Hello friends,

When the COVID-19 crisis began, I was forced to move rather quickly into a studio set up in the garage of my family home to isolate myself, as I have multiple high risk factors. All of my buttons, zines, and supplies were left behind in my old room (in a shared house) and packed up by others. I have also almost completely avoided going out of house at all (less than once a month) until last month, when the swimming pool I go to opened in limited capacity. So as a result, I have not been able to fill any orders you’ve placed since March.

That is about to change. Because I don’t want to keep you waiting any longer, especially since the crisis is likely to continue for a while longer, I ordered more supplies and decided to begin making and shipping the stuff again. So:

1. If you have ordered my buttons and zines and have not received them, I’m sorry for the delay. I am planning to ship them in the next week or two, so please confirm your shipping address (include the order number if you have it) to make sure that the address still works.

2. If you were thinking about placing an order but was discouraged because of the message on the site stating that I’m not going to able to fill them anytime soon, *now* is the time to order. After this batch, I will likely not be able to do another batch of shipments until 2021 because I’m not ready to go out regularly yet.

If you have any questions about your order or anything else, please feel free to email me.

Thank you for your understanding,

Emi

[Updated on 11/18/2020] All orders placed before November 10th, 2020 have been shipped. I likely won’t be making another shipment for the rest of the year. Please contact me if you have any questions. Thank you!

After years of contemplating and doubting myself I’ve finally set up a Patreon page where readers can pledge monthly contributions to support my work. If you find my work (most of which you can find or read about on this website for free) worthwhile please consider becoming an inaugural supporter. Also: zine and button purchases and college invitations also helps!

Below is the first post I made on the Patreon page as I set it up:

people who know me know that i have very low self-esteem and i have come to feel ok about it rather than thinking of it as a deficiency, but it still keeps me from promoting myself or demanding for what (some people tell me) i deserve, which means i am constantly struggling financially.

on the other hand i’ve heard from many people who use my work (zines, articles, ideas/frameworks, etc.) in their work in academia or nonprofit world or for their own survival and have asked for a way to contribute back to me. so after resisting it for several years, i’ve finally decided to set up a patreon site.

will this work? i don’t know. but if i can supplement limited income from my 10hr/wk job (coordinating the Coalition for Rights & Safety for People in the Sex Trade) with anything at all, it would stabilize my life so much and i will be able to spend more time writing and doing my activism.

anyway, i really can’t bring myself to engage in any more self-promotion or self-engrossment, so i’ll just post a cute picture of my baby Adrie (play fighting with my baby seal stuffie Stickyrice).

also – if you don’t have resources yourself but want to help me, please try to get your local college or university to bring me there to speak! see my website for list of my previous presentations.

chao!

Please visit my Patreon page to support my work and learn about my zine club (rewards)!

Friends! Have you bought/worn my buttons? Do you have funny, heartwarming, infuriating, etc. stories about them? Any good conversations or hookups my buttons facilitated? I want to make a zine of button stories. All contributors who are accepted will receive a free copy of the upcoming zine and maybe some special buttons.

Here’s my own example of a (true) button story: I was wearing a button that says “I (heart) MY CUNT” when I was shopping at a convenience store. A South Asian man at the register saw my button, and asked, “what does your button say?” “It says I LOVE MY CUNT,” I replied. “I love my country?” “No no, it says I LOVE MY CUNT.” “What does ‘cunt’ mean?” he asked. Realizing that he may not be familiar with the American vulgarity, I gave him a definition of the word that might have come from some scientific dictionary. “Oh,” he said, totally embarrassed, handing me the change without looking my direction. But as I walked out of the automatic door, he said “it’s good to love yourself.” So while he seemed very embarrassed, he got the message completely correctly.

I’m interested in hearing what sort of conversations my buttons sparked! I’ve been making buttons for 15 years, so I’m sure that there are many other stories that need to be shared. If you have any stories, please do email me at emi at eminism dot org. Please don’t feel intimidated: contact me if you are not sure if it’s worth printing. Thanks!

To everyone who placed an order for my buttons and zines since May:

I apologize for the shipment delay. I was planning a big batch of shipment on Monday, June 6th, but I became ill and had to go to hospital. My blood pressure went down to 50/20 at one point, which required me to stay in ICU for a couple of days, followed by several days of hospital stay and additional rest at home.

I’m feeling better now, and this Tuesday (21st) I plan to ship all orders placed on or before June 13th. U.S. customers should receive them by the end of the month (if not the week), and international customers during the first half of July. If you do not receive them by then, please email me at emi AT eminism DOT org.

Thanks!

Update 06/21/2011: As previously announced, I shipped all outstanding orders this afternoon except Canadian orders. Orders to Canada could not be shipped due to Canadian postal service workers’ strike.

Update 06/30/2011: US Postal Service began accepting shipments to Canada, and all outstanding orders to Canada have been shipped.

