The Youth Pride Chorus of NYC LGBTQ Community Center
My cousin works at The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in NYC and she posted this video on facebook. I know it’s not related to Intimate Partner Violence, but it’s too full of love and positive vibes NOT to share with such a loving and positive group!
Also, isn’t it interesting that there are so few women in this group? Food for thought…
-M. Hislop
And Kagan Makes Three!
Today the US Supreme Court opened its 2010-2011 session and, for the first time in our country’s history, three women are serving on the bench. Elena Kagan joins Sonya Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsberg and, together, they comprise 1/3 of the nation’s highest court. Two of these women began their tenure under the Obama administration and hopefully the court will continue to see more diversity in the years to come.
Women’s Center October Programming
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. To raise awareness, the Women’s Center is putting on a series of events.
Monday, Tuesday, & Wednesday, October 4-6, 11 am – 1 pm
Tabling
Visit the Women’s Center board members tabling in Paresky. We will be handing out fact sheets about intimate partner violence. We will also be distributing teal ribbons. If you or anyone you know has been affected by domestic violence and/or intimate partner violence, we encourage you to take a ribbon and tie it anywhere in Paresky. We hope to create a visual to represent all of the people in the Williams community who have been affected by DV/IPV.
Wednesday, October 13, 8:30-9:30 pm, Hardy Living Room
Collective Meeting
Join is in an informal yet provocative discussion of contemporary popular culture music portrayals of domestic violence. Refreshments will be served.
Monday, October 18, 12-1 pm, Paresky 207
Lunch
Eat lunch with Women’s Center members and a representative from the Elizabeth Freeman Center, which serves women survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence. The representative will be discussing the face of intimate partner violence on college campuses.
All month long, keep an eye out for our poster campaign raising awareness for domestic violence, our banner in Paresky, chalkings around campus, and advertisements for events occurring beyond the Williams College Campus. If you have an idea about an event, or would like to subscribe to our listserve to be kept up to date, email [vcr1 at williams dot edu]. We hope to see you at all of our events and that you will help us in the fight to end intimate partner violence.
In solidarity,
The Women’s Center Board
Louise Bourgeois, the amazing, prolific artist who died this past summer, is a feminist icon in every respect. The first woman to have a retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art, Bourgeois, who many ephs might know as the creator of the famous “eyes”, brought women to the forefront of a discipline that is known for its male masters. W Magazine has a beautiful portfolio of images taken of Bourgeois the year before she died. These images, along with the tributes that accompany them, are a beautiful testament to Bourgeois contributions to the field of art.
Speech and Silence
This Thursday, Penguin Young Readers Group, publishers of Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak, took out a full page ad defending Speak and their client against attempts in Missouri to ban the book. The ad reads: “Every day in this country, people are being told what they can and can’t read. On September 19th, SPEAK by Laurie Halse Anderson and two other novels were challenged in the state of Missouri. Read the book. Decide for yourself. Speak loudly.”
For those of you who have not read the New York Times bestseller, the novel chronicles the struggles of rape survivor. The New York Times ad, by using quotes submitted by those touched by the novel, clearly shows how important the book’s treatment of this subject matter is to many who struggle to articulate and understand their experiences with sexual assault.
However, this important function of the novel appears lost on some. Wesley Scroggins, a professor at Missouri State University who wrote an opinion piece in the Springfield News Lieder, has deemed the book “filthy”, “shocking” and antithetical to Christian values. According to Scroggins ”in high school English classes, children are required to read and view material that should be classified as soft pornography.” Speak, as you might have guessed, is one of these books. Scroggins is unable, or perhaps unwilling, to see the importance of this book not only for those who struggle themselves with issues of sexual assault but also for spreading awareness of such issues. Censorship in and of itself is problematic, but when the censorship is due to an inability to understand that discussions of sex have a meaningful place is our society, the act is all the more upsetting.
RIP Tyler Clementi
Hi there everyone, Emily here. While this post is not explicitly feminist-related, I feel a deep need to recognize the tragic and untimely death of Tyler Clementi, a freshman at Rutgers University.
For those of you who have not heard about this, Tyler, 18, was outed on the internet by his roommate. Here’s a good summary:
On the evening of September 19, Rutgers student Dharun Ravi is believed to have sent a message by Twitter about his roommate, Clementi.
“Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly’s room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay.”
Ravi, 18, of Plainsboro, New Jersey, surreptitiously placed the camera in their dorm room and broadcast video of Clementi’s sexual encounter on the internet, the Middlesex County prosecutor’s office said. Ravi tried to use the webcam again two days later, on September 21.
“Anyone with iChat, I dare you to video chat me between the hours of 9:30 and 12. Yes it’s happening again,” Ravi is believed to have tweeted.
