ColumnRecent Twittersphere flare-ups featuring Rashida Jones and Sinéad O’Conner “slut-shaming” pop-culture irritant Miley Cyrus and others for their fleshy outbursts drew swift backlash from some members of the feminist community and bitter online battles among women. What’s a man to make of all this?

Growing up in a liberal family in the ‘70s got me thinking. I cheered as Billie Jean King thrashed Bobby Riggs on the tennis court, watched in awe as millions jammed Washington to protest anti-women legislation and celebrated the Roe v. Wade triumph. I loved my mother that much more for proudly wearing her ERA bracelet (serendipitous though it was, as those also happened to be her initials) and followed her example when it came to developing my worldview regarding women and politics. All told, my support for feminism was indelibly engrained as far back as I can remember.

As an undergraduate, I read Andrea Dworkin and Betty Friedan, marched in “take back the night” campaigns and volunteered as a campus escort. It wasn’t front and center in my life, but I did my best to keep my testosterone in check in my relationships and outlook, and play by the rules as I saw them regarding the movement and its tenets, and their implications for my thinking and lifestyle.

To be clear, while I called myself a feminist (and still do), I look back with no illusions that my insensitivities didn’t lead to plenty of bad behaviors. I was guilty of my share of objectification (still am), and my ignorance and lack of empathy reared their heads on too many occasions. Yet, by and large, I embraced (accepted, I should say) the vilification of such shortcomings. I even tried to understand how someone could see my penis as a weapon.

Of course, it wasn’t always easy staying oriented in this sociopolitical context. One example of weird crossfire was in my studies. I was a lit guy, more or less, and clearly remember the icy stare of the prof who refused to read my thesis on Kerouac because the writer was a “pig.” Another one threw (as in slammed) a copy of Homer’s Odyssey to the floor during class, saying the work was “full of male crap” and that the canon was “rigged.” As the editor of a campus literary magazine, I witnessed and was dragged into numerous battles between the sexes—and I didn’t dare publish any of my own erotica as I was sure my take was poisoned by my pen (or sword, as it were).

Most of this kind of thing was anecdotal to my experience, not pervasive, and all told I manned up and surfed the Second Wave as best I could, learning life lessons along the way. But as the end of the century drew nearer, things began to change. The Feminist Sex Wars heated up, Madonna showed up as the anti-virgin and Chrissie Hynde began shooting her mouth off. The feminist tent grew bigger and the women I knew were no longer playing by the hard and fast rules I grew up with, as liberation took on a new, more inclusive and individualized sensibility. Relations between the sexes were suddenly less clear and, just as my fathers before me must have struggled to keep pace with change, I found myself tripping and bumbling and trying to understand, rethink and act accordingly.

The questions came fast: What, exactly, did all these changes mean and what, exactly, was becoming “okay” in this shifting paradigm? Could I flip on the porn? Did I dare admit that I secretly thought objectification was at times underrated? And why is that chick hitting on me? Does her T-shirt really say that? Did she just say that?! Part of me, of course, was delighted by this turn of events. Another part, seasoned in old-school sexual politics, had no idea what to do. Understandable, I guess, when seeing the world through the eyes of what is or isn’t politically correct.

To the “it’s a not about you” voices out there, fair enough, but I should say that it’s not just the fact that I’m a guy that made me attempt to see this evolution through my own lens. It’s human nature to ask what does this mean to me, particularly when it’s not about you and in many ways empathy cannot be part of the equation. Besides, I had women friends and lovers, and processing how those relationships were affected by such changes was at the very least polite, and at best simply the right thing to do.

This is now…

Today, Third-Wave Feminism has come of age (with a fourth purportedly taking shape), and it’s largely credited with invigorating and in many ways saving the movement. In terms of sexual expression, the footprint is everywhere—from the Suicide Girls to Yes Means Yes, there are countless articulations of the sex-positive moment. Just the other week, in fact, a woman friend and I were discussing how the word cunt is being happily retrieved for delightful usage by many of its owners. On the (more) popular front, we have Miley Cyrus merrily swinging along on her wrecking ball (spoiler: bad art alert), and Rihanna crooning, “come here rude boy/boy can you get it up?”

