Choice Words: Women's Work

Originally appeared on July 27th, 2009

Over the weekend, one of the most read articles on the BBC News website was The Women Who Clear Sudan’s Minefields.

Jamba Besta had planned to be a secretary, hoping to find work in an office as her homeland of South Sudan emerged out of a 22-year long civil war. Instead, the pregnant mother heads an all-female team of de-miners, removing dangerous explosives from former battlefields.
“I never thought I would be doing this,” says Ms Besta, welcoming her six-woman team back from the danger zone they are clearing.
“But it shows those people who think that women can’t do jobs like this that they are wrong.”
The team’s members say they work better as an all-women team – supporting each other against often critical comments that de-mining is work only for a man.
Similar all-women teams work elsewhere in the world, including Kosovo and Cambodia.

I have no illusions that mine-clearing is dangerous work, but this makes me feel so proud of women around the world, women who are taking an active role in rebuilding their communities, supporting each other, and challenging views of what work is appropriate for women.

Choice Words: Teen Pregnancy on MTV

Teen Pregnancy on MTV
June 29th, 2009 by Chen

Last week I wrote about Young, Single and Pregnant, in which a 22 year old young woman was unexpectedly pregnant and shared her decision to have an abortion on a New York Times blog. This got me thinking about discussions of abortion on TV. MTV has a new show called 16 and Pregnant. It is a one-hour documentary following a teen through her pregnancy as she deals with her family, her friends, and the baby’s father. So far three episodes have aired and I am guilty of having watched two of them. (It’s summer… I got time to watch TV…)

On the one hand, I applaud MTV’s efforts to engage in discussions of sexual behavior in young people through a public information campaign called IYSL, It’s Your Sex Life. The campaign is a pretty good one. It’s in partnership with the Kaiser Family Foundation, so I know it’s got reputable people behind it. The campaign encourages several things: talking to your partner about sex, getting tested for STDs, and how to protect yourself. Overall, it’s a lot of good information. If you’ve watched MTV, you may have seen the PSAs broadcast during commercial breaks. I’ve definitely seen them.

For a one hour TV documentary that had to compress footage from almost a year, “16 and Pregnant” is pretty good in that it shows many of the hardships of parenthood, if somewhat formulaic. Gossip runs rampant at school, the pregnant girls have to change their lifestyles to accommodate their babies, they have to talk to their baby’s fathers, they have to deal with their own parents.

Watch full episodes of 16 and Pregnant here. The trailer to 16 and Pregnant is here.

16 and Pregnant is used as a part of the It’s Your Sex Life campaign. IYSL.com has clips of the show and uses it as a starting point for discussions about teen pregnancy. Either MTV is massively promoting its own shows or trying to give teens good sex ed information, or some combination of both. The MTV website for the show has links to its IYSL campaign.

All this talk of teen pregnancy via a public information campaign and a new TV show leaves me feeling that we have left out a rather large part of teen pregnancy: teens who terminate their pregnancies or put their children up for adoption. After the trials and tribulations, each teen mom in the show ultimately comes away with optimism and a cute little baby. The show allows us to see these difficulties of motherhood and it also demystifies teen motherhood. I think it’s demystifying that makes it more acceptable. I don’t think that the difficulties of motherhood will necessarily dissuade young girls from becoming parents because people have a great capacity to overcome these difficulties and every mother regardless of her age has to get up in the middle of the night for the baby. It makes me wonder if “16 and Pregnant” has a “war movie effect”. Most war movies glorify war because they emphasize camaraderie, patriotism, sacrifice, and victory. In the same vein, does 16 and Pregnant glorify teen motherhood? And cute babies and loyal soldiers make great television.

The materials on pregnancy in It’s Your Sex Life campaign do talk about abortion and adoption, but MTV’s programming lacks any serious discussion of these options. In 16 and Pregnant, all the girls have decided to raise their babies because that’s the concept of the show. I wish MTV had explored want to explore the decision-making process. Or maybe even have a show that featured girls who had abortions and adoptions. Not that I think for a minute that this will happen, since abortion is a censored word on TV, and MTV isn’t doing anything to demystify adoption or abortion.

Choice Words: The Conclusion to Young, Single, and Pregnant

I'm re-posting some old entries I wrote on Choice Words, the blog of Choice USA, because I want to try to keep all my blog posts together in this personal blog. Many of my writings on Choice Words have already been posted here. These are the ones that were not previously posted here. Choice USA is an awesome organization dedicated to reproductive choice and its intersections, so these posts explore these themes.

