Activism Log Week 3

This week was our Feminist Coming Out Day. We had a pretty good turnout since it was on market day (Wednesday) at UCF’s main campus. We had a lot of people go through our table either making shirts or taking our surveys and most importantly exchanging in conversation with us. I feel that our ultimate success was bringing in people to take a moment to think about issues that they may not have put much thought into. One of our fallbacks however was being unclear with one of our survey questions. A lot of people, especially men were taken aback and unsure of how to answer: “Women should avoid dressing like sluts in order to not be sexually assaulted, do you agree with this?” I think people felt that maybe if they circled yes they were supporting valuable advice. While, we were trying to advocate that women’s clothing is irrelevant in sexual attacks, it didn’t come out in the right way through our survey.

Although this question raised confusion it was a good reason to start conversation with men about their thoughts on this. Some thought not dressing like a “slut” might help avoid attacks but they agreed attacks should never happen regardless of what a woman is wearing. All of these students will eventually encounter someone in their lifetime who’s been a victim and since “ninety percent of college women who are victims of rape or attempted rape know their assailant” it’s important that they recognize the scenario is not always the “creepy man in the alley after the club” kind (Kirk and Okazawa-Rey 262). It felt good to engage in these sorts of conversations with men because as we’ve discussed this week, many don’t like the fact that they’re always seen as a potential attacker, they’re supportive of the feminist cause without even realizing it. And as Stoltenberg points out, “such a disclosure would never have occurred among college-age males even a decade [ago]. The vocabulary and sense of social safety would simply not have existed” (285).  I feel that nowadays more men are open and respectful of feminist ideals even when they are coming from a woman’s mouth.

I have a lot of guy friends, more than girl friends and I feel that these situations have personally influenced me to avoid the path of least resistance when it comes to jokes that indirectly add on the rape culture. By being “one of the guys” I feel that I have to become more aware of the environment I’m establishing in parties by making jokes or not saying anything when something’s off (like a really drunk girl being handled by guys you think are her friends) (290).

After our event, while walking around in my FEMINIST shirt a UCF student in the courtyard yelled out “Do you cook and clean in that shirt?” and as much as I wanted to just smile and brush it off we somehow got to talking about his thoughts on feminism. According to him we should call ourselves humanists if we really want equal rights for everyone. The thing is we haven’t reached that point yet where we’re all on the same playing field. I’m sure no one looks at him and expect his life to only consist of tasks like cooking and cleaning.

Work Cited:

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Women’s Lives: Multicultural Perspectives 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007.

Activism Log Week 2

So our Feminist Coming out Day page got posted on to Funnyjunk.com as a “Feminism Fail” this week. You may be thinking its okay; all publicity is good publicity, but I must admit it didn't feel good as a group member/page creator to get attacked with all these messages. In case you can’t read from the picture attached, the comment says “Will there be sandwich making?”
 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m the first person that can handle a joke in a lighthearted manner, but for some reason it was hard not to take this personal. The multiple messages, all bashing on women’s rights, started to become a problem for the promotion of our event. Eventually, as a group we decided it’d be best to delete the event page and create a new one (made private). It’s unfortunate because as much as we want to get the word out to as many UCF students as possible, it’s unlikely that they’ll resist the temptation to make a joke out of it. It’s inevitable that people will still relate feminism to negative images of “mannish” women, who don’t wear makeup or shave their legs, and even worse are man-haters. For so many years, mainstream media has distorted feminist goals and perspectives; preventing people from stepping away from the already instilled notions of our society (Kirk and Okazawa-Rey 4). What I can appreciate about our community partner, NOW@UCF is that they are doing their best to make feminism cool and “eroticizing equality.” We are hoping that people become as equally passionate about equality as we are. Seeing such resistance, even from women proves that our job as feminists doesn’t end here. While helping NOW table on Wednesdays these past few weeks, I took note of a very cool sign they tape up on their tent. I feel that from the second people approach our location, at least one of their preconceived notions is already shattered: “You Don’t Have to Be ANTI-MAN to Be PRO-WOMAN.”

