FYI

It was brought to my attention that I'm (thankfully) not the only person on the planet bothered by the "Our wives and mothers" rhetoric and that there's a White House petition about it.  (Which obviously isn't going to get anywhere near enough signatures to get a response since there're under 5,000 now and the deadline is March 15.)  Since then I've even seen the petition linked to on two blogs I read, so that's somewhat promising, though I'm still annoyed none of them noticed the problem on their own.

Our wives and mothers

My Google Reader is full of feminists.  Actual feminist blogs, style blogs written by feminists, parenting blogs written by feminists, a couple news sources where one is more or less guaranteed to see a feminist coverage of any large event among the six or seven articles they publish concerning it, etc.  And yet somehow I am entirely alone in seeing something a little questionable in the president's feminism as expressed in his inaugural address.  This is kind of a first for me, finding myself with more extreme thoughts than literally anyone else I've encountered, even among more or less professional feminists on the internet, people who generally spend a lot of time dissecting language and nuance and implication.  So maybe I am "just looking for things to be offended about," * or maybe I'm just that special.  At any rate, I wanted to explore my thoughts a little bit.

*  I'm not.  Though obviously I do look at basically everything with, first and foremost, a critical attitude, so if there's an aspect in which something is unfair or questionable, I'm going to notice it, and of course I'm going to point it out.  That's how I work, yo.

The section in question, which was Facebooked and blogged by several women I know and loads of random internet women, goes like this:

For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers, and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts. Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law—for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.

So, first of all:  yes, obviously, to the sentiment.  Women should earn fair wages on par with men and gay people's marriages matter as much as straight people's.  No quibble there.

However, I find this part to be, ironically, a sudden (linguistic, rhetorical) departure from his previous language of inclusivity.  It's a subtle shift, but I find it surprisingly alienating.  If Obama is suddenly talking about "our" wives and mothers and daughters and "our" gay brothers and sisters, the "we" he is speaking to doesn't seem to actually include those people who are the wives/mothers/daughters, brothers/sisters.  He suddenly seems to be speaking to those in charge, those with the power, those who are 'neutral,' who actually (functionally, historically, are perceived to) make up the "we" of the citizenry of America.  And that implication is where I suddenly have a problem.  For these sentences he shifts into the usual language of privilege and exclusivity that I generally see all around but that is the result of attitudes that he is explicitly trying to end.  Sure, let's give rights to those people.  "We" in our benevolence, can bestow that upon them.  It's perpetuating the attitude he's trying to solve.

I'm really surprised that nobody else has had this reaction, because it stuck out like a sore thumb to me.  Reading down the transcript, you get we, we, we, together, together, together, "we have always understood," "this generation of Americans," "for we, the people, understand...," "we understand...," "we, the people, still believe...," "any one of us," "the commitments we make to each other," "we, the people," "we, the people," "we."  All togetherness and unity and melded identity, and then, wait a second, "our wives, our mothers, and daughters."  Except he's talking about me.  In the third person.  And if I'm not part of the "we" here, I'm left to wonder if I've been part of the "we" all along or if this whole speech is addressed to people who aren't  me.

And it really is rather abrupt and rather unique.  He didn't say "our friends who are parents of a disabled child," he just said, "parents of a disabled child," which I at least take as the implied "those of us who," or "if you end up being."  He didn't say "when our old spent their twilight years in poverty," he said, "when twilight years were spent in poverty."  He does say "our brave men and women in battle," but I feel like that's different and rings more of "those of us who..." than "our sons and daughters" (which he could have, and often has, said).  It's all about smoothing over differences and kind of looking past individuality, about identifying as part of an amorphous blob of citizenry.  (Which I don't mean to sound negative; we could use more of that.)  We, we, we, together, my fellow Americans, you and I as citizens...  Why not continue with "Our journey is not complete until we all, regardless of gender, can earn a living equal to our efforts" (or even "until we all can earn...," though I assume he wants to specifically point out gender, and I dig that) or "until our income is not dependent on our gender" or "until those of us who are women can earn a living in accordance with our effort"?  Why not "until we view all marriage as equal" or "until we all can enjoy the legal and social sanction of our declared love" or "those of us who are gay enjoy equality under the law" or "all our marriages are equal, as our love is"?

