Today is the 90th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, also known as Women's Equality Day. You probably (hopefully?) know that the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote (okay, theoretically…this was many years before the passage of the Voting Rights Act so in reality we are probably talking about white women who were married to white men who owned property who got the right to vote but let's celebrate anyway, okay?).
But how much to you really know about women's suffrage and the struggle to get the 19th Amendment passed? Here is a video that should help. Watch carefully. There will be a quiz. No really. There will be a quiz.
Okay, now for the quiz. Go to 9 Questions About 90 Years of Suffrage on the MS. magazine blog. Get ready because it is hard. I got a 4 our of 9 which was rated as "just passed" but I am pretty embarrassed.
How much do you know about women's suffrage in the U.S.? How did you do on the quiz? What do you teach your kids about the right to vote in the U.S. – particularly who got it when?
Many in the U.S. hadn't heard of "blood diamonds" until the popular film with Leonardo DiCaprio. The mining and sale of diamonds from Sierra Leone, the Congo and other African countries have long financed and fueled war, slavery and unspeakable violence in parts of Africa.
Here is a video that can help. Humorous and informative, the actors and activists in it explain what conflict minerals are, how they hurt people, and how a simple pledge to purchase products once they are available without conflict minerals can help draw attention to this problem.
Raise Hope for Congo, the organization that made this video, also has educational materials for individuals and schools that can help in learning about conflict minerals and the situation in the Congo. It also has activist resources for such projects as taking a campus conflict mineral free.
While the content is not appropriate for all ages (at what age do you explain the concept of rape to your kids?), learning about Congo's present and past can help our children make a safer world for all children – including those in conflict regions.
How do you teach your children how their spending affects people in other parts of the world?
Hands Across the Sand is a movement with a simple message: NO to offshore oil drilling, YES to clean energy. In the literal wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, there seems no better time to join hands at the waters' edge in solidarity with others who wish to protect the world's oceans.
I am spending a few weeks with my family at the New Jersey shore. Knowing a Hands Across the Sand event was planned for yesterday, my eldest son and protest buddy came with me in search of a gathering. We had to do a bit of searching – knowing only cross streets and that we would be looking for some unknown number gathering at 11 a.m. and holding hands beginning at noon (local time) the world over. We has just about given up when we saw this:
It looked like perhaps six or seven people off in the distance but we ran toward them and as we got closer, they looked like this:
And when we reached them, they looked like this:
My son and I joined the line and as it grew closer to noon, the line grew longer.
The mission for this event was to join hands across the sand silently for fifteen minutes, 12 p.m. to 12:15 "draw[ing] a line in the sand and embrac[ing] a clean energy future." We held hands and even though none of us had signs or chanted anything, people asked, "Is this about the oil spill?" Strangers saw a line of strangers holding hands looking out into the Atlantic Ocean and knew: yes, this is about the spill and drilling and protecting the oceans. And more people joined the line. And then it looked like this:
And at 12:15, we all walked into the ocean together still holding hands.
Hands Across the Sand is a movement made of people of all walks of life and crosses political affiliations. This movement is not about politics; it is about protection of our coastal economies, oceans, marine wildlife, and fishing industry. Let us share our knowledge, energies and passion for protecting all of the above from the devastating effects of oil drilling.
While Hands Across the Sand began in Florida just this past February (and before this most recent horrible oil spill), yesterday's event was international and co-sponsored by a long list of environmental and other activist group including MoveOn.org, Greenpeace and Clean Water Action.
And I was there wearing this T-shirt from We Add Up you can get by clicking through the sidebar. Ten dollars of your purchase of this limited edition BP Oil Spill T-shirt goes to the Gulf Restoration Network.
Not long after I first started using Twitter – which was about the same time I finally began this blog – there was a great deal of Tweeting about BlogHer '09. It sounded like the place everybody who was a female blogger wanted to be. There was controversy – something about "swag," excessive freebies that made people look and feel all cheap and whore-y. But I joined BlogHer, saw that I would never be able to get into the advertising network (it is full up for pretty much ever) and hoped I would get to the next BlogHer conference and learn those secrets people were swearing they learned in between getting all that controversial stuff.
In the autumn, tickets for BlogHer '10 went on sale and I did something I only do with music concerts and the ballet – bought a ticket as soon as I could. The conference is in New York City, a few hours by train from where I live so that made the decision easier. If there had been a plane ticket involved, I wouldn't have considered going. It is out of character for me to buy a ticket to a conference that has nothing to do with work, social justice, children or some combination of all three. As the conference was fewer and fewer months away, I was a bit worried buying the ticket was a bad idea. There was a "popular girls" feel to the world of BlogHer. I didn't use the site. Few bloggers I read were going to be there. Other blogger conferences happened without me and reports back seemed to be about products and selling stuff – not about activism or information or being a good writer. As I worried more and more that I had succumbed to that urge to join an "in crowd," I finally began to hear of bloggers whose work sorta had to do with mine going. A handful. I might be all right.
