To Those Being Dismissive of the Seriousness of the SCOTUS Ruling About Hobby Lobby

By: Liberate Zealot

For everyone claiming that women just have to pick better employers or it is no big deal to pay out of pocket for hormonal birth control, I urge you to deeply consider the realities of employment and health care in this state and country. More than 10% of women are unemployed, countless more are employed in minimum wage jobs from corporations that already seek to avoid covering health insurance. For many people they need to take whatever job they can. Spending extra time to seek carefully for the one (increasingly rare) job that has the best health insurance for them isn’t an option for the majority of Americans. And considering that 90% of corporations now have the right to refuse to include hormonal contraceptives makes this a bigger issue than one employer (even if they are a large corporation). 
Likewise, let us remember that employees pay into their health insurance policy, these women have already paid for their contraceptives, and now, because of the “strongly held” but factually inaccurate religious beliefs of their employers they must pay again, out of pocket. And some of the contraceptives that have been ruled against (like the IUD) can cost up to a month’s wages when not covered with insurance.
This is not a small issue. This ruling negatively impacts the lives of millions of women and their families.  This is a ruling that dehumanizes women, while granting even more powers to the already legally bloated corporate “person hoods”. 

Plan B and Why It Should Always Be Available Over the Counter

By: Liberate Zealot
Content Warning: Mentions of rape and child abuse.

So I've been working part-time for a prominent reproductive and sexual health and rights group for a little over a month (which is one reason I've been posting a bit less).  And, as I'm sure many of our readers know, on Friday there was a massive explosion in the US on these issues.

I refer, of course, to the federal ruling that Plan B become available over the counter to people without age limitations.

Which I think is awesome news!  Yay for increased reproductive rights!  Yay for better protections against unintended and unwanted pregnancies!  Yay for increased youth rights!  Yay for science and logic and medicine!

Of course this being the US this awesome news quickly became big and controversial.  And thus I spent much of Friday researching the issue (specifically the anti side) to prep one of our board members (and a doctor practicing at one of the premier hospitals in the country) for the several interviews she gave with local news stations.  And Saturday I received a media briefing where 60 major state and national media outlets wrote about the ruling (and had to read the majority of them).

So now I want to sit down and write about my thoughts on this ruling, specifically to counter all the myths about Plan B and the negative response to this ruling. (Because after this being my life for two days I have so many thoughts).

Women's History and Reproductive Rights

By: Liberate Zealot

It's the last days of Women's History Month in the US and in that time I haven't really written anything about the topic for Feminist Armchair Regime.  Women's History Month is a time to celebrate woman and their achievements from the past and sharpen our gaze on the continuing concerns and causes faced by women.  This year much of the focus is on women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, but like every year, it’s important to consider reproductive justice and the role family planning plays in equality for women. 


The individual women who achieve notice in the annals of history, the Elizabeth's and Hypatia's, had extraordinary privileges for their times, one of the most significant being the ability to choose not to marry or have children.  And so it seems obvious to me to state that family planning is the bedrock of women’s rights.  The ability to plan when to have children, and when not to, is a necessary part of achieving parity in education, in income, in the work force, and in government.

The right to reproductive control over ones own body is a right that has long been denied to the majority of women.  And the more intersectional oppression one faces the harder it is to access ones reproductive rights.

For decades before the legalization of the Pill or Abortion wealthy and middle class white women knew how to access safe options of birth control.  Not so for poor women and women of color. This disparity is the reason Margaret Sanger (who is also not the massive racist so many people believe her to be) protested the Comstock Laws and opened the majority of her clinics in neighborhoods with high populations of poor people, immigrants, and people of color.  Currently access to contraception and abortion in the US is still very much based on class, race, and location.

And we know the limiting of reproductive rights is about hurting women.  It isn't about viewing fetus' as children and thus worthy of protection, because the protections of poor children are being stripped away.  And it isn't a secret that many of the states which are the focus of the anti-choice movement have high populations of people of color and people living in poverty.  Mississippi, the state with the most focus around Personhood Bills, and until this month was the state with the most restrictive abortion ban, is also the state with the most African-Americans and the most people living in poverty.

If we can't control our own bodies and whether we become pregnant or not than it's much harder to control our education and careers.  Certainly if we can't control out bodies or plan when, or when not, to have families then we can't live full lives of relationships and pursuits outside of the heart and home.  And should we pick one we'll be shamed for being lazy, for denying our womanhood, for being cold-hearted, for "mooching" off a man.  Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

There is no chance for us if we're denied the most basic human right of deciding what to do with our own bodies. 

