Sometimes Laughter Is The Best Medicine…

…after an Aspirin, that is.

But really, sometimes you just need to laugh at the absurdity surrounding the current fight over reproductive rights. Because otherwise, it all just seems unbelievable… That we’re having House hearings on religion and birth control that don’t involve women, that states are requiring trans-vaginal ultrasounds for women seeking abortions, that the concept of “personhood” is even being put up for a vote.

With all the progress our country has made, the last few months have felt like we’ve somehow been transported back in time, where somebody goes on national television to suggest that an aspirin between the knees is effective birth control. (Spoiler Alert: it’s not.)

While I have no shortage of outrage, frustration, and a wee bit of fear surrounding all of this, I also need to laugh at times, because then otherwise, I’d just be crying. And because sometimes it feels like this is one big SNL skit. I’m (not-so) patiently waiting for Loren Michaels to yell, “Cut!”

Watch Seth Meyers & Amy Poehler take the birth control debate on in Weekend Update. Really. 

For the more literary amongst us, Jezebel has come up with an “Abortion Law Mad Libs” – so grab a partner, break out the pens, and start thinking up some clever nouns, verbs, and adjectives!

How do *you* deal with the absurdity of it all? 

An Open Letter To Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro

This is an open letter of thanks to Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D – CT) after watching her speak at the House hearing today on religious freedom and birth control. You can read most of my thoughts on the entire hearing via my twitter feed (scroll down to see from the beginning). 

Dear Congresswoman DeLauro,

It it with pride and appreciation that I find myself writing this letter to you. Sadly, I am also fueled to write this letter out of anger, frustration and indignation.

Earlier today I was glued to the live feed of Representative Darrell Issa’s hearing on religious freedom and birth control. The hearing, spurred by the ongoing controversy over HHS regulations on birth control coverage by religious employers, included a panel of religious leaders of various denominations.

At first, I was shocked. Here was a panel, convened to discuss issues of birth control, and not one of them was a woman.

Image via Planned Parenthood

My shock quickly turned to outrage as I listened to these men discuss issues intimately connected to women without a second thought that something was missing – that some voice was missing. It was incredibly telling that many of your female colleagues walked out of the hearing in disgust and anger at the lack of women involved.

My anger was tempered slightly as I watched some of your colleagues speak, pointing out what I had noticed – that in a discussion about birth control, the fact that there were no women present on the panel was indeed a huge oversight. However, any comfort I felt in that was challenged again as other Representatives made sweeping statements about first Amendment rights violations. A lot of buzzwords and catch phrases were tossed around, with both panel members and various Representatives claiming that liberty and freedom was being infringed upon with the decision to make all businesses (regardless of religion) provide coverage for birth control.

We heard from both sides of the debate, but sadly, we heard from very few women. Then I saw a familiar face. I may live in Massachusetts now, but as a former nutmegger, I was once a constituent of yours, and literally felt a wave of relief when I realized you were about to speak.

You brought up crucial points that many seemed to be missing – that any church led business must act like a business and provide for the people that work for them, and that includes allowing them access to have insurance-covered birth control. You reminded everyone that contraceptive coverage is both outstanding and overdue in relation to women’s health. You stood up as a Catholic, and made the point that you support the new guidelines not in spite of being a Catholic, but because you are a Catholic.

I knew you would bring clarity, perspective, and common sense to this issue. And you did…only to be rudely cut off just minutes in.

I wish you would have been given the time to finish your thoughts, as they were sorely needed in the discussion. As I stated at the beginning of this letter, I felt pride in watching you not waver in your belief and knowledge in what is right in this situation. I was proud that you did not back down in your stance to promote and protect women’s health and access to insurance-covered birth control. I commend you on taking on not only the panel, but your colleagues that support it. While the number of women even sitting in that room this morning was appallingly low, thank you for attempting to give us voice and speak to the truth of the situation – it is appreciated by many.

Please continue to fight for the women in this country, Congresswoman DeLauro. Please continue to be our much needed voice when it’s clear that many neither value or trust in it.

I am still flabbergasted that we live in a country that is even having hearings like this. I am dismayed that issues like access to birth control are even being brought up for Congressional debate. Yet I’m heartened that we have folks like you, and Representatives Davis, Cummings, Clay, and others speak up for what, according to Representative Connolly, surely looked like a sham and a shameful exercise.

In support & gratitude,

Avital Norman Nathman

This Is What A Feminist Looks Like: Danielle

Name: Danielle
Age: 23
Occupation: Philanthropy Consultant
Location: Chicago
Any other relevant tidbits you’d care to share: My husband and I chose a completely new last name upon marriage, rejecting the patriarchal norm to assume the husband’s family name and upholding the right to rethink tradition as a feminist Christian couple.

