Getting an Abortion is the Same Thing as Getting a Tattoo (not really, but kind of)

I actively avoid talking about abortion (for the most part) because there’s too much of a risk that I’m going to have to explain why I believe we need to reframe this conversation as a human rights argument rather than a feminist issue. It’s a boring conversation.  See, I believe that a person should have the right to decide whether or not she wants an abortion/ terminate a pregnancy/ kill her unborn child/ get pregnant just for the fun of getting an abortion. I believe this because I believe that people should just be able to do whatever they want to the only thing they have total ownership of- their physical body. It shouldn’t be a women’s right to choose, it should be a human’s right to choose.

The only thing we have complete autonomy over is our body (For the purpose of this post, “body” includes the concept of the two-track, that is, that the body and mind/consciousness are integrated). You can’t deny that we are born into everything that we are- you had no choice in what you were born into. This is a pretty heddy concept, and its application is personal, spiritual, and political.

Ok, so try to follow me here: the only thing we are born with that we have 100% control over is our physical bodies. As infants we learn and choose to move our bodies, associate and experience love and happiness through the action of eye contact and coddling from others, cry and experience all the sensations that comes with that cry, etc. This is the human condition- the subjectivity of ourselves. Everything else we are born into and have no control over. We don’t have control over where we are physically born into (ie: Upper Middle Class America vs. Village in Nicaragua). We don’t have control over the family and living situation we’re born into: whether there are other kids in the house, or whether there’s a dog, or whether we having loving parents, or whether we have no loving parents. The ONLY thing we have control over is whether or not to wiggle our toes, to run around, to continuing being.

From “obvious child” which is a good movie about abortion, i guess. i am in love with jenny slate for real tho.

So, if all that we have complete control over is what we can or can’t do in our subjective physical and cognitive experience, then shouldn’t everyone have a right to do whatever they want in those domains? Can’t we agree on the idea that we all deserve to live in a society where we can maximize our autonomy to the highest degree? To live in a society where we can cut our hair if we want, tattoo our bodies if we want, get a liver transplant if we want? Get a vasectomy if we want? And if you were born into this thing called life as a woman who is able to do this bodily function called reproducing, then shouldn’t the same principle apply and shouldn’t you be able to choose whether or not you want your body to reproduce?  

Right?

I’m not trying to minimize pregnancy to the same thing as getting a tattoo… but in theory… it kind is. Shouldn’t you decide whether or not you want to be pregnant?

Oprah being intersectional and humancentric ❤

This is where I think 4th/intersectional feminism needs to step up and recognize that the women who have worked hard before us, those that made abortion a feminist issue because it was an issue that needed to be elevated in order to help push for women’s rights, did us good. Now though, the political and cultural environment has changed greatly and intersectionality means promotion of expanded inclusivity. Which means we need to use our similarities (Ie: being a freaking human) as strengths. Before, the act of choosing to have an abortion has been a women’s issue, because it affects women’s bodies, but this line between gender needs to eventually be broken in order to have an equitable way of understanding our political and cultural landscape. Now that women have more rights than ever, the way to making a better world is by changing our thoughts about the world, which I think means respecting everyone’s subjective experience. And it also means moving away towards the language which has kept us separate (Woman’s Right to Choose) to an inclusive way of understanding the issue on a broader scale (Human’s Right to Choose).

So yeah. I guess I just wrote this because it’s important that we get to do what we want to our bodies and I kind of just want to be able to get all the abortions I want for the heck of it.  

Gender Equity and The Green Party

I consider myself a 4th wave feminist, which means that I believe that all social injustices are interconnected. I’m also a social worker who believes in systems theory, meaning that no problem can be fixed independently. Classism, racism, and sexism cannot be demolished by only working in one domain. Our understanding of political issues can’t be reduced to just working on racism without taking into account the classism and sexism that is undoubtedly attached to racism. So we can’t work on fixing sexism without taking time to look at how we can fix class and racism in order to establish an egalitarian society.

The Green Party’s ideology is organized into Four Pillars which are then broken down into 10 key values. Feminism and Gender Equity are part of the key values, and it was this value which caused me to switch parties from blue to green. See, Greens don’t just want Gender Equality, they want Gender Equity, and that’s an important distinction.

The Four Pillars of the Green Party

What is Gender Equity?  It’s the idea of allocating resources and positions of power to those who are underrepresented. Part of the Green Party’s bylaws is that there has to be equal gender representation whenever possible. This is true for the Lackawanna County Greens, where I’ve been secretary for the past two years- of the executive committee there are two men and two women. This happened organically, but the value of gender equity is important because it at least recognizes that historically it has been very difficult for women to be elected to any position of power. Gender Equity widens the gap and welcomes and values women.

