Activism Log 10

Activism:

This week, we met with Nina in order to discuss our presentation and other things that need to be done before we wrap up the semester. We're compiling a list of the places that we emailed to hang over the Nina so she can continue with the project at large after our semester project is over. I'm input the signatures into the online petition, and it was satisfying to see the number climb. We're also beginning to plan and work on out reflection papers and final exams, while keeping in mind the things we need to include in our presentation.

Reflection:

This week we watched some other service learning groups present their projects, and were reminded of the difference in scope between our project and many of the others. As much as we may have hoped for this to happen, we did not begin our project expecting to accomplish our goal in the span of one semester. I think that we have also succeeded in bridging the divide between theorizing and enacting change, since through this whole project, we have been relating the things we're doing to the things that we're reading. WLMP talks about the interactions between "theory," "vision," and "action," and I think that our project incorporated all of these aspects of real activism (584).

Reciprocity:

I think this project thoroughly dismantles any idea of activism as only marching, chanting, and picketing - in other words, it is more than direct and overt action. Activism also involves a lot of behind the scenes work that can be rewarding, but can also be tedious, time consuming, and frustrating. Both sides of the activism coin are essential to a feminist understanding of social change, and both are crucial in regard to accomplishing the goals of any project.

Works Cited

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2010. Print.

Activism Log 9

Rachel Collins

Jeannina Perez

WST 3015

24 April 2010

Activism:

We tabled this week with UCF NOW to collect signatures on the petition. The first day (tuesday) that we tabled, we used a computer to let people sign the online petition. We got some people to sign this way, but we could only talk about it to people who came up to the table. The next day, we tried using actual paper petitions and had much more success, as we could each carry clipboards and go up to pedestrians and other people tabling and ask them to sign. We got to quite a few people in that day and the next, which was UCF's Earth Day. Kelly made a flyer with the information that I gather about Alice Paul, and we handed it out while tabling. The main downside to the physical petitions is that we need to input them one by one into the online one eventually.

Reflection:

Tabling was both encouraging and discouraging, since there were a fair few people who knew who Paul was, and seemed excited about the petition. However, there were probably more who didn't know. For those who didn't know, I was glad that our signature gathering was resulting in telling a few more people about it. I think the part of Seely's first chapter "The F word" where she talks about how "no act is too small" when it comes to activism is relevant here. Even though each individual action of this project didn't enact immediate national change, even the process of trying has resulted in the sharing of information and raising of awareness in our university community.

Reciprocity:

Overall, this week was a success. We gained a lot of signatures on the petition, learned the best ways to gather signatures, and had some great conversations with people about the need for this holiday.

Works Cited

Seely, Megan. "The F-word, An Introduction." Fight like a Girl: How to Be a Fearless Feminist. New York: New York UP, 2007. 1. Print.

Activism Log 8

Rachel Collins

Jeannina Perez

WST3015

17 April 2010

Activism:

This week, I'm done sending out the letters, and main concentrating on getting the petition to as many people as possible. I know Kelly got some responses from places, but I haven't heard anything from any of mine. In our last meeting with Nina, we talked about what would happen after the first round of letter sending, and we decided that we would send another round of letters, this time talking about the petition and sharing the url of the online version. I'm still sending the petition to everyone on the facebook page almost every day, and we've got a fair amount so far, but a long way to go.

Reflection:

This week in class we talked about girl studies, and especially on the effect of media and pop culture on girls, while reading the first two volumes of the Gaia Girls books series, which connects to both eco feminism and girl studies ( Perez 4/14/10). The development of the next generation is directly related to the aims of our project. A major result of having a holiday honoring Alice Paul is that it would provide the impetus for educational institutions to focus, even for a day, on the history of Paul and the women's movement as a whole. As it is, these facts are almost wholly ignored. To not have our public schools impart this information to their students is to have whole generations of girls grow up with very few and very insufficient female role models and historical figures to look back to.

Reciprocity:

After sending all my emails, I'm finding that even many of the programs who had email addresses don't exist, as my emails have been sent back to me with a "delivery failed" notification attached. It's discouraging, but I'm just focusing on the petition and on doing everything else that needs to be done.

