Transgender man gives birth

Someone please tell my why everyone is making such a big deal about this.

A woman undergoes a sex change, for whatever reason does not remove her uterus (can't afford to for example), wants a baby, gets pregnant with the uterus not removed, so, gives birth.

What is the big deal? We didn't create a uterus and ovaries or any of that... so would everyone stop treating this man like he is a circus freak? Why has this even become news worthy? that's what I'd like to know...

A Culture of Life

So I just finished reading Jennifer Block’s book “Pushed,” and I have to say that I loved it! The only thing about the book that is a little annoying is that it is written specifically within the context of the American Healthcare System. Block did make reference to Canadian Studies, and I’ve finished this book with a lot of direction with regards to bibliography and my future research.

What is the most disturbing to me is the fact that so many women are being forced into the operating room for unwanted C-Sections. In fact, some women in the states actually receive court orders to undergo C-Sections. The C-Section rate in the US is incredibly high, sometimes as high as 40%... why are so many women undergoing C-Sections? Block tells us that it has to do with Liability. For example, Doctor’s Malpractice Insurance will not cover Vaginal Birth after a Cesarean (VBAC) which forces women who have one C-Section to have C-Sections for all subsequent births.

Block really provides an eye-opening and through discussion of childbirth practices in the western world, however, my favorite part of the book was the last chapter entitled “Rights” which actually discussed the way in which birthing women’s needs are continually circumvented by insurance policies. This was interesting because Block actually ended up focusing an entire chapter on what I consider to be the main issue with modern maternity care: the issue of reproductive rights. Women are daily forced into surgery and procedures (think: episiotomy) that they do not consent to, but that doctors consider to be “necessary.” Women are continuously finding themselves in abusive situations, often characterizing their birth experience in the hospital as rape, or feeling like a piece of meat. This should not be the way any woman feels after her birth experience. I’ve written about this in a paper I submitted for one of my women’s studies classes this year, but I framed the problem within ethics and did not consider the issue of rights. I think that Block does an excellent job of questioning the ways in which women’s rights are being violated time and time again within a hospital birthing setting. She discusses a problem which I have been noticing lately, particularly with the discussion of Bill C-484 which would essentially give fetuses rights. Bill C-484 is called The Unborn Victims of Crime Act and would protect fetuses if a woman is killed and is pregnant at the time. The problem is however, that by giving unborn fetuses rights, we will be getting into issues of re-criminalizing abortions, and now as we broaden our spectrum a bit, we’ll see that women’s rights will be circumvented in the delivery room, disregarding women’s autonomy and doing only what is best for the baby.

Doctors always say “We want a healthy baby,” essentially trying to justify the intervention through guilt and fear. The goal should be happy healthy mothers- if we don’t take care of the mother then how is the baby going to be cared for? How can we allow major abdominal surgery to happen over and over again, sending traumatized mothers home to care for new babies with huge wounds that can take months to heal? What is going on? Women have “…the right to bodily integrity, to self-determination, to liberty, and to privacy” (Block 253) and yet we find these rights repeatedly violated and women going home traumatized.

Why are we as women allowing this to happen to us? Why are women standing for this? I certainly am not. Luckly, I am privileged enough to live in Ontario, where I have a “choice” for my birth experience. Namely, OHIP covers midwives as an option for birth, whereas in the US midwives are illegal in many states. Why a midwife would be illegal is beyond me. A midwife provides everything a woman in labour could need: comfort, advise, strength, coaching, and most importantly, allows the labouring woman’s body to guide the labour, rather than stats and charts discussing risks. The midwife has patience and compassion in a way that the hospital does not, and in the end, allows a labouring woman to have the birth experience at the end which she is so entitled to after such hard work! Every woman should get to experience that orgasm after their baby is born, where they just hold him and the love hormones are released and bonding can occur.

It is said that this release of hormones is crucial to mother-baby bonding. That it is crucial for breastfeeding, and that clamping of the umbilical cord should be delayed a few minutes once mother and baby have bonded and the rest of the blood in the umbilical cord (which is full of important nutrients) has entered the baby’s body. Not to mention that labour is so smart, that the pain is important to help women to know what angles and what positions to use to push, and when the baby is crowning, there is a special sequence of contractions which help the baby be ejected! Why would anyone want to be so meddlesome in such a perfectly designed event? This is what women’s bodies are designed for, and it is being taken away from us, snatched right out from under our noses.

