I've been pretty psyched about the recent mandate from the Health and Human Services. If you haven't heard (more detail here) it basically requires insurers to fully cover birth control (yes, that means no co-pays or payments you'd have to make!) and other preventive care services for women like counseling for HIV and STIs, screening for domestic violence, or screening for gestational diabetes during pregnancy... all beginning next year.

My favorite quote is from HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius: "Under the law, we're making it illegal to charge women more just because of their gender." Amen!

In honor of this fabulous news, I wanted to share this website I recently discovered. It's called Bedsider and it's a great resource for girls, teens, pretty much everyone on birth control! Some snazzy features include setting up daily, weekly or monthly reminders for you to take your birth control via email or text (who couldn't use a reminder?), a "Method Explorer" that helps to compare methods, an easy-to-use online search for health centers near you, articles, and stories from people like you and me!

Here's one video as a teaser:
   
Definitely check it out and share--it's for everyone!

It can be pretty easy to get stuck in the rut of assuming there's one way of approaching an issue. In the feminist movement, for example, this has led to many women of color and women from developing countries stopping to say, "hey, this movement doesn't represent my voice or my experiences!" (Check out this great book if you want to read more). The same goes for the LGBT movement, where people of color have had to make sure their voices and perspectives aren't neglected. For beginners, terms like being "male" or "female," or even "transmen" or "transwomen" aren't universal identifiers. One recently released PBS documentary is one that does a great job presenting the story of Fred Martinez--watch the trailer above for a sneak peak!--who was nádleehí, a "male-bodied person with a feminine nature, a special gift according to his ancient Navajo culture." Many people now have taken this label and identify themselves as "two-spirited," per the Navajo heritage that believes there's at least four genders: male, female, male with a feminine essence, and female with a masculine essence. You can read more from the official PBS website here, or from this short clip from the documentary:



I am glad this documentary is out there to share a different perspective, as well as a very powerful story of this two-spirited Navajo. And I haven't seen the full documentary yet myself, but am really looking forward to checking it out and learning from it!

The Asian American community is not the only community where the feeling of "HIV/AIDS doesn't happen to our people" is pervasive. But today is the National Asian & Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day so no time better than now to reflect on how HIV/AIDS affects that community.

One of my favorite articles on the topic is this one by journalist Rong Xiaoqing because it incorporates how HIV/AIDS in the Asian American community intersects with race (aka the "model minority" myth that Asian Americans don't have health problems). The myth has real health consequences, like doctors not thinking that Asians could get the virus:

"Even doctors don’t often associate Asians with AIDS. According to the New York DOH [Department of Health], only 6 percent of Asians have ever been pushed to take an HIV test by their doctors, 24 percent lower than the citywide average and the lowest among all ethnic groups."

The patient, a young second generation Chinese living with his parents, [said] that since his parents heard he got HIV, his life has been totally changed.

“He told me that every time he used the bathroom, his mother would wash the toilet thoroughly. And once he and his father went to a funeral together, the father pointed to the coffin and said, you’ll be in there soon. He couldn’t bear his parents any more, but he could not afford to live independently in New York either, so he thought the only thing he could do is to move out,” said Murayama. “We have many cases like this. Clearly, Asians’ knowledge of HIV is at least 10 years behind many other communities.”

“I visited some websites for HIV-positive people, but found most people talking there are older white men. Few are minority young people, and almost no Asians. There is a dearth of resources for young people, especially people of color,” said Ching.

Few things in life make me happier than student activism, especially when students realize what a powerful impetus for change they can be on an institutional level. They're often paying in the excess of thousands of dollars to attend some of these fine institutions; don't they deserve, at the very least, to be on campuses where they feel welcomed, respected, and safe? Well, this past weekend, I read about a prime example of student activism at Pennsylvania's Dickinson College. There, almost three hundred students marched on the school’s administration building to protest campus policies on sexual assault and they staged a three and a half day sit-in for the cause.

The final result? Major concessions by the administration, where they agreed to notify students about sexual assaults via a campus "Red Alert" system, and to expel students found to have committed rape, not allowing them to appeal that sanction on grounds of "excessive harshness."

Kudos to all the student activists! and some pictures of their signs to charge your activist batteries:



More pictures here.

Ever heard of the term "shadeism"? Whether you've heard that word or not, the phenomenon of discrimination within communities between those who are lighter and darker skinned is not anything new. This is especially the case for women in communities of color who are constantly struggling to challenge often internalized beauty standards that intertwine "whitness" and "beauty" (and sistahs like Beyonce, who keep getting whiter and blonder, aren't helping either). Anyway, here's a short documentary that I recently discovered and watched, about the topic of shadeism, that I thought was worth sharing.

Through the voices of 5 young women of color, the documentary shows how pervasive the concept of shadeism is, impacting women from all backgrounds. Especially heartbreaking is the little girl featured in the documentary, age 4, who describes her own skin as not pretty and expresses a "white is better" perspective. Even at such a young age, the little girl (Manisha) has internalized and formed strong views about what constitutes beauty--white skin.

Other topics covered: skin "bleaching," colonialism, and "pigmentocracy," a social structure based on whiter people on top of the social ladder. The ultimate plus is that it actually ends on a hopeful note: “I think the time has come for us to challenge the idea that beauty only comes in one form."  Amen!

The documentary is a short (enjoyable) 20 minutes, about a topic that needs more discussion -- well worth watching!

