The concept review is being administered via google forms.

• You WILL be sent a copy of your responses to the email address you enter at the start of the review.
• You will also be able to edit your responses.
• Remember, you can complete any outstanding assignments until Wednesday, May 18th at 11:59 pm

Thank you for a great semester!

Hi All! This is just a quick note to let you know that I am still counting up responses to discussion board posts but, as of the writing of this post, I have counted everything else. Please reach out to me via email if you find I have missed something.

You can still complete any assignments until Wednesday 5/18 @ 11:59 pm.

I will post the concept review at some point Monday 3/16. It will be due on Monday 3/23 by 11:59 pm

I truly enjoyed your art selections for week thirteen. I hope you enjoyed the prompt and the assigned readings.

This is our last week of assigned discussion posts, reading reflections, and discussion responses. I had not planned to end on this note, but given recent events, it seems important that we discuss abortion. I saw references to the leak of the Supreme Court briefing on overturning the landmark decision of Roe v. Wade in some of last week’s posts. I assume most of you are aware of what is happening, but I think it would be useful for us to explore the topic. I am going to ask that you be particularly thoughtful with your words in this week’s posts.

We started this semester reading bell hooks. In our reading hooks wrote:

. . . let’s take the issue of abortion. If feminism is a movement to end sexist oppression, and depriving females of reproductive rights is a form of sexist oppression, then one cannot be anti-choice and be feminist. A woman can insist she would never choose to have an abortion while affirming her support of the right
of women to choose and still be an advocate of feminist politics. She cannot be anti-abortion and an advocate of feminism. Concurrently there can be no such thing as “power feminism” if the vision of power evoked is power gained through the exploitation and oppression of others.bell hooks, “Feminist Politics: Where We Stand” in Femnism is For Everybody, p. 6

Please keep this in mind as you read and write this week.

I would like to begin by providing you with some information about abortion I learned while training to become an abortion doula.

Brief History

Abortion was allowed and practiced for centuries before it was criminalized and turned illegal. There were no laws against abortion until the 1860s. These laws came about during the time of slavery (in 1863). Enslavers did not want those they enslaved to have abortions. They wanted them to have many children because those children would be the property of the enslavers, increase their wealth, and provide free labor for their enterprises. A second reason these laws came to be when they did was an increase in the medicalization of human bodies. Immigrant and enslaved communities relied on the knowledge of midwives, apothecaries, and homeopaths that were passed down through generations. The role of the midwife was a prominent and powerful role in these communities. As the medical field became more established, midwives were competition for Medical Doctors. By outlawing abortion, midwives, apothecaries, and homeopaths were gradually replaced by medical doctors – most of whom were wealthy white men and deemed to be more knowledgeable by their status in society.

Illegal abortions of course continued, and in high numbers. But they were done in secrecy and pregnant people were left to suffer and die alone. In 1873, the Comstock Act was passed making it illegal to send “obscene, lewd or lascivious,” “immoral,” or “indecent” publications through the mail. It defined contraceptives as obscene and illicit, making it a federal offense to disseminate birth control through the mail or across state lines. Anthony Comstock, for whom the act was named, was a postal agent with Victorian values, who used his position to enforce the law. This made the prevention and termination of pregnancy even more difficult. Though there were underground networks, like the Janes in Chicago, for the next century abortion was federally banned.

Then, in 1973, we had the landmark supreme court decision Roe v. Wade that made abortion legal in all fifty states. Since then, different states have enacted laws with different aims. Some protect abortion (in places like New York, where abortion became legal in 1969) and others (like in Texas) have sought to erode access and resources for providers to the point where abortion is virtually illegal. And then we get the recent Politico article “Supreme Court has voted to overturn abortion rights, draft opinion shows” on May 2, 2022, that exposed a leaked document indicating the Supreme Court had voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. This week, I would like you to read that article.

Who, What, How?!

It is important that we understand who gets abortions and that there are a variety of types of abortions. To address the “Who” I would like you to watch this 13-minute documentary Abortion Helpline, This is Lisa. If you have time, you may also wish to watch The Abortion Divide a 50-minute documentary from Frontline on PBS – this video is OPTIONAL.

There are medical abortions, which are performed when the pregnant person takes prescription medications (either orally or vaginally), usually at a clinic, and then is sent home with the remaining pills to complete the abortion at home. They have a second visit to confirm the process was complete. These are non-invasive and allow the pregnant person to be somewhere comfortable of their own choosing. Most typically they feel like a very heavy period with cramping for roughly 1-4 hours. They can be performed (depending on state laws) until about 11 weeks gestation. They have a high success rate.

