#let's learn from feminism and the left tradition that created radical feminism

[rad4learning]

Radfems - I highly recommend reading some stuff from before 1975. Learn more about why 2nd wave feminism emerged when it did. Learn about the conflicts we're repeating.

There are no simple answers to how we deal with the question of uniting as women with all of our differences; however we can learn from the successes and failures of the past.

[blogbyliv]

Personal Reflection

Liv Gardner 

Women’s Writing Worldwide

Prof. Richard

30 July 2021

Personal Reflection

Growing up as a young woman in a conservative town where feminism is seen as an outlier, devil-made, radical set of ideals, my understanding of the term has always been mixed. From birth to age 14, the concept was somewhat foreign. What little I knew about it did not bear a positive connotation and it seemed to always loom in the background, an uncomfortable topic, like race or sex, that no one seemed to want to discuss. As I moved into a different high school, one away from my hometown, one advanced and labeled as a college preparatory school, things changed. I was exposed to new teachings, new ideas, new people, and the connotation and anonymity of the word in my life changed. As we fast-forward to today, I look at things like this course, one that my pre-teen self could have never imagined would exist or let alone would be one that I was taking, and I admire the impact it has made on my overall body of knowledge. While the world around me has not changed, the community still bearing the same traditional and sexist sentiments as always, it seems as if I have, undoubtedly for the better. 

As I searched for inspiration for such a project, I tried to look back through the TedTalks we often annotated this summer. Many struck me again with the veracity of their messages, but there was one in particular that moved me just as it had the first time: a young woman who was speaking about her Indian heritage and culture. I listened as she talked about the traditions that involved the garments and accessories of the women. She explained how Indian women took pride in their beautiful bangles and colorful saris, but how this would so quickly change once their husbands passed. Their saris would only be allowed to be white and their bangles would be broken. Their lives were seen as irreparable once without a man. This struck me then, just as it did again recently. The clothing, shoes, and accessories that women wear can often say a lot about their culture, how their culture views them, and what they value. At the same time, there can also be heavy misconceptions about these garments that can mark a group of women indefinitely. In my commonplace project, I wanted to explore all of these things. There are countless cultures across the world that are often overlooked, or, conversely, noticed, quickly misunderstood, and then passed by. Coming from a household where my mother owned her own boutique, I knew this was a topic I wanted to explore. Through my blog, I worked to highlight specific garments of different groups of women and look at what each said explicitly about their circle. In my choices of cultures and clothing, I also sought to find pieces that represented various topics and concepts that we had learned and explored throughout the last eight weeks. 

There were various objectives I wanted to meet with my writing for this project. The first one was to highlight misconceptions that we commonly have about certain cultural garments. One example that I used for this was the hijab. Through our unit on Islam and our extensive readings on the wearing of the hijab, I was drawn to highlight its ability to be a fashion statement just as much as it is a religious one. Society, because of media misrepresentation and single stories of the culture, has often linked the hijab to the idea of subjugation. Many see it as the antithesis of feminism. In reality, it is quite the opposite. Musliim women who choose to wear a head covering do so by their own free will. While some states do still exist that make it a mandate to cover, most are progressing away from this traditional and sexist way of operating. For the majority of Muslim women, covering is seen as a privilege and a religious duty that exhibits their dedication to their faith. This dedication, as mentioned before, does not mean it has to be unfashionable. I wanted to highlight through my blog the many prints and styles of hijab that exist for Islamic women to dress and have fun with. Another misconception surrounds the kimono of Japan. For many, the depiction of the kimono often stems from some form of fighting movie that was Americanized and popular in the states. It also typically pictures only a male wearing such garments. Through this blog I wanted to show that traditional garments do exist for women and in actuality are much more complicated than the males. While this might simply be a stylistic detail, it seems to be the culture’s own reflection of how they view women as a whole, touching on another objective I sought to meet within my project. 

