a little red hen

"ella," lower case contraceptive pill, tip toes here

How far did I have to go to find this picture?  To the UK where ella, the new "You have five days to take care of your unprotected sex encounter" pill    is now available.  Approved this week by the FDA as available by prescription in the U.S., none of the stories about it showed what its packaging looked like.

Call me paranoid, but this seems just another symptom of how frightened officials here are about making this breakthrough contraceptive pill available.  If you don't see it, will it go away?  Please.

In a braver time for women who demanded control over our own bodies, there's  this heartbreaking pin in my jewelry box.  Every now and then it appears on my shirt.  Probably has no meaning for women with no memory of time before Roe v. Wade.   Each time I look at it, I feel the sadness of my own experience and exasperation about the unwon battle for reproductive justice.  A recent find of a hangar slipcover left from our son's wedding in New Orleans (the year before Katrina) moved me to think about writing a post, "Meditation on a Hangar." But celebrating ella is more upbeat and hopeful for the future of my grandchildren.

My English friend Gillian who lived downstairs in my 4th apartment in Manhattan in two-year span and the one I returned to after my own illegal 1957 abortion, would  entertain as she described the dime store wedding band almost slipping off her ring finger during her visit to the NYC Planned Parenthood (link not historical indicates the ongoing struggle).  Why were we laughing?  We had cried so many times.

That was New York City in the 1950s when the only way a woman could get a diaphragm was visit to a gynecologist for a prescription.  Expensive.  The cheaper alternative was PP.  Gillian developed a complicated story for the doctor there.  At the time, the gyn would ask the patient supplicant to see if she could use the device properly.  And so the ring began to slip.  Her story became more hilarious when she returned to PP for a new diaphragm the following year and saw the same woman doctor who remembered her.  Gillian was seriously challenged to update her marital story.

All this to say, I wish the organizations that support CHOICE would spend some of our support bucks on powerful imagery.  Then get a couple of those "girls" on the TV show "Mad Men" to appear in national advertising with one on their breasts. From what I can see here of the ella pill, that would be a fine design, surrounded by the message, "Five days to Choice."  Sure, you can think up a better one but will the orgs listen to old ladies?

UPDATE:  The one place that gets my money in this never-ending struggle is the Center for Reproductive Rights.  Check their site for all their important legal work that could use your support .

Emma Goldman-- reassurance, 1917... a question, 1919

 

Keep the spark of liberty alive,

the night cannot last forever.

A bookmark from The Emma Goldman Papers, University of California, Berkeley.  On the reverse side, a contemporary message about the importance of remembering our history of struggle,  "Stirring the embers of the past to inspire the future. 

Emma Goldman (1869-1940) and Alexander Berkman in a "Farewell, [to] Friends and Comrades," wrote this line before serving almost two years in prison for opposing the conscription of young men into the First World War.

Partial to her feisty spirit, I once bought a 1916 issue of Emma's publication, Mother Earth News.  It includes a reminder of the upcoming "Mother Earth Ball" to celebrate the publication's 11th anniversary (Admission 35 cents, Hat Check, 15 cents). Somewhere in my photos, there's one of me standing in front of a brownstone where she lived near Union Square in New York City. 

In the Portland Red Guide, I learn she came here in 1915 to speak, was arrested for distributing birth control information. A Portland Circuit Judge dismissed the case with the words, "There is too much tendency to prudery nowadays."  She also spoke at the Portland Public Library on "The Sham of Culture." A local blogger last year named her Portland's Fairy Godmother. Her spirit lives on!

A few years ago, the bookmark on the right arrived in the mail.  I've saved it for its message and its different, gentler view of Emma--feminist, anarchist, immigrant--to share among ourselves.  In these days when it often feels as if the forces of evil have taken over reasonableness, I offer her words to recall that we have survived narrowness of thought in earlier times.  Her message, as always, is pertinent to 2010.

