International Pagan Coming Out Day

Dirt-worshippers, tree-huggers, Asatruar, Goddess women, faeries, voudouisants, Wiccans, crystal-gazers, shamans, merry apatheists, UUs, hedgewalkers, witches, animists, and Others unite! There is power in names, as any fantasy fan knows: if you can, and you feel you ought, name yourself. Don't let anyone else do it for you. I am an atheist; I am a pagan. I get to say who I am. My voice is mine.

Kickstarter Project: Wonder Woman documentary

Hey gals and...gals! (Do I have any male readers? If so, hai guyz) So, I love Kickstarter and have supported a few projects through it in the past, and today I'm pimping an awesome Wonder Woman documentary, The History of the Universe As Told By Wonder Woman.

How can you resist a title like that? If you'd like to be a backer, go here and donate as much or little as you please! They're a bit shy of their money goal, and they've only got until March 17th to raise funds!

(the power of Diana of Themyscira compels you)

Violent faith

I am a bit of an odd apostate, I suppose, in that I have never read any of the Big Bad X-Mormon Books--No Man Knows My History, American Massacre, Mormon Enigma (though I look forward to Carla's thoughts on that one), Blood of the Prophets, The Sanctity of Dissent, none of Quinn's stuff. I have read One Nation Under Gods, Mormon America, and now, Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven. As I understand it, many people BECOME apostates because of such books. I guess I have some catching up to do.

So yes. Krakauer's book. If anything it sort of pulled punches--despite the horrors it details about the Lafferty murders and the FLDS/UEP/whateverthefucktheyrecallingthemselves, I'm not quite sure Krakauer ties Mormon-based fundamentalism strongly enough to its forefathers and cousins in the mainstream LDS church. No matter what the church proper says, the ties are there. Quite frankly, I have more respect for nutbar fundamentalists with their six wives and forty children than I have for Mormons who preach in Sunday school that plural marriage will be waiting in the celestial kingdom, but those inbred hicks down in Colorado City are perverting Christ's kingdom! If you're going to preach something, you might as well practice it. This is not to say that the LDs church necessarily breeds murderers. It DOES breed--or encourage--a mindset which marginalizes anything "other", represses women and minorities, and does not tolerate doubt or questioning authority.

I have heard people say that they found Under the Banner of Heaven difficult to follow. Its narration bounces between a brief history of the LDS church (with focus on Joseph Smith and polygamy) and the events leading up to and fall-out of the murders of Brenda and Erica Lafferty by two of Brenda's brothers-in-law. I suppose for those not familiar with the church, who are reading the book as an informative text, the structure is a little confusing. For me, it made perfect sense. I could see where Krakauer was going with things before reaching his weaving-together of points or figures which would likely have seemed disparate to a reader unfamiliar with church history. Presumably the church leaders are unhappy with this (I mean, they're unhappy with the book in general; a big rebuttal/bitchfest was written before the book was even on shelves; in the edition I have Krakauer responds to the complaints in an afterword. Admittedly there were a few editorial or historical errors in the first edition, which are corrected, but most of the problems the church officials had with the book were differences of opinion)--the idea that anyone familiar with LDS history, whether a current member, disaffected member, a history buff, or jack Mormon, will be like OH YEAH I KNOW EXACTLY WHERE THIS GUY'S GOING when Krakauer's on a bent about peep stones or the Dream Mine or Section 132 or whatnot...is disturbing to the people who run things. It's actually kind of funny that the church authorities got so bent out of shape; this book doesn't really tell anything that wasn't already available in other books and online. The only shiny new thing is that Krakauer is not LDS and is a popular author, and so his book has had more attention from broad audiences than, say, the Tanners'.

(My that was a long and convoluted sentence!)

At any rate, I didn't find Under the Banner of Heaven difficult to follow or understand. I guess it's a bad sign that I felt like Krakauer was holding back. How warped is that? A book explicating the reasonably sordid history of the LDS church, a book that essentially blames that history for producing fundamentalists given to incest, illegal polygyny, and murder--and my reaction is, Meh. I don't know exactly why I'm underwhelmed by this book, but there it is. It is a pretty good introduction to mainstream and fundamentalist LDS groups, certainly.

Stopping HR3

By now I'm sure most people have heard about this travesty of a bill, but it bears repeating until it is stopped.

Write your representative, especially if you live in a place suffering from conservative reps. Tweet about your story, your friends' stories, news stories. Tweet your rage and retweet others', post on Facebook, email friends, blog statistics.

This sort of festering bullshit must be halted.

National Coming Out Day

Happy National Coming Out Day, dear readers! I am not gay, though I do fall around a 3 on the Kinsey Scale (for what it's worth), and I am mos def a straight ally and the world needs to know it (HI MOM I LOVE GAY PEOPLE)!