Each year, while we celebrate Valentine’s Day with candy, hearts, and roses, young women across U.S. college campuses perform Eve Ensler’s award-winning play The Vagina Monologues. And it’s more than just a performance: theater and political activism combine in what’s now known as V-Day, established to raise funds for, and awareness of, stopping violence against women and girls (a worthy cause!).

Like many of these young women, I also brought The Vagina Monologues to my campus last year. While I appreciated the exercise of producing and performing in the show, I couldn’t help but notice the play’s limitations too. It was painstakingly clear that the performance was both race and class-bound. Like the one piece that begins, “What would your vagina wear?” and the answers include Louis Vuitton boots and cashmere. Then there are the pieces about those women from the “third world,” who are subordinated, repressed, and obviously needing to be “rescued.” They are, always, the victims, never fully sexual beings like their Western women counterparts. At the end of the day, The Vagina Monologues didn’t include my vagina’s monologue…. and the play ultimately suffered from the same limitations as the mainstream Western feminist movement: aiming to speak for a broad spectrum of women while actually doing so through the lens of white, upper-middle class, Western women.

Now, I know, this is nothing new… but in yet another month of V-day events, I thought I’d share a few examples of women of color (and men of color!) who have created alternate spaces for speaking openly about sexuality, violence, and race... reclaiming feminism, The Vagina Monologues and speaking for themselves, instead of letting a white woman speak for them.

1) Pocketbook Monologues, created by Sharon McGhee, and described as a black woman’s Vagina Monologues. These monologues have a focus on HIV/AIDS and include important experiences like one monologue about a woman who’s in love with a man in prison. Check it out, as featured in The Real Housewives of Atlanta:



2) Yoni Ki Baat (loosely translates to “Talks about the Vagina”), representing the voices of those from the South Asian Diaspora. This was originally created by South Asian Sisters, a “diverse collective of progressive South Asian women dedicated to empowering our community to resist all forms of oppression through art, dialogue, conscious alliances, and grassroots political action.” Here's a wonderful excerpt from one monologue that demonstrates what a wide (and grave) array of issues affect women in communities of color:

So where does this leave
my Hindu yoni? She
sings herself beautiful
now. She grows
three lethal fangs to puncture
the necks of three demons:
fascism
fundamentalism
genocide.

4) Tarzan Monologues, a Nigerian theatrical response that includes both men and women (what? you mean these subjects are not just “women’s subjects”?), talking about everything from erectile dysfunction, money, sexual abuse, religion, sterility, infidelity and, of course, women.  

5) Deez Nuts, the black “all male spin to the Vagina Monologues” based out of Washington D.C. As per one of the writers, “It’s a perspective on everything from love to war to having children, being fathers. But unlike the Vagina Monologues, where the women talk a lot about their parts—you know, about hair on the vagina and having periods—Deez Nuts doesn’t focus on the male parts so much. It definitely talks about sex and relationships, but it’s more about all the things that affect these nuts, instead of the actual nuts.”

Got anymore? Send them to me! I’m keeping a growing list. For now, here’s to a V-day that includes the vaginas (and nuts!) and voices of all women (and men!).

Imagine facing an unwanted pregnancy as a teenager and wrestling with what is both a very personal and very difficult situation—should I keep the baby? Should I think about an abortion? How did this happen? Then, imagine going into a self-proclaimed “pregnancy resource center” and having a “doctor” tell you, with no medical background or license (but wearing scrubs to play the role), that you are pregnant… using the same store-bought pregnancy kit you could have bought at your local pharmacy. Or imagine being forced to listen to a religious lecture or anti-abortion videos while you wait nervously for your test result, mulling over your options, and then being refused referrals to actual abortion providers. Or imagine being given information that doesn’t jive well with claims you have heard elsewhere—wait, what? Abortion is linked to breast cancer?—claims that don’t have any science to back them up.

This might seem like some crazy, far-fetched scenario (a nightmare in my books as someone pursuing her medical degree!), but it actually might happen at your neighborhood crisis pregnancy center (CPC). CPCs have a long history of intentionally misleading women to prevent them from accessing abortion. The first CPCs were established in the 1960s after state legislatures repealed their laws criminalizing abortion. Since then, going by other names too like Pregnancy Aid, Birth Right, Life Choices, or Pregnancy Counseling Center, they try to make first contact with a woman who thinks she might be pregnant so they can talk her out of considering an abortion. They claim to offer alternatives to abortion by providing “counseling,” but that’s tinged with deceptive and false medical information. They are also neither licensed medical facilities, nor do they face any oversight by the state or federal governments (click here for more information).

To make matters worse, low-income women and women of color seem to bear the brunt of this misinformation—with most CPCs in New York City being in low-income areas—exacerbating the access/information divide between them and their white-upper-middle-class counterparts who may have access to other, more legitimate centers beyond these CPCs.

Now, while these centers are actually old news, the important thing is that right now, there is proposed legislation in New York City, Bill 371, that would require CPCs to post notices on their doors, websites, and advertisements, stating that they do not provide abortions or contraception, and to disclose when a medical provider is not available at the center. Honesty towards those seeking reproductive care? Sounds good to me!

Planned Parenthood of New York is organizing a “Petition to End Deception” to be sent to New York City Council members to urge them to pass Bill 371, regulating these CPCs and ultimately protecting women’s health. Sign the petition here, read their press release here for more info, and pass on to any friends, coworkers, or family members who care about New York women receiving honest medical information regarding their reproductive health!

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