What a feminist bibliophile coffee connoisseur's dreams are made of

The wonderful thing about almost-impossible dreams is that even if it's 100% not feasible (at least not yet), it's still surprisingly fulfilling to daydream about. It doesn't cost a thing to make plans or have ideas.


I have a new pie-in-the-sky dream to daydream about.
The last time I had a dream this pie-in-the-sky (we're talking, like, Balloon Boy altitude here) was two and a half years ago.
During my summer internship in DC, my Smithie roommates and I were daydreaming about a nonprofit based in the Bay Area that would serve mostly (though not exclusively) female victims of domestic and sexual violence. We even drew up some google documents. Lauren even took some time out of her internship on the Hill (during the slow time of August recess) to create some business plans in a binder, and did extensive research on 501(c)(3) certification and the political/lobbying limitations of such a nonprofit classification. We talked at length about the mission statement, and whether it would encompass only direct services or expand into policy advocacy and grassroots activism, and if the latter, what kind of lobbying we could & couldn't do as a (c)(3) nonprofit. (What can I say? We were total nerds like that. This is why I count these women as some of the best friends I'll ever have.)

That dream's not quite as compelling anymore; we all found our passions in slightly different forms of feminism. Both Lauren & Elizabeth are in law school on opposite coasts, and here I am in the middle, the underpaid and overworked grassroots organizer doing my best to stretch the hours long enough to make these red states slightly friendlier - or at least not more hostile - to the idea of reproductive freedom.


So we're all in different places, and I'm not sure what Lauren's & Elizabeth's dreams are anymore. (Are law students even allowed to have dreams?)

While I love my job and I love the politics of Kansas & Missouri (it's exhilarating to work in the same states as Great-White-Hope Lynn Jenkins (R-KS) and the always lovely Hunger-is-a-Positive-Motivator Cynthia Davis (R-MO), among other d-bags), it's not perfect. I think it's the flatness. Maybe if I were down near Springfield and Joplin, with the Ozarks closer, it'd be better. But then...I'd be near Joplin. And, well, no thanks.

So a girl gets to daydreaming.

Mostly, I daydream about Denver. There's something about that place that just snuck into my heart and set up camp there, like a really wonderful heartworm. Or maybe some metaphor less parasitic, but it's late, and that's what I've got.

But yesterday, a new and exciting daydream entered the picture.
I happened upon this lovely twitterer, @SugarAndSass. Well, to be accurate, she happened upon me, started following me, and I followed my email notification to check her out.

Eventually, it led me to her blog.
Here's her profile:



Um. Hi, soul mate. What's up?

I sent her a short direct message on twitter (lemme tell you, it's hard to convey the message of "Oh my god, I think you and I may be soul mates. I love your idea, and I think you might have stolen my dream. Tell me more about your dream coffee shop/bookstore/sex ed resource/awesomesauce establishment so that we can geek out over feminist coffee sweet greatness together? Email me at this address." in 140 characters or less. I ended up using 2 direct messages. Totally bad Twitter etiquette [twitiquette?], I know.), and she sent me a long email in response.


After telling me her pie-in-the-sky ideas (notice how I'm using the word "pie" a lot when referring to a potential bakery? so clever, i am), she asked me to share mine.

Well.
They're all of 24 hours in the making, but here goes.

Young Feminists VS. Older Feminists? Or Young Feminists WITH Older Feminists?

2nd wave vs 3rd wave.
Old biddies vs young visionaries.
Wise women vs ungrateful little girls.
Maybe even: mother vs daughter.
"This is not your mother's feminism."
"Young women don't know what feminism is."

We've heard all of these before, from each side, staking out their territory in generational wars. This is nothing new. Feminism has been declared dead over and over, sometimes even by older women who've dedicated their lives to a feminism that no longer exists in the way they knew it.

I come to this...debate? disagreement? full-out fight?...as one of those supposedly ungrateful, lazy, selfish young feminists. I'll admit that I get awfully sick of the older generation disparaging my entire peer group, condescending to us, not trusting us, and refusing to pass on that torch.
But I do understand where a lot of the distrust comes from. I'll also admit that I do have peers who don't value the wisdom of the older generation, who don't want to be passed the torch so much as either rip the torch from the older feminists' hands or try to reinvent fire altogether.

This older generation of feminists that so distrusts my generation has been through a hell of a lot. They've had to fight like hell so that we don't have to fight quite so hard for the same things. Most of them were around when abortion was illegal, and know firsthand what exactly we'll lose if Roe falls. A lot of them were trailblazers in their field, entering predominantly male workforces and facing intense, overt discrimination. They might have been getting married when spousal rape was still perfectly legal. They've got stories to tell and wisdom to share. And yes, there are some in my generation who don't really care, but really: most of us do care.
It's a respect thing, but it's also just a logical strategic thing: if there's wisdom there, learn it. You don't need to reinvent the wheel.



