Monthly Archives: May 2014

Teen Mothers: Defining and Determining Their Own Communities

Laurie and Debbie say:

Probably because May has Mother’s Day in it, it’s also “National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month,” which might as well be called “National Hand-Wringing Month.”  To talk about teen mamas, let’s start by remembering that the teen birth rate has declined almost continuously over the past 23 years. In 1991, the U.S. teen birth rate was 61.8 births for every 1,000 adolescent females, compared with 29.4 births for every 1,000 adolescent females in 2012. In addition, nearly 20% of these teen births are young women having second babies, so the number of teen mothers is even smaller.

Many of these teen mothers are 17-19, ages that at the younger end are considered adulthood in many cultures, many places around the world, and many communities in the U.S. At the older end, these women are simply adults. Marriage at 18 without parental permission is legal in 49 of the 50 U.S. states, and with parental permission it can be legal as young as 14. Many teen mothers are married. Laurie was not far out of her teens (21), and married, and a successful businesswoman who had been financially independent for years, when she had her first child, and (to say the least) has no regrets.

Nonetheless, the most talked-about and criticized case is the unwed pregnant teen, who chooses to have and raise the baby. People make this decision based on all kinds of familial, cultural, and financial influences, and it is a decision that is frequently shamed and rarely respected. Mary Louise Kuti-Schubert and Natasha Vianna have something to say about what this is like.

Before our high school graduations, we were juggling the internal and external difficulties of being teens while flourishing into devoted young mothers raising babies. It was incredibly hard to be a teen and harder once adding the role of loving caregiver, but we also knew it was rewarding. We imagined how difficult it would be to give birth and raise a child, like any parent, but were dedicated to our mamahood….

From needing to use a WIC card at the grocery store only to face rude stares or having to leave school early to pick up your child only to be greeted by glares of disappointment that it took you so long to arrive, there was always something. There is this high expectation that we need to do it all alone, yet we are held to these low expectations of what we’re actually capable of doing.

This is the classic description of a “double bind,” a rope around your wrists that tightens painfully whichever direction you move in. Move towards your schooling, and you’re a bad mother (“we knew you’d be a bad mother; you’re too young”). Move toward your baby and you’re irresponsible (“we knew you couldn’t hack your schoolwork with a baby”).

Kuti-Schubert and Vianna conclude, as so many people in double binds have concluded before them, that building, maintaining, and relying on community is the only answer:

Having the ability to virtually connect with mamas and allies who were ready and willing to listen and support us have been a crucial part of redefining and improving our community. We aren’t limited to our physical environment but can turn to each other at any time for some guidance, for some advice, or just to talk.

And through our experiences, we know there are times when the support we needed to keep pushing only came from one person or one organization, but this patronage helped us so much. Our motivation to be good parents could be fully ignited when we have that boost of confidence from our community and ourselves.

What young mothers need is two-fold: respect, and support. That’s why it’s so terrific to see these young mothers speaking for themselves, demanding and expecting the respect they deserve, and creating and nurturing their own support.

Thanks to Veronica Bayetti Flores at Feministing for the pointer.

Links Return After Long Absence

Debbie says:

First we had website problems, then I was not collecting links, but now we’re back on track.

I love these “end the awkward” ads from Scope: About Disability, a British organization.

If you follow through from the ad to the quiz, you eventually get to this very useful basics list, great for people who don’t have experience with people with disabilities, and great for PWD who don’t want to keep answering the same questions all the time.

While we’re in quiz mode, this is the funniest, best-written feminist quiz/humor piece Laurie and I have seen in a long time, written by Heben Nigatu, Alanna Okun, and Jessica Probus, all staffers at Buzzfeed. It’s 64 questions long (and still worth the time)! Here’s a brief sample:

Have you ever:

  • Complimented a man as surprisingly “articulate.”
  • Referred to a movie that jacks off to men’s subjectivity as a “dick flick.”
  • Talked over a man in a meeting, because what does he know, right?