We cannot stand for this, and need to make it an issue of reproductive rights. Block actually mentions her surprise that this issue has not garnered more of a response from bioethicists and reproductive rights organizations, however, as with the discussion of Bill C-484 in Toronto, the focus remains on abortion and birth control, not rights to actually reproduce the way we desire.

So, I would just like to end with some quotes from Block’s book which I thought were particularly compelling with regards to this question of rights:

“Adults seeking medical care have both the right to receive treatment ande right to refuse treatment, and they have the right to know the risks and benefits of each treatment option, including the option of no treatment at all. The legal term is informed consent.” (253)

“You can’t have a ‘culture of life’ if you don’t value the women who give that life.” (256)

“Autonomy is an unlimited, unimpeded negative right. A pregnant woman, any woman, has the right to refuse anything.” (258)

“You have the right to decide on abortion, you have a right to decide on contraception. Don’t you also have the right to decide where you have a baby, where you have your birth experience?” (263)

This last quote, to me, is the most profound. Why is it that feminists seem so hell-bent on making sure that abortion is legal and that contraception is easy to find and yet there is little to no feminist discourse with regards to the abusive treatment of women in labour? This book is definitely a call to action for me; right now I’m blogging in Southampton at the beach, with a very weak internet signal and no land line, however, when I return to Kitchener, I will be spending a significant amount of time doing some Canadian research on the topic- according to Block there is a Canadian Report on Maternal death due out this year, so I’ll have to see if it’s already been published, as well as call hospitals and ask them about their stats for particular interventions. Either way I will be blogging about Childbirth again… to me, it seems considerably more important than access to birth control or abortion… maybe it’s the stage I’m at in my life, but how can we really expect to have abortion access and birth control when women who actually want to give birth are unable to do so the way we want to? Millions of women give birth every day and leave hospitals traumatized and broken down, and still, our main focus of reproductive rights remains invested in abortion… this book is 100% a call to action, a call for revolution and time for women to make demands and demand access to alternatives, and their bodily integrity in childbirth to be respected, or rather, revered. It is a time to reevaluate what falls under the spectrum of reproductive rights, and quickly, maternity care needs to be saved!

Either way, if you’re interested in sources re: bibliography, or a more in depth conversation on this topic, let me know!

Jessica Valenti

Yesterday I took a trip into Toronto and met up with Christie to go and see Feministing's Jessica Valenti at a panel discussion hosted by the Miss G__ Project. The event took place at Camera Lounge on Queen St. in the "hipster" district of town. Very cool. I met Christie and her friend Sarah downtown and we had dinner (Dan happened to be downtown too, so he met up with us for a bit and that was awesome :)) and then headed over to Camera.

It was really cool to actually see Jessica and be in a room with her for a mature discussion of feminism. She started off by giving an introduction as to why she had started the feministing, and I really enjoyed learning the reason that the site was started. I was introduced to feministing by a friend, and have since loved it because I love to get me a taste of feminist discourse on current events. Essentially, Valenti started feministing because she wanted to reach a different demographic other than the privileged feminists who engage in high theory in universities. She has received much acclaim and criticism for her book "Full Frontal Feminism" because some feminists (including myself) think it's too colloquial. I also didn't have in mind that it would be so brash with the language, and I thought it was very basic. I honestly thought that Valenti's target audience was my demographic (ie: background in women's studies) but in reality, it was brilliantly for women who are still scared of the "f-word" or are feminists, yet in high school you're scared of ridicule, so this mainstream release is a god-send. However, Valenti explained last night that she intended that her books be modeled as guidebooks. They were written in order to introduce feminism to those who would not always identify as feminists, and serve as a handbook for them! It was purposely written in colloquial language so that it could be more conversational. Loved it.

