Grassroots

Symbols Into Action

Rhetoric shapes reality. What we say, how we say it is always going to be important. Those symbols function as means to serve our daily life. It shapes and allows our brain to fixate on a specific image and substitute that image or symbol for the whole movement. This is what activists attempt to do when they do things like protests.

 

The best example is the anti-choice protestors that show pictures of fetuses most often miscarried, or aborted in late term abortions, that are particularly gruesome. This is a means of re-ordered the hierarchy of social symbols so that when you think of abortion that is what comes to mind. And granted it is effective, if someone were to be asked, “Do you want to save a baby?” the answer is probably yes. Yet that question does not give you the full picture. Do you want to save a baby? Yes… that baby can be saved by alternate means. Is it appropriate for the baby to be brought up in a household with a teenage mother who did not graduate high school?

 

Especially given the teen pregnancy rates and that teen pregnancies are most often attributed to premature births, low birth rates, and a higher rate of birth defects. Post birth those babies are more likely to suffer from learning disabilities, and are than more likely to repeat the cycle than anyone else.

 

What do we do? This is the thing that bothers me most often with academia. Theoretically, concepts are easy. Is oppression bad? Yes. Should women have rights to their bodies, should they have a voice? Yes. What does that mean? What does that mean for a teacher who has half of the girls in her class becoming pregnant?  What does someone in his or her day-to-day life do? There seems to be a few strategies post the theoretical phase that someone can do. They all center around two concepts, reclaiming ones voice, and education.

 

Reclaiming Your Voice: The first step to reclaiming your voice is realizing that it is gone in the first place. To acknowledging the power structures exist, and those power structures should be re-manipulated into something that is livable for everyone. Creating a livable lifestyle or a space where discourse is allowed to flourish while still somewhat theoretical is unique and important. Because voice is where our identities are shaped, when we are able to speak out ideas and thoughts and imaginations and allow that to flourish in a manner that is unique and truly real. Voice is something anyone can use; it is the epitome of daily resistance. Changing the words you say, posting in a blog, speaking out against the daily oppression that you see. This is all around the central thesis that you must question the norms, and question those norms to such an extent that they become uneasy and begin to bend.

 

Education: Education is arguably a manifestation of reclaiming your voice but it is more than that it is building networks, recognizing we are all one community and building upon that. That we are feminists but more importantly humanists. That we need to have a future that is bright and shining not weighed down with the chains of our pasts or the chains of patriarchy. The War on Choice is that at its most basic principle is a war on equality, gender equality, and feminist equality whichever you choose. That at its most basic principle is humanist and fair and just. It is not a question about what God you believe, or when a child becomes a child it is a question about what ideologically is right. Yes, theoretical applications are key to bridging the gap between academia and grassroots but what happens next? What are we going to do to change this?

 

Every generation has a long struggle with rights over our bodies, not just woman, but every disenfranchised group from the Tuskegee experiment to biological testing on Native Americans to abortion. When does it stop? When does the populous recognize that everyone is effected by these things? When we do we recognize we are a community and that community must stand for something greater than the individual. I do not mean that last statement in terms of utilitarian calculus but in terms of community and recognition of what is truly important.

 

Each right at it’s very base is created by the concept of voice. And that is why language is important, everything, revolutionary and the starting point. That is why Audre Lorde is right. So…where do we go from here?

 

Mission: Action. What is action to you? Are you an activist? What does being an activist mean? What does it mean in the context of War On Choice?

 

 

Pro Choice vs. ProLife

Can’t I be both?

You knew this post was coming. I even debated as to whether or not it was useful to have this post but then I realized this is the issue. This is the core and the heart of the War On Choice. The symbols that we are attempting to reshape starts with pro choice and pro-life rhetoric. An individual that subscribes to these symbols literally means that one cannot be pro-life and still endorse a woman’s right to choose. What is the alternative?

This article chooses to use the word anti-choice instead of pro life. This is an interesting choice of rhetoric. Not equating the people that oppose abortion as being for life but anti-choice. Anti agency, and anti a voice or a right a woman would have over her own body. I think this is a unique way to look at the different rhetorical implications of those word choices.  If someone asks me what are you pro life or pro choice, my response is always both. .. those are two values I hold very dearly. However, I am going to defend a woman’s right over her own body every day of the week.

Yet that may not be the case for everyone. I do not think that being pro-choice means you are pro-abortion. What I find most astounding is the ability of other individuals to dictate what should and should not be allowed for another person. I do not view myself as someone that sends a person a greeting card, “Congratulations you had an abortion”. But I would say congratulations you were allowed to exercise your agency as a person.

What strikes me as the most confusing people that are “pro-life” are most often for the death penalty as well, along with the War in Iraq and many other right-wing policies. It does not seem very much pro-life to advocate the United States invading another country, or advocating that we strip away people’s humanities at Guantanamo Bay. I do not think they are “pro” anything but more so ANTI-Choice, and Anti-Agency.

Mission: How often do we say pro-choice v. pro life? Is it merely built into our daily discourse? Do we want to change it? What is another word that could be used? Do you believe it matters?

