I joined the Twitter-mania a few months ago. I find it to be a great way to learn about breaking news and share links with other like-minded people.
You can follow me at http://twitter.com/miriamzperez
If you’re on twitter, send me a message!
Radical doula on Twitter
July 7, 2009
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On why I blog, criticism and activism
April 20, 2009It’s been a difficult week.
I feel appreciative of having this space to write. I appreciate all of you who have read my thoughts here over the last two years and contributed to this dialogue.
This is the space that I created when I first decided I had something to say. The timing of all of this is in some ways fitting, because this weekend I was back at the place where it all started.
I was back at the site of the conference where I first called myself a radical doula. I was back at that same hotel in Atlanta, this time for a board meeting of the Sistersong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective.
Because of the dialogue over the past week, because of the criticism and personal attacks, I keep coming back to this question: why do I blog?
Over two years ago, when I first stood up in a room full of birth activists and abortion advocates and said, “My name is Miriam Perez and I’m a radical doula,” I felt the seeds of this blog stirring. The reason I felt compelled to stand up and say that is the same reason that I come back to when, in these difficult moments, I ask myself why I write. I write because I have a philosophy that motivates my activism. I said those words then because I felt alone in that vision, unsupported in it. I wanted a place where I could flesh that out, articulate why all the pieces of my activism fit together. In these 2 plus years I’ve learned that I’m not alone, that there are people everywhere who also feel similarly.
I come back to the identities that I hold which contribute to this philosophy: I’m Latin@, I’m a doula, I’m an abortion advocate and a part of the reproductive justice movement, I’m genderqueer (when I started this blog I used the term gender non-conforming), I’m a feminist. For some people these identities were contradictory, and it was that realization that made me want to articulate why they weren’t. That’s what motivates my activism.
This activism isn’t only reflected on the internet, on these blogs, on the evidence you find when you google me. Most of my activism has happened offline. It’s happened in my doula work, in my work in the reproductive justice movement, in all the other things I do off the internet.
Having an online persona is new to me. It’s strange and wonderful in so many ways. It can also be painful and damaging at times, particularly when I don’t feel like I can faithfully represent myself. My offline activism doesn’t get the same weight as what I do on the internet. The irony of that sometimes is painful.
Take this weekend for example. At the same time as there were really difficult and strong criticisms being made about me and my writing about issues of gender and transphobia, I was at the board meeting for Sistersong. While things were being written about me that I couldn’t fully respond to or engage in because of my commitment to this organization, I was doing the work of engaging with a WOC organization around issues of gender identity and trans inclusion. I pushed forward the conversation about gender variance and inclusion—a conversation that feminist and women’s organizations are being forced to take on, rightfully so. I feel a responsibility to push these conversations with whatever influence I have in those spaces, because I know it is vital and important to the work of feminism, and important to me as a member of the gender variant community.
How do I hold that work along with what is said about me on the internet?
Being in the public eye means there will be criticism. I’m accepting that. At the same time I’m remembering why I write, what ideas and beliefs motivate me and what my agenda is. I do have an agenda, and I won’t pretend that I don’t. That doesn’t mean I’m not open to discussion, or pushback, or dialogue. But I also won’t let myself live on the defensive, or only in response to others. If my agenda doesn’t speak to you, if my philosophy doesn’t jive with yours, you can engage with me and you can also choose to leave.
I won’t be bullied into responding on someone else’s terms. I do the best I can to be faithful to the online communities I’m a part of. I’m limited by my offline commitments to my activism, to my work, to my life and my self-care. The truth is that for some people, nothing I do will ever be enough. I have to sit with that and know it’s true and there’s nothing I can do to change that fact.
I’m sure I’m going to screw up along the way, as we all do. Call me out, say how you feel about something I did or said. But personal attacks and vendettas aren’t going to be where I engage.
I remain committed to why I began this work in the first place. Because I have something to say. I know that what I say may not fall favorably on the ears of every person. That’s fine.