Throughout this project, I also wanted to achieve a series of connections between the garments and some of the specific topics we learned throughout the summer. One of these was colonialism and post-colonialism. We can look specifically at the dress of the Herero women to see this illustrated. Mimicking much of the 19th century Victorian women’s dresses, the Herero women are known for their clothing called the Herero dress. The garment that identifies the women are not of their own creation, but yet a piece of German socialization that was left behind following their early 20th century invasion. The Herero dress still exists today, but not for the reasons one would assume. In their pursuit to convert and conquer the Herero tribe, the Germans were the perpetrators behind a mass genoicde that wiped out a majority of the tribe. Not only did they leave behind trauma and pain, but also their style. The Herero women of today wear the dress not to show that they were products of cultural diffusion, but rather as a symbol of rebellion. By wearing the piece on their own terms and in their own styles, they believe they have taken back a bit of their history and made it their own. Another piece of clothing that we can see through the eyes of post-colonialism is the maasai shuka. The Maasai are a group of semi-nomadic people residing around the area of Kenya in Africa. Brough to the area by both Scottish missionaries and colonizers, the shuka resembles a blanket and can be draped in various ways to cover and protect the body. It is known for its bright colors and prints that can vary based on location in the region and the group of people within the Maasai that wear it. 

Aside from connections to our learning topics and exhibiting the misconceptions of some cultural pieces of clothing, I also wanted to highlight basic garments that were traditional in some popular nations, but are often overlooked within the eyes of Americans. These are pieces like the Ao Dai in Vietnam and the tichel in Judaism. While the garments can be interwoven into the themes and objectives mentioned prior, the emphasis on their existence is what I really sought to highlight within the blog. 

Growing up in a household dedicated to profiting off of and maintaining what you look like, I have always understood the power, both positive and negative, that clothing holds. Fashion gives us confidence. This can be confidence in ourselves, confidence in our faith and religious ties, or confidence in our culture and nationality. Regardless of its form, it gives us a boost, a push that allows us to feel empowered in all that we choose to do. Yet, there is another side to its power. Fashion also creates divides. It can separate one class from another, one nationality from its neighboring state, and even one age group from those above and below it. Regardless of its purpose or the role it plays for the women and other individuals who wear the pieces, all fashion can be united under one word: beauty. Each piece featured within this project shows dedication to a variety of things. There is dedication to the garment itself, dedication to a nation of origin, and even dedication to a specific religion. Each of the pieces show intricate designs and bright colors, all of which represent those who wear it and the regions from which they originate. They also embody the strength of the women who wear them. For the Herero women, we see the capability to overcome cultural subjugation and persecution. For the Muslim women, we see the power to separate themselves from society and profess their faith and beliefs through the covering of their hair. For Jewish women, we see the fortitude to break a tradition long dominated by men, and the slow and progressive adoption of the tzitzit into daily wear. Each has their own story, their own origin, their own connection to those who wear them, yet all embody beauty and promote the strength of the females who are fighting for a place within their own cultures and within society as a greater whole.

[atheistforhumanity]

Why I Vote Blue

When Abraham Lincoln bravely embraced the liberal philosophy at the time that African American's should not be property conservatives responded by saying:

South Carolina

“...A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery.”

Mississippi

“Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery—the greatest material interest of the world...These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.”

Louisiana

“The people of the slave holding States are bound together by the same necessity and determination to preserve African slavery.”

Alabama

“for the triumph of this new theory of Government destroys the property of the South...to gratify the lust of half-civilized Africans.”

Texas

“...in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states....”

Conservatives are still waving the flag of these people today! To anyone who says I don't understand what that flag represents, you need to learn more history.

Source

After the Civil War, when the Democratic party was the conservative wing in this country and dominated the south, confederate veterans formed the KKK-an American terrorist group-to fight the peaceful integration of African Americans into our society. People like to bring up the KKK and Dixie Democrats to deny that the Republican party is the home of racism, but the fact is that in the 1960's the two party's switched platforms. Mainstream Democrats broke ranks with the southern Dixies and all of their conservative and racist values. The south flipped to the Republican party in support of Goldwater and his vicious attack against civil rights. LBJ won the presidency and lead Democrats toward the liberal end of the spectrum we operate on today. That is why the south, which waves the confederate flag and is a stronghold of racism today votes solidly Republican. This is also why the KKK and white nationalists vote Republican, because they find support for their causes in their policies. In fact, in at least 5 races happening right now there are self-avowed Nazis, white supremacists, and holocaust deniers running as Republicans. We have a racist Republican president who called white supremacist demonstrators “very fine people.” It's seriously hard not to see where conservative values live.