Not everyone is of the same mind though, as evidenced by recent online flames when Rashida Jones and Sinéad O’Conner weighed in negatively on Miley et al. Watching the slut-shaming and “what is feminism?” debate erupt, I thought about how much the world has changed since I was young—and about all those old struggles on the okay vs. not okay front. To her credit, Jones, addressing the issue in a Glamour article, asked men to weigh in: “Men: WHERE ARE YOU??? Please talk to us about how all this makes you feel. You are 49 percent of the population; don’t sit around and let women beat one another up while you intermittently and guiltily enjoy the show. Speak up! We care what you think!”

So okay, Rashida, here it goes:

Looking back, many of the questions I used to ask myself about how to react to women (and female expression) were off the mark. The fact of the matter is that too often we see the world and our fellow inhabitants through a social or political lens, leaving out one critical fact—people are people first, and men, women and the trans community are each a subset of that. Forget the relationship with the movement—we’re at our best when we treat humans with humanity, not when we try to define, limit and sometimes even understand others.

What does this mean? Well, call it trial and error, but I’ve come to realize that my most successful relationships—and best behaviors—happen when I drop the perceived definitions and flailing, biased judgments. Not to diminish my own, personal politics (to which I remain deeply committed), but what was most important about how I was raised was not how to be a feminist, but rather why to be feminist. Compassion and respect come first, said and modeled my mother. It’s not about gender—and being politically correct isn’t the core issue. The real question we must ask ourselves is, are we humane? To my boys (now interesting and respectable men), my mantra was always “be nice to everyone you meet and watch out for cars.” Be kind and be safe. That’s really all you need to know—at least that’s where it’s best to begin.

So, Rashida, what do I think? Well, my penchant for naked aside, I think Miley pretty much sucks. (Let’s just say her work is not to my taste.) Rihanna’s talent is, in a word, overwhelming (and Chris Brown is a criminal), and you, Rashida, are a brilliant actress. Sinead? Two things: that voice changed me back in the day and, sorry, but she turned me on something fierce. As for how each of you influence our culture—and younger women in particular—I’ll just say keep doing what you think is best. Your audiences (and perhaps their parents) can take it from there.

In the end it’s on us men to check ourselves, not on women to censor how they express themselves. I recently saw a powerful photograph of an attractive topless woman at a protest event with this scrawled across her naked breasts: “It’s still not okay to rape me.” I admit that I lingered over the image for a few extra seconds for prurient reasons, but what truly resonated for me is the truth of those words. And how, person-to-person feminism aside, and no matter what we believe about anything else in this world, she’s right. And that’s all we really need to know—or at least that’s where it’s best to begin.

Scott Adelson is EcoSalon’s Senior Editor of HyperKulture, a monthly column that explores opening cultural doors to initiate personal change. He is also the author of InPRINT, which reviews and discusses books, new and old. You can reach him at scott at adelson dot org and follow him @scottadelson on Twitter.

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Images: PNG etc (top) and PeterTea

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ColumnMany of us take Roe v. Wade for granted, but what will we do when it’s overturned?

That’s right, I said, “when Roe v. Wade is overturned,” not “if.” To many, such a reversal seems impossible, but an examination of the current anti-choice climate shows it’s not as far-fetched as we may think.

In many places in this country, abortion is essentially illegal. Eighty-seven percent of all U.S. counties have no identifiable abortion provider. In rural areas, that figure rises to 97 percent.

Inaccessible abortion isn’t safe or legal—and geography isn’t the only barrier. There are consent laws, waiting periods, counselling centers masquerading as health clinics, a lack of trained medical professionals, and a whole slew of anti-choice protesters blocking clinics and, in some cases, bombing them.

So, not to get all future dystopia on you, but with all of the efforts to dismantle Planned Parenthood—literally and politically—in the last three years alone, women like me have to consider the reality that Roe v. Wade might not be there for us in the future.

