Buttons Up! Creative Explorations

Buttons worn on shirts and lapels and vests and collars can make wonderful symbolic statements. Button collections can also be expanded into curiosities, event displays, wreaths, framed works, museum displays, and auction items.

The statement on a button has long been a key symbol of the feminist and pro-choice movements -- probably even more so than the other standards -- t-shirts, posters and bumper stickers.

The Chicago Women's Herstory Project, the online archive of the Chicago Women's Liberation Union, has a brilliant 1971 article by Jo Freeman that extols buttons and button-collections, as well as explaining the history and use of buttons in the feminist movement.

Button wearing serves many purposes. The most obvious is that it gives one an opportunity to make a public statement about strongly felt issues. Letters to the editor are rarely printed and the chance to make public speeches is available to only a few, but anyone can wear a button. It's a good way to start a conversation if you're in the mood to talk and to recruit if you want to proselytize.

The site's section on the arts also has a Feminist Buttons poster gallery with pages of buttons, like the one pictured above. Other pages show more iconic buttons, such as "Powerful Woman!" and "Abortion, a private decision" with a picture of the Statue of Liberty, a coat hanger and "Never Again," and "The Future Is Female."

Jo further explains the value of buttons:

You can say things on a button that you often can't confront people with directly. You can also say things repeatedly without being repetitive. Flo Kennedy's urgent plea to DEFEAT FETUS FETISHISTS can be stuck into casual conversation once, but you can wear it into almost any gathering where it will at least be read if not agreed with.

The button displays and Jo's article also point to a need in the pro-choice community. Jo writes, "Symbol-making is a necessary part of any social movement; it provides a quick, convenient way of proclaiming one's views to the world."

The reproductive justice community is sorely in need of new iconography -- the antis have polluted the public with theirs. I have a few ideas and am collecting others. To share: wordsofchoice@mindspring.com.

Posted by Cindy Cooper
Pictured above: Feminist Button Gallery,Chicago Women's Herstory Project

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No Ban, No Joke -- Video

The pro-choice news out of Washington on healthcare reform can twist your insides with the hideous tagged-on amendment that, if it holds, will create an insurance plan that is an insurance ban on abortion. Few people refer to it by the initials of its chief sponsor -- Rep. Bart Stupak -- but that might be a more appropriate name. Maybe it's because the long-term consequences are too critical.

And add to this lousy reporting that gives misinformation about what it will do, and r-e-l-i-e-f seems nowhere in sight.

Now enter the Center for Reproductive Rights which, of late, has directed new energies to video illustration. Its one-minute video, "It's No Joke" is simple, direct and very effective (embed below). The video is shot in a mocked-up or real comedy club, with a woman performer (as yet unnamed -- but perhaps that can be remedied). The comedienne starts with a solid riff on an old joke -- "I think laughter is the best medicine, but maybe that's because I can't afford health insurance," -- and then goes on to tell a joke about the healthcare reform. While lots of news comedy (think Jon Stewart) relies on being serious to get to a humorous point, this video relies on a couple of good warm-up punches that do a quick reverse to knock the audience silent.

At least, it's a great relief to see a video that slices and dices and causes a chuckle and gasp.

"The Stupak-Pitts amendment tramples on women’s healthcare needs and violates President Obama’s promise that women will be able to keep the insurance coverage that they have today," writes the Center in releasing its video. Millions of women who have reproductive healthcare coverage under insurance, will have it yanked away and banned. (Remember, it wasn't supposed to be this way! Everyone was supposed to keep the coverage she already had, at a minimum.)

The Center uses the video to open a new microsite, http://www.NoAbortionBan.orgwhich includes fact sheets and actions.

Oh yeah -- CRR, please say who shot it and wrote it: artists deserve credit.

Posted by Cindy Cooper
Pictured above: Screen shot from CRR video; Embed below.

For the record, a poster at Salon.com identifies the comic as Cory Kahaney.

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Ideas: Defining Freedom in Poetry

The words "reproductive freedom" do not necessarily roll off the tongue. But when people are asked to define it and write it, the invariably claim it and get it right. This abstract concept becomes more real, and maybe the words will roll the next time around.

At the Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy, New York, Words of Choice wrapped up the evening with audience participation activities.

We put a new twist on a exercise that we've used with substantial success in the past -- getting the audience to define reproductive freedom in ten words or less, and writing their definitions on index cards.