Danielle

Mama’s Got Muscle Too

What do you get a kid who his currently obsessed with all things science? Who will sit for hours pouring over his sizable collection of Magic School Bus books and National Geographic Kid’s magazines?

We certainly don’t need anymore stuff in our house. We’re filled to the brim with toys, books, art supplies, etc… and I didn’t want to add to any of that. What he does need, however, are clothes. It seems like every other week EZ grows just a smidge bit more, with his pants resting right above his ankles, taunting me.

Then I came across these pjs from Old Navy and thought I’d figured out a way to solve two problems at once (go me!).

EZ definitely could use a few more pajamas, and I knew he would love these. It’s like wearing your organs outside your body – cool & gross at the same time, which is one of his favored categories at the moment.

They finally arrived the other day, and I knew they would be an immediate hit. I quickly pulled them out of the packaging to inspect. The first thing I noticed was that, for some reason, they weren’t as soft as the the Old Navy pjs we own. (I assumed a run through the washing machine would fix that. It didn’t. Total bummer.) The second thing I saw was that some of the body parts had labels, something I hadn’t noticed when purchasing the pjs online. They were mostly innocuous: “Dr. Love” for the heart, “toot factory” for the colon (um, ew.), and “funny bone” for the, er… funny bone. As I scanned the rest of the parts, I had to restrain myself when I came across this one, located in the leg:

"muscles from dad"

Sigh.

Why, Old Navy, why? Why play into these gendered stereotypes that I’m more than done talking about? Why not “muscles from mom”?

Showing off my muscles with a toddler EZ

Or better yet… Why not “strong muscles from eating good food”? Or “strong muscles from exercising”?

Dads aren’t not the only ones with muscles, but when it comes to attaching traits to parents (and kids), most clothing lines (and this is not only specific to Old Navy) default to easy, tired tropes and stereotypes related to gender.

This post isn’t meant to vilify Old Navy. In fact, they do a semi-decent job of offering a range of choices for boys and girls (if you can stand to flip through the vast amount of pink stuff for girls, and sea of blue and green for boys).

But this points to the larger, systemic, more ingrained pattern I’ve been seeing. From board games and toys to clothing, stereotypical notions about gender continue to be promoted and accepted.

Boys are dirty...

...and girls are princesses

As I’ve talked about before, this problem is cyclical. Stores put out these types of clothes, people do buy them, and the store continues to put them out. The reality is that the majority of these stores all have low price points, and to be able to find stores that don’t push tired stereotypes or sexualized messages/trends, you sometimes have to be willing to pay more, and frankly, that sucks.

Speaking of messages, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the current JC Penny debacle with Ellen Degeneres. JCP hired Ellen as their new spokesperson, and the conservative group One Million Moms decided to boycott the store because they disagreed with Ellen as the new face of the company. I absolutely despise One Million Moms and their views, and actually found myself agreeing with Bill O’Reilly over this issue. (I know. I checked outside my window to see if I could find any flying pigs too).

While I certainly applaud JCP for standing up for their choice in using Ellen as their spokesperson, I wish they would acknowledge the poor choices they’ve made, and continue to make in regards to the other messages they promote through their clothes.

Melissa from Pigtail Pals does a great job of explaining just what I mean in her latest blog post. We can’t stop excusing stores that continue to churn out these types of clothing, whether purposefully or not. The fact that many of these stores don’t even realize that what they’re doing can be harmful speaks volumes. Let’s continue to push for change and not accept mediocre results – our kids are worth more than that.

Guess Who (Isn’t Really Getting a Fair Deal)

We’re a gaming family. Not so much the video kind (although we’ve been known to get our Mario Kart on), but more so of the board persuasion. Both MD and I played board games growing up, and we started our own substantial collection when we got together.

When EZ turned 4, we started getting him in on the action. We started with Chutes & Ladders and Candy Land, and soon he was addicted as well. Every so often we’ll add a new one to our collection, and they are usually child-friendly. This past weekend we picked up both Operation and Guess Who. Operation has changed a bit…there’s no longer a bread basket or butterflies in the tummy (instead there’s “cellphone wrist” and neon green boogers…both of which I’m sure we’ll lose in the next week or two, as is par for the course with any tiny game piece).

Then there’s Guess Who. I loved that game as a kid, and was super excited to play with EZ. But I have to say, once we set it up and got started I was shocked. Out of 25 characters to choose from, only 5 are women. That couldn’t be right, I thought, and rushed to see what the original game had…

Original Guess Who

It also only had 5 (It was also extremely white-washed. The current version is a bit more colorful). And then it all came rushing back to me. Whenever I played as a kid, I hardly ever picked the girls. Why? Because when you’re as calculating and competitive as I am, you knew that the odds would never be in your favor if you chose a girl. She’d be guessed in less than 3 questions.

Yeah, I can't get excited over a victory that is basically handed to you on a sexist platter.