People often times approach the table with questions especially during fun and interactive events like “Paint Your Orgasm Day” (an event that encourages women and men to express themselves and their sexuality) that went on this past Wednesday. It’s interesting to see people come with questions or want to start some sort of conversation. I feel that the most important part about this is listening to what other people have to say. Only then will we reach complete conscientization as Paulo Freire refers to as the process of “learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions….and to take action against oppressive elements of this reality” (Kirk and Okazawa-Rey 59). People may say things that are offensive, but what good will fighting fire with fire ever do? I think that’s something we can all work on, whether it’s our tone of voice or way of coming at people. As humans, angered by the circumstances, we could have easily tried fighting and arguing all the people that made negative comments on our event page, but in the end wouldn’t that just reinforce all their assumptions?

We couldn’t have gone into this thinking it’d be easy, many people will continue to go against what they do not know about. And maybe it’s just that, maybe they’re scared that if they know the whole truth they’ll feel just as obligated to act as we do. I know I sure as hell did. It’s never easy to move against the current, traveling in different wavelengths than our peers, but knowing that we’re serving a purpose makes it that much more gratifying

This is the flyer I made that we’ve been passing out for our event.

We’re meeting this weekend to make all the posters, scarlet letter stickers, “Are you a Feminist?” survey and our “This is What a Feminist Looks Like” t-shirts. Feminist Coming Out Day: November 2, 2011!  

                                 Works Cited

"       Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Women’s Lives: Multicultural Perspectives 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007.

Sexuality Quiz

Over time, different words used to refer to women and sexuality have changed in meaning and connotation. For instance the word bitch, meaning “female dog” is now used to insult women or used as a synonym to outspoken/headstrong. The word erotic is also being separated from referring solely to physical sexual acts to, as activist Audre Lorde puts it, “our most profoundly creative source.” Lorde argues that reclaiming this word in our language and recognizing the power behind this word will give us the energy to pursue changes in our world (Kirk and Okazawa-Rey 149).

The slut walk movement attempts to do the same with the word “slut”. Its goal is to reclaim words like these and empower people to go against their negative connotations in to order to stand against internal oppression and victim blaming. Whether you’re a “slut” or not is irrelevant when it comes to sexual assaults. Women involved/aware of this moment will know that if they're ever assaulted they have the right to stand up to officials and fight the ridiculous notion that we become victims because of the way we present ourselves (Slutwalk Toronto).

The main issue at stake within the Slut Walk debate is how to support this important cause while still being inclusive and respectful of women from all backgrounds and ethnicities. The founders of the Slut Walk state that this movement is all about re-appropriating the word ‘slut,' declaring that “being in charge of our sexual lives should not mean that we are opening ourselves to an expectation of violence.” This claim is something we can all agree with but the idea behind “re-appropriating” the word slut into something freeing and empowering is what some feminist groups have a problem with. Groups like AF3IRM argue that “as women and descendants of women from Latin America, Asia, and Africa, we cannot truly “reclaim” the word ‘Slut’. It was never ours to begin with.”  Due to the fact that this label has been forced upon people by colonizers, accepting them would basically be like spitting on the struggle women (including family) living in these countries are still enduring (AF3IRM).

 The only way issues like these can be resolved is by historizing our backgrounds to be able to create dialogue among different groups of people. The add/stir approach wouldn’t make a difference because we’re still not addressing the deep-rooted issues some of these ethnicities are facing. It would be important to have a movement that focuses on the problem, so as a group we discussed the idea of participants dressing up as their oppressors, mocking their ridiculous comments in an attempt to empower women as well as give them an opportunity to speak up and share their personal stories. Because we live in such a diverse country, there will always be differences among each other when it comes to our daily struggles and walks of life; only through common ideals changing institutions will there be any social chance.