Anyhow, the evening was quite wonderful, as first Jessica talked about her website and then her books and feminism, and then we moved on to a panel discussion which included members of the Miss G__ project Laurel Mitchell, Sarah Wolf, who has a background in Family and Sexuality studies from UW and has been education coordinator and acting executive director of Planned Parenthood Waterloo. There was also Jessica Yee, who is a 22-year old proud indigenous Chinese-Mohawk woman focusing her work on the sexual health of aboriginal youth. Jessica actually writes for Shameless Magazine which is the Canadian version of Feministing. How fabulous! I'm really happy to have a blog I can read which takes a decidedly Canadian perspective and discusses Canadian current events. However, I digress.

The panel discussion touched on interesting topics such as Bill 4-c84 which is an incredibly hard to understand two page long Bill. (I tried to find the text of the bill but I couldn't, so here is a fact sheet for the time being.) The Bill is the Unborn Victims of Crime act which would give fetuses human rights if a pregnant woman is murdered. This was quite interesting as homicide is the number one cause of death for pregnant women, second only to complications with birth. Anyhow, the problem with this bill is that it will cause many grey areas in the law, especially with regards to abortion- will this recriminalize abortion? Also, the bill seems pointless because in Canada we serve our sentences concurrently. So, if you get two convictions of life in prison, then you only spend 25 years in jail, not 50.

The panel also discussed issues of "mainstream" type feminism. For example: many feminists would get flack for addressing Jamie Lynne Spears' pregnancy or Amy Winehouse's crack addiction, but one guest at the event who presumably wrote for Shameless brought up the issue: when can you address these things? Shameless addressed the Jamie Lynne Spear's thing because they felt that it dealt with so many feminist issues and if we are going to try to recruit women for the feminist team, we need to address the pop culture. A "holier than thou, I am so above celebrity gossip" attitude definitely is not going to be the way to encourage our youth not to be scared of the f word.

All in all, it was a great night with lots of interesting and discussion about how to engage our youth. What I took from the night is that feminism becoming mainstream shouldn't cause us to devalue it. It's not only the academics who are feminists, and women who don't engage in high theory can also be feminists and participate in the mainstream culture (to a degree).

Good times had by all.

The Business of Being Born

This article reenforces my continued skepticism of Western Medical practices. It reminds me why I so passionately continue to research pregnancy and birth in North America. I actually have already watched The Business of Being Born, but I haven't had a chance to blog about it. However, since the American Medical Association is posting that women should pay no attention to Ricki Lake's home birth, expect a post about the documentary shortly. Unfortunately I'm at work right now otherwise I would post the paper I wrote about it this year for one of my women's studies classes.

I am very upset our medical systems are so corrupt that even after conclusive evidence illustrates that 95% of women with low-risk pregnancies who give birth at home do so with little to no intervention, that the hospital is still the ideal setting for birth.

The hospital is not the ideal place to have a baby. First of all, name a mammal who gives birth on their back. I cannot. Mammals all give birth on their sides, standing up, squatting, any position which will facilitate the shape of the pelvis, and make it easier for them to give birth. Yet here we are, at the hospitals, lying on our backs trying to push a baby out. How is that even supposed to work? Who decided this? Who decided that the environment you bring your baby into the world in should be the cold metal sterile world of the hospital? The hospital where you are no longer treated like an ethical subject, and rather, like an object, with pressure for unneccesary interventions to take place... I am just so disturbed that Ricki Lake's documentary is being discredited in this way, when it has been proven time and time again that a midwife home birth is safe, if not safer than a hospital birth.

I personally will not have my baby in a hospital if I have a normal birth with no complications. I would rather let my body do its thing at its own pace, and not have some asshole standing over me with a ticking clock: "you're only dilated 8cm... only 20 minutes left and then you'll have to be rushed into an emergency C-Section!" Oh yes, I would LOVE that. I would LOVE to have an emergency C-Section just because I'm not dilating fast enough... I will post my paper up here when I get home, but I just had to comment on how furious it makes me to see that women are still being deterred from home births when the results are almost always better. You are treated like an ethical subject in your own right, you can play an active decision-making role, you will not be rushed, you can do it the way you want, you can have friends and family around, you can lay in your own glorious bed... why would you want it any other way when you're about to do something so important as give birth? Giving birth is beautiful and amazing and hospitals disregard its significance in women's lives. It's heartbreaking really.

Following up on the York U Sexual Assault

I was just reviewing previous posts, and seeing that i had written about the York University Sexual Assaults, I did a "blackle" search and came up with some info:

a 45 year old man has been arrested and charged.

