To start with, I’m going to refer you to this post I wrote after Aurora, because this post isn’t about gun laws. You can comment there if that is what you want to talk about.

The US is not a tyranny. It is not anywhere near a tyranny. It is especially not anywhere near a tyranny for middle and upper class, white, straight, able-bodied, cisgendered, male citizens. When you say so, I just think that you are one of two things: 1. a coward for not wanting to use your (non-violent) power to challenge your government or 2. naive.

My opinion of you matters a very tiny hill of beans, I’m sure, but why are you calling your government tyrannical? Are they telling you that you may only have one child? Are they moving people into your area so that when voting on certain issues happens, your vote will ultimately not count? Are you afraid that when you call your government a tyranny on Facebook that you or your loved ones will disappear one night and those that care about you may never know what happened? Do you have no access to power?

I am not writing this post to say that US is perfect and that there are no concerning things our government does (enacting laws that primarily limit people of color’s right to vote comes to mind). I am saying that you have no idea what a tyranny is. Limiting certain weapons is not tyrannical. And to answer your next statement: if the US government decides to come after its citizens, why do you think you won’t also have access to the black market of weapons that you keep bemoaning won’t be stopped by legislation? And do you really expect one party is going to get so much power that it will get it in its mind to go after you?

I accept there are concerns and fears that I don’t share. I accept there are different opinions out there that I disagree with. That miasma is one of the many things I love about this nation, even when I personally find it frustrating. Your concerns and fears, however, are not the product of tyranny. You have power.

Vote. Call, write, and visit your elected officials. Fight special interests. Get money out of politics. Use the power of the people to change things. Demand that it be better. The very fact that you can do these things means that we do not live in a tyranny. You have options, and you have options short of violence. You can fight (whether you do or not) against a law you don’t like. This country is imperfect, but it is not a tyranny.

This message was written in honor of the Tibetans I was supremely lucky to spend time with and their struggle for self-determination. It was written to honor the people in Nepal pushing for their gov’t to be better, to represent them better. And to everyone else who struggles for a better government, both domestically and internationally.

I don’t make resolutions. I find the inspiration to make a new choice or attempt a new project or achieve a new goal does not come to me at any particular point on the calendar. However, the change to the new year is a time of reflection for me, and I’ve been reflecting on my relationship with my body this year.

I got home knowing that I had gained weight and that I had not kept up with my exercise the way I wished. I lost the gym will around the time that I also had a small crisis of “what am I doing?!” mid-semester. I just never really got back to the gym, though I did start riding a bike (love me some Capital Bike Share) to and from school. But my jeans were getting tighter and the buttons on my shirts were starting to open so much, it looked like the two sides were trying to get away from each other.

That’s me. My body reacts to my moods and tends to be slower to respond to changes than my mind. A lot of people are like this, I’m sure. My emotional body stops moving when it’s sad. I know plenty of people whose emotional body is the opposite: they tend to gain weight when they are happy with life.

I am reflecting upon this because I am seeking to improve the way I listen to my body. My tight jeans upset me. Then my feminist mind gets upset that this upsets me. And suddenly I’m standing on the precipice of sadness again. What I am trying to reflect upon and to change is how I frame and understand and interact with changes in my body. I don’t weigh myself. I don’t (generally) care what size I am in clothes. I don’t want changes in either of these things to affect me as much as it does.

What I know is: my happy body moves. My happy body runs or does yoga or bikes or walks. My happy body is satisfied with fresh, homecooked food. My happy body feels strong, regardless of size.

As the new year begins, I intend to be mindful of what my body is telling me. Is it, am I happy, even in the face of law school stress? I can make that the adjective that is the one that is most important in judging my body.

What is your happy body like?

All rights have limits. In the abstract, they don’t, but name me three people that live in the abstract (then check to see if they have an arsenal in their basement). Freedom of speech is famously curtailed by the rule of “you can’t yell ‘fire’ in a crowded movie theater.” Freedom of religion bumps up against the separation of church and state or is limited by the state itself (think about anti-polygamy laws and the FLDS). The freedom of the press is limited by invocations of executive privilege. Right of assembly often now requires bureaucratic paperwork to be legal. We as a society limit our rights in order to have them. We give a little away in order to have the core and important parts of those rights.

Why should the right to keep and bear arms be different? Why should the acquisition of guns and ammo be completely unfettered? Is there anything fundamentally different about this right that requires us not to limit it in any way?