A few weeks ago, I met Judith Arcana and got a reality check about the shifts in our current cultural conversation around abortion. While I know pro-choice has been playing defense these last few years, talking with her about the history of the movement both inspired and scared the shit out of me.

Judith was a Jane. She was one of the seven women arrested in Chicago for providing illegal, safe, and in many cases, free abortion services to thousands of women from 1969 – 1973. Judith was involved from ‘70 – ‘72. When Roe passed in ‘73, the case was dropped and the records were expunged.

My own first abortion debate went something like this: I was with a friend at her kitchen counter coloring; we were 10-ish and had figured out what abortion was thanks to the movie Dirty Dancing. My mom explained to me what the whole “Penny situation” was and I explained it to my friend. She said something like, “So she killed her baby?” And I said, “No. She had an abortion.” That pretty much sums up my current feelings.

For me, illegal abortions were something that happened in movies. The same is not true for the women like Judith who, through Jane, helped more than 10,000 women get safe abortions.

Getting to talk to a real live Jane was a dork-out moment. I first learned about the movement back in college. As a teenager, I imagined a band of activists sticking it to the man. So, when my friend mentioned that his aunt had been a Jane, I was almost as excited as I would have been to score a phone call with Patrick Swayze back in ‘87.

But, when I spoke with her, I learned that Judith didn’t set out to be an activist. Like many of the women in what is referred to as “the service,” she encountered Jane when she thought she might need an abortion herself. “I found Jane because the service was an open secret. In those days people thought and behaved very differently. It was ordinary business for one woman to say to another, ‘Whoa, I need an abortion.’ I had a friend who was a medical student so I called him and he passed on a number.”

While she didn’t end up needing an abortion, she connected with her first Jane and joined the service. “It was a time of tremendous change. I always thought I would be married with three kids and teach high school—follow a script that a nice lady was supposed to follow. I remember very clearly the first women’s meeting I went to in 1969. There were about 20 of us and when we began to talk, the thought in my mind was, ‘I don’t have to be married.’ It never occurred to me that getting married wasn’t like breathing. Talk about liberating. By the end of the evening I said, ‘I don’t have to wear makeup.’ It got deeper and heavier as time went on, but the impulse is the same… all these things I had assumed as given—like having skin.”

But, during these last four decades, culture has shifted. In my early 20s, feeling pressured to marry a man and having kids was was unthinkable—as unthinkable as approaching someone I barely know to find out where to get an abortion. Today, conversations about abortion don’t happen casually. The anti-choice movement has put so much fear and misinformation in the world that we, the pro-choicers, are on the defensive—and that shift, says Judith, makes 2013 even more frightening than 1970.

That hadn’t occurred to me. When first I imagined the Janes, I didn’t picture the open conversations that Judith describes. I assumed all of the women involved felt that they were constantly in danger. But I got that wrong.

“While I was working in the abortion service, I wasn’t afraid. We didn’t think we’d get busted,” says Judith. “In terms of fear, being in jail was scary, but I had not carried, prior to that time, a fear. If I had a fear—and there was no anti-choice movement, which is very important—it was that I and the other Janes would not be as good as we needed to be. We had the lives of other women in our hands. If there was something to be concerned about, that would be it, in part because we were illegal and in part because that’s just the case. Licensed professionals would have had the same concerns about never hurting anyone. But I would have said, ‘This is what matters; this is the hard part; this is crucial; this is intimate.’ I think a lot of Janes would answer the question the same way.”

The landscape leaves today’s activists much more to fear because,“They aren’t dealing with the police, but with anti-choice activists who literally kill people; who throw bombs in clinics. It’s far more dangerous today,” said Judith.

In her zine, “Keesha and Joanie and JANE”, Judith images a post-Roe world. The “Roeverturn,” she calls it (which I love). In the story, a group of young women struggle with the idea of how to recreate a Jane-like movement. It’s not a guide or a how-to, but a take on what conversations might look like among a collective of women working to right injustice. It’s personal and political—and also a fun read.