But sometimes, in these tough moments when I feel like shutting down to protect myself from the drama, from the internet and it’s anonymity (which protects everyone but those of us who have put ourselves out there) I have to remind myself why I came to this part of my activism in the first place.
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Radical Doula seeks graphic designer
April 12, 2009I’m entering into the exciting prospect of (finally!) updating this site. My first step is finding a graphic designer to help me create a logo for Radical Doula. Here is the pitch, please send it around to any awesome designers you know.
I am the founder and sole blogger at www.radicaldoula.com. I’m looking to work with a graphic designer to design a logo for the blog which will serve as the banner for the site.
While I have a limited budget (since the blog does not bring in income), I would love to work with a young and talented designer. I’m willing to negotiate fees.
If you are interested, please send an email to radicaldoula@gmail.com with a little bit about you and some examples of your work.
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Nominate a women’s health hero today!
April 2, 2009
Our bodies Ourselves is hosting a Women’s Health Heroes contest.
When you hear the words “Women’s Health Hero,” who comes to mind? Your 9th grade health teacher who taught you about sexually transmitted infections? The midwife who sat with you through 15 hours of labor? The young Nigerian activist you read about who’s working to end gender discrimination in her country? Or maybe the neighbor who counter-protests at the abortion clinic every Saturday morning?
Whoever your heroes are, we want to know about them! We’ve created the Our Bodies Ourselves Women’s Health Heroes awards to honor those who make significant contributions to the health and well-being of women. It’s a great way to publicly recognize people who make a difference in your life or the lives of others.
Nominate someone today! The deadline is May 1, 2009.
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Virtual Tour for Yes Means Yes: Interview with Hazel/Cedar Troost
February 19, 2009Hi ya’ll!
Welcome to the second to last stop on the virtual yes means yes tour. Be sure to check out the grande finale conversation at Feministe tomorrow.
If you haven’t heard about the book yet you should check it out. I have a piece about sexual violence against immigrant women in the book and there is a lot of really great content.
Today I have an interview with Hazel/Cedar Troost, another contributor to the book.
About Hazel/Cedar Troost:
Cedar/Hazel Troost is a trans and polyamorous femme living in Chicago, practicing explicit verbal consent, and passionate about ending trans misogyny. Ze is a former member of the University of Minnesota Transgender Commission, co-organizer of the 2007 Twin Cities Trans March, and the original author of the Cisgender Privilege Checklist currently residing at T-Vox—but hir real love is gardening.
You can also check out Hazel/Cedar’s blog here.
I asked to interview Hazel/Cedar because I thought hir post about consensual touch and body autonomy had some interesting connections the birth activist movement. We got a chance to gchat briefly. Here is an exerpt from our convo:
RD: Can you briefly summarize your theories about consensual touch that you cover in Yes Means Yes?
H/C: 1) Rape culture is one iteration of a larger set of oppressive tactics that aim to take control of your body; it’s a set of tactics that happen in most, if not all, oppressions, but they play out differently.
2) If we’re thinking about rape culture in terms of how one’s control of one’s own body is being impinged upon, it’s about sex and touch, but given that that includes non-sexual touch, we should be theorizing about it as well.
3) I started requiring explicit verbal consent for all touch, and abiding by that rule for touching others as well. Figuring out how to ask without pressure is crucial here. Anyways, touch felt way better because I wasn’t worried about whether I wanted it or they wanted it or whether it would lead to something else. It’s way easier to not start an activity than to break it off, and it’s more easily isolated to the activity rather than a judgment of the person.
4) Despite the fact that it’s really helpful, other folks don’t like you controlling your body this way, because they’re used to assuming a certain degree of control and access.
5) The way we think about consent now is based on what I call a ‘map of consent’–that consent to X implies consent to Y, and consent to either X or Y is generally seen as connected to one’s (emotional) intimacy with another person, which is busted. We might call one map unreasonable because it says that consent to kissing is consent to fucking, but we also have to challenge the idea that consent to fucking is consent to kissing–consent that’s real consent is consenting to a particular activity at a particular time, and has as much or more to do with how much one enjoys that activity than with how close you are to someone.
