lezlee’s Neighborhood

Ok, it's time for me to be a grown up blogger and move to a platform that actually lets me work properly.

I'll keep this Vox blog up as an archive, but I will be moving to WordPress. I'd love you all to stay in touch, we've been friends for a long time! You can find me at Facebook or Twitter and of course, new house,

WrongSide
Word Press Side.

Just so that everyone knows .... some people have been writing to my regular email address to advise VOX is not confirming new registrations, sending internal mail, group invites or messages and is not updating via email notifications. I've tried to find some information about when this problem(s) might be fixed, but haven't come up with anything.

If you have made a post in my blog, and it is not showing up, its due to problem child VOX not because I am screening you. If you would like to email me directly, please click HERE.

Sorry!

Dear fellow social workers, women and other important people,

I am writing this post today because I find myself bombarded with US (and other) media about the recent health care reform in America. I must begin this by saying, I am a Canadian chick, who is living in Australia. I am not American. American politics are not mine and I will not be impacted in the same way the American people will be, by the US health reform. However, it is unquestionable that US politics have a 'dribble' effect on the rest of the world, and very often, other countries, (Canada, and Australia, the two that are near and dear to me) are impacted in a sort of precedence setting way.

I belong to a number of social work groups (I am a social worker and clinical therapist by profession) as well as a number of women's groups (I am a woman) and in each of these groups I am being asked to ponder and comment on the health care reform and whether or not I think it serves the interests of social justice and women.

I don't feel able to truly debate American political initiatives. I am not American. Nor do I have the power of voice or vote, so my views have little direct relevance. I do have some brief thoughts however, that I will share. Any health care reform which provides health care as a basic human right to all people, would get my vote. The right to quality healthcare should be universal in my opinion, rich people are not more worthy of health and no one should ever die for lack of money.

Perhaps the US health reform has taken some positive steps in this direction, and if so, I look forward to seeing how that works for the American public.

Where the health reform is woefully falling, in my non-American, female, opinion, is with the Stupak Amendment. I think people need to really investigate the implications this amendment will have for women, children, families. I think we need to carefully consider how any loss of reproductive choice and freedom is a terrifying leap backwards, not just for women, but for all people.

As found in Wikipedia:

Control over reproduction is a basic need and a basic right for all women. Linked as it is to women's health and social status, as well as the powerful social structures of religion, state control and administrative inertia, and private profit, it is from the perspective of poor women that this right can best be understood and affirmed. Women know that childbearing is a social, not a purely personal, phenomenon; nor do we deny that world population trends are likely to exert considerable pressure on resources and institutions by the end of this century. But our bodies have become a pawn in the struggles among states, religions, male heads of households, and private corporations. Programs that do not take the interests of women into account are unlikely to succeed...

I believe we must consider the Stupak Amendment from a reproductive justice position, marrying women's reproductive rights and freedoms with social justice. As a social worker, advocate and woman, I heartily support the following statement, also found in Wikipedia under Reproductive Justice:

For reproductive justice activists, the primary difference between the reproductive rights and health frameworks and the reproductive justice framework is that the rights and health frameworks focus on protecting individual rights and choices, while the reproductive justice framework focuses on broader socioeconomic conditions and bringing about structural change.

From this position, I will and do concern myself with the American Health Reform and will speak to the Stupak Amendment. What is at stake here are not only the individual reproductive rights and freedoms of American women, but also the broader implications it may have on health care, reproductive rights and freedoms, and indeed, social justice - across the world. It is from this place I believe people, women in particular, need to wake up, stand up and get active. It's not okay to say, 'oh well, at least we got some health care reform'. Its not ok to say, 'oh well, we lost reproductive rights and freedoms, we'll just work to get them back'. Women worked their collective asses off to buy us those rights and freedoms. It didn't take them a few decades to get it together - it took CENTURIES. Fighting to prevent the loss of those rights and freedoms, is far more sensible (and timely) than is fighting to have them restored after the fact.

I encourage people to look at and read the RH Reality Check news blog or some of the other feminist blogs doing great work on reporting and covering these issues such as Feminists for Choice.

