Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category
“Rihanna is not a slut; she’s from Barbados.”
[TW: discussions of insensitivity, racism, sexism, rape, slavery, over-sexualization of black bodies, HIV/AIDS]
On Saturday evening, Kelly Oxford tweeted the following:
“Rihanna is not a slut; she’s from Barbados.”
I don’t follow Oxford on Twitter. I don’t know why she is so popular (she has 349K followers on Twitter). Google searches basically reveal her to be Twitter famous. From what I gather, it’s her supposed caustic wit and biting one-liners on her Twitter account that garner her the attention she receives.
Enough about her, though. I’d like, rather, to talk about what she wrote about Rihanna and Barbados.
On Saturday, after Oxford tweeted this, I responded saying that her tweet was racist and sexist. I also mentioned that Oxford had attacked someone else on Twitter (@Farrensquare) because Farren Square had also called her out. In that tweet, I mentioned Oxford’s specific brand of attack: let her rabid followers know the Twitter handle of her critics and then immediately delete the tweets that did so (as she wrote and then deleted that night: “To me a conversation @ is not worth permanent talk for my feed. Keep jokes.”). It is impossible to go back through Oxford’s feed and see the bullying she does via Twitter.
When Oxford decided to respond to me, she did NOT respond to my claims that her tweet was racist or sexist. Instead, she leapt on the opportunity instead to respond to me about her deletion of tweets. And then, from that, I received a shit storm of hate from her followers, something for which Oxford herself did not want to take responsibility. She also claimed later (in another now-deleted tweet) to hate singling people out (“there are a billion people trying to get my attention everyday. I hate singling people out. It was a random pick.”). Uh-huh.
In thinking about this post, I have decided not to go into anymore detail about the bullying and derailing techniques that Oxford uses. Nor am I going to highlight or address specifically most of the hate tweets I received. I may save that for another post. It is always interesting the response one gets for calling out racist ideas as opposed to, you know, actually saying racist things.
Instead, I’m going now do what Oxford clearly didn’t want me to do. She did not want to discuss how her tweet was inappropriate, demeaning, and, yes, racist and sexist. It’s much easier if people are talking about you deleting tweets than whether the people criticizing you have any validity to their claims of racism and sexism and if, perhaps, just maybe, what you said was actually wrong and in poor taste. And, worst of all, NOT FUNNY.
Here goes…
Well, Andy Cuthbert, since you ask with such exasperation, I’d love to explain the “racism” angle. (side note: not sure why you need the scare quotes. Racism is an actual thing.)
I’m also going to spend some time rebutting this ridiculous statement:
Yes, Greg Ogan, Oxford was just joking! The magic blanket excuse that apparently makes it okay to say whatever you want without having to answer for what you’ve said.
First things first.
I’m gonna judge “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” by its terrible posters [UPDATED]
This post was originally published on January 26, 2012. The movie comes out today, May 18. And my friend Rose del Rio altered me to the fact that the posters for the movie that give us the guys’ point of view include the tagline, “It’s Too Late to Pull Out Now.” You can see a part of it behind Chase Crawford’s beautiful head (this image is from the movie premiere):
WTEWYE, your movie posters are the worst. I’m going to assume this bullshit gender essentializing and this desire to play off old and tired tropes about men and women around the topic of pregnancy and child rearing plagues your movie, too.
UPDATE: Carlos del Rio has sent me the full poster with the “It’s Too Late to Pull Out Now” nice and big and bright above the picture of the dudes with all the babies:
UPDATE #2: SS sent me this Movieline article: The 9 Most Scathing Critical Responses to What to Expect When You’re Expecting. As SS wrote me, “Glad to see no one’s buying this crap (although too many reviewers were offended the film wasn’t funny (Being offended: ur doing it wrong)).”
If you’re surprised the movie is crappy, raise your hand! Anybody??
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From movieline:
Signs continue to emerge suggesting that What to Expect When You’re Expecting is a real movie with real stars and a very real prospect of opening theatrically…. The latest indication: Character posters! It’s like The Avengers of maternity anthologies! If, that is, the Avengers labored superhumanly on behalf of the beleaguered population of Cringe City.
Who’s got it worse? It’s a tough call, right? I mean, I feel worst for Anna Kendrick, but Elizabeth Banks wields arguably the least convincing baby bump in modern moviegoing. And Cameron Diaz. That face! That posture!
