Paradigm Shift

I think many of us approach the idea of talking to our kids about sex by following cultural scripts we don’t give much thought to.  If we stop and ask ourselves why, however, we may realize these scripts are not at all the best way to raise empowered, feminist children.  Why does a same-sex parent give the sex talk?  What message does that send?  Why a “sex talk” at all?  And what should be said in the talk?

I know some of you think you have many years before you answer these questions, but the truth is, we have to start when our children are learning to talk by teaching them the proper names for body parts in a casual,  natural non-shaming way.  I tell my two year-old daughter during diaper changes “I need to wipe your vulva.”  This is the very beginnings of her sex education, and my son’s as well.

So why “sex talks?”

Recently, a group of friends at a dinner party went around a talked about whether we had had a “sex talk.”  Turns out not a single person at the table had had one.  We were all basically “self-taught.”  So the fact that many folks who are parents now are thinking about and planning “sex talks” is admirable and important.

But is the “sex talk” enough?

In my opinion, if I’m planning a “sex talk” with a kid, I’ve already missed an opportunity.  I’ll

“Sex talks” send the following messages:

-Sex is unusual, different, and distinct from daily interactions and can be neatly separated out from the rest of life and put into a box the size of a conversation.

-Sex elicits awkwardness and anxiety.

-Sex is only talked about with members of the same gender.

-Sex is not something people in couples talk about with their partners present.

The truth is sex is everywhere.  It’s everywhere because is saturates our culture and media, but it is also everywhere because it permeates our lives as humans in very natural ways.  Everything we do, all our interactions have sensual, erotic, romantic, and kinky elements.  The idea that we can take all that is non-platonic and shove it into a neat little monogamous, monosexual compartment isn’t accurate, and I don’t think it’s what we truly want to be teaching our kids.

Once at a sleepover in high school with a bunch of girls, a friend of mine announced that an older girl we all knew had had “oral sex.”  I distinctly remember that none of us knew what that was.  We knew what blow jobs were, of course.  OF COURSE.  It seemed most of the girls in our class were giving blow jobs regularly.  But I didn’t know a single girl in high school who knew that a girl could receive oral sex (let alone from another girl!).  As this girl described what her friend had told her about the “oral sex,” the girls squealed with displeasure at the thought of someone licking their private areas, and were perplexed that this older girl had reported being “eaten out” was “better than sex.”

Turns out being eaten out is sex.  Our daughters need to know that.  They need to know that sex is supposed to feel good, and yes, that includes for girls.  Sex isn’t something you do to get into the popular group or get a boy’s attention.  Sex is always for you!

I relay this story to highlight what we are doing by not arming our daughters with specific, in-depth sexual knowledge.  These girls were still having sex.  They were having sex in ways that were pleasing to boys.  They didn’t even understand that their pleasure was something to consider.  They didn’t know they could have had sex with girls instead.  They didn’t have any options because they had learned a very limited sexual script.

You can be sure no daughter of mine will be going around giving blow jobs not even knowing cunnilingus exists!   Look, we may all hope our daughters aren’t giving blow jobs in high school, but the fact is many of them will.  I may not be able to control the what and when of my kids’ sexual encounters, but I can absolutely control what level of knowledge they go into those experiences with.  I want my boy and my girl to understand that a sexual encounter should be mutually pleasurable.  If they are not comfortable, emotionally or physically, I want them to hear my fucking annoying voice ringing in their ears, saying, “Does it feel good!?”

On that note, as early as high school, despite my own complete lack of experience, I picked up somewhere that sex wasn’t supposed to hurt.  I’m almost sure I picked this up from some feminist reading I had done for class.  This was before high school kids did web searches.  I remember arguing with other girls about this.  The common wisdom seemed to be the “first time” hurts horribly and the best approach is just “get it over with.”

It’s not enough to tell our kids to wear condoms.  We need to describe to them in detail how long it takes for a woman to be lubricated enough for penetration, what types of things are likely to facilitate that, and what kind of lube to use if you need a bit of help.  We need to buy our daughters dildos and tell them to practice on themselves so they know what it should feel like.  If there’s going to be discomfort, they should be in complete control and able to push their limits as they see fit.  I still tell adults all the time that sex shouldn’t hurt, ever.  (Unless the pain is the point in a kink/BDSM context).  And yes, we need to tell our kids about that too!

In college, I had this reputation for being a kind of amateur sex therapist.  It was ironic because I still had essentially no experience whatsoever.  But I knew things.  In many cases more than people who’d actually had sex!  One of my signature interventions was bringing women to downtown Chicago to a sex shop to buy their first dildo or vibrator.  I remember this one woman didn’t even know what a dildo was – 21 years old!  What?  Over my dead body my kids will go off to college not knowing what a dildo is!

