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Cross posted from Salon's Broadsheet

For all the ink that's been spilled on the Madoff investment scandal, I've read nothing about its impact on funding for progressive women's causes -- which is considerable. Simply put, only a small pool of foundations are funding litigation and advocacy work related to criminal justice or constitutional rights; the pool that supports related programs targeted to women is smaller still. With the recent shuttering of two of Madoff's clients, the Picower Foundation and the JEHT Foundation, that pool has shrunk to a puddle.

Picower was one of a handful of foundations willing to stick their necks out and significantly fund the three organizations that handle virtually all major reproductive rights-related litigation and legal advocacy in the United States. Now the Center for Reproductive Rights needs to make up a $600,000 shortage in 2009; Planned Parenthood is out $484,000; the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project is off $200,000.

The economic crisis makes it particularly difficult to replace that kind of money. Meanwhile, there's a backlog of bad new laws that need to be contested. It's likely to grow this year with the popularity of mandatory ultrasound laws for abortion patients, one of the favorite new litigation strategies of antiabortion activists. (Seventeen states considered more than 30 ultrasound bills in 2007 alone.)

I know there have been posts about this before, but I need to get this off my chest. (This is coming from a heterosexual woman, so this is just my reflections on some heteronormative dating standards). This is also sort of a rant... but I really needed to put this out there....

Dating as a feminist is hard. Sometimes it sucks. Sometimes it hurts.

It's sad that when I meet a man, I have to slowly and cautiously let him know I am a feminist because the majority of men I have met are not feminists (I believe that they are out there, somewhere).

The guy I've been dating (for only a few months) told me he knew he could never be in love with me because he learned: 1. That if I get married, I don't want a traditional wedding/engagement ring/any of those sexist traditions, and 2. That I don't want my own children, I want to adopt and could see myself adopting as a single mother.

To complicate that more, he said he was "falling for me" and "starting to love me" but couldn't because of the aforementioned reasons.

So yeah, I just had the most horribly awkward "talk" with my mom...on the issue of bisexuality. And the possibility that that's what I might be. I bring this up because there is much discussion on feministing about lesbian/gay/transgender rights, but bisexuality continues to be the invisible sexual preference....Not that I am totally comfortable with the term myself. I wish people would discuss the inherent fluidity of sexuality; as such I hesitate to say I'm bi, because the prefix 'bi' indicates two, and I can't say my sexual preference falls into two categories (namely, male and female). I am attracted to pretty much everybody. Gay men. Lesbian women. Transgender people. Transsexual people. Androgynous people. Men that look like women. Women that look like men. Everyone.

I'm reading Jennifer Baumgardner's 'Looking Both Ways'; someone in it described themselves as 'omnisexual', saying that 'bisexual' was too limiting a word. I agree wholeheartedly.

Anyway, back to my horribly mortifying talk with my mom. I (very awkwardly and stupidly) brought the issue up after a long heart to heart we had. I figured we had both talked for a while, were both relaxed, and maybe it was a good time to bring it up. The possibility that I was bi. Well, after my mom laughed with disbelief in my face, she informed me that she doesn't believe in 'bi' and that everyone settles for one gender sooner or later. She said it was a phase and for people who are confused. She then seemed uncomfortable and mad at me for the rest of the night. I felt really bad so I apologized and said I was joking. She just told me she wasn't ready for that kind of "joking or whatever it was". I feel really stupid now, and a little mortified.... Anyway, I wanted to share my little story (this is my first time posting on feministing), and maybe get a discussion going about bisexuality and/or people's experiences in trying to talk to their parents/loved ones about it, or coming to terms with it in themselves.