Avatar and The Environment

Rachel Collins

Jeannina Perez

WST3015

14 April 2010

James Cameron’s “Avatar” was largely hailed as a momentous achievement with regard to the technological advancement involved in its production, and it happened to be the first movie that I ever saw in 3D. Given its status as a veritable cinematic feat of the future, it’s ironic that Avatar contains so very many of the tired tropes and stereotypes imbedded in our cultural consciousness with regard to gender and the environment. From the very beginning of the movie, even before we meet the Na’vi, the characters’ views about nature align stereotypically with their gender identity. Parker Selfridge is male, and the head of the mining operation on Pandora. He is clearly the human symbol of environmental destruction, and he shows almost no empathy for the Na’vi, even when it becomes clear that their efforts to mine will kill them. The other main antagonist of the movie is Colonel Miles Quaritch. Also male, he embodies stereotypical masculinity. He is scarred, scowling, and unapologetically brutal. In contrast to these two, Dr. Grace Augustine is a biologist, and she is devoted to growing and maintaining peaceful relationships with the Na’vi, even going so far as to live with them and learn their language. When we look to the two main character, Sam (a human who spends time in Na’vi form) and Neytiri (a Na’vi female), we find the same dynamics. Sam is an intruder and an imposter in the world of the Na’vi, and his original purpose there was to covertly further the destructive aims of the mining operation. Neytiri, however, is portrayed as having a unique connection to nature. Under her increasingly-flirtatious tutelage, Sam comes to a deep appreciation and understanding of the Pandora version of nature. By the time his double-agent role is exposed, Sam is in love with both Neytiri and her way of life, both of which are symbols of nature and a harmonious, symbiotic relationship with it. As we discussed in class on April 7^th, 2010, these gendered relationships with nature echo an idea that women (and native peoples) have an intrinsic connection to nature, and especially more so than their male counterparts.

Elements of the avatar story also echo the ideas about the earth as a single, collective organism (Gaia Theory) that are expressed in the Gaia Girls series book, Enter the Earth, in which a ten year old girl named Elizabeth is designated by Gaia to fight for the wellbeing of the earth, beginning with her family’s farm. Gaia teaches Elizabeth to connect in a profound way with the rhythm and harmony of nature, in order to make it conform to her will. Similarly, the Na’vi use a deep and almost spiritual connection with nature in order to live in harmony with it. In both stories, this connection is portrayed as elemental and timeless. This is the same romanticizing of nature that we discussed in class on April 14^th, 2010.

In these ways, Avatar does not deviate from traditional depictions of the relationship between colonizer and colonized, man and woman, manmade and natural.

Word Count: 507

Works Cited:

Perez, Jeannina. "Eco-Feminism." WST3015. University of Central Florida, Orlando. 7 Apr. 2010.

Perez, Jeannina. "Girls and The Environment." WST3015. University of Central Florida, Orlando. 14 Apr. 2010.

Welles, Lee, and Ann Hameister. Gaia Girls: Enter the Earth. White River Junction, Vt.: Chelsea Green Pub., 2006. Print.

Activism Log 7

Rachel Collins

Jeannina Perez

WST3015

10 April 2010

Activism:

This week we're pretty much just powering through sending out the letter and continuing to send the petition to anyone and everyone. I've been posting it on individual people's facebooks, and on my own every day. I'm a little bit discouraged by how slow the signature getting is, but I think once we start tabling on campus and keep using the internet as a distribution tool, it will eventually pick up. We hope to get at least a thousand. We haven't had a meeting with Nina this week since we're pretty much just sending letters nonstop, but we're probably have a meeting before the week where we table.

Reflection:

This week we talked about eco-feminism in class, and the way that women in movies and other media are often portrayed as have this innately close bond with nature and the environment, while men are often cast as the destroyers of nature. Nature is often sexualized as "virgin" territory, "penetrated" by mankind. This topic does not directly relate to our project, but I think it's relevant as another example of how stereotypes and myths about women are used as a means of control. This is true of the myth of women's increased connection to nature, but it appears in many forms. A common argument, for instance, about why women should not vote (and, today, why they should not hold high public office) is that we are too emotional, not logical or analytical enough, or that we easily become hysterical and could never work under pressure. Any thinking person could easily realize that these common perceptions are erroneous stereotypes, but they still manage to hold sway over our societal perceptions.

Reciprocity:

An objection to the idea of this project that I keep hearing is that the person I'm talking to "doesn't believe in having holidays for everything," or "what, every minority group needs it's own holiday? We'll have one for everyone if this keeps up!" This argument strikes me as ridiculous on many levels. There are only ten federal holidays, and only one recognizes a non white person, while non recognize a non-male person. In a perfect world, our education system would incorporate the importance of all groups to our countries history in a realistic, unbiased, and factually accurate manner- we do not live in a perfect world. While we live in this world, holidays such as these provide the impetus to get people talking about the role and specific history of the groups and individuals that they recognize.

Works cited

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. "Women and the Environment."Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 539. Print.