I think many folks still believe talking to kids about sex will make them do it.  If we don’t talk to our kids about sex, frequently and repeatedly, and in detail, (and this includes parents of all genders with kids of all genders), they are still going to learn about sex.  They will learn about it from:

-Very intense, frequent exposure to pornography that bears no resemblance to actual sex.

-Other misinformed or under-informed kids.

-Other kids who have an agenda and are not invested in presenting balanced, egalitarian viewpoints.

-Adults who are not sex-positive and may even be shaming.

-Television, movies, and books, the vast majority of which present a hetero-normative, monogamous, gender-traditional, sex-shameful cultural script, often involving sexy vampire teens biting each other’s necks.

Get in there now!  Don’t wait!  Talk about sex at the dinner table, in the car, in front of the tv, during homework, on weekends, on weekdays, with relatives, friends, and any other time.  If you have a partner, model for your kids talking about sex with a partner by talking to your partner about sex in front of them.  Talk about every aspect of sex, sexuality, sexual orientation, romance, love, eroticism, sensuality, touch, friendship, emotional intimacy, kink, monogamy, non-monogamy, safe sex, flirting, sexual fluidity and anything and everything else.

A “Sex Talk” takes sex out of life and puts it in some kind of alternate universe where our kids don’t live and we don’t live.  Show your kids through example the rich spectrum of sexuality and sensuality present in all aspects of our lives.

Privilege. If I had a nickel for every time I heard that word, I’d probably be a Koch brother by now. But they don’t give you nickels for interrogating power. That’s actually the direct opposite of why they would ever give you nickels. You know, “they,” as in “the man.” But I digress. Back to privilege. What is it? And why are we so often told to check it? Simple. Intersectionality, people. Because oppression doesn’t work in a blanketed way, but it affects different intersecting identities in very specific ways. Because you don’t know everything. Because you don’t experience everything. Because there are other perspectives, other experiences, other identities, and they understand the world in distinctly different ways than you do. Privilege. Sometimes, you just need to check it, be quiet, and listen.

So then, what is privilege? Privilege is the favor you receive, whether wanted or not, based on an identity that you hold. Privilege is the value of your voice, just because of a certain identity. We live in a system that privileges white, heterosexual, middle-class, cisgender, Christian men. If you’re white, you are privileged. If you’re heterosexual, you are privileged. If you’re a man, you are privileged. If you’re middle or upper class, you’re privileged. If you’re cisgender (a non-trans person), you are privileged. If you’re Christian, you are privileged. If you exist within any of these identities, yes — you are privileged. I have lived my life as a white women of economic privilege in the United States. That is the perspective that I have. Have I experienced discrimination? Yes, I have. But that doesn’t mean that I understand all discrimination, all oppression. That doesn’t mean that I exist in a vacuum of social power dynamics. I am a white, straight, cisgender woman in a heterosexist, racist patriarchy.

Checking your privilege is understanding that, while I may not want to benefit from being a white person, I do. I have a voice that is more likely to be heard, respected, valued. It’s not because I want it to be that way; it’s because we exist in a society that perpetuates racism and devalues the voices, perspectives, and lives of people of color. Checking your privilege is understanding that you exist in an advantaged social space and the knowledge that you do not experience oppression and discrimination in the same way as other people.

Checking your privilege is listening, not posturing. When a woman of color says that she finds something racist, I accept her feelings on that. I don’t need to challenge her interpretation of what’s racist because, let’s be real here, I don’t know. I have never been discriminated against on the basis of race. A person of color has more legitimacy and more of a right to assert what is and isn’t racist because they have that lived experience. They understand racism in ways that I never will.

Sometimes, when someone is told to check their privilege, they respond defensively: “But, because I’m not a black woman, I don’t get to have opinions? I’m just trying to help! I don’t get to help?” Shush. First of all, no one needs your “help.” Support is not the same thing as help. You’re not a savior. As Melissa Harris-Perry so keenly noted on her show today, there already exists a groundwork of people resisting, organizing, challenging discrimination on their own behalf. If you want to be an ally, check your identities — scan your privileges — and take a back seat, a supporting role.

Checking your privilege doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to have an opinion, a thought, a feeling. It just means that you are aware that your opinions, your thoughts, your feelings are not the only ones, and they are influenced by your privileged position. Checking your privilege means that you accept that you don’t know everything, that people who experience a certain kind of discrimination and oppression firsthand have the right to assert their opinions, thoughts, and feelings. They have a distinct perspective and should be heard. Checking your privilege also means acknowledging that the voices of those who don’t occupy a privileged position are often silenced and sidelined, or co-opted and appropriated by those in privileged positions. Checking your privilege often means shutting up. It means listening. It means learning. It means valuing those voices and perspectives from non-privileged positions.