The Green Party on Feminism and Gender Equity:

“We have inherited a social system based on male domination of politics and economics. We call for the replacement of the cultural ethics of domination and control, with more cooperative ways of interacting which respect differences of opinion and gender. Human values such as equity between the -sexes, interpersonal responsibility, and honesty must be developed with moral conscience. We should remember that the process that determines our decisions and actions is just as important as achieving the outcome we want.”

The Green Party cares about the process (one reason why we don’t take corporate money). We care about integrity. We care about having a moral standing in face of deception and sensationalism. We care about intersectionality and are established on these values which makes the Green Party the the best party for 4th wavers to introduce their objectives, especially on the local level, to help create a more peaceful planet.

2018 Feminism: Understanding Intergenerational Patriarchy

Disclaimer: This article refers to women in the western sense. The arguments presented do not refer to the millions of women living in greater patriarchal and underdeveloped societies.

2017 marked the year that the US began acknowledging intergenerational patriarchy on a mass scale.  The #MeToo movement and public exposure of Hollywood sexual perpetrators empowered millions of women to speak out about their own abuse, which is a huge deal. It’s not just meaningful on the personal plane (ie: the women who have been directly empowered), but is arguably more meaningful in the macro sense, or overall cultural shift, of women’s empowerment.  However, this mass empowerment is not without criticism or confusion in how to interpret it’s meaning: 2017 seemed to have left a lot of questions unanswered about what it means to be a woman in 2018.

               And it is a confusing time to be a woman. We have more freedoms than ever and I believe that the pace is only accelerating towards a more egalitarian society. It’s really exciting and is the best time in history to be a woman. However, these new liberations and cultural acknowledgements of the female experience has also lead us into uncharted territories. Again: What exactly does it mean to be a woman in 2018? What is on the other side of these liberations? What comes after #MeToo?

It’s the cultural experiences, such as the #MeToo movement, that help push our society towards the egalitarian sweet spot. You know, I think a lot of people probably believe that women have total equality in the US, however I have to argue that we’re not there yet, and we won’t be arriving for probably a few decades. Intergenerational patriarchy is still in our bloodline.

very scientific infographic i made.

The US has always been a patriarchal society, and if we look back in time, we don’t have to go far to see areas where we have only just experienced liberation. Guys, we haven’t even been voting for 100 years yet (the 19^th Amendment was added to the constitution in 1919). And even though the cultural events which moves us further away from the patriarchy should be celebrated, there is still quite a bit of sexist gunk planted in our psyche from past generations.

If we think about society as made up of symbiotic systems, we can examine how patriarchy has been passed down through generations. For example, let’s use the Hollywood sexual predator exposures to help us better understand intergenerational patriarchy. The inception of the cinema happened around the turn of the 20^th century (Think about this: Motion pictures are older than women’s right to vote). When the first motion picture was being screened in theaters, US culture and society were totally patriarchal, and thinkers who deviated from this were considered morally inept. We’re talking women couldn’t leave their homes without a chaperone type patriarchy. So, actresses were in a position where they had to submit to the male authority in order to be granted roles. I believe the greater the inequality in the relationship, the greater the chance and degree of exploitation. It became the ingroup (Hollywood) cultural norm for females to submit to sexual advances in order to keep and increase their status in the group. Intergenerational patriarchy are the remnants of sexist practices and sexist ways of thinking continuing today. It has taken over 100 years for our society to begin exposing these practices in the mainstream. That is also a big deal.

The Hollywood system is a closed system, outsiders are not allowed access. Therefore, these types of sexual abuses are more easily accepted. It is the same thing as religious groups hiding their abusive practices. Since Hollywood started during a period of overwhelming and almost complete patriarchy, it is going to take more time for these unwritten rules to be rewritten. An argument I heard from a lot of older people about women coming forward was, “Why did they wait so long? Why does it matter now?”. The answer is simple: time.  It’s only through time that women felt safe enough to call out these accepted practices.  It’s only through time that women in this closed system can expose the patriarchy that has ruled the system. It’s only through time that a closed system (Hollywood) can evolve in the same direction of the greater society (US/Western society).

There needs to be a safe societal environment for women to speak up against what has been accepted in the past. The good news is that the shift has begun, and we are getting closer and closer towards the societal egalitarian sweet spot. This acceleration will only continue if we support each other to question and expose abuses in closed systems. If we continue to blindly take what has been given to us, the intergenerational patriarchy, then we are at danger of slowing down the shift (and in a dystopian Atwood mindset- the potential to go backwards). It is my belief that we have an obligation as 4^th wave feminists to support and empower each other so that we will be passing down intergenerational equality, not patriarchy, to the future.