Uppity Bitches

The death of "You go, girl"

MadLibPoet recently sent me a link to Lori Gottlieb's piece in The Atlantic, "Marry Him!".
Gottlieb frets over her role as a single mother – who was artificially inseminated – and asks herself the
question; "why didn't I just settle?" She spends the next 10 or so pages telling women – in what I hope is
an occasionally tongue-in-cheek tone – to quit waiting for "Mr. Right" and shack up with Mr. Good Enough.

MLP and I have both felt inundated with contradictory messages about motherhood, career and marriage.
Particularly, it seems as though the women who strived to "have it all" – a cliché that needs to just die
already – now want to tell us to back off and give up. My colleague sums it up nicely, in response to Gottlieb's fear-mongering piece:

"Why do women in their 40s and 50s feel the need to
scare the crap out of us (Gen-Xers and younger) by
continuing to take back everything they told us when
we were growing up? When we were 13 it was all 'You
go girl; get a career and shit' and suddenly, they hit
menopause and their battle-cry turns to 'Why aren't
you married?' " – MLP

Gottlieb's observations read like a cautionary tale of what happens to the little girl who strives to "have
it all" and is hit with the big, bad prospect of dying unmarried, alone, unloved and pitiful. After all,
what's more depressing than a single older woman? Certainly not an older woman trapped in a loveless
marriage:

"I don't mean to say that settling is ideal. I'm
simply saying that it might have gotten an
undeservedly bad rap. As the only single woman in my
son's mommy-and-me group, I used to listen each week
to a litany of unrelenting complaints about people's
husbands and feel pretty good about my decision to
hold out for the right guy, only to realize that these
women wouldn't trade places with me for a second, no
matter how dull their marriages might be or how
desperately they might long for a different husband.
They, like me, would rather feel alone in a marriage
than actually be alone, because they, like me, realize
that marriage ultimately isn't about cosmic
connection—it's about how having a teammate, even if
he's not the love of your life, is better than not
having one at all."

Jesus. If marriage is this depressing and/or underwhelming, why would anyone want to sign up for it?
But seriously, if all Gottlieb needs from a marriage is someone to occupy the same room and help with the garbage (and good GOD, that's pretty insulting to potential spouses), I've got a suggestion; adopt a cat/dog/robot and hire a house-keeper.

-CrazyCatLady

Minor Conundrum: Michigan Legislature pushing for further restrictions for minors seeking abortion

In 1994, the Michigan state courts declared the Michigan Parental Consent Law constitutional. The law restricts access to safe and affordable abortions to women under the age of 18; young women in Michigan have been officially denied access to medical decisions about their own bodies, as well as the loss of privacy to make these decisions with their medical provider.  If you are under the age of 18 and want to have an abortion in the state of Michigan you must first have the signature of one of your biological parents or receive a judicial bypass.  To further the injustice, the Michigan Senate Judiciary Committee has decided to restrict young women's access even further.  I received the following information from MARAL this week:

"The extreme right in the Michigan legislature is at it again, this time jeopardizing young women's health and safety. Seeking to make Michigan's current parental-notification law more onerous for women under 18 years old, the Senate Judiciary Committee has recently passed Senate Bill 1059. This bill would allow judges to investigate the more personal details of a young woman's life who, for reasons of violence or other circumstances, can't turn to her parents for help and has to seek a waiver from the court.

Advanced as an attempt to prevent so-called "judge-shopping," this unnecessary and dangerous bill is a direct attack on a young woman's health and safety.  Furthermore, such legislation disregards those situations in which a young woman is put physically or emotionally at risk by government-mandated disclosure of her pregnancy and yet again inserts politicians into delicate family situations."

The Republican-backed bill seeks to stop abortions by allowing the "investigation" of the personal details of these young women's lives, a sick and terrifying prospect to an adult, let alone a young woman.  A young woman who comes to the court seeking a waiver is already in a vulnerable position; she may lack any support for her decision from her parents, may be pregnant as a result of sexual abuse or rape, or may fear physical or emotional abuse as a result of her disclosure to her family.