6) The equivalencies in these maps are really unreliable, both for sexual and nonsexual touch–triggers, kinks, & nerve conditions are the most obvious, but oppression, gender dissonance, and religion all play into it too. e.g. My rape trigger is something totally innocuous that is almost always done without permission, and petting my hair is actually something that requires substantially more trust on my part than making out does.
7) There’s not any essential difference between non-sexual assumptive touch and sexual assumptive touch, and we have to challenge both if we’re actually going to get rid of rape culture.
RD: What brings you to this work around body autonomy?
H/C: It’s a combination of a lot of different factors. The explicit verbal consent (EVC) stuff really did come directly out of that conference, which was in turn fed by kink, poly, sex positive, and trans communities, but the reason it was so powerful for me has more to do with being socialized in a hundred different ways that I don’t get to control my body, connected to transphobia, misogyny, sex-negativity, fat-phobia, rape, abuse, and ableism. If you’ve been told all your life that what you want for your body is wrong (b/c transsexuality is wrong), and then when you finally break free of that, the medical institutions that supposedly are there to help you use your need for their help as a means to control you (everything from making you diet to making you quit your job)–in that case, how the hell are you supposed to internalize that you *really* should have complete control over what happens to your body sexually, let alone non-sexual touch?
…Actually, though, as far as the EVC practice goes, a big part of it was just really liking being touched or hugged, and not wanting to deal with the stress of being uncertain that they wanted it (plus the whole not wanting to hug someone who didn’t want to be hugged thing.). Finding out how much easier it was to not do things I didn’t want to do was the clincher.
As for the linking of different oppressive tactics, frankly the original inspiration was realizing that the structure of organizations like HRC would almost inevitably produce the kinds of results we get now–that is, racism, misogyny, transphobia, etc., and wanting to find a new path.
RD: Lack of consent and body autonomy are huge issues in the birth activist community. Some activists have even gone as far as to say that the treatment of some women by the medical establishment during pregnancy and labor is akin to “medical rape.” What connections do you see between the work you are doing and birth activism?
How could theories of consensual touch change the way we treat and care for bodies in the medical system?
See our gchat convo after the jump.
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Some thoughts on tokenism
February 19, 2009There is a guestpost up at Professor What If that I feel the need to respond to. I feel the need to respond, and to respond here at Radical Doula at not at Feministing (where most of my blogging has been going lately) because of the nature of the conversation the post has invoked.
The post is called What if the feminist blogosphere is a form of digital colonialism?
You should read it, but it touches on some of the politics of blogging, “big time” blogs vs smaller blogs, WOC bloggers vs. white bloggers. Tokenism and power.
As a Latin@ blogger who started writing for this “small time” (what is the definition of that anyway?) blog and then joined a “big time” (again, where is the line?) blog as a contributor about a year ago, I felt like Van Deven and Shoot were talking about me.
There is A LOT running through my head right now. I’m annoyed, I’m frustrated, I’m tired of having to expend energy responding to intra-feminist blog wars and cat fights.
I already feel the pull between writing for this blog, which I love and miss when I don’t have time to write as much, writing for a larger blog with a bigger reach (more impact?) and yes, more benefits to my own life as a writer/activist, and the other myriad of things I do to make money to support my passions, many of which don’t pay.
I’m not going to lie. I love that I have a platform at a blog that has built up a readership over the last 5 years. As much as I sometimes hate having to deal with commenters at Feministing, I like that I get to talk about the world from my own queer, Latin@ perspective, to many people who would never hear it otherwise. And they need to hear this shit. Seriously.
How would the first 21 years of my life been different if I had had someone like me to look up to? What if Ellen DeGeneres hadn’t been the only dyke I knew of? What if I had been able to read the thoughts of someone like myself, about gender, sex, race, politics, life? Maybe my teenage/college years wouldn’t have been so damn isolating. And you know what? I never would have found a blog like radical doula. We need these ideas and perspectives in mainstream (and I say that with a bit of perspective, since no feminist blog is really mainstream yet) places, so that people like the 16 year old version of myself might see themselves reflected somewhere.
