Nothing Funny About It

By Lisa M. Stone

Like many people, I enjoy taking my time reading the paper(s) on Sunday mornings.  Last Sunday, I had the privilege of spending the day with a bunch of people planning how to make sure marriage equality remains the law in Washington (Go, Washington United for Marriage!), so I didn’t have much time to read.  Naturally, I focused on the truly important thing: the funnies.  (Is calling them “funnies” versus “comics” a geographic indicator, like “soda” versus “pop” versus “soft drinks”?)   Anyway, I was so rushed that I skipped to the page that normally displays Doonesbury only to find it replaced by Beetle Bailey.

What?  Had Doonesbury been dropped? Surely not.  

It wasn’t until the next day that I noticed Doonesbury appeared on the bottom corner of page A2.  And learned that our local paper, along with many others around the country, had decided that the current story line about the Texas law requiring transvaginal ultrasounds before an abortion was “too mature” for the comics page.   Some aren’t running it at all, others have moved it to another page.  The local rationale: "because we are concerned about these strips reaching the right audience, and in particular about giving parents a good option to keep them from their children if they wish, we are moving Doonesbury to Page A2 for this week." 

I guess it passes the straight face test.  Then again, NO.  It does not.  It’s yet another example of women’s reproductive health being marginalized, treated as abnormal, and generally shoved under the table/out the door/into the closet.  

Yes, abortion is controversial in this country.  That’s about the only non-controversial thing you can say about abortion these days.  But it’s specious to claim that this series of strips is somehow more than usually shocking for the funnies.  It took me less than 5 minutes to follow up on my vague memories and find examples of other comics that dealt with controversial topics but stayed on the comics page.  Including topics related to women, and to their body parts. Between Friends dealt with domestic violence  a few years ago.   I guess spousal abuse and stalking are not so controversial.  Or maybe they provide a good “teachable moment” for parents, who undoubtedly read through all the funnies every day before handing them over to their kids.  More benign, but arguably still too “mature” for the comics is a reference to (ssshhhhh) women’s underwear ; specifically, their bras.  Hey there, parent of little mister 5-year old: are you ready to talk with your kids about breasts, and sagging breasts at that?  Guess you’ll have to, because it’s right there in living color.  On the comics page.

Others have pointed this out as well: Publicola noted that the same week Doonesbury was moved, Pearls Before Swine had a strip – on the comics page – about shooting and inebriation.  Another suitable subject for the toddler, youth and tween demographics.

On the allegedly other side of the scale, we have the full-on celebration of various Christian holidays: Christmas, Easter (B.C. is especially notable for this, which is pretty funny when you think about what B.C. stands for).   Funny, see – it’s the comics!  Only that could perhaps best be deemed funny-peculiar, not funny ha-ha.  

And yes, these cartoonists have the right to say what they like via their art.  Just as the newspapers have the right to choose where to place said comics.  

But the inconsistencies -- and the blatant hypocrisy -- scream to be called out.  Proselytize in the guise of comics: check.  Poke fun at guns, drinking and death in the guise of comics: check.  Depict spousal abuse and the cycle of domestic violence in the guise of comics: check.   Satirize the insanity of a Texas law that furthers the marginalization of women’s health and rights: not so fast, buster.  That’s not amusing, that’s political commentary, and it’s just too mature for the funnies.  

Guess I’d better stick to The Family Circus.  Except when it proselytizes.

Women’s Rights.Really.Still.

By Laurie Carlsson

A few months back, a friend of a friend asked me an honest question over coffee: Isn’t sexism over? Now that women have the right to vote, hold jobs as construction workers, scientists, astronauts, and legislators, and have nearly broken the glass ceiling, what is left to fight for? Don’t women even have their own television network? (“Yes,” I said. “Where they can talk about lipstick shades and shopping with their gay besties.”)

These past few weeks I’ve been having this thought: Perhaps the one benefit of the brutal attack on reproductive rights we’re currently seeing is that there’s no room left for doubt. Women are being pummeled left and right in the political arena.

By making the line where the Hyde Amendment meets healthcare reform seem blurry, anti-abortion leaders have managed to reopen the subject of reproductive choice. By heightening the debate between “conscience” rights and patient rights, they’ve managed to roll back our expectations regarding access to birth control.

The Reproductive Parity Act, which would’ve ensured access to reproductive services for all women in Washington as the state implements federal health care reform, died in the Senate last week (The House passed the bill 52-46, but the Senate failed to bring the bill to a vote on the last day of the legislative session). Those who voted "no" included a legislator who was at one time a member of the NARAL board of directors.

