Raise your hand if you have ever heard that Millennials are the worst. That we are little pieces of shit who are lazy, fragile, and want everything handed to them. Oh, and how can I forget, we ruined the napkin industry.
Not only do I know plenty Millennials who do not fit this description, in fact most of my friends are the exact opposite. We are driven, smart, striving to live an independent life in a world that has made that virtually impossible, and we do not believe things should be handed to us. We believe that hard work pays off. What I find comical about older generations complaining about the younger ones is that it is tradition. Each generation thinks the next one is lazy and ruining everything that was good in the world. I was recently remind of this fact by a book I am reading, QBVII by Leon Uris. QBVII is about a post holocaust libel trail...excellent read but pretty unrelated to today's post. On page 72, however, there is an excerpt that seems a but familiar. "All that I was raised by is being ridiculed and it seems that nothing is being done to replace old ideas with new ones. The worst part of it is the young people are not happy. They have abstract thoughts about loving, mankind, and ending war, but they seem to want the price of life without working. They ridicule us, but we support them. They have poor little loyalty to one another and although sex is practiced in universal lots they don't understand the tenderness of an enduring relationship. Could all of this happen in only fifteen years? The dismantling of hundreds of years of civilization and tradition" Hmm, sound familiar to anyone? This book was released in 1970, think on that for a moment. It's been 48 years and no one can come up with new things to blame the young people for. So cheers to ruining society and cheers to blaming the next generation for doing the same.
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When it was first announced that non-religious companies (don't get me started on the religious ones) would no longer be required to provide coverage for birth control I had so many feels.
I am a full believer in a woman's right to choose and I believe that choice starts off with her being able to decide when and where she wants to become pregnant. And with this announcement, I wanted to start shouting facts and figures to the world about teen pregnancy rates, rape, and family planning. Fortunately for you readers I have since calmed down. Today I would like to address the important role birth control has played in my life. The reason I started birth control is seldom talked about in the media or in politics but among women it is well known. Raise your hand if you've ever heard the terms dysmenorrhea or PMDD. If you haven't, you are the luckiest bitch on the planet and I envy you. Dysmenorrhea is defined as pain with menstruation or menstrual cramps and PMDD, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, is defined as a severe form of PMS that interferes with everyday life. To be diagnosed with both or either of these you have to have got it bad...and boy do I have it bad. Typically, I know I am getting my period not by counting days and tracking my cycle but by the onset of flu-like symptoms, followed by excruciating pain in my abdomen and lower back. This pain is so intense that I can't walk, the fetal position doesn't even provide comfort, and I am vomiting. Fun Fact: Almost every time I vomit I have an anxiety attack, so we throw that into the mix too. Simply put the first days of my period I am not a functioning human. Imagine having to skip school or call in sick to work every single month. That was my life before I went on birth control. Birth control is the only thing proven to provide the relief I need. Three years after starting my period I began taking the pill and it changed my life. Today I have the Nexplanon implant and frankly the company should pay me the way I try to convince people to get it. Without coverage from my insurance both of these options would be unattainable. In fact it's kind of a Catch-22, if I can't afford birth control, then I will have to miss work and if I miss work, then I make less money and can't afford birth control. When debates about birth control come up people always seem to forget about the benefits it provides women outside of preventing pregnancy; there are so many conditions that require the hormone based therapy birth control provides. And I get that the government is mostly filled with men but is it really that bad for me to want just a little bit of sympathy? Today I read a BuzzFeed News article about an internal debate within the National Organization for Women (NOW) in regards to the March for Black Women along with the related March for Racial Justice. Both were organized by the same organization (not NOW) and both are being held on Sept. 30th, Yom Kippur. To put it simply, I have so many feels about the information presented in this article and I have to talk about them.
Some context about myself. I am Jewish. I would classify myself as a somewhat observant conservative Jew. When my schedule allows for it I attend synagogue, I clean and keep Kosher for Passover, someday in the future I plan to raise my children Jewish, and I most definitely observe Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur as the holiest days in the year. Even the people we lovingly refer to as “twice a yearers” observe these two holidays, hence their name. Observing Yom Kippur not only involves spending the vast majority of the day in Synagogue repenting, it also involves fasting for 24 hrs. Anotherimportant thing to note about myself is that I am a liberal progressive and a true believe in the phrase “never again”. To me that phrase means more than preventing a Holocaust or a genocide; to me that phrase means never again should people be treated as if they were not people, as if they were second class citizens, and it is my job, particularly as a Jew, to speak up and fights against such acts. (Now someone is probably going to attacks me for being a Zionist but I would ask that you wait until I share my opinion on that subject matter to do so) The behavior people in this country exhibit towards minorities constantly sickens me. As stated above, I do not care who you are (Black, Muslim, Jewish, White, Indian, Native American, Southeast Asian, and so on), you deserve to be treated with dignity and respect and you deserve to be afforded the same opportunities as anyone else. Obviously, this is not what happens in America. Which is why I am constantly protesting and talking to my peers about the problems we face and how important it is to work together to understand one another and to raise each other up. Now, it wasn’t too long ago when I heard about the March for Racial Justice. Saying I felt angry and ostracized when I noticed the date would be an understatement. This is not my first rodeo nor my first interaction with what I presumed to be anti-Semitism (that is how it came off, and perception is everything). Yeah, having someone throw