"Sooner or later the American people are going to wake up.  --Emma Goldman, Detroit, Michigan, 11/26/1919, on deportation to Russia" reads a cup (mug)  on my kitchen counter.  Make sure you click on this image from her  1901 arrest, a frequent happening.

Celebrate her birthday on June 27, with a contribution to the Papers so you too can be a part of the ongoing effort to write women back into history.

Super Bawl* Sunday: Ads a Feminist Could Support

Much chatter* about this year's TV ads accompanying today's football event, the yearly display of testosterone with accompanying rise in spouse abuse.  Women's Media Center has coordinated shout-outs to  CBS to dump the ad.  And been ignored.  Everything more you'd want to know appears in the blog,  The Reclusive Leftist.  She rightly nails patriarchy as the true source of the problem.

For image, I offer one  saved on my desktop for a couple of years--a poster on bus kiosk around New York City.   I'd support variations on it year round.  Living closer to the ground, so to speak, these days in Portland, Oregon,  I now start the day with the  local Oregonian delivered to my door in contrast to the national NY Times (read later when picked up at the front desk of my retirement community).

Locally Portland would seem to harbour more women abusers than back east (I doubt this) because the "small" incidents here are reported by the media.   In NYC only prominent men receive notice by journalists.  Coast to coast, however, they are always lightly punished. 

Writing to promote the "Geezers' Crusade" , David Brooks on the Op-Ed page of the Times, wants us to do more on behalf of younger people.  Would he support a movement by older people that demands  more visible signs of respect for women in every American city--bold ones like this poster? 

Could it happen in  your city?

Women's Health Still Hostage to Healthcare Reform, but...

They checked their Blackberries last night, my daughter and spouse.  They'd gone out for a walk as we stayed with the kids.

"Nothing yet," was the 10 p.m. (PST) verdict.  No, our foot-dragging, drama-loving Congress would make us stay up late to find out would they/wouldn't they.

Earlier, when the House Republicans used women's bodies to stall the healthcare bill, I was angry--once again.  More frequent Elderbloggers Darlene and Ronni posted timely rants.  Amanda Maracotte* at RH Reality Check posted a stronger response  in line with my own feelings on the relationship of Stupak amendment to men's wish to control women and their bodies as result of their "deepset fear of women's agency."

My family tried to calm me with reminders that reform was so crucial, that the abortion restrictions would never last, that we needed to support this shaky bill.  Made an effort to let go of disappointment but had less heart in sending more emails, small donations to the "good guys" in Congress.

While we waited, surprising new guidelines were issued by the U.S. Prevenive Services Task Force on mammogram testing.  As an old lady who has had two "false positives," one at 52, the other at 64 which led to a biopsy, I take this very personally.  Who of us does not? 

[Aside:  Is  Politics Daily, not a feminist blog, the only one to picture the mammo machine?  Did any of the mainstream media stories show that dreadful invention, now marginally improved since my first one in the 1970s?  I have a couple of paper  "gowns" saved from these visits--blue, pink.  These combined with the eerie sounds of the X-ray machine have always seemed ready-made for a dance performance or a scene in a play I'd write.]

This morning I had a little relief with the post at Our Bodies Ourselves, New Mammogram Guidelines Are Causing Confusion, But Here's Why They Make Sense. It is a long, thoughtful post that acknowledges the complexity of  technology that gives us information but has the potential for harm.  The comments with reactions from women, researchers, doctors are worth reading too.

 Occurred to me that we need a younger women's consciousness to focus on useful health education in middle and high schools.  All the controversy around "sex ed" may have left us with nothing!  Bring back those plaster human bodies we cringed at in my freshman college gym class, the ones that come apart to reveal our insides. Young people need to learn more about how it all works--and more about ways to evaluate health info that comes toward us.

*Maracotte has another post, "Less boob squishing seems like a value add to me" on her own Pandagon blog.

Slow Knitting in the City of Roses

Yes, yes, I am way behind on details of our many good experiences, educational and environmental, in the place from which we are now voting--Portland, Oregon.  [NYC friends ask, "How you doing with the rain?"  What rain; it's been gloriously sunny.] 