So what's the Stupak Amendment got to do with me?
My fear is the reverberations from Stupak, will rock my world, all the way over here in Australia.
I wait with fingers crossed and bated breath that America will not allow the essential human rights of women to fall. Because if they can fail in America - they can fail anywhere.

Please Stupak, don't rock my world.

"Motherhood: the only life sentence without chance at parole you can receive without committing a crime".

I read that quote in recent blog post, Motherhood In America, over at RH Reality Check. The author, Anat Shenker, points out that Motherhood is a tough gig, and even more so for single parents. She discusses the reality of motherhood in America today. She discusses the reality of mothering without enough money, support or regard. She talks about the Stupak Amendment. Whilst those of us who do not live in the US may brush aside the US Health Reforms and the Stupak Amendment as 'not our problem' I think we need to wake up and take a look in our own countries and ask what does motherhood look like for women in my country?

I am shocked by how few women seem to know about 'women's rights', the process they were gained through (and who fought those fights), the process which have been used to maintain those rights, and the somewhat terrifying suggestion that in the year 2009 we (women) are actually losing rights and freedoms rather than gaining or improving upon them. I won't get into the fact that these days, 'feminism' really is a bad word, no joke ....


and that many young women today (and middle aged and older ones too) seem to take their rights for granted, or be unaware that actually the fight for rights is far from over. There's not a lot of discussion about the fact that even if we have a 'right' - without the means to enact it (think money) a right is worth nothing at all. There is a socially constructed suggestion that women's rights and fighting for them is somehow passe, unnecessary, unladylike and according to this Feminism is Evil website, unchristian and akin to witchcraft. Far too often, women are the ones building the pyres and lighting the fires to burn other women.

Not enough women are aware of things like; maternity rights (do you have them in your country?) and benefits, job security after child bearing (will you keep your job and relative status/salary after children?), reproductive rights (do you know for sure if abortion is legal and accessible in your community?). Women don't discuss the lack of wage parity between men and women (have we just accepted this is the status quo? Do you know the ratio of 'woman dollar to man dollar" in your country?) and how much time do you spend thinking, discussing or supporting women in leadership roles, politically or otherwise in your neck of the woods? How are young girls faring in the education system in your corner of the world? It's not looking good in mine.

We educate ourselves about the physical realities of pregnancy and childbirth but spend very little time thinking about what will come next. For instance, I bet none of those 'pregnancy and parenting' books we have available in my local bookstore, discuss that Australia’s child poverty rate falls in the middle of the international rankings. In 2007, UNICEF’s report on child poverty in OECD countries revealed that Australia had the 14th highest child poverty rate.

Oh Ouch.

Do pregnancy and new parenting books mention that according to Australian Bureau of Statistics, every third marriage in Australia ends in divorce? Do they encourage women to have a PLAN B to support themselves and their children knowing that there is a very high chance they will, at some point in their mother career, be doing it solo? I've never met a woman who planned her divorce out before getting married and having a child, and I have never met a woman who didn't think if she was unfortunate enough to end up divorced that her partner wouldn't step up to the plate and maintain his parental responsibilities. The wake up call for most, is very harsh.

I'm raising stats for my adopted country, Australia - but my birth country, Canada, hasn't got it right either... and before you get all swollen with national pride, I can guarantee you that your country ain't got an A+ report card either.

It was pointed out to me that the average woman really doesn't give a good god damn about feminism or women's rights, until they, or someone they know, becomes a 'victim of statistics'; domestic (or other) violence, divorce, poverty, single parenting etc. I have often wondered if feminists are made through circumstances, not through logic and reason and its a worry to me that women may well be the harshest judges of other women; blaming their 'sisters' for their relationship crises, divorces, trials and tribulations as sole parents and poverty. Even if women are 'lucky' enough to stay married, there are no guarantees they will be mothering in material comfort, no guarantees that they will be mothering with the support of extended family or community. No guarantees they will be mothering in a relationship that is safe, equitable and supportive. We don't see baby shower or birth arrival cards that say,

Congratulations Mum on your new arrival, may neither of you become a statistic!

