It's National Eating Disorders Week, so let's talk about it.

I'm usually a cynic about "awareness" campaigns, due in large part to my tendency to vomit every time I see a product made of cancer-producing chemicals painted pink to raise "awareness" of the cancer that everyone seems to be getting from all the chemicals in the environment. Indeed, "awareness" failed to keep cancer from killing one of my dearest friends, so in my truly dark moments I lash out at "awareness" for falling down on the job.

But this cause is different--in this case, "awareness" is what kept another of my dearest friends alive. National Eating Disorders Week is February 20-26 this year, and though it's officially ending tomorrow, there's hope that the new Let's Talk About It campaign, sponsored in part by the National NOW Foundation, will continue changing (and saving) lives.

From the NEDA website: "Our aim is to ultimately prevent eating disorders and body image issues while reducing the stigma surrounding eating disorders and improving access to treatment. Eating disorders are serious, life-threatening illnesses--not choices--and it's important to recognize the pressures, attitudes and behaviors that shape the disorder." One of those talking about her recovery from an eating disorder is that dear friend, Erin Matson. Anorexia came close to ending her life while she was in her teens, years before she and I were introduced at our first Minnesota NOW meeting. The fact that it didn't is something I should never take for granted.

In the spirit of talking about body image, I'm reprinting "The Stories Bodies Tell," a column that appeared in the June 2009 issue of the Minnesota Women's Press. It refers to an essay for HipMama from March of that same year, and to another MWP column from the summer of 2007. All of the body anxiety I wrote about then remains with me. I struggle EVERY DAY to hold back the negativity that bubbles to my lips when I look at myself in the mirror lest I speak them aloud to Miriam, who still thinks that every lump in her mom's body is just fantastic. "Your tummy is big because it used to be my home," she says, patting me lovingly. Below is a 2005 photo of her brother kissing that home--the one that used to be his.

And now, that column:

Last April, HipMama.com published an essay of mine inspired by a childhood memory of hugging my mother’s soft tummy. Sharing that memory with her twenty years later ended in disappointment, I wrote, for her reaction was shame, not tenderness. To her, the belly fat that gave her child comfort was a source of embarrassment, one so deep she couldn’t fight past it to remember her daughter’s love.

I don’t blame her. I’ve put on weight lately, and now my young daughter has a soft playground of her own. She enjoys a good stomach squish whenever she can, and it takes a superhuman effort to allow her explorations, to fight the urge to push her loving hands away from my own source of shame. I’m no longer the same size as when I wrote the column “Perfect Diet,” published in these pages in July 2007. These last two years have tested my sanity like no others, with estrangement, serious illness, and death all part of my reality. My body tells this story to anyone willing to hear it.

Ironically, that 2007 column challenged the assumption that a thinner frame equaled health; everyone told me I looked fabulous when devastating jaw pain meant I couldn’t eat. Nowadays, I look for refuge from stress in the snacks I munch while streaming “30 Rock” on Hulu. My balance is off, I realize, but my body itself is fighting my efforts to right it: these 37-year-old knees aren’t as excited about step class as they used to be. I remind myself that a certain amount of softness can’t be that bad, but I don’t believe myself any more than my mother did.

The chasm between the child’s adoration of her mother’s softness and that same mother’s hatred of her own flesh provided the spark for the HipMama piece. If bodies tell stories, my own could speak to the way I was raised, and the different way I want to raise my children. I don’t blame my parents, or their parents for that matter, for the accidents of genetics that left the family tree touched by chronic anxiety and depression. Even without this hurdle, no one can live free of powerful cultural messages about our bodies, embedded as they are in every aspect of American life. These struggles will own us if we resist naming them.

I write my columns at my desk, in a pose identical to the one I held in my fourth grade classroom, the first time I remember sucking in my gut for acceptance. Today, my belly bumps up against the cherry wood beneath my computer and is significantly larger than the one I was teased about. Do I hate myself more or less? At 37, I have the twin gifts of wisdom and perspective, yet I also have 27 more years of Madison Avenue programming. When I don’t fit into my 2007 pants, I listen to the judgments of the magazines before I honor the story my body tells of my emotional pain.

Making things worse is the fad of the “Yummy Mummy.” Today, 50 is the new 40, is the new 30, and so on. Once upon a time, a woman up to her elbows in the work of raising little kids could reap at least one reward—a ticket off the body hate treadmill. No more. Valerie Bertinelli claimed that Weight Watchers got her bikini ready for People magazine, but in the accompanying article she admitted to starving herself in the seven days before the shoot, just in case. Valerie is 48, thirty years past what was once considered the anorexia danger zone. Her flat tummy even sports a perky little belly ring, driving home the message that to be the mother of an 18-year-old, you need to look like one.

