Call. Email. Post a Letter. Vomit.

I'll write more about this when I don't feel like I'm already dying, but this is worth posting and worth a response. Good ol' Greenville News:

Bill requiring women to wait day before an abortion heads to House

The Associated Press • January 28, 2009

COLUMBIA -- Women seeking an abortion in South Carolina would have to wait at least 24 hours after their ultrasound under a bill given initial approval Wednesday by a House subcommittee.

The measure would increase the waiting time from an hour to a day.

Proponents said it would bring South Carolina in line with other states that have waiting periods and give women time to reflect on the decision. Critics said requiring two trips creates a burden, especially for poor, rural women.

The proposal follows nearly two years of debate on whether to require women to view an ultrasound image before getting an abortion. Under a compromise passed last year, women must be asked whether they want to look at the screen during the procedure or see a printed image -- and sign a form verifying they were given the option.

The compromise kept in the law a 60-minute wait already required after women are handed brochures about fetal development and abortion alternatives.

“But one hour is not enough time to think about it,” said Rep. Greg Delleney, the sponsor of last year’s law and the current proposal. “I’m trying to give the chance for a child waiting to be born to have a birthday.”

He said he didn’t make it an issue last year because he didn’t want to further bog down the law’s passage.

At least 25 other states require waiting times for abortions, and all but two set them at 24 hours -- Indiana, the other, sets an 18-hour minimum, said Oran Smith, president of the Palmetto Family Council.

Several women who had abortions testified they would have changed their mind if they’d had more time to think it through.

“I went blindly, fearfully into a clinic,” said Carla Harvey, a nurse and a volunteer at Lowcountry Crisis Pregnancy Center in Charleston. “They’re in a waiting room. They’re numb. They’re afraid. ... Time really does make a difference.”

Advocates also noted South Carolina requires a daylong wait for a marriage license, and patients have to undergo pre-counseling or classes for many other surgeries, such as for obese patients and hip replacements.

“A waiting period before a final decision regarding abortion is far more critical than any other waiting period,” said Holly Gatling, executive director of South Carolina Citizens for Life. “Before making such a grave and permanent decision, women deserve a 24-hour waiting period that safeguards their dignity, their health and their right to choose life.”

The South Carolina Coalition for Healthy Families opposed the measure, calling it extreme and said it could require taking two days off of work and finding transportation. The state needs to focus instead on reducing unintended pregnancies by funding preventive health care, contraception and comprehensive education beyond abstinence only, said coalition lobbyist Brandi Parrish.

Women must make appointments to get an abortion and already spend time agonizing over the decision, she said.

“They’re not walking in the door 10 minutes after making the phone call,” she said. “It’s not like they’re going and getting their hair done in the afternoon.”

Opponents at the hearing included two anti-abortion activists, who want abortion outlawed.

“It’s not God’s will to wait 24 hours and then kill the baby,” said Steve Lefemine, director of Columbia Christians for Life, who can frequently be seen at the Statehouse carrying posters of aborted fetuses.

The measure stipulates the 24-hour waiting period applies only if an ultrasound is performed. But abortion rights advocates have testified that clinics already perform ultrasounds in nearly all cases to verify how far along the pregnancy is, since state law requires abortion doctors to tell women the likely age of their fetus.

The bill now goes to the full House Judiciary Committee.

Alright -- now that I'm sufficiently perturbed, I'm going to bed. More to report in the morrow and a reminder to all that we have pamphlets from the Morning Star Foundation in the Center for Women's and Gender Studies that provide all kinds o' helpful information in terms of contacting your elected officials.

-- Andrea

Important Reminder: AWESOME Women's and Gender Studies Courses Being Offered This Spring!!!