My 16 year old sister came up to my room the other day to tell me how she was bummed out about her boyfriend. Apparently he keeps making “that’s so gay” and uses the word “faggot” a lot. This is something that really offends her considering that in her spare time she does A LOT of gay rights activist work and so forth. SO they got into a big fight and she still felt terrible about that one time when one of his friend was blaming feminism for the way things are so screwed up today. He just squeezed her hand as if to signify for her not to say anything. So she didn’t say anything. This still bothers her today. So while she was telling me all this I was thinking of how to compose an answer for her when she interrupted my thoughts with that stinging question “How will I ever find someone better?” I stumbled over my answer and told her she didn’t need a boyfriend to be happy, etc etc. But it made me wonder. I am pretty lucky I have a progressive boyfriend who even claims to be a feminist, but not everyone is as lucky.

Something I've been thinking about:

In the feminist community, encouraging purity is bad, but so are photos of naked women. 

I think one of the main divisions between the schools of feminism is which one seems like the worse threat. I am sex-positive third-wave because the chastity-pushers piss me off far more than any perfume ad with naked women. With the abstinence crowd, the judgment on those who fail conform to the ideal is very, very overt. If you don't save yourself for marriage, you'll get herpes and AIDS and abortions and you'll never find a husband. Most of the time, sexy pictures are just sexy pictures.

To me, there is no problem unless the image or ad or whatever it is comes with judgment towards those who don't fit. 

The market is saturated with pictures of the same kind of woman -- skinny, with big tits and lots of make-up -- and that's a problem. But in cases where the trend is the problem you can't point to one particular example and claim that it's excluding you. That's saying that this particular woman isn't sexy, and she isn't real. Supermodels are real people, and calling a woman unsexy because she's too thin or because she's had plastic surgery is douchebaggy and hypocritical.

This is a bit of rant, but I'm hoping to open it up the discussion of tactics used to silence minorities.

I really did not luck out when it comes to discrimination. I'm oppressed as a bisexual, as a woman, as a person who struggles with mental health, as a Jew, as a teenager. It could be a lot worse, I know. But it's not fun to live your life in fear of discrimination everyday.

I've never really got why people want to silence those who simply want equality. I've never gotten why it's so scary that people of color, or woman, or anyone wants to be treated equally. I was raised by leftist radicals, and I guess it never occurred to me that anyone should be denied their basic human rights. I don't understand it.

I live in a very conservative, upper-middle class, white town. It's truly frightening how intolerant a lot of people are. But I've always limited myself to the small group of liberals, or even moderates, who are part of my school. So when people start sending me chain letters, pictures, etc on facebook that are bigoted and offensive, I'm shocked.

One that made rounds at my school was a horrible piece of flair that called homosexuality perversion, and said that only heterosexual couples had love. Someone was dumb enough to send this to me and a good friend of mine who is gay. The worst part is, the girl who sent it had always been nice and polite to us. It's awful that people think they can do that.

I happen to be the owner of a webcam . So I decided to record a little shout-out to my friends about this. It turned into a nineteen minute long rant about everything from Prop 8 to religion. But I fond it mostly came down to two things: Feminism and silence

I ended up posting the thing on youtube in three parts, just to see what peoples reactions would be. I may post a link later, but in truth it's beside the point. This is a good time to point out I am very neurotic in manner. I'm jumpy, talk fast, etc. I do suffer from mental "illness." I've accepted it as part of who I am. It doesn't make me anymore or less of a person.

So far I've only got one comment on the video:

"Does feminism make women neurotic, or do neurotic women gravitate towards feminism?"

Really. This person could of said something sensible, cited facts, and actually talked about why they think I'm wrong. But no. They just tried to reduce me to nothing because of my mannerisms. I have no doubt that I will soon get a bunch of "fat and ugly" comments as well.

I've been insulted before, and almost never does someone try to disprove my point. Instead, they try and de humanize me.

The weird thing is people still take those who say only sling mud seriously. The leader of the young republicans at my school is infamous for personally insulting everyone who dared disagree with him, yet people still think he's a stand up guy.

So, I leave this group with a question: How have others tried to dehumanize you, and why do you people still follow those who sling mud?

