Free EC in Scotland

Here's a good news story about a country that's taking a proactive public health approach to unwanted pregnancy and other sexual/reproductive health issues. According the Feminist Daily News, Scotland is now providing free Emergency Contraception (EC) at all community pharmacies.

EC is often referred to as "the morning after" pill. Read more about it here.
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Local Issue - Suicide

Hi everyone. It's not a feminist issue per se, but in light of recent suicides in the valley, including the death of Snake River Brewery baker Mike Webb on Tuesday, I wanted to offer some resources for survivors and for people struggling with depression. The Brew Pub is a favorite meeting spot of the Cowgrrl Up crew, and I think I can speak for us all in sending our love and thoughts to Mike's family and friends.

On a personal note, I lost one of my best friends, Stephen, to suicide four months ago. It's been utterly devastating. I didn't know before Stephen died that there is a name for those left behind after suicide: we are known as suicide survivors. At first I thought this term referred to those who had attempted suicide but had not succeeded. In fact, it's for those of us in this "club nobody wants to join," people who have lost love ones to suicide.

I HIGHLY recommend the monthly suicide survivor support group that meets at St. John's Medical Center the third Thursday of ever month. It's held from 6-7:30 PM in the Eagle classroom, downstairs. For more information, please contact the Jackson Hole Community Counseling Center at 733-2046. There is no charge for the group.

If you need help for depression or suicidal thoughts, call the Jackson Hole Community Counseling Center at 307-733-2046 or by calling 911. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is also available at 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255).

If you are a suicide survivor, I recommend Carla Fine's book No Time to Say Goodbye: Surviving the Suicide of a Loved One.

Also, these websites have information for survivors:
www.save.org
www.afsp.org
Wyoming Suicide Prevention Initiative

There is a lot more information out there, so please know that you are not alone. There are many caring individuals and professionals in our community who want to help.
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And Your Point Is? Right to Life of TC ad - Planet JH 6/25/08

I'm not sure why we continually need to be informed when the fetal heart starts beating, or when blood begins to flow, etc. Should this make a difference to me? The fetus, tiny body, mass of cells, whatever you want to call it, is living inside someone else's body. Forcing the woman to continue to carry it when she does not want to is completely offensive to personal freedom.

The whole "tiny babies" thing is getting really old for me. Lots of folks have latched onto this turn of phrase lately, including that wingnut Dobson from Focus on the Family. His critique of one of Barack Obama's recent speeches was terribly judgmental for a professed Christian.


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More Good News

Montana citizens have proven to be a sensible bunch by saying "ix-nay" to a ballot measure that would have banned abortion by defining a fertilized egg as a person. Read all about it here.

Alexandra Fuller Reading Tonight

She's an incredible memoirist and local activist and she's kicking off the JH Writers Conference tonight. Alexandra Fuller (aka Bo Miller) will read from her latest book, "The Legend of Colton H. Bryant."

Fuller's new nonfiction novel tells of a Wyoming Everyman – his life, his family, his community, his world – and his end in an oil-field accident. The New York Times said the book contained "sentences that are as beautiful as anything you'll read in contemporary fiction."

Jackson Hole resident William Broyles Jr. will introduce his fellow Teton writer. The evening also will include a slideshow of a recent Rapid Assessment Visual Expedition (RAVE) conducted by the International League of Conservation Photographers in Sublette County, where much of Fuller's book takes place. The purpose of the RAVE is to shed light on pressing conservation issues in specific areas, and to bring the to the attention of the media.

Tonight at 7 at the Center for the Arts.

More Brilliance from Barbara Ehrenreich

From The Nation:

About ten years ago, for example, a friend and I rented a snug, inexpensive one-bedroom house in Driggs, Idaho, just over the Teton Range from wealthy Jackson Hole, Wyoming. At that time, Driggs was where the workers lived, driving over the Teton Pass every day to wait tables and make beds on the stylish side of the mountains. The point is, we low-rent folks got to wake up to the same scenery the rich people enjoyed and hike along the same pine-shadowed trails.

But the money was already starting to pour into Driggs--Paul Allen of Microsoft, August Busch III of Anheuser-Busch, Harrison Ford--transforming family potato farms into vast dynastic estates. I haven't been back, but I understand Driggs has become another unaffordable Jackson Hole. Where the wait staff and bed-makers live today I do not know.

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Mother-Daughter Schism

In case you haven't heard, the latest buzz in feminist circles is about an ongoing spat.. or shall we say war -- between Rebecca Walker and her famous mom, Alice.