I know we're all getting back to the grind today and finalizing schedules and all that jazz in the process. But want to remind everyone that there are several fantastic, exciting, can't-afford-to-miss-out-on-'em courses being offered this spring through The Center for Women's and Gender Studies. Some of them are cross-listed through other departments, so just want to go ahead and give you all the pertinent information:

SWST 301: Feminist Theory and Methods
MW 2-3:15 Bell

SWST 398: Queer Theory
TTH 10:50-12:05 Johnson

SATH 301: Women and Art
W 6-8:40 Snow

SHST 352: Women European and American Modern
M 6-8:40 Henderson

SSPH 398: Communication, Gender, and Power
TTH 9:25-10:40 Davis

SREL 399: Religion and Gender
TTH 12:15-1:30 Damrel

SMUS 398: Women in Popular Music
TTH 10:50-12:05 Scarborough

Hope you decide to take advantage of these great classes this spring! And good luck to us all as we start back!

-- Andrea

New Year's Resolutions: Gaza, the UN, Obama, and Blogging (?). . .

This week, despite all intentions of blogging regularly again, I've found myself pretty incapable of mustering up any resolve to write about feminist theory or gender/ sexuality issues cropping up in the U.S. I've been glued to the news of what's happening in Gaza coupled with its macabre relationship to U.S. current affairs, wishing that Democracy Now! was broadcast on-the-hour rather than each morning. Oh to have Amy Goodman's calm and reassuring voice offering up headlines as quickly as they can be reported, replete with insightful contributors on the matters. . . Sigh. . . But since this is more than a little impossible, I've just resorted to refreshing my internet browser in search of constant and more new information. And after reaching the conclusion that it's ok to be distracted by the crap situation in Gaza, I've also decided that it's ok to write about it too. Injustice is injustice is injustice. I've always had a particular soft spot for the Palestinian conflict and know that I could (and perhaps should) wax more critical as to why I find myself so affected by that moreso than all the other various crimes against humanity occurring daily. However, I also know that U.S. involvement plays a hefty role in my fixation. It's not just any old crime against humanity, it's one my country has practically championed.

Last time I wrote, I discussed my misgivings about the national climate post-election. And already, I find my concerns mounting as Obama gives his cabinet announcements in a week of international outrage directed at the U.S.-backed Israeli offensives against Gaza. On a positive note, The Guardian today reported that "the incoming Obama administration is prepared to abandon George Bush's ­doctrine of isolating Hamas by establishing a channel to the Islamist organisation, sources close to the transition team say. The move to open contacts with Hamas, which could be initiated through the US intelligence services, would represent a definitive break with the Bush ­presidency's ostracising of the group." Though The Guardian also noted it unlikely that Obama will acknowledge Hamas as having political legitimacy, initiating what is described as "low-level diplomacy" bears the implications that the organization is being acknowledged as legitimate enough to engage in talks and that its concerns are not wholly invisible or unwarranted.

However, even with this step that appears a break in our otherwise unwavering support of Israel, it makes me wonder. This report comes on the heels of another -- Obama's announcement of his intelligence team, which includes Retired Admiral Dennis Blair as Director of National Intelligence. Blair, serving as the commander of the U.S. naval presence in the Asia/ Pacific region during the Clinton administration, has been notoriously linked to General Wiranto of Indonesia, who militarily and financially backed the church and village massacres throughout East Timor in the Timorese Crisis of 1999. Blair has been reported to indicate his support of Wiranto and to falsely indicate U.S. backing (including promises of financial aid) despite orders to denounce Wiranto's actions, even inviting Wiranto to Hawaii as his personal guest during this time¹. This incident has been largely neglected in the media. Surprise, surprise. But it just seems ominous, at this time of change and international crises, that we are offered up this man whose past indicates not a departure from past U.S. approaches to foreign policy and international relations but a reaffirmation of them.

But back to Gaza and the figures that have kept me perpetually horrified. According to the United Nations' website today, the Palestinian death toll has reached 798, with 3,200 Palestinians estimated injured and the total of Palestinian refugees estimated to be 750,000 as a result of this most recent conflict. The Israelis can even take credit for four of the 11 Israeli deaths (soldiers killed during "friendly fire") reported during the conflict. In their meeting yesterday, the UN Security Council called for an immediate ceasefire, yet the Israeli offensive continues while the casualties mount. It all seems more than a little dismal to me. . .