So when someone says to you, “Check your privilege,” try not to get defensive. Try to understand where it’s coming from. It’s not an assertion that you are a terrible human being, that you have nothing to contribute, that you’re necessarily racist/sexist/heterosexist/cissexist. It’s a call to reflect on your privileged identities and the favored social space those identities permit you to inhabit.

In the immortal words of Ice Cube, check yourself before you wreck yourself.

The weather is warming and the tulips are beginning to peek through the soil in some places (not where I live though it’s all slime and brown here). With warmer weather, we begin to pack away our bulky sweaters. As flowers bloom, our thoughts turn to all of those things that make summer so wonderful. There’s so much to look forward to like music festivals, drinks on patios, picnics, pool parties, and on and on.

One of the things about spring and summer that is not a delight is the combined slut and body shaming sure to be on the rise. As Pasadena Community College professor Hugo Schwyzer often tells his women’s studies classes “sisterhood is easier in the winter”. When warmer weather comes in, all sorts of internal and external anxieties about women’s bodies begin to appear.

I think all women are familiar with that uneasy tension that arises not just from the way others around you dress, but with your own wardrobe and body as well. I know from first-hand experience about covering myself up in layers of clothing to hide my body. While my mother and sister are svelte I am much more curvy, with an ‘hourglass’ figure that Marilyn Monroe fans (she’s the quintessential hourglass figure of course) assure me is very attractive, actually does not fit well into a lot of modern styles.  Models are generally not full breasted and hippy. I am. I remember when I was 20 I went to the Internet in search for something that would tell me that even though I wasn’t skinny I was ok. I typed my height and weight 5’6 155 lbs (omg my weight is now on the Internet) into a Yahoo answer and asked vulnerably, pitifully “am I ok”? The answers were not very reassuring. The lesson is that sometimes you have to find acceptance of yourself, by yourself.

You don’t need to pick yourself apart, and a great way to stop doing that is to learn to accept other body types around you. Doing promotional modeling was really helpful to me here there were so many girls who were traditionally magazine –model beautiful, and then there was me. What I learned from working with these women was that, gasp, they were actually people and not just attractive bodies on display. They had ambitions and thoughts, and they weren’t the mean girls from high school. So no matter what they are wearing or what shape their body is remember that these women are your sisterhood—and as Gloria Steinem once said, “Any woman who chooses to behave like a full human being should be warned that the armies of the status quo will treat her as something of a dirty joke. That’s their natural and first weapon. She will need her sisterhood”. Be kind to the women around you because we need each other.

Another way to help with body acceptance is to do affirmations. I know, they are really really cheesy and it can be hard to look at yourself in the mirror everyday and find something about yourself that you love.  But you should. Be it your eyes, your arms, your breasts or your knees find something about yourself that you find beautiful. There are messages in society that will try to tell you that you are unacceptable, and so you need to spend time actively countering that body-shaming messaging we are always passively receiving. Making yourself acceptable to other people is not in the best interest of your health or your goals. Your body is the most transient thing about you and it will not be the same next week, or next year. Learn to love the ride.

IN HONOR OF SEXUAL ASSAULT ACTIVISM MONTH, SAFER RELEASES RESULTS OF NATIONAL STUDY OF STUDENT ANTI-RAPE ACTIVISTS

U.S. Colleges/Universities are Not Making the Grade: Half of Students Give Their Schools a C or Worse in Addressing Campus Sexual Violence

(NEW YORK, NY) April 1, 2013 – Every April for the past 10 years advocates across the country have spoken out against rape during Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM). Two years ago, Students Active for Ending Rape (SAFER) challenged campus communities to recognize SAAM as Sexual Assault ACTIVISM Month and pledge to change how their campus prevents and responds to sexual violence. This year SAFER continues to observe Sexual Assault ACTIVISM Month by sharing the voices and experiences of student activists from across the country.

Today SAFER releases Moving Beyond Blue Lights and Buddy Systems: A National Study of Student Anti-Rape Activists. The study was conducted through an online survey of 528 undergraduate students from 46 US states and the District of Columbia along with a series of focus groups with student activists. The study examined students’ activities, priorities, perceptions, and needs related to various efforts to address campus sexual violence, with a specific focus on campus policies. Students also reported on their school’s efforts to address rape and sexual assault.

“This study demonstrates the critical role that students can play in combating campus sexual violence and underscores the need for increased resources and supports for students seeking to make change on their campuses.” said Dr. Emily Greytak, SAFER’s Evaluation Coordinator and primary researcher on the study. “At the same time, it illustrates that while some schools are ahead of the curve and are effectively addressing campus sexual violence, many colleges and universities continue to lag behind, failing to adequately address the issue and often ignoring students’ needs.”

