Abortion Gang

A guest post from Sarah Erdreich, the author of Generation Roe: Inside the Future of the Pro-Choice Movement.

Dr. Kermit Gosnell is currently on trial in Pennsylvania, charged with eight counts of murder. For decades, Gosnell provided abortion services to primarily low-income, minority, and immigrant women in an unsafe and unhygienic clinic. Despite numerous complaints to state agencies and the forty-six lawsuits filed against him, Gosnell’s clinic was only inspected five times after it opened in 1979; the last inspection occurred in 1993. When officials finally did raid his clinic in 2010, it was on suspicion of drug violations. The eight counts of murder that Gosnell faces include one for a woman that died from a painkiller overdose before her procedure, and seven infants that he allegedly killed with scissors after they were born.

Those acts, together with a grand jury report that spares no detail in describing the squalid and unhygienic conditions of Gosnell’s clinic, paint a grim picture of a man that never should have been allowed to practice medicine. They also call into question just why state agencies did so little to investigate the many complaints that were made over two decades.

The state of Pennsylvania has responded by enacting new anti-choice laws that make abortion care more difficult for people to access and afford. Clinics that provide surgical abortions now must meet the same medical and construction standards as outpatient surgery centers; while clinics were exempt from some regulations, such as having elevators of a certain size, a number of the new regulations required clinics to undergo expensive renovations. In 2008, 82% of all Pennsylvania counties lacked an abortion provider; five clinics have closed in the last year, meaning that that number is undoubtedly even higher now.

Pennsylvania is hardly alone in requiring only abortion clinics, as opposed to all freestanding outpatient surgical clinics, to adhere to specific and extensive standards. From insisting that providers have admitting privileges at local hospitals to mandating the size of operating rooms, states around the country have enacted numerous laws in the past several years that sound benign on paper but have devastating real-life effects. The rationale for many of these laws is that they are necessary to safeguard the health and well-being of people who need abortion care. But when legal abortions are performed by trained medical professionals, the health risks are already very low; according to the non-partisan Guttmacher Institute, “[f]ewer than 1% of all U.S. abortion patients experience a major complication and the risk of death associated with abortion is 10 times as low as that associated with childbirth.”

When a woman dies during childbirth, politicians do not insist that all hospitals adhere to new structural requirements, and activists do not claim that since a woman died, no OB/GYN should be trusted. Yet the anti-choice movement has shown no such common sense and sound judgment when it comes to Kermit Gosnell. Instead, they have exploited this tragedy to enact laws that either force clinics to charge more for their services so they can pay for renovations, or close altogether. Making abortion more expensive and less accessible will not lower the abortion rate in this country. Instead, it will create an environment that drives women to desperate measures such as self-abortion or turning to untrained, but inexpensive, physicians.

A guest post by Lauren Herold and Tobias Rodriguez.

Earlier this week, an Indiegogo campaign went viral: Emerson College’s Phi Alpha Tau fraternity raised money for their frat brother, Donnie Collins, a trans man who needs top surgery. Donnie initially tried to pay for the surgery through Emerson’s insurance, Aetna, since Aetna offers coverage for trans*-related surgeries and hormone replacement therapy; Donnie’s request was denied, however, because Emerson College did not opt in to those services. After Out.com  featured an article about Phi Alpha Tau’s Indiegogo campaign, the brothers raised more than twice the $8,000 Donnie needs for the surgery.

Donnie’s frat brothers spoke in their Indiegogo video about wanting this fundraiser to start a conversation. There are (at least) two important conversations we’d like to address.

First, not every insurance company covers trans-related services. Colleges are typically hesitant to add these services for financial reasons. When colleges opt in to services for insurance plans they offer to students, they want to ensure they are getting their money’s worth. If a college doesn’t have any trans students, they can claim that these additional services will be paid for by all but enjoyed by few. Their most obvious incentive to add the services is to attract a more diverse student population, but the chances of the college attracting even dozens of trans students who need these services is slim.