Myths and Misinformation

Rachel Collins

Jeannina Perez

WST3015

5 April 2010

I read through much of Riverbend’s blog, most of it because of my own interest rather than for this assignment, since the entry that I chose to focus on appears near the beginning of the blog, dated August 28th, 2003. The theme that I focused on within this entry recurs throughout the years on the blog, and that theme is of the American misperception of what Iraqi people and life are like. We have constructed a myth about what life must be like in an “underdeveloped” country, in addition to myths about followers of Islam, and myths about the condition of women in such a society. In Women’s Lives, Multicultural Perspectives the authors detail the biased manner of thinking that many use when formulating opinions about countries that are deemed “underdeveloped” (375). It is often assumed that this process is natural, linear, a foregone conclusion- how could any country’s people want to be anything BUT developed? What about progress, technology, and freedom!? What we tend to disregard is the idea that economic and technological progress are not the only things that are valued in many societies. All nations and cultures, whether developed or undeveloped, hold a vast store of historical, cultural, and traditional knowledge- the worth of which is not subordinate to western ideals of progress. We can see the friction of these ideas played out in Riverbend’s writings. In the entry that I focused on, she writes that the myth of Iraqi people as backward, ignorant and primitive is a blatant untruth- Iraqi’s have electricity, running water, computers, VCR’s, bridges, universities, schools- all the trappings of “developed” nations such as ours. WLMP quotes Vandana Shiva, an environmentalist writer and scientist, in calling less wealthy nations “devastated” instead of “underdeveloped, to reflect that fact that much of the wealth of richer countries actually comes from dominating less wealthy ones (376). This idea, too, is demonstrated in this entry on the blog. Riverbend writes about the fact that after the destruction of American bombing, Iraqi contractors were not the ones to rebuild. Instead, American contractors, namely Halliburton, were given most of the work of reconstruction, and often at prices much inflated from the ones that Iraqi engineers like Riverbend’s cousin estimated. This dichotomy between violent conflict and the industrial sector is also discussed in WLMP, which states that “nation-states, militaries, and corporations are increasingly intertwined” (509). Riverbend emphasizes that the words "rebuild" and "reconstruct" necessarily imply that something existed before- an idea that firmly contradicts the commonly believed myths about Iraq and other middle-eastern countries. Riverbend’s blog transcends the false boundaries between the personal, political and educational: it is all three, and a great example of each. Her personal, like ours, is directly affected by the political, and vice versa, and her blog is clearly educational because it is a great tool for debunking the myths that surround this issue.

Works Cited:

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. New

York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2010. Print.

Riverbend. "The Promise and the Threat." Web log post. Baghdad Burning. Blogspot, 28 Aug. 2003.

Web. 5 Apr. 2010.

Activism Log 6

Rachel Collins

Jeannina Perez

WST3015

2 April 2010

Activism:

This week I created an email address specifically for this project, womensholiday@gmail.com. Nina sent us back the finished letter, so now we can begin to actually email and mail the letter to the places on our lists. Like I said before, my states are Alabama through Hawaii. I've already began to compile the email addresses to each school, but there are some schools whose women's studies programs seem to be defunct and without email addresses, with the website just sitting there. We're also decided to table later on this month to collect signatures on the petition. I created an online petition as well. The petition incorporates the language from the letter and I've now started posting it to my facebook and the Women's First National Holiday facebook page as an effort to get more signatures.

Reflection:

In class this week, we discussed Womanism, and the ways in which women of color have branched off from the mainstream feminist movement. It made me think about the role of women of color in the suffrage movement- or, rather, the fact that they didn't really have a role (Perez 3/31/2010). Alice Paul was one of the white women in the mainstream feminist and suffrage movement, and it was partially due to this racial privilege that she was able to enact the changes and leadership that she embodied. I don't think that this fact should detract from our view of her accomplishments and importance in the struggle for women's rights, but I think intersectionality should be taken into account when we analyze all aspects of women's history.

Reciprocity:

While looking for email addresses on the websites of all the schools I'm going to email, I thought about the luck I had in UCF even HAVING a women's studies department, since I didn't come into college with any idea of majoring or minoring in it. I hope that we find other people who have at least heard the name Alice Paul while we're tabling, but if it's anything like talking to people so far, I think most won't. The more I talk to people about it while sending the petition just makes me more motivated to educate everyone that while can during the course of this project.

Works Cited

Perez, Nina. "Womanism." University of Central Florida. 31 Mar. 2010. Lecture.

