SC Legislator Can't Resist the Urge to Be An Asshole and Oppose Bill Allowing Campaign Funds for Childcare

And on learning I'm a feminist killjoy. Excellent.

Sorry for the unannounced hiatus—it’s been a busy month! At the end of March I attended our fabulous regional Women’s and Gender Studies Conference, WGS South. It was such a rich gathering and seriously a balm to see so many people using their scholarship to push back against the heterosexist colonial gender system (for further reading, let me suggest one of my favorite theorists, María Lugones). I presented on this newsletter, and what I’ve learned about writing and women’s labor, connecting it to earlier Southern feminist newsletters from the 1970s and 1980s. I met lots of folks interested in contributing, so I’m looking forward to sharing their work here (and sharing the labor). Don’t forget that if you want to upgrade to a paid subscription, it helps me to pay guest writers and artists (and will subsidize summer childcare, omg it’s so expensive).

Speaking of paying for childcare, the SC House just narrowly passed a bill that would allow people running for office to use campaign funds to pay for childcare. Considering the time demands for campaigning, it seems like a good idea, so maybe we’ll have more than just rich (white) men in state and local offices. Here’s good coverage, featuring badass Representative Spencer Wetmore from Charleston:

The South Carolina Freedom Caucus members, who just cannot resist the opportunity to be assholes, came out in opposition to the bill, including Representative Adam Morgan, who is challenging William Timmons in the U.S. House of Representatives primary race (I won’t type this often, but please vote for Timmons). Morgan’s criticism of the bill was just thinned veiled sexism, because clearly there would be no need for childcare if women just stayed at home in their private domestic spheres and cared for the children. We certainly don’t need them running for office and maybe even challenging Morgan himself! Even other SC Republicans came out to troll him on Twitter, posting the records of paying himself and his family’s businesses for his previous campaigns.

In other news, Fox Carolina ran a story last week blindly celebrating the fundraising efforts of the Upstate Pregnancy Center. I guess it’s good they want to give expectant parents free diapers, but that really does nothing for poor people trying to feed, clothe and house their kids. Conditions are pretty dire for poor families in Laurens County, but you won’t see local Republicans there trying to make any structural changes. Instead they foist actual citizen’s needs off on the charity of churches and other organizations, when what people actually need are healthcare, quality education, and affordable housing. A reminder about how fucked up crisis pregnancy centers are from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, here.

Let’s end on two good things… one of the WGS South keynote presentations was by Sara Ahmed, a feminist philosopher. She presented on her most recent book, The Feminist Killjoy Handbook. It was a relief to hear her describe the experience of speaking up and speaking back as the work of a killjoy, and to label the patriarchal silencing mechanisms that attempt to cast us as joy killers. You can buy the book here, and read the blog that inspired it here. I’m looking forward to reading it this summer.

And finally, Savannah Moss and Samatha Swann at the Greenville News wrote up who’s running in local, state and national offices, now that the filing dates have closed. Have a read, and decide which campaigns you’ll donate time and/or money to… maybe this will be the year we get a little closer to a fully representational democracy in our former plantocracy state. Especial shoutout to the working class folks, young people, people of color and women running, despite the odds.