No. I have been going back and forth with my brother about this issue (round of applause to him for this), touching on several aspects of it. The fear of gun owners and gun advocates seems to be the slippery slope. If you allow for a little bit of gun control, the government will take a mile. You will end up with an empty right to bear arms. Aside from the intellectual fear, there seems to be a very visceral reaction to gun legislation or even the idea of talking about gun control. In my life, a comparable reaction would be about curtailing reproductive rights; a reaction I unfortunately have been experiencing quite a bit in the last five years. While I don’t feel the same way about gun rights, I can understand that reaction. Just like for reproductive rights, there are places where we should be able to find some working ground to pass legislation that reflects our values as Americans.

One of the places I think we can discuss is background checks and registration of weapon purchases. Background checks can help to identify people that probably should not be in possession of a deadly weapon. It is of course never going to identify every person, but imperfection really isn’t an argument against it. Registration of weapons keeps us informed of who owns what and where those gun should be. It helps police know if where they are headed is highly armed. It is an indication of responsible gun ownership. As has been said to liberals and progressives many, many times, if you aren’t hiding something, then what are you worried about?

Another place we should be looking at is education. We require people to pass a test in order to drive a car. I think we should require something similar of gun owners/users. It makes sense to me to make this class as universal as possible in order to instill a respect through knowledge of weapons. As I mentioned above, I grew up in a hunting family. I’m actually a pro-hunting vegetarian, because I think if you are going to eat meat then you should be as involved in the process as possible. I’ve shot a rifle. We had guns in the house. My parents took the time with us to make sure that we understood the power of these weapons and that we respected it. Small things like: never point a gun at a person even if you know for sure that it is unloaded, never be around a gun without an adult present, and we do not kill animals for fun. Having an educated gun owning class can only increase good gun ownership.

Finally, ammunition should be regulated. Six thousand rounds of ammunition should be difficult and/or time-consuming to acquire. If we can control how much ammunition it is legal to buy over a given time, then people that are planning atrocities like Aurora will at the very least be forced to plan better in order to amass what they need, which could potentially give law enforcement time to notice that this person is a red flag. Even if we allow people to buy as many guns that they want of every type available, if you control the ammunition, you effectively control the use of the weapon. People can hunt, but they can’t raze a street.

Ultimately, the purpose of gun legislation and control is to promote the responsible exercise of this right, not to strip every gun owner of their weapons. Background checks, registration of weapons, education about weapons and regulation of ammunition purchases will not stop you from using your gun. It won’t even stop you from using your gun against the government. It will declare your intent to be an upstanding citizen in the exercise of your right to keep and bear arms.

As others have pointed out, the issue is actually not about rape jokes versus heckling. That is merely what Tosh’s supporters have decided the issue is (or decided to derail the issue into being). What really pushed feminists over the edge was Tosh’s reaction to it. Tosh’s threat against the heckler. Not a threat to STFU or she’d be removed, but a threat of rape, of gang rape by her fellow audience members. You know, those men sitting right next to her. Tosh decided to make this a “joke” but using the phrase “wouldn’t it be funny.” Yep, hilarious.

His words were used to remind this uppity female audience member just where she resides in the gender hierarchy.

But what about the breastfeeding? Okay, okay.

The other thing that has been blowing up my newsfeed (thanx to a wonderful doula friend of mine) is about the many and diverse controversies surrounding feeding babies. Is attachment parenting good? Why are celebrities only breastfeeding for a few weeks or months? And the ever-present: OMG, that parent is feeding hir child in public! With a breast! That I can see!

I can’t do better than Barbara Kruger here in explaining how these things connect.

What rape jokes (all, even the ones that “work”); non-troversies about whether, when, how long, etc to breastfeed your child; and nearly every other feminist, womanist, anti-kyriarchy issue remind us is that your body (the one that is not cis, hetero, able, white, mid/upper-class, male) does not belong to you. Your body is part of the commons, and as such is subject to use and abuse by those that make the cut, those that get to own their own body.

Your body, from a very young age, is going to be told what to wear, what to look like, where to be at what times, where not be at what times, what to do, what to avoid doing, how to express itself, what choices are available to it. None of these things will be clear or without contradiction. Your body can never do anything perfectly, because the whims of those using the commons are never going to be consistent. You will be blamed for those whims. Or rather for not predicting those whims and acting accordingly.

Daniel Tosh’s threat and all this breastfeeding hullabaloo are examples of our culture hemming us in and controlling our bodies. You see it in the fights over reproductive rights and justice. You see it in the unnecessary, but forced choice between a career outside of the home and a career within it. This control is accomplished on a continuum from subtle social pressure to shocking levels of violence. This control is so complete and overwhelming, that you may not even see it for a very long time. Once you do though, you will recognize that you’ve been drafted into a war. The shrill scream of those silly feminists against the culture, against the threats, against the restrictions, against the “jokes,” against the violence, that is our battle cry. We are not going to stop fighting until the war is won.