And then it happened. A blogger who had attended the #NestleFamily junket wrote a post drawing attention to BlogHer's announcement that Stouffer's, a Nestle brand, would be a conference sponsor.
I didn't blog about #NestleFamily. I wrote about it in the January/February 2010 Mothering magazine where I am Politics Editor and the most comprehensive on-line coverage of that incident can be found at PhD in Parenting here and at follow-up posts on that blog.
This is not a post about why I boycott Nestle but I do. It is not only its sale of infant formula in flagrant and infamous violation of the WHO Code. It is the combination of corporate conduct, including the use of child slaves to pick cocoa beans, that led to the boycott and my decision to participate in it. I am sure I get a Nestle product by accident now and then but I work pretty hard at keeping Nestle products out of my life. The roughest spot I have been in was speaking at a La Leche League conference recently. I was speaking in a few minutes in a ballroom so hot and humid rare flowers would have grown happily. For medical reasons, I must have a large supply of water at all times. You would be hard pressed to find me these days without my giant BPA-free water bottle (a great speaker gift- thank you UNC-Greensboro!) in my hand but I hadn't flown it out with me. I put the need for water in the speaking room in my contracts. I went to the fridge in the back of the room to grab some water bottles and there they were – Nestle water. I wasn't the first to see them. There was already a crowd of conference attendees grumbling about Nestle in the room. The conference organizer was at my side soon and then she was out the door to do something I don't even want to know about to the hotel employee responsible. But I needed to go on and I needed water. And I drank the Nestle water.
Yeah, that story sounds a bit much but it is true. So when I read that a Nestle brand was going to be one of the eighty or so sponsors of BlogHer '10, I knew I had a problem. There was some behind the scenes posting about who was going to do what and whether BlogHer might do something. I thought that perhaps even if Nestle was going to be at the conference, perhaps they could sponsor a particular event I could avoid, rather than the entire conference. Just my impression, but I don't think BlogHer organizers cared less. Conference sponsorship for BlogHer is a "show me the money" enterprise. And from the discussions about previous conferences – samples, products, brands, stuff, stuff, stuff – I should have known that before I bought my ticket.
A few bloggers who oppose Nestle corporate practices have written posts about why they are going to BlogHer anyway. They have been criticized and they have been supported and they have been mocked by people I criticized for going to #NestleFamily. And a handful of us – four by my count – are boycotting BlogHer. It's my decision. I made it. I'm proud of it. And I think it is sad so few people care. Someone even had the gall to criticize me for refusing to sell her my ticket.
So have at me people. What are you willing to do to stand up for what you believe is right? If you boycott Nestle, what do you do to avoid using its products? And, an important question to me, why do you think so few people are boycotting BlogHer?
Until McDonald's gets a gluten-free menu I can't eat there, but this kind of corporate conduct makes me more likely to consume a company's products. And perhaps some day extreme right-wing groups will learn that their boycotts are a reason I will see a film.
Now McDonald's is showing an advertisement in France that I love. Watch it and then I will explain why.
This ad is the subject of much controversy from both the right wing and queer press. Queerty.com has mocked the effort and comments there and elsewhere note the contrast between the cheerful boy and his being closeted with his dad. Would a teenage boy hiding his sexuality from his father be that happy about it? I doubt it. It is not a realistic scene.
But gay teens need to see themselves in commercials. The ad does strike me as sweet and does seem likely to make gay teens feel less alienated. The tag line "Come As You Are" sends a good message about welcoming diversity. Yeah, there is a sexual double entendre but perhaps it isn't there in French. The French corporate statement about the intent of the ad is implausible.
Seriously? Gay marriage isn't legal in France. But still, I like the ad. I know at least one gay teen who would see himself and feel good. Nice try McDonald's.
Now watch the ad again. It will make you feel good about what the world might be like in that place between where we are now and where we will be when teenagers can talk openly with their parents about being gay.