Activism Log 5

Rachel Collins
Jeannina Perez
WST3015
25 March 2010

Activism:
This week we began to work on splitting up the states and getting the email addresses of the heads of the programs. Adam found this really helpful list of American Women's Studies programs, so I think we're going to use that as a guide to expediate the process. We met with Nina to discuss where we are and what else needs to be done, and I volunteered to create the petition itself. We went over a timeline of what needs to be done and when, and we realized that there is definitely a lot of work to be done.
Reflection:
This week in class, we discussed women's relationship to the military and also global feminism. By its nature, our project is not global. Alice Paul was influential in American suffrage. However, I believe that rights for one group of women affect women as a whole. Maybe we're only as free as the least free among us. The same questions that we discussed in class in a global context are also relevant in a national context. IS there a national feminist movement? Many would say no- the needs and wants of women grow disparate over racial, class, and other differences, but I think honoring Paul is something we could probably all rally around. Voting is a right we all enjoy.
Reciprocity:
Having a definite timeline for our work is a good thing. It makes me beileve that we can actually finish and get something done. And despite how stressed this project is starting to make me, I'm encouraged also by the number of women's studies programs that exist. Though we're only a small group of people right now, I believe that many others out there would and eventually will support our cause.

Works Cited
Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. "Living in a Globalizing World."Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 385. Print.

Activism Log 4

Activism:
Recently, it's been difficult to make everyone's schedules work together so that we can meet effectively. We've decided to split up the women's studies programs according to the fifty states, with ten states to each person (and Australia for Nina). My states are Alabama through Hawaii. Adam and Jessie are working on getting a list of feminist organizations to send the letter to, and we're going to make a petition in order to begin gathering signatures. In the second wave of letters, we're gong to send a link to the online petition, so that we can get people to sign who aren't in our immediate circle of friends and university community. I don't think our problem is that we're not motivated, because we all understand the real importance of what we're doing, it's more that not being able to meet as often as we should is holding us back some, but we're working on figuring that out.

Reflection: We read "The Mommy Tax" in class this week, and while this topic might not seem to directly relate to our project, I believe that it actually does. Dealing with issues like the disparity between the work situations of men and women due to differing parental roles is just another part of the fight for equal rights in society, which is the same thing that Alice Paul was fighting for. As well as the right to vote, women should have the right to not have to let their reproductive capabilities destroy their career. Children and rights and a career should not all be mutually exclusive. I also performed in the Vagina Monologues this week, which was inspiring because it helped me to realize the struggles that some women endure in other parts of the world, which reminded me how important recognizing and appropriately honoring herstory really is.

Reciprocity:
It's been discouraging while discussing this project with people to realize how little most people know about Paul and the suffrage movement in general, but the ignorance of other just makes me more determined to help educate society about the invaluable contributions of Paul and women like her. I want my potential daughters and granddaughters to have historical figures to look to and be proud of as women.

Works Cited
Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Who Is Your Mother? Red Roots of White Feminism. Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 21. Print.

Die, Die My Darling

Rachel Collins

Jeannina Perez

WST3015

8 March 2010

Die, die, die my darling
Don't utter a single word
Die, die, die my darling
Just shut your pretty eyes
I'll be seeing you again
Yeah, I'll be seeing you, in hell

So don't cry to me oh baby
Your future's in an oblong box
Don't cry to me oh baby
You should have seen it a-coming on
Don't cry to me oh baby
Had to know it was in your card
Don't cry to me oh baby
Dead-end soul for a dead-end girl
Don't cry to me oh baby
And now your life drains on that floor
Don't cry to me oh baby

I picked this song because I had heard it before. It was originally recorded by a band called The Misfits, and was released in 1984. My Dad listened to a lot of Misfits throughout my childhood, and also listened to the cover version by Metallica. I grew up to also like The Misfits- I’ve known the words to this song for years and because of that fact, this song is the perfect example, for me, of the normalization of violence (and particularly violence against women) in the media. I’ve sung and hummed along with this song since a young teenager, most of the time not even thinking about what the lyrics were talking about. They’re pretty repetitive and less-than-nuanced, which only adds to my surprise that the scariness of the lyrics never occurred to me before.

First, the singer tells someone he refers to as “his darling” to “die, die, die.” We can infer that the person he addresses is someone close to him, maybe an intimate partner. He continues, saying that his victim should shut their pretty eyes, and that he’d see them again in hell. The implied question is, what did the other person do to deserve hell? The singer goes on to say that his “baby’s” future is in an oblong box, that they should have seen the violence coming and that now their “life drains on the floor.” We can piece together that his victim is female from the line “dead-end soul for a dead-end girl.” With very little extrapolation of the existing information provided by the song lyrics, we can tell that it speaks of a woman killed for some perceived offense against someone that she was intimate with. He believes that she deserves it (“I’ll be seeing you in hell”). He believes the contradictory ideas that she both caused it AND that it was inevitable, an illogical combination that absolves the individual who committed the violent actions from all responsibility and feelings of guilt. We are meant to blame the victim for her own brutalization (Kirk 265). We are meant to share in the singer’s gleeful satisfaction that the party at fault has been dealt just retribution for her offenses. In addition, the agency of the woman in the song is effectively stripped, as he demands that she “shut her mouth” and “don’t cry to me.” The woman has no voice. To argue, as many fans of the song probably would, that this is just a song and is not indicative of a larger trend of intimate partner violence would be to ignore the reality of the situation described by The Misfits. According to the government’s Office on Violence Against Women, 20 percent of teenage girls and young women have experienced some form of dating violence (261). The normalization of lyrics just like these contribute to fear felt every day by girls and women, and to the desensitization of men as a whole to the idea that violence is acceptable, as describes by John Stoltenberg in “I Am Not a Rapist!” (285).