An article from York University

And the National Post's Coverage on these incidents.

I am a little dissapointed that since this a-hole was scheduled to appear in court on June 3rd, I wasn't able to find any information about the trial and whether or not he has actually been found guilty of his crimes and what his punishment will be...

Violence Against Women

This is unbelievable.

I really don't know what to say, however, it's horrifying to think that all those times I've told some asshole who's trying to pick me up or degrade me off I could have been *this* close to being shot or murdered. And all because I refuse to tolerate sexual harassment from some man with some sense of entitlement over women.

This is definitely a sobering event.

Wall of Silence Conference Continued- Jane Doe and more

Toronto Star May 20, 2007 (Section A7)

Police Seek Help after York U assault

Police are asking the public for help investigating an assault on a woman at York University Thursday evening. The assault occurred on the south side of Harry Arthurs Common. Anyone with information is asked to call 416-808-2222.

------------------------------

In my last post on the Wall of Silence of Conference I specifically discussed the increased number of "assaults" occuring on their campus, and that's why this little tid-bit was particularly disturbing and chilling. First of all, this little citation is literally all the publicity the incident was given, and on top of that, the euphemism assault had to be used, making the incident seem less serious than it really is. How about describing it as what it really is: sexual violation. Would that stir up too much controversy? I don't understand why we have to refer to the rape and violation of women as "assault". It does no one justice, and only serves to devalue and depoliticize what is happening to women every day. And on a university campus at that; where we are all supposed to be mature, and dignified human beings. This is a systematic problem occurring on the York Campus, (and other university campuses too) and fairly soon female enrollment is going to go down because so far nothing is happening to ensure the safety of the women.

York University and local media needs to wake up and smell the fucking coffee on this one:
This is a huge problem, and really, it should be getting more than 5 lines buried in the middle of the paper. How many rapes and assaults have their been on the York campus since September? At least three, and that is so unacceptable, and this hiding of it is despicable. What The Star needs to do is write a huge series on this type of behaviour among our men, and, just as was discussed in the conference, challenge the framework in which these rapes are occurring, which is apparently the 'permissive' environment of the university campus.

I am too pissed right now to write about Jane Doe. I could never do her justice...

Research on Pregnancy

In my continued research on the Ethics of Western Childbirth practices, I have on the way:

The Business of Being Born

Our Bodies, Ourselves: Pregnancy and Birth

along with some literature from the Government of Canada Website...

So Excited!

Wall of Silence Conference

I have just worked 21 hours in the past 30, because I had the wonderful experience of catering for the Wall of Silence Conference at Wilfrid Laurier University, which was a national symposium on sexual violence on university campuses. This conference featured keynote speakers Pamela Cross and Jane Doe. (That's right, the Jane Doe who I've posted about before).

It was unfortunate that I had to actually cater the event, however, we found ourselves in a position where we were requested to serve three meals, host a wine and cheese last night, as well as provide snacks etc for breaks and since the summer has just started we are terribly understaffed. Though I had to work, I had the great pleasure of sitting in on Pamela Cross's address and of taking an hour off from my twelve hour day today in order to attend Jane Doe's address.

I would like to take some time in this post today to recount some of what I heard from both of these women. Sexual Assault on University campuses has become a crisis to say the least, with two residence rapes occurring this past school year on York's campus, and this year at Laurier having the highest number of sexual assaults on campus (reported) this year. In particular, there was actually an assault of a young woman in the quad at the on-campus party which is held during orientation week. (An event, I was working at, and was suprised at the fact that this was not even mentioned during subsequent meetings with upper management. This event was successfully silenced)

Pamela Cross is an accomplished feminist lawyer who has dedicated her life’s work to improving women’s access to justice. Pamela has been a tireless and committed advocate for abused women and community agencies. She is well known and respected in legal reform circles, and among isolated women experiencing violence.
She is presently a consultant working with a number of women’s organizations, primarily as Director of Strategic Planning and Policy with NAWL (National Association of Women and the Law). She was recently the Director of Advocacy and Public Policy with YWCA Canada after working as the Executive Director of NAWL until it lost its primary funder – Status of Women Canada.

