Military Mom: What About the Children

This Blog was submitted by Caroline Innes for WMG.
Tell us what YOU think about the rights of mothers in the Military.

After working so hard to give women the opportunity to serve their country by being active
In the Military is it coming back to bite us? Consider the following story about the predicament
of a young military mom.

A 21 year old single mother has been separated from her 10 month old infant and confined to Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Georgia. Army cook, Specialist Alexis Hutchinson may face criminal charges after refusing to be deployed to Afghanistan when she couldn't arrange adequate care for her son. Hutchinson originally said her mother would look after the baby while she was away. However, after caring for the infant for two weeks his grandmother felt overwhelmed and said she was not up to the demands of full-time baby care for a year, the length of Hutchinson's deployment.

Angelique Hughes admits she initially agreed to take little Kamani while her daughter was away. But Hughes also cares for her mother and sister, both of whom are ailing as well as another daughter, of her own, with special needs. In addition to all this Hughes runs a daycare center out of her home in which she cares for 14 young children during the day. Hughes says she is at the breaking point and simply cannot take on anymore "This is an infant, and they require 24-hour care. It was very, very stressful, just too much for me to deal with."

Hughes returned Kamani to his mother, Specialist Hutchinson; of Oakland, California a few days before her Nov. 5th scheduled deployment. Hutchinson advised her superiors of the situation and requested a 30-day extension to make other arrangements for child care. Hutchinson said that her commanders originally agreed to the extension, but then something changed. Hutchinson's civilian attorney, Rai Sue Sussman, said that one of Hutchinson's superiors told her she would have to place the baby in foster care and deploy as scheduled.

Kevin Larson, a spokesman for Hunter Army Airfield, said he didn't know what Hutchinson was told by her commanders, but he said the Army would not deploy a single parent who had nobody to care for his or her child.

And yet, the baby did indeed spend time in Child Protective Services. According to Rai Sue Sussman, Hutchinson, with a friend by her side, turned herself in, "The Military Police arrested her and wouldn't let her friend take her child and so they took him away and put him in Child Protective Services" said Sussman Hutchinson is facing a number of charges including AWOL, missing movement, desertion, failing to have a family care plan and disobeying an officer. When Hutchinson's mother heard of this turn of events she immediately flew to Georgia to pick up her grandson and take him back to California with her, where he remains at this time.

Should the Army deploy her to Afghanistan to serve her year of service and then court martial her upon her return, where she could spend as much as a year in a military prison, Hutchinson could potentially not see her son again until he is almost three years old.

It is difficult to discern what the Military's childcare policy actually is. A cursory online review wielded a confusing array of answers.

As stated the Military allows new mothers four months before deploying them to active duty. That's a pretty limited policy and as we're seeing with this particular case points out the obvious shortcomings with respect to a lack of concern for the mothers and children for whom childcare options are limited or unavailable.

It begs the question...What about the children?

(Written by Caroline Innes)

Women's Media Group Old World Bake Sale Sunday, Dec 13

Happy Holidays from Women's Media

AROUND CHICAGO? WMG OLD WORLD BAKE & BUY BAKE SALE
December 13, at SPACE - Proceeds go to the Cambodia Girl Project
(Anne Elizabeth Moore is featured on today's WMG Blog)
Bake sale takes place during
The Jamie O'Reilly & Anne Hills Christmas Show

SPACE
1245 Chicago, Evanston
Sunday Dec. 13, 7 PM
Doors Open at 6:30 for the Bake Sale
Tickets (PH) 847.492.8860
www.evanstonspace.com/calendar_dec.htm

DONATE BAKED GOODS. BUY FOR HOLIDAY PARTIES!
Email for more info jamie@wmgchicago.com

Meet Our WMG Friends in the Blogesphere

Jamie O'Reilly here, WMG's Creative Director & Communications-Go-to-gal.
I'll be posting our updates and WMG News.