“We have to think of new ways to think of these new times, and it has to be done. Some of it will be illegal. Some will be political. One of the Janes in the movie [the 1995 documentary, Jane: An Abortion Service]  talks about the underground railroad and you know right away that there have always been frightening, nervous-making and terrifying things that needed to be done, and that women and men did them. More than half of the states are restricting Roe to irrelevance. But women can do what needs to be done.”

A recent Jezebel article details an anonymous author’s efforts to help U.S. women get abortions when they can’t find or afford legal access. It shows that we have already entered the world Judith has fictionalized. The comments section shows that lots and lots of women are thinking about the same things the Janes were thinking about: the safety of the women receiving help from this underground resource. And, reflecting Judith’s reminder that this is a whole new world, there are concerns for the author’s safety as well.

We must refuse to go back to the days when Jane was necessary; we have to say no to an internet-based version of the underground railroad. We have to fight back, county by county, before stories like the one in Jezebel become the norm.We have to regain all of the rights guaranteed to us by Roe v. Wade, the rights that are being stripped away piece by piece, the rights fought for by all the Janes who came before us.

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Image: Judith Arcana

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ColumnMarch has been madness when it comes to attacks on reproductive freedom—three states are ignoring the constitution and passing restrictive abortion bans. 

Looking at the political landscape, it’s clear that since I wrote a recap of the attacks on choice exactly two years ago, our ability to make decisions about our bodies and the course of our lives is still on the table. As individual states one-up each other passing over-the-top, unconstitutional bans, Planned Parenthood leader Cecile Richards is concerned that Roe v. Wade may be heading back to the Supreme Court.

In some states, the barriers to access would, essentially, make abortion illegal for anyone lacking the resources to travel, or in some cases pay out-of-pocket for a totally 100 percent legal medical procedure covered by most insurance policies. The fact that a woman may not have the resources to cross state lines but is expected to figure out how to access the prenatal care necessary to have a healthy pregnancy, let alone raise an actual child, doesn’t seem to be part of the conversation in the states where our rights are in the most danger. The top three offenders this month are North Dakota, Virginia and Arkansas.

Let’s start in North Dakota—a state with just one clinic offering abortion services. This month, Gov. Jack Dalrymple signed a bill that, if it goes into effect August 1, would make abortion illegal six weeks after conception. No matter what. Rape? Incest? Not Jack’s problem. He also signed into law two more measures: one that would ban abortions based on genetic defects such as Down syndrome and another requiring any doctor who performs abortions to be a physician with hospital-admitting privileges.

While it might be the least headline-grabbing, it’s the last of the laws that poses the most immediate threat to the women of North Dakota. Here’s why: The six-week ban will be tied up in court for a long time because it undermines the constitutional protections in Roe v. Wade—which guarantees the right to first-trimester abortion services. The even more radical “personhood” amendment, which could ban all abortions if voters approve it on the November 2014 ballot, will face similar legal challenges if it becomes law.

This is by design. Dalrymple doesn’t expect these laws to sail through. In the long term, they’re debates designed to get Roe v. Wade back to the Supreme Court. In the short term, they are red herrings for the real attack: Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers: TRAP laws. These are the laws requiring anyone performing an abortion to be a physician with hospital-admitting privileges. And this law could close the one clinic in North Dakota.

This popular anti-choice tactic is sold to the public as a concern for women’s safety. But this isn’t about keeping women safe. Women’s health clinics are perfectly capable of providing women with safe abortions, and surgical abortion is actually one of the safest types of medical procedures. Complications from having a first-trimester aspiration abortion are considerably less frequent and less serious than those associated with giving birth. Early medical abortion (using medications to end a pregnancy) has a similar safety profile.

In reality, TRAP laws do just what the name implies: They trap clinics by making it illegal for medical professionals to do their jobs. In Fargo, where the Red River Women’s Clinic is located, at least one of the two local hospitals won’t offer those privileges because the quality of care at the clinic is so high that the clinic doesn’t need them, according to RH Reality Check. I get it, but why not step in and offer the privileges to save the clinic from this attack?