¹ A really great interview with journalist Allen Nairn, who broke the Blair-Wiranto story can be read at http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/9/did_obama_aide_admiral_dennis_blair

-- Andrea

Happy Holidays! Hate Crimes and Homophobia as We Transition into 2009. . .

Proposition 8 passed in California.  This week the Pope referred to the need for an "ecology of man" to save the world from homosexuality as tantamount to that of saving the rainforest. AND our messianic president-elect chose homophobic Christian phenom Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration.  Oh yeah -- and a 28 year-old San Francisco woman was brutally gang-raped and beaten because of her sexuality.  That story didn't quite make the CNN headlines this morning.  AP reported today that after being verbally harrassed due to her lesbian identity, the woman endured what Police Lt. Mark Gagan described as "beyond fathomable" and that "the level of trauma - physical and emotional - [she] suffered is extreme."  Lisa Leff reported:

The 45-minute attack began when one of the men approached the woman as she crossed the street, struck her with a blunt object, ordered her to disrobe and sexually assaulted her with the help of the other men.

When the group saw another person approaching, they forced the victim back into her car and took her to a burned-out apartment building, where she was raped again inside and outside the vehicle. The assailants took her wallet and drove off in her car. Officers found the car abandoned two days later.

 Scarcely a month ago, I waxed both optimistic and surprisingly patriotic as I watched Obama deliver his acceptance speech.  And I can't say that the sentiment has entirely worn off.  It hasn't.  But I can't shake the icky creepy-crawliness that the overwhelming idealism circulating post-election is little more than a temporary analgesic, falsely numbing the country  just long enough for the momentum to wear off.  We are not so stoned that we are completely insensitive - empty pockets across the country attest to that; yet there is something very seductive in aggrandizing the potential for change solely because of the new administration's diverse appearance.   I write this to remind myself as much as anyone:  2009 still looks better than 2008.  I can't deny that.  But 2009 still begins in a country that unequally distributes access to citizenship based on race, class, gender, and sexuality.  As a good friend of mine says so frequently, "You can't gild a turd."  Things still suck.  Yet there was an undeniable sign of political movement this fall.  My fear is that it will simply be a transient phenomenon.  My hope is that it won't. 

And the signs in that department aren't necessarily dismal.  It's looking like Proposition 8 might be overturned as early as March and the economy is bad enough to keep people tuned in.  It's hard to ignore the loss of nearly 300,000 jobs in November. There is a personal-political component to unemployment that defies otherwise divisive categories.  But in that same way, it is extremely important to remember the personal-political face of all forms of discrimination that exist across the country.  Nationwide homophobia is not only reflected in measures such as Prop 8, but in the real and daily harm done to members of the LGBTQ community like that of today's story out of San Francisco.  A woman was raped.  Multiple times.  The acknowledgment of Proposition 8's unconstitutionality does not signal the end of homophobia.  Barack Obama's election does not signal the end of racism.  We still have lots to do and far to go.

-- Andrea

Feministing Represents: CWGS Director Dr. Lisa Johnson Gets Holiday Shout-Out!!!

Courtney Martin, book editor for the popular online blog Feministing, donned some holiday spirit with her "Not Oprah's Book Club," offering gift ideas for a feminist-friendly shopping list.  Number two of her five picks? That's right -- Third Wave Feminism and Television: Jane Puts It in a Box by our very own Dr. Lisa Johnson!!!!!  Martin writes:

If you know a sucker for any of the following--Six Feet Under, the Sopranos, vampires--then you may want to pick up this awesome anthology for them, published over the pond by I.B. Tauris Press. Johnson, the Director for the Center for Women's Studies at the University of South Carolina-Upstate, brings together a range of totally intriguing and theoretically rigorous essays on the intersection between popular television and new feminisms. 