Perhaps most enraging of all – and so “out there” as to be worthy of an Onion article – comes this little gem: “A proposed new law in Arizona would give employers the power to request that women being prescribed birth control pills provide proof that they're using it for non-sexual reasons.” I HAVE NO WORDS FOR THIS ASININITY.

In response to the recent outrage over a Virginia bill that would require all women to undergo an invasive procedure called a “transvaginal ultrasound” before having an abortion, Washington Post columnist Petula Dvorak posits that women “do not, as a rule, spend a ton of time thinking about their wombs.”

Umm. Excuse me?

Hold the phone, maybe I was wrong. Maybe the repugnancy of the war on women IS escapable for some folks.

Apart from her misguided – nay sexist – assumption that a proper sampling of the female gender can be found at her local craft store in the middle of a weekday, Ms. Dvorak has something very wrong. Women DO care about their wombs. They told us this loudly and clearly when the U.S. Congress attempted to de-fund Planned Parenthood, and again when the Susan B. Komen Foundation decided to turn its back on women earlier this year. Certainly the members of the Women’s Strike Force, a PAC formed with the goal of defeating legislators who voted for the “trans-vaginal” bill, are focused on their reproductive rights. I understand that the intent of Ms. Dvorak’s article was to point out the absurdity of our legislators’ focus on lady parts when so many things need fixing, but I would argue that claiming the indifference of women in the area of reproductive health isn’t just incorrect, but tantamount to aiding and abetting the other side.

The same quote seems to be circulating from feminists of many generations these days: “We thought we had already fought this battle.” Two decades from now, will Gen Y feminists be singing the same tune? And will they be asking my friend’s question, “isn’t sexism over?” In response to my friend I shared a phrase that Lisa Stone can often be heard uttering: "Women's Rights. Really. Still."

The Days of Equality Are Upon Us -- almost

by Lisa M.Stone

Yes, civil marriage equality is so close to reality in Washington. The bill has been signed by Governor Gregoire (who gave an amazing, touching speech). The law will take effect June 7^th, unless our opponents gather enough signatures to put it to a vote of the people in November. If they manage to do that, then when we win that battle – and WE WILL WIN – Washington will be the first state in which the voters chose to uphold equality for same sex couples who wish to marry.

Amid all the excitement, I’ve been reflecting on the journey. When the House passed the legislation a couple of weeks ago, I posted on Legal Voice’s Facebook page a comment that it was a long struggle. But when I ran into a former (early 1980’s) Board member, she remarked on how very quickly the LGBTQ movement has progressed.

I guess it’s partly one’s perspective: when you advocate for something all day every day for many years it seems to last forever, while if you care about and follow an issue through an organization like Legal Voice, you might see it race forward.

Both are true with respect to marriage equality, I think. On the one hand, Legal Voice has been working to advance the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer persons practically since our founding in 1978. We helped secure one of the Washington’s first “second parent” adoptions, so a lesbian non-biological partner could legally adopt her partner’s child. And we represented Col. Grethe Cammermeyer, the highest-ranking person discharged from the military because of sexual orientation. Legal Voice also represented six lesbian and gay Montanans in successfully striking down that state’s “deviate sexual conduct” law, obtaining a unanimous decision from the Montana Supreme Court that was cited in the U.S. Supreme Court’s Lawrence v. Texas opinion six years later.

Of all our work for LGBTQ rights, though, the cases and advocacy to ensure that all families are treated equally has been the most sustained and critical, especially in Montana and Washington. From ensuring that couples who split up have their property treated the same as heterosexual couples, to this week’s historic signing of the civil marriage equality bill, we’ve pushed consistently and successfully for recognition and protection of families.

Yet if you look at the intense parts of that effort, it truly has happened in a flash, at least legally speaking. From 2001, when we urged the Washington Supreme Court to acknowledge that the ability to inherit from a partner was not restricted to different sex couples, to today, when Governor Gregoire signed this bill, is no time at all when it comes to social and legal change. The law prefers stability and resists change.

The law can also be a strong catalyst for progress, however: Thurgood Marshall bringing suits from 1933-1954 (and later) to break down barriers to education and public life; countless women suing to eradicate sex discrimination since Title VII became law in 1964 (true, this one isn’t over yet); and, of course the fight for marriage equality. Bans on interracial marriage started falling in 1948, when the California Supreme Court struck that state’s discriminatory law, and toppled legally in 1967 with Loving v Virginia: 19 years. Bans on same sex sexual activity were upheld by the Supreme Court in 1986, and tossed out in 2003: 17 years. And here we are: protections for all loving and committed couples and families in Washington: 11 years.

Maybe it’s a trend.

*photo of Legal Voice supporter Johanna and her son.

