feminist blogs in english

“I wish someone would have told me that our job as mothers is not to take emotional pain away from our children but to hold them through it.”

I like that advice. I read it in a recent blog post on Feministing (which, eh-hem, was quite slanted in its leaving out dads…it’s okay…it happens). And then I decided to come up with some advices all by myself, cuz some of my friends are starting to raise kids, like 5 – 10 years after me because I was pregnant and momming before it was cool Heehee. Just kidding. Here goes:

1. Still do what you love. No matter what. It will show your kid how to make oneself happy and not have to rely on others for thrills.

2. Eat good food. It’s good for you, daddy. And you can’t take care of other people if you only have processed, chemical-ridden, nasty junk running through your veins.

3. Read to your kid. Duh.

4. Read them books you think are well-written and smart. Think about what you read them before you read it to them. Because if they like it, they are gonna want to hear you read it EVERY. DAMN. DAY.

5. Ask your kid questions. Serious and difficult and philosophical ones. Like “Do you believe in a god? Many gods? Which ones?Why or why not?” And “Have you ever wondered where your thoughts come from?” And “What did you dream about last night? What do you think dreams mean, if anything?”

6. Get ready to answer those questions yourself. Honestly. And in words that we all understand.

7. When your kid asks you a question that seriously perplexes you, don’t be afraid to tell her that you don’t know. Uncertainty is certain, mommy.

8. Under no circumstances should you produce more than 8. And I must admit here that I think 3 is pushin’ it.

9. Encourage her to be smart and kind. Encourage him to be the same.

10. If you want to make sure your kid hates you, buy them more toys and games and gadgets and what-nots and disposable bullshit than you had as a child. This will also ensure that your kid will hate herself, and everyone you meet will think both you and your kid are total assholes. The same goes for when you become a grandparent. Spoiling is not cute. It’s annoying.

What about you, moms and dads? Any advice for the future parents of the world? Also, I would love to hear from those of you that don’t have kids, what do you think about parenting?

It takes a village, ya know,

Spring

Hi Oklahoma,

You know I love you, right? Well, if you love me back you will quit making the national news for bigotry and Christian extremism.

Thanks so much.

Ever yours,

Spring

So it seeeeeeeems that a non-profit, tax-exempt religious organization called Reclaiming Oklahoma for Christ is trying to get Sally Kern, the anti-gay and anti-Muslim and anti-everything smart Republican from OK’s District 84, re-elected. The only problem is they’re not supposed to give money to a political cause, and now they’re being charged with illegal electioneering.

Despite federal tax law barring electioneering by non-profits, the Edmond-based Religious Right group had dived deep into partisan politics…

Why? What’s going on in Oklahoma that needs their attention so?

In [a recent] Reclaiming Oklahoma for Christ e-mail, the group expressed alarm at the fund-raising potential of Kern’s opponent, Democrat Brittany Novotny, the state’s first transgendered candidate.

Oh, here we go…

“In case you missed it,” the e-mail said, “the homosexual lobby has recruited an individual that has had a sex change operation to run against Rep. Kern. The homosexual lobby from across America will be pouring money into this local race in an attempt to make a statement to the country by knocking out an outspoken Christian, pro-family representative. If they succeed, it will serve as a warning shot across the bough of all elected officials who defend Biblical values. Even if this is not your district, this race will effect [sic] you! Once a person is elected to the legislature, their voting impacts ALL Oklahomans.”

The e-mail concluded with a quote from Proverbs 29:2: “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.”

So are you as ready as I am to give some money to Kern’s challenger, the amazing Brittany Novotny, even though you don’t live in her district? Or even if you don’t live in Oklahoma? If yes, go here! I’m ready to do some rejoicin’!

And you might also want to check out this amazing site. Seriously, Sally, how could you not buy your own domain name?

A week ago I went to a wedding. It was the wedding of my college roommate, the girl with whom I discovered girls. She married her longtime girlfriend, the girl with whom she has bought a house and a car, built a garden and a career and a life, all over the past 10 years or so they’ve been together. They are each 30. They are endlessly in love.