When women wanted to vote:

When women wanted to vote men lost their minds and were not having it. Truth be told, women largely had to make this happen on their own because men were hostile to the idea. As far as which party supported women's suffrage it was truly a mixed bag with lukewarm support from both sides. However, I'm focusing on ideological mindset, not party labels. It was a liberal idea to support women voting, just like it was liberal to support feminism in the 70's. Conservatives today are still using the same talking points used by anti-suffrage proponents in the 1920's. 

Here is a anti-suffrage political cartoon from the 1920's. This is mirrored by Senate Candidate Courtland Sykes. He doesn't want his daughters to become "career obsessed banshees who forego home life and children and the happiness of family to become nail-biting manophobic[sic] hell-bent feminist she devils who shriek from the tops of a thousand tall buildings they think they could have leaped over in a single bound – had men not ‘suppressing them’."

The GOP largely embraces an anti-women platform. Trump famously claimed he had the right to grab women by the pussy at any time, and with nearly 20 accusers of sexual assault he was still elected President. Republican Todd Akin famously said “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” Modern Republicans have proved that they know nothing about rape and it's not surprising given their anti-feminist platform. Republican Clayton Williams flat out said to reporters that "If it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it." He said he was “joking.” Even Republican women are breathtakingly ignorant of the concept of equality for women. Republican state lawmaker from Florida, Kathleen Passidomo, made the worst victim blaming statement I've ever heard in support of a school dress code: “There was an article about an 11-year-old girl who was gang-raped in Texas by 18 young men because she was dressed like a 21-year-old prostitute," she said. "And her parents let her attend school like that. And I think it’s incumbent upon us to create some areas where students can be safe in school and show up in proper attire so what happened in Texas doesn’t happen to our students." Notice that was in Texas, a strongly conservative state. I could literally write pages and pages of quotes against women by conservative figures. The point is that we can see very plainly the conservative minded citizens of our country are not advancing the equality of women and never have.

The Civil Rights Era

Remember when I said the parties switched platforms in the 1960's when the south supported Goldwater for President? Well, Goldwater was a serious opponent of the civil rights act, another conservative man running for president became the face of racism and anti-equality. That mans name was George C. Wallace and he made a fiery speech denouncing LBJ and the Civil Rights Act. Here are some snippets:

“It is therefore a cruel irony that the President of the United States has only yesterday signed into law the most monstrous piece of legislation ever enacted by the United States Congress.

It is a fraud, a sham, and a hoax.

This bill will live in infamy. To sign it into law at any time is tragic. To do so upon the eve of the celebration of our independence insults the intelligence of the American people.

It dishonors the memory of countless thousands of our dead who offered up their very lives in defense of principles which this bill destroys.

Never before in the history of this nation have so many human and property rights been destroyed by a single enactment of the Congress. It is an act of tyranny. It is the assassin's knife stuck in the back of liberty...

...Ministers, lawyers, teachers, newspapers, and every private citizen must guard his speech and watch his actions to avoid the deliberately imposed booby traps put into this bill. It is designed to make Federal crimes of our customs, beliefs, and traditions...

...Yet there are those who call this a good bill.

It is people like Senator Hubert Humphrey and other members of Americans for Democratic Action. It is people like Ralph McGill and other left-wing radical apologists...It was left-wing radicals who led the fight in the Senate for the so-called civil rights bill now about to enslave our nation.

We find Senator Hubert Humphrey telling the people of the United States that "non-violent" demonstrations would continue to serve a good purpose through a "long, busy and constructive summer..."

...I am having nothing to do with this so-called civil rights bill. The liberal left-wingers have passed it.”

Okay, we will stop there. If you think listening to Donald Trump makes you feel like you've entered another reality where everything immoral is cherished, then I suggest you read Wallace's full speech. It makes modern Fox News hosts sound rational. Do you think he is just the remnant of a distant past when conservatives didn't know any better? Well, let's compare his statements to modern conservatives.

Wallace called the Civil Rights Act “an Act of tryanny,” and Donald Trump called Black Lives Matter “purveyor's of hate.” In fact the knee jerk reactions of Blue Lives Matter and All Lives Matter deny the core issue of constant racial violence against black people in America today, both by police and right-wing terrorists.

When Wallace says that the CRA made crimes of “our customs, beliefs, and traditions,” this is echoed in the defense of the confederate flag today and confederate monuments. Conservatives deny that rejecting those symbols of slavery and oppression are a moral action, therefore denying the true dynamic and pain they cause. That's exactly what Wallace was doing by framing civil rights protections for minorities as turning traditions into crimes. Modern supporters cry about the civil war soldiers who will be dishonored, completely ignoring that their cause was dishonorable to begin with and not caring about the disrespect and fear those symbols represent for non-whites.

