Just stopping by to say hello and share with you these videos of two three! amazing Congresswomen speaking out against the Pence Amendment on the House floor. The Pence Amendment would cut off federal funds to Planned Parenthood.
I am simultaneously shaking in anger and beaming with pride. Representatives Gwen Moore (D-WI), Jackie Speier (D-CA) and Louise Slaughter (D-NY) are heroes.
First, Rep. Moore, who, in response to the anti-choicers’ claims that Planned Parenthood commits genocide against black babies, said, “I know all about black babies. I’ve had three of them.” People had the nerve to get up and leave during her speech.
And Rep. Speier, who testified about her own abortion experience:
ETA: I found another one, of Rep. Slaughter. Thanks, Nancy Pelosi’s YouTube channel!
I wish I had a transcript. If anyone comes across one (or both) please let me know.
Partial transcript of Speier’s remarks at Think Progress.
For me the best part was Jackie Speir’s righteous contempt for the prickish gentleman from New Jersey who preceded her. Icy disdain, done right.
Also…this is why we need more women in Congress. SRSLY.
Kate Harding has transcripts for the first two up at her blog
http://kateharding.info/2011/02/18/watch-rep-speiers-and-rep-moore-teach-some-old-white-men-a-thing-or-two/#more-525
What will it take to energize young women to fight this blatant woman-hatred? What else do they have to do to make the point?
MM, can you please quit it with the “young women are so apathetic and don’t fight for reproductive rights” crap? I’ve heard you mention it more than once and it really irritates me. First of all, it sounds a hell of a lot like victim blaming. Blame the antis. Blame the politicians. They are the ones attempting to strip us of our rights. They are the problem.
Designating women over 50 as the generation that fights for reproductive rights and the rest of us as complacent and unbothered by woman-hatred is patronizing, judgmental, and divisive. It’s also untrue, particularly here on this blog.
I’m so irritated with everyone talking in the background of every video! Grah! I love these women.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on this one, Becky. I don’t see women-or men, for that matter-in their 20′s and 30′s getting out and mobilizing, writing letters, donating, or voting in the numbers we need to make and keep laws protecting women. Look at the numbers of voters under 40 in the midterm election. The Obama spike disappeared. If you believe it’s patronizing to point that out, so be it. But it is true the older the person, the more likely that person is to vote. If we fail to exercise our franchise, we are failing in our duty as citizens and giving the right a victory they don’t even have to work to earn. I do judge people who can’t be bothered to vote. Don’t you?
Of course the real villains here are the antis. But the way to fight them is to speak and act. Just identifying the bad guys changes nothing-everyone knows who they are. We-every woman in this country, regardless of age-are all victims of the woman-hating tactics of the right. And we have the power to stop them. Look at the “non-violent rape” provision of this contemptible law. Look at the attempt to legalize murder of abortion providers in South Dakota. We-women of all ages and races-raised our voices and stopped those actions. We-all of us together-MUST act. Identifying the enemy is only the first step.
If you want to preach at the people in their 20s and 30s who you think are insufficiently concerned about women’s rights, fine, but I don’t think you’ll find them on this particular site, so you might want to take it elsewhere.
Personally, I see a hell of a lot of people in their 20s and 30s mobilizing, writing letters, signing petitions, donating, etc. Maybe that’s because those people are my age and they are the crowd I tend to hang out with.
But shaking your finger at younger women and acting like they bring misogyny or political oppression on themselves by not behaving how *you* personally think they should is offensive.
@mischiefmanager: Just because *you* don’t see it happening doesn’t mean young people aren’t out there kicking ass. The older women in my life are total throwbacks who think I should surely be married and popping out babies by now–but I’m not going to hold that against you or any other older woman. And I would be doing a whole lot more activism if it wasn’t such a struggle to feed myself. Remember, in this society youth may be worshiped but age does have its own privileges (like work experience).
In other news, these speeches brought tears of pride to my eyes. PREACH ON, LADIES! It’s so nice to see such dignified fury directed at the right targets.
“But it is true the older the person, the more likely that person is to vote.”
Yeah, for Tea Party candidates.
I share your frustration about apathy among young people but I prefer apathy to aggressive cruelty.
p.s. Thank you for the transcripts, folks!
Becky, that is in no way what I said or what I meant. No one asks for or brings on themselves the kind of hatred we’re seeing from the right. What I was getting at is that the only way we can protect ourselves is to fight back. And it would seem to me that the people who are most threatened by the loss of abortion rights would be the ones fighting the hardest, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. That’s based on personal experience as well as what I’ve read.
My experiences are just as valid as yours or verity’s, and I can tell you that our clinic escort group here has had an extremely difficult time recruiting women in their 20′s and 30′s. (We don’t allow anyone under 18 to escort.) I offer no theory as to why that might be; I just know that despite recruiting efforts, we haven’t been successful until last fall. I’d guess the extreme rhetoric we’re hearing and the attack legislation we’re seeing have encouraged some younger women to get involved, and that is very heartening. Of course, this is only our experience here; other clinics in other cities may be different.
@SarahMC: Voting rates rise with age generally. See: http://www.allcountries.org/uscensus/477_voting_age_population_percent_reporting_registered.html
I don’t see that our only choices are apathy or cruelty-but the right would like us to believe that.
I’m 25. I vote. I vote from local up to national elections. I write to my congressmen and senators when they’re up to some nonsense.