For some months now I have been hearing about a proposed bill heading to the Taiwan Parliament that would impose a large fine (30,000 Taiwan dollars, about 940 US dollars) on "anyone attempting to prevent breastfeeding in public." Breastfeeding advocates the world over have heralded this bill as a model for laws elsewhere. However, I have been unable to find a copy of the proposed Taiwanese law. Before I support penalties, I want to know what conduct is being outlawed. Is the Taiwan bill going to impose this fine on owners and employees of public accommodations or will anyone be subject to it? What constitutes "preventing" breastfeeding? Should a store owner who harasses a breastfeeding customer in any way be fined? In my view, absolutely. Public accommodations enjoy certain benefits from the state and are regulated so that they can be truly public. Should a passerby in the park who makes a rude remark be fined? In my view, no. Regulating speech is dangerous business. If I limit your ability to say things with which I disagree, you may limit my ability to say things with which you disagree. Down that road, I don't get to say much.
But this post isn't really about what conduct should be fined and what conduct should be endured. When I find out what the Taiwan law actually says, then I'll see if it is appropriate to go on about free speech and the need to suffer fools in order to protect our own rights. This post is about what I found in my search for the text of the Taiwan bill.
Back in 2004 the Scottish Parliament was debating the ultimately successful passage of a bill imposing a large fine on stopping a woman from breastfeeding a child under age two in licensed premises (what would be called "public accommodations" in the U.S.). Now this is my kind of law. And this was also my kind of debate. A representative of the National Childbirth Trust said:
We therefore welcome this landmark legislation, which will establish a mothers' right to breastfeed her baby whenever and wherever they are together and convey the message that breastfeeding is a positive choice to be supported by society rather than discouraged.
I admit, the little hairs on the back of my neck go up every time I see breastfeeding described as a choice. After giving birth, one can choose not to breastfeed but lactating happens when you give birth. But otherwise that statement is right on: mothers must be able to breastfeed their babies wherever they are. However, there was a statement in the Scottish Parliament that day I find more interesting and certainly more memorable. Then-Member of the Scottish Parliament Carolyn Leckie said the following; suitable for framing, T-shirt or refrigerator magnet:
All right, some U.K. friend is going to have to tell me what "advertising hoardings" are but Leckie makes a great point with a suitable amount of outrage. It isn't breasts people object to – just breasts with children attached to them.
With thanks to @thecurvature, I bring you an extraordinary video by an organization called Marriage Equality, an Irish organization working to support civil marriage for gay and lesbian people.
I never met Dr. George Tiller, who was murdered on May 31st. But I knew who he was and have respected his work and his courage from my earliest days in the reproductive rights movement.
Back in the mid-1980’s I began volunteering with the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL). When I learned that protesters were blocking access to a local women's center that provided abortion services, I immediately volunteered to “escort.” The job of a clinic escort is theoretically quite simple – walk a woman into the clinic where she has an appointment. In practice, a clinic escort serves as a human shield. I was trained to put my body between the woman headed into the clinic and anyone who tries to block or harass her. As a clinic escort, I was not allowed to engage protesters in any way. I couldn’t speak to them. I couldn’t touch them. I couldn’t react to them in any overt way. If I was physically attacked, I could do my best to protect my body and call for help. If escorts were ever seen as instigators of conflict with the protesters, we would jeopardize the legal high ground of the clinic and the women using its services. If the police were called, escorts had to be blameless.
We knew as escorts that all over the U.S. clinics and their employees received death threats, were bombed and vandalized, were stalked and harassed, and, by the ‘90s, were shot and even killed. We knew that volunteering to be a clinic escort was dangerous but, like George Tiller, it was a risk we were willing to take.
Though I volunteered as an escort nearly every Saturday morning for several years, I wasn’t afraid. My lack of fear was no show of bravery but mostly a result of my own anger and disgust. Dragging myself out of bed way too early, I faced a pack of strangers screaming insults at me. While I inhaled coffee and yearned to be back in my warm bed, I was called a baby killer and a Nazi. Grotesque signs were shoved in my face. I had to keep one eye on my car since tires were regularly slashed. The women who arrived for their appointments had been warned about the protesters and been told that the escorts would be wearing distinctive smocks, but as escorts we still introduced ourselves and allowed each woman to refuse our help. The arrival of every woman started a race and I had to run to get to her before a protester but in a way that would not be more frightening then the screaming people with signs. Often when my body was between a protester and a woman who had asked for escort, protesters would deliberately stomp on my foot and often give me a quick, hard, concealed punch in the ribs. I was allowed to do nothing in response. Once all of the women were safely inside, the protesters began shouting “You are killing your baby!” into the windows. I asked the clinic staff whether the women could hear the protesters’ shouts during the procedures and was told that often they could. Knowing this infuriated me but I had to hide my anger when protesters could see me.