Wallace mocked the protests of the era and the idea that they were a force for good. What's ironic about that is that Conservatives today always talk about the non-violent methods of MLK and condemn modern protests as being violent and destructive, but that's exactly how conservatives in MLK's day talked about him. Republicans have come out strong with legislation against protesting, taking a page out of the 60's play book. On top of police brutality and violent lash back against protestors, they want to make protesting as illegal as possible.  

Will Herberg in the 60's made scathing comments about MLK and his protests, “in almost every part of the country, called out their mobs on the streets, promoted “school strikes,” sit-ins, lie-ins, in explicit violation of the law and in explicit defiance of the public authority.” He spoke of King inciting anarchy and chaos.

Does this sound familiar? It should, because conservatives on Fox News have been pushing the same narrative that the left has devolved into mob rule, that they are violent people, and protests are illegitimate. The similarities go on and on. Nothing has changed.

LGBTQ

It is unquestionable that support for LGBTQ people is a liberal value, and conservatives have fought tooth and nail to resist granting these citizens fair and equal treatment both socially and legally. 

This graph illustrates my entire point I've been making about voting blue, about being liberal. Modern conservatives will reject the label of bigot while still rejecting homosexuality. We can see that consistently through the past liberal supported LGBTQ FIRST! Every civil rights issue you can think of was pushed by liberals first. I've laid out evidence showing where conservatives and liberals stood for some of the most important issues of our time and where they are today. Conservatives are always playing catch up. They are morally regressive, but always eventually giving in to a moral standard made in the past by liberal minded people. Now, you look at this graph and see that not even all liberals support homosexuality, but the point is not that liberals are perfect only that they are further ahead. Every value that liberals push for eventually becomes a moral standard. Democracy was a liberal idea in the face of conservative monarchists, capitalism was liberal compared to feudalism, religious freedom was a liberal idea compared to state sponsored religion. To be conservative is to be fundamentally against moving forward.

I don't vote blue for the Democratic party, the party may change, I vote for who represents the liberal spectrum. Liberal ideology has brought us everything good in this country and conservative voices have done nothing but hold us back. Whenever conservatives win it is on a campaign of fear. I vote blue because I know that one hundred years from now the people who call themselves conservatives will have accepted much of what we fight for today, but will be refusing to accept new advances. I know the liberal values of today are the values of the future.

I apologize for not going into as much detail about LGBTQ, but I felt that it’s less contested as far as who supports the movement and Pew Research shows where we are at today. It’s no secret who fights against marriage equality, and equal rights.

I hope everyone voted blue today, because you can see what a major impact it has on our lives.

[jmarksthespots]

[#WOWFestival #FESTIVAL #PANEL] Women of the World Festival OW: Big Ideas * Intimate Conversations May 7 | 2-7pm  @apollotheater​ | 253 West 125th Street New York, NY  Admission: FREE For tickets, REGISTER ONLINE

PANELS

Opening Remarks The Global State Of Women Purna Sen – Director, Policy Division, UN Women

Linking Arms: Why Our Feminism Must Be Intersectional

What are the issues shaping the feminist agenda in the 21st Century?  Who gets to set them and how do we ensure that no feminist is left behind? This panel brings leaders from across the feminist movement to discuss why it matters who leads the march and explore what it takes to create an inclusive movement that also stands against racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, xenophobia and classism.

Panelists Include: Jude Kelly, Moderator – Artistic Director of Southbank Centre and WOW Festival Founder Tamika Mallory – National Co-Chair of the Women’s March on Washington; President of Mallory Consulting Carmen Perez – National Co-Chair of the Women’s March on Washington;  Executive Director of The Gathering for Justice Azadeh Khalili – Former Founding Executive Director – Commission on Gender Equity, Office of the Mayor, NYC

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Unapologetically Afro-Latina Co-presented by the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute

This  interactive conversation celebrates what it means to be an Afro-Latina and explores the intersectionality of her identity. This panel will also address the multilayered impact of race and gender on the lives of Afro-Latinas across the Spanish-Speaking African Diaspora, from socio-economic status, to education and healthcare access, to representation in media and politics.