She is also the former Legal Director of METRAC, a community agency committed to ending violence against women and children, where she led the development of the Ontario Women’s Justice Network – a unique legal information vehicle for marginalized and isolated women who had no access to private legal advice. While there, Pamela played a crucial role in developing and disseminating a legal analysis of the perils facing women experiencing and trying to escape intimate partner violence. (Taken from the facebook event page)

I only caught the last half of Pamela cross's lecture, however, she talked about some very shocking, and also some very informative issues. In particular, she emphasized the importance of challenging the framework through which we view rape, and equality. For Cross, economic equality is crucially important in putting a stop to violence and rape. Women still only make 73 cents for every dollar that men make, and this is across the board. This is the same pay gap that existed ten years ago. That is shameful, and in the end reflects the way in which society continues to perceive women. If women made the exact same wages as men that would place them on equal footing.The structures that surround women's economic inequality are the very same that surround the structures that support rape and sexual assault. In both cases women are considered to be less valuable than men, both physically and economically. Until women make the same amount of money as men, we can never even hope for any other type of equality.



What i've inferred from this, which makes perfectly logical sense, is that money is power. In my Bodies, Gender and Consumption class, we talked extensively about "the gift" and how a gift places the giver in a position of power, making the receiver feel that they are indebbted to reciprocate. It is in the same way that women find themselves in a positiong of inequality when they do not make the same wages as men. It is the same power dynamic, because women are therefore permanently relegated to the status of "dependant," (even in cases where women make more money and are not "dependant" this wage gap still finds them in a lower position of social standing, and continues to reenforce patriarchy in capitalism- which lets face it, is enescapable at this point since it is so entrenched in the way that we function as a society.)

Cross provided one and only statistic in her address, that being:

within the year 2000-2006 101 men who worked in the military and the army were killed.
within the same time span, 500 women were murdered by men.



Cross talked about the absurdity of this statistic: She has the upmost respect for military workers and for Police officers, but the fact that 500 women die when they enter into relationships, and by comparison only 100 men have died in professions which include death as a high risk is pretty fucked up. Even with a country at war, more women are murdered by men than there are men killed at war. And yet, no one does anything about this! "I mean come on!" (her exact words)

In fact, she also told the story of how a police horse and a brutally murdered woman were both having their funerals on the same day in Toronto. The mayor and other public figures attended the funeral of the horse, but not one public figure was at the funeral of the murdered woman. This says a lot about the way in which our government and public officials view the epidemic of violence against women.

80% of rape is not stranger rape. In fact, in the majority of rape cases, the perpetrator is known to the victim. This is the crucial fact that one must look at when addressing the problem of assault and violence on university campuses. Particularly with the cases of assault that took place at York, the administration's response by putting more security in dorms proves to be unsuccessful. This reaction does not challenge the framework but rather works within it accepting the existence of violence, rather than taking steps which say "men: stop raping women."

Many campuses have began to add extra saftey features to campuses with respect to women's campus safety such as walk-home services, extra lighting and emergency summon buttons. Cross was careful not to devalue these things because psychologically, even though women know that 80% of rape is acquiantance rape, the feeling of being unsafe does not dissappear when you're walking to your car late after a night class or after work. These additions to the department of safety are indeed valuable, but it is the framework that needs to be challenged, and it was that framework that was the focus of the conference.

More on Jane and the conference later, this has been a long post

Jokes about rape are never funny. Some people (surprisingly) don't know that.

The other day I was at a friend's house, and somehow a conversation about Jane Doe and the balcony rapist began.

I got very excited, because Jane Doe is an amazing woman. She set a legal precedent by suing the Metropolitan Toronto Police and winning!!

However, it was quite upsetting to hear some of the opinions of my friends on this matter. The females in the room definitely agreed with my conception of what Jane did, and in particular, why it was so wrong of the police to not have warned the women in the neighborhood that there was a rapist in the area. Oh, yeah, and that she is fucking awesome.

but, the opinions of my male friends were quite different: one friend of mine agreed with the belief that women would be "hysterical" if they knew that there was a rapist on the loose. I couldn't believe this. I love my friends, and have the confidence that they will be able to identify, without any question, that this was so wrong. I don't think that the police needed to publish something in order to warn women, they could have done something as simple as going around individually to each apartment to warn women without causing any media frenzy that would likely scare off the rapist. However, this admittedly would take more time and more effort, and apparently, the safety of women was not valued by the police. How he could just endorse such a stereotype and huge generalization blew me away. I genuinely expected better of him...

