This Week in Blogs: July 19 - 25

This week has been pretty uneventful for me. I get to spend my weekend babysitting three hyper kids, that's about as exciting as it gets. I hope all of you have had more eventful and productive weeks. Here are some of my favorite blog posts from this week. There are a lot of them because, well, there were a lot of really good posts this week and I am still constantly discovering new feminist blogs that I want to share with everyone!

Daily Kos's Feminist Wish List -- What Do You Think [Bitch Blogs]

Quick (listening) hit: Debating abstinence [Feministing]

Will "Orphan" hurt orphans? [Salon Broadsheet]

Is Marie Claire Just Messing with Us [Glossed Over]

Thoughts on oppression, masculinity, power, the male gaze, street harassment, and slavery [Gender Across Borders]

Jimmy Carter leaves church, criticizes religious sexism [Appetite for Equal Rights]

Should Tiller's Assassin Be Charged as a Domestic Terrorist? [RH Reality Check]

Those Who See "U.S." Read "Us" [Shakesville]

Dancing Around Race Relations: Prom Night in Mississippi [Jezebel]

Health Care, It's Personal [Womanist Musings]

Obama uses tradition to justify dismissing abortion rights [Deeply Problematic]

The Hermione in my Head [Feministing Community]

LOL you're a feminist [o filthy grandeur!]

Let's not be so quick to judge in 'women vs. Ben Roethlisberger [Spare Candy]

What Feminism Is and What It Should Be (with a little help from bell hooks) [Small Strokes] - a little over a week old, but still good!

And finally, both The Curvature and Jump Off the Bridge participated in the blogathon yesterday - check out their numerous posts!

What have you been writing and reading this week? Leave links in the comments!

Have You Heard? Ms. is Using Religious Imagery

The blogosphere has been abuzz the past couple days about Ms. magazine's summer cover. This cover uses Hindu imagery of multiple arms to portray what modern moms are juggling.

Bitch was the first that I saw that commented on this cover. Mandy Van Deven at Bitch was not pleased that Ms. appropriated Hindu religious iconography, especially when they didn't seem to do their research...

The multiple arms on a god or goddess represent their strength and ability to multitask, and the multi-armed representation is not one that is appropriate for a human form, as the pose is intended to convey that these abilities are super-human. Another question that begs to be answered is which god or goddess is this woman supposed to be depicting? The number of arms in this cover (8) is quite uncommon. This seems to demonstrate a lack of knowledge on the part of the cover designer about depictions of and difference among Hindu deities, as well as confirms this use for solely aesthetic purposes.

It is a shame that a) Ms. didn't do their research to at least appropriately represent a Hindu god or goddess and b) that the appropriation of South Asian religious imagery is so common in the United States today.

Choices Campus Blog then responded to this article on Bitch. Laura at Choices Campus Blog defends the Ms. cover saying...

In fact, the cover reads "Mom 2.0: She Blogs, She Tweets, She Rises up!" There is no indication of religion, but instead Ms. is trying to point out the many responsibilities that the modern woman (or mother) has, between balancing a typical "mom" with a career.

Laura even shows how this recent cover is a remake of a Ms. cover from 1972.


While I don't know that showing that it is a remake of a previous cover shows that it isn't an appropriation of Hindu imagery and isn't offensive, I do think it is important to look at both sides of the responses to this cover.

Bitch blog then had another post about the cover from Veronica I. Arreola, again defending the Ms. cover.

the image of a multi-armed woman in relation to motherhood is most likely as old as motherhood itself. I imagine this is why women papoosed or slung their infants to them as they worked the fields. As some in the comments of Mandy's post pointed out, their own mothers use to say "I wish I had another set of arms!" or "I don't have 8 arms missy!"

For Arreola, this imagery is appropriate for the multitude of tasks that mothers have to handle. Not being a mother myself, I can only imagine the demands that mother's have one them. But I don't think that using Hindu imagery is necessarily the most appropriate way to represent this, as Arreola does.

