The Weekly Woody

Abortion Rights are Central to a Progressive Revolution

By Woody Stanfield

I was eating dinner after work when I saw Tom Perez had announced Bernie Sanders would join him on a unity tour around the county. I was thrilled. This, right after Perez named Keith Ellison vice-chair, signaled to me that under Perez the Democratic Party is taking Progressive voices seriously. I read the statements from both Perez and Sanders and I was particularly excited about Sanders’ call for fifty-state strategy.

With the shakeups in the electoral map over the past few cycles, reevaluating what states Democrats can win makes sense. I currently live in Georgia where the Democrats are gaining a stronger foothold every year. I would love to see more of that happen around the country.

However, in the past week, Bernie Sanders and Tom Perez have garnered some intense negative attention after a campaign rally for Heath Mello for Mayor of Omaha, Nebraska.

This story broke after the President of NARAL Pro-Choice America, Ilyse Hogue, released a statement attacking Mello for being pro-life and denouncing both Sanders and Perez, as well as the DNC at large for supporting him. The statement deserves to be read in full and I have linked it here.

When I first saw these stories, I was taken aback. While doing some brief internet research, I learned Mello made it on the list at Sanders’ behest. I read Mello’s own comments promising he would not restrict access to women’s health. But after looking deeper, Mello’s political track record on abortion services indicates he has committed to an anti-choice platform in the past. Even taking Mello at his word, a promise of not restricting access is a far cry from the ardent support for abortion that the DNC espouses, and that Sanders’ progressive revolution should call for.

On Face the Nation, when asked about his endorsement of Mello and the fallout, Sanders said:

I think what is clear… is that the model of the Democratic Party is failing. Republicans control the House and the Senate, two thirds of the Governor's’ chairs, and in the past eight years, they have picked up 900 legislative seats. Clearly, the Democratic Party has to change and in my view what it has to become is a grassroots party, a party that makes decisions from the bottom on up, a party that speaks to the pain of the working class in this country….

If we are going to become a fifty-state party, if you’re going to go to Omaha, Nebraska which has a Republican governor, two Republican senators, all Republican congresspeople…. If you have a rally in which you have the labor movement and the environmentalists and Native-Americans and the African-American community and the Latino community coming together saying, ‘We want this guy to become our next mayor.’

But in response to the next question about whether or not he would hand his email list over to the DNC, he said, “Well right now our focus is building up a strong, progressive movement in this country and I think the people who donated want us to focus on electing the most Progressive people we can.”
Sanders is simultaneously pushing for two things that are mutually exclusive. When Sanders ran in the primary, he called for an ideological revolution that seeks to make the Democratic Party more progressive and less beholden to monied interest. Now, post-election Sanders is calling for a populist, 50-state initiative to revitalize the Democratic Party with fresh, new voters, to increase voter participation, and to defeat Trump’s Republicans.

Now, the fifty-state strategy is not Sanders’ creation. The phrase is embedded into America’s political dictionary. The fifty-state strategy always comes with an exchange on many of our principles. For example, Democrats have been winning for decades with pro-coal candidates in Kentucky. But it is unique for it to be coupled with an ideological revolution, let alone a progressive one. And it really does not make sense.

A woman’s right to choose is a cornerstone of Progressivism. Any fifty-state strategy that forgoes it cannot be a Progressive ideological revolution. Sanders is more concerned about a populist revolution than a Progressive one. He wants to see the Democratic Party grow its member base in order to defeat Trump’s Republicans. However, those members are being drawn from more conservative regions of this country. The ideals they hold and the candidates they will elect, will not be progressives. I see Sanders’ point, Mello will be better than his opponent who is ardently pro-life and brings supporters like Scott Walker into the fold. But, that sounds like a pragmatist trying to achieve marginal change, not the champion of an ideological revolution.

More importantly, even in a fifty-state strategy, there are some principles we must never give up. Abortion rights are among them. Mello’s track record with abortion may not disqualify him from being a Democrat or receiving endorsements from the major players in the Party, but it should disqualify him from receiving major DNC rallies and significant financial support.

The revitalization of the Democratic Party cannot abandon progressive values in order to win in more conservative areas. Instead, it should leverage national support in those regions for harder stances on key progressive issues. Sanders, Perez, and the DNC should use their influence to push Mello to take a stronger pro-choice stance, not look the other way.

Holding Each Other Accountable

By Woody Stanfield

Guys, we oftentimes think about feminist theory like any other theory. It is usually a concept that we first heard about around our college campuses or in internet circles. So we think about it and critique it like we would any other theory and we measure the values of feminist arguments based off critical-thinking skills we learned in class. But this is not what feminism means to women today, and it is not where it came from.

Just because there are Gender and Women’s Studies courses, does not mean that feminist theory is the same type of study as political science. Feminist theory is an activist theory that is about identifying the flaws in our society and devising approaches to best reach equality. For us, it is easy to disengage and think about feminism as if it is just another school of thought. But women actually experience this everyday and they don’t have that luxury. And so we need to stop that mentality entirely. If you find yourself approaching conversations about women’s equality the same way you would an argument about economics or public policy, start thinking about it differently.

