NOW versus New Yorker

After I bought a feminist T-shirt for a gal pal to wear during our 2004 march on Washington, the National Organization for Women (NOW) has been sending me regular emails.

And in four years, they've actually never taken a position that I haven't fully agreed with.

Until now.

This morning I received a call to action from my fearless American sisters full of outrage over...the current New Yorker cover.

This is the much-maligned cartoon that depicts Barack and Michelle Obama as the embodiment of right wing fears (Barack wears a turban while standing next to Michelle, his Black Panther honey, in front of a cozy American flag-burning fire).

Here is blurb from the NOW email I received:

New Yorker Cover -- Satire or Slur?
Send Editor Remnick A Message!
You don't even need to open the latest edition of the New Yorker to see racism in the media and the presidential race. All you need to do is look at the cover!

The July 21 issue of the New Yorker magazine features a caricature of Senator Barack and Michelle Obama in the Oval Office...
New Yorker editor David Remnick says it is satire, so that makes it okay?

Action Needed:
Sorry, we're not buying it. This cover will appear on newsstands across the country, possibly the world, and will likely do more to fuel racist stereotypes than to skewer them.

Perhaps NOW would have bought Remnick's explanation if he had noted the cover was actually an example of bad satire. Because it is.

Satire is supposed to be witty ridicule and the problem with the cover is that it confuses the target of its scorn. While the target may be Republic fear-mongering gossip about the nature of the Obamas' past political affiliations, the illustrations sets up the couple as the targets.

I mean, we all know the New Yorker's political leanings (left) and we all know that, more often than not, their cartoons hardly reach the comic heights of, say, Garfield.

But even if every actionator at NOW was completely daft to the history of the New Yorker, my other immediate reaction to their email was, WTF?

Are there not enough seriously pressing women's issues tied up in the upcoming American election? How about pro-choice supporters being denied access to a McCain town hall, even though they had tickets? Or his self-proclaimed unawareness that insurance companies in the US cover Viagra but not the birth control pill?

I appreciate that women's issues include marginalized women's issues, but I really don't believe that the New Yorker has set out, or succeeded, in setting back black women. In fact the only thing it has done is highlighted the precious attitude media is taking towards America's first black presidential candidate.

Will it be safe for anyone in the media to take on the Obamas as comedic targets? It seems that the challenge remains to be taken up.

New Yorker Depends on Staff for Coke Leads

David, Carr, a culture reporter with the New York Times, is also the author of Night of the Gun, a forthcoming memoir detailing his darker days of addiction.

The book includes copies of Carr's rejection letters, including this one from the New Yorker.

I only wish my own New Yorker rejection slip had included an inadvertent reference to its coke-addled staff.

Is Labour Just Too Uncivilized?

On the CBC Radio this afternoon, they hosted a call-in on C-sections.

To be honest, I ignored most of the broadcast, since I assumed it would be the classic face-off that makes doctors look like scalpel-wielding monsters and midwives appear like pro-vagina-stretching pilgrims.

But the last caller of the show was so confident and weird, she grabbed my attention. According to the caller, after she watched a filmed delivery in her pre-natal class she announced she was going to have a C-section and left.

According to the caller, she insisted both her babies be delivered by C-section, despite what she characterized as unfair pressure from her medical caregivers to deliver naturally.

In her words: Giving birth is "barbaric."

She also equated ignoring the option of a C-section as being as absurd as ignoring medical life-saving measures when faced with death.

When I heard the woman's vehement description of the barbarity of birth, I felt an intuitive disgust with her. Is this the same kind of woman who carries anti-bacterial spritz in her purse and keeps her eyes closed during sex?

Last night I accidentally caught a C-section delivery on the Discovery Network (it's baby month)and I have to admit, when I saw them whip the baby out of the stomach, I was like: That is fucking disgusting.

It just looked so wrong seeing a baby come out that way. Of course, I didn't fault the woman (who had no choice in the matter; it was deemed necessary by her doctors). That said, the woman was actually smiling while the doctors pulled the kid out, and chatting to someone off-camera.

I've spoken to a woman who recently had a C-section and she said that she didn't even realize the kid was out until the doctors handed it to her. Apparently morphine trumps motherly instincts, which would explain why there are so many heroine-addicted moms on Intervention.

I also recently saw a natural birth on the Discovery Network and my stomach did a complete Holy Shit flip. I mean, wow.

So the real question is: when is too much information, well, too much information? Without the context of knowing the woman and celebrating the miracle of birth, should expectant parents bear witness to labour? Does watching a complete stranger in what appears to be great anguish do any kind of service for first-time parents-to-be?

It's not like watching CSI stops folks from killing each other, so I can probably safely assume delivery shows won't inadvertently put an end to the human race.
But as Western medicine becomes increasingly specialized and patients become increasingly disempowered, perhaps de-contextualized labours should be shelved in favour of discussions with our mothers on how they remember their labours.

A picture might be worth a thousand words, but sometimes the words they express aren't the ones we need to hear.

Watch Out, Fat Chicks

Now that my belly is out there in all of its 25-weeks-of-fetal-development glory, there is no doubt that I am pregnant (or hiding a small watermelon under my shirt).

What is most amazing about my growth (other than the miracle of life, yada yada) is how fat chicks take on pregnant women like it's a challenge.

So far today, four overweight women have: out-wobbled me to a seat on the bus, pushed me out of the way as I was exiting an elevator, budded in front of me in line for a free hot dog, and glowered at me in the mall.

I know: buses, dogs and malls, sounds like a dream life I lead. And perhaps it would be if women with unjustifiable lumps of upper arm fat, wide loads and bad 'tudes weren't raining on my hormone-happy parade.

I have now been offered a seat on Toronto public transit exactly twice during my entire pregnancy. And I take transit every day. Meanwhile, I was on the subway in NYC last week for one minute and was offered a seat.

When I look around in the morning, the people avoiding my gaze are the men (because no man of any age seems aware that offering his seat is sort of a nice thing to do for any woman, let alone a pregnant woman).

Meanwhile, every fat chick spreading her seams over a seat and a half is staring right back at me with indignance as I shift my weight from hip to hip.

I like to imagine they are thinking, "I weigh more than you so I deserve to sit more than you." And when I think about it, maybe they're right. The are just as responsible for their fat as I am for my fetus. Is a fetus-bearer any more entitled to rest than a fatty?

Probably not. But along with my growing belly is an ever-growing fearlessness in using it for both good and evil. Which is why I hip-checked Miss Chunky at the elevator and tsk'ed openly at the bus budder. I may not deserve to be treated with any special kindness because I'm knocked up, but I don't plan on getting shoved aside by any ass, no matter how big they are.