Works Cited
Kirk, Gwyn and Okazawa-Rey, Margo. "Violence Against Women." Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. 5th Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 257-271.

Stoltenberg, John. "I Am Not a Rapist!" Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. 5th Ed.New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 285-290.

Activism Log #3

Rachel Collins
Jeannina Perez
WST3015
12 April 2010

Activism: Last wednesday, I met with Nina to figure out what we're going to put into the pamphlet that we're going to hand out while we're out getting signatures on the petition. I'm glad that things are actually moving now, and even though getting signatures is still slow, I'm getting more excited and hopeful about the project. We decided that we're going to put some biographical information about Alice Paul, and each of us came up with ten points that we think are important about her. We are also going to include information about the facebook group (which now has 772 members!), contact info for the womens studies department, and a small works cited to say where we got our information from. All of the letters are pretty much sent now, but I have yet to get a response from anyone. So far, our petition has 183 signatures.

Reflection: Like I said, I’m a little frustrated by how slow the going is sometimes. I’m also frustrated by how many people cite the existence of Mother’s Day as the reason that we don’t need this. We’re not trying to replace Mother’s Day, and what would be wrong with have two holidays that relate to women anyway? Working in a group is always somewhat of a challenge for me, because I tend to want to just do everything myself. I’ve really been trying not to step on anyone’s toes or second guess anyone though. I’m glad that things are moving a little faster, and I’m encouraged by the amount of support that I’ve gotten from people that I’ve talked to about it. It’s neat to watch signatures come into the petition from people that I don’t even know, and to realize that something we created has reached out to people that we’ve never even met.

Reciprocity: I don’t think that the success of this project is the thing that’s going to teach me something. I read ahead to the activism chapter in WLMP and a phrase that encouraged me in that section was that “action always accomplishes something, and in this sense it always works” (586). I’ve found this to be true because even if the main goal of our project fails, we still started something and made people think about what their own opinions are with regard to the issue.

Activism Log #2

Activism: This week, our group met with Nina to discuss the details of carrying out our project. The primary action that I took this week toward that end was to create an online petition for our cause. I titled it “Creation of a Federal Holiday Recognizing the Struggle for Women’s Rights Petition” and posted it everywhere I could on facebook. The url of it is here: http://www.petitiononline.com/w2238868/petition.html. I post it at least once a day and have more recently been sending it to specific people that I know would support it, whether because they feel strongly about its content or just in order to help me out. I made sure to post it to the facebook page for our group, and I also wrote a message in an “update” to all the fans of our page.

Reflection: I have to say, I’m somewhat discouraged at the relatively low number of signatures we have managed to get on the petition so far. After a few days, we were at 48 last time I checked. I think the reason I find this so discouraging is because it had been easy so far to get people to support us, both through discussing the issue and getting people to become members of the page. The most plausible reason for the discrepancy that I can come up with is that it takes a few more seconds to sign a petition than it does to click “become a fan.” I feel like it’s easy to relate this project to the ideas in our textbook about the macro, meso, and micro levels of society (93). It’s difficult to get people to care about this because it’s difficult to look at anything on the macro level. On the macro level, it becomes clear that recognizing and appreciating the ongoing fight for equal rights is imperative.

Reciprocity: The motivation for this project is somewhat self-reinforcing. That is to say, encountering ignorance of what of the fight we want recognized just makes me realize again how important it is that we, as a country, find a way to commemorate the sacrifices of women in fighting for their rights. I’m learning in this process too. Wanting to explain to people why this is so important has motivated me to learn more about the history and significance of this issue.

Seely, Megan. "Identities and Social Locations: Who Am I? Who Are My People?" Fight like a

Girl: How to Be a Fearless Feminist. New York: New York UP, 2007. 92-96. Print.

Stalking is not sexy.

Rachel Collins

Jeannina Perez

WST3015

17 February 2010

When Twilight-mania began overtaking pop-culture about a year ago, I didn't think I whole lot of it. I didn't go out of my way to read it because I'm not really into vampire lore, I find it kind of boring. My roommate, however, is a huge fan. One day as I was teasing her about her obsession with the series, she challenged me to read the book before I criticized. So, I did. And I didn't like it. The movie follows the book pretty closely, and I didn't like it either, partly because of the way that sexuality is portrayed in it. It is notable that sex is rarely, if ever, directly mentioned in the book or movie. However, its implication affects many aspects of the relationship between the main characters.

