Equal Opportunity Public Toplessness

I found Lori's post on feministing about public shirtlessness very thought-provoking. I didn't really take the issue that seriously at first, but then I started thinking about women breast-feeding. Breast feeding isn't obscene, but the sexualization of this pretty utilitarian part of us is what makes it so mothers can't post pictures of themselves nursing their infants on Facebook.

What are your thoughts on the issue? Should feminists take seriously the equal opportunity public toplessness issue since "it's small things like these where big gains can be made"? Or is it just a little too small of an issue to be worthy of our attention?

Little Victories: Superhero edition

I talked to my grandparents today who recently attended my 4 year old cousin's graduation from pre-kindergarten. They said it was a nice ceremony and all the students got certificates for graduating and going on to kindergarten.

At one point in the ceremony, the teachers all asked the students what they wanted to be when they grew up. Grace, my cousin, rocked the answer like none other. When asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, she said, "I want to be a female superhero."

While the nitpick in me thinks that she didn't need to add the signifier "female" to superhero, I'll let that rest and just rejoice in the fact that my 4 year old cousin wants to be a superhero. And damn it, she'll do it too.

Pro-life protest raises 14k for family planning

Here's some funny news out of Minneapolis/St. Paul - every year on Good Friday, a pro-life group protests at a Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Paul. This year, Planned Parenthood did "sponsor a protester" as a fundraising technique. For every protester that showed up, someone donated x dollars.

Weeeeellll, the Archbishop of the archdiocese of St Paul/Minneapolis showed up this year, meaning that there was an even larger crowd of protesters, which means that Planned Parenthood raised way more money than anticipated. Apparently they raised $14,000 and carloads of donated food for food banks.

The money raised at the expense of anti-abortion protesters will go toward family planning services at the clinic. PPMNS said it provided more than 300,000 units of contraception and 20,000 breast cancer and cervical cancer screenings to women in Minnesota and the Dakotas within the past year.

Nice work, Archbishop Neinstedt and your posse of pro-life protesters. I'm glad you could do your part in preventing unplanned pregnancies and working for women's health issues.

Little Victories pt 2

I take online surveys for money - not much, but they pay me for my opinion regarding any number of products.

I took one today about a beauty product (I'm not sure how much I can say without breaking the privacy rule) and used the survey as an opportunity to rail against the beauty industry. I believe at one point I wrote something along the lines of "I won't buy your product because I refuse to support a beauty industry that tells women they're incomplete without a specific beauty product."

I sincerely enjoyed it, and will spend that 3 dollars on things unrelated to beauty. Huzzah!

Little Victories

This post at Shakesville reminded me of a coversation I had with my friend the other day.

She just started working at a UCC church as a Minister for Children and Families. The UCC is one of the more liberal Christian denominations and there are several same-sex couples at her church.

She was telling me how on forms that go out to families, there are just two general blanks for filling in parent and guardian names, but on internal church spreadsheets, the categories were "mother" and "father." She felt awesome changing the headings to "parent 1" and "parent 2", even if she was the only one who saw it.

Little victories!