Works Cited

"AF3IRM Responds To Slutwalk: The Women’s Movement is Not Monochromatic." AF3IRM.org. AF3IRM, Sept. 2011. Web. 27 Oct. 2011.  <http://af3irm.org/2011/9/af3irm-responds-slutwalk-women%E2%80%99s-movement-not-monochromatic>.

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Women’s Lives: Multicultural Perspectives 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007.

 "WHY." SlutWalk Toronto. SlutWalk Toronto, n.d. Web. 27 Oct 2011. <http://www.slutwalktoronto.com/about/why>.

Activism Log Week 1

This week we began the preparation for Feminist Coming Out Day, mostly with advertising. NOW at UCF promotes the club and upcoming events every Wednesday outside of the Student Union. We’ve therefore been working on making and printing a functional flyer that will promote our event and inform UCF students. The flyer will begin to be passed out through the NOW at UCF table next week as well as by our group members to friends, classmates, bulletin boards etc. Next week we need to print more flyers, finalize the date (because there’s been talk about changing it) and help with the NOW at UCF table on Wednesday to keep promoting.

The activism we’ve done this week hasn’t been much other than getting the word out. But even that has been impactful to my life, just by seeing other people’s reaction to “feminists” being prominent on campus. It’s funny to see people’s face, even girls when you mention the event/movement. Some girls will even become annoyed at the idea of feminism, arguing that they “experience no inequality and everyone needs to stop hating on men.” We had an incident on Facebook where a girl kept commenting things like this to a wall post our group member, Nicole put up about Feminism. It was interesting to see how mixed up people are about feminism and how the negative stereotypes are still very prominent among college students. People saying things like this encourage me even more to be a part of Feminist Coming Out Day. Our goal is to reach as many people as we can to realize that feminist ideals are not as old school/radical/dramatic as people think. We need to be realistic here, just because you personally feel that you’ve never experienced inequality in your life, doesn’t mean that it’s not a real issue affecting our country/world.

Women are still dealing with domestic violence/abuse. Rapes haven’t seized, they still happen and can very well happen to any of us. Sex slave trades are still going on worldwide. Women are still not getting paid equal wages as men in the corporate world. Reproductive justice is still something that’s not available to everyone, the resources aren’t cutting it. Women’s rights and feminism is not about whining women trying to end men chauvinism, it’s about equality for everyone, and that’s what many people don’t understand. In a lot of ways I can’t blame the smiles and eye rolls people give us when we talk about feminism because I probably would have thought the same things before I took this class. It feels good to have this new perspective on women’s issues, hopefully we can widen other people’s points of views as well.

Response to Classmate's Ad

The website doesn't allow me to comment on other people's blogs for some reason so I posted my response to Sarah Zatkovich's ad here:

I'm surprised that this company, when working with an advertising team/copywriter even thought this would be a good idea that would actually appeal to anyone. As Sarah states "This ad is using the classist, heterosexist, and ageist ‘Beauty Ideal’ to sell their salon services" but I don’t think it can even work at reaching any of the privileged people in our society to relate to the brand and what it represents. Usually images of beautiful, luxurious women standing next to handsome men appeal to certain audiences that aspire to have this life or relate to it, but the controversial twist here: the bruised eye with the accompanying text I don’t feel can appeal to any woman. The text saying “Look good in all that you do” implies that even when we’re getting beat down in society figuratively and literally we should still look dolled up. It’s a constant cycle of having this be the way things are, amplified by media influencing people to think this is the way things should be and then completing the cycle by having people imitate what they see in the media/society. Does art imitate reality or does reality imitate art? I feel media has a strong influence in our society and any woman that is okay with an ad like this, is also conforming to the second place, “trophy wife” expectations this patriarchal society has imposed on her.

The Business of Being Born

After watching both media portrayals of birth, I’ve definitely developed a different perception of the birthing process. While both make sure not to sugarcoat the difficult, yet rewarding process and all the decisions that come along with it, they definitely display it from different angles and point of views.

