Viva la Feminista

I don't want to just send you off to another blog to read something, but sometimes I can't do justice to a piece. So head on over to Alternet to read Alex Jung's White Liberals Have White Privilege Too! I don't agree with every word, but gawd damn, it's pretty right on and does explain white privilege pretty darn well. And it was this paragraph that really drew me in. It was as if someone was writing about me except that I did have a bit of a realization that being Latina meant something, but being as non-Latina in the company of non-Latinas was emphasized without saying those exact words. At least that's how I read the signs. Growing up in the company of white people, I was unaware of systems of whiteness. I knew that, as an Asian American, I looked different (and was unhappy about that), and that my parents faced linguistic and financial barriers (which I blamed them for). I did what "good" Americans did, and I individualized my struggles, believing ...

A quick reminder to get your comments & email address in for the Piper Reed give-a-way . I have three comments, but only one left their email address. Thanks!

There's a new blog carnival in town folks - The Pro-Choice Carnival . Check out the first issue ! Of course, yours truly makes an appearance for my musings if abortion can be in a love story . That was an awesome birthday present. Thanks! Technorati tags: blog carnival , pro-choice carnival , feminist

Britt Bravo at Blogher asks us : What Are Your 2008 Activist Resolutions? 1. Give more money. I really am horrible at giving money to organizations that I support or even volunteer with. I'm going to put reminders in my Treo to help. 2. Write more. This isn't just because I want to be a better writer, but I really do try to incorporate my feminism into everything I write, thus I feel that my writing is an extension of my activism. 3. Get published more...anywhere. See #2, but getting published somewhere other than this blog means a much wider audience. 4. Say no more often. I say yes far too often and that not only makes my life a mess, but it also means that I don't give my best effort towards whichever action I'm trying to do. Sadly, I think my increase in work responsibilities may mean the end of one of my beloved 'after-school' activities and perhaps a need to pick up another one - that is more work related and local. 5. Be a better advocate. In high school ...

I'm back from vacation and ready to rock. Stay tuned for some actual blog posts.

As some of you know, I am a board member of an awesome feminist media organization, Women In Media & News. Well it's that time of the year to ask you to reach into your wallet, perhaps looking between the cushions of your couch, and that spare change in your bag. And who better to ask you to give a little love to WIMN than the amazing Susan Faludi? ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ Dear Friend of WIMN, Award-winning journalist Susan Faludi has spent decades documenting the dangerous impact of media sexism on American women, and on our country. Now, the author of Backlash and The Terror Dream asks for your help to improve the media landscape : “Women in Media & News offers a desperately needed and all-too-rare public service: spotlighting media’s misrepresentations of women from all angles–from distortions to falsehoods to utter erasure–and countering them with careful reporting, no-nonsense statistics, and intelligent analysis. And WIMN’s dispatches are fun to read, to boot. What’s m...

Hoyden about town is taking nominations for best feminist blog post of the year! It was hard picking out two to self-nominate, but I did it. Now to find some other feminist posts that I think were awesome and didn't get a lot of play outside a small circle of readers. I'm all about getting the lil blogger some recognition. So dig through your posts and nominate yourself while you send in your favorite post from here. ;-) 2008 will be the year of no shame for me. Technorati tags: feminist , blogging

From Ipas Policy via The National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health : Dear friends, I’m writing to update you on more disturbing news from Nicaragua and ask for your solidarity. First, some context for the situation. As you may remember, in 2003, members of the Women’s Network against Violence (Red de Violencia contra las Mujeres) in Nicaragua helped a young girl known as “Rosita” obtain a therapeutic abortion, which at the time was legal in Nicaragua. Rosita had been raped and became pregnant at the age of nine. At the time, she said the rapist was a neighbor in Costa Rica; the man maintained he was innocent and he was never convicted of the crime. In August 2007, the Nicaraguan media reported that “Rosita” had become pregnant again and given birth to the baby, and that the accused rapist was her stepfather. She testified in court that her stepfather had raped her and fathered the child, and he was sentenced to 30 years in prison. She also said that her stepfather was the one...

