Women: Occupy the Left

[boston bean]

Women’s rights have always been a bit of an add-on for the left. At this spring’s Left Forum, only fifteen of 440 panels touched on any feminist issue, broadly understood. New Left Review is famous, at least in my apartment, for its high testosterone content (despite being edited by a woman); ditto Verso, the left’s flagship publishing house, where women authors are as rare as Siberian tigers. And it’s not just the left—women’s rights, in fact women period, tend to get set aside whenever economics or “class” is the focus. Occupy Wall Street’s initial declaration, a long list of grievances from colonialism to the maltreatment of “nonhuman animals,” mentioned women’s inequality only in the context of the workplace—no mention of the systematic inequality that affects every area of life. Occupy Austin went further: a paper put out by its Language of Unity Working Group describes Occupy Austin as “radically inclusive,” open to everyone from disaffected Tea Partiers to Greens and anarchists, as well as homeless people and “soccer moms looking for a cause” (not too patronizing!) and highlighting only “the things that bring people together.” “For instance, you will never see Occupy approach the issue of abortion. It is too derisive (sic). Rather than championing one side, the huge innovation of the Occupy movement is its focus only on issues which unite people. We care most about people and care what most people support.”

Hmmm. Let’s leave aside for the moment the question of whether caring “most about people” is compatible with silence on state-mandated transvaginal ultrasounds, personhood amendments and so on—let alone forced childbirth. I would think that when one in three women has at least one abortion, and when virtually all women have used birth control, we are talking about issues that affect “most people”—including most men, who benefit greatly from women’s ability to control their fertility. Let’s not look too closely, either, at the assumption that the 99 percent constitutes a coherent category: that a software engineer, a car salesman, a Chinese-food delivery man, a rabbi, a municipal clerk, a fashion photographer and a cleaning lady really have the same interests. The notion of common cause, even among the actual working class, is as much a romantic and aspirational construction, as much a matter of “identity politics,” as the oft-derided ideal of “sisterhood.”

But when it comes to reproductive issues, apparently, the connection needs to be spelled out. So here it is: limiting women’s access to birth control and abortion is not “culture war” theater, and it is not just a “social issue” either. It’s an economic issue.

1. Early childbearing, most of which is unplanned, has a big effect on women’s education. According to a Centers for Disease Control fact sheet, “Only about 50% of teen mothers receive a high school diploma by 22 years of age, versus approximately 90% of women who had not given birth during adolescence.” While this partly reflects the fact that poorer, less school-oriented girls are more likely to give birth, it’s clear that having a baby as a teenager creates serious economic stress.

2. Birth control is expensive. Many insurance plans don’t cover all methods; some don’t cover any method (looking at you, Catholic Church!). Annual cost of the Pill can range from a low $108 a year for generic ortho-cyclen to an astronomical $1,140 for Loestrin. The IUD, a highly effective method many plans don’t cover, costs around $1,000 for insertion.

http://www.thenation.com/article/167684/women-occupy-left

interesting...... more at the link above..

[MadrasT]

1. Around here (Philadelphia)

Women's issues seem to get lost and drowned out by intersectionality. The focus is on class and race. Not gender. There was also alot of tension when LGBT voices made themselves heard. That upset me.

Occupy depressed me and I abandoned it. Too much infighting. And if you weren't an anarchist, you got run over. Here, anyway.

[boston bean]

2. When I went to the Occupy Boston

There was a small sign for a meeting for the women of Occupy posted on the concrete wall.

I went and supported, but was not involved in any meetings or organizing.

The sign was tiny compared to the others. But I wasn't sure how I felt about it. I was happy to see it in one way. But it sort of felt like women's issues needed their own special voice because it wasn't part of the big picture, or were relegated to their own special corner. I did notice that most of the speakers were male.

[seabeyond]

3. I did notice that most of the speakers were male.

wow. really? i am back to the onion article red gave us. wow. i didnt think it really happened. thought that was a laugh, you know, the onion. hm

[iverglas]

4. who can forget Stokely Carmichael?

For those who weren't around to remember -- SNCC is the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and it was 1964:

“The only position for women in SNCC is prone."

The damn thing is that I can't remember which woman drily correct him first; he presumably meant "supine".

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stokely_Carmichael

n 1964, Ruby Doris Smith Robinson presented an indignant assault on the treatment of women civil rights workers in a paper entitled "The Position of Women in SNCC," to a SNCC staff meeting. Stokely Carmichael reputedly responded, "The only position for women in SNCC is prone."

Apparently Carmichael also said:

The first need of a free people is to define their own terms.

He should have listened to himself more.