Edward Cullen is a vampire who has learned to suppress his hunger for human blood by feeding on the blood of animals. However, he apparently finds Bella’s scent to be so delicious as to be maddening (3). Throughout the whole film, the potential act of Edward feeding on Bella’s blood and thereby turning her into a vampire is used as a metaphor for sex. This conflation of violence with sex is extremely problematic. Bella wants Edward to “turn” her, but he shows restraint. This restraint, which is portrayed is very difficult for him, is depicted as valiant of him. When we see this dichotomy through the lens of sexuality, it becomes problematic because Bella desires violence as a demonstration of affection. She also desires that sexual attention without seeming to care that it will hurt and possibly destroy her.

A double standard of sexuality is also present throughout the story. Edward breaks into Bella’s room to watch her sleep (16) is jealous of her contact with friends and especially other male figures, and generally stalks her in other ways as well. Apart from being generally scary, this behavior would be labeled “crazy” if it were performed by Bella. However, when Edward does it, it is portrayed as wildly romantic. Bella is also portrayed as extremely clumsy and childlike. As discussed in our Women's Sexuality reading, "as sex objects, women are commonly portrayed as child-like or doll-like playthings" (150). Depictions of women such as these represent discourses of heteronormative sexuality, which play a large role in maintaining power dynamics between men and women (177).

Perhaps the most disturbingly problematic aspect of sexuality’s depiction in Twilight is that it is depicted as a generally destructive force, and one that must be tightly guarded and controlled lest it escape and cause pain and havoc. Edward says that his family "doesn't understand why I can't leave you alone" (13). Bella strongly desires a violent symbol for sexual contact that she knows may destroy her, and Edward is burdened with policing his lust, which would likely maim the object of his desire if it were loosed. This is a very negative view of the power of sex, which seems to be largely based on very non-egalitarian views of sexuality and sexual relationships in general, with regard to both women and men.

Gavey, Nicole. McPhillips, Kathryn. Doherty, Marion. "'If It's Not On, It's Not On'- Or Is It?"

Women's Lives, Multicultural Perspectives. Ed Kirk, Ozakawa-Rey.

2010. 167-177

Kirk, Gwyn and Margo Ozakawa-Rey. Women's Lives, Multicultural

Perspectives. Mcgraw-Hill, 2010. 149-160.

Twilight. Dir. Catherine Hardwicke. Perfs. Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson. DVD. Summit

Entertainment, 2008.

Service Learning Log Week 1

This week, the things we had been working on previously have seemed to be coming together. We have been collectively amassing the knowledge we will need in order to launch this letter writing campaign. A couple weeks ago, I wrote the preliminary draft of the letter that we plan to send to everyone from student organizations to members of congress. Writing the letter presented a challenge, because it entailed condensing a lot of information into a relatively brief statement of our intentions. The group is currently researching and compiling a definitive list of the places we need to send the letter, while we wait for our professor and community partner, Nina, to proof my draft of the letter. We have met with our community partner more than once to work out the specifics of what we are doing.

Another thing we have done is create a Facebook group for our cause. The group has seen an overwhelmingly positive response, and we are approaching six hundred members, but it has also presented some unique challenges. Personally, working in a group is always somewhat of a challenge for me, and working collaboratively on this project has presented me with an opportunity to improve my skills with regard to working with others. As Seely recommends in "Fight Like A Girl," “involve others- delegate responsibility” (19). Also, there has been some negative response on the page, and it has been disheartening to see some of the ignorant and hateful things that some people have posted in the group. A lot of them seemed to originate from common myths and stereotypes about feminism. As Seely states, “the word has been distorted, diluted, misrepresented, stolen” (2). Though we have deleted the offensive comments, I think we were unprepared for that type of reaction, and we have had to discuss ways to minimize the effect that such responses have on our effort as a whole.

Though we have faced some glitches so far (some expected, some unexpected), I wholeheartedly believe in the importance and worth of what we are attempting to accomplish. Whether we succeed is important, but the lessons in activism that we are gaining are just as valuable.

Service Learning Proposal

Service Learning Proposal

For the effort to create a national women’s holiday.