She [Johnson] introduces: 

As riddled with stereotypes as media culture admittedly is, television can also provide rare insight into alternative ways of living in the world. The small screen paradoxically provides a broader horizon. For rural adolescents, television can be the sole window into big-city subjects like homosexuality, singlehood-by-choice, multiculturalism, and, I'm not kidding, existentialism--my philosophy minor may well have stemmed from a certain episode of Family Ties in which Alex's little sister, Jennifer, reads Kierkegaard at the kitchen table. 

Gotta love that.

As one of the readings in Upstate's Feminist Theory and Methods course a few years back (which Professor Tuttle-Bell will be offering this spring. . . hint. . . hint. . .), Jane Puts It in a Box remains of the most influential texts for me in my own (ongoing/ never-ending) love affair with feminist and queer media criticism.  So I have to agree with Courtney Martin that the book just kicks some major ass.  The essays run the gamut of television interests, covering everything from The Sopranos (our own Dr. Johnson's treatment of gangster feminism!) to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and even The Bachelor (Katherine Martin's remarkably fresh and insightful approach to the series from the angle of critical heterosexuality studies).  Jane Puts It in a Box is smart, sexy, and approachable while completely edgy in its theoretical content.  A real tour de force, if you will (I am really trying to refrain from inserting an emoticon right here. . . ergh. . . ack. . . oh, self-discipline!!!!).  Phew -- made it sans winking, tongue-stuck-out smiley face. . . 

But let us all just revel in some holiday joy at such exciting publicity.  Take a moment.  Savor it.  Ahhh. . .  Sigh. . .  Thank you, Courtney Martin at Feministing and a huge congratulations to Dr. Johnson on the spotlight!!! 

-- Andrea

Urban Outfitters, Nahhhh... THEY Wouldn't?!?!

Before I go any further, please note the sarcastic nature of the post's title if you haven't already.  I can't get all self-righteous and say I haven't bought a shirt dress or two laden with faded-out panda bears, but I also can't say that I'm proud of myself for it neither.  So as we're all (or many of us, anyhoo) strapped for cash this holiday season and counting our pretty pennies, I thought I'd go ahead and hop on the wagon by sharing just one more reason why Urban Outfitters kinda sucks and isn't worth the money we youngsters might spend there.  They once again walked the fine, sometimes apparently indiscernible line that has characterized their t-shirt campaigns, which often use controversial slogans and logos that push the boundaries between hipster and hate.  The Advocate reported the story earlier today:

Philadelphia-based Urban Outfitters removed "I Support Same-Sex Marriage" shirts from its stores after they had been on sale for only a week. The publicly traded clothing chain blamed the removal of the shirts on bad press, but according to Racked, the negative publicity consisted of only one blog post. 

The shirts' designer, Tara Littman, told Racked, "With quite a few pro-Obama shirts in their store and even some anti-McCain products, this clearly isn't a company that has a problem being politically aligned, so why?" 

Urban Outfitters chairman Richard Hayne is known as a conservative -- he's donated thousands of dollars to right-wing causes, including the campaigns of homophobic former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum. When asked in 2003 what his own views were about homosexuality, Hayne told the Philadelphia Weekly, "I have my own opinion, but I am not going to share it." (Broverman, Advocate.com)

Interestingly enough, the article doesn't note that replacing Hayne last year was openly-gay Glen Senk.  In a 2008 Fast Company interview, Senk defined his take on branding and worldview as "A healthy respect for individuality. High touch instead of high tech. Intelligent. Honest. Passionate. Artful. Nice. A respect for technology."  Verdict's still out on whether he's going to apply that perspective.  But it just seems, I dunno, a little weird that after all the slogans that did receive bad press (and lots of it), that it is one providing a message of positive, political inclusion that gets pulled after a single week.  