When I first began escorting, the clinic was in a medical office building in which there were other tenants. Many of the people coming in and out knew nothing about the clinic but that didn't keep the protesters from calling them Nazis and baby killers. Everyone who came in and out of the building faced a barrage of signs and shouts about murder and the Holocaust. Everyone was accused of horrible crimes. One of these exchanges continues to haunt me.
A tall thin older man walked out of the building and stopped cold in front of a sign that said something about abortion being the Holocaust. It was obvious the man had no idea what was going on – he had been to another office in the building, possibly having his teeth cleaned. I saw the man begin to shake, his entire body trembling. The person with the sign screamed at the man that he was a Nazi. I walked closer, feeling that something might happen though not knowing what. The man began to yell at the protester: “You know nothing about the Holocaust! I was in the camps! You know nothing!” He pulled up his sleeve to reveal a concentration camp tattoo. I could only begin to process how horrible this was and went to the shaking man. I said quietly but firmly, “Sir, I am so sorry. Just ignore them. They aren’t here for you.” I tried to engage him, wanting to lead him away. I might as well have been a shrub – the man looked right through me. I thought the protester would stop, would at least be shocked into silence. Instead, the protester, a middle aged woman, said, “If you were in that building, you are a Nazi! You are part of the Holocaust.” The man began to shake even more and screamed back, “Where were you?! How dare you?! You know nothing! I was there!” And then, when I thought the woman simply had to see how wrong she was to attack this man, she began to scream at him, “The Christians saved the Jews!” Not “some Christians saved some Jews,” which would have been true though a wildly inappropriate to say to this man in this situation, but “the Christians saved the Jews.” I don’t remember exactly what the man yelled back though I think it was something like “you did nothing!” The woman kept repeating what she had said, I kept trying to convince the man to ignore her and go to his car, and then he lunged for her. There was a strip of low plantings perhaps three feet wide between us and the woman. I tried to hold the man’s arm but he shook me off easily. I was afraid the man would be hurt. I feared he would be arrested. I feared the clinic would be blamed for whatever happened. But just before he reached her, he stopped himself. I have no idea why. Still trembling, he walked to his car and drove away.
That protester may have come to the clinic that day motivated by a sincerely held belief that abortion is wrong but in that exchange with a man she knew had nothing to do with abortion she could only have been motivated by blind hatred. She didn’t care who she hurt that day or how. The things she had screamed at him had been ignorant and vicious and insane. I suspect that when the man with the concentration camp tattoo lunged for the protester, he hated her. And as I absorbed all that I had seen, I hated her as well. None of what had been said had anything to do with anyone’s beliefs about abortion. I respect the right to oppose abortion, no matter how much I disagree. I respect the right to engage in peaceful protest. But that woman, and many of the others who lined up their children to call me a murderer every Saturday, had crossed over into action that was cruel and dangerous.
George Tiller’s murderer did not walk into that church alone. The killer brought with him a movement of people filled with hatred, people who support violence and commit violent acts, people who have long since lost sight of any moral objection to abortion if indeed morality had ever been a motivation. They all killed Dr. Tiller. They have killed before and they will kill again.
I cried when I read about Dr. Tiller’s death. But more than twenty years after watching the protester and the concentration camp survivor, I still hate that protester. I hate the man who murdered Dr. Tiller and all those who encourage him. But I would never want anyone to shoot them. Never.
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This is one of my stories about working to keep abortion safe and legal. To read the stories of others who continue to do this work in the face of great danger, I recommend I am Dr. Tiller.
Top Hat over at Its All About the Hat suggested a Breastfeeding Blog Carnival called "This is What a Nursing Toddler Looks Like." [This is my first blog carnival so I will link to the other participants as soon as I figure out the rules of the game - UPDATE: I have added some links at the bottom to other Carnival participants.] Luckily for me, the Carnival theme left a good bit of room for interpretation since I don't currently have a nursing toddler. I have many fond memories of nursing my kids when they were toddlers and so do they. I and they remember how important it was that they could nurse when they were sick or hurt or needed comfort. We nursed when they needed some time with mom. We nursed when they were getting used to sharing mom with a new sibling. We nursed when they were hungry. We nursed to sleep. We nursed standing up and sitting down and in positions I used to call "Olympic Freestyle Nursing."
A nursing toddler can also go hiking and he looks like this:
But with my kids getting older, I am seeing more of what a nursing toddler looks like when he is no longer nursing and is no longer a toddler. That can be someone who really understands how important it is that kids get to nurse and mothers get to nurse their kids. A former nursing toddler isn't fazed by seeing women breastfeed wherever they are.