There are also spontaneous abortions, which are typically called miscarriages or stillbirths.

There are also procedure abortions that can be done within 5-10 minutes in a clinic. These are called Manual Uterine Aspiration (MUA) Manual Vacuum Aspiration (MVA) or Dilation and Curettage (DnC). The last is the one you are probably most familiar with because it is what tends to be portrayed in the media. But it is far from the most common. All of these procedures require some type of anesthesia, usually sedation. The MUA and MVA involved inserting instruments into the uterus through the cervix. They are one-step procedures and do not require follow-up in all cases. These are the “most common” abortion experiences. The provider inserts a cannula, what looks like a small plastic straw, through the cervix, into the uterus and uses soft suction. It takes 2-5 minutes.

DnCs are surgical procedures that are often performed to clear the uterine lining after a spontaneous abortion in the first trimester. Dilation refers to the opening of the cervix. Curretage refers to the eliination of the contnst of the utuerus. There is also some vacuum aspiration involved in this procedure. These procedures are also done if the pregnancy is advanced and requires cervical dilation. They are performed under twilight or general anesthesia.

Please read this article from MS Magazine about Rebecca Gomperts, a pioneer in medical abortions. The article talks about her efforts and includes an interview. She is one of my personal heroes.https://msmagazine.com/2022/02/23/telemedicine-abortion-rebecca-gomperts-abortion-pills/embed/#?secret=PIrxQEPf8Z#?secret=rZfwoIBcRe

Due this Week:

• Discussion Post 14 and Reading Reflection 13 due Wednesday, May 11 by 11:59 pm
• Discussion Post Responses due Friday, May 13 by 11:59 pm



I have counted your work for the semester thus far in a google sheet, which I am sharing, and explaining in this post. I am sharing this openly because it is a count and not a grade. There are likely to be things I have missed, so we can work together over these last few weeks of the semester to make sure that all of your work is properly counted. If something looks incorrect, please email me and I will fix it within a few days.

Things to know before you look at the google sheet

• Uses your last name only as it is listed on the roster.
• Please allow 72 hours for changes.
• All Assignments will be counted until May 18th. After this date they won’t be counted.
• See “Evaluation and Requirements of Students” beginning on page two of the syllabus for details of how your grade is calculated

Choose the TAB for your section

Key For The Google Sheet

• D# = Discussion Post (1 counted)
• RED# = Discussion Post Replies (Up to 3 Counted)
• RR# = Reading Reflection (1 counted)

LINK TO GOOGLE SHEET

Before you contact me about how to interpret this sheet, make sure you have read all of the instructions in this post twice.

REMEMBER: The Concept Review is 10% of your grade. To be completed during finals week

When you start your post you have a screen that looks like this. Hover over the black square with the + sign in it.

When you hover over the black square with the + sign, you will get a drop-down menu that looks like the picture below. Choose “image.”

You will then see a screen that looks like this:

You can upload the image if you have it saved on your computer. You can also insert a URL for the image if you found it on the internet. Be sure you preview your post before sharing so that it looks the way you want it to. You can do the same thing for a video or a song, just choose the appropriate icon from the drop-down.

Thank you for your thoughtful and emotional responses to last week’s readings. I think it is important for us to acknowledge that not all people have the same access to health. We live in a world that promotes wellness and health in ways that are unattainable by many and recognizing the disparities is important. Some of you pointed out that the medical establishment has a history of abuse, and this is particularly true for black and brown people. Other factors that impact the type of care we receive other than those we read about include sexuality, disability, fatness, mental health history, and the type of health insurance we have (if we have it).

In relation to menstruation, I think it is important to note that access to menstrual products is a problem in this country as well. Notice I don’t use the term “feminine” or “hygiene” — that is because people who are not feminine also menstruate and because when we use the term “hygiene” we imply that menstruation is dirty, which it isn’t. I appreciate that some of you brought up the “pink tax” and that others offered recommendations for products other than pads or tampons (a menstrual cup is a great alternative if you are comfortable with your body). Regarding menstrual education, I would ask you to think about what you were taught about menstruation. Who is educated about it and who isn’t? How much education do you really receive? Did you learn about endometriosis or PCOS?

We just touched the surface of gender-based discrimination in healthcare with the content from last week. I encourage you to search further if any of these topics were of particular interest to you. I can also provide resources if you wish – just email me. We do have a course at BMCC in the health education department that explores some of these issues (depending on the instructor).

