Ass-Backwards

Wow. I'm reading an article on feminism and stay-at-home moms on Alternet, here, and I can't believe that I, a women's studies major who once wrote a paper entitled (I do not jest): "Top 10 Reasons Not To Have Kids", find pretty much everything the author says to be completely ass-backwards. Her basic point is that elite women like me who are home baking pie with their kids (actually, Max is baking the apple pie this morning, but I did help Ari peel some apples for it) are an affront to feminism:

Here's the feminist moral analysis that choice avoided: The family -- with its repetitious, socially invisible, physical tasks -- is a necessary part of life, but it allows fewer opportunities for full human flourishing than public spheres like the market or the government. This less-flourishing sphere is not the natural or moral responsibility only of women. Therefore, assigning it to women is unjust. Women assigning it to themselves is equally unjust. To paraphrase, as Mark Twain said, "A man who chooses not to read is just as ignorant as a man who cannot read."

The author of this article has clearly never spent any time at all in a windowless cubicle, sifting through emails about the latest reorg, or attending all-staff lunch meetings in windowless conference rooms to watch tedious, information-free powerpoint presentations while eating lukewarm spaghetti from a giant aluminum-foil serving tin. The world of work is, for the most part, and for the majority of college-educated women AND men, the last place on earth in which "full human flourishing" is possible. I do not envy my husband his working in that world; I pity him. Cleaning up after a toddler can be deadening, of course, and work can sometimes be fascinating and important. I am grateful to have the luxury to stay at home, though plenty of us stay-at-home moms work very, very hard to be able to afford that luxury. I think I'm far luckier than most other SAHMs I know, whose husbands work too damn hard and too damn long, so that they end up single parents in many ways. It bothers me too that men run the world and dominate business and government. Of course I'd like to think that women would do it better. But I didn't go to all the trouble of having a child so that I could let someone else have all the fun of raising him, while also not having much fun myself at work in the 'public sphere'. I have no beef with women who do; people have different ideas about fun, and some people do have cubicles with a view. But, given that work sucks for the majority of people, AND that our country will NEVER be Sweden, say, and make it actually reasonable to shoulder both the responsibilities of work and those of family, I think it's the obvious respectful behavior for U.S. feminists to refrain from criticizing other U.S. feminists' decisions about what they can best stomach in their own lives. All our choices, to some extent, suck. (Yes, I know that my not working now puts me at more risk of being poor later, if Max dumps me for a younger woman and a second family, or if he dies, or whatever. And I also know that working full-time now would result in my head exploding, now. So, you know, I take my chances, like we all do.)


There are so many things I find exasperating about this article, actually. The author sagely tells young women to 'follow the money' in their career choices. Um, hello. You are a WOMEN"S STUDIES PROFESSOR! And while she argues that women who think they choose to stay at home are actually not really choosing it, she thinks they made the wrong choice. Huh?

I just cannot believe that in 2005 we are still having this conversation. There are so many other important women's issues to worry about. Yes, role models are important, but comprehensive healthcare is more important. The choices I have available to me suck, but not nearly so much as they COULD suck. My personal work-family situation is not, at this time, worth a lot of useless (since, as stated above, U.S. != Sweden, and never, ever will be) activism. Not like, say, TORTURE.

Psychotic poetry

My annual descent-into-winter-darkness ritual includes the purchase of a brain-rotting video game. This year's selection is Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, which consists of firing guns and rockets at hideous beasts inhabiting beautiful Mayan temples. Fortunately, there is no story line.

Yesterday, I encountered a room that is so full of hideous enemies that one can only progress by detonating a "serious bomb" (yes, that's what it's called). For some reason, the key that fires the serious bomb isn't working properly, so I sought out the game cheats, the secret commands that allow you to do almost anything via a special text interface. This evening, I discovered my notes, which read like some psychotic high school poetry:

please god
please killall
please open
please refresh

Fertility

Oh, everyone in the blogosphere is talking about this article, on the stigma, even among pro-choice circles, of having more than one abortion. Abortion providers are all, well, duh, birth control is not 100%, so of course there will be some women who have more than one abortion. But regular women are all like, well geez, didn't she learn the first time.

So I thought I'd point out a really incredible resource to help any of my (female) readers do better with preventing pregnancy, or with getting pregnant, as the case may be. The really incredible resource is your cervical snot, and this book Taking Charge of Your Fertility will tell you everything you need to know about your cervical snot, and about what it has to do with how fertile you are. If you are trying to get pregnant, obviously you want to screw on your most fertile days. If you're trying to avoid it, you may want to avoid screwing on those days, even if you use another form of birth control. Because if your regular birth control fails you on a day when you're super-fertile to begin with, you should rush off to a pharmacist and get the morning-after pill. If you can find a pharmacist who will fill your prescription, that is.

There's a huge number of people out there who want to take charge of your fertility for you, and I don't think any of us can look forward and believe that birth control, the morning-after pill, and abortions are going to become easier to get in the future. We are going to have to return to the guerilla women's health days of the 70s, and we will need all the knowledge we can get about our own bodies.

Kafka's Medicare Prescription Drug Plan

Yesterday I got a letter from my insurance provider. Luckily, it did not apply to me, as I am not eligible for Medicare prescription drug coverage. I pity any of my readers who are. A representative paragraph:

If you wait until after May 15, 2006, to enroll, your monthly premium for a Medicare prescription drug plan could be much higher than it would have been if you had enrolled by May 15. If, after May 15, 2006, you go 63 days or longer without prescription drug coverage that is at least as good as Medicare's prescription drug coverage, your premium will go up at least 1% per month for every month after May 15, 2006 that you did not have that coverage. You will have to pay this higher premium as long as you have Medicare prescription drug coverage. For example, if you go nineteen months without coverage, your premium will always be at least 19% higher than what most other people pay.

Oh readers, I know I have abandoned you...

and now, to add insult to injury, I offer you a half-assed post consisting of an out-of-context quote I happened to like. And that other people have already quoted. Man, I suck.

Talking Points Memo:What this country will end up needing is something like a Truth and Reconciliation Commission because what the country needs is not so much for particular people to go to jail but for the lies and the lies to cover up earlier lies to stop. The country can't get past what has happened or move forward until we can get the truth on the table, deal with it and move on.

A tale of two Republicans

The mayoral race in New York City, to which I'm frankly not paying tons of attention, brings up an interesting contrast between two Republicans: Michael Bloomberg and George Bush. They are both opportunists who entered office in only a marginally democratic fashion: GWB by subverting the 2000 election, and Bloomberg by determining that his opening was in the Republican party and essentially buying his way in. They also both see themselves as business leaders running corporations.

The similarities largely end there, however. Where GWB's "CEO state" is one born of incompetent crony capitalism -- and recall GWB is from an old-money family -- Bloomberg's administration is by most measures a highly capable meritocracy. (Bloomberg himself is a far richer man than the patrician Bush; he was a lower-middle-class Jewish kid from Boston who made his fortune all by himself.) Where W's near-dictatorial policies are informed by the most fanatical reactionaries to be found in the country, Bloomberg is relatively liberal, and governs by consensus. Bloomberg certainly has made some major, crony-capitalism-type gaffes, the (fortunately) now-scuttled Jets Stadium among them, but he mostly, at least to me, seems to be a reasonable, equable mayor.