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.