The state’s new Democratic US Senator, Heidi Heitkamp, has been a bit cagey about her stance on abortion. While she has said she is against public funding, she hasn’t said much else and doesn’t have a voting record on the issue. Email Senator Heitkamp and let her know that these restrictions are unacceptable and unconstitutional. A recent email to her supporters asks for donations to fight Karl Rove’s efforts to keep three other women out of office. She says she wants strong women in the government, so encourage her to be strong and fight these bans.

In Virginia, Gov. Bob McDonnell is looking to limit access to abortion via health insurance. He introduced an amendment to the state’s health insurance exchange implementation bill that would prevent insurance plans in the new health exchange from covering abortion. While similar bills introduced in other states would allow a woman to buy a policy rider for abortion coverage, McDonnell’s doesn’t make that inclusion.

NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia estimates that this ban will affect the approximately  50,000 women in Virginia who will be using the state-based health benefits exchange. As in North Dakota, this ban would limit access, primarily, to lower income women. Most private insurance covers abortion services. McDonnell, on his monthly call-in to Washington’s WTOP Radio, said this amendment is simply a restatement an existing federal law — the Hyde Amendment — that prohibits use of public funds for abortion, and also a restatement of existing state law. This amendment is dangerous because, as McDonnell himself said, it provides the language to apply to federal exchanges as well.

In Arkansas, the Republican-controlled House and Senate decided they know better than their women constituents, Gov. Mike Beebe and the Supreme Court when they approved an unconstitutional bill to ban abortions after 12 weeks. The Republican-controlled Senate passed The Arkansas Human Heartbeat Protection Act 26-8. We all started hearing about Heartbeat Bills a few years back when, in Ohio, a fetus was called to testify via ultrasound. To make sure you can hear that beat, the Arkansas bill would also require women to undergo a medically unnecessary, invasive vaginal ultrasound. Beebe vetoed the bill saying it, “blatantly contradicts the United States Constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Court.” Which it does. As does the six-week bill in North Dakota.

These guys aren’t stupid. They know this. So why are they fighting to get these bills passed in their states? Because, since 1992, they can. Planned Parenthood v. Casey upheld a woman’s right to have an abortion, but some shockingly vague language opened the door for all of what we are seeing today. The Court said the government may seek to discourage women from having abortions by requiring waiting periods and other efforts—as long as these restrictions do not pose an “undue burden” on a woman’s right to an abortion. Undue burden was left undefined.

Is it an undue burden to be forced to have a medically unnecessary trans-vaginal ultrasound? To have to travel hundreds of miles for an abortion, only to be told you have to come back in 72 hours because of a waiting period? What about to be forced to pay for a procedure that should be, legally, covered by health insurance?  Yes, I think those are undue burdens.

This death by a thousand cuts approach isn’t new. Republicans have applied it to voting rights, civil rights, gay rights and other social issues for decades. Public opinion on social issues is changing, and the party can’t win national elections with its throwback views. So Republicans attack issues like abortion and gay marriage piece by piece, state by state. But this isn’t just a fight against abortion; it’s a fight against equality. This is a relatively small number of people—with deep pockets and loud voices—who fear that ensuring the freedom of choice to everyone will rob them of their power. And that would be the best possible outcome.  

Image: alexandralee

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In the latest assault on reproductive rights, losing a pregnancy could mean serious legal consequences for the mother – even the death penalty.

Imagine that you are several weeks pregnant and growing more excited by the day. You have decided to wait to tell people until you are past that tricky first trimester, the time period of so many losses (some estimate that 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage). At your first checkup, the doctor scans your belly and frowns. Scans again and frowns. There is no heartbeat. An ultrasound confirms that your baby is not moving and there is no blood flow, just a sad, little unmoving body.

As you cry for your loss and for the child you will never know, a male police officer arrives and asks you, “What did you do to cause this?” As you are trying to come to terms with your own unfounded feelings of guilt, a man is putting it into words and demanding answers, never mind the fact that in most cases doctors cannot determine the precise cause of a miscarriage. Despite that, the burden is on you to prove that your behavior did not in some way cause your pregnancy to terminate, or you could face life in jail or the death penalty.