Read about it here.
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Film Fest Wrap-Up

My friend Shannon attended the special screening of "Don't Fence Me In" during last weekend's JH Film Festival. The documentary about Wyoming women and girls was made by Bonnie Kreps and Charlie Craighead. After the screening, there was a panel discussion on Wyoming women and activism. I asked Shannon to share her reflections:

I had a great time at the screening of the homegrown film "Don't Fence Me In" at the film festival on Saturday. I was inspired by the quality of the film from the cinematography, to the audio to the editing, and mostly I was inspired by the stories of the women featured. Hearing the story of a young women elected county commissioner on the reservation, or the first female black legislator, or the rancher from Powell, or the rural doctor, or the young environmental activists from our neck of the woods, was a reminder that Wyoming does have diverse landscapes and experiences that shape women's lives. The discussion with the film makers afterward allowed the point to be made (thanks to Mickey Babcock) that this film was made because Wyoming is the Equality State (NOT!) and it is important that women's stories be told so that folks can take action to support equality. I hope this film gets good play time. Kudos to all of the folks involved: Bonnie Kreps, Amy McCarthy, Mickey Babcock, Charlie Craighead, and the cinematographer/editor (I can't remember her name, but she did a fabulous job). PS Charlie said this was the first time he worked with an all women crew and that the approach to movie making was very different and that he loved it!

Affordable Housing and Women: A Conversation with Anne Hayden-Cresswell

Cowgrrl Up! recently spoke with the Jackson Hole Community Housing Trust's Executive Director, Anne Hayden-Cresswell about how affordable housing issues impact women in our area. This is the second in an occasional series of conversations with women leaders about women and housing in Jackson Hole.

CU: We've heard that a lot of the affordable housing goes to single women or female-headed families. Do you know any stats on this?
With respect to the Housing Trust only, 56% of all current homeowners are single people, 53% of all active applicants are single. I don't have any data that tracks single/female heads of households.


CU: Do you know if stats on Jackson's commuter workforce are broken down by gender?
I know that the Housing Needs Assessment found 33% of our workforce commutes to work each day.


CU: More generally, do you think affordable housing in Jackson is a women's issue? If so, how?
Generally speaking, I find social service issues and non-profit work to be dominated by women. The Board of the Housing Trust is made up of a near even split of men/women.

CU: What can women do to advocate for themselves as Jackson moves forward with its comprehensive plan?
Anybody and everybody needs to engage in the conversation. Affordable housing as an issue, in my opinion, has matured in Jackson over the last 15 years. We actually know a lot about what works and what doesn't work. Given the stage of development/growth we are in as a community, it is no longer helpful to have 30,000 foot conversations about where we build affordable housing and how we are going to make it happen. At this point in time, we need to be solution oriented and the solutions need to be practical. We have to understand that private property rights limit a lot of the opportunities that are discussed. Financial realities make many suggested solutions to affordable housing impossible. The conversations that I have been hearing, related to the comp plan in general and affordable housing in particular, seem to be framed in a bubble. I see a real lack of appreciation for the complete picture that needs to be discussed-the practical realities and the immutable truths that are simply left out of the conversation. It is not helpful to simplify the situation. We need to have a comprehensive dealogue that incorporates the trade offs of each option/alternative.

Ultimately, there are two ways to address the affordable housing problem: density or dollars. And there are real hurdles to both. We need a balance of both, we need to work together, we need to be really respectful of everyone at the table, and we need to think outside of the box; we need to be willing to try (and to fail!) at new ideas. The status quo is not an option.

CU: Do you think town and county leaders need to take women's issues into account as they move forward with Planning? (Wage differences, occupational demographics, need for proximity to health care...)
Absolutely. Women are an asset in the workplace and in elected office. We typically bring an entirely different skill set to the table that can't be recreated in any other way.

The barriers to entry for working women in Jackson (high cost of living) and working women with children (day care!) make it prohibitively expensive to run for office (or even remain employed when day care is as expensive and volatile as it is). I am a strong believer in mentoring and taking full advantage of the phenomenal women we have in this community to help us negotiate our way through life and through the workplace. We need to support each other and encourage each other to get involved, because our voices bring different perspectives nearly every time.

Anne Hayden-Cresswell can be contacted at anne@housingtrustjh.org for continued conversation.

Cowboys and Prairie Fairies

Gotta love the title of this article posted on The Huffington Post:

Cowboys, Prairie Fairies, and Mother Earth: The Political Psychology of Gendering Nature Female

... written by Stephen J. Ducat, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist from the San Francisco Bay Area and author of The Wimp Factor: Gender Gaps, Holy Wars, and the Politics of Anxious Masculinity.