Most immediate issue (after more and more

emails to our new congresspeople about single payer/public option health care legislation) is yarn.  How to store it and where it fits in my life.  Will I make something from this 50/50 wool and hemp?  Bought at some fiber fair a few years back, no memory of my plan.  Sunday we return to OFFF (Oregon Flock & Fiber Fest) in Canby. 

Will the PDX Knitters respond to the idea of Slow Knitting as a new category in fiberland?  Last year, they were  quite good-natured about modeling the Couverle Condom Amulet (a newsboy kind of cap.)  "So how is it different?" a knitter I met yesterday at the OSHER program (more on that later) asked me.

Needlecrafts have become explosively popular among younger knitters, I answered, so different from the days when one was simply "a knitter."  One example is the "Sock Summit" held at the Convention Center here August 5-7.  Someone needs to tell me whether the number who attended from around the world was 7,000 or 17,000; these women, and a few men, are intense and constantly producing.  That's fine but just one pair of booties is a big project for me.  Feels vintage to say to an enthusiastic foot-coverer, "I knit my last socks in the 1950s."

We all know that I definitely am vintage and have the incipient arthritis to prove it!  So Ron and I have had one of those talks about our visit to OFFF.  He will check out  fiber for potential additions to his spinning stash.  My own plan: locate other Slow Knitters.  But no new yarn purchases--would love to hear  ideas for  small things to make for family and friends-- with what's already on hand--like the 8-inch stuffed animal almost finished for youngest granddaughter. 

Speaking of Knitting Small...in  public ways to save the world as we know it--Oberlin College, my alma mater, has published a lovely piece about The Oberlin Condom Amulet in their current issue. Thanks to Google, the Alumni magazine editor called, then made the immodest proposal to the powers-that-be.

Rachel Walden of Women's Health News, an alum from a later decade, has mentioned it but there has not been a stampede yet from startled women over 50 gasping "...I never heard of that..."

By the way,  check out Rachel's post at Our Bodies Our Blog about a recent study  connecting  HRT and lung cancer...may raise more questions than it answers.

Elderblogging 2.0 Begins in PDX Retirement Community

Ten days into our altered lifestyle in the northwest.  Besides the physical part of getting settled, accepting that we really did not reduce our possessions enough, there's much to experience--in addition to our family.  Last week we went to  orientation for SSI, Senior Studies Initiative,  sponsored by the local community college.  We'd enjoyed a couple of their "Current Events" meetings last winter on our "deciding" visit.   There are six sites around town, only one close by. 

It took place in Lake Oswego, very leafy with big houses; I wondered how people get there without a car.  Intrigued that one of the groups has a presentation scheduled on Emma Goldman.  Looking forward to that.  Today, after a trip to an ENT doctor (nose-bleeding is my dramatic response to the move), I mentioned to Ron that our time so far has felt very suburban.  Must get out of the car soon, take mass transit buses and light rail which are very available from our place.

Saturday we stopped by the Belmont Street Fair, an annual explosion of  hippie-dom plus eviro and neighborhood consciousness.  Not the only one, of course; the city is filled this time of year with celebration, fruit festivals.  Young people come to several parts of Portland for the lifestyle of music and tatoos, live alongside young families who sort of like that atmosphere.  This is the world we know from visiting our daughter in a nearby neighborhood. 

Yesterday I went to the Terwilliger Users Group (TUG to insiders) and was amazed by how many people were there.  Must have been forty, men and women.  A woman gave a talk about Facebook which I was pleased to hear.  Each of our children, different as they are from one another, is now on it.  When I had dinner in New York before we left with Lisa Daehlin, the soprano/knitter, she told me I ought to consider it for the Condom Amulet project.  It's thanks to her that there's a group for it on Ravelry but Facebook does have some perks not available there. 

The staff tech person (how cool is that?) for Terwilliger Plaza had mentioned there were a couple of other folks with blogs living here, so I asked if the internal website might list them.  It's going to happen.  This is very different from New York City where I never met another blogger near my advanced age.

