Barack Obama Came to South Bend, Indiana, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

President Obama is giving the commencement speech at Notre Dame on Sunday. How totally cool for those graduates, right? I have no idea who spoke at any of my graduations because the speakers (and, frankly, the events on the whole) were non-spectacular. Ninety-five percent of the students who’ve written into Notre Dame’s paper, The Observer, approve of the school’s choice of speaker. But, as is usually the case, a very radical and very vocal minority of students, combined with some obnoxious members of the community and many more visitors who have nothing at all to do with Notre Dame, are making a federal case about Obama speaking there. For example, Alan Keyes (along with over 20 others) was arrested for trespassing on campus.

And what’s the hubub?  Barack Obama is pro-choice.

As a woman who was raised Catholic, I understand how important the concept of Life is to Catholics, but most thoughtful Catholics I know (including myself in my younger days when I was a practicing Catholic), understand that this issue of Life is much more complicated than whether or not abortion is legal and who thinks it should be legal. (In fact, NPR’s All Things Considered today reported that Obama’s approval rating is several percentage points higher among Catholics than it is with the general population, which pushes it well into the sixties).

This catch phrase “the Culture of Life” that the Bush administration was so adept at tossing around is meaningless. A true culture of life is anti-war. A culture of life is against the death penalty. A culture of life believes in providing food and healthcare for post-birth fetuses. A culture of life supports scientific advancements to save lives and improve quality of life for the sick and injured. A culture of life cannot only care about American fetuses. Iraqis, after all, were once fetuses. So were undocumented immigrants. As was Saddam Hussein and every inmate at Guantanamo Bay.

I’m pro-choice, as are many of my friends and members of my family. We share some common beliefs, mainly that abortion is an unhappy, yucky thing. Everyone with whom I’ve discussed this issue agrees that abortions shoudn’t occur. But we understand that making abortion illegal will do nothing to prevent abortions. Those who can afford them will stil receive them safely. Those who cannot afford them will attempt to receive them, many of them unsafely or fatally. Others will have unwanted children. The way to prevent abortions is simple: prevent unwanted pregnancies. Pregnancies are prevented by comprehensive health and sex eduacation and access to affordable birth control. Even my favorite Republican, Meghan McCain, has expressed this view. (See her great article for the Daily Beast called The GOP Doesn’t Understand Sex.)

But I digress. My beef isn’t really about pro-lifers in general, it’s with the annoying people who are cluttering the streets of South Bend like they own the place that are pissing me off. Protesters are gathering to show their disapproval at Notre Dame’s choice of speaker.  An airplane has been flying over campus for the past few weeks, pulling a banner with an image of an aborted fetus. Students have called this plane annoying, and I don’t blame them. While the students of Notre Dame are trying to study and take finals, their environment is all atwitter. Students, already nervous and excited, deserve to enjoy their last weeks of college and graduation without having their lives disrupted even more by protesters. Geez, people, go home. Get lives. And if you really care about life, wouldn’t your time be better spent distibuting condoms to at-risk youths or volunteering to care for victims of domestic abuse?

And I can’t help but think that those few students who skip commencement to attend a prayer vigil elsewhere will one day regret missing their chance to hear an American President (one who can actually speak) give a speech. It’s like when my cousin invited me to Chicago to see the Grateful Dead at Soldier Field. I was never a deadhead, but I figured one day I’d be happy to tell my kids that I saw the Dead. I bonded with my cousin and everyone else there, and it’s a cherished memory. My mom skipped class when she was a freshman to hear Robert Frost at the University of Minnesota. My dad woudn’t skip class to hear Frost, and guess which one of my parents remembers that day?

I didn’t go to Notre Dame, but I worked at another prestigious Midwestern Catholic university, Marquette, for four years. And I can tell you that while Marquette’s Catholic foundation is important to the school, its academic reputation means more. And what kind of institution that wants to be taken seriously would construct a checklist of rules and voting stances, and only invite speakers whose history follows that criteria exactly? A school that doesn’t welcome discussion, critical thinking, or diverse viewpoints. And that’s the kind of school that offers its students a crap education. Notre Dame is not that kind of institution. Just the fact that their football coach (probably the best paid employee there) has a huge potty mouth is proof enough of that.

So well done, Notre Dame! Nice voice, and nice vision.