Meet Our Friends in the Blogesphere
Anne Elizabeth Moore was on our GLOBAL SISTERHOOD talk.in panel.
Anne - an unstoppable force of nature, is all-over the Blogesphere. Read Her: http://theprivatelifeofthepublicintellectual.wordpress.com/2009/12/05/cambodia-fundraiser-update-2

Check Out ANNE ELIZABETH's CAMBODIA PROJECT
http://camblogdia.blogspot.com
In winter of 2007/2008, Culture Critic, Blogger and Artist
Anne Elizabeth Moore began a collaboration with 30 some young
women college students in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
She lived in their dorm, taught self-publishing, and initiated an
international dialogue about human rights and
young women in developing nations. The women created 'zines,
and wrote hand-bound books, rewriting the longstanding moral code of girl law,
now "New Girl Law." Anne returns in December to continue this
work during a time of tremendous need. She'll see a second dormitory opened,
(One of only 2 'safe havens' of this type, in a country of over 8 million!)

###

Meet Molly Bires. This young woman has a handle on what floats the
boat of emerging feminists, and writes about it - fast & furiously.
Hear Molly on some of our talk.in podcasts (www.wmgchicago.com)
asking our guests the BIG questions. You go girl!

(Molly: We'll be chatting about her identifying with Janis Joplin)
Check Molly out: http://soitgoes-molly.blogspot.com

###

AND read my Cultural Arts Blogs @ www.myspace.com/jamieoreillymusic

###

I would like to draw your attention to The Nations recent article in its November 9^th, 2009 edition, “Remember the Women?” by Ann Jones, where in the headlines she makes the statement, "Women belong at the center of the debate over the Afghan war, not on the margins"

She also writes:

-That’s the part American officials seem unwilling to admit: that the mujahedeen warlords of the Karzai governments and the oppressive Taliban are brothers under the skin. From the point of view of women today, American’s friends and American’s enemies in Afghanistan are the same kind of guys

-The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan report attributes women’s worsening position in Afghan society to the violence the war engenders on two domestic fronts: the public stage and the home

-Threats against women in public life are intended to make them go home—to “unliberate” themselves through voluntary house arrest. But if public life is dangerous, so is life at home. Most Afghan women—87 percent, according to Unifem—are beaten on a regular basis

-As Obama tries to weigh options against our national security interests, his advisers can’t be bother with—as one US military officer put it to me—“the trivial fate of women”

* If you are still ambivalent about what Obama’s decision should be, please checkout the Ann Jones article*

We have news!

Hello you loyal readers. I have some very exciting news:

Tomorrow night begins the WMG Film Series! This has been a long time coming, and this particular movie (Into The Fire, about the Spanish Civil War) is especially exciting because it features the beautiful voice of WMG's very own Jamie O'Reilly. And the event concludes with a talk-back with the film's director, Julia Newman.

Here's the rest of the information - make sure to get out to Facets tomorrow night!

"I went to Spain and I became a member of the human race.

I met some of the best people I ever knew." - Dorothy Parker

GLOBAL SISTERHOOD FILM SERIES
Women's Media Group, Chicago, in Collaboration with
Facets Multimedia, ALBA and CFLB Present
Into the Fire: American Women in the Spanish Civil War
October 26, 2009 7:00 - 9:00 PM
Facets Multimedia ,1517 W. Fullerton, Chicago
$10. Donation
PH (773) 281-9075 ext 4 box office Advance tickets online www.facets.org
Women's Media Info (312) 458-0822, www.wmgchicago.com
First Run Features; Produced and Directed by Julia Newman.
Julia will speak after the film.

SUPPORT FACETS
Listen to Facets Film Critic Milos Sthelik Fridays on WORLDVIEW http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/Program_WV_Series.aspx?seriesID=17

In other exciting WMG news, the final podcast of the first season of talk.in is ready for your listening, and we'll even send you a CD of the shows. Here's all that good stuff:

LISTEN NOW
The WMG podcast GLOBAL SISTERHOOD, with June Sochen,
Peg Snyder, Jobi Petersen Cates and Anne Elizabeth Moore, is now online.
It is the show best yet...Thanks to editors Cat Jarboe and Al Nowakowski.
Give it a listen. Tell US what you think.
http://www.wmgchicago.com/podcast092109.htm

WMG WHILE YOU DRIVE
Get the talk.in shows on CD. Send us a note & we'll send you a CD:
talk.in@wmgchicago.com

As always, if you haven't gotten your feminist fix yet, don't forget to keep checking for updates on our website, www.wmgchicago.com.