Panelists Include: Marta Moreno Vega, President CCCADI Nancy Morejon, Award-winning Cuban poet (presented in partnership with Pen World Voices) Malin Falu, Radio and Television personality Magdalena Albizu, moderator – director, NEGRITA documentary; former President of the New York Chapter of the National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP).

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The M Word: Muslim-American Women on Power and Beauty What is the unchallenged perception of a Muslim-American woman? Who gets to decide what images and narratives about women dominate in the public discourse, the media, and the literary world? Is the hijab a fashion accessory, an expression of one’s faith, or trending iconography? Is a focus on the hijab reductive?A conversation on women—by women—on what it takes to defy obsolete notions of power and beauty, and instead embrace multidimensional identities. Addressing beauty standards, cultural appropriation, faith, and feminism, our diverse panel tackles a few of the most controversial and sensitive topics of our time.

Panelists include: Mara Brock Akil (Being Mary Jane, Black Lightning) Rana Abdelhamid (Hijabis of New York) Mona Haydar (‘Ask A Muslim’) Penina Roth (Franklin Park Reading Series).

Presented by The M W Word: Muslim Americans Take the Mic, a PEN America series supported by Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art’s Building Bridges Program and by the PEN America World Voices Festival. This event is co-presented by the Apollo Theater and the 2017 Women of the World Festival.

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I Love Myself When I’m Laughing: Finding Power Through Comedy          

This panel will look at the many cool ways in which comedy has served to empower women who have found success as stand-up comedians, actresses, and writers of major talk shows. In this talk will women will also discuss how they have used humor as a tool to create social change around reproductive rights, Black Lives Matter, sexual trafficking, healthcare, immigration, women’s and LGBTQ rights and how you can too.

Lizz Winstead, moderator – co-creator of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show. Maysoon Zayid – writer, actor, comedian, Maysoon Zayid is the co-founder of the New York Arab-American Comedy Festival. Aida Rodriguez – producer and actress, known for Last Comic Standing, The Comedian, and The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore. Subhah Agarwal – Subhah’s unique perspective comes from growing up Indian-American in the mid-west. She has been featured on PBS series Modern Comedian, TruTV, Comedy Central, and MTV. 

#ACTIVISM

In 2017, it appears you can’t be an effective activist without social media and you can’t be relevant without a ’cause’. Or at least, that’s what we’re led to think. This discussion will explore what activism looks like now compared to the past, what it will look like in the future and the myriad of ways activists are using social media to create narratives and bring the reality of overlooked experiences to the fore for change and empowerment.

Ashleigh Shackelford, moderator – contributing writer at Wear Your Voice Magazine and For Harriet Alaa Basatneh is a human rights activist, writer and Justice Correspondent at FUSION and is the protagonist in the 2013 award-winning documentary, #ChicagoGirl (chicagogirlfilm.com), following Alaa’s tireless efforts to guide revolution in war-torn Syria using only social media and her laptop from 6,000 miles away in the suburbs of Chicago. Lorne Batman is the social media manager for Lady Parts Justice League Elizabeth Luke is a communications manager at Twitter

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Period Rights: Who Gets To Bleed With Dignity The functions of women’s bodies has historically been hidden from them and ‘polite�� conversation which informs a sense of shame and hush women have talking about their periods. We are now learning how lack of access to sanitary products for certain groups of women in certain social circumstances (poverty, prison, homeless, etc.) prevent them from fully taking part in everyday life and can even lead to disadvantage. WoW has put together a frank debate of experts who are changing the period game and given us the power back to ‘bleed with dignity’ and without impediment.  

Moderated by Simone Bresi-Ando

Panelists Include: Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, author of Periods Gone Public (Skyhorse, September 2017);contributor to Ms. Magazine. NYC Council Member Julissa Ferreras-Copeland Nadya Okamoto – co-founded PERIOD. Alison Nakamura Netter – Chief Communications & Development Officer, ZanaAfrica Foundation

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Masculinity, A Solution? The construct of masculinity has been more vocally challenged in recent years with the emergence of new gender identities, the study of the various negative impact of toxic masculinity, the highlighting of rape culture and the resurgence of feminist ideologies in the mainstream. Can masculinity as we know it survive? Do we need it? Why does it cause so much harm across the world against both men and women? What’s the new ways we can carve a masculine identity that empowers, nurtures and educates men without the pain? 