This time -- with two stellar actors on hand, Abigail Ramsay and Claudia Schneider (pictured above) -- we went to another level. Abigail and Claudia had the assignment of taking the cards and coming back in ten minutes with an audience presentation from the collected definitions.

Abigail and Claudia returned in grand style, with a poem that they performed using solo and choral components. This time the words really did roll off their tongues with panache, style and wit.

Here is what they created:

Poem for Reproductive Freedom
Sanctuary for Independent Media, Troy NY

MY BODY.

The right of any person to choose whether or not to parent.
Freedom for MY BODY, my mind, my spirit…for my own choice.
The ability to decide when, where and why.
Rights to one’s own mind, spirit, life & livelihood!

MY BODY.

The ability to make decisions on what birth control to use, to enjoy MYSELF with the same consequences a man would have.

Freedom to learn, understand and exercise the right to decide when and whether to be a parent, and to access quality care, regardless of MY choices.

MY BODY.

The freedom to choose how I love myself in the present & future; the freedom to choose the legacy I have.


What can you say, except wow!

Posted by Cindy Cooper
Pictured above: Abigail Ramsay (l), Claudia Schneider, at the Sanctuary for Independent Media

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Dear Justice Sotomayor: What I Want You To Know

The Words of Choice II performances (touring since 2008) begin with a collection of letters written to Justice Harry Blackmun, who wrote the decision in Roe v. Wade in 1973.The case recognized a constitutional right to privacy that prohibits states from making abortion illegal in all circumstances.

The letters from various people who both supported and opposed the decision in Roe were selected by Sally Blackmun, daughter of the justice. One letter begins: "Mister Blackmun. I could only wish your cancer had done you in before you wrote Roe vs. Wade." Another writer says: "Dear Sir, I'm just writing to tell you how much I appreciate the right to choose an abortion. The opportunity to terminate my pregnancy 10 years ago saved my life and I'm now a proud mother of two beautiful children whom I love and can physically and mentally take care of."

More letters were written to Justice Blackmun about Roe than have been written to the Supreme Court on any topic. Justice Blackmun, who served on the high court for 24 years from 1970-1994, died in 1999.

But what about the justices who currently sit on the U.S. Supreme Court? And particularly what about the newest member, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who took her seat this fall after being appointed by President Barack Obama as a replacement for retiring Justice David Souter?

Although the Supreme Court is now closely divided on retaining the vitality of Roe and preventing states from making abortion illegal, no one knows where Justice Sotomayor stands. What would letters to her say?

At a Words of Choice evening at the Santuary for Independent Media in Troy, New York, the audience was presented with this very current situation. What would they want Justice Sotomayor to know before she votes on an abortion case? One will surely come before the Supreme Court in the upcoming years. Paper and pen were soon in motion.

The results were a remarkable series of letters -- all are being delivered to Justice Sotomayor. Here are some samples.

"Justice Sotomayor. There can be no freedom to the future of young women in American without reproductive rights -- access to affordable birth control and true access to abortion services ... You have the power to make decisions for the women of America -- give them the power to decide for their own lives," said one letter.

Another said: "Dear Justice Sotomayor, First of all, I'd like you to honor the democratic principles of our founding fathers ... while remembering our founding mothers. If women lose the hard-fought right to make their own personal choices, their oppression will ripple down to all of our soicety .... This must be the most significant choice of your career -- a vote for justice, for independence, for women's right to choose."

And: "Dear Justice, I think another person does not have the right to tell a woman whether to have a baby or not. It is a woman's decision, not her doctor's, a person whose business is religion, or a politician's, elected for a few years. Children should be given proper happy homes."

And: "How much future do you think a woman should have? Should we plan our early womanhood? Our possible motherhood? What about our old ladyship? When do we call our lives our own? ... Can we consider ourselves to be citizens before we think of ourselves as mommies?"

And: "As a twenty-three year old woman finishing a graduate program and about to begin an unwritten journey, I cannot put to words the freedom and excitement I feel....I have made countless choices in my short life, none of which I regret, and all of which I remain confident in today. It is for this reason I ask you to maintain my right to make my own choice, my right to decide my future, my right to have an abortion."

And more. Some writers signed with their names, some did not. To keep the conversation going on site, we collected the letters and had three people read them out loud to the rest of us. We all learned from each other.

What do you have to say to Justice Sotomayor? Email: wordsofchoice@mindspring.com.

Send directly: Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington D.C. 20543.

Posted by Cindy Cooper
Pictured above: A letter written by an audience member at the Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy, NY.

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