I actually have less of a problem with the gay part, I guess because "our brothers and sisters" still more invokes "each other" than "our wives and mothers and daughters" does.  (At least I hope it's not just that I am a woman and not gay.  That would be disappointingly normal of me.)  So while I still don't like the alienating "our," it's more an "our" of "our friends" than "our children."  It's a mutual relationship being implied.  And "brothers and sisters" is obviously meant yet a step more metaphorically than "wives and mothers."  Plus I feel like the follow-up sentence furthers the thought and focuses on the identity and equality more:  "for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well."  Back to "we."  And not a "we are equal with them," but a "we [all of us] are equal [with each other]."

Secondarily, I have a problem with people being defined in relation to others.  Part of this is connected, but part of it is distinct.  I've never liked politicians talking about "our children and grandchildren" when what they mean is either young Americans or future generations of Americans, partially because (as above) it alienates any minors who happen to be listening and paying attention (or, well, not even minors—I'm going to be alive when the environment self-destructs, and I'm going to be around when Social Security runs out...), but partially because  it unnecessarily links people to us, gives us the primacy and the importance.  If doing something about the environment is important because of its effects on future people, it's important regardless of how those people may be connected to us.  You shouldn't have to have a personal connection to someone to care.  And I know it's metaphorical and is an accepted rhetorical device, and I know that most people really do care more about things when they have a personal relationship with someone it affects (and that's fine, though I would prefer it to be more in a drawing-one's-attention way and less in a hey-that's-my-grandson-you're-talking-about way), but I don't really think that sort of absurdity should be encouraged.

It's offensive to other people's full autonomy as individuals and human beings to couch their existence in relation to ours.  "Our children"?  Blech.  "Our wives and mothers"?  Even blech-er.  This is, obviously, generally much more often done with women ("our children" and "our sons (and daughters) off to war" being the only common exceptions).  Sorry, I am a person.  My rights and my earning power, much less this country's willingness to stand for my equality and full citizenship, should have absolutely nothing to do with my being anyone's wife or mother or daughter.  I'm neither a wife nor a mother, and while obviously all women are technically someone's daughter...really? That's not part of my identity.  That's not who I am, it's just a thing one can say about me.  Like ten or so things down the list.  And you know?  That kind of makes it more important that I make an appropriate amount of money.

(And yeah, I just did kind of the same thing rhetorically, switching to talking about "me" instead of "women."  Fair enough, what I deserve or want doesn't matter either; relating to myself instead of abstractly is exactly the problem.  But the difference is I'm not trying to smash the entire country into one happy huggy together-identifying mass though the power of my words.  Also, this is a personal blog and I am one person, and my job in the world is to be that one person and not a representative of anything else.  So yeah, lots of first-person singular here.  Also, of course, the fact that apparently nobody else out there has quite the same take on this as I do, so of course I'm only speaking of myself.)

Obsessed with Health Care Before It was Cool

I feel like if it were referred to as "health insurance reform" rather than "health care reform," a lot of our problems would go away. "Health care reform" sounds like it could lead to (heaven forbid!) the British National Health Service and all sorts of strange, foreign-sounding, and potentially very unpleasant things. It seems like everything is on the table. "Health insurance reform," on the other hand, sounds like we're reforming a sector of our economy that most people admit the bureaucratic evilness of and cherish a hatred for that is second only to the too-overcompensated CEOs of bailed-out banks.