The results of this study also highlight the ongoing struggle to shift away from individual risk reduction efforts, like self-defense tactics and increased security measures, towards a focus on institutional change and primary prevention. Students rated awareness raising and safety initiatives as the top two most effective ways in combating campuses sexual violence. Not surprisingly then, student activists were most likely to have participated in awareness raising activities, such as Take Back the Night and Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Far fewer engaged in organizing or advocacy to reform their campus policies or implement programming or services, such as a sexual assault centers. Similarly, awareness raising efforts and risk reduction and safety initiatives were the most commonly report strategies implemented by schools as well. Although these were also the tactics most endorsed by students, overall, students indicated that their schools were not succeeding in their efforts; when asked to assign a grade to the job their school does in addressing rape and sexual assault, half gave their school a C or lower.

“We agree with the students in our study that raising awareness is an important step towards addressing campus sexual violence, yet we know it cannot end there. Students can harness this awareness and build a movement for change,” explained Selena Shen, Chair of SAFER’s Board of Directors, “And while information about risk reduction strategies should be available to all students, focusing on these strategies alone not only perpetuates rape culture by putting the onus on the victim to avoid rape, but it will ultimately fail in eliminating sexual violence in that ignores its root causes.”

“We urge both schools and the student activists and themselves to move beyond the risk reduction strategies of blue lights and buddy systems, and to extend their efforts to addressing primary prevention, whether through encouraging bystander intervention or working to change rape culture on campus,” continued Shen. “SAFER believes that a strong, comprehensive campus sexual assault policy is a key tool to achieving primary prevention and sustainable institutional change, and it is our mission is to provide students with the resources and support as they embark on reforming their campus policy. Schools can improve their response to campus sexual violence by involving students, such as the activists in our study and those we encounter in the regular course of our work. It is our hope that this study will provide some insight and guidance for all of us, students, administrators, faculty, and advocates alike, working to create safe campus communities, free of sexual violence once and for all.”

Throughout Sexual Assault ACTIVISM Month, SAFER will be sharing key findings from the study on our blog at www.safercampus.org/blog. A full summary report of Moving Beyond Blue Lights and Buddy Systems: A National Study of Student Anti-Rape Activists is also available. 

Select Key Findings

About the Study

Outreach for the survey was conducted through SAFER’s constituent database and social networks, and in order to reach student activists who were not engaged with SAFER, we utilized SAFER’s partnership with a leading magazine for young women. The magazine posted announcements about our survey on its online social media sites. 528 undergraduate student activists completed the online survey. They were from a diverse range of schools, in 46 different states and 6 countries, including liberal arts colleges, community colleges, and state universities. 19 students participated in the focus groups held at two conferences – a national conference for young feminists and a local conference for campus anti-rape activists. By design, a portion of the participants were familiar with SAFER prior to the study whereas a portion were not. To increase participation and reduce sample bias, monetary incentives were provided to both survey and focus group participants. Both the survey and the focus groups explored students’ activities, priorities, perceptions, and needs related to various efforts to address campus sexual violence, with a specific focus on campus policy. For more information about survey methods and sample, see the full summary report.

About SAFER (www.safercampus.org)

Started by Columbia University students in 2000, Students Active for Ending Rape (SAFER) is the only organization that fights sexual violence and rape culture by empowering student-led campaigns to reform college sexual assault policies. Run by a volunteer collective, SAFER facilitates student organizing through in-person trainings; individual support through our Activist Mentoring Program; our Campus Sexual Assault Policies Database, in collaboration with V-Day; and our Activist Resource Center, a growing online resource library and network for student organizers. SAFER firmly believes that sexual violence is both influenced by and contributes to multiple forms of oppression, including racism, sexism, and homo/transphobia, and view our anti-sexual violence work through a broader anti-oppression lens.

This past March 22 marked the 41st year since the Equal Rights Amendment was passed by the Senate and sent by President Nixon to the states for ratification. The Amendment fell short of ratification by three states in 1982. Granted, no one likes to make laws in haste, but this is an issue whose time came and never left.

Recent articles by such prominent writers as Katha Pollitt and Gail Collins discuss the ERA and make much of the fact that the arguments levied against it are no longer valid. The guardians of the status quo may be fighting to maintain their steadily loosening grip on supreme rule, but the march toward full equality over the past half-century is not the sort from which one looks back. Everyone who was shut out of the power structure has made tremendous gains, but this bill, which came so tantalizingly close to being law, still lingers.

This December will be the 90th anniversary of the ERA’s original introduction in Congress by the suffragist leader Alice Paul. In 1923, it was the next obvious step for women. They had been voting for three years and the earth’s rotation had yet to come to a screeching halt, so it seemed a good moment to press for full equality, writing women completely into the Constitution.

But voting was one thing – real equality was something else. In 1923, women might be wearing their skirts short and their hair shorter, but the men who made the laws weren’t about to consign away their power.