So what's this got to do with Stupak? Anat Shenker spelled it out pretty clearly:

As our lawmakers now shamefully consider shifting from a voluntary service for this task of national importance to conscripting women to serve at their will -- can’t we at least demand the provisions they need to do the job?

If governments will not give women the choice to determine whether they can responsibly bring a child into the world and care for it - shouldn't governments have to ensure women will be given the supports and resources to care for all the inevitably unplanned and unwanted children? Also, at what point will governments mandate absolute equitable responsibility from fathers - for the physical, emotional, spiritual, educational and financial support of their children? If Stupak, then shouldn't equitable fathering be the logical and natural, 'next step'?

I'm going to go out on the feminist limb here, and saw an old saw; I heartily believe if men were were the ones getting pregnant, giving birth and retaining the role of primary parent throughout their childrens' lives - Stupak wouldn't even have been a thought, let alone an amendment to the US national health care reform.

In Biblical times, the Scapegoat was an important community ritual, whereby a litany of the sins and tribulations of the tribe were recited, and symbolically laden onto the back of a goat. The goat was then released into the desert, to bear their burdens away.

A cleansing had occurred, through the ritual of naming and atonement.

~ Melissa Penn

~*~
But scapegoating isn’t about ritual anymore, is it?

We don’t make masks, or sacrifice goats – we sacrifice people – people who challenge our status quo, make us feel uncomfortable, do things we don’t agree with or think are ‘right’ – or people who fail to do what we have decided they ’should have’ done. Scapegoats are people who are just plain vulnerable to the hostile social, psychological discrediting routine some people use to shift accountability, responsibility, guilt and blame away from themselves. As was said in a recent Tricycle post, “if you want to hurt someone, demonize them first.”

Scapegoats are sisters, brothers, fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, lovers, husbands, wives, ex-anyones, co-workers – they sit beside you in restaurants, on buses, and at your dinner table.

Scapegoats are never born. They are made.

Scapegoat could be me …
or you.

Thoughts to ponder:

• Do you feel you have been scapegoated in your family?
• Can you be self aware enough to see where you may have scapegoated others in your family?
• What might change in your family if people could deal openly and compassionately with the issue of scapegoating?

[reposted from E-Strange]

Ever have one of those cyber, 'you have got to be kidding me' moments? I just did. I  found the Mark Sichel advertisment below ... yeah, the Mark Sichel I just finished taking to task in my last post. Remember how I said I was grateful I didn't end up in his office to deal with my estrangement issues? Well, may I go on to say I am even more bloody grateful! ... experienced with every kind of problem? No problem figuring out what I need? No problem telling me what to do?

http://www.ingenio.com/details/Mark-Sichel/Other/5148124

Sweet Jesus. Enuff said.

I've been practicing for over twenty years and am experienced with almost every kind of problem. I have no difficulty figuring out what you need to do and telling you how to do it....whether it's a problem with your mate or your spirit, nerves, or trauma, let's get to work and get YOU feeling better fast.

As many will be aware, I have been hard at work on my research about family estrangement. As a part of my research I do what every good researcher does ... I trawl Google looking for other writers, books, people who share the interest. As such I was pretty stoked when I found an article in Psychology Today, tagged estrangement. The article was doubly interesting to me as it was written by Mark Sichel, a psychologist who has written one of the very few books available about family estrangement, Healing from Family Rifts. I clicked the link, and up popped the article, Once a Parent, Always a Parent: One Mother’s Resignation by Literary Defamation: Children are off limits when writing about personal experiences.

My social worker 'spidey' senses tingling, heart sinking, I began reading.

The Reader's Digest version of the article is, writer, Julie Myerson is accused of writing about her children, thusly denying them both respect and privacy.  She is accused of betraying love, intimacy and motherhood by various rabidly angry critics and Mark Sichel, rather than taking a more objective, principled high road, throws a few more sticks on Myerson's pyre in the town square. He states that Ms Myerson, "resigned from her job as Jake’s mother", after asking her 17 year old son to leave the family home for his drug abuse and chaotic behavior. A strategy known to many parents as "tough love".