Here are the posters (also available at movieline):
The pictures are bad enough (back to them in a second) but the quotes are atrocious:
- “I’m calling bull$#!%. Pregnancy sucks.”
- “I can’t wait to meet my baby.”
- “I just have all this extra energy. Plus I’m like crazy horny.”
- “You pee on a stick. It’s pretty idiot proof.”
- “If I knew I’d have a rack like this, I would’ve gotten knocked up years ago.”
These statements make me embarrassed to have ever been pregnant.
I know nothing about the book the movie is based on except that it is famous. I did not use it while I was pregnant and I’m not sure I have ever read it. But when I posted the movieline article on Facebook, my doula (who is as kick ass as human beings come) said “That became a client screening method for me. If that was their favorite resource, we probably weren’t going to click. To be honest, it does have some good info, but you have to wade through so much other junk that I’d rather read something else.”
Other friends on Facebook told me it wasn’t useful. Misty Clifton told me on Twitter that “I hated that book. So much so, I harbor residual loathing several years later, lol. I am definitely not seeing that movie.”@KushielsMoon said, “”What to Expect” is actually one of the worse pregnancy books. It’s condescending and anxiety inducing.” And @rachelcooks followed up with “It’s like, “Here are many details of a rare but horrible side effect of sth inconspicuous. But don’t worry about it!!”” Misty also said, “”Month Four: Your baby is developing ears…AND IT MIGHT BE DEAF!!!! Be sure to follow this routine and diet OR ELSE.”
Anyhow, let’s just go through and categorize what is wrong with these posters:
1) These are stick figure women with fake baby bumps strapped to them. Even Decker, who appears to be in her last month of pregnancy, is not at all bloated, no red face, no pimples. Nope. She’s just horny with lots of energy!
@KnittingRad‘s response to these picture: “why does Brooklyn Decker have a goddamn basketball stuffed under her shirt?” And @biscuitzombie said: “Brooklyn Decker looks like she is literally smuggling a soccer ball under her dress.”
My currently pregnant friend, KH, told me: “I totally look like that…oh wait, I look like a houseboat.”
2) As @biscuitzombie said: “Also, all the photoshopping and soft angles and smiles, my goodness. Pregnancy must only be a good thing with no side effects!”
My friend, RDR said on FB, “What I want to know is, will this movie address all bizarre things that happen to one’s body? I’m guessing there will be no discussion of ‘good gawd, why do I have so much snot all of a sudden,’ or ‘surprise, colostrum!’”
3) Of these five women, the only one that doesn’t have the baby bump here is the only woman who has actually been pregnant.
4) The hands underneath the stomach. When I posted this complaint on Twitter, my friends said:
- @biscuitzombie: “Well, yeah. It’s the ol’ “Look at me I am but a baby factory” move. Draws attention from anything else.”
- @catvoncat: “I think it is meant to convey, “No, no, I’m not fat! I’m just pregnant!””
- @KushielsMoon: “Well yes, otherwise you might mistake them for fat, & we all know women are completely afraid of being mistaken for fat.”
Now we all know. The hand under the pregnant belly is the universal sign for “I’m PREGNANT. NOT fat.”
5) These look like the covers for “Cosmo: Pregnant Edition.” Diaz’s face next to “Look at my awesome rack!” is best example.
I’m going to go ahead and judge this movie based on these ridiculously terrible, terrible posters. Therefore, as I said on Twitter, I plan on seeing this movie as many times as I saw The Help. And as @snipy said in reply, “can you see something negative times?” If only.
I can’t really say it any better than @diannapevensie said: “I feel sad for every woman involved with that hellfest of a movie.” Or, in shorter form, from Melissa McEwan: “Oh. My. God.”
FINALLY, my wonderful friend @iwriteplays (Laura Birek) is a funny, masterful photoshopper. On FB, she said, “WE NEED TO MAKE PARODY POSTERS OF THIS NOW. PREGNANT LADIES, PLEASE HELP!” I posted that on Twitter and @biscuitzombie said, “Get ladies to shove basketballs under their clothes and pose with vapid smiles, throw on some garbage quote?” I put that suggestion back on FB and Laura’s response was, “”Nobody ever told me how uncomfortable this basketball would be under my shirt.” What to expect when you’re fake-expecting.” I told her that ALL parodies should then end in “And I’m crazy horny!”
The end result, my friends (as created by Laura):
BOOM!