This week…

… we will be exploring art and how it can be a type of activism, as well as how activism is a kind of art. There will be two readings and a slightly different discussion prompt from what we have done this semester.

First, please read Why Artistic Activism? from the Center for Artistic Activism. This piece attempts to explain the link between art and activism, its role in our contemporary landscape as well as how it has been used throughout history, and some of the tenets of artistic activism.

Secondly, 10 Female Performance Artists You Should Know, from Ana Mendieta to Carolee Schneemann, will provide you with some examples of feminist performance art, which could also be considered activist art. I chose this article because performance art is one of my areas of expertise, but mainly because performance art integrates different genres of art. Performance art can take the form of photography, land art, durational art, dance, sculpture, painting, video, writing, and more.

Due this week

• Wednesday, May 4 at 11:59 PM: Discussion 13 & Reading Reflection 12
• Friday, May 6 at 11:59 PM: Responses to Discussion 13

Wow! There were so many great suggestions for the remainder of the semester. I looked at suggestions across the three sections I teach and am trying to figure out the best way to address all of your interests. I’m not sure it will be possible, but I will give it a try.

I am calling this week, “Medical Oppression.” There are two readings and one 25-minute film.

A Birth Story

This piece was written by Dr. Dana-Ain Davis, in collaboration with Leconté J Dill whose story is featured, and Cheyenne Varner who illustrated the piece. Dr. Davis is the director of The Center for the Study of Women and Society at CUNY. I work with her regularly and respect her work on black motherhood and medical anthropology. This piece deals with Obstetric Racism through the focus on stories told through words and/or images.

12 Reasons It Should Be Illegal for Doctors Not to Treat Trans People

This piece was written in response to a new rule proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services in 2019 that could make medical care for transgender people not only worse but potentially protect the denial of health care to trans* people by federal policy. It includes some description of the rule, but more interesting includes 12 comments from people opposed to the rule in which they share their stories.

Period: End of Sentence

Some of you mentioned an interest in discussing period poverty and/or stories from a global perspective. I hope this film does some of that for you. You can watch this film through the linked title or through the embedded video below. This film, which won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject, is set in rural India, where the stigma of menstruation persists. In the film, women make low-cost sanitary pads on a new machine and stride toward financial independence.

Due this week:

• Discussion Post 12 & Reading Reflection 11 – Due Wednesday, April 27 at 11:59 pm.
• Comments on at least through Discussion 12 Posts – Due Friday, April 29 at 11:59 pm.

This is our last week before spring break. And our last week of “scheduled” content. I like to take the last several weeks of the semester to focus on different topics of interest to you all. I have a ton of information and places we could go, but I’d like you to include in your discussion post some things you would like to study. I will see if I can weave them in.

Before I talk about this week’s assignment, I wanted to note a few things about last week’s. You all did a great job with the materials. I hope you thought about the reading if you watch Ketanji Brown Jacksons’ confirmation hearings. I also hope the confirmation made it clear that oppression does not mean that you CAN’T prosper, but it means that it will be very difficult with many barriers blocking your way.

I wanted to also make a note that I think is very important. Some of you highlighted it in your writing, but some did not. I think it is highly important to note that the Combahee Collective was a queer one. Queerness provides models for deconstructing capitalism and other oppressive structures. The nuclear family reinforces capitalist ideals in that it creates roles that people play, divisions of labor, and competition of one family against another in the individualistic climb to amass power and wealth. Queer communities move from the individual to the collective – and this is a way to dismantle systems. If we engage in mutual aid and support of one another, rather than competition, we are calling into question many binary systems. Please note that queer does not necessarily (though it can) refer to sexuality, as there are many people who are LGBT who uphold binaries.

This week . . .

This week, we continue investigating identity politics. This time, with a chapter, “The Power of Identity Politics,” from Alicia Garza’s 2020 book The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart. Garza, one of the founders of #Black Lives Matter and organizer of Black Futures Lab, explores how identity politics has been used and misused in the 40+ years since Combahee. You will also read Aleichia Williams’s creative prose piece “Too Latina To Be Black, Too Black To Be Latina” in which she interrogates her own identity and others’ reactions to it, thereby enacting identity politics.