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, about myself, and what it means to know myself. I realized that as a feminist, I often define myself in terms of things outside myself - how I fit into society, how I react to other people. Just as important, however, is starting from inside myself and building outwards. In my introspection, I ran across some beautiful letters that Rainer Maria Rilke wrote at the beginning of the 20th century (published as his "Letters to a Young Poet"), and one section resonated particularly deeply with the part of me who identifies as a feminist. The text:

The girl and the woman, in their new, individual unfolding, will only in passing be imitators of male behavior and misbehavior and repeaters of male professions. After the uncertainty of such transitions, it will become obvious that women were going through the abundance and variation of those (often ridiculous) disguises just so that they could purify their own essential nature and wash out the deforming influences of the other sex. Women, in whom life lingers and dwells more immediately, more fruitfully, and more confidently, must surely have become riper and more human in their depths than light, easygoing man, who is not pulled down beneath the surface of life by the weight of any bodily fruit and who, arrogant and hasty, undervalues what he thinks he loves. This humanity of woman, carried in her womb through all her suffering and humiliation, will come to light when she has stripped off the conventions of mere femaleness in the transformations of her outward status, and those men who do not yet feel it approaching will be astonished by it. Someday (and even now, especially in the countries of northern Europe, trustworthy signs are already speaking and shining), someday there will be girls and women whose name will no longer mean the mere opposite of the male, but something in itself, something that makes one think not of any complement and limit, but only life and reality: the female human being.

I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute..."
--Rebecca West, The Clarion, 11/14/13

The reason racism is a feminist issue is easily explained by the inherent definition of feminism. Feminism is the political theory and practice to free all women: women of color, working-class women, poor women, physically challenged women, lesbians, old women --as well as white economically privileged heterosexual women. Anything less than this is not feminism, but merely female self-aggrandizement."
--Barbara Smith, 1979

I went out to dinner at a local bar/restaurant last night with my two guy friends from high school. Toward the end of our tex-mex dining, I noticed that on the wall there was a large painting of a woman holding a tray of drinks. She had a low cut blue dress that showed off her shoulders and part of her chest (no cleavage), and the outline of her left breast and nipple was quite visible once the waiters moved tables out of the way to make room for the band.

This painting got our conversation started about the objectification of women and their bodies in advertising and in the media in general . My conservative Republican counterpart opined it was up to the consumer what was in and hot and now, and that advertisers, television shows, musicians, etc., simply “give the people what they want.” My centrist psychology major friend conceded that what I was saying was true and that change should happen…but it won’t for another 20-50 years. “I’m all about gradualism,” he said, “And what you’re saying and what you’re working for right now, you’re not going to get any results for.”

Conservative agreed. “It’s the undecideds you’re going after. I don’t like people who think they can change my values, my views, my opinions. I’m already set in my ways. Don’t try to change that.”

The conversation continued on for just about an hour, and I even tried to break it down to the simplest terms: patriarchy, who are the determinants of what is “the social norm,” why must we follow those, and another Yuengling later dot dot dot

I want to pose to the community, If this is what I meet in a group of my peers, my closest, what kind of hope do I have in this feminist movement to push forward with change? The kind of change we work for and want to see? How does one respond to that?   Do you have similar stories?

I have a couple of friends, whose identities are sadly built around men. One of them feels too ashamed to be single, after splitting up with one bf, always goes back to her ex, because she "might as well," and is too embarressed of being single, as if she needs a man to have an identity.

Another friend, and in hindsight I realise now how she was influencing me of succumbing to sexist ideals, would look at my Myspace and comment on me not being "photogenic" and spending ages lecturing me on the "correct" angles to take my pics, and ways to look sexy. She also got me into shaving my bikibi line, as "guys prefer it so much more" and generally how to be "sexy." Also telling me one time "it feels weird to be single."

Classic line that really gets on my tits? "Have you got a bf YET?" What's with the "yet"? Since when has it been a rite of passage? I used to get so depressed by it, started hating myself for not being able to get guys I like and branding myself "not a real woman" coz of it, and becoming very bitter towards my mates who could get guys.

But as I've grown up, I've seen from many young women, they don't want a particular someone special, they want a Boyfriend (with a capital B) like a must-have fashion accessory.