Interested in working with or donating to the gay rights movement? Check out these links:

+Human Rights Campaign

+National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

+International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission

+Gay Rights at Change.org

+Gay and Lesbian Activists Aliiance

+Freedom to Marry

BURN THIS BOOK

Happy Banned Books Week, everyone! I love Banned Books Week. I don't love that it has to happen, because its mere existence speaks to the profound idiocy of some people in our fair country, but I love celebrating it and read-outs and buttons and awesome displays in libraries and bookstores.

(don't be a robot! Or at least be a robot who reads)

I encourage my dear readers to engage with some awesome book this week. Lists of frequently-challenged and banned books can be found at ALA, and here are some of the titles I'll be bringing to my library's read-out on Wednesday:

+The Lorax, Dr. Seuss

+The Chocolate War, Robert Cormier

+Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain

+Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson

+Beloved, Toni Morrison

+Bridge to Terabithia, Katherine Paterson

+A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving

+Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, John Berendt

+In the Night Kitchen, Maurice Sendak

There's really a title for everyone, kids and adults alike, no matter what genre or format you prefer. Remember: free people read freely. Take advantage of your opportunity to expand your mind.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE BAYBEEEZ??!!1one

Disclaimer: I am not a big fan of children: I have no younger siblings, I rarely babysat as a teen, and though I was until relatively recently an active Mormon, I've never had much contact with young children. I very much doubt I will ever have any. That said, I have EXTREME problems with US views and attitudes toward pregnancy, childbirth, and early childhood rearing (not to mention a sort of broad, anthropologically-based distaste for the concept of teenagehood, particularly as it is spun out in the United States. But that's another post). My aunt is a nurse practitioner and lactation consultant, and knows many midwives; when I was small my mother and aunt would take me, my sister, and my cousin to La Leche League meetings. Cultural and to some extent biological anthropology delves into global birthing practices, "alternative" child-rearing processes, and cultural attitudes and values surrounding pregnancy and birth. Suffice to say I am comfortable with and reasonably knowledgeable about female bodies and how they are viewed and treated in a variety of cultures.

What's my point again? Oh yes. A book review! The book in question is The Women's Wheel of Life, published in 1996 by Carol Leonard and Elizabeth Davis (the latter having previously written the Bible of midwifery, Heart and Hands). This text purports to provide positive archetypes for women in any stage of life--thirteen in all--and, as an Amazon.com review says, is rather steeped in New Age/Neo-pagan language, references, and rhetoric. I have no opinion on whether drawing on goddess archetypes and utilizing I Ching will enrich a woman's life or empower her (ok, untrue: I DO, of course, but that is also a topic for another post), and can't really comment on these aspects of the book. However, what I found really compelling and fairly groundbreaking was the book's treatment of midwifery and what the authors refer to as "Blood Mysteries": menarche and menstruation, childbirth, and menopause.

Unsurprisingly, the US is not friendly to any of these female-centric mysteries. Some of you will say, Hold on, Diana! America LOVES babies! Just look at the abortion controversy! To which I say, Indeed. You are not incorrect. BUT, once the baby's out of the womb, do we give a shit? Not really! The processes for removing the baby from the womb are also fraught with problems. The months of pregnancy leading up to birth are questionably traversed. The early childhood rearing process, including breastfeeding and the question of where the child sleeps, are practically Victorian. At least we've dispensed with twilight sleep, amirite ladies?? Ack. So anyway, The Women's Wheel of Life emphasizes that menstruation, pregnancy and childbirth, and menopause are WOMEN's mysteries, and basically the authors' position is that the devaluation, diminishment, and divorcing (alliterative agony!) of these mysteries from the lives of women who experience them has contributed greatly to the erosion of the nuclear family and the oppression of women in general.

No matter my position on the nuclear family, I don't find their hypothesis difficult to accept. In our society, menstruation is a laughing matter, subject for jokes and mocking when a girl is in public school, and a drag later on in her life as she must navigate higher education, jobs, and family and social obligations. "PMS" is blamed for everything and its spectre demonizes women's emotions and bodies alike. Menopause as well is always good for a giggle at the expense of older women who are beginning to be perceived as less feminine, no longer worthy of the male gaze. And pregnancy and birth--well, in this country, with all our boasting about cutting-edge medicine, it's practically archaic. The pregnant woman's body becomes public property; suddenly invasion of personal space and the laying of hands on a stranger's body are acceptable and typical. Throughout her pregnancy she is subjected to unwanted advice, again often from strangers, and a barrage of information which may not be on the topics she needs. Midwifery is STILL looked down upon by the general public as unsafe. Why would any woman choose a midwife and/or doula when she could go to the best hospital and have a Real Doctor?