Support for the ERA came in fits and starts. The Republicans introduced it into their party platform in 1940, the Democrats in 1944 (male union members thought women might threaten their jobs, hence the delay). President Eisenhower, so very much the face of 1950s tradition and conformity, asked a joint session of Congress to pass the amendment in 1958. But it wasn’t until the formation of the National Organization for Women and the growing groundswell of a women’s movement in the late 1960s that the ERA started to be seen as viable.

In the wake of successful Civil Rights legislation and the shock wave that was Stonewall, women were fighting back against the sexist laws that had defined – and confined – them for years. Young women who had been born into the Mad Men era of excess petticoats and desperate husband-hunting were gaining opportunities almost daily. And the ERA was sailing through state legislature after state legislature.

Until Phyllis Schlafly, a conservative and former Congressional candidate, organized a group to fight ratification. The arguments were simple: the ERA would take away women’s “special privileges.” Specifically, it would force women into combat, rob them of   alimony entitlement, and force them into unisex bathrooms. Among other things. It all amounted to the insistence that women would be forced out of their roles as contented wives and mothers and into careers. Apparently, hyperbole goes down well when you’re scared of change.

Since change happened anyway, there’s some question – even amongst women – as to whether the ERA is still needed. Surely, it would just be a symbol?

Well, no. Because while the ERA wouldn’t stop the sort of medieval mentality that characterizes the debate over reproductive rights (seriously, some are trying to restrict birth control now?), it would be a useful weapon in the insistence that what a woman decides is right for her should be the last word on the subject. It would make it harder for anyone to keep getting away with paying women less than men for comparable work. And it would be a powerful tool in the ongoing battle for social and economic parity.

The thing is, we’ve seen that rights won can be rolled back. Some of the battles being fought now are little more than retreads, just with different clothes. Having an ERA wouldn’t win those battles, but it would make it a lot harder for those combating women’s rights to fight on.

A list of activists including Richard Dawkins have called out for a day of international support and awareness for a young Femen activist who is facing punishment, or even death in her country of Tunisia. Her crime? The 19-year-old Tunisian, Amina (last name unknown) posted two topless photos of herself in protest against Islamic extremism and Sharia law. One photo shows her topless, smoking a cigarette, with “My Body is My Own and Not the Source of Anyone’s Honor” scrawled in Arabic across her chest. Another shows her raising her middle fingers to the camera, with “Fuck Your Morals,” written in English on her torso. According to the Femen leader in Paris Inna Shevchenko, Amina’s family have delivered her to a psychiatric hospital after she posted topless photos of herself to the Femen web page she created for the group in Tunisia. The head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice in Tunisia, Almi Adel, a Salafi Islamic preacher, has called for Amina to be “stoned to death” for the images. He cited the severity of the punishment as appropriate du to the “epidemics and disasters” that could be brought forth. He also warned that her actions “could be contagious and give ideas to other women.” Gasp what does this woman think, that women are people? Media reports say Tunisian secular law would punish her with up to two years in prison. Sharia law dictates 80-100 lashes. April 4th is the International Day to Support Amina there is also a petition to protect Amina at Change.org. Through Amina, and her persecution and her struggle, we witness the experiences of living in a culture in which the asymmetric race relations are a central organizing principle of a society. Femen said in a statement they were furious about the “barbarian threats of the Islamists about the necessity of reprisals against the Tunisian activist Amina…we are afraid for her life and we call on women to fight for their freedom against religious atrocities.” Keep your eyes open, and let Tunisia know we are watching. Keep the conversation growing on twitter by using #Amina. She needs your voice.

It sometimes seems as though the attack on abortion rights will never end. After all, just this week, the North Dakota legislature passed a ban on abortions after 6 weeks and moved a personhood amendment to the 2014 ballot, outdoing a recently enacted Arkansas ban on abortions after 12 weeks. The war on women’s reproductive rights is constant. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 92 abortion restrictions in 24 states were enacted in 2011 alone.

But in light of these aggressive and continual anti-choice attacks, New York’s Governor Cuomo has decided to not only buck the restriction trend, but to move in the opposite direction entirely. Standing firmly on the sides of women’s health and autonomy, Governor Cuomo has proposed a 10-Point Women’s Equality Act that, among many other things, would ease restrictions on abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy. The current New York law currently allows abortions after 24 weeks only if the pregnant women’s life is at risk. Though overridden by a federal law that protects women’s health, the wording of the current State law often inhibits doctors and women from accessing their legal right to obtain an abortion necessary for their health, for fear of legal retribution.

Governor Cuomo’s proposal would also make clear that health care practitioners, as well as physicians, can legally perform abortions, and would make abortion a part of the state’s public law, rather than part of the state’s penal code. This is an important symbolic stance: abortion is a part of comprehensive reproductive health care and there is nothing criminal about it. One in three women in America will have an abortion, and this gesture shows that New York stands in solidarity with those women and understands that abortion is a health care right.