It’s good that insurance companies like Aetna are beginning to cover these services, and many colleges are beginning to follow suit by opting into these services. But “many” is not enough. People like Donnie oftentimes don’t have time to wait for their insurance plan to decide to cover necessary services. Raising funds for an individual’s surgery may be successful in the short term, but we shouldn’t have to settle for hoping that the kindness of strangers will make up for the shortcomings of insurance companies and their clients. We need to push for institutional change so that all policies include these services. There are trans people around the country with similar medical needs who spend years saving or raising funds for these procedures and sometimes do not succeed. What about them?

We also need to talk about media coverage around the Indiegogo campaign. Most reporters have focused on a hook: that fraternity members defied the frat bro archetype by launching a campaign in support of a trans member. Donnie’s frat brothers deserve a lot of credit for demonstrating what it means to be a trans ally. But when media coverage focuses on the actions of cisgender individuals, it moves focus away from the fact that lack of proper medical care for trans people is a systemic issue and shifts our gaze to the stories of cis allies. The frat brothers are the conversation piece: they both created the conversation and are the subject of it, while Donnie’s experiences are discussed only briefly. Who gets to talk about trans people’s bodies and experiences? Cis people create the storyline and drive the narrative, and articles about the Indiegogo campaign reaffirm this trope.

This pattern perpetuates the assumption that cis people can talk about trans people’s bodies and experiences without their consent and without repercussions. In this case, Donnie welcomed the Indiegogo campaign as another platform he can use to share his experiences with the world, and has already made a variety of YouTube videos documenting his transition. However, for many trans people, their transition is a private journey. Stories like these make invisible the trans people who don’t medically transition as well as those who don’t want their transition to be public knowledge.

These stories also reify a singular trans narrative: that every trans person comes out, is supported, and begins a medical transition that includes hormone replacement therapy and at least one surgery. This is the story most people are comfortable hearing, but it does not reflect all trans people’s experiences and it alienates trans people whose experiences differ. It leaves out trans people who do not medically transition (whether because of personal preference or lack of access), who do not have a support system, and/or who are not vocal about their trans status.

We applaud the efforts of Donnie’s brothers–their campaign has helped change his life, and will continue to benefit trans people: they have pledged to donate the extra money they raised to the Jim Collins Foundation. Yet these efforts are not enough. We have to work toward systemic change in our healthcare system so trans people are not constantly fighting individual battles. And when we tell trans stories, we need to do so with a media that captures the full complexity of trans experiences.

*We use the asterisk here to suggest that the term “trans” can refer to a lot of identities under the trans umbrella. Here’s a great explanation of why. Our choice to use the asterisk in our first use of trans* and not thereafter was for readability.

A guest post by a writer who wishes to remain anonymous

When the plus sign came up I just stared, not surprised, not not surprised, just that groggy7:48 am feeling of “oh.” I threw the test away. Then I picked it up out of the trash and behind my mirror in the cabinet. Looked at myself dead in the face and walked to kiss my Father Good Morning (I live at home).

Is it a Good Morning? He got ready and I lifted my shirt up in the mirror to see my belly. Touch it. I’m pregnant. Really dark blue plus sign pregnant. Which, you know, I suppose I was expecting (no pun intended) because I went so far as to piss on a pregnancy test.

Yesterday, I reached for a jar in a friend’s kitchen and when I brought down my arm I almost screamed in pain. My upper arm lightly pressed the outside of my breast and, bam, agony. Fuck, I thought, I’m pregnant. And then went on cooking because I’ve heard its best to piss on the stick in the morning. Really, that’s how my mind works: You’re pregnant, for sure, you’re pissing on a stick in the morning, could you please pass the salt.

I don’t know who created this mass of cells with me. I’ll know between 3:40 and 4:40 pm this afternoon when an ultrasound tells the gestation. I had sex twice in January, with two different people, and for the first (and second) time in over six months.

I am getting an abortion. There’s no two ways to Sunday on that one. I have an appointment today to confirm that I am eligible for a medical abortion. I will know the father and the day I am extracting it from my body. Father? Am I a mother now?

I don’t know. I also don’t know who to tell. If it’s the second man, I will tell him. I don’t know how to contact the first. And other than potentially one persona, I don’t have anyone. My family and my best friends, mentors, and former coworkers, would probably all know what to say, but I don’t want to hear any one close to me’s opinions or point of views. I don’t want to be able to hear any one else’s voice in my mind other than my own right now. At least until I know more.