As the documentary argues, many women in the United States are unaware of all their options as well as the effects of each one. For this reason, many trust their doctor’s blindly, feeling that should rely on the experts. However as the film points out, the United States has the highest birth mortality rate for an industrialized country due to all the interventions used to speed up the process/numb the pain. Often times, as the title reveals, the birthing process is viewed as a business negotiation between families and hospitals. It’s convenient for hospitals to have the births happen quickly and smoothly to move on to the next one, therefore surgeons will intervene with whatever procedure they deem necessary.

For instance in the episode I watched, “Mama Knows Best” one of the mothers was having a difficult time inducing her labor and after 16 hours was told by one of the nurses that she would most likely need a C-section. The mother immediately began to cry and complain that she did not want her baby to be isolated away from her and that she really wanted a natural birth. However, after 24 hours she was too tired to fight it and was brought into the surgery room. The documentary on the other hand, I feel empowers women to view themselves as the sole decision makers and to trust their bodies’ abilities. Home births were portrayed as beautiful moments that although looked very painful because of the lack of drugs were still more comfortable for the woman. The women in the film were free to take their time and connect with their babies immediately after birth, sometimes even pulling out the baby themselves. Essentially proving to viewers that women need to have control of their health and their baby's health and that they're strong enough to make it happen without the need of drugs and surgeons unless it's necessary.

Be Stupid: Diesel Ad Campaign

The ad I decided to feature is from Diesel’s 2010 Be Stupid campaign. The campaign consists of various print ads including images of young people doing “stupid” things beside slogans like “Smart Critiques. Stupid Creates” and “Smart Says No. Stupid Says Yes.” The idea behind the campaign was to redefine the word “stupid” to mean brave, rebellious and creative in an attempt to have people identify with this entity and to the brand. In other words, if you can relate to the ads you will feel that this brand of clothing will make the kind of jeans someone like you will want to wear (an advertising strategy used to build connections between the brand and their consumers).

The appeal to this campaign is the carefree and fun tone behind it. You can tell that this ad is targeted to young people who would most likely find this humorous and light-hearted. But not just young people; the ads were primarily featured in women/fashion magazines including Grazia, Dazed and Confused and Nylon. For women who consider themselves fashion forward individuals with urban, out-of-the-norm styles this ad could be very appealing. The ad is displaying a young woman who is comfortable with herself, dressed in cool clothes and doing something that requires having “balls”, as the text implies. For a sub-culture of women wanting to deviate from the ordinary, the version of stupid that Diesel portrays is liberating and intriguing. Even the waves caused by the controversy of the ad can be appealing to brand supporters. According to The Guardian, although the campaign “won a top award at the Cannes advertising festival [it was] banned by the UK ad watchdog for being offensive and encouraging antisocial behavior.” The Advertising Standards Authority decided to clear the ads to run in magazines but not in posters because they would be an “untargeted medium” that was “likely to be seen by children and cause serious or widespread offense” (The Guardian).

Essentially, the purpose of this ad was to be controversial and therefore be appealing to strong women who feel they are in control of their bodies and style. Diesel backed this up by stating that the image displayed "a very strong and unexpected image of femininity," that the woman on the ladder was shown in a "non-exploitative way and that the message tackled society's pre-occupation with 24/7 camera surveillance in a light and non-threatening way" (The Guardian). However, it’s interesting to see that it’s a woman exhibiting the “explicit” and sexual behavior found in this ad. Although the ad references a male body part (balls), it’s definitely not a man on the ladder pulling his pants down in front of the camera. In a sense the ad is objectifying women to sell a product and through the process is also contributing to the set concepts about womanliness (Kirk and Okazawa-Rey 208). According to the way our society is constructed, it makes perfect sense to have a sexy girl flashing her boobs because women are the sexual objects, not men. 

It’s also ironic that Diesel considers this ad to be an “unexpected image of femininity” when the woman in the ad is young, has a perfect body, shiny hair and fashionable clothes—nothing unexpected about that. She looks just as perfect as all the women found in advertisements used to set up the beauty ideal that keeps women and girls in line (lean, tall, young, white, heterosexual, flawless skin etc.) (Kirk and Okazawa-Rey 208).