When we say women, what do we mean? Which women do we mean? There is a mountain of research that argues about whether quotas are empowering or achieve their desired aim, but this research (usually) falls in line with the policymakers’ assumption of women as a singular category.

In Nepal (Kathmandu, specifically), the janajati women I interviewed were very concerned about the women’s movement and the quota policy being co-opted by the most privileged women (who are nonetheless still politically disempowered) and leading to a singular type of woman (high-caste, upper class, Hindu) representing all women of the very diverse nation. In Mexico, indigenous women have never been elected to national office even though a relatively effective women’s quota exists. If the “empowered woman” in any nation is drawn from a specific group or groups and is not universal, can you say that women in a nation are empowered?

Once we know which women we mean, what do women actually need in order to participate (and not just fill a quota or fill a seat)? Political meetings in local villages in Nepal are held during hours that women have childcare or other familial or cultural duties. How can women substantively participate once elected if they cannot be present? What infrastructure can be created or practices changed in order to help them accomplish the tasks of both their private lives and their public ones? Is it as simple as moving the meeting time or location?

These policies obviously need to be (and are) tailored to specific locations, but the general thrust seems to be that a quota policy will solve political empowerment of marginalized groups. The political system of a country is likely to be mostly easily accessed by the elites, functioning on the whole to keep power where power has always been. If the goal of women’s empowerment in politics taken seriously, then the policy must be coupled with resources: financial, structural, cultural, etc. An increase in sheer numbers is important, but it is not enough.

Let’s begin a discussion. Are you involved in local, state or national government? What do you see as the issues for women in these places, specifically issues of increasing their presence? Are you a woman or other marginalized person? What barriers do you see for women accessing seats of power? Are you an American? How do you think we can overcome the abismal percentage of women in our own legislature (17% at the national level; Rwanda is at 54%, Nepal at 33%)?

I’ve added some of the resources on this topic to my Bibliography page in case you are interested.

My belly has been through a lot, to the point that it can never look or be “perfect.” At the age of seven, my belly was sliced open for a surgery that found what had put me in the hospital for weeks. Before that surgery, my outlook for leaving the hospital was bleak, but when I did leave, I took with an exclamation point down the middle of me.

My parents offered, as I got older, to fix the scar, make it less noticeable. I turned them down. You don’t part with your survival scars. So my belly, marked by this scar, can never be perfect. My standard of beauty is already (and always was) unachievable.

A few years ago, I was a larger woman. I was battling some personal issues and hating everything about myself. I got bigger and bigger. One of the many many many many many turning points that finally got me back to me was deciding to love this bigger body. Deciding that, if this was my body, my life was much better served loving it than hating it. From that moment, I started watching my thinking. When my thinking about my body changed, I started taking care of myself. I started eating well and exercising, and loving doing these things. I started to shrink. I got back to what I thought was my typical size and then got a little smaller. I got that flat belly. And then my thinking started changing again. I started eating well and exercising because I was afraid of getting big again. Afraid of growing that belly. Afraid that I would be knocked out of the “attractive” class. Afraid that it might mean I was heading down a darker road again.

Life gets in the way though. I finished a graduate degree, started applying to law school, and started working in a physically demanding job (but not so much that I don’t have to exercise). I’ve gotten a little bigger than where I feel really comfortable in my belly, but not to the “re-evaluate how you are treating your body before you have to shop for clothes” size (note: I hate shopping for clothes). But I’ve realized I’ve been really down on my belly. I thought I would have more time (and desire) to run, which is how I keep myself (size-wise) where I want to be. I’ve been making a lot of excuses and doing a lot of mental berating of myself. Until last Friday, when I decided to make a month-long resolution:

This month, I am going to love this belly. I am not going to suck it in. I am going to proudly wear it out for all to see. I am going to remember that it is me. It is my history, my survival, my stress, and my joy all in one lovely round place.

If you see me walking about and want to toss out a “Nice belly!”, don’t hold back. Let that belly pride ring.

You know, he’s (let’s call him Ralph) standing around listening to his friend Joe whose wife slept with the cobbler. He can’t get her to do anything anymore, but she falls over herself to do the cobbler’s bidding. Ralph is trying to understand what changed. And he realizes! The last penis to touch it is the owner!

“Dude. The penis.”

“Yeah, Ralph, what about it?”