According to a recent Siena poll, “80% of New Yorkers agree that New York should enact a law ‘protecting reproductive freedom for women, ensuring a woman’s right to make private health care decisions regarding pregnancy.’” Governor Cuomo’s proposals would do just that. This would not only affect the women of New York, ensuring their right to reproductive autonomy, but would have national implications, as well. It would send a signal to the rest of the country that restrictions on abortions are not inevitable, that attacking women’s rights to reproductive freedom is unacceptable. It is crucial that these proposals are passed: they would ensure that the right to an abortion is protected, and would signal to the rest of the country that abortion rights are legitimate, necessary, and imperative.

While New York does provide public health insurance coverage for abortion services, the reality is that many women still fall through the cracks. Many women are not eligible for state funding, but are still unable to afford an abortion on their own. While Governor Cuomo’s commitment to easing restrictions on abortions in an important move and will have inordinate positive impacts on women’s health and abortion access, for many women, the biggest restriction to abortion access is the cost.

This is why a full repeal of the Hyde amendment, which bans federal Medicaid coverage of abortion, needs to be repealed. Easing restrictions is important and needed, but so is expanding coverage and access. A woman cannot exercise her right to an abortion if she is unable to afford it. The Hyde amendment privileges women who can afford an abortion over those who can’t, and distinctly affects women of color. A right to an abortion should not be predicated on whether or not you can afford it. Easing restrictions can only do so much; we need an increase in state and federal funding in order to ensure the protection, availability, and access to abortion.

Governor Cuomo’s support for abortion rights is a small beacon of hope in the fight against anti-choice zealotry. It will help to reinforce that abortion is, in fact, a facet of women’s health care, and can serve to de-stigmatize abortion, both in New York and on a national level. And when 70% of Americans believe Roe versus Wade should stand, Governor Cuomo’s proposals reflect the national consensus that women have the right to an abortion. But this proposed legislation can only do so much. We need to continue to push for a repeal of the Hyde amendment and full support of abortion rights within comprehensive reproductive health care for women. We need to press our legislators to increase state and federal funding for low-income women to access abortions. And we need to continue to support those women who, through no fault of their own, are unable to afford an abortion.

There is no choice if there is no access.

During it’s previews, I went to go see the new production of Rogers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella at the Broadway Theater. I loved the Leslie Ann Warren and Brandy/Whitney Huston versions as a child. The songs were so delightful to me, so when I found out the play was coming to Broadway I made plans to go because I wanted a chance to experience the music live. I knew that it was primarily a story for children, and I expected to see a lot of families with small kids at the theater. There were, and the majority of them were little girls dressed up for the occasion in princess costumes.

Peggy Orenstein’s Cinderella Ate My Daughter is an exploration into the way toys and media are marketed to young girls – especially the Disney Princesses. Walking through the lobby before the play and at intermission, I felt like I was seeing her book come to life.

The play has the same music and songs from the previous television productions, but a new book written by Douglas Carter Beane. He draws heavily from Charles Perrault’s version of the story which also inspired Ever After. I have nothing but accolades for the cast, the orchestra, the costumes, and set design. It was a beautiful play aesthetically – but there is a lot to explore in the new story surrounding classic score.

This new book is not set in the French countryside like in Ever After or at all concerned with historical accuracy. It is still a play for children, but there’s plenty for adults to enjoy as well. I found the play funny and charming. Douglas Carter Beane’s Cinderella is still the traditional ingénue. The prince, still strong and brave, is also naive and somewhat insecure. Cinderella’s step sisters are not particularly cruel or ugly – Charlotte is mean and snarky and Gabrielle is something of a geek girl – which I adore. Cinderella’s stepmother is still oppressive and cold, but she too has multiple dimensions. The fairy godmother has been completely revamped as a character, and the play now includes Jean Michele – a populist rabble rouser and Sebastian, the corrupt royal regent.

Jean Michele’s subplot raises questions about caring for the poor and whether or not monarchy is fair. It’s not preachy and is couched in humor. I have no objection to adding a social consciousness to children’s (and especially girls’) entertainment, but the anachronisms and incongruities were making my head spin.

The lack of time and place was disorienting. In the original story, we aren’t supposed to think too much about how a servant girl is educated enough to make the references in “My Own Little Corner.” However it’s not clear whether the new story takes place in Medieval Europe, the enlightened Renaissance, or some kind of progressive Utopia. We know that Jean Michele and Prince Topher have been to University. But if they live in a time where notions of class are suffocating, how did Jean Michele, who is not wealthy, get an education? Jean Michele’s questioning of the monarchy is received as radical bordering on ridiculous by his countrymen, but the Prince takes his opinions to heart. Women are obsessed with marrying for money, but Jean Michele and the Prince speak to Cinderella and her sisters as equals with opinions about politics worthy of consideration. The play is full of contradictions.