Word count: 497

Works Cited:

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Women’s Lives: Multicultural Perspectives 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007.

Sweney, Mark. "Award-winning Diesel Campaign Banned by ASA.” Guardian.co.uk. The Guardian, 30 June 2010. Web. 11 Oct. 2011. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jun/30/diesel-asa-advertising>.

SL Proposal: Feminist Coming Out Day at UCF!

Feminist Coming Out Day at UCF!

Organization: NOW at UCF

Nicole E.

Romina P.

Megan K.

Amanda B.

Krista A.

Jasmine A.

Kelsey G.

9/29/11

Organization Information:

The National Organization for Women at UCF (NOW at UCF) works to end oppression and equality for all human beings. According to the Facebook group of NOW at UCF, “NOW UCF works to provide a strong feminist presence and to impact our campus, our community and our country”. NOW at UCF raises awareness and works to break stereotypes and negative stigmas and work to break down barriers. The National Organization for Women at UCF is an educational tool for everyone on campus. Previous events done by NOW at UCF include: Take Back the Night, Love Your Body Week, and other events with organizations such as Voices for Planned Parenthood (VOX) and College Democrats Women’s Caucus. Every Wednesday, NOW at UCF tables in front of the Student Union to present information about feminism and to build a community with students and other registered student organizations.

            In order to continue the cause of NOW we need more awareness around campus. The more educated people are the more they will want to fight for the cause of ending oppression and having equality for everyone. This includes but not limited to reproductive rights and LGBT rights. NOW focuses on a variety of different issues but one of the main issues is feminism and the ideas of feminists. A way to bring awareness to campus is with the production of “The F Word.” This play is sponsored by NOW at UCF and discusses “The F Word”, feminism. This play is collecting submissions of people’s experiences with gender issues, good or bad. It is not just about women on women’s issues but people on gender issues. Its goal is to bring attention and education to the UCF campus about feminism and other related issues.

Contact Information: Kelly Quintero: presidentnowucf@gmail.com, Alexa Nelen: vpnowucf@gmail.com

The Problem:

The stigmas of today’s society inhibit common knowledge and encourage ignorance to issues such as feminism. We will juxtapose the common dogma of feminism e.g. man hating, angry lesbians, bra burners. A way of doing this is through our service learning project, Feminist Coming out Day. The project is to bring light to the UCF student body about what feminism is and what feminists stand for. Our mission is to combat stereotypes by exposing our peers to the truth of what a feminist truly is, in hopes of avoiding the negative stigmas that come with the word “feminist.”

Plan Proposal:

One way to challenge the status quo is by raising awareness to the issue at hand. With Feminist Coming out Day we will encourage individuals to find their inner feminist. Through a variety of interactive activities such as: surveys, testimonials, a photo campaign and leaflets we will broaden the minds of UCF students. The surveys will determine whether one is a feminist or not. This will be achieved by a series of questions. The survey reveals how prominent feminist ideals are to students without them even realizing.  Once a student finds out what a feminist is and if he or she is one they will receive a scarlet letter “F”. The purpose of the stickers is to build pride around campus and to show others how common being a feminist is. Once someone gets a sticker they will take a photo with a speech bubble saying “F-Word” or “I am a feminist and proud!”. We will also encourage people to do a written and filmed testimonial which will be uploaded on social networking sites e.g. Tumblr, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. Additionally, we will accept testimonials from people everywhere on twitter and Facebook. All of these activities will help bring awareness and education to the UCF campus and nationwide.

Rationale for Women’s Studies:

Feminist Coming out Day is going to be an event that supports women’s studies and the feminist movement in various ways. Our main priority is to bring awareness to UCF students about what it means to be a feminist. By surveying students and building “F-word” pride we are hoping that people will realize that many of their ideals and opinions are in accordance to that of feminists. We want to communicate with others what we stand for to essentially break barriers and dismiss false judgments. Only then can we find commonalities to work together at reaching important goals such as fighting for equality and ending discrimination (Seely 15).   