Newsflash (In Response to Last Post)

I want to have sex with my husband. Often, in fact. I don't want to have kids. I'm going to take birth control to prevent pregnancy and it's none of your damn business. With all the crap going on in this world can't these wingnuts find something better to dedicate their seemingly endless amounts of energy and enthusiasm to rather than saving the "pre-born"?

Anyone see Hamish Tear's Letter to the Editor in this week's N&G? Right on!! He is a cowgrrl at heart!

Who the Heck Was Jerome LeJeune?

In last week's Planet Jackson Hole, Right to Life of Teton County had an ad quoting Dr. Jerome LeJeune. "After fertilization has taken place, a new human being has come into being," reads the quote. Dr. LeJeune is credited in the ad with receiving "the world's highest award for work in the field of genetics."

I was dubious. Especially with all those creepy salamander feet imprints on the border of the ad.

So I decided to investigate. It turns out Dr. LeJeune was a real person and indeed a celebrated French geneticist who discovered the chromosome abnormality in humans that causes Down syndrome.

He was also staunchly "pro-life" and a friend of Pope John Paul II, who appointed LeJeune to the Pontifical Academy for Life. If we assume the "world's highest award" to be the Nobel Prize, LeJeune was never awarded it, though many thought he should have been.

If you google Dr. LeJeune's name, you'll come up with a host of anti-abortion websites and blogs. He appears to be THE scientist of the anti-choice movement. He set the groundwork for other anti-choice physicians to manipulate science to fit their own world view, and with disastrous consequences. Case in Point: the "The Pill Kills" campaign by the American Life League which will stage protests across the nation on June 7. They campaign is designed to frighten young women into thinking they are "killing" "pre-born" babies when they take a contraceptive pill. Based on Dr. LeJeune's logic that a human life begins at fertilization, the American Life League has worked out a twisted logic that the Pill prevents fertilized eggs from attaching to the uterine wall, thereby "killing" the "human" that zygote would be. According to Planned Parenthood, there is no evidence that the pill works this way. It works the way we've always known it to work, by preventing fertilization in the first place. Basically the whole "The Pill Kills" campaign is directed at the rare "breakthrough" pregnancies that can occur while taking the Pill. Once again, the anti-choice movement is trying to chip away at women's reproductive rights by creating hysteria around rare events (as they did with late-term abortions.)

In any case, I really hate this debate over when life starts anyway. It's beside the point. American women have the constitutional right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy and just like we have the constitutional right to use the Pill. Join in on Planned Parenthood's June 7 celebration of the landmark Supreme Court decision to protect the use of birth control. They'll be taking a giant Pill to Capitol Hill!

And read this excellent Feministing post for more info on why the Pill Kills campaign is a load of horseshit.

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Affordable Housing and Women: A Conversation with Melissa Turley

Cowgrrl Up! recently spoke with Jackson Town Council member Melissa Turley about how affordable housing issues impact women in our area. This is the first in an occasional series of conversations with women leaders about women and housing in Jackson Hole.

CU: Do you think affordable housing in Jackson is a women's issue? If so, how?

MT: Across Wyoming, we know that seventy-one percent of single parent households are headed by women, and thirty-eight percent of these families live in poverty (Department of Family Services - 2003). We also know that Wyoming’s wage gender gap is the worst in the nation: women in Wyoming earn 66 cents to every dollar earned by men. (Status of Women in Wyoming - 2004). But in Teton County, affordable housing is an issue that impacts a large cross-section of our community - it certainly impacts single female heads of household to a great extent, but it also impacts families with two heads of household, singles, and the whole range of economic levels, ages, and careers. So while I understand that affordable housing is one of many challenges that is more difficult for female heads of household, it is definitely not an issue that is limited to women.

CU: What can women do to advocate for themselves as Jackson moves forward with its comprehensive plan?

MT: It's important for all members of our community to get engaged and make their voices heard through the comprehensive plan update. I hope people will visit the comprehensive plan website, www.jacksontetonplan.com, or Town Hall, to learn more, and let us know what's important to them. This process will define how we want our community to grow for the next five to ten years, and we need to hear if people value more affordable housing, or better public transit, or so many other things!

CU: Do you think town and county leaders need to take women's issues into account as they move forward with planning? (Wage differences, occupational demographics, need for proximity to health care..)

MT: I would hope that as our community's local elected leaders plan for our future, they are creating a plan that supports a vibrant community for all citizens. I think our current leaders have been very supportive of social services that serve women and children, but they would appreciate hearing from women in the community about other steps they can take to support women's issues. Please contact them!

Melissa Turley serves on the Jackson Town Council. She is the owner of the consulting firm m.e.t. solutions; she serves on the boards of Equality Initiatives and Girls Actively Participating. She is the proud owner of a Jackson Hole Community Housing Trust affordable home.
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