Need to find your polling place? Check here. Want to know who are the pro-choice candidates on your ballot? Check here.

We’re getting ready for the media to lambast young voters, and especially young women, as being apathetic this election season. To combat this pathetic and inaccurate myth, we decided to tell you why we’re voting today:

Megan S.: This election matters to me because it will determine the future direction of our country, and whether we’re committed to protecting our basic human rights, like the right to health care. It matters to me because I’m a young person and I know the future of my country, even beyond the next four years, hinges upon us standing up for what I believe in today. I am voting because my voice counts and I want us to continue to move forward together.

Dena: I vote because countless women, men, and children have fought and died throughout the years for the right to vote. I vote because as a queer woman of color, my reproductive rights and civil liberties depend on it. I vote because there are too many disenfranchised voices and voters in this country. I vote for the countless individuals around the world who cannot.

This election matters because we need a President who will work to build up and protect the many freedoms we have as American citizens. We need a President who will make America a nation that we can all be proud of. We need a President who will push for human and civil rights for all Americans, not just the seldom few. Last, we need a President who will level the playing field so that all of us has an equal shot to succeed in this nation.

Quite frankly, I’m voting because my life depends on it.

Shelby: Today I’m voting for pro-equality candidates on the local, state, and national level because the decisions made by politicians impact the complicated, intersectional lived experiences of people across the US and the world. I’m casting a ballot for a country in which no young woman is ever denied access to reproductive health services, or sterilized against her will, or shackled while she gives birth. I’m voting for a nation that embraces and uplifts trans folks, that never tells its citizens who they can love, or supports social, economic, and cultural oppression of people based on the color of their skin, their country of birth, and/or their economic status. I’m voting for the America I want: a nation that actively works to fulfill the promise of “created equal” without any qualifiers.

But I am also casting my vote in this election for the next one. Because we have lived with the myth that young people are apathetic long enough. In reality, the young folks I meet understand that environmental justice, racial justice, reproductive justice, anti-racism, queer justice and immigrant rights are all connected, not just in the head but in the body and the heart. I want my elected officials and the media to be stunned tonight as they grapple with the new reality that the block known as “young voters” blew the election out of the water and are never to be ignored again. Today is the day we go, en masse, to the ballot box to send the message loud and clear: we are the new revolution and we will never, ever go back.

Sophia: While many of my AG cohorts will be standing in line to vote or working GOTV operations today, I’m going to sleep in. I voted. By mail. A week and a half ago. No, I don’t do absentee ballots because in Oregon, all voting is by mail. The burnt orange envelope arrived a few weeks ago along  with a fat voters information packet and thorough directions on how to fill out the ballot (blue or black ink; where to sign).

Our ballot had initiatives like the school bond (yes!) that allots funds from the corporate kicker tax to Portland Public schools that desperately need repair. There is a proposal that if voted in would remove estate tax on property transfers (vote no).  And I voted in favor of Kate Brown and President Barrack Obama.

What isn’t on the Oregon ballot are any voting rights laws, which have become a central issue during this election year. Time and again we have seen giant lines and giant ballots, designed to depress turnout. We have seen voter ID laws in numerous states and State Attorney Generals instituting mandates and confusing rules to invalidate votes. There are racist bill boards, misleading robo calls, flyers in Spanish directing voters to incorrect polling places.

Election fraud. Voter disenfranchisement. None of it an accident, in actuality, a result of the radical tea party wave of state congress people, mayors and Governors elected in 2010.

If I want anything, it would be for more states to allow voting by mail like Oregon and Washington. And for states to begin voting out these radical politicians hell bent on removing voters’ franchise in order to regain power.

Nicole:  In the sole developed country where only half the population has voted in elections for the past fifty years, is it really necessary to ask why it is important for young women to vote?  We need to change this, and we are the ones to do it.

We look beyond the red and blue states and the electoral college and see the power of our voices.  We understand that free, honest elections and peaceful transfer of power are a gift, to be appreciated and honored by voting.  We recognize how much is on the line, the next president will nominate a Supreme Court justice who will in all likelihood determine if Roe is overturned.  We remember that our government is by and for the people, not some people, all of them.