At least in our circles, the Hollywood-is-destructive conversation circles around what women have to do to their bodies to succeed, but men are hardly immune. Alan Bostick guest-blogged this topic for us many years ago, and if things have changed, they’ve changed for the worse. J. Brian Lowder writes in Slate about an article by Logan Hill for  Men’s Journal (quotations are from Hill’s article):

Now objectification makes no gender distinctions: Male actors’ bare asses are more likely to be shot in sex scenes; their vacation guts and poolside man boobs are as likely to command a sneering full-page photo in a celebrity weekly’s worst-bodies feature, or go viral as a source of Web ridicule. A sharply defined inguinal crease – the twin ligaments hovering above the hips that point toward a man’s junk – is as coveted as double-D cleavage. Muscle matters more than ever, as comic-book franchises swallow up the box office, in the increasingly critical global market. (Hot bodies and explosions don’t need subtitles.) Thor-like biceps and Captain America pecs are simply a job requirement; even “serious” actors who never aspired to mega-stardom are being told they need a global franchise to prove their bankability and land Oscar-caliber parts. …

There’s lots more (including a lot about steroids and human growth hormone), and it’s all worth reading, in an upsetting way.

Laurie has been reading Nell Irvin Painter’s The History of White People, which is high on my to-read list. This article about Iranians, by Alex Shams for the Ajam Media Collective, made her think of how Painter conceptualizes whiteness, and it is also thought-provoking in its own right.

As a light-skinned, biracial Iranian-American, however, the supposedly clear lines dividing White from [people of color] POC are a bit difficult for me to parse. On one hand, I almost always pass as just White, and rarely if ever experience the feeling of being targeted, singled out, or discriminated against based on my looks alone. Despite increasingly bushy eyebrows, my light skin tone has long ensured that I enjoy substantial racial privilege for my ability to pass as (fully) White.

Passing as White meant I looked like “the norm” and was never made to feel out of place, saw people who looked like me whenever I turned on the television, and never had to fear or suspect that negative experiences I had were a result of racism (among many other privileges I enjoyed). I knew for certain that my father’s ability to pass as a well-tanned White man had ensured his own ability to succeed professionally at a time when his Iranian name had closed many doors. I was sure of this because his ability to pass, as well as my own, meant that we were both “privileged” to hear the secret racist and Islamophobic comments directed towards others that happened in the lily-white boardrooms and classrooms that we each navigated.

And yet the more I spoke with White folks about race, the more I began to understand that many of my experiences of bullying throughout childhood were directly tied to my ethnicity in ways I hadn’t previously realized. As obvious as it now sounds, it had never occurred to me before that being harassed for supposedly being a terrorist or being called “Saddam” or “Osama” in middle school hallways was not a universal experience for American children, and that these experiences were not merely unpleasant but were in fact definitively racist.

Everyone with a conscience, and/or a heart, and any involvement whatsoever with the news, is concerned about the kidnapped Nigerian girls and the standoff with Boko Haram. Without in any way detracting from the important part (these girls are in dreadful danger!), this very thoughtful piece by Caperton at Feministe, looks at both sides of how “hashtag activism” interacts with local terror and cultural standoff.

What #BringBackOurGirls won’t do

  • Spur direct individual activism.
  • Give you a place in the tragedy.
  • Spread understanding.

What #BringBackOurGirls can do: Keep the eyes of the world on rescue efforts (or lack thereof).

Caperton expands usefully on each of these points.

Last but not least (except in the eyes of many scientists), George Dvorsky at io9 writes about a scientific paper by Malin Ah-King, Andrew B. Barron, and Marie E. Herberstein, “Genital Evolution: Why Are Females Still Understudied?” Dvorsky draws on a PLOS (Public Library of Science) blog post by Roli Roberts who summarizes the reason for the (quite significant) discrepancy between studies of vaginas and studies of penises:

a)      Biological: Female genitalia don’t vary enough to drive evolutionary change.

b)      Practical: They do vary, and do drive evolution, but are devilishly hard to study.

c)       Intellectual: They do vary and drive evolution, and can be studied, but the field is intellectually blinkered.

When I was growing up, we called this kind of argument:

a) I didn’t borrow it.

b) It was broken when I borrowed it.

c) It was in perfect shape when I returned it.

Most usual sources: Feministe, Feministing, io9, and Shakesville. This time, Kerry Ellis sent us the Scope videos, and nancylebov found the men-in-Hollywood article.