I've learned the history of women.  How one must be exceptional, come from immense privilege, to be afforded a place as a woman in general history. How the many amazing unrecorded women faced impossible choices, if they had any choice at all.

We Are Women Recap

By: Liberate Zealot

So after some issues (damn metro!) the roommate and I made it to the We Are Woman Rally right around noon.

Check out our Facebook Album for more imagines!

We missed several speakers and one performer. Mara Keisling, who spoke at the Unite Against the War on Women Rally, was back, but sadly I didn't see her speech.  However, all the speeches are up on-line if you care to check them out yourself.  And the bands, sounds system, and over all organization of the Rally was the best I've seen yet.

My favorite speakers were Rev. Charles McKenzie of the Rainbow Push Coalition in Florida and Soraya Chemaly of the Huffington Post, fem2pt0, Btchflcks, and more.  They were both eloquent and impassioned speakers who, in my opinion, out shone the other speakers, in their ability and skill and the resonance of what they were saying.  Both spoke about current political and social issues, discussed individual acts, and connected them to the larger mentality and methods of the Kyriarchy.  Soraya Chemaly spoke about internalized misogyny and how the social and political issues are related to that and society's failure to see women as fully human.  This tied very nicely into discussion about the ERA which was the focus of most of the speakers. (along with plenty of disparaging comments about Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan).

As a reminder the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) which would result in Constitutional recognition of women's humanity and personhood, has never passed.

However, I have to admit to a sense of disappointment with the We Are Woman Rally. Maybe it was the heat, or the length of the rally (10:30-4:00), but it just wasn't as good as other ones.  The speakers became repetitive after a while, and while they were all knowledgeable and "accredited feminists" many of them just weren't stirring speakers.  Most disappointing was the diversity of the speakers.  The vast majority were late middle aged white women. Few of them self disclosed as queer or from the "lower" class.  It was too homogeneous to feel representative of all US women.  And if I noticed this I can only imagine how alienating it might have felt to women of color, or those who've grown up without class privilege.

I can't help but compare it to last week's #sheparty which was led by Flyover Feminism and about the diversity within the feminist movement. To go from a discussion about needing better representation and the feminists in power, the privileged feminists, needing to be the ones to open their conferences, to reach out and gain the trust of our less privileged sisters, to a rally full of "official" feminists, dominated by white women.  Well, it was upsetting, and it made me angry.  We're supposed to be getting better in truth, not just paying lip service to diversity and intersectionality.

We Are Women Rally

By: Liberate Zealot

Tomorrow one of the roommates and I will be down in DC to attend the We Are Women Rally whose

mission is to bring national attention to the ongoing war on women's rights being fought by conservative representatives in federal and state legislatures throughout the country. We believe that women have the right to control their own bodies, make their own decisions about healthcare, receive equal pay for equal work, and be treated with respect by the men and women who represent them in their own state houses and in Washington.  Women are not a special interest group seeking special privileges; we comprise 50% of the population, and we are citizens deserving of the same freedoms and protections awarded to our male counterparts.  We Are Woman supports the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment and the restoration of all the rights that have been limited or destroyed by governors and other legislators across the nation.  It is our goal to bring thousands of men and women together at the Capitol on August 18th, 2012, to tell our politicians, "No more!"  We are strong, powerful, loving and brave. We are America. We Are Woman.

Now, I also attended the Unite Against the War on Women's DC Rally in April which I planned to live tweet as @femarmregime but I forgot my phone.  Hopefully that doesn't happen again.  So if all goes according to plan I'll live tweet the We Are Women Rally, and then post pictures and do a write up. 

But before the Rally happens I thought it a good idea to go over exactly what's going on in the US that we need to Rally about. 

Here's a write up on the various acts that make up the War on Women as of April.  But more has happened since then, and there's also the specifics of who is running for election in November. 