Learning from History – and Advancing Women’s Rights in the Process

By Lisa M. Stone

People in Washington – indeed, in many states in the West, where citizen initiatives sometimes seem to multiply like viruses – often complain these days about the ill effect of such efforts to change state law. Okay, what I mean is, progressives in Washington complain a lot about professional initiative pusher Tim Eyman, whose efforts invariably involve using blunt instruments that affect complicated problems. (For example, “let’s just make it impossible to raise taxes or fees, even to carry out essential government services like road repair.”)

But the initiative process can also be used to make our state stronger, and to protect vulnerable or disenfranchised people. Washington was the first state in the country – and still the only one – to make abortion legal by a vote of the people, in 1970. And we adopted the state Equal Rights Amendment the same way, in 1972.

The ERA is a thing of beauty, by the way, short, clear, and absolute:

Equality of rights and responsibility under the law shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex.

Legal Voice is proud to have brought the first lawsuit under the ERA, which was coincidentally (or perhaps not) our first case, Blair v.Washington State University, in which we sued WSU to demand equal treatment for women athletes and coaches. WSU now brags about the case and its women’s sports programs. (You’re welcome, Cougars!)

In keeping with this history of protecting women’s rights through citizen initiatives, in 1991 a group of women’s, civil rights, and health care organizations and professionals decided to codify Roe v. Wade through an initiative to the people. We were concerned that the U.S. Supreme Court would overturn Roe, and wanted to make sure women retained their reproductive autonomy. It was a hard-fought effort, but we won. In fact, over the past 40 years the people of Washington have voted five times to affirm or protect women’s right to decide when and whether to have a child.

And now, facing the scary world of healthcare reform, we’re pushing to make sure that Washington remains solidly pro-choice and respectful of women’s autonomy. Sadly, Roe v. Wade is still vulnerable – perhaps more than in 1991. We can’t stand by while anti-choice zealots restrict our rights (even though that’s what happened at the federal level). So throughout the 2012 legislative session, beginning this Thursday, January 19th, in both the House and the Senate we’ll be advocating for a bill that will ensure women, including low-income women, will have access to abortion. Like the ERA, this bill is simple: it says that if an insurance plan covers maternity services, it must cover abortion. That’s what we voters passed in 1991 with I-120, and it’s the right thing to do. It’s fair, it’s equitable, and it protects all our choices.

Everything Old Is New Again

By Laurie Carlsson

2012. Sounds a bit like the future doesn’t it? Apocalyptic doom, pneumatic tube pods, and massive technological advances. Say, weren’t we supposed to have flying cars by now?

I can live with the dearth of flying vehicles, but this is what’s troubling me: It’s the year 2012 and we still haven’t figured out a way to treat all members of our society equally. You would think we would have this figured out by now. Yet my week has been filled with examples to the contrary.

Earlier this month The Washington Post published its 2012 In/Out list, rating the coolness factor of pets, tv shows, rock stars, hairstyles and… treating immigrants as people. Yes, you heard that right: Treating immigrants as people. The list juxtaposes “corporations as people” (out) with “immigrants as people” (in). Sorry Washington Post, but we’re not appreciating your clever play on words. I will assume that there's no need to point out how the mere suggestion of immigrants as anything BUT people is incredibly offensive.

Yesterday I did what I always promise myself I won’t – I read the comments section of an article on marriage equality. That’s where I found this little sarcastic gem: “Good Idea! Let's also end the state sponsored discrimination against child molestation, or against murder.” Sure, this was only one rant from a single bigot, and was delightfully quashed by a dozen or so commentors, but this nugget retrieved from an email blast sent out by the Family Policy Institute of Washington is nearly as infuriating: “Supporters of real marriage must counter the pressure that legislators will inevitably receive from the homosexual lobby.” I’m sorry but did this message come from 1987? I will refrain from asking what “real” marriage is and then referring to one of the many superstars that were married for all of 72 hours. That also feels very last year. I will, however, point to statistics that show Washingtonians favoring gay marriage 55/38, and “real” hetero marriages failing at a rate of over 50%.

Today news hit the blogosphere of a California teen calling for a boycott of Girl Scout cookies because a 7-year-old transgender child was admitted to a Colorado troop last fall. The protest group that the girl has formed claims to be "advocating for a change back to simply building girls of good character." Not only has the girl called the character of an entire group of people into question, but other leaders in the organization have called the inclusion of the child “dangerous.” What a *wonderful* lesson for a bunch of young girls.

I know that we can do better than this. Every member of our society deserves to be treated with respect and dignity. I will end with a plea. Dear good citizens of the world: Please make me feel better about the future and actively support reproductive healthcare for all women, civil marriage for all, and new revenue sources so that we can offer a safety net to our most vulnerable citizens. Let’s make 2012 about equality, and leave retro to the Urban Outfitters catalogue. #PLUR