Not assigned, but encouraged, is Gloria Anzaldúa, “La Conciencia de la Mestiza/Towards a New Consciousness” (1987). I usually assign this piece along with Combahee, but this semester I have tried to assign less reading. In “La Conciencia de la Mestiza/Towards a New Consciousness,” Gloria Anzaldúa builds on the concept of la raza cosmica as articulated by Mexican philosopher José Vasconcelos. In this article, Anzaldúa emphasizes the existence of Chicana women in a space she calls the Borderlands—she calls these women the new mestiza. She explains that these mestiza women are the product of constant cultural exchanges and recognize their position in life as one of multiple identities converging in one mestiza woman. Throughout the essay, Anzaldúa switches between using English and Spanish to emphasize the Borderlands that mestiza women inhabit. She challenges the constant attack of white, patriarchal ideals attacking Mexican and Chicana culture. Anzaldúa explains that mestizas learn to embrace cultural ambiguity and develop ambivalence to the world around them. She claims they can only be removed from ambiguity through “an intense, and often painful, emotional event which inverts or resolves the ambivalence.” Throughout the essay, she calls for an intersectional form of feminism that recognizes the struggles of indigenous women as well as other women of color. She also criticizes white feminists for lumping all men together as oppressors without recognizing the ways people of color and queer men fall outside of hegemonic ideals. 

Due this week:

Discussion Post 11 and Reading Reflection 10 are due Wednesday, April 13 by 11:59 PM.

Comments on at least three classmates’ Discussion11 Posts are due Friday, April 15 by 11:59 PM.

This week you will have one reading and one film to view. I hope you enjoy them both. In terms of history, we are moving into the end of the 20th century/beginning of the 21st century until we FINALLY will have spring break. While most of what we have read this semester has included intersectionality, now we move to properly naming it.  

The Combahee River Collective Statment (1977). 

This statement introduces us to black feminism and the term “identity politics,” and expands the feminist adage “the personal is political.” Black feminism has an undeniable personal genesis – a political realization that comes from the seemingly personal experiences of individual black women’s lives. By “seemingly personal,” they mean that each individual has a unique experience but as a group, they have common or similar experiences of racist/sexist experience. By recognizing the similarities in experience, members of groups can support one another while also knowing there is variation in their experience.

The Collective writes “Many black women have a good understanding of both sexism and racism, but because of the everyday constrictions of their lives cannot risk struggling against them both.” And this is what they claim is the importance of identity politics: “This focusing upon our own oppression is embodied in the concept of identity politics. We believe that the most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else’s oppression.” Because the members of the collective (and I hope all of us) have a “shared belief that Black women are inherently valuable, that our liberation is a necessity not as an adjunct to somebody else’s may because of our need as human persons for autonomy” they also argue “If black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression.” The personal is political because everything that is seemingly personal is always already an experience one has within a system of interlocking oppressions. Therefore nothing is truly “just personal” but is always an effect of the political.

At the same time, Combahee adopts a decidedly anti-capitalist, socialist agenda that encourages us to analyze the relationship between gender and capitalism. They argue that “the liberation of all oppressed peoples necessitates the destruction of the political-economic systems of capitalism and imperialism as well as patriarchy.” Capitalism creates hierarchies that serve to separate people into groups. As socialists, they believe that all work should be organized to benefit and be equally distributed amongst the workers (the actual people making the products), rather than constitute profit for the bosses (as in capitalism). However, their socialism must be a feminist and anti-racist one in order to be revolutionary. To be revolutionary, they argue, “We need to articulate the real class situation of persons who are not merely raceless, sexless workers, but for whom racial and sexual oppression are significant determinants in their working/economic lives.”

Paris is Burning

In the 1990 film, Paris is Burning by Jenny Livingston, we get a personal look into ball culture and the lives of those who live it. In many ways they have created their own revolutionary society wherein they create their own families, share monetary resources as well as housing and other necessities, and the ball world in which they can live their true identities that are excluded from the normative worlds of high fashion, modeling, and royalty. They are doing identity politics, while outside of the ballroom they still experience the oppression they momentarily leave behind at the balls. It is important to note that politics is at work with this film too. Many of those filmed accuse Jenny Livingston, a white middle-class lesbian woman, of being predatory. Indeed most of the people in the film did not benefit monetarily, while Livingston did. While the culture became mainstream, it was people like Madonna popularizing vogue who were celebrated, not those who originated it. Feminist thinkers such as bell hooks and Judith Butler (and others) debated the film as well. In 2006, a new documentary How Do I Look, made by Wolfgang Busch revisited some of the people in the film who gave their accounts.

Due This Week

Discussion Post 10 and Reading Reflection 9, due Wednesday, April 6 by 11:59 p.

Comment on at least three classmates’ Discussion 10 posts, due Friday, April 8 by 11:59 pm.