The wedding was lovely. I know that’s what everybody says about everybody’s wedding…”it was lovely”… but I don’t. In fact, I have never said such a thing about anybody’s wedding. I hate weddings, actually. I think they are uncomfortable and spooky examples of how people just do what they think they’re supposed to do and not what their intelligence would have them do. I don’t cry at weddings. Weddings are robotic and soul-less, as a general law.

But when the general law is skirted, it is amazing how much soul and humanity can be shared at a wedding. The two brides wanted all of their very closest friends and family to come to the wedding. They sent out invitations. Some people told them they were sorry but they had to decline because of personal religious beliefs. But the people who did what their intelligence would have them do, we came and supported the young couple with all our soul and humanity and with respect for the couple’s bravery and for their right to kiss in private.

Photo by Helen Stoilas

I didn’t tell them this at the time, but if I could have spoken through those obnoxious tears I would have:

Unfortunately, we have lawmakers who are not representative of good people like us. But good people in love and determined to be happy do exactly what they want. Especially when we all know that love came far before politics anyhow.

As a human who has a firm stance on the abortion issue after years and years of reading everything from propaganda to science to statistics to personal narratives to visiting out-of-the-way abortion clinics myself, I sometimes grow weary of keeping up-to-date on the great abortion debate. But lately I have read a few pieces that discuss abortion in what seem to me to be new ways.

As a college freshman writing teacher, I often mediated debates about abortion in an attempt to get 18 & 19-year-old Okies to think critically and objectively and open-mindedly about salient issues. Over the years, I watched the debate between my pro-choice and pro-life students devolve into something completely political without much awareness at all of the procedure as a medical one. They were thoroughly polarized. It was FREEDOM! Or it was MURDER! One or the other, great or horrible, black or white.

This politicization of abortion was not just happening in my classroom, it was happening all over America. A recent (excellent and thorough!) article in the NYT discusses the changes that the American abortion provider has undergone, from a doctor in a hospital under standardized American Medical Association guidelines to the ostracized and often persecuted provider at a stand-alone clinic:

In 1973, hospitals made up 80 percent of the country’s abortion facilities. By 1981, however, clinics outnumbered hospitals, and 15 years later, 90 percent of the abortions in the U.S. were performed at clinics.

Wow!

Then there was this article on Feministing.com which discussed a recent TV episode of Friday Night Lights about abortion, and I just loved how the author described the plot: “The plot turns to an examination of what happens when we let a personal medical decision become an impersonal debate of moral absolutes.” Interesting… I need to see this show!

The last article that got me thinking about this issue is about how the Fox network refused to air an episode of The Family Guy because it discusses abortion. The show’s creator, Seth Macfarlane says something really insightful, I think (maybe because I agree with him):

[T]here are certain words, and abortion is one of those words, that once you say them, people start getting nervous.

It’s as if the very utterance of the sound uh-bawr-shuhn causes an emotional and physical reaction in people, like they have been trained to react instead of to think. He goes on to say this:

People in America, they’re getting dumber. They’re getting less and less able to analyze something and think critically, and pick apart the underlying elements. And more and more ready to make a snap judgment regarding something at face value, which is too bad.

And I’m uncomfortable about my inclination to agree with him on that one, too. I think in many ways we as Americans are encouraged to not think and to simply act whether that act is to buy, work, do, vote, drive, eat, speak, argue, etc. But I don’t know if that means we are dummer, necessarily. Maybe less patient? Maybe less willing to listen? (But I’m the same way…I have a very hard time listening to some self-righteous, preachy “pro-lifer.” Ewww, I feel like a horrible, judgmental hypocrite right now.) What do you think, can we as Americans be getting dummer? Are we just overly-sensitive to certain words like abortion? Is sensitivity or black-or-white thinking synonymous with dumbness?