Also, don’t go see this movie. And if you do, NEVER tell me about it.
Text submitted by MG, my doula. Pic by Laura:
Text provided by me and Mr. Scatx, pic by Laura:
[We are going to do away with “crazy” in future parody posters athttp://whattoexpectforreal.tumblr.com/ because it is ableist. It is here in these because they are mocking the original, albeit, ableist language of the WTEWYAE posters.]
Working the abortion fund hotline
6 weeks or so ago, I trained with my local abortion fund – The Lilith Fund – so that I could volunteer to help out with their hotline.
According to the National Network of Abortion Funds, this what abortion funds are:
Abortion funds are groups of people who help women pay for their abortions.
Nearly all abortion funds are grassroots organizations that work directly with women and families who face obstacles to abortion. Funds help women to pay for an abortion and for travel to a clinic or for an overnight stay in a motel near a clinic. Some funds provide a place to stay in their own homes for women who have to travel a great distance. Many funds also help women to pay for contraception and the morning after pill.
Abortion funds are often women’s only allies as they try to raise money to pay for an abortion.
They are also at the forefront of a dynamic and growing movement that honors the leadership and voices of low-income women, young women, and women of color.
[NB: more people than just cis women need and want access to abortion care]
Lilith Fund helps low-income Texans from Waco south (there is a north Texas abortion fund: Texas Equal Access Fund).
How the hotline works: it is open three mornings a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday). During the line’s open hours, people who need help funding their abortion call and leave messages giving basic information. A volunteer then transcribes that information into a document. That afternoon/evening, whatever volunteer is on duty, looks at the list and determines who to call first. You have a set amount of money per day (right now it is $880) that you can give out at your discretion. Most people’s abortion costs around $450 but go up from there. You get 20 to 25 people who call each day. $880 is NOT nearly enough to cover everyone who needs help. On average, each person the LF helps gets $75.
I was nervous about volunteering for the hotline. I was nervous about being responsible for dividing up the money (or, rather, turning people down). I was nervous about listening to and having to react in real time to people’s difficult situations. I assumed that it would be too much emotionally for me to handle.
I was wrong.
Yes, the stories are hard sometimes and making decisions regarding who to fund is stressful. But these things are balanced by (or even utterly destroyed by) the power of a single person saying, “Thank you” six times over, happy that anyone cares about their situation, relieved to receive help without judgement.
I have now volunteered twice with Lilith Fund and I can say two definitive things about it:
- Even if you think you understand what limited resources and difficult access to abortion care means on the ground, until it either happens to you or you spend time talking to people to whom it affects, YOU DON’T KNOW.
- Helping people get the abortions they want or need has been the most life-affirming thing I have done in a very long time. It has changed my life.
If you can, you should volunteer with your local abortion fund and/or donate. Find a list of abortion funds here.
I’m going to spend the rest of this post re-telling some of the stories that I have heard in the two (only TWO) hotline sessions that I have done. I hope to make this an on-going series as I volunteer each month with Lilith Fund.
These stories are important. These people are real. Their struggles are real. Their needs matter.
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[Originally in this spot I had stories from people I talked to while working the hotline. A good friend of mine whom I respect more than almost anyone else in my life contacted me because they felt uncomfortable with me telling other people's stories. While I did get permission from people who work at Lilith Fund to publish these stories, I admit that I was initially hesitant. I do want to tell these stories and we need to tell abortion stories more often, especially the stories of people who are so rarely heard from or are not given space to talk about their experiences. But I'm feeling uncomfortable with my decision and for now, possibly forever, I've removed them.]
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UPDATE, May 16: I’m not going to be adding the stories back. At least not for a long while. And if I do, not in the same form. What I will definitely be doing, though, is writing a lot about the ethics of storytelling, which is now my brain’s main obsession.
But I do want to pull out some of the lessons I have learned thus far:
- An often-repeated lesson while working the hotline: you don’t know ANYTHING about people and the situations they face and why they make the choices they do. Calm demeanors do not indicate ambivalence or easy pasts or sanitized backgrounds.
- The Hyde amendment is the devil’s work. Medicaid does not cover abortions. Why? The Hyde Amendment:
This provision, prohibiting federal Medicaid coverage of abortion in almost all circumstances, was the beginning of the anti-abortion movement’s post-Roe, all-out effort to ban abortion. It was a gateway bill, opening the door to the flood of restrictions which today constrict a woman’s ability to obtain an abortion, forcing women to “choose” between paying for other basic necessities and having an abortion, and, in too many cases, making abortion impossible. It became the precedent for all other denials of abortion funding, and reinforces our discriminatory, two-tier health care system in which people without financial resources cannot get the care they need.