I am a book-aholic, bookworm, and lover of books. I get so lost in books that I really do tune out the rest of the world. My second grade teacher could tell you that as one time I missed a spelling test because I was still reading a book. That is why I love doing book reviews. As the mom of a bookworm, I love reading new children's books hoping to find something new and fun to share with my daughter. Piper Reed: Navy Brat is a great book for young girls and boys. I did try to read this book to her, but she's still all about the pictures in a book and since this is a big girl book, she got quickly bored. You'd think saying it was a "big girl" book would have settled her down, but no. Piper Reed: Navy Brat chronicles the transition Piper, the middle daughter of a Navy officer. She's not quite Jan Brady, but does have some middle child issues that I'm sure we'll see more of in future books. The book starts off with the family moving from San Diego to Flo...

I sent out a very last minute plea for help last week. The Chicago Abortion Fund has a new leadership program for former grantees and this year I adopted one of our fabulous women for Christmas. In fact I adopted her and her very young daughter. Thus I opened up my contacts list and sent an email to a small group of women in Chicago who I thought might donate a gift card or two for a woman struggling to make a life for her and her daughter. I now am temporary owner of 2 big shopping bags (GAP and Ann Taylor Loft), one laundry basket, and one large bankers box of goodies for this woman and her daughter. I was planning on delivering all this to our office tonight, but egads, I'm not Santa! Thus she'll get one bag of goodies (mostly for her daughter) tonight and I'll have to arrange to bring by the other things. I am honestly completely and totally floored that my friends reacted so quickly and generously. Not that I didn't think they'd come through, but I really email...

Abortion has been discussed a lot on the blogosphere this year, mostly surrounding recent USSC rulings and movies like Knocked Up, Waitress, and Juno . The latter has most intrigued me. Not because I'm not interested in what 8 men in dresses say I should do with my womb, but because I think that pop culture can push and pull society in certain directions despite what the men in dresses say. The biggest critique of the movies ( note: I corrected the link. Sorry! ) is that while abortion is discussed (whether for a second or more), the pregnant woman ends up not having an abortion. And for some reason this is a problem for some pro-choice bloggers. And of course, the anti's jump at this plot device as a reason to dub the film "pro-life." (Many anti's held this opinion of Sugar and Spice as well.) In my opinion, I think both are pretty wrong. I find more fault with Knocked Up at showcasing women as stick-in-the-muds who need a slacker lover to get them to wake up ...

Wednesday, December 19th this will be just one of the many stops on the Piper Reed Book Blog Tour: It’s not easy being the middle child, especially when your dad is a Navy Chief. Meet Piper Reed, a spunky nine-year-old who has moved more times than she can count on one hand. From Texas to Guam, wherever Piper goes, adventure follows, inspired by her active imagination, free-wheeling spirit, and a bit of sister magic. Unlike her older sister, Piper loves being part of a Navy family, and unlike her younger sister, Piper is no prodigy genius. Piper is Piper–fearless and full of life! I'll be posting my review of the book along with some Q & A with author Kimberly Willis Holt. If you leave a comment in this post or Wednesday's post, that will enter you into a drawing for a free copy of this book. And without giving away too much, you'll want this book! March 28-30, 2008 I'll be presenting at WAM ! OMG, I got invited to the big girls table! ;-) I'll be presenting on...

The gift giving season is here! All the big stores have their catalogs out, the commercials are running non-stop, and Santa's waiting line is longer than the Hannah Montana ticket line. But here you are, burnt out on princess garb, too scared to buy anything from China, and frankly out of ideas for the girl (or boy!) who has everything. Look no further than Veronica's Gift Giving Guide for (Really) Young Feminists: Sticker Sisters : This awesome website offers all the necessities for nurturing the radical feminist in your daughter, niece, or little sister. Sticker Sisters carries t-shirts that fit babies and us aging-young feminists and plenty of gift packs to choose from (Is she a rocker, a writer, or a brave girl?). You can even get your gifts boxed in environmentally friendly boxes. I've met Ariel, who runs this creation, and she is one awesome woman. Each time I see her, she has her mom AND grandmother sitting at the table selling shoe laces & stickers. The Femi...

Aiken Area Progressive named me person of the Month...for November. I just found this honor, so a very belated thank you to this wonderful blog! I received this honor for my work on the Planned Parenthood Aurora site. It was a lot of work, but getting emails here and there telling me thank you made it worth it. Now back to a webinar I'm on. Technorati tags: Person of the Month

I haven't gone anywhere, but lots of stuff has been happening this weekend and culminating to a luncheon today. I hope to be back tonight with something more intelligent and to finally catch up on the Go Run posts. Thanks.