For some, their political action this season starts and ends at the voting booth, but not for us.  I started working in April before the primary when I went to Pennsylvania for the first time to begin educating voters about the voter id laws.  From then on, do you know who I saw phone banking and canvassing and registering voters? Young women.  You should be proud.  No matter what is said, you know the time you put into this election.  The friends you explained why their vote matters.  The grandparent you got an absentee ballot for.  The neighbors you registered to vote.  You did that, and it counts.  Even if the world isn’t quite ready to recognize your commitment to democracy, we do and we thank you.

Kaitlyn: I vote because I love the voting process. I LOVE it. Having spent time in countries where the democratic process is less than orderly, I love our voter registrations, I love our peaceful, sometimes hours-long lines. I love the sense of community and neighborhood it creates. Since Twitter happened, I love people’s updates from the centers. ‘Singing Britney Spears’ ‘Stronger’ while waiting in this freezing line,’ someone wrote, ‘other voters not amused.’

I love that on this day, after months of ever-worsening political divisiveness (a friend’s father yelled at me about how terrible liberals are until I cried the other day – true story), we all come together and do this thing that says that we are Americans. I love that there are no fights at the centers, no people yelling and screaming and being harmful to one another. I love that we come together to make decisions about who will represent us, and whether we like it or not, we abide by the will of our fellow peoples.

Most of all, I vote because Slava, who works for my father and has been for more than twenty years like a crazy, increasingly less comprehensible Russian uncle to me, went through the process of getting his citizenship so that he could vote. He beamed with pride that first election day; he told my father very seriously that it was his right as an American to go vote and he should be paid for that day (he was). Then he showed up to vote and was turned away. He had no idea he needed to register. Don’t worry, he never made that mistake again. Although his English has slipped to a word or two and I don’t think he could tell you anymore how Congress or the electoral college works, he still votes on every election day. That’s our right and our duty as Americans, and it is bad-ass. I don’t care, today, how you vote – and you must know how seriously I mean that. Friends, countrymen, Americans – just vote.

NYCProchoiceMD: I vote because although our system is far from perfect, it’s allowed our country to grow and progress for the last 200 years and will continue to do so only if we continue to participate in it. I vote to preserve the human and civil rights of my family, friends and neighbors in the hopes that some day soon we will look back aghast at the days when the right to choose when, how, and with whom to have a family was up for popular vote. I vote because I am part of the solution, and you are too.

Deva: I vote because I believe in democracy’s ability to bring freedom and safety to society. As a citezen of the United States, a country whose policies effect the world, I feel responsible to do my part to elect a person who will be rational and kind.

More importantly, I vote to respect the privlidge of voting, and to honor the fact that I live in a time and country where being a woman doesnt mean I can not vote. And as a daughter of a resident alien (who can not vote), I vote because not doing so would mean my family doesnt have a say in our country’s future.

A guest post by an anonymous independent abortion clinic staff member. 

For those of you do not work in women’s’ health, hand holder is exactly what it sounds like. I literally hold the hand of women during their abortion. Granted, there are other responsibilities involved; generally assuming responsibility for all bodily functions above a woman’s waist. I monitor her vital signs, including pulse, blood pressure, and oxygen saturation. I count her respirations, how many full breaths she takes in one minute. But all of these medical functions are secondary to my primary task; keeping her comfortable and distracted.

Hand holding can be physically challenging. I have come home with scratches on my hands from fingernails, or swollen fingers that were gripped too tightly for too long. These occurrences are rare, but happen.

The more challenging part is finding fresh but neutral points of conversation. I want to keep her distracted and entertained but dodge any potentially emotionally triggering topics. During the holidays, conversation is easy. “Any plans for the upcoming holiday? Will you be spending it with your family? What’s your favorite dish to cook? Have you started on your holiday shopping?” Then January lends itself to all of the follow up questions after these events. Summer is a great time to talk about family trips, vacation, school breaks. Mid October can be challenging, I have to search a little harder.

Asking women about their jobs and careers can be interesting. I have been a hand holder for wine distributors, concierge to celebrities, cheese mongers, and musicians. I have asked an array of questions to women I would never have met outside of the clinic like toll both attendants or public transit operators. I have learned so much from women firefighters, policewomen, and women in active military service.

