US Centric
Within 7 days of the Global Gag rule being overturned low income women in the U.S. are the first cut in 'concessions' to the right wing factions of our country :
House Democrats are likely to jettison family planning funds for the low-income from an $825 billion economic stimulus bill, officials said late Monday, following a personal appeal from President Barack Obama at a time the administration is courting Republican critics of the legislation..

One argument by the anti-choice movement in the states (and I'm talking about the right-wing religious women bashing side that scream outside of clinics - not the realm of nuanced debate and discussion) is that more WOC's pregnancies are aborted rather than white women. Institutionalized racism and its intersection with classism has left WOC behind in the true 'options of choice' and these women have to often not carry pregnancies to term for economic reasons. But it is also true that there are huge discrepancies between white folk and WOC in access to health insurance. And health insurance still means that you have more options when it comes to family planning.

In the States, there is a tendency to view women's access to reproductive health care as a basic right, and something all nations should provide. While the Global Gag Rule limited women's access to a full scope of needed medical options - a basic papsmear could in theory be covered. If women in the states had access to the proposed, and now proposed to be yanked family planning - they'd be getting some of this needed help. Women having more access to healthy bodies, and having greater agency in deciding on the size of their family helps the economy, clearly - but why are they the first to be cut?

Is it sexism, classism, some racism, all of the above, or something else? Obviously here I hold the view that it is both - Reagan after all invented the 'welfare queen' myth, and Clinton's "welfare to work" nonsense reaffirmed it, so this quick backtrack on a great proposed program feels like more of the same.

Would a single payer health system eliminate this issue? How have other countries handled this?

This article over at mute magazine is a really good read.

In the context of the recent abortion debates in the UK - and in anticipation of further, much tougher ones as we contemplate an incoming right-wing government - I thought this is a really useful article. Basically it places the immediacy of the usual quite simplified (and very bourgeois) feminist abortion debates in a much broader context of state 'provision', surveillance, paternalism and inadequate economic investment.

As I'm white, middle-class, salaried, formally educated and not classed as 'at-risk' by my government, the class arguments in pro-choice issues (such as the abortion provision 'postcode lottery') in all frankness, tend to ring quite distantly in my ears. So this is an extremely clear and detailed picture.

The author's main argument is that state 'provision' is actually a forceful means of gathering personal information from 'at-risk' groups, while investigating the logical and class-based fallacies of the definitions of terms like 'at-risk', and while asserting that the resultant rhetoric transfers all responsibility to the surveilled, dependent-class women, and simultaneously fails to actually hand out any meaningful economic support.

I find it interesting because as a leftist I struggle a lot with the elements of surveillance for which our current, supposedly left-wing government has an exquisite talent. I also appreciated the assessment of the gendered specificity of this control of 'good' and 'bad' mothers.

It's a long, detailed and very UK specific article, it's useful reading for the next time we'll have to drag ourselves through the muck on abortion. Any thoughts for now?

(Ps to anyone with a leftist, geeky, open-source, cultural policy, and feminist bent - I highly recommend mute magazine whose entire content is available free online).

So, it's been mentioned a lot here about how the ability to eat healthy is highly linked with class when discussing fatphobia. (So, link to feminism: class, fatphobia, and the many fatphobia threads that have happened, and unfortunately probably will again in the future, were people tell us how it's just soo easy to not be fat, which is unhealthy-always!)

One of the ways this works, especially in the metro-Detroit area of Michigan, is that in lower income areas there is less access to quality produce and other healthier foods. As well, the cost of foods in lower income areas tend to be cost more.

But I was wondering if people know of any information or sources that are more in depth on this. I'd be especially interested if there is anywhere out there with more specific examples of how this works out in Michigan.

I know I've seen this in metro-Detroit. I grew up in Detroit, my current "home" is in Redford but I live most of the year in East Lansing since I'm a fulltime student at MSU. So these are the areas I have the most personal experience with. Of course we never shopped for groceries in Detroit. I know people who did, and I worked with organization working on forcing grocery stores in Detroit to sell decent food- with some stores doing things like injecting dye into meat to make it look fresher, and dairy that had gone bad et cetera. I know a lot of people in detroit who will go to the closest detroit store for canned food, but will not buy meat, dairy or produce at that store. (And of course, it costs more to have to travel to another city for those things.)
In my family that's what we have almost always done, from what I remember at least. In Detroit we used to shop at a grocery store about 2 blocks from my current house. Now we shop in Livonia, because that store is too expensive.

Now, this is all stuff I know, but what got me thinking about it is my frustration at making a salad tonight. This is from a grocery store in Livonia. I just bought these cucumbers and they feel really soft and squishy, which I'm no veggie expert, but I think the less squishy generally the fresher? Most all veggies are not as good from the livonia stores.
In East Lansing at the Lake Lansing meijer the produce is fresher, with a larger selection and cheaper!
And I started wondering if this was at all related to the general overall pattern of lower income = more expensive, lower quality and less selection produce. Though I don't know that East Lansing is that high income compared with Livonia? Especially if you factor in students, amongst whom I'm a bit of a minority in my produce buying.
Though then again Lake Lansing meijer seems to have fewer students. Whereas Okemos miejer, which is about the same distance from where I live, has crappy produce, but more students seem to shop there (in my experience). Though Okemos is not in general a low-income area. In fact, not knowing numbers, I thought Okemos was a higher overal income than East Lansing.

