ManifestA: Young women, feminism, and the future
1)To out unacknowledged feminists, specifically those who are younger, so that Generation X can become visible movement further, a voting block of eighteen-to-forty year old (people).
2)To safeguard a woman's right to bear or not to bear a child, regardless of circumstances, including women who are younger than eighteen or impoverished. To preserve this right throughout her life and support the choice to be childless.
3)To make explicit that the fight for reproductive rights must be include birth control; the right for poor women and lesbians (and bisexuals, trans, etc) to have children; partner adoption for gay couples; subsidized fertility treatments for all women who choose them; and freedom from sterilization abuse. Furthermore, to support the idea that sex can be-and usually is- for pleasure and not procreation.
4)To bring down the double standard in sex and sexual health, and foster male responsibility and assertiveness in the following areas: achieving freedom from STDs; more fairly dividing the burden of family planning as well as responsibility such as child care; eliminating violence against women.
5)To tap into and raise awareness of our revolutionary history, and the fact that almost all movements began as youth movements. To have access to our intellectual feminist legacy and women's history; for the classics of radical feminism, womanism, mujeristas, women's liberation, and all our roots to remain in print; and to have women's history taught to men as well as women as a part of all curricula.
6)To support and increase the visibility and power of lesbian and bisexual (and trans people) women in the feminist movement, in high schools, colleges, and the workplace. To recognize that queer women have always been at the forefront of the feminist movement, and that there is nothing to be gained-and much to be lost-by downplaying their history, whether inadvertently or actively.
7)To practice "autokeonony" ((meaning) "self in community": to see activism not as a choice between self and community but as a link between them that creates balance.
8)To have equal access to health care, regardless of income, which includes coverage equivalent to men's and keeping in mind that women use the system more often than men do because of our reproductive health.
9)For women who so desire to participate in all reaches of the military, including combat, and to enjoy all the benefits (loans, health care, pensions) offered to it's members for as long as we continue to have an active military. The largest expenditure of our national budget goes toward maintaining this welfare system, and feminists have a duty to make sure women have access to every echelon.
10)To liberate adolescents from slut-bashing, listless education, sexual harassment, and bullying at school, as well as violence in all walks of life, and the silence that hangs over adolescents' heads, often keeping them isolated, lonely, and indifferent to the world.
11)To make the workplace responsive to an individuals wants, needs, and talents. This includes valuing (monetarily) stay-at-home parents, aiding employees who want to spend more time with family and continue to work, equal pay for jobs of comparable worth, enacting a minimum wage that would bring a full-time worker with two children over the poverty lines, and providing employee benefits for freelance and part-time workers.
12)To acknowledge that, feminists may have disparate values, we share the same goal of equality, and of supporting one another in our efforts to gain the powers to make our own choices.
13)To pass the Equal Rights Amendment so that we can have a constitutional foundation of righteousness and equality upon which a future women's rights will stand.
No comments:
Post a Comment