Shark Fu pretty much hit the nail on the head in terms of how offensive the tone and implications of that post are. I can’t be bought. I can be offered an opportunity, a larger microphone, a new platform. I can say no, I can set my own terms, I can choose to preserve the spaces that are mine and mine alone at the same time as a I contribute elsewhere.
You want to talk about tokenism?
Let’s talk about tokenism. Let’s talk about how it happens everywhere and everyday. Let’s talk about how it’s the flip-side of oppression. Let’s talk about how it makes me question every award I receive, every job I get, every person who emails me, every opportunity I’ve ever had. Let’s talk about how often I make a joke out of my own presence to call attention to the hidden thought in the room before someone else does. Let’s talk about how it makes me feel like I can only talk about a certain set of issues, that I have to be the one and only representative of an entire community. Let’s talk about how I don’t need to be publically reminded of something I think about every day.
But do me a favor. Let’s put this shit in context. The feminist blogosphere isn’t the only place that tokenism happens. And it’s probably not the first place we need to be fighting it. Not that you asked, but my role in the big feminist blog I write for is pretty damn much my own. No one tells me what to write about, how to write, who to write for. I make all those decisions, just like I decided to join that platform as just one part of the activism I do everyday.
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Yes Means Yes on tour!
February 2, 2009I mentioned this briefly before but I have a piece in the new book Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape.
The book has some really interesting pieces in it, and I promise I’m not just saying this because I’m in it.
If you want to hear more from the contributors, there will a livechat this afternoon at 3pm Eastern over at Feministing with the two editors and three contributors (me included!).
If you’re in DC, you should come to our reading on Thursday February 5th at Bus Boys and Poets (on U st). After party at Chi-Cha lounge! I’ll be there, along with LaToya Peterson, Jessica Valenti, Jaclyn Friedman and other contributors.
Also, today’s livechat kicks off the official Yes Means Yes Blog tour, with stops all over the blogosphere. I’ll be hosting the second to last stop here at Radical Doula, with an interview with contributor Hazel/Cedar Troost about her article on consensual touch. Should be interesting! See below for the rest of the blog tour schedule.
The F-Word – 2/3
Q&A with Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
RH Reality Check – 2/4
Live chat with Julia Serano & Latoya Peterson
Our Bodies Our Blog – 2/5
Q&A with Brad Perry & Lisa Jervis
Shakesville – 2/9
Live chat with Jaclyn Friedman
Scarleteen – 2/10
Heather Corinna on the notion that post-feminism, young women are expected to have a LOT easier time with the yesses, with their sexuality, but that that simply is often not so, in part because they have a whole new set of challenges to grapple with.
Angry Black Bitch – 2/11
Q&A with Tiloma Jayasinghe
Shapely Prose – 2/12
Q&A with Kimberly Springer
Bitch Ph.D. – 2/16
Guest blogging with Jaclyn Friedman & Jessica Valenti
Shameless – 2/17
Q&A with Jill Filipovic
IMPACT - 2/18
Q&A with Anastasia Higginbotham
Radical Doula – 2/19
Q&A with Hazel/Cedar Troost
Feministe – 2/20
Grand finale conversation: Rachel Kramer Bussel, Toni Amato, Javacia Harris, Kate Harding, Stacey May Fowles, Hanne Blank, Heather Corinna
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Sometimes listening ain’t easy
April 26, 2008There has been a lot of controversy lately in the feminist blog world. I haven’t commented on any of it (with the exception of one collective post) and this is mainly because I’ve been doing a lot of listening.
I realized in March that I had missed the first birthday of Radical Doula. I only entered into the blog world in February 2007, and really spent most of my first year blogging mostly writing and reading only a few other blogs. It’s been a pretty incredible year, to say the least. I feel grateful to everyone who has respected my thoughts and opinions, and given me larger platforms for my words.
