"Nice" Girls by Emelda O. Chicago, Illinois
As girls we're taught to be nice, above all other things. We're taught to not play sports, because nice girls have clean faces and pretty clothes, even though playing sports keeps us healthy and strong. We're taught nice girls don't fight, we don't even fight back, even though most women will be the victim of a violent relationship, sexual assault or harassment. We're taught to be so nice that, as of late, breastfeeding your infant in public has somehow become a controversy, as if feeding your child was an awful thing to do. The Religious Right tries to tell us we should be so nice as to give up our bodies for 9 months and our lives, not to mention our financial stability, for at least 18 years because our birth control failed, our partners threatened us, all sorts of ways a "nice" girl can find herself pregnant.
I grew up catholic. A nice, pro life catholic girl because I thought that is what you do, as a catholic. As the biracial daughter of an unwed, white teenage mother whose family and friends were caught up in gangs, drugs, and poverty, I thought I was "saved" from being aborted. I figured that was the most logical thing a "pro-abort"* would recommend in that situation. It wasn't until, one day, when I saw my mother had a "We Won't Go Back" button in her car that I begun to think maybe it wasn't such a given. My mother, not a "nice" girl by most people's definitions, did what a "nice" girl was suppose to do in her situation and choose to birth me. Not because she had to, but because she wanted to.
Language is a powerful tool. Both sides of the abortion debate use charged words: justice, murder, family values, ability, control, genocide, choice, sacrifice. Language can keep us oppressed, our voices suppressed. Or it can free us, help us sing and communicate. Often, language is thought of as set in stone, unmoving, unfeeling. But it is really a living thing, taking people's perceptions and histories and learning new phrases and descriptions to help us use it better. I propose we stop thinking that "nice" is this one, un-attainable, alienating for most of the population and somewhat boring concept. Nice, to me, includes caring, giving people who may sacrifice themselves a little bit for others, but not without putting thought into it, and it is by no means mandatory. Being "nice", I have come to realize, has very little to do with how tidy, polite, or proper you are perceived. It has to do with your actions and reactions to others and how you not only stand up for yourself, but others.
So I choose to be the nice girl that stands up for reproductive rights. I'm that nice girl on the corner, protesting the anti-choice rally and outside buildings demanding justice for women, their children and the world. I'm that nice girl that wears a safety pin on my shirt, explaining to people on the street that it signifies the woman that dies every six minutes from an illegal abortion. I'm the nice girl loudly calling for voluntary and subsidized childcare, birth control, abortion, pre-natal/child health services and sterilizations. I'm the nice girl that will support you in all your decisions that stands up for the women who have no choice, the nice girls who stands with all women's reproductive choices, be it birth control, abortion, adoption, motherhood - and beyond - and support them in taking charge of their lives.
*Pro Abort: a term anti-choice/pro life activists like to call us reproductive freedom fighters.