How many women watched that video and heard some variation of those sentences in the voice of a favored (or decidedly un-favored) pundit, politician, or reporter ? If you didn't, don't feel bad---you may just be better at filtering out things that can't serve you. Now that I've turned your antenna a degree or two, however, it won't be long before the monotony of those statements register and (hopefully) make you mad. Women are everywhere in the news these days---if not as objects of a nefarious, faux-paternal legislative impulse, than as a prize to be won, token votes for a party ideology to disprove their antipathy. 2012 is supposed to be known as the “year of the woman”, 20 years after the last “year of the woman” yielded little to no results.
That is one cynical intro, isn't it? Sorry to sound smug. I wrote it just to name some of my frustration right off the bat, because I am too angry to ignore it and I unfortunately can't move on without it. And I---we---all need to move on, past the outrage and past the incredulity. I've learned the hard way that snark is only going to get you so far. It’s pretty easy to shake your head at national politics when the legislative and executive branches abdicate their duties and relinquish their ideals in order to placate an increasingly demanding cacophony of well funded cooks in the kitchen, but we shouldn't make the mistake of sitting back and assuming that New York is somehow immune to regressive policy, or that The Crazy can't somehow germinate in our neck of the woods like...well, like an unwanted pregnancy.
The truth is that New York can be a very divided state, not just along party lines but on upstate/downstate ones, and no matter where your own ideologies lie, debates are shifting further away from policy as lawmakers are expected to serve their parties above their constituents, and that's never a good thing . New York City is seen as heavily subsidized by Wall Street, obviously, and the city has given birth to influential conservative donors like the Koch Brothers. Finally, a threat (or perceived threat) to women's access to health care is so palpably immediate on the National level that some groups in New York are working to further codify women's access to family planning services, simply as a preventative measure against larger ideological trends. About two weeks ago, Hunter sponsored a day of “basic training” for fighting the war against women. The idea was kitschy and I'm personally not at all happy to see a soundbite get traction, but there was some worthwhile information presented. Most alarming, of course, was the general call to action--- the idea that women in New York City are not surrounded by some sort of omnipotent liberal forcefield that will protect us from errant vaginal probes and allow us to get on the pill without assuring our bosses that we will still find time to show up for work in between all the wanton sex we'll be having (and apparently filming).
Liz Krueger at Hunter
Sen. Liz Krueger, D-Manhattan, a founding co-chair of the New York State Bipartisan Legislative Pro-Choice Caucus said the co-founders of the caucus "came together saying 'Oh my God, look what's going on in the rest of the country. The crazies are going to try to storm Albany.'"
According to Krueger, "when they get here, they're going to discover there is a very strong coalition of advocates and legislators saying 'no way, walk on by, you are not passing your god-awful, anti-reproductive health, anti-women legislation."1
I'm passing out a tear sheet with some cursory information about three bills in the NY State legislature that affect women and that could use your voice. I tried very hard to be respectful when I picked these, but the truth of the matter is that bills of consequence tend to be bills that can alienate. Please know that I am not advocating a position when I give you these, but instead asking you to join me in a spirit of political consciousness and collective support and bring your unique and precious voice to the table, no matter where your ideology comes from. If women are going to be courted and exploited and drawn and redrawn to fit party agendas this year, let us make sure we function as something more than a passive muse. For my part, after this class is over, I will be hosting a group of female activists to come together as a voting, mobilizing, editorializing force of nature, and I invite you all to particpate, check in, or just chuck virtual eggs at my blog, stygian pigeon.
I came up with the idea for this project while trying to reform New York City's draconian, demoralizing animal shelter, the Center for Animal Care and Control. Even though the cause is worthwhile and the abuses and deficiencies of the agency are well documented and even corroborated to some extent, there hasn't been much movement in response to activist action. In fact, there hasn't been a noticeable spurt of progressive policies in animal sheltering in New York City for over ten years. I started to wonder why, and I started to look critically at the way animal issues are marginalized in media as niche causes, to be championed sparingly in order to avoid being seen as sentimental, extreme to the point of instability, or---and this invocation never fails to make a vein appear on the side of my forehead---anti-human. The term “animal activist” has been successfully co-opted to conjure up a limited number of lamentable and reductive archetypes, and yet despite our continually negative characterization, I saw local politicians around me soliciting the endorsement of humane voting groups and publicizing animal friendly actions along a wide spectrum of consequence as if they had just demonstrated the most demanding moral courage. I felt as if one of the passions of my life was being used selectively to feed someone else’s feel good election narrative, and I didn’t like it. I set out to find ways I could participate in discussions I cared about, instead of falling back on the limits of self hatred, misplaced deference, laziness, or despair and leaving it to some mythic priestly caste to deliver the world of Doggie Domination (okay, cats too) I wanted.
The whole idea of a caste of insiders is a myth, anyway—at least it is a myth once you see the magician’s hands. The truth of the matter is that legislators are no more intelligent or morally committed than any one of us, and even if they were, there is no possible way they could read the thousands of bills that get introduced each session, so they are never working at full capacity:
Health Care Bill? We don't need to read no health care bill.
It is also a myth to believe that legislators are the only ones who create laws. In many cases, legislation is written by various aides in concert with lawyers . In some cases, legislation is drafted with the “help” of a group with a vested interest in its passage. These are people just like you, many who came to politics with just a Bachelors degree, a credit line at J Crew, and a whole lot of connections. They worklong and arduous hours, without a doubt, but many of them are sustained by the love of service. If you have an issue that resonates and keeps you awake at night, why can't you be replenished by that same well?
Our final project for this class was supposed to bring together what we learned after pausing to look critically at the pervasive onslaught of images and messages we accept and internalize each and every day. It is supposed to reflect a new consciousness that rejects the normativity of an orchestrated reality designed to promote predictable consumer habits. I wish I had the talent to write you all a song, make a film that would burrow in and come back to you in flashes, create a photo that would make your throat tighten up in exquisite understanding. But that's not in my bag of tricks right now, and frankly, I don't know that I'll ever have much to contribute in the way of original content. But I did want to do something that showed a stretch, to honor the fact that there is something worthwhile in examining all the twigs in the coffin, all the stabbing little indignities , all the blunted omissions and incorrect assumptions and liberties taken in the name of privilege. Emancipation does not automatically follow from consciousness, but it’s a lighthouse in the distance.
*In Case You Need Extra Inspiration!
“Many histories of our nation's founding focus on a small group, “a band of brothers” or “the founding fathers”---the handful of illustrious men whose names we all know. This tight focus tends to reinforce the idea that we are the lucky recipients of the American gift of liberty and of the republic, not ourselves its stewards, crafters, and defenders. It prepares us to think of ourselves as the led, not the leaders..The great Americans defined America as a chance for us not to flatter but rather to confront ourselves. They did not define patriotism as a smug legacy of entitlement, but as a universal challenge that always included the demand for self correction. (Naomi Wolf, Let Freedom Ring: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries, 8-26)
SCRIBD link for the takeaway sheet that you should download NOW before the end of the legislative session makes it obsolete (though I have a feeling a lot of this will come back next year):
Get Active for NY Women!
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