Without this 35-year old law, many people would already have the means to access the abortion they need without having to go through an abortion fund.
- It’s very common that people calling LF were using contraception when they got pregnant. Contraception fails to work all the time.
- There are times when LF literally saves people lives by helping them get the medical care they *need* for survival. When you volunteer with an abortion fund, you can help save people’s lives.
No, Bubba Carpenter. Mississippi has NOT stopped abortion. You have only stopped SAFE abortion. →
Cross-posted from my reproductive rights blog, KYBOOMU.
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Mississippi State Representative Bubba Carpenter, speaking to the Alcorn County GOP on Thursday, said as much:
“We have literally stopped abortion in the state of Mississippi. Three blocks from the Capitol sits the only abortion clinic in the state of Mississippi. A bill was drafted. It said, if you would perform an abortion in the state of Mississippi, you must be a certified OB/GYN and you must have admitting privileges to a hospital. Anybody here in the medical field knows how hard it is to get admitting privileges to a hospital…
“It’s going to be challenged, of course, in the Supreme Court and all — but literally, we stopped abortion in the state of Mississippi, legally, without having to— Roe vs. Wade. So we’ve done that. I was proud of it. The governor signed it into law. And of course, there you have the other side. They’re like, ‘Well, the poor pitiful women that can’t afford to go out of state are just going to start doing them at home with a coat hanger. That’s what we’ve learned over and over and over.’
“But hey, you have to have moral values. You have to start somewhere, and that’s what we’ve decided to do. This became law and the governor signed it, and I think for one time, we were first in the nation in the state of Mississippi.”
I think one of the most important things we could do is to continually find ways to make pro-choice people proud and forthright about their beliefs, to puff them up with moral superiority and FACTS and send them out into the world with the conviction that abortion isn’t shameful, not even a little, that supporting abortion is not merely the right thing to do but opposing abortion is morally obscene, and that anyone who questions these two premises is more invested in self-righteousness than they are in human lives. I think if we could drain the residual shame from the movement and create activists who aren’t simply pro-choice but who understand that being “pro-life” is a symptom of not knowing what the fuck you’re talking about and not giving a damn as long as you can think of yourself as morally superior, we could move this fight toward a decisive victory.
What Bubba Carpenter says here, that it doesn’t matter if people seeking abortions die because forcing people into unsafe abortions is a winning MORAL position, shows how completely morally-corrupt the anti-choice position actually is. Bubba Carpenter is “pro-life”, via Garland’s on-spot definition, because he doesn’t give a damn about any actual people. Carpenter sees himself as morally superior to every person who has gotten an abortion or will ever get one. It’s hard to see the humanity in others when you are looking down at them from so far up on high.
Bubba Carpenter and the “morality” that he represents are truly disgusting. And there is nothing – NOTHING – pro-life about it.
Thin
This post is written by my friend, Julie, a fabulous, fantastic, amazing woman living in central Ohio. She’s a mild mannered museum curator by day and a popular culture, fashion, music, and movies addict by night. This post was originally published at her blog “Catch Me If You Can!” and is cross-posted here with her permission.
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The Gund Gallery is going to host an exhibition titled “Thin” this fall. It is a photography and video installation by Lauren Greenfield. The project started a number of years ago when she documented the lives of women and girls at an eating disorder facility in Florida. There was an HBO documentary film of the same name created and now this exhibition travels around to various venues.
There are 54 large photographs in the exhibition. I know because I had to look at each one yesterday and complete a condition report. (For those of you non museum people a condition report is a document completed when a loaned exhibition or item comes into a museum. The condition of the piece is documented in case there are any issues which need to be reported back to the lending institution) The photographs are emotionally devastating. I was in collections storage by myself looking at picture after picture of emaciated women and girls as young as 14 who have completely destroyed their bodies in order to be “thin.”
On each condition report I would describe the photo. Below that section was the area of the form to note the condition. In the museum world most conditions are scaled using the terms – excellent, good, fair, poor. The photographs and their frames were pristine. Underneath each description, I kept writing the word “excellent.” After a while it felt like a sick commentary on the descriptions of the photos I had created above. “Emily, 15 from Tampa, FL weighting 80 pounds” Condition - “excellent.” It became harder and harder to write that word.