So anyway, last summer Paypal froze my account because they needed to verify my true identity. I submitted scans of my Oregon ID, bank statement, paystub, and other documents, but somehow they were unsatisfied. It was frustrating, so I just gave up–and my $87.10 sat on my account for five months, as I couldn’t withdraw money out of my account. I also had to stop accepting payments for my buttons and zines via Paypal, which I’m sure hurt the sales.

Fast-forward to this week: just when I was thinking that I really needed that $87.10, I received my W-2 from the payroll company that had processed my paychecks while I was working at Bridges to Independence last year. I decided to give it another try, and uploaded the W-2, and–I don’t know why this time, but Paypal decided to “restore” my account back to normal!

So I hate how I’m totally at the mercy of some random person working behind Paypal’s “security” division, but it’s back and $87.10 is being transferred to my bank account within 2-3 days. What’s more, I can now receive payments for the buttons and zines (and donations) via Paypal again.

So anyway, I apologize for not being able to accept Paypal for a long time, but it’s totally back–so please help me push back my electric shut-off date by ordering my buttons and zines if you feel like it :-) http://eminism.org/store/

JUST RELEASED: Campus Pride 2009 “HOT LIST” — Top 25 Favorite LGBT Artists, Speakers, Lecturers, Music Acts, Comedians, Activists & Much More

On this National Sanctity of Human Life Day (which is one of those last-minute proclamations that George W. Bush is pushing through while nobody is paying attention to him), I went to the Pioneer Square Park to observe Oregon Right to Life’s anti-abortion rally and the counter-rally organised by Radical Women/Freedom Socialist Party.

Well, the rally was pretty big. I think there were a thousand people or two, which may not seem that large to some, but I haven’t personally been to many rallies that are so big in Portland. I walked around the square, reading and taking pictures of the signs people were holding, as it has become my personal anthropological research project to survey political rhetoric at political rallies. Some slogans I found on banners and signs that appear to have been provided by the organisers are:

“Stop Abortion Now”
“We Are Women Hurt by Abortion / We Are Silent No More”
“A Pregnant Woman Needs Support Not Abortion”
“Pro-Choice is No Choice for the Unborn”
“As a Former Fetus I Oppose Abortion”
“Women Deserve Better than Abortion”
“Vote Pro-Life”
“Abortion Stops a Beating Heart”
“I Regret My Abortion”

In addition, I saw many homemade signs that participants brought:

“Abortion is a Failure of Love”
“Peace in the Womb”
“Peace Begins in the Womb”
“Right to Choose? Or Right to Be Used?”
“Abortion is the Leading Cause of Death!”
“Human Life at Conception = Biology, Not Opinion”
“Abortion Kills Children”
“Love’s Choice is Life”
“A Person’s a Person No Matter How Small – Dr. Suess”
“Planned Parenthood Kills Babies”
“Adoption Not Abortion”
“How Can You Not Love a Baby”
“Margaret Sanger was a Racist”

I make the distinction between the two types of signs, because I assume that the statewide “pro-life” group, which is an affiliate of National Right to Life Committee, uses focus groups and marketing techniques to pick slogans that prove to be most effective, while individual participants basically put on their signs what each person feels is important or witty. In other words, if homemade signs are a window into abortion opponents’ psyche, professionally produced signs show what messages appeal to a wide audience.

Looking at the list of official slogans, the pattern should be obvious: the blatant co-optation of feminist rhetoric and sentiment in defense of women, which is employed to advance a political goal that deprives women of their constitutional right. As one speaker at the rally said: “we must defend our right to choose life” by prohibiting abortion. Apparently, the coupling of social conservativism with the public display of compassion (“compassionate conservativism”!) is still effective, or else they would not be using it in their signs.

In the meantime, here are some of the signs I found on Radical Women’s side:

“We Will Not Lose the Right to Choose”
“General Strike for Queer Rights”
“Not the Church, Not the State, Women Must Choose Their Fate”
“Pro-Life Bigots Stay Away! Abortion Rights are Here to Stay”
“Keep Abortion Legal!!”

I’m pro-choice, so I happen to agree with these positions–but I find these signs to be too legalistic and archaic almost, lacking persuasive power. At least, it offers nothing to the woman who was holding the sign “I Regret My Abortion” on the other side of the street. While the “pro-life” side is co-opting compassionate faux-feminist rhetoric to court supporters, the real feminists are failing to attract women who are not already “one of us.”

Pro-choice feminists tend to think of the abortion debate in strictly legalistic terms: the question is simply whether or not the State should stop women from choosing abortion. One could justify abortion rights on the basis of individual’s right to privacy or even on the basis of gender equality (i.e. no undue burden on one sex over another), but the bottom line is: there will be greater tragedies and injustices unless abortion is made available legally, regardless of how we might personally feel about it.