FINALLY

Even though I'm now back at school, and haven't been doing nearly as much blogging these days, when I saw this article, I knew that there really would never be anything so important for our readers to see.

It's depressing, uplifting, inspiring, but more than anything, it's true and it's vital that these particularly credible, well-known journalists (husband and wife Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn) are saying it.  Honestly, "The Women's Crusade," which comes from the most recent issue of New York Times' Magazine, doesn't really need an introduction, so I'll just throw out there the only thing I can really say after reading it:

WOOHOO!  YOWEEEEE!  YESSSSSS!!! SOMEONE FINALLY SAID IT RIGHT.

If you never read another thing posted on this blog, read this: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/magazine/23Women-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

If it doesn't convince you that our work is important, that global sisterhood really IS the new feminism, then you're just not paying attention.

The Ugly Truth (Is a Load of Crap)

Here’s the thing about being a feminist: sometimes, it really kills your buzz.

            Despite this fact, I’ve never questioned whether I am one; it’s not a soapbox I stand on, or a role I perform as a blogger, intern, or student; it’s a part of who I am. For me, feminism is a way of making sense of the world and questioning my role in it. It is an awareness equally accessible to women and men, a willingness to question fundamental cultural structures and recognizing how they shape the reality that we experience every day. There are other perspectives that fulfill this same function, but I was raised a feminist, by feminists, so this is often my critical angle.

            Now, time for a confession: I love (and I mean LOVE) romantic comedies. As someone who really loves the art of film and tries to be knowledgeable about it, there’s certainly no lack of shame in my admitting this.  But no matter how much I love Kubrick and Renoir, there’s nothing that comforts me like watching two people kiss and make up and live happily ever after.  

I’m not even talking about the great screwball comedies of the studio era, where ladies like Claudette Colbert, Rosalind Russell, and Katherine Hepburn showed up with moxie and smarts and wound up in the arms of Cary Grant or Jimmy Stewart.  No, I’m talking about the trite, glossy, dime-a-dozen movies that perhaps were at their best in the late eighties and early nineties, and pander to the chickiest of chicks. I am a sucker for Julia Roberts and Meg Ryan, Hugh Grant and Colin Firth.

These movies are an excuse to go out at 10 PM with my sisters and my mom, eat a nauseating amount of Junior Mints and popcorn, and float away into another, prettier universe for an hour and a half.  But lately, something keeps dragging me back to the reality of the dingy movie theater even while I try to live vicariously through the glowing people on the screen.

I’ve seen a lot of movies this summer: (500) Days of Summer and Away We Go, two sweet and vaguely funky indie love stories, almost satisfied by need for romance. Both told modern stories about couples that I actually felt like I knew, and while gender roles weren’t necessarily turned on their heads, they weren’t set in stone either.

But these movies didn’t boast the superficial glow of The Proposal and The Ugly Truth, so of course I had to go see those too.  I can always watch Sandra Bullock, and Ryan Reynolds isn’t hard to look at either. Parts of the movie were kind of funny, and it was nothing if not cute (the key word when it comes to rom-coms, of course), but instead of leaving the theater feeling chipper, I was just frustrated.

Here’s a quick version of the film: Maggie (Bullock) is a high-powered executive at a book publishing company, which means she wears disturbingly tight suits and high heels, but has no friends, no sex, and gets called “the witch” by everyone in her office. She spends most of her time picking on her lowly assistant Andrew, played by Reynolds, but the tables turn when she suddenly needs him to marry her in order to avoid deportation.

The two wind up in his hometown in Alaska, where Andrew turns out to be (surprise, surprise!) heir to a massive fortune. He also finally gains control over his demanding boss, and when Maggie can no longer intimidate Andrew, she unravels.  Once she reveals that she is, in fact, vulnerable and lonely and cries all the time, Andrew starts falling in love. But it’s the final kiss that puts it all together: just as Maggie’s about to leave her job and return to Canada (having called off their sham wedding), Andrew shows up at the office, where everyone is cowering in their cubicles to hide from the witch.  He comes in and makes a dramatic scene in front of their co-workers, promptly reveals every embarrassing secret she shared with him to all those who had once feared her, liberates them from her reign of terror, and when she begins to protest his advances, he suddenly yells at her to “shut up.”  As he kisses her, a co-worker yells “You show her who’s boss, Andrew!”  Fade to black.