There is joke about Cinderella and her sisters going to elementary school together, and in the moment it broke my suspension of disbelief a little. But its something young children wouldn’t think to question – of course little girls go to school – why wouldn’t they? This is the problem some critics have with the play, it’s trying to be both a classic fairy tale and a modern “Girl Power” story at once without making any of the compromises necessary for either genre.

I know I’m critiquing a children’s play. But the social consciousness of the play is hampered by sticking with the more traditional fairy tale conventions.

What I liked about the portrayal of women in this version of the play is that the male characters take the women seriously and there is little to no overt sexism on their part. However, although there’s now a B-plot about why its important to care for the poor and that everyone should have a voice in their community, it’s still ultimately a story about a bunch of women who want to marry a man solely for his wealth and status, so much so that they start to hate each other for it. Even though this version is going for a more progressive vibe, the Stepsisters Lament was left in, and sung by the entire women’s chorus rather than just the two stepsisters. It felt discordant with the rest of the play.

Cinderella does have a fair amount of autonomy in her fate. Even though she still sings that she knows she shouldn’t “make the first advance” she pretty makes several of them anyway. I still have a difficult time with the trope of the fourth date marriage, however, even when it’s not being so heavily sold to children.

The exception to fairy tale conventions clashing with the new book is the way Marie, the Fairy Godmother character has been rewritten. She is powerful and wise. The nonsense words in her songs sound like a spell she taught at Hogwarts rather than something batty and weird. Marie is still caring and kind to Cinderella, but you get the feeling you would not want to cross her. She’s still a plot device, but a force of nature at that.

“Impossible/It’s Possible,” the song sung by the Fairy Godmother and Cinderella has always been one of my favorite things about this play.

” The world is full of zanies and fools,
who don’t believe in sensible rules ,
and won’t believe what sensible people say,
and because these daft and dewey eyed dopes keep building up impossible hopes –
impossible?!
Things are happening every day! ”

The new book really has this verse at its heart. When I was a kid I liked the message of nonconformity, and that it was okay to be a dreamer. I was really inspired by the idea that “Impossible things are happening every day.” I wasn’t quite sure what those impossible things were – but I interpreted it to mean both true love and other things like science and social progress. The new B-plot about Jean-Michele’s political aspirations fits the motif of “impossible things” and I like this expansion of the meaning a lot.

The marketing of the play largely ignores this though, and I understand why. They are sticking mostly with everything princessey and romantic and I get it – it is still Cinderella and princess gear is what sells. There is now a shirt that says “Impossible things are happening every day” for kids, which is neat. I would really like a “Zanies and Fools” t-shirt, though!

Bottom line: Cinderella is whimsical and fun, if not subversive.

“Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella” plays at the Broadway Theatre.

Elizabeth also blogs at Political Flavors. You can follow her on Twitter @MissCherryPi.

When I was sixteen, my parents uprooted me from a Seattle suburb to the middle of Canada, in a tiny farming town in the middle of Canada. It was an opportunity to start fresh and become somebody completely different, but also a great chance to rebel and milk my parents’ guilt for taking me away from everything I know and forcing me into a town still waiting for a 3G phone tower in 2011. I did a little bit of both: I started wearing red lipstick every day and embraced term “feminist”. It scared the farm-town boys and my parents alike and I’ve never looked back.

I was a part of Human Rights Club in my Washington high school which opened my eyes to the many injustices in the world, misogyny being a huge one. As I learned about gender inequality in a broad sense in the club, I also exposed myself to feminism online. Feminist blogs kept me updated on current information, helped me feel included by being intersectional, and had relevant writers to whom I could relate. After the move, I compensated for the fact I no longer had Human Rights Club to guide me by immersing myself in online feminism whenever I could. It was on Tumblr and Blogspot where I first learned about rape culture, double standards, gender stratification, misogyny, and other crucial feminist concepts that shaped my thought and strengthened my beliefs.

I’m now out of high school and almost finished with my first year of college, I can look back on my beginning days as an identifying feminist with fondness (the bad bangs and naivety makes it hard to pretend it was all peachy, though). Something that began with worrying about facing the pay gap in ten years grew to be an integral part of my life. I am confident that feminism saved my adolescence. It gave me hope by being a reminder of the fact not everyone in the world lived in a place with suffocating gender roles and ignorance. It motivated me to try to dismantle some of the sexism I saw. Feminism shaped me to become a critical thinker of the world around me. It made me aware of patriarchal beauty standards and reject them. It helped me realize that I am a sexually autonomous being and allowed me to grow comfortable with my sexuality and grow confident in it, fighting rape culture and objectification. It pointed out all the injustices in the world that affect me and gives me the courage to fight against them. Feminism was the first and, to date, the only thing that I, a young woman of colour, truly feel a part of. I have so much to thank feminism for, although it, paired with the fact I’m always wearing lipstick, made getting boys to kiss me very difficult.