Some feminists oppose abortion on moral grounds, but does not believe that the State should enforce her morality on others, either on principle (i.e. State must remain neutral on the matter of morality), or because, as I wrote above, prohibiting abortion would lead to greater tragedies. Many feminists also recognise that abortion is not desirable, even as they support women’s legal right to have one, and work toward reducing the need for it. These stances do not make someone “pro-life,” because, in pro-choice feminists’ construction, being “pro-life” is not about supporting life, but about opposing the legal option of abortion.

But many people do not share these strictly legalistic definitions of “pro-choice” and “pro-life.” When thinking about abortion, many people–especially women–do not just think of just a woman and her body; they think about a woman and the fetus, and it offends them when feminists suggest that a fetus is just “lump of cells”–they agree with “it’s not a choice, it’s a baby.” And they feel sympathetic when they see “I Regret My Abortion” and “Women are Hurt by Abortion.”

The “pro-life” political movement has kept the meaning of “pro-life” deliberately ambiguous, and it is working to their advantage. Who isn’t for “life” after all? It is easy to point to the hypocrisy of their support for the death penalty-loving, war-mongering administration as they scream “right to life,” or their opposition to comprehensive sex education that could reduce the number of abortions that have to be performed, but I worry that the debate is framed to favour the anti-abortion side.

Perhaps what we need is a true feminist “pro-life” movement, which is concerned about women as well as (although not necessarily to the same degree) their fetuses, and for that reason works to end abortion, not by prohibiting it, but by combating unwanted pregnancies, poverty, prejudices toward and lack of publicly funded care for people with disabilities, sexual assault, etc. There certainly seems to be an opening for it. Sure, Feminists for Life already exists, but its positions are no different from traditional “pro-life” groups that employ superficially pro-women rhetoric: it focuses on making abortion unavailable through legal changes, rather than addressing economic and social conditions that make so many abortions necessary.

Pro-choice feminists would insist that such “feminist pro-life” movement is in fact pro-choice, and they are of course technically correct. But wouldn’t we make better pro-lifers than the “pro-lifers” themselves?

Just received a “Special Message” from Gloria Steinem at Feminist Majority that invited recipient to make donations to the “Prison and Domestic Violence Shelter Program” to send imprisoned and battered women copies of Ms. magazine. Big letters stated: “tens of Thousands of women in prison and domestic violence shelters need your support!” Below is an email I sent to Feminist Majority / Ms. magazine in response.

In case you are wondering why there hasn’t been new post in a while–I’m having some technical difficulties with my installation of MovableType, and am considering switching to another application. Stay tuned…

Élise,

This is a response to your comments to “What ‘Veiled Threat’? Response to Élise Hendrick.” It became too long to post as a comment, so I’m making it a new entry.

Certainly Dreger could have picked a different case to put her weight around around, but I don’t think she approached the Bailey case from some vague sense that she wanted to address the importance of academic freedom. In one way or another, she found herself in the middle of it, recognised a problem that nobody else is addressing, and decided to do something about it.

Come to think of it, there’s no reason that I should be focusing on intersex or trans rights, because if I were really concerned about human rights, there are other groups in this world who are more severely in need of advocacy. But people don’t operate like that: we get involved in issues where we have personal connection to, either because we are ourselves impacted by them, or are close to those who are–or sometimes we are led by our curiosities or get exposed to the issues by sheer chance.

As for the difference between retraction and clarification: retraction involves accepting responsibility for the wrong that took place, whether you intended it or not; clarification generally does not.

Your description that Dreger was “endorsing a veiled threat… by Emi Koyama,” to most readers, means that I made a threat. That sentence is unfair if I didn’t actually make any threat, so I am asking you to acknowledge that it was unfair and should have been phrased differently, not simply because some readers might interpret it in a way that you didn’t intend, but because the sentence was factually wrong and hurtful to me.

Clarification would have been appropriate if the meaning of your sentence was ambiguous, and reasonable readers might interpret it in multiple ways. The problem is that your sentence wasn’t ambiguous: most readers would interpret it as saying that I made a threat and Dreger endorsed it. You can’t expect any reasonable readers to understand that what you meant to say was that my comments could have meant something else entirely but Dreger has turned it into a threat.

I can show you a snippet from the private emails I sent to Dreger on September 21:

Here’s another snippet, from September 23:

As you can see, I am in fact confronting Dreger about the very behaviour you are criticising her on your blog for, and yet you wrongly alleged–perhaps unintentionally, but as far as any reasonable readers can tell–that I was the one threatening Joelle. That’s factually inaccurate and unfair to me as an activist.

Regardless,I appreciate that you are willing to engage with me. In the past, I’ve had difficulty engaging with people who are somehow convinced that I am close buddies with Bailey (I wouldn’t blame them if that was actually the case, but obviously it wasn’t and isn’t).