Comments on: Save First Int’l Feminist Org for Moms!

By: Janet E Smith

Janet E Smith — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 16:32:05 +0000

Andrea O’Reilly, ARM, and the Demeter Press together revolutionized the visibility of women/mother academics, especially to each other. I encourage everyone who reads this to take that next step and write to York U with your own personal/professional reasons for keeping ARM.
When I read ARM’s writings, and the comments here, I’m aware of problems yet to be addressed, problems yet to be solved, of research methods that need attention in relation to ARM, and of the many many women who need the support and professional researched back-up that ARM has provided. I’m also made aware of why some departments and institutes so easily are renewed every year. It may have to do with “What have you done for me lately?”. That is, how much money and other funding is generated by the business world from the research and the institutes/research-centres? Women may need to show more clearly or more assertively, how women’s academic work does result at least indirectly, in the business world, develop women as entrepreneurs, more educated and valuable employees, and mothers who help the business world to relate to families in a healthy, non-harmful way especially in the lives of children.

By: Serena P

Serena P — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 06:47:41 +0000

I am a member of ARM, and a regular at their conferences. It’s a lifeline–keeping a voice as a mother and a scholar is difficult. Yet so much is silenced when mothers are marginalized in academics. ARM is so important, and Andrea O’Reilly is an inspriration.

By: Virginia Mariposa

Virginia Mariposa — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 05:52:28 +0000

My timely abortions allowed me to graduate with an M.A. in Education from UC Santa Barbara, write two novels (NEVER MARRY IN MOROCCO and THE BUSHY TWINS GO TO WAR AND FIND RUMI (the Persian poet) as well as produce my first feature length film, which I’m still in the throes of writing/rehearsing my cast and finding representation, but I feel much happier than someone dependent on their family for their well-being. Different strokes for different folks.

I also had a good friend who hemorrhaged from the abortion her mother arranged for her in 1964 in La Jolla, California (pre Roe v. Wade), ended up in the ICU, recovered and obtained her PhD in Psychology at Northwestern. She also has had two children subsequently. I’m tired of men in the name of religion, screamishness or arrogance trying to take control of women’s bodies!!

By: Deborah Needleman Armintor

Deborah Needleman Armintor — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 04:19:52 +0000

This devastating blow to such an important and prolific international institution of women’s studies is indicative not only of these difficult economic times but also of the devaluation of women and so-called “women’s issues” in the academy. The acronym now seems cruelly apt, for in losing this invaluable resource for academic and activist women worldwide we have indeed lost an ARM, an ARM that has been torn from us in an act of institutional “violence” against women.

Deborah Needleman Armintor
Assistant Professor of English
University of North Texas