It’s hard enough to worry about your body in fourth grade, but age used to provide an exit strategy. In hindsight, I was naïve to think that my mother would welcome a memory based upon the roundness of her body, when voices so much louder than mine shout that her abs should be as tight as Madonna’s. When I shared this memory with my mother, I wished to affirm our connection. As a mother myself, I have her softened shape to offer my own children. Instead, my mother affirmed a different connection—the sisterhood of shame. Both are inheritances we pass on to my daughter Miriam, a girl who has just turned four.

It’s a burden far heavier, pound for pound, than anything physical.

Virginie Despentes on the Mommy Wars

"....motherhood has become the essential female experience, valued above all others. Giving life is where it's at. 'Pro-maternity' propaganda has rarely been so extreme. They must be joking, the modern version of the double constraint: 'have babies, it's wonderful, you feel more fulfilled and feminine than ever,' but do it in a society in freefall in which paid work is a condition of social survival, but is guaranteed to no one, and especially not to women.....

Without children you will never be fulfilled as a woman, but bringing up kids in decent conditions is almost impossible. It is essential that women feel like failures--that they be made to feel as if they've made the wrong choice. We are held responsible for a failure that is in fact collective and cross-gender."

From King Kong Theory, translated from the French by Stephanie Benson

Love in the time of contraception (if you can get it)

It's safely after Valentine's Day, so you know I'm not posting about L-O-V-E in hopes that a certain Radical Husband buys me cupid-branded chocolate and teddy bears (the fact that the only stuffed toys we've ever purchased for each other were Terrance and Phillip dolls tells you all you need to know about our relationship). No, my essay on my weird sexual history was written long ago, timed for publication in the Sin issue of the fabulous Skirt! magazine, whose crack designers came up with the logo above. I wish that the print version of the mag were available up here in the frozen tundra--why should our sisters in the southeastern USA enjoy warm weather AND a beautifully designed publication of their own??

My essay, called "Love in the Time of Contraception," details one hetero woman's lifelong struggle to get it on without getting the clap, knocked up, or worse....mortally embarrassed! To any Jill Stanek fans who might be lurking, I will quote directly from the piece: "Should we have postponed sex until marriage? While it's true that many of my friends married their college sweethearts, no sane person buys a car without taking it around the block for a test drive." Word.

As much as I complain about the inconvenience of contraception in this piece, I always, ALWAYS had access to it. My dorms had condoms for a dime apiece, Today sponges & spermicide were easy to pick up at the More 4 pharmacy, my experiments with the Pill were courtesy of Minneapolis' Planned Parenthood, and my IUD was covered by insurance. I'm a middle-class white person; there will always be resources available for me.

This is not true for lower income women, many of whom are women of color, who rely upon federally funded community clinics for health care services. Our increasingly unhinged House of Representatives has introduced legislation that would strip federal funding from many of these clinics, including the Planned Parenthood that I visited when I was an uninsured college grad, simply because SOME clients go there to obtain abortions. I was at that clinic for cheap pills precisely because I DIDN'T want an abortion, but try telling that to the Republic of Gilead....oops, I mean representatives including Minnesota's own Michele Bachmann and John Kline.

For more on why stripping Title X funding from community clinics is a "public health disaster," please watch my baby sis Erin Matson on the following CSPAN clip. Her appearance on this program is a big fat Valentine to anyone who cares about women's health. If you have candy money left over, why not make a donation to help her keep up the good work? Tell her that Cupid (or a renegade sperm!) sent you.

Reports from the online battlefield (aka WWSD, part three)

Surely, my Shirley would get carpal tunnel from all the furious typing. I have the sorest right wrist in town right now. Here's why.

1. The original version of a letter to the Minneapolis StarTribune:

I am writing to let you know of my strong opposition to the provision in HF 7/SF 159, the proposal to abolish local government mandates, that would repeal the Local Government Pay Equity Act (LGPEA). This common sense legislation, on the books since 1984, is still necessary to ensure that Minnesota women are paid fairly for their work.

I have heard that the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce feels this law is “archaic,” but research by the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota, in partnership with the University of Minnesota’s Center on Women & Public Policy, found that women in our state are still earning less than their male counterparts. Their 2010 report showed that white women earn only 76 cents for every dollar earned by a white male, while Native American, African American, and Hispanic American women earn far less–69, 61, and 51 cents for every dollar earned by a white Minnesota man.

(Source: http://www.wfmn.org/press/WFM_StatusOfWomenGirlsMN_17June10.pdf)

Clearly, pay discrimination is not a thing of the past! The LGPEA needs to remain a part of Minnesota law to ensure that Minnesota women receive fair compensation.

Women are now the majority of the American workforce, due in part to the recession’s disproportionate toll on men. In simpler terms, women’s paychecks are crucial to families’ survival. Repealing this law takes money out of women’s wallets, which in turn hurts Minnesota families. I urge you to speak out against this legislation and to vote against any change to LGPEA.

The printed version elided non-white women's salaries into the words "far less." I am CERTAIN that the Strib did not MEAN to make me look like I don't care about women who DON'T LOOK LIKE ME. Oh, no. What a racist assumption that would be. Geez.