On the flip side, however, must say that I'm not sure how surprised or saddened I am by the news.  Given Urban Outfitters' tendency toward iconography and the cult-of-fashion, can't say I'm truly boo-hoo-ing over one less political fetishization.  AND why not take this opportunity to actually go to the real designer?  They're often plagiarized so well that no one who actually buys the UO rip-offs has a clue that there ever was a real designer.  So if you're interested, check out the website for Support Shirts and designer Tara Littman where you can still purchase the pulled t-shirts.

-- Andrea

Something to Ponder

So I received my regular Adbusters email and thought that this portion of it was something worth passing along. I think the questions their suggestions are missing are "Will they rally to end asymmetrical gender relations and for sexual freedom?" and "Will they recognize that Third Wave Feminism is the ticket?" and "Will all these new feminists all work to bridge gaps between the discursive and the political?" Think about it. If you don't feel like actually sending something in, I think it at least raises both optimistic and creative questions for us to discuss as we enter this new political climate. What will/ can we do? I say, "Lots!" WhaddYOU say?

"Meme warriors, cultural creatives and Generation O:

The outpouring of euphoria around the globe following Barack Obama’s victory has raised expectations. Like the president-elect, we (and you) have been calling for change for eight long years. On November 4th we got it, a genuine, bloodless revolution. The question now is: will it amount to anything?

Obama’s campaign benefited hugely from enlisting young voters in the cause. Obama told them that the post-baby boomer era had begun. He challenged their cynicism and spoke to them through their own media: through Facebook, through Twitter. They overwhelmingly gave him their support at the polls. And they won. They won big. Maybe now Generation O will finally drop the hipster pose and become a force to change the world.

For the next issue of Adbusters we want your thoughts and opinions on whether you think Generation O has revolutionary potential. What are the specific ways that Generation O could change the world? Will they create a green economy? Will they figure out how to deal with climate change? Will they rethink capitalism and the corporation? Send your stories, ideas and epiphanies to: editor@adbusters.org"

-- Andrea

The Economy and Politics of Information à la Bitch

So our beloved feminist magazine Bitch finds itself in dire straits as the printing industry increasingly feels the effects of our less than stellar economy. The fate of the next issue is in our hands, feminists and proponents of alternative media, to help it get $40,000 by October 15. However, I'm broke. And though I write this as a reader of Bitch and someone who wants more than anything to see it succeed, this is not simply meant as a fundraising post (though if you do have for any miraculous reason any extra moolah and you appreciate their contribution to feminist media, I do encourage you to help them out this month). Rather, this is just one great example of how gender will steadily become more relevant in the face of our economic shit storm. The politics of "having", as in who has what (money, power), does not level out when the availability of things to have decreases. People already at a disadvantage, fringe groups in society, will feel it most acutely.

Of course, this seems obvious in terms of job loss and on an individual level. Who will suffer more during economic crisis than the workers who will inevitably see their jobs flying out the window? However, it is important to also remember that the effects will be far-reaching as well. Bitch's current predicament demonstrates just that: the economy continues to suck, the print industry (already a dying source of media) begins to feel the sharp pains of increased costs of materials and distribution, and then smaller publications fold. Smaller is often synonymous with being less mainstream and representative of the ideas of those outside of that culture. What we have left is mainstream media. Ick. Though I appreciate The New York Times and other monolithic purveyors of progressive information, I like those committed to niches in society, small and specific and political as all get-out.

However, there is still the internet. There are still the blogs and the websites and the emails. But take notice if you're someone like me who browses the magazine section at Barnes & Noble or, better yet - the library, because you can't afford the price of subscriptions to your favorites (yet another rabbit hole, eh?). The politics of getting information out are going to be more relevant than ever as our nation's economy puts the last nails into the coffin of printed media. What are the implications? Is it even a bad thing necessarily? Does it mean a massive return to smaller-scale, regionally based publications? I like to think that the more subversive the ideas are, the more creative our solutions to communicating them should be and the more responsibility we have to do so. Hmmm... things to ponder.

-- Andrea