Sometimes, though it is more cautious territory, women will discuss their partners; Husbands, boyfriends, babydaddies, or lovers. Sometimes they will brag about their men, or vent small frustrations about domestic cohabitation. I’ll confess: if they share an interesting detail, I sometimes peek into the waiting room to see what their prince charming looks like.

Hand holding can be emotionally draining. On days where this is my role, I usually will go home, eat junk food, and watch either an Tina fey or Amy Poehler sitcom to return me to a reasonable level of my emotional equilibrium. I want to watch something funny and silly, but still with a feminist undertone. I understand that self care is critical, and have found what works for me.

If you have the opportunity to hand hold at your clinic, I recommend attempting it at least once. It is not for everyone, but I have definitely learned more in that position than in my entire career of reproductive justice. Handholding is like a good Barbara Walters segment, it’s a soft interview and sometimes, the guest cries.

A guest post from Elizabeth, who supports parents of kids w/disabilities by day & work with @EMA_Fund by night.

Sunday was the 36th anniversary of the Hyde Amendment, the law that prevented using Medicaid to fund abortions. That law serves to make abortion accessible to people with money to pay for it, or to pay for private insurance, or in states that have chosen to use their own funds to make it doable. Essentially, the law is a penalty on poor people. Part of my reproductive justice agenda is to overturn Hyde.  But the anniversary also made me think about all the other things that I want when it comes to repro justice. A partial list (spoiler alert: most of them are really about ending capitalism):

• I want people to never have to choose to have an abortion because they can’t afford another child. I want people to have their needs met enough that questions of economics can be separate from questions of family raising.
• I want people to never have to choose to have an abortion because of disablism. This goes both ways: I want kids with disabilities and their parents to be supported enough that it isn’t a question of resources when it comes to raising kids with disabilities, and I want parents with disabilities to be supported enough that they know that they can parent well and thoroughly and that they will have a support network around them, whatever that needs to look like.
• I want people to not be excluded from foster parenting and adopting based on disablist and classist criteria. I want rules like “People with certain mental illnesses cannot be foster parents” to be eliminated and I want actual reviews of actual people when it comes to parenting.
• I want state services (if we have to have a state) to get people the supports that they need to parent and resources around addiction, instead of often racist and classist removal of kids from their homes. I also want  clear and thorough and trained and resourced abuse screenings/screeners.
• I want teen parents to be supported with whatever resources they need to live the lives they want and to raise their children with the networks they need.
• I want an end to forced and coercive sterilization. This includes, for me, figuring out wtf to do with our legal guardianship system where people can speak for others (kids, adults with disabilities) and sterilize them. It also includes coercive rules around welfare, and pressure to get iuds after abortions, and racism in our health care system that pressures women of color to be sterilized, and laws about trans people’s reproductive capacity in relation to legal status, and over-economically-incentivized clinical trials for sterilization and long-term birth control, and undisclosed clinical trials.
• I want people to be able to choose abortion freely, without needing to take economics into account, without having to wait/wade through roadblocks, without the number of weeks gestation playing into what they can do, without needing to travel hundreds of miles to the nearest clinic.
• I want people to have full (comprehensive, sex-positive, body-positive) sexual health information, full information and training and expectations around consent, full access to reproductive and physical and psychiatric health care, full access to both hormonal and barrier methods of birth control (oh and the copper iud if they want it).
• I want an end to rape, to coercion, to sexual abuse and assault, to street harassment, to misogyny, to heteropatriarchy, to racism, to disablism, to capitalism and the view of sexuality as an exchange. I want an end to non-consensual power dynamics. I want an end to domestic violence. I want people to be able to freely make decisions about their bodies and their sexualities.
• I want the end to nations and borders. Failing that, I want having kids to not be impacted by nationhood or citizenship. I want kids to be able to get educated, I want preventative and ongoing health care for all people, I want families to be able to access supports and services regardless of whether or not they have documentation or citizenship status.
• I want enough resources put into AIDS and other STIs that we actually fix that shit. No more super-gonorrhea.
• I want people to make their own decisions about how they want to birth children, what interventions they want used, and how they want to raise their children. I want those decisions to be supported with physical and economic resources as needed. I want people to be able to make these decisions with full information about how their bodies, health statuses, etc can be supported in each context.
• I want us to look at parenting outside of heteropatriarchy. I want us to figure out how to talk about misogyny and how that impacts reproduction and parenting, but I want us to do it in a way that is trans*-inclusive and doesn’t reduce people to language that they wouldn’t use.
• I want everyone to have access to anti-racist and culturally-oriented/specific/sensitive health care and education, throughout their lives. I want a culture that values the contributions and work of people of color, particularly women of color, and that centers their concerns, needs, and voices. 
• I want people to be able to decide what is important to them around reproduction, families, and children, and be able to easily and consistently access the resources to make those things happen.
• Added by others: “ I would add to the one about birth some more explicit stuff around demanding that all parents have access to skin on skin, breastfeeding support, and the ability to have anyone they consider family present before, during, and after the birth…” and “No one should have to be pushed into choosing adoption because of money, age, or other people who are convinced they can’t possibly do a good job. And people who relinquish their children without that pressure should be fully supported in the choice they made,” and “full and enthusiastic support for those choosing abortion from friends, family, and partners,” and Non-fear-based nformation about birthing options- home birth, hospital, birthing center and access to these choices regardless of income and education level.”