In fact, one of my (male) friends said that "another woman had to get raped before they would catch him anyway. So why shouldn't it have been her?"

This is in fact, one of the comments that really upset me. It didn't have to be anyone. The rapist was caught before another woman was raped because Jane took things into her own hands and warned the neighborhood by postering it. And, what a surprise, the rapists parole officer identified him and he was arrested. But no, my friends did not think that this was an argument against the police's case that they had acted wrongly and immorally to all women in Toronto.

Not at all.

It was really quite upsetting to hear this coming out of educated people's mouths. Evenings like this remind me of the steretypes and ignorance that women, and in particular feminists, face every day. It is a cold and brutal reminder of the world's perception of women, rape, and sexism.

That the police were right in not warning the women. In not taking the time to ensure they could take the extra steps to protect themselves.

Anyhow, this gets even sadder.

As me and my sister and partner are about to leave for the evening, another of my friends says "Ok, now don't forget to check and lock your balcony." Very funny.

He says this, not considering that he doesn't know the history of the four women sitting in the room. He doesn't know if any of us have been victims of sexual violence. He doesn't know if any of us go to sleep every night fearing that one day someone will break into our house and it will be the end. He doesn't know though, he is the young and stupid one. So my partner says to me as we walk home... but I don't think that's an excuse. I should use it as a teaching moment but fear being pretentious. Consider it, but then consider that it's not even worth my breath on someone who won't even listen to what I'm saying or take it seriously.

It is mostly a joke that should never be made by anyone. Never make a joke about rape. It is never funny. Especially when 2 of the 4 women had experienced sexual violence... and that's only what I know!

It has been a couple days now that I've been thinking about this event. Rather than being mad, which I would really like to be, it has instead, made me very sad. It has made me very sad that these types of attitudes about women and rape still exist. Especially when sexual violence is so prevalent in our society. Sad and Lethargic... I need some sort of inspiration.

I fear that I am becoming tired, so tired. Why does everything need to be a fight? I am just growing so tired of fighting and am finding myself thinking how I just want to settle down, get a job, live my life, be happy, and most importantly, not fight... but somehow I don't think I have it in me... I might take a break from the fight, but I don't anticipate I could ever abandon it, give it up. But I am just so tired... I have to fight like this even with my friends...

I just want to tune out all the billboards and build myself a mental shield.

Here is an excerpt from Klein's book No Logo that actually gave me chills (all emphasis mine)

"But there were those in the industry who understood that advertising wasn't just scientific; it was also spiritual. Brands could conjure a feeling- think of Aunt Jemima's comforting presence- but not only that, entire corporations could themselves embody a meaning of their own. In the early twenties, legendary adman Bruce Barton turned General Motors into a metaphor for the American Family, "something personal, warm and human" which GE was not so much the name of the faceless General Electric Company as, in Barton's words, "the initials of a friend." In 1923 Barton said that the role of advertising was to help corporations find their soul." (Klein, 6-7)


Actually makes you want to gag a little huh?
It's sickening to actually read concrete evidence confirming my gut feeling about advertising and our consumerist culture.

It's not that I want to escape the consumerist culture, I accept that we live in a capitalist society but I really need to find a way to resist this suffocating enclosure I am feeling.

Ever since I started taking my fourth year women's studies seminar "Bodies, Gender and Consumption" I have really started to pay more attention to my consumption habits and those around me, especially with respect to our friendly neighborhood "big-box" retailers (ahem, Wal-Mart) whose manufacturing practices are rife with oppression.

I am finding myself consumed (no pun intended) with trying to make sure that I am making the most responsibly consumer choice available to me at any given time. At the same time I am finding it impossible to escape corporate "brand" faith and gendered ideas of what I as a female should like and be like. I've really got this school of thought right now because I'm adding fuel to the fire by reading No Logo by Naomi Klein. Already, in the first chapter I am feeling chills at the way that companies have invaded our lives in every aspect through their strategy of "branding," where the company, rather than marketing its stuff markets its brand image, doing extensive market research on what their brand represents to the culture, and essentially trying to ensure that it represents the values of the target demographic rather than the needs in terms of the 'stuff' we need.