Other than providing information, we want to encourage students to share their own experiences and feel proud about their stories. After interacting in our activities, we hope they’ll feel comfortable enough to share with us where they stand when it comes to feminism. We want students to understand the importance of situated knowledge and how each of their social and historical situations are relevant to building common ground in our community (Kirk and Okazawa-Rey 56). By writing on our white board or by sharing their stories via Twitter and videos, students will feel they are an important part in the feminist movement. Feminism needs to go beyond this single event, so we want to build pride through the t-shirts and pinned scarlet letter to push people to “come out” and embrace their ideals as well as continue to share their stories.

Action:

            Our preparation will be done weeks in advanced to the Feminist Coming out Day. We are hoping to have the event on Monday, October 31^st on Halloween. Some of our preparation plans include: making signs, setting up a Twitter page, creating a Facebook event, buying art supplies, printing flyers, creating the “I am a Feminist” backdrop for picture taking, and reserving a tent for outside the Student Union.

            NOW at UCF tables every Wednesday in front of the Student Union. We will be tabling with NOW and passing out flyers weeks prior to the event.  We will also be creating flyers to be put around campus to promote the event.

            Since it will be Halloween we all will dress up like strong, bad ass women throughout history and the present such as Alice Paul, Amelia Earhart, Lady Gaga, Rosie the Riveter, Wonder Woman, and Catwoman.

Timeline:

The day of the event we will arrive about 45 minutes early to set up our table and to get all of the supplies ready to go. The tabling event will run from 10:00 A.M till 2:00 P.M. Here are some of the activities that we will be doing and the reasons for doing them.

 

Activity	Purpose
Surveys	We will be asking questions to determine whether one is a feminist or not.
Sticker Distribution	Each person who is determined a feminist will receive the scarlet letter “F”
Speech bubble photographs	Each person can make their own speech bubble saying “I am a feminist” etc. and take a photo with it. These photos will be posted on Twitter and Facebook.
Testimonials	People can write their story on our testimonial board or share their story on camera.
T-Shirt Making	We will be providing a stencil saying “Feminist Coming Out Day 2011” or “I am a Feminist” and having a t-shirt making station.

Designated Roles:

·         Tent and Table Reservations: Nicole Elinoff

·         Twitter and Photograph Manager (Media): Megan Kaczmarek

·         Promotional Team: Romina Polo and Kelsey Gowen

·         Supply Managers: Amanda Buitron and Jasmine Alvelo

Citations:

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Women’s Lives: Multicultural Perspectives 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007.

Seely, Megan. Fight Like a Girl: How to be a Fearless Feminist. New York: NYU, 2007.

Quintero, Kelly. "Description of NOW at UCF." Facebook. NOW at UCF, http://www.facebook.com/groups/2203630646/ (accessed:27 Sept. 2011). Web. 29 Sept. 2011.

Fight Like a Girl

After reading Seely’s chapter, “Fight Like a Girl” I began to come to terms with what it means to “politicize our lives.” Basically, as Seely states in page 16, “no act is too small,” everything we do in our daily lives can be considered activism. It all comes down to the decisions we make and how we’re affecting others with our actions. Everything from what we decide to spend our money on to how we share experiences and information with others can be ways of politicizing our lives (15).

An important aspect of this includes sharing with others our personal, micro level experiences and acknowledging that all of our efforts merged together are what cause political change. Only after we share our personal stories with others is when it becomes a political matter, “activism is individual, but it is also collective” (15). For instance, when it comes to issues like sexual harassment in the workplace or violence against women, there would have never been anything done about it if it hadn’t been for women spreading awareness to reach a common goal. Having these common interests and desires for equality is what makes our personal issues a part of a grand scale effort to reach social justice.