Afer Arreola's post at Bitch, RMJ at Deeply Problematic decided to join the conversations. She saw Arreola's response as lazy and even more offensive for trying to portray the Ms. cover as an octopus.

Just because something is commonly seen in popular culture does not make it an okay reference to reify. No, not even if you're doing it to support moms. Come on. Privilege blinds, and appropriation in imagery and language is not okay if you're on our side...
...Women can be shown to multitask with hydra heads, or with blurred hands doing many things, or... I don't know, something. There's no need to mock and appropriate the imagery of a religion that millions of people currently practice.

So far, I have been trying to show how others have been discussing the matter of this cover. But now it's time for me the throw in my two cents...

This cover shows the lack of cultural sensitivity in the United States. Seeing as how people defend the cover as an appropriate representation of multitasking, oppression of religions other than certain forms of Christianity is still (obviously) a problem in the United States. Using Hindu imagery shows that people do not view Hinduism as a "legitimate" religion, instead mocking or mimicking Hindu deities for the purposes of selling magazines.

I was shocked to see this on the cover of Ms. I love Ms. and I'm sure that all of the content of this issue is outstanding, as usual. But I was surprised that Ms. fell into this trend of appropriation of cultural and religious imagery at the expense of an oppressed population. So, ultimately, I agree with what Van Deven at Bitch and RMJ at Deeply Problematic had to say about this cover. It is a gross way of representing mothers by oppressing Hindus. Like RMJ said, there are many other ways to show all of the demands placed on mothers in today's society.

Abortion is a Blessing

This isn't the common belief held by many people, including some feminists. I'll admit that I have occassionally used an argument along the lines of "yes, aboriton is a tragedy, but it is the lesser of two evils." I have used this argument to get anti-choicers to recognize a woman's right to choose and that sometimes it is the better option, even if it is "evil." What I was not aware of when I was making this kind of argument was that this argument might actually be deterring the pro-choice movement.

At the 2009 National NOW Conference, I heard Rev. Dr. Katherine Ragsdale talk about reproductive rights as an Episcopal priest. She says that "abortion is a blessing," never a tragedy. What is a tragedy, according to Ragsdale, is the loss of hopes and dreams. Whether an unplanned pregnancy is a resule of rape or just faulty birth control, abortion is blessing to that woman in need. Unplanned pregnancies can severely disrupt the hopes and dreams of women and abortions help to restore these. And when women want children and have a planned pregnancy, but health issues require her to get a late-term abortion to save her life, the loss of the hopes and dreams of having a child is the real tragedy. Not the abortion. Never the abortion.

When we, as feminists, make concessions that abortion is a tragedy but the lesser of two evils, we lose our footing and this will eventually lead to loosing the pro-choice battle. We are still fighting to uphold Roe v. Wade. Abortion providers are being murdered. This is a pro-choice battle. If we say that abortion is a tragedy, anti-choicers can use the argument that even pro-choice feminists believe that abortion is evil so it should be illegal.

As feminists, we need to stand our ground that abortion is a blessing for women who face the fear and stress of an unplanned pregnancy. We need to continue to defend the ruling of Roe v. Wade. We need to support our local or state abortion providers. We need to work for the reproductive rights of all women around the country and around the world.

The speech that Rev. Dr. Katherine Ragsdale gave at the 2009 National NOW Conference was really inspiring and eye-opening. I am so used to hearing the religious argument that abortion is murder, women shouldn't use birth control, and that LGBTQ people are less than human. But it was amazing to hear a pro-choice, reproductive and LGBTQ rights advocate who was a religious person, not to mention an Episcopal prient. Ragsdale was recently elected as the second woman and first openly lesbian or gay president and deal of Episcopal Divinity School. Ragsdale will be responsible for teaching and training a new generation of priests which will make strides (not steps) toward the religious support of reproductive and LGBTQ rights.

Rev. Dr. Katherine Ragsdale's selected sermons
EDS information on Ragsdale