P.S. In your face, Arizona State! You wouldn’t give President Obama an honorary degree, but he’s getting a much cooler one from Notre Dame. Oh, which is also a reason the protestors are ticked. If I went through the list of people who’ve received honorary degrees from my alma maters, I’d probably be pissed too. Shoot, I got my master’s at FSU. It’s just best to leave it alone.

What Feminism (& the World) Need Now — Positivity

I’ve been playing with an idea for my blog for a while. I have a pink T-shirt that reads “this is what a feminist looks like,” and I wish I saw it out and about more often, but it takes, ironically, balls to wear it. In fact, the first time I wore it in public, I pulled my jacket closed (without even realizing it) as I entered my doctor’s office. I did this even though I feel I have a healthy amount of of feminist pluck about me.  

The problem is that people who speak up about their beliefs are often labeled unfairly, making others fearful of  possible similar ramifications. Speaking up with some righteous feminist indignation on this blog has gotten me some abuse, something I didn’t relish. It’s easier to keep quiet. So I’m not surprised that when I ask my students if there are any feminists in the room, most of them (even the women) keep their hands down.  Sadly, it’s because of the perception that being a feminist is somehow radical, ugly,super-liberal, and outrageous. But when I ask them basic questions about rights and opportunities, they voice opinions in line with feminism. I would like to see the label and the stigma go away in my lifetime. I am not a radical feminist. I am not a radical anything, really, so I don’t do a whole lot of proselytizing. I did my share when I became a vegetarian, and I’m sure my parents would attest that it wasn’t pleasant or effective*. While the occasional outburst or lecture is still unavoidable  (for an example of how an outburst got the better of me, see my previous post, “Laura Ingraham, Quit Talking About Our Bodies,”) I try instead to do subtle and personal things that promote my personal beliefs.

For me, feminism is a good and happy thing, and I want to focus on that. I know so many amazing people who positively impact the people around them, and I think it would be cool to feature different feminists (wearing my T-shirt ideally, but not necessarily) as they describe what feminism means to them. Since I have the shirt, I’m going to start with me:

Denise DuVernay: writer, teacher, divorcee, daughter, feminist, and loads of other things

 THIS IS WHAT A FEMINIST LOOKS LIKE

I’ve already established my feminist cred, I do believe. A few posts ago, I remarked that “my brand of materialist feminism includes anyone who doesn’t think human beings should be judged by their naughty bits. Or their parents. Or their cars (or lack thereof). Or their noserings. Or even an accent or tattoo . . .”. Yes, I am a materialist feminist (sometimes called Marxist feminist), but don’t go calling me a communist. I am a materialist feminist because I feel that understanding historical materialism is the key to understanding inequality, which is necessary to figure out what to do about it. It all goes back to the economic bases of societies– social classes, ideologies, education, political structures–and how cultures evolve, especially their social structures.

In a social structure where some people earn more money than others for the same work and experience, or when someone is considered unworthy for certain roles or positions simply because of their sex, sexual orientation, pedigree, or skin color, that social structure should be examined.  

Materialist feminism is not anti-male nor is it anti-white, and it’s not at all like the feminism associated with the 1970s that was mainly concerned with the concerns of straight white women.  Everyone has the same potential to be cool in my book; progress is not made by attacking some in hopes of elevating another. It just doesn’t work that way. As a teacher, co-worker, family member, and friend, I do what I can to encourage those around me to not take sex, race, looks, class, sexual orientation, or any other such meaningless classifications into account when making judgments about people, and I do my best to follow my own doctrine. I hope my students and coworkers find me fair and respectful to all (at least, until an individual gives me a reason not to be . . .).

While I do occasionally find myself on a soapbox, most of my influence comes in subtle means; for example, if a coworker or relative makes a racial slur, I will tell them firmly that I don’t accept that kind of talk. If someone calls a woman a slut (or, more recently, “town bicycle” [because everyone gets a ride]), I stand up and say, “that’s not cool!” If it starts a discussion, great. If not, that’s fine, too. As long as I don’t laugh it off or let it go as if it’s okay, because it’s not. (Which is why I wrote my previous post: What Laura Ingraham said about Meghan McCain wasn’t cool with me, and I think I made that clear).

Sometimes laws are necessary to get the ball rolling and to send a message of what’s expected and desired in society (such as hate crime legislation or affirmative action), but laws aren’t enough. Everyone has to do their small part to effect social structure changes. So the next time someone says something in front of you that you’re not cool with, say so.