Seriously, does anyone like health insurance companies? They're just unpleasant to deal with. It's like dealing with your computer manufacturer or your cable provider except they're sneakier, they're more bureaucratic, and (most importantly) health is much more important than your failing laptop battery or the stealthy post–special introductory offer increase in your cable bill. I remember Mom spending hours on the phone trying to force our insurance company (Aetna is evil incarnate, by the way) to cover what it was supposed to, which in retrospect blows my mind, since at that point, we were all perfectly healthy. What were they trying to refuse to pay? A annual physical? A Pap smear? It's not like we were costing them a fortune in radiation treatments or dialysis or anything. We didn't even have broken bones or anything—nothing other than routine care.

I feel like most of the people who are yelling don't even know what they're yelling about. To hear them, you'd think Obama was going to go on a killing spree to take out Trig Palin, Ted Kennedy, and Stephen Hawking after converting our health care system into a socialized, bureaucratic system of meting out health care to those young and healthy citizens who were most likely to contribute to the economy (but who still might have to wait months for any treatments). Obama doesn't want any of that. I won't speak for anyone else, especially as I haven't read any of the proposed bills (hey, don't judge me; nobody else has either), but as far as Obama goes, it's pretty mainstream and reasonalble. How can you really disagree with this?

Obama's stated eight principles for successful and meaningful health care reform:

Protect Families’ Financial Health. The plan must reduce the growing premiums and other costs American citizens and businesses pay for health care. People must be protected from bankruptcy due to catastrophic illness.

Make Health Coverage Affordable. The plan must reduce high administrative costs, unnecessary tests and services, waste, and other inefficiencies that consume money with no added health benefits.

Aim for Universality. The plan must put the United States on a clear path to cover all Americans.

Provide Portability of Coverage. People should not be locked into their job just to secure health coverage, and no American should be denied coverage because of preexisting conditions.

Guarantee Choice. The plan should provide Americans a choice of health plans and physicians. They should have the option of keeping their employer-based health plan.

Invest in Prevention and Wellness. The plan must invest in public health measures proven to reduce cost drivers in our system—such as obesity, sedentary lifestyles, and smoking — as well as guarantee access to proven preventive treatments.

Improve Patient Safety and Quality Care. The plan must ensure the implementation of proven patient safety measures and provide incentives for changes in the delivery system to reduce unnecessary variability in patient care. It must support the widespread use of health information technology and the development of data on the effectiveness of medical interventions to improve the quality of care delivered.

Maintain Long-Term Fiscal Sustainability. The plan must pay for itself by reducing the level of cost growth, improving productivity, and dedicating additional sources of revenue.

What is so scary about this? Most of it seems, actually, scary only insofar as it makes you realize, Oh, wait, why is it this way in the first place? I mean, obviously everyone, including Republicans, is a fan of number eight, fiscal sustainability. And what about reducing "inefficiencies that consume money with no added health benefits" (number two)? Who isn't for cutting costs in areas that don't lead to cuts in outcome? Preventative care (number six)? Sounds good. (That saying "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"? Totally applicable. Helping people not get fat is cheaper than paying for their insulin and then foot amputations and eye surgeries and whatever as their diabetes progresses. Plus, you know, then their lives don't suck.)

But the big one for me is number four: portability of coverage. The absolute stupidest part of our health care system in my mind is that it is currently almost entirely linked to one's employer. I assume this will erode, regardless of what happens with this current attempt at reform, as Gen Y ages, since nobody is doing the work-your-whole-life-at-General-Motors kind of thing anymore. We're all changing jobs every year or two or four. (Seriously, who do you know who's working for the same company they plan to be with in five years? I may never get to that point.) If we're all going to be changing jobs every couple of years, especially if there are going to be any gaps between one job and another, the current system simply sucks. Yeah, there's COBRA to cover the gaps, but it's prohibitively expensive. And what about families? Within a period of four years or so (late high school and early college), I changed health insurance plans a ridiculous number of times: from Dad's to the COBRA Dad got after losing his job at the Federal Reserve to Mom's when she started working for the school system to Dad's when he got his new job to Mom's with Grady when Dad got called back to active duty...or something. Dental also changed, but not always in tandem with medical, so I lived in a permanent state of confusion. This is bad because even if people are on top of things and do arrange to have seamless medical coverage, there's only a certain period of time they can actually be covered. When you switch, it takes like a month to get your new card and all your information, and then you have to find a new doctor because your old one isn't covered with this plan, and then you have to wait a month or more for your appointment because new patients always seem to get screwed... So even if you've technically been covered for six months, only half of that time is time that you could actually be seeing a doctor, and that's only if you're on top of things (not like me) in making appointments before you switch insurance again.