Originally published June 17th, 2009 by Chen

Here is the conclusion to the NYTimes blog article Young, Single and Pregnant that I blogged about earlier this week.

The young woman has made her decision after careful consideration. She met with admissions staff of the graduate program she was accepted to, with representatives from an adoption agency, and -- perhaps the hardest conversation to have -- her parents. She writes:

Once I came to the decision to terminate the pregnancy, so much of the guilt and sadness I’d been feeling melted away. I felt happy for the first time since finding out and I feel like my family is supportive of my decision. I’m focusing on the child I’ll have in a few years from now with someone I feel safe with and supported by. The life of that child will be infinitely better than this one and, sometimes, I wonder if such a miserable, lonely woman could even have a healthy child. There’s more to being a good birth mother than avoiding alcohol and eating right and I just don’t know if I have it. I’m a responsible girl but maybe that means knowing when you’ve put too much on yourself and it won’t work out.

For the young woman, I think she made the right decision for her because she put a lot of thought and effort into looking at her options. Her careful consideration moved me because that is really what good decision-making is about. I think she’ll achieve all that she has envisioned for herself.

I’ve been thinking a lot about all that was said on the NYTimes about this article but I don’t have time to write about it now. I’m sneaking in this blog post while I’m at work! Need to go back to work before someone sees me slacking off!

Read My (Other) Blog

This post isn't entirely a self-plug but it may be a bit redundant since all my blog readers (that I know of) I'm also facebook friends with, which means they'll see a link to my other blog.
Nonetheless, I'm announcing that I am a blogger on Choice Words. It is the blog of Choice USA, a really cool reproductive justice organization.

I've already posted two entries on Choice Words. You can read them here:

• Go Forth and Recycle

• What Does Everyone Look Like?

Why should you Choice Words?

1. Because you love what I have to say!
   Really, I'll be updating more frequently there, about twice a week. Because Choice USA is awesome. Also, I'm only one of many bloggers, so you'll get to read what they have to say.
   
2. Because you love Reproductive Justice.
   What I really love about repro justice is that it recognizes reproductive rights in the context of multiple systemic inequities. It reaches out to many communities that otherwise may not overlap in other areas. Activists have this problem of "caring too much" so I'm glad that repro justice allows activists to really work to forge connections with environmental activists, labor activists, immigration activists.
   

On a side note, I really love getting comments on my blog(s!). It's extra motivation for me continue to update them.

Doctors as allies and enemies

I have been feeling uneasy about the relationship between doctors and feminists because I am both a (future) doctor and feminist. A while ago I went to a Planned Parenthood conference for college activists in Michigan with fellow members of MSU Students for Choice, and the issue of doctors vs. women or doctors' alliance with women came up. In addition, Women's Council is getting ready to show the documentary "The Business of Being Born". I fully support the screening and have actually planned the logistics of the event. But I felt that now is the time I talk about my views of medicine and women.

I want to be on the side of both doctors and feminists. But I know that some feel the two fields are incompatible, that feminists hate doctors and doctors aren't supportive of women.

First, I want to identify a phenomenon that I have observed: doctors are sometimes praised and at other times villified by feminists.

My experiences with pro-choice activists has been that they are sympathetic and grateful for doctors who perform abortions. For pro-choice activists concerned about abortions as a public health issue, obstetricians who perform abortions are good doctors. When abortions were illegal, they risked their medical practice to perform them. When abortions will legal but faced violent opposition, they risked their lives to perform them. The few were murdered by anti-abortion extremists in their own clinics became martyrs to the cause. The abortion doctor in a several hundred mile radius is applauded and praised. I'm probably not going to be an obstetrician/gynecologist, but if I were, I would feel that my work has a purpose.

But many pro-choice women are also feminists who feel disempowered by a medical profession that is patriarchal, impersonal, selfish and downright inaccurate. The same ob/gyns that women are appreciative are included in their critique of all doctors. I have also noticed a weird confluence that both anti-abortion and ardent feminists call doctors who perform abortions "abortionists". This language intentionally removes the accolade associated with being a "doctor". A doctor is an abortionists for killing babies or for humiliatingly poking around a woman's reproductive organs or cruelly performing an abortion.

Secondly, I have more to say on my thoughts about medicine, but it started to go off topic from feminism and choice, so I'll save that for another day.