Food for thought,

Spring

Hey y’all! Look what I made for dinner tonight:

Maybe it doesn’t look appetizing to you in the picture, but trust me that’s just because I took the picture with the crapcrap camera in my computer. It was yummy! I’ve been trying to integrate more greens into my life since 1) I love them. 2) They’re healthy, and mama needs more energy lately. I was also looking for something not too pricey, and it turns out that BOK CHOY is easy to find organic and relatively cheap.

Ingredients (dinner for 1):

1 chicken breast, beaten with a meat pulverizer or the bottom of a ceramic mug then cut however you like.

4-5 leaves of bok choy, sliced down the middle then chopped.

1 small onion, chopped.

1 clove garlic.

Some of your favorite stir-fry sauce (I used Soy Ginger).

1/4 cup beet and/ or carrot juice.

salt & pepper.

Throw the chicken in a pan with some oil and cook until done. Then throw in onion, salt, pepper, garlic, bok choy. Stir fry for about 5 minutes, adding a sprinkle of water if necessary. Then pour in sauce and vegetable juice. Cook for 10 more minutes or so, until enough of the liquid cooks off and it’s all to your liking.

I loved it, but I honestly have to say that the chicken got on my nerves a little bit so next time I’ll probably make it with more veggies (sliced beets and carrots?) and maybe without meat at all. I should probably be vegetarian anyway. Maybe that’ll happen sometime soon.

Spring

Today after work, instead of cracking open a cold beer because I am still recovering from too many this weekend, I watched a documentary about beer. The documentary’s called BEER WARS. It was an averagely-decent documentary as far as documentaries go, but it was super-decent as an educational piece about how big business crushes small business here in America. The business in this case is the beer business (pun intended!).

Dear Coors Light, I bid you farewell. I’m slightly sorry, but we both know this is for the best.

I hereby vow to never drink a Coors, Budweiser or Miller product again. Did you know that 1 out of every 2 beers sold in America is from the people that make Bud? And did you ever notice how they take up all the space in the grocery store beer aisle and the convenient stores so you don’t really notice any other beers there? And do we really need so many ways to buy Budweiser- 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, can, tall can, bottle, Dry, Light, Ice, Lime, Select, andonandonandon? And did you also know that they are trying to steal away the little bit of business that craft breweries do have by making IMPOSTOR CRAFT BREWERY BEERS?!?!?!? Anheuser-Busch now has a beer called Organic Wild Hop Lager, but to market to people looking for a more interesting, smaller-batch brew they put “Green Valley Brewing Co.” on the label with no mention of the parent company Anheuser-Busch.

I am by no means a beer expert, but I am always trying to learn about new, nice, ethical, local, interesting breweries, especially now that I broke up with Coors Light. Choc– short for Choctaw like the Indian tribe and brewed in Krebs, OK– is still one of my all-time favorite American beers. And the Marshall beer out of Tulsa, OK tastes pretty good too. What are some of your favorite little lesser-known beer gems?

Spring

As many of you know, I have completely sold out to THE MAN as I currently work at a state government agency known as the Department of Human Services (DHS). Oh well, mama’s gotta go to the dentist and pay bills and stuff, and that’s not the point. Within DHS are several “departments” or “divisions” or whatever they are called. There is Child Welfare and Adult Protective Services and then there is the place I work: it’s basically the food stamp office. I think the technical name is Family Support Services. Every day I stamp in dozens and dozens of applications that floods of poor people just like you & me turn in to request help paying for the most basic of human needs, nutrition. (Go here to read more about the state food benefits program.)

When I first started working there, I had no idea that poverty existed in such abundance in Tulsa, Oklahoma, America. There are 3 food stamp offices in Tulsa alone, and each office serve 10,000s of people. Call me naive, call me blind, call me privileged; all are true. Still, I was shocked at how many people need help feeding their families. And depressed. In fact, I cried every day at lunch during my entire 2nd week of work.

My DHS office building is dank, and I have to go down to what is essentially the basement to get to the food stamp office. No windows, but our doors are open from 8-5, M-F. Every minute of every day, there is a crowded lobby and a line that I can’t see the end of. Babies are crying, women are cussing, old people are trying to hear over the noise, men are pissed off, no plants, no books, a few scattered pamphlets, a few missing children posters; a fucking vending machine that sells soda and another that sells chips hum behind it all.