“Your penis makes you the master.” Ralph immediately whips it out, touches Joe’s shirt that he’s always wanted, and says, “Your shirt is mine now.” Joe is sufficiently grossed out (Ralph is a bit diseased) that he decides to eat the cost of a new shirt and hands it over (it was on its last legs anyway since his wife wouldn’t mend it). Ralph now knows he was right.

Ralph of course starts touching his penis to everything: shoes, food, houses, animals (wrong, Ralph), and of course women (unforgivable, Ralph). But the idea catches on, and pretty soon every man is penising everything that he wants. Men leave the house in the morning and touch their penises to their houses to reiterate their ownership of said house. They come home and penis it again. Men are now buried on their lands and their graves marked to keep the penises on the land that they own so that no one can steal it from the family. Penis fights start breaking out over who owns what until finally Law is created, because there are just too many dicks causing chaos. Things are now owned through legal channels and not through penises (except, of course, women).

So things are good for the penises for a bit. Then they realize that though Law has helped them divvy up what they have already touched, there are lands that have not been touched by any member. The penises get together and decide to go touch some foreign stuff, but they don’t want to tip off anyone. They come up with a succession of propaganda plans: gold, spices, and Jesus (Jesus is not happy about this). Over the course of centuries, the penises manage to touch nearly everything and then bestow Law upon the touched.

The women in this story probably thought these men were morons.

“Jane! You are mine and these children are mine because of my penis.”

“And how much ale have we had today?”

“Quiet, woman. The penis is mighty.”

“Whatever you say, Ralph. Now go play with your friends so I can take care of all of the grown-up things.”

Fast forward to today, and while men mostly keep it in their pants, somehow the myth of the powerful penis persists, leaving us with a pestilential prick problem.

Thus concludes a short, fictional history lesson.

Thank you. From the bottom of my heart. I had no idea how wrong I have been. I had no idea that swallowing a pill could be so difficult, so dangerous, that medical supervision is necessary. I cannot believe how many uterus-Americans have lived their entire lives thinking that they had the proper procedure mastered for swallowing a pill. I am sitting here wondering how many of us have died or been seriously injured because we did not seek out professional care, thinking ourselves full adults capable of managing our healthcare. Think about how many of us take birth control EVERY DAY on our own! Without a doctor present! We might as well be playing Russian Roulette with a fully loaded gun.

You are to be commended. You have joined the ranks of your colleagues around the country (and the world) to say in one voice: “Hold on a second there, sweetheart.” It is so courteous of you to protect us from our uterus-addled brains. Which today is causing me a headache, so I am off to find a physician that can protect me from myself as I take an aspirin. Unfortunately, I am insurance-less now, so I’ll have to find a free clinic or emergency room that can help me. What a wonderful use of taxpayer dollars to have passed this bill.

Insincerely,

creatingcarrie

Thinking About Jailing the Victim? Here’s Why Not..

I’m riding home from Williamsburg, after sundown, on a street that I ride a lot. It is warm, and though it is a school night many folks are out on the street hanging out. One guy is walking down the street, and then I hear it. Kissing noises. Immediately, I am braced for it. “Hey baby, can I ride on the back with you?” I go to one of my standard responses: I flip him the bird. [Dad, stop reading here.] Then comes the yelling. Mostly, I don’t get yelling when I respond (my guess is the surprise of any response). I can’t quite hear what he’s saying, but the word “bitch” pops through twice as well as some threat of what he’s going to do to me. To which I respond, “Yep, I am a big ole bitch,” and ride away into the night.

Now, I tend to respond to street harassers, but in different ways depending on the situation. I am always aware of my surroundings when harassed, as I bet most harassed people are. I can read the situation and respond in a way that doesn’t compromise my safety. Being on a bike allowed me to do what I did above. In other situations, I’ve told men (it’s always men) they were being rude. I’ve looked at them and just said “No. Don’t do that.” Again, usually, I don’t get any response. As I rode away from this guy, I started to think about what if he was serious about attacking. What if he had jumped in his car? Then I started to think about who would be at fault if he had been able to attack me, about what questions I would be asked and would be thought appropriate to determine if the attack was “justified.” I thought about the people that would tell me “Well, you shouldn’t have…” Then I got mad.

If I don’t like to be harassed, I should be able to communicate my displeasure. I should not have to be silent, because silence will not save me. A harasser’s desire to harass cannot be allowed because of some mythical safety. Guess what? Harassment destroys my safety. Physical violence is not the only way make a neighborhood unsafe.

Let’s get a conversation started about this. People who are harassed: How do you deal with harassers? Everyone: What do you when you see other people harass? People who harass: What makes you think that’s okay? (this question may come across as sarcastic, but honestly I’m curious). Leave comments below. I moderate, so if you don’t see yours right away, give me a few hours.