So that’s installment #1 of  ”THIS IS WHAT A FEMINIST LOOKS LIKE.”  If you’ve got a suggestion or would like to be featured in a future post, contact me!

*Speaking of vegetarianism, tomorrow is Meat Out Day, and I invite you all to join me! It’s just for a day; you’ll survive.

Laura Ingraham: Quit Talking about Our Bodies!

If you didn’t know who Meghan McCain was last week, you probably do now. And it’s probably because of Laura Ingraham, a right-wing radio host who does not want anyone to hear McCain out. But the ironic thing is, she has drawn mega attention to McCain by calling her, among other things, a “useful idiot” who is being used by the media.  Ingraham is trying to convince people that they shouldn’t be listening to Meghan McCain because she is young (a “Valley-girl gone awry”), attractive, and not thin, but in doing so, she has helped McCain get more TV and Internet exposure than she had during the whole Presidential campaign! (Hey, I would never have written a blog entry about Meghan McCain if it weren’t for Laura Ingraham).

Ingraham hasn’t attacked McCain’s ideas, because that would make sense and doesn’t follow the m.o. of the radical right; rather, she has attacked McCain’s physical characteristics and age: Yes, in addition to that Valley girl comment, she called her a “plus-size model” hoping to be picked for an ”MTV show.”  

Is Meghan McCain considerably more attractive than Laura Ingraham? Yes, but not that it matters. Is Laura Ingraham thinner than Meghan McCain? Yes, but not that it matters. Is Meghan McCain younger than Laura Ingraham? Why, yes, by over 20 years. But not that it matters. I’m not quite sure what Ingraham hoped to accomplish, but I’m guessing it wasn’t the actual result: a bevy of articles and blog entries like this one, where their photographs are placed side-by-side:

Meghan McCain

Laura Ingraham

In response to McCain’s request over Twitter that Ingraham stop talking about her body, Ingraham said: “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the punditry business. Next time, just for fun, Meghan should pretend that she’s had a change of heart and is now a pro-life conservative. Then she’ll really see how the Mean Girls treatment feels” (Times Online). 

Say, what?!

Being a pundit means people get to critique your body all they want? Awesome, that  means we’re allowed to call Rush Limbaugh a big, fat idiot– Sweet! Accurate as it is, I’ve grown a tidge bored with the “hypocritical druggie” bashing I’ve stuck to for a past couple of years.

Or is Laura just hazing the new girl into the GOP’s Blonde Pundit Sorority? Did Peggy Noonan inflict a harsh, secret initiation ritual on Dana Perino? Hot! If only the GGW cameras had caught that moment!  

Or is Ingraham saying that since she’s been blasted by the left, it’s perfectly okay for her to attack Meghan McCain? I don’t know that Jesus would approve. Plus, isn’t that like saying that I am justified in stealing a car if mine is stolen first? When I insult the likes of Laura Ingraham or Ann Coulter, it’s because they’re hypocrites, not because they’re unattractive, bony, bottle blonde, old, or shrill.  Nope, it’s because they went TO LAW SCHOOL and GET PAID TO TALK, oftentimes railing against feminism, when without feminism, they wouldn’t have been able to attend law school. Without feminism, they wouldn’t be paid to talk for a living. Without feminism, Ann Coulter wouldn’t have had the chance to be fired not only from MSNBC, but The National Review, too.  Without feminism, Laura Ingraham wouldn’t have an “addictive” radio show or a podcast!

I’ve noticed a propensity with these types to fabricate and even invent statistics when it’s convenient*.  I’ve never insulted Meghan McCain, and it’s because I haven’t heard bullshit from her. In fact, the other day when Rachel Maddow asked McCain if she agreed with her father about the economy, she said she didn’t know enough about economics to judge. IMO, some honesty from a Republican is a refreshing change. No wonder why the others are attacking her– “I don’t know” isn’t supposed to be in the GOP lexicon.

Oh, Laura, I haven’t seen this many logical fallacies since  my last batch of freshman essays. Of course, there’s ad hominem (that’s fancy Latin for attacking the person instead of the argument). Basically, Meghan McCain asserted that the Republican party could do better in reaching out to young people. McCain said that extremism (like that of Ann Coulter) is not good for the party.  Since Ingraham had nothing of substance to contribute in rebuttal, she responded by remarking on McCain’s body, looks, and age.