Sound like something from The Handmaid’s Tale? Margaret Atwood might be prescient. We are well on our way to living in a dystopian society caused by the systematic dismantling of women’s healthcare and rights. 2011 has been an appalling year for women. State after state has mounted a legislative assault on Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood, chipping away at a woman’s right to choose, access to affordable birth control, STD screening and early breast cancer detection. But, it hasn’t stopped there.

Legislators have suggested that women carry abortion insurance in the event they might be raped and a Georgia bill proposes prosecution of women who can’t prove they didn’t intentionally cause a miscarriage. Thirty-eight states have fetal homicide laws, designed to protect the fetus from attack from a third party, like a violent male partner, while other states have chemical endangerment laws passed to punish parents who expose their children to meth fumes – yet overwhelmingly, these laws are now being used against the women themselves. South Carolina has prosecuted one man for attacking a pregnant woman, but almost three hundred women for their behavior during pregnancy. Other states have followed suit, twisting the language to focus on punishing women.

Of all the proposed and recently passed legislation, the Georgia bill proposed by Rep. Bobby Franklin potentially punishing women for miscarriages is the most disturbing. The language of the law demands that women prove “no human involvement whatsoever in the causation.” This vague language leaves the door wide open for prosecutorial abuse.

The bill has been shelved for now (and in a further twist, the representative behind it, Bobby Franklin, passed away July 26th during development of this story). Regardless of the tragedy of this individual’s death, the fact that anyone could put that into words, and attempt to pass it, affecting thousands of women in one state with the potential for other state legislators to follow suit – speaks volumes about what men in power think of women. It spells out their belief that they have the right to oppress women and punish them without proof for perceived behaviors and lifestyle choices.

Even though many pregnancies end in miscarriage, doctors routinely tell women that they will not do any additional testing until a woman has had three consecutive losses. Three investigations. Three heartbreaks where a mother can be questioned and be blamed, when she is already feeling grief, hopelessness and despair of ever having the child she wants so much. It is an incredibly private and painful time, and legislators want to not only intrude, but vilify and punish. Should law enforcement really determine if a woman is to be charged, when even doctors can’t say with certainty why a pregnancy ended and will do nothing about it until she has had three losses?

What is the purpose of this law? It and others like it are simply state-sanctioned witch hunts. The chemical endangerment law, passed to prosecute parents who subject their children to harmful fumes in meth labs, has been expanded to include pregnant women who tests positive for drug use or whose infants test positive after birth, and even women who have lost pregnancies when the cause can’t be proven.

Prosecuting women with drug problems would seem like a deterrent to drug use during pregnancy, but realistically, it will more likely just cause women to not seek help, and when they are pregnant is precisely the time they need help the most – before their babies are damaged by their habits. This could cause more babies to be born with health problems or more women to seek abortions for fear of being prosecuted if their baby tests positive.

This could deter women from considering giving up their children for adoption, as well. Many adoption agencies question birth mothers about their medical histories and habits during pregnancy to get an idea of the health of the child. If birth mothers believe that their behavior will be used against them, they will either lie or simply avoid adoption altogether.

This virtually eliminates a woman’s right to medical privacy. No woman will want to tell her doctor or any other medical health professional the truth about her habits, and this can have serious repercussions when medical staff don’t have all the facts when they are treating someone. Will all reports of miscarriages be investigated? With state budgets facing shortfalls and police forces enduring personnel cuts, is this what police should spend their time on?

Will women have to be nervous about every action they take? What if a woman drinks alcohol before she knows that she is pregnant and suffers a miscarriage? What about any woman who goes against a doctor’s advice and loses her pregnancy later, even though those two events might not be linked at all? What does “human involvement” mean? Where does it stop and who will the law be enforced against? Will all hospitals have to report gunshot victims and miscarriages?

I have a friend whose daughter died in utero 10 days before her due date, another who lost two different babies at 18 weeks, another whose twin girls were stillborn at 22 weeks, and several who had one, two or three miscarriages. If pressed, none of them could prove “no human involvement,” since their doctors weren’t even sure why it happened. Should these tragedies have potentially cost my friends their lives?

image: Y, La Bella Vida, Tourist On Earth

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