What this disparity means is that in these conversations that we have with women, we are often missing the entire point of why they are talking. I think the most clear example of this is with men who dominate group conversations. We all know the guy who speaks over people and cuts everyone off. And yes, he does this to everybody, but if you counted the instances up, he cuts off women far more often. This is the same person that always talks about how he “respects everyone’s opinions” and that he only talks to people this way that he respects. I have been guilty of this mentality in the past if not the intensity of many that I have seen.

What does that phrase “respect everyone’s opinions” really mean and how does it actually manifest in conversation? When a person says that they respect everyone’s opinions, they are saying that they will hear any argument and measure it on its merit. But that almost always means that the argument is being measured against the rubric that person has devised. When this man talks with women about feminist theory, he is approaching it as if the conversation is a debate and the merits of feminism are at the whim of who can out talk the other person. And he is going to make sure that he out talks them. This is not our movement, and we do not get to establish the rubric.

So there are a few things we can do to hold each other accountable when we see this happening. Inside of the conversation, we can reposition things by just saying, “Let her finish her point” which usually does the trick. But if someone is particularly adamant about his approach, we need to start having these conversations one-on-one outside of these group circles. We need to be far more comfortable calling each other out for these things. And that is hard. We need to be actively talking to each other about our missteps, and it is difficult to deal out that type of criticism and it is difficult to receive it. But it is a part of our role in supporting women’s issues.

The truth is that when we view things this way, we are not receptive to women’s critiques of us. We view their opinions as attacks and turn defensive instead of reflective. So as much as I will say we need to stop being defensive and start listening to women when they tell us these things, I will say we need to step in and hold each other accountable too. We do not get to keep saying that we support women’s issues unless we actually take action to make sure we are not being the problem.

 

           

 

The Conscious Effort of Caring for Women's Issues

By Woody Stanfield

My life has been a lot of talking about supporting women’s issues. I have not consciously thought of women as less intelligent or less capable than men. I have been pro-choice since I was able to understand the concept. For my entire adult life I have considered myself a supporter of women’s rights. I always thought it was really simple: women and men are equal, and don’t rape people.

I went off to college and my view of myself exacerbated from there. I left the conservative parts of central Illinois and eastern Missouri to go to the liberal bastion Chicago. Everybody here is a Democrat, and they all support women’s rights. Right? Nope. Guys, we’re really bad at supporting women’s issues. And I’m not talking about supporting them financially or going to marches or signing petitions to protect Planned Parenthood. We are actually doing all right at that. I am talking about the ways that we think about, talk about, and talk to women in our day-to-day lives.

I want you to think about the last time one of your buddies was accused of being sexist. Try to remember the first thought you went to. For most of us, the natural reaction is to doubt or challenge the accusation. And to an extent it makes sense. We have successfully vilified sexism so much that the accusation of it is viewed as massive condemnation of the person’s character. We correctly associate everyday sexism with blatant sexism and its most violent manifestations: sexual assault and rape. And we think ourselves progressive because we don’t tell women they should not go to college, and we aren’t the rapists or the abusers. But sexism isn’t just horrible because of the worst acts of violent, or the most direct forms of oppression. It is horrible because of how widespread and pervasive it is and that has not changed. Our generation was still raised with a number of assumptions and we are still wired with predispositions.

And that same mentality affects how we talk to women and how we talk about women. It’s ingrained into our interactions and it affects every conversation, even if just slightly. When I was talking to my friend Lara Haddadin about this, I said “Every woman has to deal with every man treating her as inferior in some way to some extent.” She echoed that with “I’ve been treated like that by men my entire life. Every single man I know.”

And we kept talking about gender dynamics in education and in the workplace. And I realized one of the most pervasive things that we do is that we treat respecting women’s spaces and voices as an ideological decision. We think of supporting women’s issues as a passive action. We think that being pro-choice, advocating prosecuting rapists, and supporting pay equity make us rock solid on women’s issues. And yeah, it’s leaps and bounds better than not supporting those things, but it’s not the entire picture.

Men, respecting women's spaces and voices isn't an ideological decision we make. It doesn't happen in a classroom or by saying "I respect everyone's opinions." It's a conscious effort day after day. It's recognizing that you're talking over your female coworkers more often than your male coworkers. It's seeing that you're repositioning many gendered issues as class based because you're afraid to recognize your superior social status. And it’s about taking women seriously when they make these charges of sexism. In that same conversation, Lara said, “I can't remember the last time a man actually took what I said seriously when it came to sexism and believed me right away.” Guys, I understand that we view it as a pretty serious charge, but that’s why the response should be a serious examination of whoever the charge is against, not an examination of the claim or the person making it. Because across society, we’re approaching it backwards, and that approach and the mentality behind is why things like Steubenville happen.

