Excavating, Mining, and Whining: 4000 Years for Choice

I have been semi-attending the Office of Inclusion and Intercultural Relations "Lunch on Us" series for the past couple of years and what I have generally found is that they are current MFA or PhD candidates giving us a proposal of a theory they have. I generally do not learn much and then end up feeling like I am stealing food from the University. I steer clear of these lunches.

But "4000 Years for Choice" was a lunch and lecture made in heaven. I was so impressed.

The lecture took place in the Women's Resource Center (which is unfortunately hidden by Coco Mero diminishing visibility and access) and when I entered the center the first thing I noticed was they were serving Indian food.

Destiny.

I had walked past Bombay Indian Grill on the way and muttered to myself, "Maybe I should skip this lecture and get Indian food." But I convinced myself to attend, BAM! Life kicked in and rewarded me with naan and eggplant curry.

So anyway.... The lecture was being led by Heather Ault, a local designer who got her MFA in New Media here at U of I. That was pleasant surprise #1. She had also done some classes (maybe got her BFA? it was unclear) at Humboldt State... Luke Batten, lololol. Pleasant surprise #2. Lastly, she wasn't awful and presented sleek, sexy materials that promoted positivity and a re-approaching of the activism movement. And that was all I learned within the first ten minutes.

She talked about how she focused on four segments of pro-choice activism to re-imagine the way people protest for pro-choice organizations. History, Images, Language, and Spaces. I will try to briefly sum that up:

History - can date back at least 4000 years to Ancient Egypt, books in the 30s, Roe v. Wade in 1973, and most people surveyed today think that contraceptives were created within the last 40 years
Images - pro-life and pro-choice campaign photos, historical ads for syringes/sponges/condoms, cartoons, focused on fallopian tubes rather than the fetus image
Language - National Abortion Rights Action League vs 40 Days for Life, looked at emails sent by them, language they used, Battle vs. Story, mobilization vs. persuasion, saw that pro-life emails were more positive
Spaces - transformed posters into signs, professional-looking signs (people thought they were pro-life because of how professional they looked)

Then I had to go to make it to class and missed the last ten minutes.

Ault did not look at the pro-choice movement from the tradition lens of "WE ARE OPPRESSED! WE HAVE NO RIGHTS! WE ARE BEING MARGINALIZED!" but instead from a positive "WE ARE PROUD! WE ARE STRONG! WE ARE GOOD PEOPLE!" This positive we-succeed instead of we-need attitude caught my attention and from researching the "4000 Years for Choice" project other people have noticed too. I want to follow in Ault's footsteps and use my work in a way that is positive about what I am fighting for and not victimizing myself... because honestly people get bored with that and end up resenting the person crying about how their woes are worse than everyone else's.