This generation gap / fight / debate / disagreement / whatever is a little tiresome. For everyone. When we waste our energy fighting with each other over who gets to carry the torch, we sacrifice our ability to blaze any trails.

This is why I'm super stoked to be going to this conference at the Omega Institute in a few weeks:

Women & Power: Connecting Across the Generations. (video will automatically start playing)

The Women’s Institute at Omega is breaking new ground and bringing women of different generations together for one electrifying weekend. Featuring more than 34 amazing trailblazers, Women & Power: Connecting Across the Generations will get you charged up to make a difference in your life, your home, your community, and the world.

Join us for a weekend of celebration, uplifting speeches, entertainment, and panel discussions with women from different backgrounds and generations. Award-winning novelist Isabel Allende; Alberta Nells, youth leader of the Navajo Nation: feminist icon Gloria Steinem; singer/songwriter Natalie Merchant; and playwright, poet, activist, solo-performer, Sarah Jones; are just a few of the diverse women coming together to share, unite, and inspire.

It's got a pretty rockstar list of faculty:

Isabel Allende
Lori Barra
Maya Breuer
Cathy Collins
Ann Friedman
Carla Goldstein
Angela Hucles
Charreah Jackson
Sarah Jones
Jensine Larsen
Andrea Lee
Elizabeth Lesser
Jana Long
Donna Lopiano
Courtney Martin
Jessica Mendoza
Natalie Merchant
Pat Mitchell
Elisa Mott
Samhita Mukohopadhyay
Alberta Nells
Ana Nogales
Sarah Peter
Adrienne Ressler
Eliza Reynolds
Sil Reynolds
Lateefah Simon
Gloria Steinem
Gail Straub
Helen Thomas
Jessica Valenti
Vanessa Valenti
Sakena Yacoobi
Miriam Zolia Perez

Yeah.
My homegirl Gloria Steinem will be there!
And OMG. Helen Thomas. I have such a grandma-crush on her. (i.e. I would like for her to be my grandmother)
And Isabel Allende!
And and and and and...
I'm stoked.

Mapping Our Stories

I absolutely love this idea and this project.

Ariel, a guest blogger at Feministe, came up with this great idea. Using Google Maps, she is having Feministe readers map all of the places where we feel strong on a collaborative google map. A collective geography of strength.

I love that.

It's already getting pretty well filled in, and she's had the post up for less than a day.

Check out the map here.




As with most new Google technologies and tricks and widgets and whatnot, now I really want to incorporate this into the rest of my life. (I've already hooked most of my coworkers on Google docs.) Google really is made of genius. Most days, I wish I were much geekier and knew more about computers so that I could go work at that Google castle in the sky...or wherever their HQ is at.

I think I want to map my story.
Ooh! I could also map the history of reproductive rights & reproductive justice in the US.
And, and...oh, the possibilities are endless.....


I may or may not post the link of my mapped out story. Working in repro justice in the midwest, so close to where Dr. Tiller was killed, I worry about what will make me even more identifiable and easier to target. (aside: how fucked up is it that I have to worry about these things??)

Either way, I fully support this kind of self-reflective geekery, and I'd encourage anyone to map their story like this.

community organizing.

I'm a day early on this one, but I've got a few long days of work/babysitting/etc ahead of me, so I'm throwing this up on Sunday instead of Monday. Which is probably fine, since this post doesn't really fit in the parameters of what tomorrow's virtual mobilization of community organizer/bloggers is supposed to be about anyway. I may still throw one up tomorrow, and maybe it'll actually fit into said parameters.

Tomorrow, a lot of bloggers will be blogging on community organizing. The idea behind this is to have bloggers who are community organizers blog about their experiences, about what being a community organizer means, and about why it's important work.

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This is all in response, of course, to the "jokes" about community organizers at the RNC, coming from both Giuliani and Palin. Really? If you're going to make fun of Obama, you've gotta at least find some better material.
This whole thing is just absurd. The reason they need to mock Obama, though? Not because he was a community organizer. Because of what Ezra points out:

But look, let's call a spade a spade: When Giuliani sneered about community organizers on the "South side" of Chicago, it's pretty clear what he was saying: Barack Obama spent his time rabble-rousing among black people. It's no different then when the RNC called him a "street organizer."........
Community organizer isn't being used to describe a job but a background. Obama organized poor black people. Helped channel their anger and grievances and anxieties. That's change you can fear.