Panelists Include:

Risikat “Kat” Okedeyi, Moderator – hosts a radio show, The LSP Effect, a weekly online show and Creative Conversations. Robert Jones, Jr. is the literary, sociopolitical and psychosexual writer behind the Son of Baldwin blog, which explores issues that matter to queer people of color and their allies. Leo Sheng is a Trans Activist/Advocate and writer for MTVFounders Professor Robert Jensen is a professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center in Austin.He is the author of Plain Radical: Living, Loving, and Learning to Leave the Planet Gracefully (Counterpoint/Soft Skull, 2015). Michael Kimmel – is one of the world’s leading experts on men and masculinities. He is the SUNY Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at Stony Brook University. Among his many books are Manhood in America, Angry White Men, The Politics of Manhood, The Gendered Society and the best seller Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men.

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Give Me Body: What I Learned About Myself & The World When I Embraced & Loved My Body From Sports Illustrated to Beyonce, the current culture of body image politics is evolving and impacting our lives for better and for worse! Panelists will share personal stories about the trauma and pleasure of having “non-traditional” bodies, and will challenge alternative facts promoted via pop culture empowering women and girls to love their bodies and dismiss the haters.

Panelists Include: Ericka Hart is a kinky, poly, activist, sexuality educator, performer and cancer-warrior who after her double mastectomy made waves with her topless photo Jen Ponton is a comedic force and most commonly recognized for her work on Tina Fey’s “30 Rock” and “The Unbreakable Kimmy  Schmidt.” Additional participants will be announced

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Digital Dames: The Future of Women & Girls in Tech This talk will look at the many varied and fascinating ways in which women and girls are impacting the tech sector. Our expert panelists will not only lay out the many challenges that women still face in tech, but will provide solutions on how to break in and break the glass ceiling.

Panelist includes: Sonya Magett, co-founder of Code & Content Academy, a nonprofit that provides coding workshops in underserved communities. Heather Cabot – co-authored GEEK GIRL RISING: Inside the Sisterhood Shaking Up TechRaising Powerful GirlsHow do we give and create empowerment tools and leave a positive, sustainable legacy for the next generation of girls to positively handle and define their identity, ambitions, desires and dreams in a world that is increasingly seeing these things as secondary to its progression? 

Moderated by Mommy Blogger, @ChicBusyMoM, Candace Montgomery Panelists Include: Nadia Lopez – Principal at NYC Department of Education. Stacey Patton – an American journalist, writer, author, speaker, and college professor and commentator.  She is also founder of the anti-child abuse movement Spare The Kids, Inc. Shireen Ahmed is a sports journalist, former football player, wife and mother. Candace Montgomery, Moderator – Senior Director, Event Marketing at Essence Communications.

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Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood: An Intimate Conversation on the Experience of Being Trans, Gifted & Black This panel will discuss the transformative experience of being trans, by slaying the misperceptions around being Black, transgender, and a woman. Panelists will address the violence still faced by trans women everyday and the silence surrounding them. This talk will conclude with a discussion envisioning a trans/ cis Black sisterhood and give voice to the ways in which we can mine that Black Girl Magic to find a more powerful level of understanding.

Featuring CeCe McDonald, a transgender prison-reform activist and subject of the documentary, Free CeCe in conversation, with Octavia Lewis, the Audre Lorde Project Trans Justice School Fellow.

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Uptown Hall: The Power of New York Women       The Apollo Theater’s WOW themed Uptown Hall – The Power of New York Women will be an in-depth panel examing the opportunities and obstacles women in positions of power face.  How are New Yorkers impacted by what these women do?  What power does an average New York woman have to lead and to influence leaders?

Moderated by WNYC’s Jami Floyd.

Panelists include: Piper Anderson, Create Forward Majora Carter, Majora Carter Group Professor Christina Greer, Fordham University Amy Holmes, Rasmussen Reports Margaret Hoover, American Unity Fund Donna Lieberman, NYCLU Janai Nelson, NAACPLDF Sonia Ossorio, NOW- New York City

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WORKSHOPS WOW Workshop:  5 Ways To Boost Your Career On Social Media Featuring a discussion with Mary Pryor, Director of Digital, Digital Flash New York

WOW Workshop: Self-Acceptance presented by StyleLikeU Mother-Daughter duo Elisa Goodkind & Lily Mandelbaum, the founders of the multimedia company StyleLikeU and creators of “The What’s Underneath Project”, will led a workshop on self-acceptance through personal style.