A few recent developments pulled me out of my blogging bubble, so to speak. I began writing for Feministing, which brings with it a whole new level of visibility and participation in the wider blog world. I also attended the Women, Action and Media (WAM) Conference last month, where I met a lot of the faces of the blog world, and it motivated me to expand my regular reading list.
I’m not going to rehash any of what has happened here. Many other already have, and you can look at the links in the first sentence of this post for an entry into some of what has transpired.
So these last few weeks I’ve been listening, and reading, and processing, and learning. I don’t know a lot about the history of these conflicts and it all feels very personal as well. I’m Latina, I write for a big Feminist blog, I know a lot of the individuals who are involved in the controversy. I have my own thoughts and opinions about race and appropriation, but lately I’ve just wanted to hear what’s being said by all parties.
My point in writing this is to let all of you who know and care that I am paying attention. I realize that some not so great things have happened and as difficult as it is at times (why can’t we all just get along?!?) these conversations are necessary, important and probably overdue. I’m not going to chime in with my opinions, because as one friendly blogger pointed out, no one is asking. But rest assured, I’m listening.
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ch-ch-changes
January 30, 2008So there a few new and exciting developments that I want to share with all of you Radical Doula readers. The first is that I am in the process of uprooting my life (and my uhaul worth of junk) and moving it to another US city, not too far away, but far enough to make it a lot of work! I am excited about my new environment and apologize for the less than robust blogging over the last few weeks. Bear with me as I get myself settled.
The other big development is that I will be joining the crew over at Feministing.com! Jessica and the other awesome women have graciously invited me to start writing for them and I’m really excited about it. Feministing is one of my favorite blogs and they are constantly producing awesome and interesting content. I’m honored to join their team (sniff). Check out a vlog from Jessica to learn more about their history.
I will still be blogging over here at Radical Doula and at Feministing I will broaden my scope somewhat and write about some new things. So stay tuned!
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Pretty Bird Woman House: Over $80,000… OMG, Thank You and Happy New Year!
January 2, 2008See below for a report back about the Native American women’s shelter I posted about before the holidays. Thanks to anyone who contributed!
In October, Betsy Campisi, a volunteer on the last Pretty Bird Woman House fundraising drive called Georgia Little Shield, the shelter director to check in. After all, after the previous May fundraiser, things looked great – Pretty Bird Woman House had a building, funding from the Netroots until a grant kicked in in… things were going well. But when Betsy spoke to Georgia she heard grim news.
Our shelter was burned down. They stole everything. Then they burnt it down.
Betsy asked; how much to buy a new house with a security system? The answer: $70,000. Worse, all the grants Pretty Bird Woman House depended on required a physical building to use as a shelter. They needed the money FAST. It seemed so unlikely back in October that it could even be done…
Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith and just hope that the net is there to catch you. This time there was no net. But you wonderful people… you wove that net even as everything was falling off the edge. You wove the net out of blog posts and $5 donations, out of human love and compassion.
If you are not familiar with the story behind Pretty Bird Woman House you can get a pretty complete history right here.
The timing could not have been better – Pretty Bird Woman House had a Board of Directors Meeting today. All of the Board of Directors and the advocates who work for the Pretty Bird Woman House had come into town for the meeting. Shelter Director Georgia Little Shield checked the Chip-In before the meeting started:
Everybody broke down in tears… thank you, thank you, thank you! The Board of Directors was shocked. The girls (the advocates) were crying they were so surprised.
Even more amazing – they have not finished counting the checks that have arrived in the mail yet – we have really raised more than $77,000 for Pretty Bird Woman House… in fact, it might be well over $80,000 by the time the counting is done. You did not just buy a women’s shelter – you bought furniture, paid some of the energy bills, got a top notch security system… Georgia has promised me she will keep us updated on how the money is used. They have a donated digital camera and she will photograph things as they happen so that we can see.
Georgia went on to tell me that her life experiences with domestic violence and abuse as well as the horrors she sees on a day to day basis sometimes catch up to her and darken her world.
But this.. this has totally amazed me and given me hope – that there are so many good people out there. Strangers who actually care.Now the voices of these women will be heard!