Grand Rapids' Heritage Clinic for Women provides abortions to women in West Michigan.  The website for the organization clearly explains the process for young women who want to obtain a judicial bypass.  While you can check out the website for the complete list of questions, the emphasis is really on the process.  The entire process can take days, only to end in a denial by the judge.  An abortion is a medical decision that should be a private decision made between a patient and a medical practitioner.  It is the right of the woman to make that decision, not the right of the court, her parents, or her partner to be informed or give consent for that decision. 

Abortion, like any other medical procedure, should be available on-demand without religious or moral judgment by the medical practitioner or the government.  Until women are treated as human beings capable of making their own medical decisions we cannot and should not stand for restrictions on abortion or any other medical procedure.  If we do, we are slowly terminating our rights to any medical treatment without restriction based on religious or moral judgment.

If you live in Michigan and would like to tell your representatives how you feel about this issue, please click here to join NARAL's Choice Action Network.

If you would like to share your experiences with abortion, please feel free to do so in the comments section or email us to at the link to the left to discuss guest blogging.

-madlibpoet

Get to making those babies, ladies

Penelope Trunk, career columnist for the Boston Globe, used her boston.com blog this week to lecture those of us with fulfilling jobs and empty uteruses (uteri?). The gist is that we'd better get cracking on the baby-making if we know what's good for us.
She doesn't go so far as to tell single women to go on a husband search, but....oh wait:

"Waiting until your midthirties to start a family, if you want to carry the babies yourself, is a risky endeavor. Which means, of course, you probably want to find a partner by the time you're 30. The good news is that psychology research shows you will gain more happiness anyway by finding a partner than by having a good job." -Trunk

Trunk's personal blog has an extended version of her Boston Globe piece. It includes this little gem:

"1. Get a husband. I know, this is not popular advice, but it's practical advice. A husband is like a
career. If you are not looking for one, you're not likely to find one. If it's not a high priority goal, it's probably not a goal you will meet. So if you want to make sure you're making babies with your own healthy eggs, think of your twenties as the time to find a mate."

Well, then. It's settled. Once you've decided you want the perfect match - Poof! - there he shall be. Easy, right? I'm glad Trunk reminds us to set goals for ourselves. What other helpful bits of advice has this Uppity Bitch learned from Trunk's piece?

1. Your career is far less important than establishing yourself in a hetero-normative marriage. Also, don't
wait around for the right match, take what you can get and get while the getting is good (...or passable, as
the case may be)!

2. Babies, babies, babies! Make lots and lots of precious, precious wittle babies before you - and your
ovaries - shrivel up like the old hag you are otherwise destined to become.

3. Never mind if you aren't certain about marriage or children, this isn't so much about you. It's not about your desires, goals, dreams, state-of-mind, capabilities or maturity level. It doesn't matter if
you're emotionally ready to have children in your 20s, if you've got money - and being the uppity career climbing woman that you are, you do - and eggs, it's really your duty to use them both to create and support - say it with me - babies!

The saddest part is that she admonishes our mother's generation for encouraging today's women to
find their own niche in life. So, mom, when how you told me it was OK to wait until I was ready to get
married and have babies, well, you screwed me! I've spent my 20s having fun, traveling the world, establishing a career, pursuing a broad range of interests and all I've got to show for it is disposable income and a wealth of knowledge that I could *maybe* one day pass on to my children.

-CrazyCatLady

Who are these uppity bitches?

Uppity bitches: Women who "take liberties or assume airs beyond (their) station." Women who have the audacity to think of themselves as autonomous, fully functional, adult humans capable of making decisions about career, family, appearance and their own damn bodies.

Why do we care so much?

MadLibPoet says:

Without boring you with a long-winded diatribe that begins in 1984 with little MadLibPoet defending Geraldine Ferraro, I am inspired to find a way to combine my feminist scholarly past with pop culture to create social activism. A cynical optimist to the end, this blog serves as a way to continue to find a way to bridge the gap between my second-wave inspired feminist education and the world I am living in today.

CrazyCatLady says:

Not one to not question authority, I've never really "known my place." My mother raised me to be an independent, free thinker. I always assumed it was an inherent right for all people to want to control their own lives (career, marriage, sexuality, bodily integrity). It wasn't until later in life that I learned this trait made an uppity bitch.

Signed,

CrazyCatLady and MadLibPoet