Why, Sandra? Why, Ryan? Why does it have to be like this? I mean, I am trying, really trying, to enjoy this movie.  I will gawk at your pretty clothes and flawlessly Botox-ed skin and impossibly chiseled abs, and never question how you could possibly look like that first thing in the morning… but why that story?  The story where the powerful working women can only gain power through fear, and can only find love after admitting that she was weak all along, and that her successful career was really just a sad substitute for a husband and kids? Why can he only love her when he’s the boss? Why can’t she have more money than him, more power than him?  If this had been a story about a high-powered man falling in love with his secretary, I doubt things would have played out the same way.

When I came out of the theater with my two younger sisters, one a college sophomore and the other an eighth grader, I made a point not to bring up these grievances right away, knowing that they had surely loved the movie and would be unsympathetic. Not wanting to be the stereotypical “angry feminist,” not wanting to scare away people who, while being just as strong-willed and feminist in their living as I, would never sacrifice the joy of a mind-number like this one, I cooed over Ryan Reynolds and recalled every pratfall.  And then, tentatively, I brought it up:

            “It kind of sucks that the movie had to have the same ‘working women can’t love’ storyline.  I mean, she couldn’t keep at least a little of her professional dignity and get the man?”  Immediately, both of my sisters rolled their eyes.  Why did I have to come in and kill all the fun with my intellectual babble? Couldn’t I just enjoy a damn movie?

            I wish I could, but how can I ignore what feels to me like a glaring, offensive use of a played out stereotype? The worst part is that this film isn’t simplifying women for the sake of men; it’s for other women. Rom-coms are all about escapism; they take place in the ideal, not the real. But apparently the idea of a woman having power and love at the same time is just one step too far in the direction of the ridiculous.

So, The Proposal was, as escape goes, a failure; try, try again.  So I saw The Ugly Truth. Abby (played by Katherine Heigl, a woman who’s teeth are so white that it’s impossible to see anything else on screen) is a producer of a network news show.  Once again, she’s the boss; once again, she’s wound too tight. She can’t get men because when she dates them, she prints out talking points, does background checks, and tells them how many of her “criteria” they fit (for marriage, of course – why else would she want to date?). 

            Luckily, Mike (Gerard Butler) comes along to tell her that if she doesn’t show off a little T&A, not to mention give more frequent blow jobs, she’s never going to get any man.  When she follows his advice, she miraculously gets two, including him!

            I’ll admit, I set myself up for this one; after all, the title graphic for the film includes a white bathroom-sign female with a heart in her head on the left, while on the right is a male sign with his heart on his crotch. So, perhaps the subtext of this film was not so… well… sub. 

            Once again, I tried to restrain myself, knowing what the reactions of my sisters would be.  But once again, I felt it was too important, too glaringly offensive to ignore.  This time, my sisters half-joked that perhaps I should stop coming to the movies with them at all.

            Here’s the real ugly truth: sometimes, being a feminist actually does make you angry. When you become aware of the subtle (and not so subtle) ways that the same old gender stereotypes are still perpetuated, when you realize that you, like millions of other women, paid money in support of your own oppression, it’s irritating. But only when I face the indifference of my own sisters, whose own aspirations can soar so high only because of the feminist movement, do I become angry.

My sisters, and millions of young women like them, have grown up believing that they could be anything that they want, that their gender would never be an obstacle. To them, analyzing something as trivial as a romantic comedy seems irrelevant, because they have the luxury of believing that sexism is a thing of the past. But, knowing my sisters, they will both become powerful women in the workplace. And unless these stereotypes change, they too will be called eventually be called “bitches” for using whatever power they’ve earned.

             It’s difficult to tell people that feminism still matters, especially when they’re just looking to be hypnotized by Katherine Heigl’s pearly whites. No one wants to evaluate their entertainment on moral grounds. But the roots of inequality spread far and deep, and once you recognize them, they’re hard to ignore.

Often, the oppression of women feels like a distant vision: women forced to wear burkas or raped during wars need the help of feminists; if a woman can make it into a high-paying job, she ought to be able to fend for herself. But these larger injustices are the products of a fundamentally sexist culture. It’s time we stopped trying to tune out the evidence all around us and started openly, honestly talking about what it means, and how to change it.