“even in the case of rape”

We’ve been hearing a lot lately about how Sarah Palin would disallow abortion “even in the case of rape.”  I’ve always thought the rape bit to be either a red herring or just disingenuous, and here’s why:

If you really think a fetus is a person, with all the rights and protections that entails, then it shouldn’t matter one bit how that fetus came to be.  Dutiful married sex, cramped back-of-a-car teenage sex, hate-crime horrible rape…it’s all the same to that egg and sperm.  A person is a person is a person.  In that sense, Sarah Palin is only consistent.

On the other hand, if you stake out a position that abortion should be legal “except in the case of rape,” you’re walking a crooked line logically speaking. It always surprises me when people bring up rape in the context of abortion and fetal personhood, since it has always seemed to me to be completely irrelevant.  The rape exception is unlike the maternal health exception, the fetal genetic disorder exception, and the maternal life exception, in that it has nothing at all to do with the progress of the pregnancy or the projected health of the fetus or baby.  It is about intention; specifically, the woman’s intention or lack thereof.

Let’s examine the logical conclusions that can be drawn from this “except in the case of rape” business.  I’d really like to get to the bottom of the possible justifications for this exception.  Here are some possibilities:

• A fetus is a person, but rape is so horrible that it justifies killing that person.  Is that it?  It must be, since we take rape so seriously in this country. Oh wait, maybe that’s not it after all.  Let’s try this:
• A fetus is a person, except when the mother never asked to become pregnant.  Hmm, that sounds all right, but you can see the problem for the “except in the case of rape” crowd when you try to apply that same logic to consensual sex that results in unintended pregnancy.  But I think I”m getting warmer.  Let’s try this:
• Rape victims, since they’re not dirty sluts who Have Sex On Purpose, don’t deserve to face the “consequences” of their actions.  Yes, I think I’ve got it.  Fetuses aren’t people at all, but punishment and public shame.  This is proven by this ridiculous rape exception, which allows the law (and not the woman) to decide when a pregnancy is her just deserts and when it is an impossible burden that she shouldn’t be expected to bear.

If a fetus is a person, it’s always a person, regardless of how it got its start.  If the trouble with abortion is that it kills people, then the manner of genesis shouldn’t determine which people get to live and which get to die.

But the rape exception shows that for many supposed pro-lifers, keeping the precious babies alive isn’t the real issue at all.  The real trouble with abortion, the rape exception shows, is that it allows women to get away with having sex.  Allowing abortions in the case of rape shows it clearly, because it gives rape victims an out that would be unconscionable if anybody really believed that fetus was a person.  It would turn rape victims into government-approved Medeas.

This is a half-finished thought; more on it later.

upward mobility (yes, that meme again)

I thought it might be interesting to complete that “privilege meme” (yes, I’m still thinking about it) from my parents’ perspective, since I’ve already done it for myself and my hypothetical children.  I’m going to complete it only once, since both my parents had remarkably similar upbringings, even to the point of the same number of siblings and the same Catholic school attended.  When the answers would differ, I have bolded them and written an explanation.

MY PARENTS:

1. Father went to college (my father’s father, not my mother’s father)
2. Father finished college
3. Mother went to college
4. Mother finished college
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor (both my parents have siblings in at least one of these professions, but no one in older generations)
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
9. Were read children’s books by a parent
10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like you are portrayed positively.
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
16. Went to a private high school (my father, not my mother–a Catholic high school)
17. Went to summer camp (my mother, not my father)
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child
23. You and your family lived in a single family house
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
25. You had your own room as a child
26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18.
27. Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
28. Had your own TV in your room in High School
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
31. Went on a cruise with your family
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family
33. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family

I grew up with a lot of privileges that my parents didn’t have; my children will grow up with different privileges than either I or my parents did.

This meme makes me nothing but thankful.  I have heard that some people have reacted to it with hostility, trying to explain away their privilege, as though it “doesn’t count.”  I could do that too:  my father paid his own way at that Catholic high school.  The original art hanging on my wall isn’t a painting and wasn’t expensive.  My parents (and I) were unaware of the cost of heating bills because of a weird taboo about discussing money, not because the cost of heating didn’t matter.  My mom and I both went to summer camp, but it was cheap church camp!