The prevailing attitudes toward women's bodies in general and these female mysteries in particular predictably leave lower-class and minority women in the cold. The general perception of pregnancy and childbirth/rearing ignores women who do not have access to or cannot afford hospitals and obstetricians, as well as placing women who PREFER a midwife firmly in the freak category. Popular literature decries extended breastfeeding and co-sleeping. Midwives and lactation consultants are not covered by health insurance plans, and it was not until the late 1980s that midwifery was licensed. Pregnancy and childbirth in the US come down, like so many other things, to capitalism: what will make doctors and hospitals money? What will make diaper and formula companies money? What will make insurance companies money? Instead of placing emphasis on the woman in question, instead of reaffirming that this process is HER decision and HER experience, pregnancy and childbirth have become commodified. No, scratch "have become"--the pregnant woman's experience in the US went from being tied down and morphined up at the turn of the century to the twilight sleep of the '50s and '60s to the epidural, which, while certainly an effective palliative, has been noted by some studies as reducing automatic biological bonding processes between a mother and newborn.

The crux of this wide-ranging issue is abortion. Although Leonard and Davis rarely mention it in The Women's Wheel of Life, it's easy to extrapolate their position to include abortion. The divorcing of female biological processes from the female experiencing them is exactly what abortion is about. The babies, as I have stated, are not the issue. The issue is that our current kyriarchal structure is so vehemently opposed to the concept of female bodily autonomy.

If menarche has no ritual and menstruation is mocked and demonized and menopause largely ignored but for the laugh value, if pregnancy means that the woman's body becomes the state's, if women who breastfeed longer than ten months and co-sleep with their children are peered at suspiciously, it is all too clear where the blame lies. The systemic oppression of women throughout Western history has resulted in this: an almost complete separation of women's minds and souls from the processes their bodies undergo. There is no participation anymore, no involvement. Men don't want to hear about their girlfriends' or wives' bodies, even if it involves the so-called miracle of life. No glory is given to the girl experiencing her first period. The thing that makes pregnancy, which America is obsessed with, possible is demonized and laughed at. Remove the woman from the process her body is undergoing and small wonder that abortion becomes appealing beyond its place as a method for removing an unwanted passenger: it's a CHOICE, a grasp for power that has been stripped from her.

(On a happier book note, I am pleased to announce that tomorrow all four books of The Circle Opens plus The Will of the Empress will be arriving from Borders, and then my Tamora Pierce collection wil be complete. Yes yes.)

Free people read freely

The right to read is celebrated during the last week in September, and as we have a notably anti-intellectual freedom lady running for Vice President, I'm taking this observance as an excuse to slack off my school assigned texts and indulge in a little Pullman, a little Lawrence, a little Twain.

Here's the list for 2007:

1) “And Tango Makes Three,” by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell

Reasons: Anti-Ethnic, Sexism, Homosexuality, Anti-Family, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group

2) The Chocolate War,” by Robert Cormier

Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Violence

3) “Olive’s Ocean,” by Kevin Henkes

Reasons: Sexually Explicit and Offensive Language

4) “The Golden Compass,” by Philip Pullman

Reasons: Religious Viewpoint

5) “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” by Mark Twain

Reasons: Racism

6) “The Color Purple,” by Alice Walker

Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language

7) "TTYL,” by Lauren Myracle

Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

8) "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” by Maya Angelou

Reasons: Sexually Explicit

9) “It’s Perfectly Normal,” by Robie Harris

Reasons: Sex Education, Sexually Explicit

10) "The Perks of Being A Wallflower,” by Stephen Chbosky

Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

Interestingly, it seems that the emphasis has shifted from race to sex --any kind of sex. After all, everyone knows that "offensive language" and "unsuited to age group" are unimaginative code for "sexually explicit"; heck, within the context of His Dark Materials and And Tango Makes Three, "religious viewpoint" and "anti-family" are clearly indicative of sexual themes. Then again, fearing a natural human function makes almost as much sense as fearing a skin tone. I'm almost glad to see, though, that Huck Finn is hanging on at #5; however, I would venture that cries of "Racism!" are simply a veneer for the real thing fundies fear about Twain's classic: its anti-authoritarian stance. The scene when Huck, fearing for his mortal soul, writes a letter turning Jim in...and then tears it up, declaring, "All right, I'll go to hell", is, I assume, the most frightening scenario any conservative can imagine.

I'm also glad to see that people have finally left off James Joyce. Why bother attempting to ban Ulysses? Anyone who claims to have read and understood it is probably lying.