I am sure there is more! What am I missing?

A guest post by Sarah.

On those rare occasions when I’ve had some money to burn I’ve donated to EMILY’s List, the PAC that works to elect pro-choice Democratic women, so their excessive election year mailers are more of a nuisance than a surprise. Last week I received one such mailer, with a list of candidates for various U.S. House and Senate races urging me to, “Give generously to at least two of these outstanding candidates.”

One of these names stuck out: Claire McCaskill. McCaskill is currently running for reelection to the Senate in the great state of Missouri. The reason her name stuck out to me is that, while yes, McCaskill is technically a Democrat (she frequently advocates positions that anathema to the party) I would call her nominally pro-choice at best. McCaskill has supported the congressional ban on so-called partial birth abortions, saying, “I believe that abortion should be safe, legaland rare in the early term.” She also believes in parental notification laws for minors seeking abortions. During the debate over the Affordable Care Act, she supported the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, only objecting to the Senate version because private insurance money would be kept from abortion coverage; she’s fine with Medicaid being prohibited from covering abortion. All of this is to say that I don’t believe Claire McCaskill to be pro-choice; I believe Claire McCaskill thinks abortion should be legal. But that leads to a bigger question: who gets to use the label pro-choice? And does the label even matter?

The phrase pro-choice is a loaded one and can mean different things to different people. It’s a term that imagines that all people have access to abortion, that anyone who wants to can choose to have an abortion. Obviously, this is not true and the work of the reproductive justice movement is to remove the barriers to exist. So, if someone doesn’t object to the legality of abortion but objects to the ways of making it accessible and affordable, can they really be considered pro-choice?

But does it really even matter how we use a label like pro-choice? Not always but particularly in political contexts they can useful. In 2008, Sarah Palin claimed the mantle of feminism, as did several female candidates she endorsed during the 2010 midterm elections, begging the question: could one advocate for policies like Palin’s and still be call themselves a feminist? While the comparison to Claire McCaskill calling herself pro-choice may not be exact, it’s similar. Words have meanings and when we allow them to mean everything, we risk them meaning nothing.

I recognize that pro-choice politicians and the reproductive justice movement are not the same thing; our government is designed with the need for compromise baked right in, while the repro justice movement can advocate for its more specific goals. While goals may intersect from time to time, the parties operate differently. But there is no need for them to be working at cross-purposes.

Obviously, it is better to elect people who think abortion should be legal than people who people who believe it should be criminalized. However, ultimately I think it does little to advance the goals of the repro justice movement (and, presumably the goals of a group like EMILY’s List) to elect people who merely tolerate abortion; it would be even better to seek out candidates who actively advocate for true pro-choice policies.

I’m not advocating a rigorous pro-choice qualifying exam. I am only questioning the way we apply the labels of our movement; I don’t even have any particularly good answers. I only suggest that, perhaps if a candidate believes only that abortion should be legal, not that it should be accessible and affordable, that person is not pro-choice and we should not label them as such. And we should think twice about giving them our money.

Sarah lives in Boston and volunteers with the Eastern Massachusetts Abortion Fund. You can follow her on Twitter at @SBHudson108.