Tonight another Plaza activity, "Victory for Woman Suffrage in Oregon," a talk with great slides by Dr. Kimberly Jensen of Western Oregon University.  I have been too east-coast-centric about women's studies; was surprised by many western states voted to give women the vote ahead of the opposite coast.  Portland was a leader in moving the Oregon legistlature to do in 1912--on the sixth try and pioneered less ladylike approaches with mass advertising and public displays.  In  her recent book, Minerva, Mobilizing Women in the First World War,  Jensen has written about Dr. Esther Lovejoy, a Portland physician and local leader in women's rights, who was an Army doctor. 

For the coming 2012 centennial of woman suffrage in Oregon, here's a link to an active committee gathering ideas and material--particularly interested in finding photos and letters from the period. 

Zoe, our granddaughter, on a brief visit to our apartment, announced in her four-year-old way (birthday party last Saturday), "What a mess!"  One day we hope to present a better model to our descendants. If we can only figure out where to hang all the pictures, stow the books.

Little Red Hen Flies Big Apple Coop...

They said it could not be done.  Selling one's own apartment in Manhattan in 2009--sans real estate broker.  But as other unexpected things might happen (chickens fly late at night when no one's looking), we now have a happy buyer, a contract, and  a closing date.  In the interest of transparency, I should add that our buyer was brought to us by a broker, Mary Pat, perky redhead, former actress from L.A.  Fortunately, our broker fee is only three percent, not six. Here's how it worked.When I first blogged about  Second Stage Retirement and our decision to leave New York City for Portland, Oregon, it was April.  We began the slog in late February--five months from start to finish.  Not bad for this economy.

Our middle income co-op has a cap on all apartment prices:  you can sell for less, but not more.

First we tried something a bit lower than  our "the maximum re-sale price" for our two bedroom, one bath apartment.  Not happening, we quickly lowered it.  (Earlier I wrote  about adventures in advertising from the New York Times to the Fulan Gong paper.)  We scheduled frequent   "Open House"  weekends; posted on bus kiosks in the neighborhood during Columbia University's graduation.  Around May, something shifted.  Until the recent downturn, Morningside Gardens  had a long waiting-list, was an affordable "secret" in the City.  Now it  was discovered by brokers. Several began to represent sellers of the 15 or so apartments in the six buildings.

By chance, our Open House notices on the lobby buzzers were noticed by them--and other potential buyers.  This meant we benefitted from brokers'newspaper/online advertising.  Overwhelmed by their glossy brochures and the "de-clutter" message, we resisted signing up with any of them. In June, needing a break, we flew to Portland for a ten-day respite with family.  We made an important decision to choose a less expensive apartment at Terwilliger Plaza.  And gave up our personal view of Mt Hood (our family pointed out we'd only be able to see it two months a year). 

Two days into our trip, Mary Pat, the perky broker, called.  We  liked her--no brochures, no aggressive pitch.  She had a client who had seen another apartment in our building but she knew ours was both more attractive (remodeled kitchen) and cheaper.  The wonders of fax plus cellphone plus a cooperative management, plus an excellent lawyer made it happen long distance. One visit by buyer:  we had a sale before we returned home!    

We leave New York City at the end of August .             

Many life changes ahead as we relocate to  the Northwest; we have spent most of our lives on the east coast.  What will it be like to have grandchildren who could stay overnight with us?  Will I start driving again?  Will I finally wear my old bathing suit because there's a pool right there--and it would be great exercise...get over dislike of cholrine?  Learn to cook on electric?  What will it be like to live in a building where everyone is over 65?  One unlamented loss will be the climb up the stairs to the elevated subway stop at 125th Street (pictured above).

 For the past few months, it's been clear my relationship with blogging needs review.  "Peace, politics, yarnlife over 60" begs revision; my 76th birthday is Wednesday.  In Second Stage Retirement would Elderblogging 2.0 be a better description?  