Updates on the Bills and Laws of the War on Women

• Since January 2011, there has been a federal attack on the rights of Women every single week that Congress has sat. 
• Michigan introduced Bills limiting the time people have to get abortions to 20 weeks, virtually eliminating medication abortions, and that would force closed almost all the abortion clinics in the state. 
• The International Business Times offers a break down of what State law makers are doing to restrict abortion. 
• The GOP is working in various ways against Equal Pay for Women. At the Federal level they blocked a bill in the Senate that would help close some of the wage gaps that still exist.  As Forbes explains, this is problematic as the pay-gap has actually slightly increased in recent years, and less women are filing discrimination suits as legal support has declined. At the state level Wisconsin repealed their Equal Pay Rights. 
• The Violence Against Women renewal continued to be fought over.  Republicans don't want to include protections of Immigrants and Queer couples. In May the House passed a VAWA option that didn't include protection of lgbt people, Native Americans and illegal immigrants. As of the end of July the Senate has refused to pass the House's version of VAWA and continues to encourage the House to pass the version that includes protection of Queer people, Native Americans, and illegal immigrants.
• Luckily the Affordable Care Act was ruled Constitutional by the Supreme Court and more of it's provisions, such as the completely covered contraception in new plans, has gone into effect.  

The Social War on Women

• Conservatives have been using a lot of language that compares women to animals. Immigrant women come to the US during their "breeding season", women on welfare are "stray animals."  It's primarily racist, and intentionally dehumanizing. 
• And who can forget the sex-shaming and "Slut" smeer campaigns against women speaking out about their need for affordable birth control?

Mitt Romney

• As Governor of Massachusetts Romney was much more liberal than the average conservative, but his time before and after shows otherwise.  Unfortunately, as Romney hasn't been in any officer for several years his anti-woman record isn't as easy to break down as Paul Ryan's. 
• He's very into the sexist/racist dog whistles of "Traditional America".
• Before becoming Governor of MA Romney was extremely anti-choice.  He protested outside of family planning and abortion clinics and even went so far as to physically restrain a woman who was attempting to enter one.  
• Romney is anti-choice (abortion) and anti emergency contraception. 
• He would repeal the ACA (Obamacare). 
• He has political relationships with various anti-women advocates. 
• He picked Paul Ryan as his running mate. 

Paul Ryan

• So Paul Ryan is basically all around horrible for women.
• He's co-sponsored a Fetal Personhood Bill which would outlaw abortion and many forms of contraception.
• He supported the "Let Women Die Act," 
• He voted to cute off all federal funding for Planned Parenthood
• He voted against allowing US service women over seas from using military hospitals to access abortions
• He's voted in favor of forcing women to hear about their fetus's "pain" should they get an abortion
• His budget plans includes defunding or eliminating programs that support poor women and children such as VIC, Head Start, and Title X Family Planning Act, the Home Affordable Mortgage Program, and Medicaid.
• Paul Ryan has a 0% rating from the HRC.  I'm sure they'd give him a negative percent if it were possible. 
• He has a 13% rating by the ACLU, meaning he has an anti-civil rights voting record. 
• Check out Ryan's full voting record.
• Along with being on the GOP ticket as the potential VP, Paul Ryan is also running for re-election as a Representative in his home state of Wisconsin. 

DC - Unite Against the War on Women

By: Liberate Zealot


So I promised to live tweet the rally, and then lost my phone (yay ADD!) right before heading down.  However, I had a roommate to be my photographer and I'm doing a post on it now.

The Washington DC rally was in the same place the Feb. March for Choice was last year (Upper Senate Park)  which I went to last year.  This one was much better organized, they had more time, so the sound equipment was so much better (there was a stage and we could hear everything, even at the back of the crowd).  There was music and a wonderful variety of knowledgeable and skilled speakers who came from a variety of organizations and perspectives.  It really was, at the title of the rally said, about uniting against the War on Women. 


The speakers included Catholics, protestants, atheists,  college students, middle aged people, men, women, immigrants, people born in the US, white people, people of color, cis and trans women, and poor and middle class people.  They were all very talented and insightful, but I did have 3 or 4 favorites. 

  Mara Keisling is the founding executive director for the National Center for Transgender Equality. In her own words she's a white, over educated, middle class, middle aged, transgender women.  She spoke about trans people having politically controlled medical care, how that and trans people in general relate to and suffer from the War on Women.  She also spoke about intersectionality, and violence and hate. She specifically spoke about CeCe McDonald.  A young, poor, black trans women who is undergoing trial this week for murder charges related to her and her friends defense of them selves while being targets of what should be classified a hate crime. 

Callie Otto and Eric Orantes started and head the The Catholic University Students for Choice.  They discussed the differences between Catholics and Catholic institutions when it comes to abortion, contraceptives, and the separation of church and state.  They also spoke about their work to educate their peers about safer sex and to help them get access to contraceptives (condoms) while facing the risk of expulsion if they didn't successfully navigate following the letter of the law. 