2. Posted in response to the Minnesota Independent's article "Minnesota GOP introduces three more bills to ban state funding for abortion":

Three more bills? I guess the jobs are for the clerks writing out all these separate pieces of paper. All joking aside, Doe v. Gomez is a legal decision based on the inherent unfairness of denying poor women access to a legal medical procedure that is available to women of means. The MCCL feels comfortable going after the “choices” of poor women, because they’re unlikely to come to the capitol to make a big stink about it. This is economic discrimination, with women’s lives on the line. I’m disgusted by it.

3. Another response to a MnIndy article (I get all of my news from the great Andy Birkey), "Kline, Bachmann sponsor bill that could allow hospitals to refuse emergency abortions":

It is absolutely beyond my comprehension why our Congress would propose such a bill ANYTIME, not simply in a session that was supposed to be dedicated to solving economic problems. This “conscience clause” gives rights to a fetus (not a “baby”) that are denied to an adult woman. It’s an appalling bill.

4. Working on a piece for MPR News, so watch this space! After I get a wrist strap and some Advil.

HR 3 is still a terrible bill, and here's why (aka What Would Shirley Do? part deux)

The word is that Kristen Schaal, better known in my house as a woman who has actually touched Jemaine Clement (soooo jealous), ripped into the dreadful No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act so soundly on The Daily Show that the "forcible rape" business was dropped. Do we cheer? Tell ourselves that a MoveOn petition worked? Let us return to the question I posed two days ago: what would Shirley Chisholm do?

From Unbought & Unbossed, her 1970 memoir:

No matter what men think, abortion is a fact of life. Women will have them; they always have and always will. Are they going to have good ones or bad ones? Will the good ones be reserved for rich women while the poor women go to quacks?

Shirley isn't here to comment on Kermit Gosnell, the murderous quack who preyed upon impoverished Philadelphia women, many of them women of color. But in pre-Roe America, she knew all about dangerous, unlicensed abortionists, and about the kinds of clients you were likely to find there. It is ethically wrong to prevent poor women from accessing a legal medical procedure that is readily available to women of means. What Shirley would do is speak this truth to anyone and everyone who will hear it.

THAT's what Shirley would do.

Hey Democrats! Stop confusing enemies with friends (aka What Would Shirley Do?)

If you know me, you know that I come from a long line of old-fashioned Minnesota liberals who put the "farmer" and "laborer" in the name of our state's Democratic Party. My Grandma Rose revered FDR like a god. My own political shero, Shirley Chisholm, wasn't treated wonderfully by the party back in the day, but she remained convinced that reform from within was the only way to go. In her spirit (call it What Would Shirley Do?), I felt moved to respond to a new campaign of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Since all of my readers are well-informed, I don't need to tell you that the newly introduced bill HR 3 is a disaster for women's rights, essentially codifying the Hyde Amendment into federal law while gently peeling away what qualifies as "rape" for woman needing a funding exemption. You know: HR 3 is bad, bad, bad. So when you receive a message like this one from the DCCC, asking for you to sign a petition called "Rape is Rape: Denounce Republicans' Extremist Anti-Choice Legislation," you think it's something good to support. From the petition:

House Republicans are proposing to drastically narrow the definition of rape that qualifies for health care coverage. H.R. 3 would redefine rape in these cases to only include "forcible rape," a definition that rules out a woman being drugged, children who are victims of statutory rape, and many date rape scenarios.

No matter what Speaker John Boehner and House Republicans want to call it, rape is rape -- women should have the right to health care following a rape.

Fightin' words, you think! It's about time, especially since you haven't quite trusted the Democratic Party since the debacle of Stupak-Pitts. You're probably kinder to them than I am, as I don't trust them at all since that mess. For good reason, as it turns out. Several Democrats are co-sponsors of HR 3, including Minnesota's Collin Peterson. So why am I being asked to lash out at Republicans for this misogynist measure when there are DEMOCRATS sponsoring it? WHY?

I went to the DCCC's Facebook page to pose the question. Politely, I thought.

Collin Peterson, a Democrat, is a co-sponsor of this bill. Get his name off this bill and I will give my name to your petition. Otherwise you are hypocrites.

Hey, the truth hurts. As I watched the flurry of messages on the page, I saw my comment get a thumbs-up. Nice. Others ignored my question, so I tried to post it again. This time I was blocked. For telling the truth? Did they think the photo of blonde kindergartener on my Facebook profile meant I was a Mama Grizzly plant? Seconds later, my comment was gone.

A few days ago, I friend whom I cherish asked me to please, please tell her if I had any difficulties or problems with our relationship. She trusted me, she said, and I told her that I felt the same way. For any relationship (even one with a political party) to thrive, there needs to be respect and honesty on both sides.

So now What Would Shirley Do? It's hard to say, especially since she didn't have Twitter at her disposal. I'll mull it over while I retweet the hell out of @DCCC.....