I feel that even since I was 12 or so a lot has changed, or perhaps I've simply become more aware of my surroundings. No matter. The fact still remains that I feel suffocated by corporations, and quite frankly I am tired of it. Brands have even invaded my home life. I am sitting here blogging on a Toshiba computer, using a Microsoft Window's Processor and using i-tunes to play my music, with a Motorola cell phone beside me in case my partner calls me since I'm expecting him over shortly. Already, four brands and I'm only in my living room (and if I looked around I'm certain I could find more)- If I went into my bedroom or my kitchen then i could list brands for a very long time because they are literally everywhere around me, evoking certain feelings/associations of the brand with particular values. I try my best to ignore the 'brands' but when they involved in everything you do it's hard not to find yourself in the trap of displaced brand faith. (More on this later)

Here is the dilemma I find myself in. I want to buy ethically produced products and locally grown produce which requires me to find a co-op or something along those lines, and also requires that I do research into the Brands I am intending on purchasing. I take four different brands of coffee and research their production standards, where their coffee comes from, and then I make a decision about which brand best represents your values. I frequently try not to fall into the trap after brand faith, but in an effort to make the most responsible consumer choices I have found myself committing to other brands. The ones who's advertising/my third party research deemed acceptable. The bottom line is still coming down to the brand because we have such an abundance of sources for all the crap we as North Americans consume.

I want to reduce waste and I am a big coffee drinker, so I buy a travel mug from Starbucks- Branding again, and also an indicator of brand faith, which i do have because if all their coffee is not Fair Trade Certified, it is Fairly Traded and so far it's the best option I can consistently rely on.

I want to buy beauty products that are natural, not bad for your skin as many of the cosmetics on the market are, so after research you commit to The Body Shop.

Now, let's stop and think about the images that the Body Shop evokes. When I think of the Body Shop, I don't necessarily think of a product, in fact, I have never had a product come to mind, but an image. Think about it? What does the Body Shop represent to you? Ethics? Natural Sources? Natural Beauty? The Body Shop has branded itself as the ethical source for cosmetics, and they have never compromised on price, because they have always had faith in their brand and that it would bring them the sales. And they were right. As were so many corporations.

No matter how i try to fight huge corporations, I find myself in a double bind because I still inevitably find myself endorsing another brand. I am pissed off right now because I am always branded. Avon. The Body Shop. Lush. Yves Rocher. Kiss My Face. Starbucks. Kleen Kanteen. Vogue. The Big Carrot. (Luckily when it comes to close I have been able to escape the brand trap)

It is truly discouraging.

The whole notion of brands and capitalism today is chilling. What happened to going to the store and knowing the clerk, and they would help you out with a personal and community feeling? (Maybe knowing the clerk is a little of a stretch, but i mean, there is no sense of community and we purchase "brands" rather than products ie: is there really any difference between the branded bag of flour or the no name brand of flour; which ironically is also branded?) Companies came to realize that marketing values sold better than stuff, and so, rather than marketing the things we needed we would have the brand and their values marketed to us. This happens in such a manner that I cannot go to the gym at my school without 12 foot high advertisements for Alesse. I also can't use the washroom in the food court without sitting and staring at some stupid piece of crap ad on the washroom door. "This advertising space generously donated by this establishment and Zoom media." Wow. Thank you. You were so generous to ensure that I can't even pee and have that 30 seconds free of some sort of corporate advertising ploy.

So, as I was saying at the beginning of this post, I am desperate for a way to combat this branding! I want to resist but I consistently keep falling back into the trap of Brand faith. It is getting to a point that everything is sponsored, everything has a logo, and I seriously find myself feeling clausterphobic by the invasion of my personal space. So, my stategy for reistance so far is to avoid certain brands like Walmart. I buy local produce. I always try to buy the no-name alternative or to buy a completely different product that does the same thing (ie: no name tonic water and baking soda to clean out stains rather than some heavily branded and chemically laden stain removing agent.) But short of that I am really unsure of what other type of resistance I could really afford just in my daily life (after school is over this term I would definitely commit to something bigger)...any ideas?