A guest post from two anonymous feminist organizers. 

As young feminists, activists, and radicals, making the transition from college to the “real” working world has been tough. Like many young people, we have been schooled in the writings of bell hooks and Audre Lorde, made campus activism a part of our daily lives, and have expected to enter a world in which we would continue to fight injustice, instigate change, and make our voices heard.

However, as interns at a large mainstream feminist non-profit,  we realized that there were a surprising number of obstacles standing our way. The place we worked at may have lauded itself on being a “feminist” organization mobilizing young people for social justice, but so many things we noticed or experienced on a daily basis as interns contradicted this ideal. We realized that young people were valued as an “image” – a pretty picture to put on a brochure or the organization’s website – but their independent voices, their insights, and their unique experiences were not acknowledged internally. Sometimes colleagues patronized us when we voiced critiques. Sometimes we were told our comments were “inappropriate” when we spoke up. Other times we were escorted out of the building. Supervisors appreciated interns who complicitly and obediently did what was asked of them, and these were the people whose faces would later appear on the website, the faces of the promising next generation. But our voices were ignored and silenced.

Like many people new to the non-profit world, we discovered that what we thought would be working at the forefront of a social movement actually felt like working for a business. The young people who had the potential to make a difference were the ones being monitored and sometimes even punished in the name of protecting the business brand. This was when we started wondering – how can our social movements be successful if they shut down our voices along with opportunities for change? We needed a space to share our frustrations, and know that we were not alone in wanting to see that change happen. We had a lot to say, and didn’t know where to say it or who to tell.

Interns Speak Out is our attempt to create that space. Essentially, it’s a blog created by and for interns in the non-profit world, a space for them to share their stories of empowerment as well as stories of disillusionment. Because the voices of young people need to be heard and respected, not silenced or ignored. Because social movements can’t thrive if non-profits control and monitor our criticisms. Because too often our creative energy is stifled by mindless tasks. Because our labor is valuable and we deserve to be paid living wages. Because our social justice movements cannot be sustainable if organizations are internally rife with hierarchy, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ageism, ableism, and other forms of marginalization. Because our thoughts, opinions, insights, and wisdom are critical to non-profit organizations and we need a space to share them.

We want to hear the stories that aren’t being told. We want to hear from those that aren’t the bright-eyed faces on home pages, on glossy brochures, or on TV. We want to hear from the young voices that were so powerful that they were considered “threatening.”  We want to hear from you.

Have an intern story to share? Submit at internsspeakout.tumblr.com/submit.

A guest post from anonymous. 

In 2012, there is a War on Women, and feminist organizations are gathering all the help they can get. On Twitter and Facebook, at rallies and meetings, everywhere you go there is a cry for help and a push towards activism.

So why is it so hard to find a feminist job?

I’ve been looking for a job in the feminist-sphere for nearly a year now, with no success. While I see a few reasons why it’s difficult for me personally to find a job, I am having a hard time explaining why there is absolutely nothing out there.

There are two problems for me in particular. First is location. I do not live in a big metropolitan area, so there are fewer organizations around me. I have seen numerous jobs available in New York City, and wished I was able to move there for work. However, I am not able to do that. Of the jobs I have seen locally to me, a large majority of them require 5-10+ years of experience, or a Masters Degree or PhD. For someone my age, who has just come out of college and is looking to enter the working force, I cannot apply to the position of President, CEO, Senior Financial Officer, or other such jobs as I’ve seen.

But still my question remains: Where are the entry level feminist jobs? Where are the positions I can enter, learn about the organization, and grow to a leadership position from?

Maybe they’re out there, and I just can’t find them. The only feminist job listing I know of is on the Feminist Majority Foundation website. I appreciate its existence, but they list jobs by “region,” ie DC Metro, East Coast, West Coast, Midwest- which makes it really difficult to actually find a job (and you can be sure 98% of the East Coast jobs are in NYC). I have actually been told I’m overqualified for an entry level position once, even though I didn’t and don’t feel prepared to step straight into a management role yet.