WEAR A WHITE ARMBAND...PROTEST DOMESTIC TERRORISM

"Abortion doctor shot dead at his Kansas church"  

The party of  Death--a/k/a "the right to life" has struck again in Kansas.

The National Organization for Women asks us to  wear a white armband tomorrow, Monday, June 1, 2009, to protest domestic violence.  

Gun violence and violence against women and children continue to be intimately connected in America.

Make your voice heard as we move closer to the looming dystopia we have been warned about in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.

 

Jon Stewart, Comedian, Marks Passover with Offense

Last night my disgust with "The Daily Show" and Jon Stewart show was tempered a bit by watching an old episode  of "Third Rock from the Sun" before bedtime. This morning I was still angry that he could use his considerable influence to demean old/elder/elderly people-- along with Jews-- by "celebrating" National STD Awareness Month with the most tasteless, offensive skit imaginable.

Did Stewart or cast member Jason Jones, who carried out the segment in a Jewish Senior Center in Miami, have a particular agenda in mind?  Jones began by interviewing an 80-something as he smiled with how his goal in life was to get as much sex as he could--by whatever means.  When Jones asked if this might amount to assault, I thought he might be going in a purposeful way toward highlighting the problem usually addressed in talking about younger men toward women.

Wrong.  The "interview" went on to belittle the Center's efforts to educate members about safe sex.  I believe the woman demonstrating how to use a condom was Miriam, The Condom Grandmother.  Remarkable person who became an educator after  losing two of her bridge partners to AIDS--women who did not demand that sexual partners use condoms--or maybe did not know they should.

When I read  Ronni Bennett's post today, "Elders and Fair Hiring Practices," on the insensitivity of journalists who give job-seekers advice  totally skewed to the not-young, I used that opportunity to express my anger about the ageism of Stewart's show.   Do you ever see an older person there?  Nancy Pelosi, Madeleine Albright have appeared.  The staff must feel quite clever in covering two invisible  categories of untouchable on the program's guest line-up--women and old people. 

Stewart puzzles many of us.  Often his humor is ironic.  But what about his own often expressed discomfort with aging?  Worried about losing his very young audience as he might be mistaken not as their bar buddy but their father?  Frequent references to himself as Jewish more toward the ironic too.  But last night, the night of the second seder for Passover, it was strictly anti-semetic as Jones played for laughs in this obviously Jewish setting in South Florida. 

Have you read the statistics on the high rate of HIV there?  Do you have a suggestion for who should get my complaint about the show?

Old people, we do not have an advocacy group.

People, You Elected Him for Change & It's Happening

Yes, yes, it's very dark out there on the economy landscape.  But so much has already happened since Obama took office.  Remember, we said (back in the "good" days of August) that he was inheriting a landfill's worth of problems.

How about some rage toward the fool in office before him? 

You think I do not have some complaints?  Certainly--more troops to Afghanistan, too much nodding toward the religious.   Of my gosh, he's not perfect.  Much less perfect is the shallow  media?  They could back off on the bankers for a moment.  And the annoying (to me) too-much-information, known in my family as TMI, about every dress/school/meal detail in the Obama family.  Actually I would like to hear from Marian Johnson, Michelle's mother about her friends on Social Security, what it's like to go from her former life to "retirement" in the White House.  Not going to happen because that might bore men and women under 50.

A worthwhile newspaper might focus on how close we've come to something like  single-payer health insurance.  Or that the administration has made moves that upset the Catholic Church and religious right who believed they had a won the struggle to make  abstinence, that bogus sex education notion, the law of the land.    Things undreamed of as within our reach  only a year ago.

The top image here was drawn on the a sidewalk at 111th and Broadway last summer.   Hani Shihada is the artist; I once watched him work  on a dark street in Greenwich Village.  By October it was still there, maybe touched up.  In January, I saw the black and white sketch  on a sidewalk at 13th and Spokane S.E. in Portland, Oregon.  Coast to coast we were very enthusiastic about Obama.  Now we live with him day by day as he tries to clean up multiple messes, some decades old.  I make mistakes so I assume he will too.