Rachel Collins

Jessie Gerena

Adam Green

Enrique Irizarry

Kelly Quintero

2/3/10

Jeannina Perez

WST3015-001

Community Partner: The National Organization for Women, UCF Chapter

Contact: Jeannina Perez

Community Partner Mission Statement: According to their website, NOW’s mission is “…to take action to bring about equality for all women. Now works to eliminate discrimination and harassment in the workplace, schools, the justice system, and all other sectors of society; secure abortion, birth control, and reproductive rights for all women; end all forms of violence against women; eradicate racism, sexism, and homophobia; and promote equality and justice in our society.”

Political and/or Social Basis for Organization: NOW is formed on the basis of equality, freedom from sexism, racism, homophobia, and all other types of discrimination. Our view is that the utter lack of any holiday recognizing the fight for women’s rights is a form of discrimination, and as such, falls under the aims listed in NOW’s mission statement.

Memorandum

TO: Jeannina Perez

FROM: Rachel Collins

Jessie Gereno

Adam Green

Enrique Irizarry

Kelly Quintero

DATE: 2/3/10

RE: Proposal to Write a Feasibility Report for the effort to create a national women’s holiday.

This proposal aims to outline the needs, reasons, and feasibility for a service learning project with the intent to create a national holiday for a woman influential within the women’s right movement. Contained within is background on the needs for and benefits of a national women’s holiday, an outline of the work we plan to accomplish, justification for its inclusion in WST3015, and a proposed timeline. This proposal may need to be adjusted after we begin the project, and also needs to be flexible in order to meet the needs of both the project and our community partner.

Need for a national women’s holiday: This project does not have a community partner in the same way that others do. Our community partner is our professor, and our effort spans from student organizations to national organizations and politicians. However, the need for the proposed holiday is clear. There are holidays recognizing many historical and influential figures, such as Martin Luther King Day, yet there are no holidays recognizing women, particularly those who fought and died to secure basic rights of citizenship for women. Such a holiday would promote awareness of the heroic sacrifices of such women, and would demonstrate a movement of our society toward equality and equal recognition.

Plan Proposal: We propose that we will carry out our plan to create a national women’s holiday by formulating a letter detailing our rationale, and send it to student organizations, local, state, and national politicians, national organizations, etc. We will base the letter on legislation that created other similar holidays, such as MLK day. By doing this, we will raise awareness among the community of the need and lack of such a holiday recognizing women. This increased awareness will, we hope, lead to a grassroots effort to create this holiday.

Rationale for Women’s Studies: Women’s studies is concerned with both looking to and shaping the future of the struggle for equality, and honoring and recognizing the contributions and sacrifices that have been made in the past. The holidays recognizing public and historical figures that exist today inspire education because they make common the knowledge surrounding that figure. The fact that there is no such holiday recognizing women such as Alica Paul mean that far too many people in our society are utterly unaware of this crucial knowledge about the progression of women’s rights. Our efforts for the future must be based firmly on a critical understanding and full appreciation of the repercussions of past events.

Action: To begin, Rachel will write a letter detailing the rationale and necessity of this holiday. All other group members will then read and contribute to this letter, and then this letter will be read and finally edited by you, our professor. The rest of the group will be looking up national, state, and local governments, politicians, and student organizations. We will create a Facebook page to promote awareness of our cause. We will then collaborate to distribute our letter to all of these places. We can use the unlimited printing in the honors computer lab to print the letters that we need.

Timeline:

Meet with Nina to discuss the plan on 2/1.

Turn letter in to Nina on 2/5/10.

Create Facebook page – 2/5/10.

Establish definitive list of organizations to send letters to by 2/17/10, then email the ones that we can and send letters to those we can’t by 2/22.

Turn in completed reflection paper on 5/3/10.

Sex sells....as long as it's a heteronormative, woman-objectifying, unhealthy version of sex.

This is an ad you would likely see just about anywhere. Shop windows, department stores, billboards, TV, the internet, malls. It's typical enough that your eyes probably wouldn't even linger on it as you passed. Advertising like this blends into the white noise of the scenery and is rarely consciously analyzed. However, the utter normalization of imagery such as this in our society makes conscious and thoughtful analysis of it all the more necessary and important. The most effective advertising is that which we do not actively perceive as trying to sell us something. Likewise, advertisers themselves may not always be consciously aware of every message they are sending. Advertising performs a singular function, which is to sell; how things are sold is dependent on the society to which they are being sold. Like all media, ads both shape and are shaped by the cultural climate in which they are created. To understand this ad and all advertising, we must deliberately dissect as many aspects of the imagery as possible.
Notice the body language of the woman in the ad. Her spine is curved, head tilted back in a gesture of submission. She is scantily clad, and her face is contorted, teeth bared, in an expression that probably is meant to be ecstasy but can also easily be seen as pain. Her eyes are shut, and her face is visible only blurrily in the background, while the foreground and clear focus is on her body, which (unsurprisingly) displays no trace of fat and glistens with moisture. The depiction of her body is overtly and purely sexual, a perfect example of the oversexualization of women in the media. We’re focused (literally and figuratively) on her body and not her face because her body is what matters. Furthermore, her passive body language is exemplary of that which is seen to be attractive. Submissive and sexy are synonymous, where representations of women are concerned.
We can also unpack the words used in an ad. In this case, the relevant word is “addict,” the name of this fragrance. This word coupled with the image in the ad seems to imply that the woman pictured is an addict of some kind. In this way, the ad romanticizes the idea of addiction by coupling it with imagery of an ideal woman. Addiction to anything is unilaterally harmful, and renders individuals powerless to control and shape their own behavior and choices. By pairing the idea of addiction with an image of an ideal woman, the ad conflates beauty and powerlessness, female sexuality and submission, health with disease, and sexuality itself with a lack of control, agency, and power with regard to women. Once one is familiar with the oversaturation of images such as this one in our culture, it becomes easier to see how erroneous and problematic ideas about women and sexuality are furthered and tacitly accepted in society.