The F-Word

When I tried to think of where to start. The notion of “War On Choice” could potentially sound daunting and too large, where do you find a starting point in that? I could begin with feminism. The history of feminism. Or I could begin with a lengthy discussion of symbols in our daily life. But that really is not relevant to this site. It is not relevant to what we’re discussing. Those are things that you can pick up in any communication class or are just basic common sense. It is ivory tower academia, which is useful and interesting it is rather hard to put Burke’s theory of symbols on an activist sign to picket the Supreme Court. What is useful is the newest curse word to the radical right, feminism.

Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner wrote The F-Word in which she described the ability of the right-wing religious fundamentalists to twist and contort the word feminism into an evil word that no one wants to attribute or title themselves a feminist. Which makes sense.

What is a feminist? What does that have to do with the war on choice? Why does it even matter?

I think asking what a feminist is like asking a person what they believe is the best movie of all time, or who they think is God. You will get a different answer each and every time from each individual. And that is okay, by no means am I advocating a static interpretation of the word. I have multiple interpretations of the word depending on the day and the frame in which I choose. Baumgardener and Richards authors of amazing feminist works such as Grassroots or my personal favorite Manifesta define feminism as…

Feminism, a word that describes a social-justice movement for gender equity and human liberation, is often treated as the other F word. Partly because it’s a word of great power, it’s nearly as unseemly as those other girl terms, cunt or bitch. This in part explains why by the time the two of us were at college learning that we were indeed feminist, the term was dropping with qualifiers. I’m a …power, postmodern, Girlie, pro-sex, Prada, academic, gender, radical, Marxist, equity, cyber, Chicana, cultural eco, lesbian, Latina, womanist, animal rights, American Indian, International diva, Jewish, Puerto Rican, working-class, lipstick, punk rock, young, old …feminist. All of these adjectives help women feel described rather than confined by a term that should simply connote an individual women’s human rights, and the possibility of liberating oneself from patriarchy.  (50)

While that definition is fairly long winded, I also feel it is fairly accurate to the predicament feminists have found themselves in. There has been such a focus on the fluidity of the movement and the word that we are finding we cannot find an accurate definition. I know I am a feminist does that mean I am against abortion? Does that mean I am for abortion? More accurately I think it means I am pro-women. But see that sounds like whoever is saying that is a lesbian, which is not in fact accurate.  What is it then? What does it mean to be a feminist without a paragraph description?

bell hooks describes feminism more succinctly as, “Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression.” I think this definition is not only all encompassing but fits rather well with that we are discussing in this ‘site. The War on Choice is a matter of feminism. I have always said that feminism is merely human decency. It is an effort to afford individual’s equal rights and abilities. It is important to acknowledge that being a feminist is an individual choice, I am not saying everyone becomes a feminist I am merely asking that you evaluate whether or not you actually are one. I think more people are feminists than realize it because of the way the media has painted feminism especially associated with abortion and women’s bodies.

Why does this matter? It matters because as Burke states if symbols are important and how we use those symbols shape the way we view the world than evaluating a symbol like feminism is uniquely important because it forces us to determine what is an effective use of symbols and what is not. To change the system we have to first question the symbol system in which we have become accustomed to. We are all sisters, we are all humans and we all share a social responsibility to one another to speak out if another cannot. Audre Lorde was correct on that.  Language shapes reality, so how do we shape reality? We shape our language and change our language first and foremost.

Mission: Are you a feminist? What is your own definition of a feminist, regardless if you fit it or not?

War On Choice Mission Statement

War On Choice

What is War On Choice? What does that mean? War on choice is the war on individuals’ bodies. It is the war on a person’s agency or autonomy that prevents them from using their voice to speak out. A war on choice has become a war on individualism and on women’s bodies.

It used to be a simple question about whether or not you as a person believed that a  woman should choose whether or not she got an abortion. Now it has become so much more complex than that.

It has become a war on feminism, it has made feminism into a dirty word only to be touted by rainbow wearing hippies that may or may not shower. When feminism and choice and agency use to be such beautiful words. They were words of power, they were words of action and they were words that spurred and began movements. Those movements invested agency into people and revolutionized voice and life. However that is not the case anymore it is no longer a simple question as to what a woman has a right to do it becomes this stringent dichotomy of pro life vs. pro choice. (see next blog on activist rhetoric J)

Why does this matter? And this question is truly what has caused a stagnation of women’s rights movements. The most common statement is oh that does not effect me I am never going to become pregnant, or I am not a feminist I am not being oppressed in the status quo. Even if these things are true I feel that Audre Lorde says it best when she says that, “ we are all here because we share a commitment to language, and the power of language and the reclaiming of that language.”

I think that sums up why we are here the best. Language matters, language shapes reality which means when the War On Choice becomes a war on feminism a war on hippies heck a war on woman that is when it becomes a problem because it effects every single one of us. We live in a society of symbol users, we embrace and use symbols in daily life. Our attitudes and opinions are shaped by those symbols, which requires an interrogation of those symbols.

Our Mission The mission of this blog is not to change your mind. It is not so that you run out and have a thousand abortions or even one. It is meant to cause you to question the symbols and words we use to describe this daily battle and whether or not that is okay. I will end every blog with a new mission, a new action piece that all of my readers can do to interrogate this further.

We are all citizens of a global community and we have a responsibility to that community to interrogate our language and actions on a daily basis and how they shape our opinion.

Mission for Next Time: What are you doing in your daily life that affects the war on choice? What decisions have you made that shapes your opinions about this?