And you know what? EZ is picking up on that now. He hardly picks a female character because he knows that I’ll be able to guess it in a couple of questions. We’ve mostly stuck to the animal side of the board (where this is almost an even ratio of cat:dog, mind you), and I’m trying to figure out if we can somehow create our own board to use.

I could get all angry and up in arms over how Guess Who is a totally sexist game, but really, instead of being shocked and angry, I have to admit, when this all sank in, I was more disappointed than anything else. I doubt it was a conscious choice on the part of Hasbro to only include 5 women in the game. In fact, that’s the problem…Nobody thought about it.

It’s part of a larger, systemic issue, one that is perfectly laid out for us with the latest drama surrounding LEGO’s new girl line.  LEGO continues to claim that their research has shown that girls just don’t like their gender neutral sets, and the company won’t back down from promoting their new LEGO Friends girl line, no matter how upset customers are. But the problem goes beyond LEGO Friends.

Pigtail Pals recently posted a picture from LEGOLand, showing a LEGO female firefighter (yay!) putting on lipstick (WTF?). Nobody from LEGO corporate (or any park employee) took a second to think about why that could be off putting and completely sexist? I have nothing against wearing make up, but to portray a woman as a firefighter, and then to rely on tired stereotypes to complete the piece seems like poor form to me.

But should we be so surprised when the management team for LEGO is compromised solely of older white men? (That ironically look like they belong in the original Guess Who). Their board of directors isn’t any better, including only one woman, who incidentally joined the board just this past May.  

Looking at who makes up the decision-making team of LEGO, one immediate solution jumps to mind: More women. Sure, it might not solve all of their issues, but it would be a good start. We need more women in these types of positions…or we at least need more people in charge that will take a second to really think through some of these decisions.

Hm…maybe we can have the firefighter carry an ax or fire extinguisher instead of touching up her lipstick?

Why don’t we have half men and half women in the next edition of Guess Who? That will really throw them for a loop! 

Let’s be the change we want to see. Let’s encourage our daughters and our sons to find their way into jobs that impact society for the better, so perhaps one day they’ll be the ones making these types of decisions and they’ll make better ones.

Goodbye Go Daddy

Break ups are never easy. There can be hard feelings or moments of regret that can last well beyond the actual parting of ways. Sometimes, even just getting the gumption to actually go through with it can be the hardest part.

Then again, sometimes circumstances arise that make it very, very easy to walk away.

Image via Lifehacker.com

I received an email about a month or so ago, letting me know that my domain hosting package from Go Daddy was up for renewal in March. I have to be honest, I don’t really think all that much about that kind of stuff. Way back when, I signed up for Go Daddy because I saw some deal (and many other people I knew had recommended the site to me) and that was that.

My site is pretty small potatoes, and it’s simply laid out, so I never really needed much from my host. And, as one tends to do, when you don’t need something, you tend to forget about them.

But then…in the past year or so, I kept seeing Go Daddy’s name in the news, and not for anything positive. Stories about their CEO’s shady background regarding elephants starting leaking, causing me to wonder just why I was staying with them. But despite my intentions to switch hosts, I never got around to it.

I had a list of excuses…I was lazy; I wasn’t sure exactly how to go about doing it; Who would I switch to?

So I chose the path of least resistance.

But then, Go Daddy had to go and make me take the time and effort to drop them. Their consistent use of sexist ads (which they reminded us again this past weekend during the Super Bowl) was the last straw for me.

Miss Representation goes into more detail as to why folks should drop Go Daddy, and Lifehacker has written up a step by step guide on exactly how to do it.

And you know what? I feel pretty darn good about this break up.

I no longer need to stammer through a list of weak excuses when I explain why I’m still being hosted by Go Daddy. I don’t have to have that wave of squick wash over me when I think about their horribly sexist commercials and then ponder just how uncomfortable it is that they keep parading scantily clad (or completely naked) women in their ads while their company has “daddy” in its name.

Instead, I transferred my domain over to Hover. I have yet to see a sexist or insulting commercial for them, and they also happen to oppose SOPA (which not all hosting sites seem to be in agreement over). It may not be much, but not putting anymore of my money in Go Daddy’s pockets feels like a step in the right direction.

So…we’re through, Go Daddy and I. I have to say that this won’t be one of those break ups that tear at me, making me question whether or not I did the right thing. The moment I clicked “accept” for the transfer to Hover, I felt a little bit lighter.

Who knew shaking off some sexism could feel so freeing?

This Is What A Feminist Looks Like: Heather

Name: Heather Wingert
Age: 29
Occupation: Psychotherapist & Assistant Director of a non-profit
Location: Asheville, NC
Any other relevant tidbits you’d care to share: Soapmaking enthusiast, aspiring writer, and wanderlust at the moment. . .

Heather