Ramblings of a Nostalgic Senior

So as my last post I kind of wanted to write I guess what would be considered a reflection of some shape or form.  There ultimately won’t be a general topic or subject heading, I honestly don’t know I’m going to title this…ramblings of nostalgic senior? I actually kind of like it but more to the point if I have one, I am a senior and have two weeks left of my college career, gosh it makes me feel so old.  I remember when I was a freshman older people would tell me to enjoy it while it lasts because it passes by so quickly and I never thought I’d see the day when I was that older person.

It feels like just yesterday that I was a little freshwoman, well I still am little but hopefully a lot wiser.  People always say that college is when you find yourself, you’ll experiment but along the road you’ll come into your own as a small person in this big world.  You make mistakes, you learn from them and grow plus hopefully don’t repeat them but there’s ups and downs, break ups, hook ups and fuck ups, you may get an underage charge, you may find a soul mate, or just a best friend that you will always stay in touch with and you may very well may streak the quad.  There are papers and tests but those aren’t the things that shape your college experience.  You won’t care what you got on your geology test Sophomore year but the night you stayed up all night talking to a complete stranger, you will.  Along this wild journey that people casually refer to as college, I found myself and I can 100% thank feminism for the woman I am today.

Insights from a Lipstick-Wearing Feminist Part II: What I’ve Learned

It’s hard to believe that after four months of weekly posts, I’m drafting up my final ShoutOut! blog entry for the Spring ’13 semester.  It’s been a semester of intense personal growth for me, and I’ve learned a lot—and changed my mind a lot—as a result of writing, blogging, researching, coffee dates and wine nights, all done bearing the purpose of figuring out exactly what my “brand” of feminism is.

How I feel like I started this semester…

 

I started off the semester with a strong-willed, girl-power piece entitled “Insights from a Lipstick-Wearing Feminist.”  Here, I voiced a budding confidence in my “feminine feminism,” in spite of the notion that femininity can threaten feminism.  I waved off this logic, asserting that I should be true to myself, because that’s the heart of the movement, right?

Go ahead, call me a feminist.

I progressively became less bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and incrementally more pissed off, as my consciousness-raising semester continued.  I started to realize that any deviation from fulfilling my prescribed gender norm was, well, unwelcome, as I discussed in “Speak Like a Lady.”  I also started to question why other women were criticized, and made to feel like outsiders, for not buying into standardized female behaviors.  For example, I enjoy wearing lipstick, dresses, and high heels.  That’s all well and good, and no one is going to give me a double-take for buying into the social norm for how a woman “should” look.  But what about a woman who chooses to not wear makeup?  She’s criticized, as we can see from countless headlines of celebrities who “forgot” their face.  If women are going to be humiliated for making the choice to stray from the norm, then do we really have the freedom of choice to behave, dress, act, and speak as we please?

I learned to apply the term “personal is political” to my everyday life.  I’ve come to understand that I need to make some changes to the conversations I choose to engage in.  I’ve challenged myself to refrain from gossiping about other women—and when I fail, my friends never hesitate to call me out: “hey, that’s crabs-in-the-bucket talk!”  I’ve been much more in touch with the notion of sisterhood this semester, and understanding that as a woman, my words and my actions have the capacity to empower or cripple another woman.  As a feminist, I choose to empower, and I have been actively working on transforming my language to build my sisters up.

Perhaps the most important personal development I’ve experienced in writing for ShoutOut! is my increased comfort in calling myself a “feminist.”  I used to shy away from “the other F word” because of the stigmas attached to the title.  Through this experience, though, I’ve become comfortable promoting my posts on Facebook and Twitter, and openly engaging in these discussions with my readers and my friends.  I’ve been able to make my feminism my own, which encouraged me to claim the title of “feminist” as a fundamental part of who I am.  My heightened sense of liberation and empowerment derived from my feminist consciousness-raising has in turn made me a more confident woman.

Who says we don’t need feminism anymore?