So I have been working really hard in the past months to figure out my predispositions and fight against them. And it is hard. It’s difficult to acknowledge the times that I have been wrong and the times I have wronged people. It’s tough to swallow that I have been a part of the very culture that I thought I was fighting against. But that’s why it’s important. If you care about women’s issues, if you want to support women, you have to do this self-reflection. You have to really challenge yourself and think about it. You need to talk to the women in your lives and genuinely ask them what they think about you when it comes to women’s issues. And when they tell you, you have to listen, and you have to work to fix it. Any less and you’re on the sidelines, right where the Donald Trumps want you.

A Day Without A Woman - 12223 S Peoria

By Woody Stanfield

Before I wrote this, I called my mother. And I did what a lot of men need to be doing right now – I listened. I asked her about her life, what she had gone through, how she felt, and how she persevered. When I asked her if it was okay for me to share her story, she told me “If you think it will help someone, you can tell whoever you like.” I am going to be as true and earnest as possible to my mother’s story as I write this because it is her story, not my take on it that we need to hear.

My mother was born on the far south side of Chicago in 1964. 12223 South Peoria. My mother grew up there in a family of too many kids and too few checks. It was hard for each of them and they didn’t make it easy on each other.  They didn’t have much themselves and there wasn’t much nearby – a decent park and average garbage collection was about the extent of the city’s services that my mom remembers.

Today Chicagoans still talk about poor education systems and poor accessibility to trauma and health centers on the South Side of Chicago. Well, it was worse then, far worse. In the late 1960s to mid 1970s, there was no comprehensive sex education. So when my mother needed to be told what was happening with her body and how to be safe, there was no infrastructure in place to teach her. So it’s not surprising that my mother, like many other young women, became pregnant when she was 15 years old.

She struggled to make it work, pulling on her friends and family. The people who truly loved her came together to help her through. When I talk to my mom about how she made it, she’s always thankful. Thankful for the people and the communities that came together and thankful that while she had a lot of work ahead of her, other people were going to help with the heavy lifting.

Year after year, my mother was playing catchup. Eighteen years old, with a 3 year old in tow, she had to figure out how to raise a kid and provide for him when she was struggling to provide for herself. She didn’t have the education, the skillsets, work experience, or really anything to make her highly employable and help her earn enough to support my brother. It wasn’t just hard, it was overwhelming. Years later, during the ‘80s, my mother and her friend lived together in a trailer park on the oil fields of Salem, Illinois. Both single mothers caring for their children together. When one was at work, the other would watch the kids. It was a poor woman’s Hull House, decked out in aluminum siding. Neither of them would have succeeded without the other.

In spite of the entirety of her life stacking against her, my mother persevered. I don’t know where she summoned the strength from and I doubt she even knows– she barely even gives herself the credit. But as a teenage mother, she pulled a strength out of herself that could tackle the world. It was a combination of my mother’s sheer determination, willpower, and hard work along with her friends and family that made raising my brother possible.  

But not everyone has those windfalls. For a lot of young women who got pregnant, especially in the 1970s, were exiled from their families, shunned by their communities, and cast out by their churches. The only people who could make it possible to take care of the child, turned their backs on them. It is for these women that what my mother told me really stings.

“Nobody told me about my options. No one took me aside and said ‘Listen, let’s go to the clinic and figure out what you want to do.” She was incredulous when she told me this. Not angry or bitter, but amazed. She never thought of it in the moment, but reflecting on it years later, she realized how absurd it was. But the takeaway for my mother was the toll that took on her son. “The birth of my son was a struggle for me and for him. He was born to a mother who wasn’t ready and because of this he had to grow up with a mother who was still growing up… my only regret is that I didn’t know how to be the mom I am today.”

Women should never be forced to go through what my mother had to and children should not have to come into this world to parents not ready for them. For every success story like my mother’s, there are many more stories of moms who did not succeed and whose children were not taken care of properly or the care of their child fell to their family members.

As my mother puts it “The price of unwanted teen pregnancy never goes away. Children can forever be scarred by their childhood. Be a parent when you are ready to be the best parent. It is the most important work you can do for this planet.”

Those women should have choices. And right now, they don’t. Not in this country or across the world. Things have improved in the past decades, sure. Every single woman in my family can get access to birth control if they want it, most of them for next to nothing or free.

But then again, I don’t have family in Alabama or Mississippi where access to sex education, birth control, and abortions is nearly nonexistent. You know, those same states that inexplicably have the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the country. Where far too many young women are living what my mother’s story would have been if she didn’t have the community she had and if she wasn’t the woman she is.

So today is the Day Without Women and I don’t know where I’d be without my mother. I really don’t. But I know for certain that if it were not for her strength, compassion, and perseverance, I would not be who I am today. And if it were not for her morals, I would not have mine, and I would not be fighting for the causes I believe in. So mom, thank you, and I love you.

In honor of my family: my mother Denice Racine (Ellis), my grandmother Mary Lee Stanfield, my sister-in-law Amanda Pitts, my cousin Mary Stanfield, and my sister Madison Rain Pratt. And to my dear friends, Izzy Gut, Lara Haddadin, Claire Short, and Maggie Stange.