Oh how I wish I could have been there!

A report, for those of you who, like me, weren’t: “What Do Women Want: What I Learned at BlogHer”, at HuffPo. Some video and other links right here. I’m sure lots more coverage will ensue. Seen anything you want to share? Please post any links in comments!

I hear it’s going to be in NYC next year – whohoo

(Thanks, Rebekah and WMC, as always)

Last month I went to the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure at the National Mall in DC: friends, including one who had had breast cancer, were running. As I walked down to the Mall, I saw many many many shirts, signs, bags, and banners honoring the survivors. I was proud just to be going to watch my friends engage in the Race for the Cure and to honor these cancer survivors. I felt gratitude for the day, for this life, for all the lives. The mass of families was beautiful, moving, charming, and pink.

I secretly had another feeling, though. All the stuff of survivors made me think about two loved ones of my own who were not survivors. My friend Peggy died in April of lung cancer. And my husband Neil had died 10 years before–not of cancer, but anyway, on that walk I was taking it personally that he was not a “survivor.” I kind of felt like, f*#& you (world) with all your glorification of survivors. But that wasn’t what I really felt, because I was so joyful, too, for the survivors.

Writer–and cancer survivor–Deborah Lewis helped me out with these conflicting feelings with her remarkable column in the LA Times. She starts:

Somewhere along the way in our News You Can Use culture, good health has taken on the patina of virtue. Like good grades and job promotion, health is seen as bestowed upon those who work for it. There’s no excuse for not doing everything you can, not with all the lists of necessary practices in popular magazines, not with all the attention to disease prevention. The flip side of this is the judgment passed on those who get sick.

As I reflected beyond my survivor “issue,” she made me think of the many friends of mine who are facing, or have faced, fertility problems. As with judgments passed on those who get sick, those who struggle with fertility often have the two-problem problem: first, they have the problem getting pregnant or sustaining it. But second, they have the problem of feeling guilty, regretful, a whole host of internalized fears, often related to entrenched beliefs about how fertility is a such a necessary part of being a “good woman” (or a “good man”–I wrote about this a while back here) as well as with notion Deborah offered that health=virtue.

So, I wanted to share Deborah’s column with as many people as I could. One line in particular gripped me: “I do not believe we earn our illnesses, even the illnesses that are directly the result of personal habits.” Read it. It is good for what ails you.

-Virginia Rutter

When I was a kid, a familiar black and yellow flower-power poster hung above my mother’s dresser. It said: “War is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things.”

Despite this simple message, we’re still fighting. U.S. troops are stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere around the globe. By September, total war-related federal spending since 2001 will come to an astounding $915.1 billion.

But what happens after war? More to the point, what happens when women put down their guns and come home? Shawna Kenney reviews the gripping new book, The Girls Come Marching Home — a chronicle of women’s lives after war, penned by author Kirsten Holmstedt.
The Girls Come Marching Home

The very idea of women serving in military combat is controversial. Critics fear a “feminized” and “civilianized” U.S. military. But while pundits debate, the reality is that female American soldiers serve in infantry and support positions in Afghanistan and Iraq every day. Author Kirsten Holmstedt captured some of these women’s voices from the battlefield in her first book, Band of Sisters. Holmstedt returns this year with round two: The Girls Come Marching Home: Stories of Women Warriors Returning from the War in Iraq (Stackpole Books).

The 18 soldiers profiled represent all branches of the armed forces, themselves a multicultural sampling of courage and humanity. Without being overly “rah-rah” or “hooah” for war, Holmstedt details the triumphs and struggles of military women returning from combat as they reclaim roles as mothers, daughters, sisters, service members and civilians while struggling with physical wounds, post-traumatic stress disorder, survivor’s guilt, and sexual assault.

All opinions about today’s wars aside, The Girls Come Marching Home is a must-read for anyone concerned about women or war. Gunfire, IEDs, child soldiers, racism, sexism and death are shown as part of wartime routine, with people in the armed forces making split-second decisions no human should ever have to make or imagine.

The most disturbing stories here depict an inept Veteran’s Administration, failing our military (men and women) left and right. Most touching was the author’s postscript, where she reveals the secondary trauma she experienced while researching the book. Flying in the face of military training, Holmstedt urges vets to believe that “it takes courage to be vulnerable” and that “counseling isn’t for the weak.” Holmstedt encourages all who need help to seek it.

The Girls Come Marching Home boldly continues the women-in-combat conversation. Here’s hoping that Holmstedt’s personal sacrifice for such a detailed account of women’s post-war stories will serve many for years to come.

Shawna Kenney is the author of Imposters (Mark Batty Publisher) and the award-winning memoir I Was a Teenage Dominatrix (Last Gasp). Her work has appeared in the Florida Review, Juxtapoz, Swindle Magazine, Veg News and Transworld Skateboarding, among others. She teaches online creative writing workshops for UCLA Extension and lifesabitchbooks.com and serves as Language Editor for Crossing Borders.

I loved reading Emily Bazelon’s interview with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine.

I loved that she gave this interview so strategically, with its publication on the eve of the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings.  The interview both anticipates and undermines the predictable sexism and racism (see, for example, all of the ink spilled about the “wise Latina woman” quote, and Ginsburg’s spin on that tempest in a teapot) that have informed both the hearings and the media coverage surrounding the Sotomayor nomination.