But in the end, don’t explanations like these just deny the privilege?  My dad worked his tail off to attend that school–but he was able to do it because he didn’t have to use the money from his after school job to put food on the table.  My art was inexpensive–but it’s still art, which will show my children what I value.  Weird taboos about money talk mean there’s enough money in the house that there are other things to talk about.  Cheap church camp is still camp, and it means both my mother and I had a parent with the time and resources to find out about it, to drive me there, and to pay the fee.  It also means that neither of us had the obligation to spend our summer watching younger siblings while our mothers worked–we had the luxury of free time as children.

Like I said before, no matter why I had these privileges, they’re still privileges.  I am thankful.

downward mobility

OK, I’m really late to the party on the class privilege meme.  I’m going to do it twice, once for myself and once for my children.  I haven’t done it yet…my gut feeling is that my kids will have less privilege than I did (according to these measures, not perfect or comprehensive but still useful, etc., usual disclaimers, etc.).  I’ll check in again at the bottom and see what I discover.  As in other places, items that apply are bolded.

ME:

1. Father went to college
2. Father finished college
3. Mother went to college
4. Mother finished college
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
9. Were read children’s books by a parent
10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like you are portrayed positively.
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
16. Went to a private high school
17. Went to summer camp
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child
23. You and your family lived in a single family house
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
25. You had your own room as a child
26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18.
27. Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
28. Had your own TV in your room in High School
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College

30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16

31. Went on a cruise with your family

32. Went on more than one cruise with your family

33. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family

MY (future, if I ever have enough money to have any since Poor People Shouldn’t Breed) KIDS:

1. Father went to college
2. Father finished college
3. Mother went to college
4. Mother finished college
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
9. Were read children’s books by a parent
10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like you are portrayed positively.
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
16. Went to a private high school
17. Went to summer camp
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child
23. You and your family lived in a single family house
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
25. You had your own room as a child
26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18.
27. Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
28. Had your own TV in your room in High School
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
31. Went on a cruise with your family
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family
33. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family\

That’s a lotta lotta privilege, for both me and any future kids I might have.  Sometime with less wine in me I will think about the intersections of race and class, and the relationships among money, education, arts, and class.

What stands out to me is that money =/= always equal privilege.  My kids will have a life full of books, music, art, and creativity…but they won’t have new clothes or their own TVs.

ETA:  My formatting kung fu is weak.

working

or, How to Land a Job in Retail

(a fascinating tale of derring-do)

Prologue:  What do you need a second job for?

About a year ago, before landing my current job, I was working part-time (almost full-time–my employer had a schedule that made it impossible for any of the 10 employees to reach 40 hours) in a music store for $8.00 an hour.  As you might imagine, this was not covering my monthly expenses, nor was it doing anything to help the Husband pay for school.  I decided to get a second job.  After striking out with administrative assistant and receptionist openings, registering with several temp agencies and applying for everything I could find, I decided to look for another retail job.

Act I.  A job, any job.

Scene I.  Spend early mornings, lunch hours, evenings, and weekends filling out applications.  Leave dress pants and blouse in the car so you can look professional while pounding the pavement.  Drop off copies of your resume with each application.

Scene II.  Anxiously await a call from a store manager.  Any store manager.

Scene III.  Consider applying for jobs at big box stores in the suburbs–it would be a 20-mile commute, but you do have a car.  Don’t contemplate how your world would shrink if you didn’t.

Act II.  The phone rings.

Scene I.  Request time off current job to attend an interview.  Don’t tell them it’s an interview–count on goodwill and kindness, say you’ve got an “emergency.”