Ingraham has created a red herring– she’s trying to make the discussion about whether or not a 24-year-old can have anything to say about politics. Or if someone that pretty (and, I have a hunch, naturally blonde) can have an opinion about politics. Or if someone who has curves can have an opinion about politics. And Ingraham is reinforcing what feminists have fought against for a very, very long time, but we’ll never get over until clueless monsters like Ingraham knock it the fuck off— It’s the idea that, ladies, to a large portion of the population, we are bodies. Nothing more. Thus, we should have no say about our bodies; if our bodies are kept up front and center they do not belong to us.  And women’s bodies are some pretty good real estate. (Actually, I’m not exactly sure why the religious right wants ownership over other people’s bodies. It’s an interesting question. It must be related to their obsession with sex. For an interesting discussion about the difficulties in developing healthy sexuality in such an anti-feminist environment, see the terrific book Full Frontal Feminism by Jessica Valenti of feministing.com ).

Abortion? Emergency (or any, for that matter) contraception? Not about the sweet little unborn babies. It’s about women’s bodies. (If the issue really were the children, the right wouldn’t have such a spaz attack about providing health insurance for children, WIC, or food stamps). The fact that selling a vibrator gets you thrown in jail in Alabama doesn’t have anything to do with . . . morals?  Hey, what is their justifcation for making them illegal, anyway? Well, anyway, whatever the fake reason is, the real reason is to try to maintain some ownership of women’s bodies. The mere idea of a woman getting herself off and owning her own sexuality is terribly frightening to these sex-obsessed right wing radicals. And I’m not sure why. What is the religious right’s obsession with sex all about? Maybe if they got over it, they wouldn’t transfer the obsession to their kids and then the teen pregnancy rate could drop. Just sayin’.

This whole war on science, yeah, it’s about women’s bodies. Take stem-cell research. It’s not about the “sanctity of life” or any other such nonesense. If it were about life, creating the embryos would be the sin, not the using-of-the-stem-cells part of it. If it were about respecting life, not using advances to help people with things like spinal cord injuries or Alzheimer’s would be the sin. If the war on stem-cell research got canceled, the religious right would lose just a tiny bit more of their hold on women’s bodies. And remember all those people fighting over what should happen with Terri Shiavo’s body? In 2005, George Bush even interrupted his vacation to sign some legislation to keep her body on life support. Did he do that to save Terri Shaivo’s life? Of course not; she hadn’t had a life in years. She’d been in a vegetative state for 15 years at that point.  Her body was some sort of pro-life symbol for the religious right, and the real victim was the husband, whose life was on hold. And at the time, I remember thinking if Terri had been a man, it wouldn’t have meant so much to the right.

The religious right voice their desire to own our bodies by policing our reprodution and by calling us fat or hot (or not) when we get the crazy idea in our heads that we’re smart, have something to say, and deserve to be heard.  They voice their desire to keep ownership of our bodies away from us by calling for abstinence-only programs instead of actual sex ed. They voice their desire to own our bodies by encouraging girls to sign virginity pledges and to even have ceremonies with their dads. (Yeah! How creepy is that? A ceremony in which a girl says her body belongs to her father until she gets married, when it becomes property of her husband. Icky. For something disturbing and funny, see Valenti’s take on Jessica Simpson’s virginity pledge in Full Frontal Feminism).

So my desperate cry to Laura Ingraham is  a plaintive “come on, sister!”  We already get this crap from everywhere around us. Don’t contribute to the old-school tricks of reducing women to our naughty bits. Stick to your inane links (on http://www.lauraingraham.com/) about the entrepreneurial spirit inspired by Obama (“Obama Sushi: You’ll Come Barack For More”). Keep up the good work in keeping Middle America terrified of and pissed off at immigrants (“Illegal Aliens Get Creative”).  And kudos on your hard-hitting and immensely useful reader polls (Hold onto your hats– at the time of this writing, 51% of Ingraham’s homepage visitors report to wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day!  However, we are told firmly that the poll is not scientific, so do not use that statistic for anything official, or really, anything at all).

*Laura Ingraham is notorious for lying, especially about her “two week” trip to Iraq in 2006. In fact, the observant folks at http://www.lauraingrahamsucks.com/ are keeping a running list of Laura’s lies, including recent false information she gave about Obama’s stimulus plan. As for Ann Coulter, she has been busted more than once for plagiarism and inventing footnotes.