Today's readings are passionate and opinionated accounts of many feminist issues around sexuality, relationships, marriage, abortion, contraception, sexual identities, women's health and more. Feminists are not monolithic in their approaches to these issues: they are the subject of much controversy among feminists. Passionate advocacy and a great sense of urgency create situations in which some feminists push their own agendas as THE feminist agenda. These are issues that connect and also divide women within feminism.My first year in college a journalist lived in our dorm in order to write an essay for Mademoiselle magazine about our campus of the University of California at Santa Cruz. The essay described these educational experiments in the 70s in interdisciplinary teaching and student life. One day she and I were casually talking and she asked me what I thought about abortion. I started to give her an answer and right in the middle of speaking I realized I was telling her what my PARENTS believed about abortion. All of a sudden I realized that I didn't yet know what I MYSELF believed. I'd never been in a situation in which I could so clearly see that these sets of beliefs might not be the same, and that I didn't yet know what I thought myself.
In a course like this one, we want to expose you to passionate opinion, not to get you to believe what these scholars and activists believe, but to ask you to think deeply about your own understandings, needs, histories, and questions. This is true for all aspects of feminism, but it becomes striking when we turn to the issues and readings for today.
FREEWRITE on coming to your own conclusions -- in what areas does this matter most to you?
For today we read:
• hooks, pp. 85-118
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• Seely, Ch. 6
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Some quotations from the reading:
Seely, p. 178: "A feminist health agenda says that all women have the right to health care and health information that is supportive, respectful, and nonjudgmental. We have to say 'no more' to limitations on treatment that are based on race, economics, class, sexual orientation, or age. No more to forced sterilization. No more to the denial of reproductive health information and services for young women. It is not enough to fight for women's rights to abortion or other reproductive health options. We must also fight for women's freedom to make these choices -- from abortion, to birthing, to adoption, to the decision not to have children -- without shame or blame. Women must have access to all their health information, from education about their bodies, to funding and support, to participation in decisions about what to research and fund. We can stand collectively and send the message that women will fight back, that we will not stand on limitations on our heathcare options and services, that our sexuality is ours, and that decisions about our bodies belong to us."
SIECUS: the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, works to create a world that ensures social justice and sexual rights.
Our Bodies, Ourselves: the famous feminist book from the Boston Women's Health Collective
Information on Women's Health & Sexuality - Our Bodies Ourselves
The Boston Women's Health Book Collective is a nonprofit women's health education, advocacy and consulting organization
www.ourbodiesourselves.org/
Our Bodies, Ourselves - Wikipedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The cover of the 2005 edition, calling itself a "new edition for a new ...
en.wikipedia.org/
Good Vibrations: feminist sex ed and tools, famous San Francisco venue
Sistersong: Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective
National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health: community mobilization
Black Women's Health Imperative: education, training, advocacy, research
National Asian Women's Health Organization: public policy, social justice
National Abortion Rights Action League: legislative info and action
Choice USA: helps students and young activists
50 sec - Dec 6, 2006 -
"...health care, abortion, family planning, and the respect for global human rights. While conservative forces have galvanized around the evangelical Christian and anti-abortion agenda...."
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hooks, p. 104: "the emotional well-being of women and men would be enhanced if both parties embrace feminist thinking and practice. A genuine feminist politics always brings us from bondage to freedom, from lovelessness to loving. Mutual partnership is the foundation of love. And feminist practice is the only movement for social justice in our society which creates the conditions where mutuality can be nurtured. When we accept that love is rooted in recognition and accceptance, that love combines acknowledgment, care, responsibility, commitment, and knowledge, we understand there can be no love wihtout justice. With that awareness comes the understanding that love has the power to transform us, giving us the strength to opppose domination. To choose feminist politics, then, is a choice to love."
hooks, pp. 116, 118: "Feminist movement is advanced whenever any male or female of any age works on behalf of ending sexism. That work does not necessarily require us to join organizations; we can work on behalf of feminism right where we live, educating ourselves and our loved ones.... There is no one path to feminism. Individuals from diverse backgrounds need feminist theory that speaks directly to their lives.... For years many feminist women held to the misguided assumption that gender was the sole factor determining their status. Breaking through this denial was a crucial turning point for feminist politics. It enabled women to face the way biases of race and class had led to the formation of a women's movement that was not mass-based.... Feminist politics aims to end domination to free us to be who we are -- to live lives where we love justice, where we can live in peace. Feminism is for everybody."
Lesbian Art Project, An Oral Herstory of Lesbianism , 1979, slide projection, dimensions variable, courtesy Jennifer Sorkin and Lesbian Art Project; installation photo by Brian Forrest
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bell hooks - "Communion: The Female Search for Love"
From Google Books: "Renowned visionary and theorist bell hooks began her exploration of the meaning of love in American culture with the critically acclaimed "All About Love: New Visions." She continued her national dialogue with the bestselling Salvation: Black People and Love. Now hooks culminates her triumphant trilogy of love with "Communion: The Female Search for Love." Intimate, revealing, provocative, Communion challenges every female to courageously claim the search for love as the heroic journey we must all choose to be truly free. In her trademark commanding and lucid language, hooks explores the ways ideas about women and love were changed by feminist movement, by women's full participation in the workforce, and by the culture of self-help. "Communion" is the heart-to-heart talk every woman -- mother, daughter, friend, and lover -- needs to have."
MUSIC: "Push the System," Bitch and Animal, from What's that Smell? (1999)
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Who was Dolores del Rio? We asked this question in the last class since Mesa-Bain constructed an altar in her memory. Why?
Take an altar-nate view
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