Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters by Jessica Valenti Page B
Authors: Jessica Valenti
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to Project Prevention (much friendlier sounding), but its tactics are still the same. The organization pays female drug addicts in exchange for getting long-term birth control and surgical sterilization. Outside of how disgusting that is on its face—let’s just sterilize women, not get them treatment—the group’s blatant racist and classist tactics make it beyond reprehensible.
These women, after all, aren’t just any drug addicts. The project puts up billboards in poor black neighborhoods that say things like: ADDICTED TO DRUGS? WANT $200? One of its other strategies is to approach women in soup kitchens. I wonder how many billboards went up in rich white areas
where women are snorting coke at their kid’s birthday party or popping Xanax like Tic Tacs.
Barbara Harris, the organization’s founder, has compared her clients to animals: “We don’t allow dogs to breed. We spay them. We neuter them. We try to keep them from having unwanted puppies, and yet these women are literally having litters of children.” 13
“These women,” huh?
Wyndi Anderson at National Advocates for Pregnant Women says that CRACK (I’m sorry, I refuse to call it Project Prevention) relies on the same economic arguments to support its program as were used to justify eugenics sterilization in the United States and Nazi Germany. She points out that there are real solutions to help women:
❂ There are things we can do to help women and families. Make sure that when a woman asks for help she can get it. Too often women and other people seeking help for addictions are put on waiting lists, told to come back later, given a referral to a program that will not in fact take them, or told that they are ineligible because they do not have the right kind of insurance. Make sure that women with drug problems are treated the same as other patients. 14
But it’s so much easier to do some tube-tying!
The repro rights movement is probably the most well-known women’s issue around, but this aspect of it is hardly ever talked about. Don’t forget that repro rights and health are about a lot more than abortion and birth control.
So Are We Totally Screwed?
So, I know it sounds bleak. And in a big way, it is.
The Supreme Court is mostly anti-choice—there’s a good chance Roe will be reversed. And the prevailing anti-sex attitude that’s behind all of the rollbacks on repro rights isn’t showing any signs of going away.
I don’t mean to be a downer, but best to be honest, right?
All isn’t lost, though. Women are fighting like crazy to make sure that we hold on to the rights we have and get back the ones we’ve lost. The pro-choice effort in South Dakota was an amazing example of this. Women collected more than 38,000 signatures (more than twice the number needed) to put the issue on the ballot. Then, even in the face of the anti-choice community putting out straight-up lies about the law (saying there was a rape and incest exception), they went out, door to door, and made sure the truth was being told. And it paid off. Young women across the country are having parties, events, and fundraisers to raise awareness about repro rights and take action. A group in Brooklyn, for example, is having a “Burlesque for Choice” party. Fun. And remember creepy Senator Bill Napoli, who said only super-sodomized virgins should be able to have abortions? A female comic did a strip making fun of him and included his home and office numbers. Women from all over the country gave Mr. Sodomy a call and told him exactly what they thought of him.
Young women are the ones who are being royally screwed by all this, but we’re also the ones taking innovative action.
I’ll sometimes hear that women my age or younger “don’t know how good they have it,” or that we take our rights for granted. I call bullshit. We know what the stakes are, and we’re doing what’s necessary. The only question is—what will you do?
6
MATERIAL WORLD
Women work. We have
These women, after all, aren’t just any drug addicts. The project puts up billboards in poor black neighborhoods that say things like: ADDICTED TO DRUGS? WANT $200? One of its other strategies is to approach women in soup kitchens. I wonder how many billboards went up in rich white areas
where women are snorting coke at their kid’s birthday party or popping Xanax like Tic Tacs.
Barbara Harris, the organization’s founder, has compared her clients to animals: “We don’t allow dogs to breed. We spay them. We neuter them. We try to keep them from having unwanted puppies, and yet these women are literally having litters of children.” 13
“These women,” huh?
Wyndi Anderson at National Advocates for Pregnant Women says that CRACK (I’m sorry, I refuse to call it Project Prevention) relies on the same economic arguments to support its program as were used to justify eugenics sterilization in the United States and Nazi Germany. She points out that there are real solutions to help women:
❂ There are things we can do to help women and families. Make sure that when a woman asks for help she can get it. Too often women and other people seeking help for addictions are put on waiting lists, told to come back later, given a referral to a program that will not in fact take them, or told that they are ineligible because they do not have the right kind of insurance. Make sure that women with drug problems are treated the same as other patients. 14
But it’s so much easier to do some tube-tying!
The repro rights movement is probably the most well-known women’s issue around, but this aspect of it is hardly ever talked about. Don’t forget that repro rights and health are about a lot more than abortion and birth control.
So Are We Totally Screwed?
So, I know it sounds bleak. And in a big way, it is.
The Supreme Court is mostly anti-choice—there’s a good chance Roe will be reversed. And the prevailing anti-sex attitude that’s behind all of the rollbacks on repro rights isn’t showing any signs of going away.
I don’t mean to be a downer, but best to be honest, right?
All isn’t lost, though. Women are fighting like crazy to make sure that we hold on to the rights we have and get back the ones we’ve lost. The pro-choice effort in South Dakota was an amazing example of this. Women collected more than 38,000 signatures (more than twice the number needed) to put the issue on the ballot. Then, even in the face of the anti-choice community putting out straight-up lies about the law (saying there was a rape and incest exception), they went out, door to door, and made sure the truth was being told. And it paid off. Young women across the country are having parties, events, and fundraisers to raise awareness about repro rights and take action. A group in Brooklyn, for example, is having a “Burlesque for Choice” party. Fun. And remember creepy Senator Bill Napoli, who said only super-sodomized virgins should be able to have abortions? A female comic did a strip making fun of him and included his home and office numbers. Women from all over the country gave Mr. Sodomy a call and told him exactly what they thought of him.
Young women are the ones who are being royally screwed by all this, but we’re also the ones taking innovative action.
I’ll sometimes hear that women my age or younger “don’t know how good they have it,” or that we take our rights for granted. I call bullshit. We know what the stakes are, and we’re doing what’s necessary. The only question is—what will you do?
6
MATERIAL WORLD
Women work. We have
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