Wanderlust

Thinking about Charleston, sitting by the sea

Monday morning, and we’re bringing you another group blog from an alligator infested swampland campground in coastal South Carolina. As we move up the coast, heading North, we wanted to share with you our thoughts and reflections on the discussions we had with local activists in Charleston, South Carolina.

Hello, Vanessa Renee here. During the meeting yesterday we broke into small discussion groups of several riders and one or two Charlestonians in order to allow us to better understand how the reproductive justice movement is shaping and affecting community in South Carolina according to the experiences and perspectives of individuals. I had a chance to be a part of discussion about race, gender, socioeconomic politics, and student activism on campus with Allison, the head of the Women’s and Gender Studies Department at the College of Charleston. Because of my involvement with feminist student groups at Indiana University, I was most curious to know about how students are organizing on campus and how university and community organizations interact with and support those groups. I was surprised to learn that the two feminist groups on campus are both affiliates of national organizations and that the only independent group engaged with feminist and reproductive justice issues that Allison knew of was community based. Both campus based groups are struggling to stay active but have put together what sounds like creative and affective initiatives to bring issues of women’s health and health rights to the attention of students. Last year, one of the groups made a huge blue statue of the number 72 and moved it around to different locations on campus in order to promote the availability of the emergency contraception pill or “EC”, a form of birth control most affective when taken within the first 72 hours after sex. The community based group is engaged in direct action activism, participating in critical mass bike rides through Charleston in support of environmental and cyclist rights and celebrating menustration by dressing in red and ending the ride with a “period party”. Learning about the concerns and actions of other student groups through Allison’s stories helped me feel a strong connection to young feminist activists hundreds of miles away from where I am most engaged in activism and calls in me a strong desire to connect personally with these young women and men in order to intensify the effects of the shared work with which we are all engaged.

Shelby here, writing after my first full day of riding and right before the first “long” ride – 60 miles to the next camp. My first Wanderlust activity was the meeting in Charleston, which was inspiring and alarming at the same time. Being from Texas, I know that there are both terrifying and unbelievable challenges to access to reproductive health care and also amazing people who stand up for those rights in the face of danger and censorship. The seven people who came to the meeting are those type – the type to play an accordion while escorting so women don’t have to hear themselves called murderers, the type to stand up to local religious zealots and let them know women’s bodies aren’t theirs to own. Very little time to write now, but check out my blog, www.shelbyknox.blogspot.com, for a full post on Charleston!

Heather Ault here! The other Wanderlust Heather finished the trip in Charlston so I’ll be the only Heather posting from here on out. A challenge I talked with activists is how to involve more young people in the movement. This question was posed by a Noel, a yoga studio owner and her husband in their early 40s, and was echoed by others in cities we passed through. For the most part, our group of 12 is generally the youngest in the conversation with most locals in their middle adult years into their late 70s. While this in inspiring in itself, it does speak to the disproportionate representation of young women. We talked about the apathy on college campuses around activism and politics and the right to a legal abortion taken for granted by younger women. However, perhaps this is an opportunity to ask why? What are the issues young people care most about regarding their sexuality and reproduction? I, myself, am 36 years old and certainly can’t answer that question. This speaks to why I’m on this wanderlusting trip in many ways. I don’t claim to have that answer either and want to be the best ally I can to concerns and problems younger generations face in these days of abstinence only education, STDs on the rise, and continued violence against women in our world.

Becky again! I helped to facilitate the meeting in Charleston, which just means I asked questions to get us started and told people to break into groups. In my small group, we spoke with Brenda and her husband and played with their cute baby. Brenda is completely passionate about reproductive rights, and as a native of California, she experienced culture shock in moving to SC. She said that in California she’d been complacent and believed women’s rights were secure, but in SC she was appalled at the conservative religious stronghold on the community and the schools. She’s worried about raising her son in an environment that isn’t respectful of women. Brenda is searching for a way to get more involved in progressive work in Charleston so that she can find others who want to advance women’s issues. I found this young family to be very inspiring. Their determination to be a minority voice in the face of much opposition is something to take home with me. Thanks, Brenda!!

Kathleen here. Our Charleston meeting was very interesting. Unlike most of our other meetings where there are usually only women in attendance, at this meeting the women brought their spouses. It was interesting to hear the perspectives of the couples and their forms of activism in such a conservative community. I had the great opportunity to hear the stories of one couple who moved from New Jersey to Charleston to start a yoga studio. Through this couple I learned that there are very few vocal individuals in this community, and the majority of them are not natives of Charleston, but people who have relocated from other parts of the country.

Mel here, finally! Charleston’s meeting seemed to me a nexus of connection between different worlds. For example, our Wanderlust group itself ranges in age from 20-50, and the communities of each of our riders also exemplify a wide range of values. As someone living in the notoriously liberal Bay Area, I do have to admit that while I told myself again and again how different the rest of the United States is, it was still a shock to hear some of the stories in Charleston. One story that Brenda told especially surprised me, about how people in the Charleston pro-choice community planned a very informal discussion that was passed along by word of mouth to just a few well-known people in the progressive Charleston community. Even with such a small, basically secret gathering at someone’s home, there arrived two protesters from the pro-life movement, plus a spy who came to sit in on the meeting. What I found chilling about this was the idea of people policing their own community in order to forcefully maintain a specific religious and political structure. To not even feel safe having a discussion with close friends because other community members will tell you it’s wrong by protesting and spying at your home- that’s a very difficult situation to struggle against. Even though I haven’t been on other meetings, I’ve been hearing that this is what comes up again and again: stories of isolation. On the other hand, the fact that families like Brenda’s were at the Charleston meeting deeply inspired me. I’m so impressed by their bravery in strongly living their lives there, and choosing to raise a beautiful son there, despite all the daily intolerances they face.

And now Nora, basking in the morning breeze on the wide front porch of the Grapefull Sisters Winery, where we spent the night. Charleston now seems like a very long time ago, so it’s interesting to think about the things that have stayed with me from our conversations. I talked with Allison, the Director of Women’s and Gender Studies at the college of Charleston, and I was struck by the stories she told about the women who take her Intro to Women’s Studies classes and how little they know about their bodies. I always think it’s interesting how obsessed women are with the outsides of their bodies- their skin and hair and breath and lips and clothes – but how very little we think about, or know about, our bodies themselves. One of the reasons that traveling by bicycle is so powerful, for me, is that it puts me in deep conversation with my muscles, my digestion, my internal organs. What would it be like, I wonder, if women worried as much about their insides as they do about their outsides?

June 18, 2008 at 12:37 pm elinordye 1 comment