----

The RNC debacle created a wave of defense among a whole slew of bloggers, especially feminist bloggers.
As it should. Because grassroots, community organizing is vitally important to movements like feminism. Organizing on the personal, community level is how you build a movement. And community organizers are the people who do the dirty work, who make change happen, who are a lot more in touch with the people they're serving than "public servants" like politicians and most lobbyists ever dream of being.
Except...
The mainstream feminist movement? Not really all about building a movement. The mainstream feminist movement isn't really about community-building on a local level. They do great work on the state level, they do great work in legislative processes and working with bureaucratic bullshit and getting funding toward their causes. They sometimes provide important services to the community at large. But when it comes to getting into a community, becoming immersed in it, becoming part of it, so that they can be responsive to what people really need, they're usually pretty absent. That's not where their priorities lie.

When I say "they," I'm talking about the Big Feminist Organizations. The "career feminists" (most of them, at least). The feminist organizations in the beltway ("national" organizations) are mostly concerned with beltway politics. This is important, but they aren't organizing communities. They're organizing politicians. Rounding them up, gathering them together, getting legislation passed or working within the state institutions to make change. (I suppose politicians can be considered a "community," in some sense, but that's really not the kind of community I'm concerned with here.) This is great. It needs to happen. But it's not community organizing.
Even organizations that function within their individual states don't always engage with community organizing. NARAL Massachusetts is a perfect example. I have a million grievances with NARAL's political choices nationally, but even in Massachusetts, the NARAL organizers are not community organizers. I say this because I live in western Massachusetts. In my 3 1/2 years here, including 2 in college, I've heard about exactly one organized NARAL MA event here - meeting with an aide of western MA's congressman in Springfield. I almost went, but couldn't get off work, and didn't want to pay the gas to drive all the way down to Springfield. I think they drew maybe one or two volunteer activists from the area to that meeting. NARAL MA's priorities don't bring the organization outside of Boston or Beacon Hill. They lobby the state assembly and the state senators. I think they've held events for Obama in Boston. They probably work with some student groups at some of the many colleges that Boston is home to. But that's pretty much it. Their priority is at the state level. Their priority is purely capital-P Political.

What NARAL MA, and NARAL Pro-Choice America, and PPFA, and PPLM, and NOW, and so many of the Big Feminist Organizations do is organizing, I don't deny that. And, depending on how broadly we're defining "community," it could easily be considered community organizing, as well. But what I'd like to see celebrated and validated more isn't just that kind of Big Feminist Organization advocacy. What I'd love to see this movement, if we're really going to be a movement, doing more of is movement-building. Getting Obama elected and fighting court battles and working to get congressional funding allocated to abuse victims is important work. But it's not (necessarily) building a movement.

When I think of "community organizers," much like the organizing that Obama did on the south side of Chicago, I think of movement-building. Organizing state players is one thing. Organizing the community and building a base for this movement is an entirely different thing.



Which I guess is why I, like some other bloggers, are a little confused about why all of these big feminist bloggers are now coming to the defense of community organizers. An awful lot of them are career feminists. An awful lot of them have gone the "strategic" route in lieu of the community organizing, collective route (perhaps because we live in an individualistic culture and collective feminism is not what we do?), because collective organizing is not 'practical' or 'realistic.'
(Thank you, thank you, to the always amazing bfp for hitting the nail on the head and helping me understand, in sentence form, why the sudden rush to defend community organizers seemed so off to me.)




And now, with all of that said, this is how I see community organizing.

trauma, bodies, healing, revolution(izing)

what she said.

Unfortunately, what I most often witness is people’s trauma around their bodies getting in the way of uniting. As queers, as fat people, as people with disabilities, as people of color, we have often located so much of our pain in our bodies. We internalize so much anger, we get sick from it and throw up walls and make divisions. I get inspired when I see the connections made on an individual level. But on a larger scale I don’t really see it happening yet.

I think there are two main obstacles: 1) Most of us spend a lot of time outside of our bodies. I’m not sure how many people are willing to get into their bodies in the way it would require in order for this kind of movement to build. Phat Camp was an amazing place to witness people going through this. They come in with their brains in a tizzy, wondering “What is empowerment? What is self-acceptance?” and then they realize we don’t want their brains to do the work—we want to go to a deeper place. A place where all of our bodies are unified in the struggle to be whole and real.

2) People who don’t have to think about their power usually don’t. Sometimes I wonder if we can really build anything effectively without figuring out how to cross over and get people to examine their privilege. There is so much mythology about health and wellness, that it’s hard for me to picture having a deep moment with someone who more than anything believes I just need to lose weight. Even if we agree that the prison system needs to end and Bush is a motherfucker.

I see the goal of all work like this to be community building, healing, and revolution. In that order.

(via bfp, via nadia)