NYU-WAG (Women's Alliance Group)

Anyone who is interested in having a role organizing people to go down to the March to Save Women's Lives on April 25, 2004, there will be a meeting on January 31st to go over a plethora of useful information and ways to talk to different groups to get them to sign on. All the pertinent information is here, along with some other interesting links. I know, it still says the date is the 10th, but it is the 31st, to make sure we have everyone back from winter break. Suzannah, the field organizer from NOW, is an amazing woman with a lot of energy and she has a lot of faith in our abilities as young feminists to be a powerful contingent within the movement. I highly recommend getting involved.

Yesterday, on December 16, a committee hearing on Emergency Contraception resulted in a 23-4 recommendation to the head of the FDA that it be available over the counter. Committee recommendations, especially ones with such a large number of people in support of the issue voted upon, usually successfully get approved. This is a huge accomplishment for women's rights groups that have been fighting for this for so long.
However, the arguments against it were still similar to ones we have heard before, talking about how the availability of EC would result in less responsible sexual behavior, would encourage young people to have sex, and how EC actually did abort a pregnancy. Obviously we have a long way to go to guarantee our right to make our private business in the bedroom truly private, and to ensure that legal decisions about women's health are based on fact, not scare tactics or falsehoods.

If anyone reads Time Magazine, I got a letter published about Carol Moseley Braun and her candidacy in response to an article a few weeks back discussing if any candidate could catch Dean. Also, we're starting up an NYU for Carol Moseley Braun group. Email the now-nyu listserve for more info.

Wed November 19th 7pm Kimmel 802
Bush's War on Us!
Hear speakers talk about the Bush administration's
attacks on:
Healthcare
Environment
Civil Liberties
Reproductive Rights

Cosponsored by: Voices for Choice, ACLU at NYU, Earth Matters! and the International Socialist Organization of NYU

and later on that night:

There are 8600 AIDS Deaths Every Day.
We Can Prevent Them. Find Out How.
First General Recruitment Meeting for
The Student Global AIDS Campaign @ NYU
New Club in Development
There will be free food and a short movie.
Wednesday, November 19 8:30 Pm Kimmel 908
Questions: email SGACatNYU@yahoo.com

Mon 11/3 at 7pm in Kimmel 912
Global Women: A Coffeehouse Teach-in on Women's Rights
Speakers from Equality Now and the Center for Reproductive Rights will talk about the trafficking of women into the sex industry and the availability of healthcare to women worldwide.
Fair trade coffee and desserts will be served!

I forgot to post this but if anyone is interested in MORE information about Alix Olson visit her http://www.alixolson.com/

*****FOR Jesse...& Ellen or anyone who had difficulty inserting a hyperlink into the blogger...
While you are typing in "new post" there is an option for spell check, and between the icons for bold, italic, post & publish you should see a globe symbol with a paperclip (?) attached to it. If you click the world icon (globe) it will bring up a window, type the URL, press OKAY. This will insert the HTML tag for a hyperlink into your text!

The following is a poem written by slam poet Alix Olson, who I've had the pleasure of meeting for several events. I hope everyone has the opportunity to see her perform, because her spirit is magnetic, and her sense of self righteous energy-contagious.
Enjoy,
Tara

_______________________

Daughter
Alix Olson (c) 2000; Excerpt of Only The Starving Favor Peace.

I'll teach my daughter to bang on anything that makes a beat.
she'll shake-a-boom, she'll quake a room
she'll paint her cheeks warrior-style, then smile
beguile you, turn you inside out til your guts plead guilty.

She'll be built like a truck, built to work you down
as she works herself up
She'll make holes in the street in her ten inch spike heels,
in combat boots, stilts, on roller wheels,
she'll stroll through Male Pride
Amazon Babes at her side.

She'll relinquish White Privilege
observe, be wise, she'll compromise
when the fire is stoked by other womyn's desires
but she'll never leave the flame.

All the same, she'll crave what makes her burn
she'll learn her Cunt's good name-
the thick liquid lips, the small hot tip
no more of this cryptic shit.
This Vagina will be known.

She'll park in all the wrong places,
make faces at police cars,
wind up behind bars, bust out big before serving her time,
fingernails full of this grime we call

Reality,
She'll dig her way through.

She'll pick her nose when she has to,
she'll scratch her ass,
she'll be a crass medusa child
a wild healthy fiend
she'll live in all fonts and all sizes
curly q's, caps, italics, and Bold.

She'll fold airplanes out of shredded Cosmos and Mademoiselles,
then pilot them to Never-Say-Never Land
where Peter Pan's gay and Wendy's
ok with it.

She'll wear thick braids, she'll shave her head,
she'll eat thick breads, she'll let her breasts flop,
she'll mop the floor like Cinderella, then with
Rebellion- Prowess,
she'll unionize daughters for a higher allowance.
She'll be male and female and
in-between.
She'll preen, then crack her mirror, crack a beer
and watch Love Connection.
She'll go for days without taking a shower
just to feel unchained ivory-slave power.

She'll want more than what she's 'entitled to'
she'll watch through Nike commercials and she'll
Just Un-Do It
ask who's making that shit, who's breaking their backs
keeping her breaking that
glass ceiling.

she'll do all of this.

and she'll do none of this.

and it's funny how we hide behind these daughters,
hide ahead of our own Herstories
scared of ourselves
scared of the world
scared of someone who made us
one way
or another.

Well, this time around, I'll be bound to my own
mind womb
in my own birthing room,
i'll squeeze out, squeeze out
each crimson thick belief
then eat each pungent, sweet placenta
and relieved,

I will tear up this country's
"Welcome to the World" certificate,
tear off my father's
father's father's father's
name,
i'll legitimate my own entrance into a
Thinking Existence
I will birth myself towards
Resistance.

But no frantic tick-tock of this Biological Clock.
On my own time, Foremothers at my sides,
Sisters as midwives,
i'll cut my cord, head for that War
i will mother myself into my own grown daughter
and I will call myself
a home-grown
woman

What is the Value of the Fetus? NYTimes Op/Ed
This is an interesting argument about how the pro-choice movement should shift its views on the fetus in order to gain more support.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/26/opinion/26SALE.html?th