And guess who's in it? So thanks to Days in a wannabe punk's life for the inclusion. My Dora rant post was featured. Welcome to those of you reading me who are coming in from the carnival! Hope you come back and feel free to comment. Other posts that are featured that I want to point out: This post at Feminist Allies was made by Jeff to honor the spirit of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, but since it was about violence in comic strips (oh how funny har har, not) I thought it was appropriate for this category. Anindita Sengupta at Ultra Violet has a scathing post up on the silence, or worse; the squirm worthy coverage of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence campaign, by the Indian media. Natasha at Homo Academicus expands on her reasoning behind calling herself a feminist and not a ‘humanist’ or an ‘equalist’ and works through the pros and cons behind the feminist label. Vidya from The Mountaintop asks if the presence of a divine feminine , irr...

Today at the Chicago Moms Blog & our sister sites , we are tackling the issue of breastfeeding. This is my contribution. I don't want to get into the politics of breastfeeding in public (I support it, I've done it) or whether you are a bad mom if you use formula (done that too). I do want to get into what I think is at the base of many of the arguments and that is not whether mothers should breastfeed, but the idea that breastfeeding is a fundamental right. If we saw it that way, we wouldn't have to fight to keep formula out of our goody bags at the hospital, stand tall after 20 hours of labor when the nurse insists on giving the baby a "little something", or to discreetly nurse while on an airplane. Because if we were really a world of people who cared about children & cute lil babies, we wouldn't deny an infant their sole source of nourishment. Sayda Umanzor's child was denied : On Oct. 26, Sayda Umanzor, who sometimes spells her first name Said...

A not so secret bit of trivia about me. While I had a few best girl friends growing up, I never felt comfortable with them. I grew up one of those tomboys who so disliked girly girls that I went out of my way to avoid them, scoffed at their likes, and preferred to hang out with the guys. NG was too pretty for me to feel comfortable with. It wasn't anything she did, I just felt like the ugly friend. KC & I competed too much to be girl friends the way it should had been. We went out or went after the same boys. We both played softball. We were both in honors classes - though she starting opting out. I'll never forget her blabbing about my latest date..to my sister, while I felt that defended her when the L-word was tossed around. In college I made a few girl friends, but due to the commuting nature of our school, I bonded only with a few and I lost track of both of them. It wasn't until I was well out of college that I was able to trust women to be friends and not feel th...

In the end, the sight of the snow storm from the hotel windows scared my posse & me enough to hit the road early - way early. We left at 3 pm. I'll go over the individual sessions in separate posts, but overall it was worth it to travel to Wisconsin for a day to learn why women are needed in politics. At the beginning of November Tucker Carlon told Eleanor Smeal that women are too smart to be in politics . Well I met some brilliant women this weekend who are in politics this weekend. What Mr. Bow-tie is reallly worried about is the idea that if we do get enough women in politics the game changes. Panel after panel, women elected to offices that ranged from local to state-wide showed that in very little time, they were changing the way that the game was being played. Being a Chicagoan I know that politics is much more than just passing laws to make this world a better, safer place. There are friends to help out, our cousin's best friend's company to gift a sweetheart con...

wow...I can't get over how many fabu women are in this room. We just finished up a session on building your community for change. I admit that I am horrible at being strategic about life and this session was all about planning. More on this later. Technorati tags: White House Project , politics , Marie Wilson

Good morning! Weather report - It looks cold out there, but so far no snow or rain, but everyone is warning that it will be bad later today. Hopefully it'll all happen while we're in the hotel. So last night...it was great! The woman, er, young woman who runs the trainings is only 26. Ok, so that didn't do too much for my ego, but hey, she's doing an awesome job. She told us a little bit about who is here and we range in age from 17 to 66 years old. Seventeen!? OK, now I really feel like a slacker. But gotta say, if this had existed when I was 17, I'd be here too. We have teachers, students (my roomie is a freshman at Alverno ), engineers, homemakers, crossing guards, lawyers, and activists. 25% of us don't affiliate with any major party. We have one sister-sister team and one mother-daughter team (I met them in the elevator and was wistful. My mom was PTA president...sigh). The White Project is in Wisconsin thanks to some grants they received to work in Wiscons...