As a museum professional, you come into contact with artifacts and artwork that generate a reaction. It could be joy, anger, or sadness. I have experience this before but after several hours looking at those photographs my soul ached. I wanted to hug each of those women.
I, like every other American woman, thought (or think) I am not at my “ideal” body weight. I remember in high school believing I was so fat. It makes me shake my head now because I was at least 20 pounds lighter then. I never had an eating disorder but the seed that is planted in every young girl that has the potential to grow into that debilitating disorder existed in me.
I think I was especially struck by these images now because I have a daughter. I have this beautiful, perfect person who I have to help navigate all of the bullshit this world creates to tell each person they are not good enough, not skinny enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough. It is terrifying. It is overwhelming. It reiterates to me that I have to be my absolute best self around her. I have to lead by example. I have to explain articulately why at each stage of her life she is beautiful inside and out no matter what the TV or her peers say.
The first week she was alive, I had my first heart to heart with her. I told her how happy I was to have her in my life and that I wanted her to know that she was free to create her own destiny. She could love whoever she wants. She could follow any career path. She could express her gender in her own terms. She could live anywhere in the world. I was there to support her, to guide her when necessary, to remain silent as needed. More than anything I want her to grow into her own unique person, to embrace who that is and not be afraid to reveal herself completely to the world. And if anyone has a problem with that to say “fuck you” to them. That last part I know I will have no problem being an example for her.
Why the Democratic National Convention needs to STAY in North Carolina
[Originally posted at Shakesville on Wednesday, May 9]
Last night, there was sad news out of North Carolina. From Pam’s House Blend:
I’m sitting here thinking about all of the blood, sweat and tears poured into this battle to defeat Amendment One here in NC. It looks like is NC had the highest turnout for a primary here in a quarter century — 34.37 % (2,164,074 ballots cast out of 6,296,759 voters). Only 18% were expected to vote.
But the forces of bigotry won this round.
The bigotry she is referring to is an amendment to the state’s constitution which, according to Kristin Rawls, does much more damage than simply limiting marriage to a legal act between only a man and a woman:
In fact, its scope is extremely broad and could have many devastating consequences. Two of the most likely are also the most troubling. First, the Amendment could prevent employers from providing health insurance benefits to the children of unmarried parents. According to the Coalition to Protect All NC Families, that’s the children of nearly 90,000 couples, the sum total of all unmarried couples with children in the State. There is simply no religious justification for harming children.
Not only this, but the Amendment could also invalidate existing domestic violence protections for all unmarried women in the state. It would almost certainly weaken the State’s already minimal domestic violence statutes. When it comes to domestic violence, Ohio’s similar amendment to ban gay marriage is very instructive. When Ohio’s amendment became law, 27 domestic violence convictions were overturned or dismissed.
In response to this amendment passing, the liberals began making poor choices. From Think Progress: “14K SIGN PETITION URGING DEMOCRATS TO MOVE CONVENTION OUT OF NORTH CAROLINA“. The reason for this petition:
On May 8th, the people of North Carolina voted in support of Amendment One, a constitutional amendment that discriminates against LGBT people, couples & their families. In protest, the Democratic National Convention Committee should MOVE its convention (September 2012) to a state that upholds values of equality & liberty, and which treats ALL citizens equally.
Good luck. The 32 states that have put gay marriage on ballots since 1998 have all had voters vote against gay marriage (or, rather, often in favor of hetero marriage). Looking at these amazing Guardian graphics, the DNC could basically only be held somewhere in the northeast (other than Pennsylvania, Maine, and Delaware – and take Rhode Island and New Jersey off the list unless civil unions are treating “all citizens equally”) (h/t to Jon Hanna on the Guardian link). Really, other than the northeast, we only have Iowa and Washington. And maybe most liberals are cool with limiting their support to the 9 states with the right to marriage equality secured under law. I’m not.
How is this something real in the world?
Saying he had no discretion under state law, a judge sentenced a Jacksonville, Florida, woman to 20 years in prison Friday for firing a warning shot in an effort to scare off her abusive husband.
In a state where this ALSO happened?
Justice is not blind. The idea that justice is blind is one of the great myths of our nation and one that only serves to continually disproportionally and unfairly punish people for whom the system was not created.