I care. I get it across in a polite and reserved manner, but I care. If I thought rage, fury and murder would accomplish the work, I’d use it. Oh MAN would I use it.
I hope this encourages everyone to focus on the issue at hand.
To see Representatives Moore, Speier and Slaughter to get up and tell everyone in the chamber to focus on the issues of job creation, and US budget deficit reduction was spectacular.
If anything it demonstrates that those on the right/conservative end of politics really don’t have any policy ideas that addresses job creation or budget deficit reduction (other than it seems the policies that led to the current recession ie self-regulation, tax breaks/concessions, et al).
Instead in order for the right/conservatives to feel like they are setting the agenda in the chamber, they need to attack an institution that receives public funding that helps in particular women and children, seems preposterous and galling.
I hope that the Pence amendment doesn’t get up, and Planned Parenthood stays funded.
Keep up the fight US harpies. I hope that this doesn’t happen in Australia.
If anything listening to those testimonies reinforces to me that more women are needed to be elected and represent womens’ experiences. One of my favourite t-shirts ever says:
“A women’s place is in the House… and the Senate”
(Btw, here in Australia the House of Representatives is called the House and is the lower house of our bicameral system. The Senate is the upper house.)
“We’ll have to agree to disagree on this one, Becky. I don’t see women-or men, for that matter-in their 20′s and 30′s getting out and mobilizing, writing letters, donating, or voting in the numbers we need to make and keep laws protecting women.”
I realize that facebook, twitter, and blogs are hardly the gold standard litmus test of political activism, but I just have to say that the only places that I’ve seen this topic mentioned are:
tweets – generally by women under 40
facebook posts – both by women under 40
blogs like this one – which are again, generally run by women under 40 (the ones the I read, in any case)
So I have to second Becky’s request that you kindly knock off the “kids nowadays” hand-wringing. All it does it make “young” women like us feel like trying to work with “older” women (like you?) is a lost cause.
More on topic:
Verity Khat: I cried too!
Less on topic:
The fact that voting frequency increases with age – as it always has done – has squat to do with which direction people vote.
Also, while activists leaders tend to be older and more experienced, the activists foot soldiers have always tended to be younger. And always will be. For the same reason their peers are less likely to vote: they are more mobile and their lives are less stable. Making activism less of a risk, and the habit of voting newer and less ingrained.
I love Gwen Moore SO MUCH!
I don’t have much chance to be proud of WI politicians, especially the ones in DC. But GWEN ROCKS.
One more comment. I discussed this thread with a young lady of my acquaintance today (she’s in her early 20′s). She believes that our tactics are at fault. Her reference point is the historical theory that peaceful liberation movements work in the face of opposition when there is a group fighting for the same thing that is willing to become violent. (For example, MLK vs Malcolm X, Gandhi vs Bose) We know that the antis are willing to go to any extreme to keep women oppressed. But they believe that we are not willing to do the same thing. As long as that’s the case, they will have the upper hand.
What does everyone think? I’m not sure I agree, but it’s definitely an interesting theory.
I do agree with that somewhat, MM. The antis have absolutely nothing to fear from us.
At the very least I think another March for Women’s Lives is in order.
MM
Ha! That totally matches up with something I was trying to explain to someone else ages ago – about how, when arguing with (good faith) dissenters on feminist blogs, it actually seems to work best to have a “good cop/bad cop” dynamic going on.
It’s never intentional, as far as I can tell, but the best way to get a dissenter to admit they were wrong seems to be to have one person (or more) arguing passionately, without any regard for “tone” and then have another (or more) back the other(s) up, but in more measured, patient tones.
The dissenter does still tend to be all “why can’t you meanies be like her????” but (from my limited observation) they are much more likely to admit the original point is valid.
However, if you only have the patient, measured comments replying to the dissenter, the dissenter is much more likely to stick to their original view.
My guess is that both the passion and the logic are needed. The passion is needed to jolt them out of complacency – or treating it all as simply a logic exercise, the patience is needed to make it hard for them to get away with only reacting to the passion and not also the actual arguments.
Also, getting to make the “tone” argument, even while agreeing they were in the wrong, helps them save face and feel less threatened by admitting wrong.
I would just like to point out that one reason I suspect it might be difficult to find women in their 20s and 30s to work as clinic escorts is that many women within that age range are probably either in school or working full time, if not both. Older people who have some sort of regular schedule or job security or reliable days off probably have a little more freedom to do that kind of work. Clearly this is not the case for everyone, but in thinking about my own (20-year-old) life/schedule and lives/schedules of the women my age around me, even if I had the time to work as a clinic escort, I’m not sure I have the emotional stability to do it.
Also, I’d like to be on the record as saying I absolutely refuse to accept this totally bizarre and unfair notion that we’re not doing any work for women or for feminism, but that’s another story I guess.
In other (more relevant, maybe) news, these brave women give me hope for humanity and I am so grateful for their work and commitment. I am going to use writing them thank-you letters as an excuse for productive procrastination this afternoon!
@PosedByModels
I think job security is a huge issue for younger feminists starting out their careers and why we seem to be drawn to anonymous forms of activism. What if my boss finds out that I’m a PP escort? The career guidance at my uni is pretty much “don’t say anything controversial that can be associated with your name” and I think it’s a legitimate concern.
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