Johnson, Allan G. "Patriarchy, the System". Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. 5th Ed. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2009. 68-76.
"Women's Sexuality". Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. 5th Ed. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2009. 149-160.

Well done, Sister Suffragette!

The unflattering depiction of suffrage begins almost as soon as the first scene in Mary Poppins. Mrs. Banks, clearly fresh from some sort of political activism, enters the house chanting, marching, and wearing a sash emblazoned with the words "votes for women." Instead of listening as her servants attempt to inform her that her children are missing and their nanny has quit, Mrs. Banks continues singing a song entitled "Sister Suffragette," the words to which are as follows:

We're clearly soldiers in petticoats
And dauntless crusaders for woman's votes
Though we adore men individually
We agree that as a group they're rather stupid!
Cast off the shackles of yesterday!
Shoulder to shoulder into the fray!
Our daughters' daughters will adore us
And they'll sign in grateful chorus
'Well done, Sister Suffragette!'
From Kensington to Billingsgate
One hears the restless cries!
From ev'ry corner of the land:
'Womankind, arise!'
Political equality and equal rights with men!
Take heart! For Missus Pankhurst has been clapped in irons again!
No more the meek and mild subservients we!
We're fighting for our rights, militantly!
Never you fear!
So, cast off the shackles of yesterday!
Shoulder to shoulder into the fray!
Our daughters' daughters will adore us
And they'll sign in grateful chorus
'Well done! Well done!
Well done Sister Suffragette!'

The mocking tone of this song is clear. "Missus Pankhurst," of course, refers to Emmaline Pankhurst, leader of the British Suffrage movement. Calling her "Missus" adds a further mocking note, since "Mrs." is a title for women that is based on whether she is married or not. The movie casts the struggle for suffrage as the activity of bored and ineffectual housewives. Mrs. Banks can be heard telling one of her servants to "put these things away, you know how the cause infuriates Mr. Banks." As soon as Mr. Banks is home, Mrs. Banks falls into the exaggerated role of simpering housewife. She hangs on his every word and defers to his word with little question. Mr.Banks can be heard to castigate his wife at length for her apparent inability to select a suitable nanny for the children. She also seems to have little knowledge of or control over her children. Mary Poppins, by contrast, is portrayed as "practically perfect in every way." She controls Mrs. Banks' children with little effort, she appears very in control of herself, and she shows no tendency toward political agitation. This contrast is meant to be unflattering to Mrs. Banks, who is painted as negligent toward her womanly duties in favor of agitating for women's rights.

Furthermore, Mr. Banks' conviction that he is the master of his household is portrayed as ridiculous in the light of his wife's preoccupations and his children's shiftlessness. The story seems to say that his assurance of absolute control over what is perceived as his dominion is called into question, in some part because of the "frivolous" activities of his wife. In Iron Jawed Angels, however, the men are not portrayed as two dimensional, bumbling caricatures of male power. Instead, they are represented as a range of realistic, multifaceted characters who are neither perfect nor monolithic embodiments of patriarchal power.

In stark contrast, the women in Iron Jawed Angels are painted as well rounded characters. They are neither cartoonish depiction of militant suffragists nor bored, simpering housewives. Whether wives or political activists, the women in this movie stand up for what they believe, are multifaceted characters with complex and nuanced views and emotions. This depiction of the suffragist movement is realistic. In Mary Poppins, women are portrayed as shedding their ideals at the whim of their husbands while in Iron Jawed Angels, the true struggle and vivacity of these heroic women is clearly demonstrated. In one, stereotypes are preserved. In the other, they are definitively dispelled.

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Women's Lives: Multicultural

Perspectives. 5th. 2009. 3-6. Print