I think the most important way to participate in activism is to become knowledgeable. I don’t believe it’s possible for people to act toward something if they don’t know the details of the issue at hand. It’s only after we become aware of them that we are comfortable and capable of sharing them with others. Not only can we participate in daily activism by spreading the word but also by avoiding institutions that don’t support our cause and supporting those that do. For instance, my own ignorance kept me from knowing that Wal-Mart has a “consistent opposition to unionizing and [a] track record of treating women workers unfairly” (20). This is something to consider next time I go shopping or next time I am involved in an activist movement.

Service learning can play a tremendous role in gaining the kind of knowledge I am talking about. We will be given the opportunity to gain hands on experience to “develop skills and knowledge that will help [us] become civically responsible members of the community” (Service Learning).  These experiences will be a way of learning about what our community needs and how we can be leaders that will work with others to reach the change that is needed.

Words: 412

Works Cited  

• Seely, Megan. Fight Like a Girl: How to Be a Fearless Feminist. New York: New York University Press, 2007. 15-25. Print.
• University of Central Florida, . "Service-Learning ." UCF Office of Experiential Learning. UCF Experiential Learning, 2009. Web. 12 Sep 2011. http://www.explearning.ucf.edu/categories/For%20Students/143_75.aspx.

Introductory Letter

Hey everyone!

My name is Romina Polo, I’m a current senior majoring in advertising/public relations with a creative writing minor. I was born in Peru but have lived in Miami,FL most of my life till I moved away for college. I’m still in the process of deciding what exactly I want to do career wise, but one of my options has always been to work with a non-profit organization or activist group in which I can provide advertising or event management services. For this reason I became interested in taking this women’s studies course, especially because of the service learning component to it.

Some activist programs I’ve been involved with in the past have been Rock for Hunger events where we would get together and provide food for homeless people in downtown Orlando. I’ve also participated in a couple overnight rallies for Invisible Children which is a nonprofit group speaking out for Ugandan children who were being abducted and forced to fight in Africa’s longest running war. These kinds of movements have always captivated me and motivated me to offer compassion and assistance. I feel very strongly about fighting injustice and helping in any way I can even if it’s as simple as spreading awareness.  

As a woman myself, I feel that taking this course will help me learn more about what it really means to be a feminist, the differences between genders and how much society has an effect on gender roles and expectations. Women’s studies would be nothing without studying the history of women’s movements and how much women’s roles have changed throughout the years. These subjects have been briefly discussed in a chapter or less in previous history courses I’ve taken so I am definitely looking forward to getting a more in-depth look at the history of women’s rights.

 I would also like to learn more about what it means to be a Hispanic woman in this country and share my life experiences as well. There are several things about being a woman in this society that I often times don’t put much thought into, but I feel that after taking this class I will begin to analyze everyday occurrences with more depth and analysis. After reading the first chapter of our textbook and learning about the second wave of activism for women’s rights and its focus on feminist postmodernism I began to realize that women really can’t all be generalized under the same group or be expected to have gone through the same experiences. We all have different perceptions of the world we live in because of our unique experiences based on age, race, beliefs, culture, national origin etc. Reading about this lead me to think more about the various forms of oppression and how I fall under two historically oppressed groups in the U.S.: women and Hispanic immigrants. For this reason my life experiences are going to be different than that of my peers in this class even if they are of my same age and gender.

I’ve always liked to think that being a part of these groups that make me who I am has never affected my life in a negative manner. However, I’ve probably been very oblivious to the different ways society has oppressed Hispanic women both in the past and in current times. I’ve lived my whole life playing up my Hispanic background because of the benefits that sometimes come with it (scholarships, multicultural programs, etc.) but how do I know a past employer didn’t look at me different or didn’t hire me solely because of my race and gender? I’m not saying I’m going to start thinking of myself as a victim of the world I live in but I realize that it’s important to be aware of our accomplishments as women as well as our shortcomings. Only then can we begin to work at making this a more sustainable environment to live in. I’m looking forward to gaining more perspective on this subject that so clearly relates to who I am and helps define the society I am a part of.

I have read, understand, and agree to the terms of the course syllabus and the blogging protocols.