I loved that it was feminist.  From talking about why women matter on the court and in public life to arguing that “[t]ime is on the side of change,” with regard to abortion rights, Ginsburg’s responses are unabashedly feminist.  How wonderful to see this on display—at length—in a mainstream media publication.

But most of all I loved the way it represented women supporting one another.  Maybe this is what our feminist foremothers had in mind when they used the phrase, “sisterhood is powerful.”  I have to say that I’ve never had much use for the idea of “sisterhood” in my definition of feminism, since the term seemed to rely on artificially flattening differences among women.  It seems to assume that gender struggles are the most important ones, something that has been most often true for white women.  (As many GWP readers already know, GWPenner-in-Chief Deborah Siegel has a terrific analysis of the conflicts and controversies at work in feminist ideas of “sisterhood” in Sisterhood, Interrupted).

So with all of that history in mind, that show of support is what I especially loved about Ginsburg’s interview.  Positioning herself as white, Jewish woman from Brooklyn, she was standing up for her Latina. . .colleague (sister??) in a very public, political way.  Speaking as a white woman myself, we need to this more often, and not just when it comes to gender struggles.

I’ve also been thinking about this public, political, feminist show of support in the context of girls’ relationships.  My daughter has recently been grappling with what is probably the beginning of many girl friend conflicts that center around attention, inclusion and exclusion, and degrees of “best friend-ness.”  (For example, “I have no one to play with on the playground.  Sally and Susie are spending all of their time together and they don’t include me.”)

I’m saddened that these conflicts are arising already, in second grade.  But I’m also thinking from a feminist perspective about how my daughter can learn to value her female relationships, and about how I can model female friendship myself.

I return to thinking about the Ginsburg interview.  It’s clear from the Q&A that Ginsburg and Sotomayer don’t know one another well.  Certainly they would not call one another friends.  But no doubt they share a passion for their work, a commitment to advancing social justice, intellectual curiosity, and much more perhaps.

Friends are important in life, no doubt.  But so are feminists.  I hope my daughter finds plenty of both as her relationships unfold.

Do check out Lynn Harris’ commentary on the outburst(!) of edgy teen feminist blogs, like Julie Zellwiger’s TheFBomb. I’m quoted! And feeling old 🙂

Friend of GWP Marcia Yerman has a great piece up at HuffPo today on “Women Who Tech” (hint: she mentions www.shewrites.com at the end!)

The Sotomayor hearings begin Monday (7/13), and the media has been talking about her in the most ridiculously sexist and racist ways — “Hispanic chic lady” anyone? In response, the Women’s Media Center has launched a video highlighting the recent sexism & racism against Judge Sotomayor. Check it out above, or right here. The WMC is hoping to inform media coverage of Sotomayor, to encourage the media to do its job free of expressions of sexism and racism. Do check it out, and please spread the word!

It’s hard for me to believe it, but it’s been 20 years since I first visited the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. My mom, goddess rest her soul, dragged the whole family there one day while we were on a Disney vacation. She did it because I, the eldest and nrrdiest of her daughters, was obsessed with NASA and being an astronaut. It also happened to be the 20th anniversary of the Apollo Moon Landing.

I remember the thump in my chest as we drove up, got out and oh my goodness, I was there! At 14 the only thing that would have been better would have been Space Camp with River Phoenix. Sadly I never made it to Space Camp or met River Phoenix. Broken youth dreams! But back to the Kennedy Center…I went wild. I read most of the placards carefully, sucking in all the geeky information and breathing in salty air. I spent far more in the souvenir store than I thought my parents would let me or could afford. But it was their way of supporting my dream.

We even went on a bus tour of the center. The tour director had his usual trivia questions ready to stump and educate the masses. Only he ran into me. I answered every single question without hesitation or competition. I don’t think I ever saw my mom in tears from laughing and pride every again.

This year we mark the 40th anniversary of man’s landing on the moon. It’s obvious that I didn’t end up becoming an astronaut. A few days after the Kennedy Space Center my parents took us to SeaWorld and I fell in love with marine biology – which I did end up doing for a few years. I know my box of newspapers that I bought at garage sales about the moon landing are somewhere in my basement. I also still have a commemorative plate to boot. I’m counting the days (just over 400) until my daughter and I can go to Space Camp together.

Before we go, I’ll be sure to read parts of Tanya Lee Stone’s latest book, Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared, with her. It’s a heart-wrenching book for me. To love space exploration so much and yet read how society and powerful government officials colluded to keep 13 highly qualified women from fulfilling their dream and potentially inspiring a generation of young girls. But I want my daughter to know what it took for her to have the chance to even consider being an astronaut or any scientist. I plan on a full review of the book on July 20th at my blog.

I sometimes wonder what it would have been like if Nelly Armstrong had landed on the moon with Betsy Aldrin. Who knows what kind of world we’d be living in…Or if we’d finally have that moon colony.

Since I was busy puking my guts out this morning (month 6! when will the nausea end?!), Marco filled in for me over at Recessionwire.com.  I think his post is better than any of mine.  Check it out: he’s stepping out as “The Man Behind the Curtain.”

Writer Rebekah Spicuglia recently guest blogged for The Man Files writing about the challenges of feminist parenting when sons start coming of age.