So, in short, it’s been quite a ride this semester.  I’m grateful for the participation of my fellow bloggers, advisers, readers, and friends, for shaping my politics and making me the best version of myself.  I can’t wait to engage in dialogue on even more of these issues next semester!

My 41st Post

It is hard to believe it, but this is it. My 41st and final post for ShoutOut JMU. We have shared three semesters of avid blogging my dear readers – but let’s take one last journey together. I want to reflect on my blogging experience, talk about the transformative power of the blogosphere (and how you can be a part of it!), and share two upcoming feminist projects that I am really excited about. So, one last time, here we go…

Rape Culture: Who’s Laughing Now?

TRIGGER WARNING: Discussion of rape/ sexual assault.

In my last post, I explained that the way a person dresses doesn’t indicate anyone’s right to touch them, and why this notion is so instrumental in contributing to rape culture. As the second post in my series about rape culture, I wanted to explore the concept of rape jokes.

A rape joke is any kind of joke that expects the audience to laugh because a person is being raped, chased, harassed, or otherwise violated. Now, it seems fairly simple to expect that no one would find jokes like this funny. We see rape as a repulsive thing, so why would anyone laugh at it? As it turns out, the answer is a little more complicated than whether or not we find rape abominable.

Constrained Choice: More power to us?

I recently wrote a post on whether Pinterest is killing feminism, and stipulated that Pinterest isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  After all, it can be used to promote pro-feminist (or, at least not anti-feminist) sentiments.  More fundamentally, Pinterest is a user-generated platform, meaning it is reflective of what the users themselves choose to pin.  And anyway, who are we to criticize what someone chooses to pin?

After much thought, countless discussions (but seriously, check out the comment thread on “What’s So Pinteresting?” for some pretty awesome discourse), and quite a bit of research, I’ve decided that this topic is worth revisiting, as it opens up a pretty consequential discussion on the matter of choice.  I find myself often inclined to say something along the lines of “feminism is a choice, and we should all respect one another for our choices, and at its core feminism is about equality, so the matter of what a woman ‘pins’ is rather trivial.”  Perhaps this is too simplistic in scope, though.  It’s not about taking what’s on your virtual pin board at face value:  there’s a lot more at stake for feminism than that.

The fact is that what a woman puts on her Pinterest board is a reflection of what she values.  Given that the feminist movement lends profound credence to the idea that the “personal is political”, there is absolutely a link between what a woman personally values, and how this relates to her lived politics.  I won’t rescind my prior stance that “feminine is not anti-feminist”, nor will I advise anyone to drop what she’s doing and remove those pins that relate to clothes, jewelry, or Martha Stewart.  I’ll admit, though, that we make a huge mistake in thinking that we have the freedom to pin (read: value) whatever we want.  While that’s partially true, as women, we are still socialized to value certain things over others.  Pinterest is problematic in that it is a virtual prototype that reveals the misconception in assuming that a woman’s choice is entirely her own.  Enter the notion of “constrained choice,” and how it relates to a problem that is, as I’ve said before, much bigger than Pinterest.

Fe(men)ism?

I recently had a conversation with one of my male classmates in a feminist rhetoric course.  We were discussing the broad topic of, you guessed it, “feminism”, and the subject quickly turned to the role men play in the movement.  He seemed a little uneasy to pose the question, but finally inquired, “Even if I’m a dude, if I support feminism, can I call myself a feminist too?”

At first, I was struck at how timid the usually unabashed fellow seemed in asking this question.  I’ve been aware of the controversy surrounding this question, but to me the answer always seemed obvious.  We all know what happens when we assume, though, so I decided to do some research into the matter.