Melody Hensley is with the Center for Inquiry an organization that works for a secular and scientific society.  She spoke about being a foster child, and poor, and a statistic.  She spoke about her own abortion at the age of 20.  She spoke about the importance of choice and trusting women.  How having an abortion when you're not ready or able to be pregnant or a parent is just as responsible as having a child when you are able and ready.  She spoke about the connection of reproductive rights and economics. And the law and politics being based on science, not religious dogma. 

Derrick Ashong is a naturalized citizen.  He spoke about growing up in West Africa and Arabia among Muslims (while not being one himself).  He spoke about how the US can be an example to other countries, and a source of hope among people who are striving for equality.  He also spoke about the importance on continued struggle and not resting on our laurels.  How rights must be fought to get, and how we must fight to keep them while also fighting for all our rights and real, true freedom and equality.





Now one of my favorite parts of any protest/rally/march is seeing all the signs...

The US War on Women

By: Liberate Zealot


I'm attending the marches in DC tomorrow and plan to live tweet and post pictures and a write-up afterwards.

Tomorrow is the National protest Unite Against the War on Women.  For the last several years the GOP has been rolling back and fighting against the rights of women in this country.  For many of us the most obvious signs of the war on women are the repeated attacks against abortion, contraceptives, and Planned Parenthood. There's so much going on at the local, state, and national level that it's nearly impossible to keep track.  Here's my compilation of the various acts of the War on Women.

Signing

Part Two of of collection of petitions to sign for equal rights around the world (with a focus on women's rights).

There's a petition Personhood for Women over at Change.org in response to all the bills to make personhood amendments or laws to fetus.   

"A person identifying as a woman and/or having a uterus shall retain all of the full, basic, and fundamental rights of a US citizen as promised by the Declaration of Independence—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Congress and the States shall make no law that infringes upon a person's life, including but not limited to access to life-saving or life-improving healthcare, and/or medicines and procedures deemed necessary or beneficial by a medical professional and/or by the person having the uterus, procurement of which shall not be denied in and of itself by the presence of a uterus. Congress and the States shall make no law that infringes upon a person's liberty, including but not limited to autonomy over hir own body and the ability to make decisions regarding hir own healthcare. Congress and the States shall make no law that interferes with a person's pursuit of happiness, including but not limited to access to a full spectrum of reproductive options, freedom from forcible reproduction, and the ability to make decisions regarding family planning and family resources."

Also at Change.org is a petition calling for the Mayor of Berlin to stop the court mandated institutionalization of an 11 year old transgirl.

The Youth Welfare Office of Berlin is putting an 11 year old transgendered girl into a father's care who is putting her into a mental institute simply because he believes transexuality is wrong. This young girl will be taught how her feelings are wrong,and pushed more into the denial that has claimed the lives of so many transgendered people, thanks to biased decisions by the Youth Welfare office this child's life could be irrevocably ruined. I am starting this petition to try and make it known that this is not okay, that this is a breach of some of the basic human rights of this child 

There's a lot of issues regarding child/slave labor and chocolate.  So in time for Easter is a petition calling on Lindt and Ferrero to join other chocolate companies that now (at least partially) support/provide ethical cocoa.

There's a petition to Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg calling for women to be invited to the currently all male board of directors.

CREDO has a petition calling for the US EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) to do more to limit carbon pollution (the leading cause of climate change).

The EPA will now accept public comments on the rule -- and as it weighs the public's reaction, we need to show that we expect much, much more from EPA to regulate carbon pollution.
Tell the EPA: We need stronger rules to protect us from existing and future sources of carbon pollution.

Why Rush Limbaugh and the GOP Aren't Just Misogynistic about Contraceptives, But Also Blatantly Lying

By: Liberate Zealot

Content warning: Rush Limbaugh (misogynistic language)

So by now I'm sure everyone's heard about the US House of Representative's original panel on health insurance covering contraceptives.

It did lead to this striking picture after all.  

Where a bunch of men from different religious organizations testified about women's health and how unnecessary health insurance covering contraceptives was.  As horrid as it is, it serves as a reminder about how sexist this country still is, and proves that the GOP doesn't value women (or our experiences).  It certainly brought the overt misogyny of the GOP to the national stage.

And this has been further proven by the comments Rush Limbaugh made about Sandra Fluke (the woman who was excluded from testifying at this previously mentioned panel and finally got a chance when Nancy Pelosi held a second panel this past week.