A new energy fills Pretty Bird Woman House; the staff does not spend its time trying to figure out how to make ends meet for tomorrow, unable to see how they can function next week, let alone the next month. Already things are falling into place. They have a bid in on a house across from the police station; if that does not work out for any reason, they have other buildings in mind.
Georgia is expanding the services offered by Pretty Bird Woman House – she has applied for two new grants and wants to hire two advocates who will specialize in working with victims of sexual assault. And Pretty Bird Woman House has a new volunteer advocate. Those of you who followed this story will remember her. Back in October Georgia told us about the situation this remarkable woman was in:
I recently attended a court sentencing of man that pled guilty to a charge of sexual assault against a Native American Woman and the Mayor of his town testified that he was an up standing community member and that the community would except him back with open arms and to just give him probation.
That’s right; the new advocate for victims at Pretty Bird Woman House is the woman who was raped by this man. She is completing this circle and as part of her healing is reaching out to help others.
So who did this? Who is behind this amazing achievement?
A lot of people seem to think that Betsy Campisi and myself, Andy Ternay did it… and that is so wrong. We were just along for the ride, man.
The person who started Pretty Bird Woman House is Jackie Brown Otter. She did it in memory of her sister, Pretty Bird Woman, who was raped and murdered. Georgia Little Shield is the director of Pretty Bird Woman House. About seven Lakota Sioux (some may be Dakota Sioux – my apologies if I have gotten this wrong) women have been the core of this whole project, they nurtured the dream and made it reality.
The progressive netroots would probably never have heard of this if Daily Kos user Norman Bier had not heard a National Public Radio story on an Amnesty International Report detailing how terrible the plight of Native American women was with regard to sexual assault. Norman Bier diaried on Daily Kos about the fact that without funds, Pretty Bird Woman House would close – and over 600 people responded with $27,000 to keep the shelter running until grant money kicked in.
That’s how Betsy got involved. I only got involved after reading a diary by Winter Rabbit called Pretty Bird Woman House: Let’s Unbury some Hearts. Daily Kos frontpager Devilstower gave the fundraising a jolt of lightning when he frontpaged a fundraising diary.
Raw Stats
The Future For Pretty Bird Woman House
This time around we won’t lose touch; Georgia is planning on launching a regular newsletter… if you donated, you will get it (I will work with her so that you can opt out; Georgia is an incredible woman but she is not net savvy). We’ll do periodic diaries on Daily Kos and Street Prophets. Betsy and I are hoping to take a trip out and visit the new house when it is set up.
Hopefully we have put Pretty Bird Woman House in a position to be self-sustaining. It is great that we helped, but they must be able to thrive and grow on their own. We provided extraordinary assistance at a time of extraordinary crisis, which is appropriate. Personally, I think they are on the way. I expect them to keep growing.
The Future For Native American Women: Obtaining Equal Justice
Well, truthfully I have been so busy with the fundraiser I have not really thought about this but I am going to make this a part of my life. How can we expect justice in Iraq when our own people are treated this way? We have to put an end to it.
I am starting my research with Senator Byron Dorgan’s concept paper on improving law enforcement in Indian country. More information and places to submit comments are here. But that’s about as far as I have gotten with this. Maybe in comments people can suggest other places to go.
So the fight is not over by any means… but for now we celebrate an amazing victory!
WE DID IT! WE BOUGHT PRETTY BIRD WOMAN HOUSE A NEW HOUSE!!! HAPPY NEW YEAR PROGRESSIVE NETROOTS!!
You can still Donate here! Pretty Bird Woman House is a 501 (c) 3 charitable organization.
More info here:
Pretty Bird Woman House Blog – many more resources and links here!!
Amnesty International Report-Maze of Injustice: The failure to protect Indigenous women from sexual violence in the USA
Why traditional fundraising avenues are closed to Pretty Bird Woman House
A Fairly Complete History of Pretty Bird Woman House.
Pretty Bird Woman HouseYahoo Group.
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Posted by radicaldoula