And then there's the rest of number four: "No American should be denied coverage because of preexisting conditions." I can understand why health insurance companies developed this rule. Obviously it's not fair for someone to smoke for forty years and never have health insurance, but then when they find out they have lung cancer, the treatment of which is going to be quite expensive, to take out a health insurance policy so they only have to pay the few hundred dollars' of deductible plus a few $20 copays. (Of course, if we require everyone be covered, this can't happen...)

What's even less fair, though, is that people can be booted out of their health insurance when they turn out to have, say, breast cancer, because they didn't report it when they applied for insurance...if they didn't know it themselves at the time. Or that people who develop one of these dreaded conditions must then either stay at that job or find another with similar coverage forever, else they be left unable to purchase insurance on the private market because of this now-preexisting condition.

My mom, for example, would now be unable to purchase insurance on her own because she had a melanoma a few years back. It was entirely isolated, entirely removed, and has nothing to do with anything else that may happen in the future. It was stage zero, entirely contained, and it's been years since then, demonstrating that even if these facts were somehow mistaken, it hasn't spread. Regardless, Mom is now a cancer patient and thus anathema to all insurance providers. I mean, good thing it's something that was simple and self-contained and doesn't affect her ability to work (unlike the chronic diseases that make up most preexisting conditions), so she doesn't really have to worry that much; as long as she has a job, she'll be OK as far as health insurance goes. But for people whose illnesses preclude remaining at work? Sucks to be them.

The worst? That insurers can simply drop people from their plan if their health care becomes too expensive, regardless of whether or not it was a preexisting condition. I didn't even know this was possible until recently (thank you, plethora of indignant health care–related articles), and I am appalled. That's cheating! The whole reason people buy insurance is because they're afraid they'll develop a devastating disease that will bankrupt them. It's not fair to quit covering them when they do after having accepted their premiums for however long. If AIDS is too expensive for you to want to have to worry about, just state straight out that you don't cover AIDS, so then if anyone's worried about it, they can just go to another insurer rather than paying you for years until it becomes an issue and you announce you don't want to deal with it.

Seriously, I don't understand why this is so hard. People shouldn't be bankrupted because they develop a chronic disease. We should help people avoid avoidable chronic diseases. We shouldn't spend money to do stuff that doesn't work or spend money when it's irrelevant (most back MRIs—back surgery is way more of a pain than it's worth in most conditions, so all an MRI does is tell you, "Yep, your back is messed up"...which you knew anyway), spend more money for stuff that doesn't work any better (the new name-brand cholesterol drugs that aren't any more effective than the decades-old ones have been in the news lately), and we should do the cheap things we know do work (like washing hands and following other hygeinic procedures to reduce/eliminate hospital-acquired infections like MRSA). We should all have insurance so taxpayers don't get stuck with the uninsured poor's emergency room visits for what should be primary care issues (or, for that matter, the uninsured poor's bona fide emergencies). Insurance companies should do the duties they ostensibly exist to perform without being evil in order to discourage people and increase their profit margins.

Insurance as it is now sucks. Health care, if not a right (people keep arguing that; I'm not taking a side in this post at least), is certainly one of the more important creature comforts and something any reasonable and humane person or society wouldn't want to be caught denying anyone else. So let's suck it up and be mature grown-ups about this already.