According to the Free Dictionary online, a feminist is “a person who supports feminism.”  Alright, that was easy enough.  The same source defines “feminism” as “the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.”  Absent from this definition is a qualifier on the grounds of sex.  Granted, if the debate were as simple as referring to a dictionary definition, it would hardly be a debate.  Here are a few other points of consideration:

I’ve heard the concern that if we consider men to be feminists, then we’re running counter to the purpose of feminism in the first place.  We’d be admitting defeat, in a sense—we’d be implying that we need men to make changes happen.  At best, he can be a feminist ally.  This is so problematic.  This view implies that men are the enemy—indeed the antithesis of feminism—but they’re not.  Yes, they’re in a position of privilege, though this is afforded to them incidentally through the institution of patriarchy.  However, “man” is not inherently patriarchal.  Our very own definition section of this page reinforces my point:  “Patriarchy is not synonymous with men. Rather, it is a social system that both men and women participate in. It emphasizes the privileges of men and devalues the role of women. Patriarchy also reinforces the rigid social and cultural constraints on gender and sexuality.”  If a man wishes to fight patriarchal oppression, how is he not a feminist? 

I Am A Woman, Hear Me Roar

I first started taking birth control my senior year of high school, which would mean that I have been on it for almost 5 years.  It wasn’t until I took a course on women’s health issues my spring semester of my junior year, that I gathered a complete knowledge of exactly what birth control does for a woman’s body.  Sad right?  Yes, I readily admit that I was ignorant and should have made sure that I knew exactly what I was putting in my body.  But this one class period in general was mind-blowing because we learned about all the different types of contraceptive methods, which I don’t know about you, but my high school health class wasn’t passing around diaphragms and NuvaRings.

In my defense, I feel like it’s common knowledge that young women generally go on the pill, rather than other forms of birth control, for 3 reasons: to lessen the chances of pregnancy, clear up worse than normal acne or regulation and relief of the menstrual cycle.  Granted I was mainly on it to regulate my period but I never asked nor was I informed on how this miracle pill did all that it can do.  I know from talking to many of my friends, female and male, that I wasn’t the only one that was living in the dark.

Speak Like A Lady

Few things annoy me as much as the phrase “speak like a lady.” I heard it all the time growing up, but given that I am the daughter of a fighter pilot father and a Spanish mother, my colorful vocabulary was, well, a learned behavior. I never really understood why this was a problem, and now, I’m infuriated by the implications of this, frankly, sexist command.

Yes, I said it, “sexist”. For the most part, I avoid speaking in absolutes, but this is something that needs to be talked about. Why is it acceptable for a man to say “sh*t”, but a woman has to say “the S-word”? Am I less delicate of a woman if I sound it out, instead of taking the safe route and abbreviating it? Well, many would say, yes. It just sounds weird for a woman to curse and swear, I’m told. I rarely  never hear this complaint spoken about men.

Saturday Special – Guest Blogger!

Meet Alana Simpson, my first guest blogger ever! I email interviewed her at work for a press release a few weeks ago and have been excited to share her story ever since. On Tuesday, January 23, Alana traveled to Richmond with thirty-five other JMU Social Work students to spend a day advocating for social justice at the General Assembly. Her story is an awesome example of a woman taking a stand in politics – and what could be better than that?!

Mini Bio – Alana Simpson is a social work student from Crozet, Virginia. She is working towards a career in emergency room social work and/or PICU social work. She is currently Mrs. Rockingham County and will be competing in the Mrs. Virginia pageant in April. She is promoting her love for social work with her platform “Each One Reach One” which focuses on working with vulnerable populations and giving them the dignity they deserve.

Everything that follows is in Alana’s own words:

Feminist Roots – How I Became A Radical

I am a radical feminist.

And I always hear the sounds of a happy parade when I read that sentence, complete with fireworks and elephants trunks blasting towards the sky. I really LOVE being a feminist!

I doubt any of this surprises those of you who have been reading my blogs for three semesters, but for all of the newcomers, I feel like I owe a bit of an explanation. I jumped right into writing about some really intense subjects like enlightened sexism and natural childbirth this semester, with no explanation of where I was coming from or where I am going. Obviously I wasn’t born with a copy of bell hooks in my hands, and some of you may be wondering, how did I get like this? What are my feminist roots?