A few years ago my then 12 year old son saw me helping to organize a nurse-in. I explained that a woman had been quietly nursing her baby on a bench in a shopping mall when a security guard ordered her to stop and move. She refused, saying she needed to finish feeding her son. Soon she was surrounded by security guards who engaged her husband in a shouting match and left the woman terrified. When the mom shared her story and the shopping mall management refused to respond to her complaint about her treatment, a nurse-in was planned.
My son was confused – why would anyone think there was something wrong with a mother feeding her baby? Then he was mad – this was wrong. He asked if he could come to the nurse-in. When he saw me making signs, he asked if he could create one for himself. I told him that we expected press coverage and there was a chance his friends would see a photo of him from the protest. He was adamant that he wanted to be seen.
Back to the Carnival theme – This is What a Nursing Toddler Looks Like. He looks like a proud breastfeeding activist.
UPDATE: Other What Does a Nursing Toddler Looks Like Carnival participants.
When it does not create or protect the right of a woman to breastfeed. When is breastfeeding rights legislation a reallyreally bad thing? When it makes it even more difficult for a woman to breastfeed than if there were no law at all. And this really really bad thing is what is happening in North Dakota.
Witness the sad journey of North Dakota Senate Bill 2344. As originally introduced this past January, SB 2344 amended the North Dakota crimes code to exclude breastfeeding from all forms of indecent conduct, and created a new section of the state civil rights law making discrimination on the basis of breastfeeding prohibited both in public accommodations and in the workplace. North Dakota would go from being one of a handful of states with no law protecting breastfeeding to having one of the strongest laws. But then the bill made a trip into the North Dakota Senate Human Services Committee where on February 16th SB 2344 was completely gutted. The Committee removed the entire section of the bill which would have created a civil right – therefore removing the only mechanism for enforcing any protection the bill would have created. The Committee also removed the section creating a right to pump breast milk in the workplace.
But the Committee did not just remove vital portions of SB 2344, it added a few words too: "discreetly" and "if the woman acts in a discreet and modest manner." So instead of a new section in the civil rights code, the bill adds this to the health code (therefore without any penalty for violation):
Right to breastfeed. If the woman acts in a discreet and modest manner, a woman may breastfeed her child in any location, public or private, where the woman and child are otherwise authorized to be.
So who decides what is a discreet and modest manner? You? Me? The owner of the public accommodation? The police? The mother? The bill does not say. So who will it be? Whoever doesn't want a woman to breastfeed in public. After all, if a woman is breastfeeding in a restaurant and the owner orders her to stop or leave, the final arbiter of whether the mother is arrested for trespass is the police. Will the police officer watch the woman breastfeed to determine whether she is breastfeeding in a discreet and modest manner? Will he rely on the owner for that determination? Will witnesses be interviewed?
And what does "discreet and modest manner" mean? Visible skin? Visible areola a/k/a the Facebook test? A flash of nipple (I think I'll call this the "Janet Jackson test")? Anyone who has breastfed a child knows that a woman's control over these factors in any given nursing session with any particular child is pretty limited. Any person with breasts can probably understand that a large (pun intended) determining factor in one's ability to control the occasional flash is breast size.
The amended SB 2344 isn't just vague, ambiguous, and totally lacking in protections. Unlike any breastfeeding law to date, North Dakota's SB 2344 arguably makes some public breastfeeding a crime. How? With that tricky word "discreetly." Rather than excluding breastfeeding from the crime of "indecent exposure" as so many other states do, SB 2344 amends the criminal law as follows:
The act of a woman discreetly breastfeeding her child is not a violation of this section.
So does that mean that a woman breastfeeding "indiscreetly" is in violation of the indecent exposure statute? To my knowledge, no woman in North Dakota (or anywhere else – and I have been following this for years) has ever been charged with indecent exposure for breastfeeding. Under North Dakota's existing indecent exposure law, the prohibited conduct is:
A person, with intent to arouse, appeal to, or gratify that person's lust, passions, or sexual desires, is guilty of a class A misdemeanor if that person:
a. Masturbates in a public place or in the presence of a minor; or
b. Exposes one's penis, vulva, or anus in a public place or to a minor in a public or private place.
Not conduct easily confused with breastfeeding. So excluding "discreetly" breastfeeding must mean that indiscreetly breastfeeding, whatever that might mean, is indecent exposure, right?
I have heard the argument that something is better than nothing. Hey, North Dakota has no law concerning breastfeeding so this is better than nothing, right? Wrong. This law offers breastfeeding women nothing – no protection against harassment and discrimination when in public, no rights or protections in the workplace – and it explicitly limits the way in which breastfeeding in public is to be done, possibly even to the point of creating a crime. This particular "something" is most definitely worse than nothing.
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