a penny on the ground and asking if you are going to pick it up is 100% not the same as being pulled over by a cop because you are Black and presumed dangerous. There was a time, however, when Jews were openly viewed as the scum of the earth that had no right being in American and were the sole source of everyone’s problems. If you talk to a white supremacist, Jews are the reason that slavery ended and why women and people of color can vote. So although my life is not in danger, I can sympathize based on a historical context that has been engrained in me. I also get this really indescribable, horrible feeling when I think about going to certain parts of Oregon. Anyways, back to the march. Holding the March for Racial Justice on Yom Kippur, alienating and excluded a powerful ally, was not the only problem I had. Under the list of injustices the march stood for, fighting back against anti-Semitism was not listed. Yes, Jews are technically not a race but we are constantly characterized by the public as such and scientifically speaking we exhibit some of the hallmarks of a race, such as having prevalent genetic diseases. Those who are African and of African descent have Sickle Cell, we have Tay-Sachs. Much to my delight, the March for Racial Justice later released a statement regarding the date, “The organizers of the March for Racial Justice did not realize that September 30 was Yom Kippur when we were factoring in these and other considerations and applying for permits…Choosing this date, we now know, was a grave and hurtful oversight on our part. It was unintentional and we are sorry for this pain as well as for the time it has taken us to respond.” Now besides for the fact that Yom Kippur is listed literally on every calendar (including google), and therefore is hard to miss I was extremely satisfied with this apology and attributed it to the March for Black Women as well, although not explicitly stated. The organizers, however, did not update their platform to include fighting anti-Semitism but I feel like there are bigger fish to fry. So back to the reason I needed to write this post in the first place. According to BuzzFeed News some members of NOW are not okay with the organization supporting the March for Black Women and have chosen to make their disappointment public and some have even quit. I personally do not hold NOW responsible for the timing of either the March for Black Women or the March for Racial Justice as they were not the organizers just the endorsers. Moreover, since the organization is not made up of only Jewish women it makes complete sense for them to take part even with the events happening on Yom Kippur. At the same time, it is the right of its members to express their disappointment and to react the way they see fit. What I do have a problem with is the way some NOW members have responded to these dissenters. Let’s start with the quote BuzzFeed was able to pull from e-mail sent by NOW board member Jocelyn Morris “The members we lose over this we will replace with the ones we recruit at the march.” Well, that’s great; a board member of the largest feminist organization views its member as expendable and easy to replace. From this statement, she insinuates that people who do not agree with her, or rather every action the organization takes are a waste of time, money, and effort. To me, it seems as if she is devaluing them and their opinion as if they are subpar to her. Doesn’t that seem counterintuitive to what the feminist movement represents? At least to me it does. And furthermore, shouldn’t she want to grow the member base rather then have it stay stagnant. Sure, you may be able to replace these women but you can’t grow your organization and movement without them. In an official statement to Buzzfeed News Morris rationalized NOW’s participation by citing the fact that “…Jews are only 10% of the USA population”. Well she got something right, Jews are a minority, but so are the people you are marching for, Black Women. And since no feminism is good feminism without being intersectional, something I am going to assume Black Women would agree with, then isn’t her statement about Jews being a minority even more reason to take steps to include them or at least listen to their concerns and frustrations without casting them aside. I would also like to point out that I have no idea where Morris is getting her figures from, according to a Pew Research Center estimate Jews only make up 2.2% of the US adult population. In addition, according to Pew, Muslims only make up 1% of the US population but I doubt that NOW or even Morris herself would use this statistic for why it would be fine for a march to be held Eid al-Adha. What disgusted me even more were some of the comments that were left on the Facebook status of Marilyn Fitterman, where she announced her departure from NOW because of the endorsement of the March for Black Women. BuzzFeed News highlighted the following from NOW member Desiree Jordan. “I am really offended by the RACISM and WHITE Supremacy embedded in Ms Fetterman SMOKE SCREEN of a REASON for quitting NOW!” “I could ‘flip the script’ and INDICT the JEWISH FAITH as being RACIST and EXCLUSIONARY simply based on the fact that one has to BE JEWISH to celebrate YOM KIPPUR…As a WoC [woman of color] I am NOT invited to celebrate YOM KIPPUR. Sad thing is I must accept the FACT that NOW is PACKED with (both overt and covert Racists) ‘Ms Fetterman’s.’ [sic]” I’m just going to try an express myself as calmly and as simply as possible
Others invoked the tone of Morris and Jordan and further characterized Fitterman’s response as white privilege. I feel compelled to call such a characterization also ignorance. In Judaism we have what I like to refer to as the “unless someone is going to die “clause. Essentially, every rule in Judaism is to be followed unless someone’s life could be saved by breaking that rule. For example, if it is Shabbat and you are not supposed to use the phone but someone is suspected of having a heart attack, it would be a sin to not call 911. Even for those who are not that religious this rule holds true on Yom Kippur. It would be pretty hard to convince me that if the march was held on a different day the people participating would die. Or that if NOW hadn’t endorsed the march the participants would die. Or even that, if NOW had listen to, respected, and considered Fitterman’s opinion that all the marchers would have died. This is obviously not the case since the March for Racial Justice has planned its sister marches the following day out of respect for the holiday. Fitterman is simply trying to observe the holiday and probably feels hurt and disrespected by the actions of the organization, just as any other member might feel if NOW endorsed an event that directly excluded them from participation because of the events timing. I am not Fitterman, and I do not know her experience. But if NOW as a whole was treating her the way these people have, I would have left too. |
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