Scene II.  The interview.  Fill out 15 pages of paperwork, including consent forms for a background check, a credit check, and a drug screening.  Ponder the fact that if you had great credit you probably wouldn’t need to apply for a second job.  Wonder how good your credit has to be.  While filling out the paperwork, parry comments from nosy shoppers (you’re doing this in the furniture department of the store, naturally) who feel entitled to comment on your employment status, prospects, and fuckability.  After the paperwork, the in-person interview.  Answer questions eagerly but deferentially.  Profess a commitment to retail that is not necessarily reflected in your resume.  Smile.

Scene III.  The online personality test.  Hundreds of questions.  Ignore the voice in your head that warns they’re screening for introverts, artists, readers.  Be honest.  Be unscrupulous.  Tell them the truth.  Tell them what they want to hear.  Wonder what your snack food preferences really have to do with your ability to perform the tasks of the job in question.

Act III.  Hired.

Scene I.  Follow instructions and proceed to the designated drug testing location for the final procedure.  Do this before work.  Thank heaven once again that you have a car.  Refrain from venting frustration on the lab tech who turns you away, saying that the lab is out of urine receptacles and can’t perform your test.

Scene II.  Request time off current job to drive to alternate testing location, several miles away.  Again, rely on goodwill and kindness.  Wonder how many more “emergencies” will be tolerated.

Scene III.  Arrive at alternate testing location.  Wait 90 minutes (combined with travel time, this is 2 1/2 hours of lost wages, plus the cost of the test), then acquiesce to the assumption that you are a drug user until proven otherwise.  Pass the test.  Don’t take out frustration on the lab techs.

Act III.  The job.

Scene I.  Purchase appropriate work clothes.  Try the thrift store first.  Unfortunately the very specific color requirements mean you will have to look elsewhere.  Thank heaven for the third time that you have a car and can drive out to the suburbs, where Target is.  Spend 4 1/2 hours of pay on work clothes.

Scene II.  Work three weeks without pay.  Check bank account obsessively for evidence of a direct deposit.  Speak with manager.  Learn that due to a computer error, pay has been delayed.

Epilogue.  I no longer work two retail jobs.  While I was doing it, I was working 11-hour days with no benefits.  My income still didn’t cover my monthly expenses, let alone contribute anything towards Husband’s tuition.  Without a car, my situation would have been absolutely untenable.  I wouldn’t have been able to make it to fill out applications, attend interviews, and take drug test, let alone commute back and forth to both jobs.

we’re not poor

The Husband has been carrying a lot of anxiety lately about our financial situation.  He can’t stop comparing himself to his parents and his siblings, who seem to view consumption as a kind of competitive spectator sport.  He knows that money is a major reason (for me, the only reason) we’ve put off having a child.  My mother’s recent visit cut him very deeply as well–she meant well, but couldn’t stop exclaiming about our house and our neighborhood.  She just couldn’t believe that we have to drive 4 miles to the grocery store (exhibit A showing that we’re not poor–we have a car and don’t have to carry our groceries home 4 miles on the bus).  She was shocked (shocked!) at what she saw as the indifference of our landlords to minor maintenance problems.  And I thought she was going to pop when we caught a mouse in one of our traps.

It’s true that we drive a 13-year-old car and maintain a constant low-level dread of its demise, that our monthly expenses exceed our monthly income, and that our income would qualify me for both WIC and Medicaid if I were to become pregnant (I checked).  It’s also true that we can’t travel to see his family several times a year like they expect us to, and that our apartment (a duplex in The Inner City) leaves much to be desired.

But for months it has rubbed me the wrong way when the Husband has referred to us as poor.

We are low-income, certainly.  But to use the word poor, in my opinion, would be to erase the tremendous privilege that surrounds our circumstances.  We are white, for one thing, and native English speakers.  I have been shocked at the xenophobia that has crawled from under the rocks of my Midwestern city during this Olympics–it makes me appreciate what has surely been there all along, though my privilege has allowed me to ignore it.  We have excellent credit, which allows us access to things like interest-bearing bank accounts (not that we’ve got anything to earn interest on).