Anyways, so that's my background. It got me thinking. And I am familiar with the overall pattern in this area, but I wish I knew of a more extensive comparison of quality, price, and selection in areas compared with things like income in the area- whether or not it is located on a bus route (I've been told it's easier from around campus to get to Okemos meijer by bus than Lake Lansing meijer. And especially outside of college towns, buses are generally used by people with lower incomes- at least in this area. If you can afford a car, you drive. You only put up with shitty bus systems if you have to. - In general, based on my experiences, at least) and other similar factors.

I know my post is very location specific. If people want to compare with what you know, or resources you know of, from other areas that are similar, or dissimilar, with this pattern feel free to share.

This article is pretty good and highlights a new study done by a variety of agencies on the [negative] impact of privatizing social security on people of color, women, low/middle-class workers, the disabled, children....

Link for article: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1015-06.htm

Article behind lj-cut.

x-posted to blindpeople
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4331996.stm

Women's health fuelling poverty
Tackling female health would not only save millions of lives but reduce global poverty, experts say.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) says 99% of maternal deaths are preventable yet every minute a woman dies from pregnancy-related causes.

This loss impacts not only on the family and society, but also on the economy, its latest report says.

UNFPA says investment in reproductive health and gender equality could spur growth and sustainable development.



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Has anyone here read The Price of Motherhood by Anne Crittenden? I just finished reading it and learned so much about how much is REALLY involved in being a mother. The book focuses on the ways women are penalized for having children. Women who work full-time often don't advance in their careers and get little help as far as housework and childcare from their husbands. Women who stay at home with their children are treated as "lazy" if they are divorced. This was all stuff I knew about and had discussed with friends, but the numbers she presents are just astounding. She talks about the idea of a "mommy tax"- the wages a woman loses simply by becoming a mother, and many women are losing hundreds of thousands of dollars from their lifetime potential earnings.

I think the thing that was most interesting to me is the fact that, regardless of the income of the mother or father, women spend more of their income on children than do men. She cited one study that indicated that, in order to get a man to spend the same amount on children that a woman with eighteen dollars would, you'd have to give him something like 200 dollars.

What can we as feminists do to remedy this problem? I think it's really difficult at times to talk about the importance of motherhood because the discussion tends to get into the area of biological determinism- women are "supposed" to be mothers, etc. But the reality is that women are still doing most of the caregiving on this planet. There are so many things that could be done to help them- recognition of childcare as actual work, an expectation that working men contribute as much to childcare as working women, better child support and divorce laws, etc. But it seems like our society isn't really ready for any of this and still thinks of motherhood as a sort of leisure activity. What does everyone think?

So here's the scenario....I'm taking an online history class. It somehow seems that most people lose impulse control in online classes and blurt out things that they would probably never say face to face (or at least one hopes).
The discussion topic for this week was what one thing would you like to see changed about our country.


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Let's wait and see if this is going to go anywhere or if it is the intellectual equivelent of banging my head against a brick wall. Seriously, how do people this ignorant continue to exist. 'Cause you know, if we get rid of welfare, we'll get rid of poverty and women really do go out of their way to have children they can't afford. Arrrgh!!! This is what comes of a semester with no Women's Studies classes.

From http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/printedition/chi-0509140325sep14,1,4508255.story

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More Than One in Four Non-elderly Women Delay or Forgo Medical Care Due to Costs

Large Percentages of Women Say Their Doctors Haven't Talked About Diet, Exercise, Smoking, STDs, or HIV - Henry J. Kaiser Foundation

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this quote is especially important:

"The growth in health care costs has become a central women's health issue," said Alina Salganicoff, Vice President and Director of Women's Health Policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. "A sizable share of women are falling through the cracks, either because they don't have insurance or even with insurance can't afford to pay for medical care or prescription drugs."

while healthcare is certainly a genderless issue, and nationwide healthcare should be provided for all people in the US regardless of their gender, the article did point out how in many cases, women are taking the brunt of the problem from a lack of healthcare.

though i can't place the date, i remember reading an article in the new yorker about an elderly woman who had made $27 too much in a year to qualify for medicare/medicaid. she could not afford basic medical treatment, and her prescription drug cost was phenomenal because she was ancient and ailing. the only reason that she could not afford healthcare was not because she made enough to pay for it herself- but because the government redefined the 'poverty' levels. this woman was in poverty, and was getting sicker every day because she was $27 too 'rich' to qualify for benefits from the government. something needs to be done to prevent this.

what can we do for these women who are 'falling through the cracks'?