for it-- it hit me like thousands of little pinpricks as all their dashed hopes seemed laid out before me. Obviously, it wasn't all done in vain, but still it still made me sad. It made me want to work harder to understand the opposition. Anyways, interesting experience for my first day in the archives.

But the more uplifting part of my day-- the meeting I was in-- had another really awesome component, which is this: being in the presence of really powerful women just sends me into a feminist euphoria. I forget how much I need face time with those kind of examples! I pity my poor co-worker who had to listen to me babble incoherently about it afterwards, so for once I'll spare you, but trust me, it was awesome.

better a virtual vagina, i suppose, than none at all.*

Good thing I would rather spend what little money I have on booze and ice cream than support patriarchy by going to the movies.



*title comes from the article. genius.

all aboard on the good times party cruise.

I could start this post by saying, man, I haven't posted in so long because I've been soooo busy, but that's a lie. I am having kind of a relaxing week (calm before the storm) with you know, the periodic jolts back to consciousness. But things here have been mostly nice (barring the freakish bipolar weather and my awareness of the impending suffering of the coming weeks). I seem to be caught in one of those magical and very, very temporary states of bliss that makes me wistfully proclaim my love for Utah, both school and state, as I bask in the fleeting pleasures of lifeasInowknowit. Some contributors to the goodness of times:

Trio. Officially my favorite restaurant in Salt Lake City. The food is so up to my inflated Caper's standards of quality and taste that I continue to revel in the memory of that meal a week later. Affordable prices (for what you get) and the Riesling was, omg, so light and perfect. Tacomans: think Europa but way, way better in a much classier setting. Bonus: Seeing former SLC mayor Rocky Anderson and knowing that the magic of America is that lowly grad students can sup with (ok, near) people of power and influence. If we had seen Ralph Becker I might have fainted.

Alta. Ok, so my camera didn't make it up there with me, but I have to say that skiing was some of the most fun I've ever had. There was tons of falling initially, but once I got the hang of it, it was unreal. Loved the glory of the pristine glare-y Alpine setting. And I saw an ermine (so cute!!!)! And tons of children! I never get to see kids at grad school. Bonus: Learned (post skiing) that in a taste test between snow-chilled Natural Ice and Natural Light, Natty Light clearly wins. Not that I usually drink that shit, but useful nonetheless. Oooo! And I got these awesome comfy thermals just in time for summer.

The Red Iguana. Everybody says it's the best Mexican restaurant in town, and I believe it. Cool style and tasty mole'. Yum yum yum. Bonus: Leftovers.

An exceptionally rousing discussion of "what is feminism" in my women and gender class. Completely unlinkable, but oh so enriching. Seriously gave me the warm fuzzies inside-- so affirming in ways that are hard to describe (fighting for our rights! equality in relationships! girl powah!). Bonus: We were discussing this book, which I loved.

Yay for life in Utah! Weeeeee! Soon it will be summer and everybody will go away, leaving me with thermals I can't wear and plenty of restaurants to go to alone!*


*I'm being sarcastic, duh. Summer will rock because I will make new friends, travel and do research...ooo, and enjoy the hothothot sunshine! Fun for different reasons, but fun nonetheless.

finally, a great role model in the media.

Funny brilliantness: my girl Tina Fey in Entertainment Weekly.

''Tina really is the new woman who can have it all,'' says Langley. ''[On TV], she navigates a man's world but maintains her own sense of self, she never has to compromise her ideals to get what she wants — yet she's not manipulative or coquettish. In her personal life, she's married, she has a lovely baby, she was the first woman to be the head writer at SNL — she's crossed all these barriers and milestones as a woman, so it makes her a great role model.''

Yay! New women having at all! Yaaaaay!

It's my way of making up to you for puking links to protesting and polygamy all over you earlier. (What can I say? I couldn't help myself. You know I never can.)

i'm just sayin'.

My unofficial campaign pin arrived while I was gone! *cackles maniacally*

my new slogan.

As heard in class tonight, in a discussion about the sixties:

Discussion leader: So let's talk about the women's rights movement.
Guy: Burning bras?
Professor: Nobody burned bras in the women's rights movement.
Me: You'd have to be wearing a bra to burn one.

[And the moral of the story is:]

Discussion Leader, in authoritative voice:

"No bras were burned in the making of this feminist."

I'm pretty sure that should be on a bumper sticker on my car or a t-shirt (sans bra, of course).