In the first 2 weeks I worked there, I saw something that I couldn’t really name. At first, I thought that I was witnessing proof that capitalism just doesn’t work. That it has failed way too many people.

Then I started to think how scary it must be to be totally dependent on something else or someone else for your food, for your child’s food. I thought about how if I were in that situation I would do everything in my power, I would summon all of my creativity and intelligence and smart friends to wriggle my way out of dependence.

And I still think that, but that’s not all I think. I think that that food stamp line that I see every single day is just a microcosmic replica of what every single one of us do every day. We all wait and get pissed and cry and cuss in one way or another for someone else to get our food or to give us money to get our food.

If you have never read The Idea of a Local Economy by Wendell Berry, I humbly prod you to do so. In it, he talks about how we have moved from a local economy to a global economy or, as Berry calls it, a “total economy…where critical choices that once belonged to individuals or communities become the property of corporations.” And it’s true. People used to decide what to do with the environment around them. Then governments did. Now corporations do. Think BP.

Though one is shopping amid an astonishing variety of products, one is denied certain significant choices. In such a state of economic ignorance it is not possible to choose products that were produced locally or with reasonable kindness toward people and toward nature. Nor is it possible for such consumers to influence production for the better. Consumers who feel a prompting toward land stewardship find that in this economy they can have no stewardly practice.To be a consumer in the total economy, one must agree to be totally ignorant, totally passive, and totally dependent on distant supplies and self-interested suppliers.

WE have lost control of our economy. I don’t just mean WE as in WE who have jobs or WE who are talking about social issues or WE who are connected to the internet and drive cars newer than ’99 or WE who have been to college or WE who are underpaid and overworked. I mean every-single-person-in-this-world WE.

But what can we do to take more ownership and responsibility for ourselves, for our livelihood, for our health, for our community? To make this place better than we found it, to enrich the local economy? We can grow our own veggies and fruits, for starters. Do it. Grow something. Quit taking all the world’s groceries, and put some back. If you don’t have the space or gumption to grow your own food, you can shop at the local farmer’s markets. And FYI: the one on Cherry Street now accepts food stamps!

What else?

Some good news for us progressives here in Tulsa: this past week, the City Council voted 6-3 to add sexual orientation to Tulsa’s nondiscrimination policy. I thought it would be a good idea to write a note of thanks to the men and women who voted for such a nice step toward equality.

I don’t know how to invert the image, so what? It’s the thought that counts  Anyway, you can find out which district you live in and who your councilor is here. You can email them individually, or call or write to them at:

One Technology Center
175 E. 2nd St.
4th Floor
Tulsa, OK 74103

(918) 596-1990

Yay Tulsa!

Spring

Ladies and gentlemen, please meet the very first tomato of the season that I planted, watered, organically fertilized, loved and raised all by myself!!! Isn’t he gorgeous?!?!?!

I suspect I picked it a bit early (see the specks of green on top?) but the temptation overwhelmed me. And now, the same beauty that lured me to want it all for my own is preventing me from gobbling it up. I think I’ll just put it on my desk at work tomorrow and stare at it. Then maybe later tomorrow evening I’ll be ready to let go and eat it. With fresh basil, sea salt, black pepper and olive oil, perhaps?

Mmmmmmm,

Spring

A big, fat THANK YOU for putting up this pink & purple piece near my house:

15th & Lewis, Tulsa.

My love for knit graffiti knows no bounds, as you knitters impress me and utterly warm my heart. To me, knit graffiti is brilliant and revolutionary, and I love how artists use the medium as a way to play within the laws and also to bend and stretch the term “graffiti”. I think it is a challenge to authority that authority can’t even see! It’s a challenge to the traditional organization of public space and municipal design that people sluff (slough) off or excuse or altogether overlook because it has such a “PG” reputation.

So thanks again for bringing this so close to my home. Also, THANK YOU for brightening a day that was otherwise one giant hungover blur!

Spring