Our upbringing also shows our privilege.  We are highly educated and skilled in verbal communication.  We have been taught how to write a resume, how to dress and respond in job interviews.  Our parents held us on their laps and taught us to read–our parents had the skills and the time to do this.  We grew up with books and computers, science projects in the basement, and schools with gifted programs.  Both of us had stay-at-home mothers growing up.*  My public school district may have made asinine curricular decisions, but I did learn what I needed to get into college–and going to college was taken for granted.

Our families, disdainful though they may be of our current situation, constitute another immense privilege.  If things got very bad (and I try to avoid thinking about the specific parameters of “very bad”), we would have any number of soft places to fall.  People who would take us in and absorb our living expenses without having to do without themselves.  People with spare rooms in nice neighborhoods.  Much as it would shame us to have to take advantage of our families, my mom’s spare room means we will never, ever have to live in our car or in a shelter.

This is why it bothers me when the Husband refers to us as poor–it erases these distinctions and the degree to which our situation is temporary.  Broke?  Oh my yes, we’re broke…but both of us know that we won’t be broke forever.

If we are what people with means think of when they think of poverty, then the effects of privilege will continue to erase the complexity of real poverty.  Like this guy, who decided it might be fun to prove to those know-nothing poor folks how easy it is to lift oneself out of a bad situation, calling ourselves poor ignores the effect of the credit card in our back pocket, the 20-plus years of education, and all the other aspects of our privilege that form our cushy support-system net.

*I bring that up NOT because SAHMs are any better than working moms–but because it is one of many models of stable, consistent child care (including nannies, quality day-care centers, child-care collectives, and supportive relatives) that are accessible to people with means.

of course, why didn’t i think of that?

If you’re poor, use a condom jackass.

That’s a direct quote from the comments thread of a major blog.  A major blog that calls itself feminist. The only response that comment has gotten is a reminder that some religions disallow birth control.

The larger issue as I see it is totally ignored.  Reproductive CHOICE is a basic human right–both the prevention of children and the creation of children are life-changing circumstances that should be up to the woman involved and no one else.  But from the New York TImes’ obsession with the imaginary opt-out revolution to the link above, there seems to be an assumption, even among feminists, that motherhood is a hobby with a big price tag, like scuba diving or a Faberge egg collection, which is irresponsible for all who haven’t already started a trust fund.

Motherhood as class privilege has been on my mind a lot lately–see this for another, particularly egregious example of the thinking that says, essentially, that poor folks shouldn’t be allowed to breed.  (Not in any way implying that Paul, or the commenters at Shakesville, think that way–but I’d much rather link to Shakesville than to the source of that story.)

This is a particularly sensitive issue for me, as the Husband and I have recently decided to put off having kids until our finances are more secure (which may be never).  This was an incredibly painful decision and I am very torn up about it–lately I seem to be seeing class markers for motherhood everywhere.

Hmm.  Let me make sure I’ve got this.

How much money do I need to have before I’m permitted not to “use a condom jackass”?

Should my midwife examine my tax return before prescribing prenatal vitamins?

How many square feet should my apartment be, before I may put a crib in it?  If I see a mouse, am I disqualified?

Do I need to clear my credit card and student loan debts before the pharmacist will sell me a pregnancy test?

And how much do I need to have in the bank before I’m no longer inviting accusations of “squeezing out” “fatherless” (!) children who will clearly be a blight on society?

The idea that women who don’t have “enough money to support a child” (however much that is) should cross their legs and hope for the best implicitly blames all poor and working-class women who do have children.  It blames women for having children.  It blames women for being poor.

As if we needed more evidence that feminism has a class problem.

thirty is the new waaaah

That is all.

i have 94 friends on facebook

…and not a single person I can call just to talk.

How does this happen?  I am not a bad person.  I am not an unfriendly person.

I am a person who has moved 7 times since graduating high school.  I have formed 7 sets of friends.  Each time I’ve thought it was the real thing, that I’d finally become part of a community.  Each time I was wrong.

So what do I do about it?  I write a blog post that no one will read.

hey, does this thing still work?

Not that anyone was paying attention the first time.

just shut up

Hey everyone,

Stop yelling at Silda Spitzer.

That is all.