The next day, Clementi was dead. [CNN]
As a feminist, an activist, and most importantly, an ally, I believe that if just one person is still struggling, then we all must continue to struggle (like that quote that I cannot remember at the moment). [Edit: The Rutgers LGBT community is trying to push the administration to establish a safe space on campus. Read the article in full here.] There isn’t too much more to say, but I think this video sums it up well:
If you are LBGTQ or questioning and having trouble, or someone you know is, then please get the help and support that you deserve. Here are some excellent resources:
Dan Savage’s It Gets Better Project
The Trevor Project [you can also contact their toll-free hotline at (866) 488-7386]
National Center for Bullying Prevention
h/t to Tracey ’10 at Feminizzle for the video and resources.
Related articles:
Youth Suicides, Andrew Shirvell and America’s Tolerance of Anti-LGBT Hate
How a College Kid Livestreamed His Roommate Having Gay Sex, Possibly Causing a Suicide
Just because….
The Daily Beast’s “Islamo-Erotica”
a random sampling of images from a gallery I found on the Daily Beast’s website. there’s no accompanying article so let your reactions run wild.
check out the full gallery here: http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/1406/1/?newsmaker=80&redirectURL=http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsmaker/art-and-photography/?cid=hp:topnav:artb
Beauty and Whiteness (Notes from Abroad)
White. I never expected to see so much of it in a country full of quote unquote yellow people. But for reasons unfathomable to me, China’s metropolitan population of women is obsessed with preserving their white skin. No, sorry, that’s not quite right. It’s not just preserving, it’s also creating. I simply can’t begin to tell you how many times I have seen ads for lotions and creams that help turn your skin three, five, six shades lighter. (And in just two weeks to boot!) Why do we still adhere to beauty standards where people literally feel so uncomfortable in their own skin that they are spending tons of money dyeing it? (It has already practically morphed into its own industry.) Even as countries like China slowly become world powers, it’s population still bows to that age old adage of lighter equals better. In part, it stems from a belief that darker skin means working outside and a lower social class, and while it includes these economic reasons, it’s twisted past these to take on a life of its own. And before I let this almost rant become too gender polarized, I should mention that the craze has hit men too, and while it may be hard for the American macho man stereotype* to reconcile with, men in China and other parts of East and Southeast Asia face beauty standards of fair skin too (and hence have their own lines of skin whitening products). And here, people take it to extremes – I’ve seen too many girls on the street with a ghost-like pale colored skin that looks more unnatural than an orange fake tan.
So you want to be pale because it means you’ve stayed out of the sun which means you’ve avoided UV radiation which means you’ve avoided skin cancer. Ok, I get it. But let’s not say that beauty is white. It might be a cliche to say that beauty comes in many different colors, but if it’s such a cliche why does it seem like no one believes that it’s true?
*I fully acknowledge that not all men are like this, but many of my classmates, male and female, remain shocked by the prevalence of men wearing make up, getting plastic surgery, etc. in China and the macho man image still permeates the American commercial industry. [lvw]
Not News
I wish I had some brilliantness to share from the world outside our purple haven, but my news-knowledge consists of jezebel, movie review sites, nytimes.com and facebook. Instead I thought I’d take a paragraph of your time to raise a general question: to what extent is a feminist space a confessional?
I was reading this book To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism by Rebecca Walker. It’s an anthology of pieces published in 1995. Most of the pieces are by young feminists (one male) who are battling with their “failures” as feminists. One woman likes porn, one is a corporate lawyer who does not speak up when a superior touches her, one loves being femme, etc. But the one that stuck out to me is called “Missionary Position” by Gina Dent. An excerpt from the piece reads “It seems to me that in order to answer the question of why young women are not claiming feminism, we have to consider it from the other side–what is is that feminists are doing that gets labeled Feminism? I think much of what they (we) are doing is making confessions.”
Dent goes on to tell an anecdote. She is at a conference full of feminists and one woman tells the story about another woman being beaten by her husband. It’s a very emotional moment and afterward Dent starts asking the woman questions. Asking the group of women to question how women who call themselves feminists use their voices to speak for other women. Is it right to suddenly place their story into a historical, socio-cultural context that they did not necessarily consent to being a part of? Are we treating our sisters like children, as if we are telling them: You don’t know it yet, but you’re a feminist. Just trust me.”
At Williams I feel strongly that there are many people on campus doing and talking feminism without knowing it, but who am I to label them? If someone had come up to me on the subway the day I began to read bell hooks’ Ain’t I a Woman? and said “Congratulations! You’ve just joined the feminist club!” maybe it would have been awesome. I imagine there would be a huge cake in the shape of an “F”, pin-the-fro on Angela Davis. Good times…But wasn’t it part of my whole journey to claim that title myself? Isn’t that where all the fun lies?
-M. Hislop