Mr Sichel might have chosen to explore the historical context of tough love, and how various people have experienced this parenting strategy as both powerfully positive and also horribly horrific. He may have wanted to look at the sorts of advice parents are given from family, friends and so called 'experts' about how to manage an 'out of control child'. He might have looked at how very often the responsibility to manage these 'out of control' children resides with the mother. He may have chosen to look at the social constructions of motherhood, mother blame and 'good enough' parenting as presented by psychologist Donald Winnicott. He may have wanted to acknowledge that Myerson is hooped either way she fights the fight: Allow her son to remain in the family home, exposing the larger family to the chaos of a drug abusing teen - or ask him to leave ... either way, she will be criticized as a mother, as a woman.

Sichel criticizes Myserson's decision as an abdication of parenthood and frames it in the context of Myerson's estrangement from her own father. There is a suggestion here that Myserson has somehow failed to 'learn the lesson' inherent in her own experience of parental estrangement . Sichel however, does not go on to explore the very frequent pattern of inter-generational family estrangement, or to consider how Myserson may have been profoundly shaped by her experiences. There is little of compassion in Sichel's criticisms of Myerson, a quality I consider as primary and central to the family estrangement discourse.

Sichel points out that Myerson may have used her son's period of abstinence 'as a stepping-stone to repairing the rift
between Jake and his family' and seems to freeze this possibility as a one off opportunity, now missed - due to the fact Myerson broke the Golden Rule, Thou Shalt Not Write About Thy Children. It should be said that even after a fairly vigorous search for this literary 'rule' I have seen no evidence of it. The world is full of books, blogs, magazine articles of people writing about their kids. It is not until we see mothers, speaking of their experiences of parenting in less than glowing terms, that the 'mommy police' come out of the woodwork. [see my recent post, Bad Mommy]. Had Sichel included even a brief mention of this phenomena, I'd have been appeased. But no.

"Julie chose to publicly expose her child’s drug problems and the related behavioral problems caused by the drug abuse.  Now that, in my opinion, is off limits, indecent and obscene." So says Sichel. "Any parent with respect for their child and human decency, love and kindness would not be critical of their child in their writing and publicly humiliate them for their own glorification as a writer." Suddenly Myerson is without decency, love or kindness and has behaved 'obscenely'. There is no room given for Myerson to write about her obviously very difficult experiences as a parent, no question about the truth of her experiences having equal validity, no room for Myerson to be central to her own story.

In Sichel's opinion, "Julie Myerson, however, made two indefensible moves: she not only publicly defamed her son but she never, at least in public, reflected on her role in her son’s problem." Is it defamation to speak truthfully, openly, passionately about how Myserson as a mother was impacted and influenced by her child's behavior? I say no, no it is not. I have read excerpts from Myerson's book, 'The Lost Child: a True Story' and no offense to her, she is perhaps more literary than some, but it's nothing that I haven't read in numerous places (books, blogs, articles) from other parents and mothers who have parented through a teen's crisis. I would argue that Myerson's choice to write at all about her children may be viewed as an effort to make sense of her experiences as a mother, and is nothing if not a reflection of her role in her son's difficulties and broader life.

All this leaves me wondering what is it about Myerson that brought the "mommy police' out in all their rampant glory? As I ask that question, I am quite cognizant that it doesn't have to be much, luck of the draw, wrong place, wrong time, one 'hostile bystander'. Why Myerson, remains however a valid question.

I'd like to see Julie Myerson's choices as a writer considered both from a place of gendered analysis and also framed in context to larger research about family estrangement. Hell, I'd like to see Julie Myerson's choices as a mother considered from the same places. I dare say the article would read considerably different from that of Mark Sichel, a publicly acclaimed psychologist and an "expert" in family estrangement.

I am so very grateful that I did not find my way to Mr Sichel's office to address my family estrangement issues. Shame on you Mark Sichel.