Perhaps the big problem is the economy. Nonprofits must be having a very difficult time right now, and perhaps they don’t have the budget to take on new paid staff- which is perhaps why I’ve seen so many unpaid internship positions available. Alas, these positions are usually reserved for current college students, leaving new-grads like myself in a limbo of “not enough experience” yet “not young enough.” The economy is also probably responsible for why I feel so many organizations are emailing me daily asking me to donate my money, yet not needing any volunteers/workers at this time. Sometimes I think these organizations don’t appreciate me and other hobby activist (people within the movement who are doing it in their spare time), and just want our cash, cash, cash. However, I need cash too, to pay bills and buy groceries. If the feminist movement wants to keep hobby activists like myself around, they need to start finding ways to pay us for our involvement.

I am sure I will eventually find my dream job. There is so much need in the world for people who care and want to help, that I haven’t given up hope of finding a career that lets me help others. But I am coming to realize that it may take me longer than I originally thought to find my dream job.

A guest post from Kelly Gray, re-posted from the Bay Area Doula Project with permission.

I’ve spotted a trend at Jezebel, a ‘gossip, culture, fashion, and sex’ website ‘for the contemporary woman’: articles that claim that women who are exercising their right to choose their own pregnancy outcomes and discuss them afterwards are succumbing to random and arbitrary trends.  Why I Won’t Come Out About My Abortion, by Anonymous, and Homebirths Are Actually Kind of Dangerous, by Tracie Egan Morrissey, both make this claim.

Anonymous claims in her article that it is trendy to come out of your abortion closet, which sounded reminiscent of the recently written article by Morrissey who said “Now that Ricki Lake made it seem empowering and supermodels made it seem chic, home births are experiencing a spike in popularity.”

I’d like to write a little about ‘trendy’ and the negative implications that it hopes to cultivate. ‘Trendy’ discounts all the work that reproductive justice advocates have done to create forums where women can share stories and make medical decisions based on fact rather than from places of fear. Anonymous paints a world of daunting “public pressure”, as if angry feminists are demanding abortion stories from every woman on every corner in America. In reality, these abortion stories are organically finding their way through social networking sites that have become safe havens for women to share the reality of their experiences. These are women who might have felt silenced, stigmatized, and ashamed before going public. Others do it in the face of politicians who hope to define these experiences for us through policy and legislation.

‘Trendy’ discounts all the thought I put into writing my own abortion story – from wondering how my family would sit with it, to how it could affect my career. As a birth doula and childbirth educator, this “coming out” was no small matter, and I take personal offense that someone would assume I did so to be in vogue. It felt brave and vulnerable, which is not how I feel when I buy a new pair of shoes or get bangs for the first time in ten years (depending on the style).

Morrissey tackles the subject of trendy home-birthers and flippantly claims that home birth is kind of dangerous. As I see it, this is just another attack on women’s choice, but back handed and coming from our so-called allies. Homebirth is a choice and one that is normal, respected and practiced worldwide. The first thing Morrissey implies in her article is that if you seek the care of a homebirth midwife you have done so because you have watched a Ricki Lake documentary or hope to emulate some celebrity, which establishes in the reader’s mind that women are impressionable, ditzy, and couldn’t possibly navigate their own reproductive outcomes without a copy of Entertainment Weekly in their hands. Her calculations to support this assertion are weak at best. She completely ignores that the study she references that compiled infant and maternal mortality rates includes unplanned homebirths, which dramatically skews outcomes. She also ignores any mention of hospital birth risks, including that two to three women die every day in childbirth in hospitals, as cited in Amnesty Internationals Report Deadly Delivery: The Maternal Health Care Crisis in the USA, and that this particularly affects poor women and women of color.

There is a reason women are choosing telling stories and speaking out in 2012. There is a history behind our silence and we feel it in our throats. For those of us who choose to scream, we do so because we are safe to do so or we have carefully calculated the risks, or, we just have no other option. We recognize that the problem is that we still feel fear, guilt and shame around pregnancy choices, be it abortion, stillbirth, miscarriage, hospital birth or home birth. We are silenced within the hospital and out of it. That is the problem and the true trend that we must break.

Kelly is a mother, full spectrum doula, childbirth educator and one of the founders of the Bay Area Doula Project. She grew up as a union organizer for public sector healthcare workers and has a passion for redefining healthcare access, models and justice. When she’s not helping women take charge of their reproductive lives, she’s guiding her fiery daughter to harness her own innate powers.