Melissa Harris-Lacewell--who happens to be one of my favorite writers, scholars, thinkers, speakers, and Tweeters, and who I quote extensively--is interviewed today in the Feministing Five.
An excerpt from the candid chat:
(MHL:) ... Our entire political spectrum has moved so far to the right that most of what the left does is spend its time defending centrist positions that are really quite right of where we would like to be, but which are really the only tenable possibilities given the public discourse.
For example, last night, I loved Barack's speech, it was great, but did he really have to spend that time saying that he would ensure that there would be no federal money spent for the provision of the termination of pregnancies? That's preposterous. It's stupid, and it's also bad environmental policy and bad global policy.
The State has an interest in poor women being able to have full access to the best medical care and reproductive options that are legal and available to them. And it's always only poor women: wealthy women have always been able to seek out secure termination services from private physicians, always. So this is always a question about women without that kind of access. But there was no space for us, as feminists, to say "What the fuck?!" because what we have to do is nod, and keep moving, to at least get coverage so we can go get our colds and our cancer taken care of. But meanwhile, these fundamental issues of reproductive rights are still used in the batting cage of partisan politics.
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