Here is more of Marissa Alexander’s story:
Alexander said she was attempting to flee her husband, Rico Gray, on August 1, 2010, when she picked up a handgun and fired a shot into a wall.
She said her husband had read cell phone text messages that she had written to her ex-husband, got angry and tried to strangle her.
She said she escaped and ran to the garage, intending to drive away. But, she said, she forgot her keys, so she picked up her gun and went back into the house. She said her husband threatened to kill her, so she fired one shot.
“I believe when he threatened to kill me, that’s what he was absolutely going to do,” she said. “That’s what he intended to do. Had I not discharged my weapon at that point, I would not be here.”
Alexander’s attorneys tried to use the state law that allows people to use potentially deadly force anywhere they feel reasonably threatened with serious harm or death.
But a previous judge in the case rejected the request, saying Alexander’s decision to go back into the house was not consistent with someone in fear for her safety, according to the Florida Times Union newspaper.
A jury convicted Alexander in March and Judge James Daniel denied her request for a new trial in April.
Daniel handed down the sentence Friday after an emotional sentencing hearing during which Alexander’s parents, 11-year-old daughter and pastor spoke on her behalf.
Why I don’t like the phrase “The War on Women”
In a chat with Garland Grey that was published at Tiger Beatdown this week, I wrote the following about the phrase “The War on Women”:
I feel that even the idea that intersectionality dilutes our message is false and plays into conservative beliefs about how the world works. When we use the language of “war on women” because it is politically expedient in talking to conservatives about these issues at the expense of denying the existence and struggle of trans* and non-binary people, what social justice activism are we actually doing? And why are we watering down the reality and lived experience of other people in order to make conservatives feel more comfortable in this conversation? I can’t get behind the “War on Women” because that is simply too narrow a term for who is actually being affected.
This is only one of the reasons I dislike ” war on women”.
After chatting with The Opinioness on Twitter about this phrase earlier this week and how much I don’t like it, I felt like I needed to finally write down somewhere all my many thoughts about this. (All of these feelings were heightened just last weekend because of the many rallies across the US under the title “The War on Women.” I attended the one here in Austin.)
There are three main points:
- WOW is cissexist and erases the lived realities of plenty of people.
- WOW flattens all people affected by anti-choice measures into a single, equal category despite HUGE differences in how the so-called WOW affects people based on race, class, etc.
- WOW makes this seem like this is an issue that is just about the ladies.
This is ultimate result of stuff like “Save the Tatas”
THIS is ultimate result of breast cancer awareness campaigns that focus on breasts instead of people. This is exactly how campaigns that are motivated by goodness (supposedly) can be co-opted for misogynistic garbage like this. Why create the umbrella under which this bus can exist comfortably? It’s why I say repeatedly and LOUDLY: FUCK “SAVE THE TATAS” and all campaigns like them. That link (post and comments) will explain in detail why I hate this shit so much.
As my partner just said, “We definitely have to save the boobies so that we can look at them.” He says this as we both fume, holding back tears thinking of his sister whom we lost to breast cancer 3 years ago when she was 33. Fuck this shit.
[Final thought: There are specific boobs that these campaigns want to save. This bus shows it nicely. Those that belong to ladies. White ladies, specifically. Thin white ladies. These campaigns are fucked up.]
Olympic Moms! and why I kinda hope my kid is ordinary
When Mashable tweeted this video as “This Olympic Moms Video Will Make You Cry,” I – naively – thought, “YAY! MOMS THAT ARE OLYMPIANS!”
Whoops:
This is about the moms who raise Olympians. There are so many more of those than women who compete in the Olympics and are also mothers: In 2008 there were 16 mothers who competed out of the 286 women who represented the US. In 2010, 207 total women competed and 15 were mothers. There was even one pregnant Olympian (the second ever).
This video is irksome. These women give everything so their child can go on to be an Olympian. They aren’t shown in any capacity other than as mothers or in any other realm than the domestic sphere. They may have husbands or partners (based on final shots of them in crowds watching and crying over their Olympians). They make also work for wages in order to help financially support their families. I don’t know.
This is to not downplay how damn hard it would be to be the parent of an Olympian. You hear stories of years of separation, financial strains and mortgaging mortgages, broken families, etc. It is an extraordinary feat for *many* people when a single Olympian makes it to the top of the podium. I can’t begin to imagine the number of people and hours and dollars that go into that accomplishment.