It’s been two and a half years since I was moved and I’ve since acquired over forty lipsticks. The majority of my lipstick collection is red, but there are a few fuchsia and several oranges, and, most recently, a growing number of purple shades. A tool of expression, lipstick has the power to make me feel complete and invincible. Feminism makes me feel the same way. It is empowering and personal, and I work to expand my collection of feminist knowledge every day. I went from a very linear understanding of feminism to recognizing the omnipresent patriarchy and realizing the absolute need for intersectionality.

At this point in my life, I’ve decided that feminism is an ideology and movement that I want to dedicate my life to. Currently, I’m pursuing a double major in political science and global development with a focus on gender and social change, with an unofficial goal of taking all the classes related to gender that my small, liberal arts and sciences school offers. My plans after graduating is to adopt cats and smash the patriarchy. I’m by no means a feminist academic, so the stuff I write about are about stuff I experience as a young woman, a person of colour, college student, and, of course, a feminist: double standards, race in relation to feminism, sexual liberation, intersectionality, and more. My hobbies include reading feminist books with scary titles in public, searching for the perfect red lipstick, doing tequila shots, making collages, and dancing wildly. I probably should have put this blurb in the beginning, but oh, well.

Hello.

I’m Laura, a new blogger to Paradigm Shift and a feminist living in the NYC area (Jersey City, to be exact) who is interested in the use of the female voice in literature and who is fascinated by some of history’s lesser-known feminist trailblazers.

My blogs will often be personal essays, so I thought an appropriate way to introduce myself would be by telling you about my introduction to feminism, my click moment.

As a teen, I always believed music influenced my feminism. My introduction to bands like Bikini Kill and Tilt fueled my growing teenage feminist fire. When asked to recount my click moment, I had always told the story of my first time at Warped Tour. In the summer following 9th grade I watched in awe as the Lunachicks performed. Theo Kogan’s stage performance convinced me I needed to dive into this thing called feminism and on the way home that night, something felt different. Something had changed. I had experienced my click moment.

Or so I thought…

As I look back now I realize although this was the moment that got me labeling myself as a feminist, and putting my time behind feminist causes, I had been a feminist-in-training for quite some time. This is because of the strong feminist influence in my household. Although I don’t think my mother would label herself a feminist, my mother was my original feminist model. In fact, thanks to my mother, when I was no more than six or seven I experienced my “mini-click.”

My mother’s unconventional stances helped shape the way I view women, marriage, and beauty. And her influence began with her appearance. My mother has always kept very short hair and she has never worn any make up. She doesn’t own any. My mother has never dyed her hair. As I grew, I watched her once black hair lighten as more gray became introduced. Now in my twenties, I watch that gray turn into white. When my mother changed careers in her mid-fifties, she found job interviews difficult, as her gray hair was a definitive sign of age. She lamented, but stood her ground, vowing to get hired because she was competent and willing (at any age) to work hard. This was not the first time my mother faced resistance in the work force.  My mother studied to become a chemist in the late sixties. She was the only woman in her graduate classes and upon graduation she entered into a male-dominated field. In both instances my mother refused to give up. And in both my mother prevailed.

My father also worked in the sciences for many years. In fact, my parents were set up through a chemist my mother went to school with. My parents eventually married, and when my father proposed, my mother made a request. In lieu of an engagement ring, my mother asked for a cedar chest. Considering hope chests have long been an object associated with a female’s dowry, this reversal was rather unusual, but my father delivered. Learning the story of the chest that remains at the foot of my parent’s bed was an eye-opening moment in my childhood, however, it was not my mini-click.

When I was little, I always helped my mother send out the mail. It was one of our earliest traditions. My first true taste of independence came when my mother deemed me old enough to walk to the end of my block to deposit letters into the mailbox (although my independence was less about age and more about height, as I was given this task only once I was tall enough to see over the hood of a car). But before I could make my trek to the mailbox, I helped my mother seal the envelopes. I licked the stamp, licked the envelope, and would put on the return address label. This seemingly ordinary task was my introduction to feminism. I remember looking at my mother’s return labels, all of which began with the word “Ms.” This word was new to me. I had not learned “Ms.” in school. I remember asking my mother what “Ms.” meant. She looked up from writing out an address and said it was a prefix that could be used instead of “Miss” or “Mrs.” She went on to explain that just as “Mr.” didn’t change if a man were married, neither did “Ms.” It made one’s marital status irrelevant.

I was in awe. The idea that a woman could chose not to be defined by anyone but herself struck a chord with six-year-old me. It seemed that everything about the mail bred independence. It was in that moment that I knew once I got return address labels of my own, I too would be a “Ms.”

(Click)