WOW Workshop: Warrior Women This family-friendly craft workshop invites participants to design wooden door hangers of powerful She-Roes from around the world including:  Mama Tingo from Santo Domingo, Queen Nanny of the Maroons, Yaa Asantewaa, Lolita LeBron, Harriet Tubman, and many more.

WOW Workshop: Trap Yoga Apollo Theater Sunday May 7 at 2pm Taught by Trap Yoga guru, Brandon Copeland

This workshop is a fast-paced, power yoga practice done to Trap.  Participants should wear comfortable clothes and bring their own mats.  Due to limited capacity, this event requires an RSVP. Please RSVP at wow@apollotheater.org.

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WOW BITES WOW Bites are engaging bite-sized talks delivered by fascinating women with amazing stories from all walks of life.

WOW Bite: Crazy Is My Superpower Featuring AJ Mendez Brooks, former wrestler and three-time WWE champion Divas Champion.

WOW Bite: “Carrying The Weight: My Senior Year As ‘The Mattress Girl. '”Featuring Emma Sulkowicz, a Columbia University student who became the face of sexual assault on college campuses nationwide when she carried around a 50-lb mattress as a work of endurance performance art for her senior thesis.

WOW Bite:  My (Underground) American Dream – From Undocumented Immigrant To Goldman Sachs Star Featuring a discussion with Julissa Arce, political commentator, speaker, writer and author of MY (UNDERGROUND) AMERICAN DREAM.

WOW Bite:  Harlem: The New Tech Frontier Harlem Featuring Jessica O. Matthews, founder of Uncharted Play, a renewable energy company specializing in motion-based, miniaturized power systems.

WOW Bite: Con Cuatro En Una Casa: How I Make Single Motherhood Look Good  Featuring Yvette Russell

WOW Bite: My Hijabi Chronicles Featuring Laylah Amatullah Barrayn, photographer and recent recipient of the Reporting Grant from the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF).

WOW Bite: Kindness Is Magic: 25 Acts of Kindness to Incorporate Into Your Life Everyday  Featuring Tere Geckle

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OTHER ACTIVITIES

WOW Reading:Julie Scelfo, author of The Women Who Made New York,  reads from the chapter of her book entitled “The Aunties,” which features four women who helped their immigrant communities feel more at home in New York–while also protecting and celebrating cherished cultural traditions from back home.

Suffrage Spotlights:To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the woman’s right to vote in New York state, activists and performers will gather to read excerpts from famous Suffrage speeches from around the world.

Podcast:Shirley McAlpine, a seasoned business coach and facilitator, will launch her new podcast, ‘She’s Got Drive,’ live at the WOW festival.  She, along with a roundtable of panelists, will share inspiring stories and offer tips on how to live your life by design and not default.

WOW Film: MAKERS: Women in Politics Executive Produced by: Dyllan McGee & Peter Kunhardt MAKERS: WOMEN IN POLITICS profiles the long, slow fight for female political representation over the last century, from the first woman elected to Congress in 1916 to a young woman running for Detroit City Council in 2013. Trailblazing leaders like Hillary Clinton, Senator Barbara Mikulski, Olympia Snowe, the youngest Republican woman ever elected to the House of Representatives, and Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American woman to serve in Congress, provide a backdrop for younger women like Rashida Tlaib, the first Muslim-American woman elected to the Michigan House. Today’s leaders in Washington, including Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), the first female Senator from Massachusetts, Susan Collins (R-ME), who led the Senate in shaping a deal to end the government shutdown, and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), currently the youngest woman serving in Congress, are also represented. Narrated by Alfre Woodard. About MAKERS MAKERS is a storytelling platform for the trailblazing women of today and tomorrow. Through visual storytelling, podcasts, live events, Emmy-nominated documentaries, and award-winning digital content, we’re inspiring the MAKERS who will shape the future. MAKERS are women who dare to lead. As the largest digital collection of women’s stories ever assembled, MAKERS is inspiring and empowering women to change the world one story at a time. Today, MAKERS.com features over 4,500 videos and the stories of more than 400 women. Current MAKERS include: Hillary Rodham Clinton; media mogul & philanthropist Oprah Winfrey; writer, actor, producer Lena Dunham; U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg; artist Alicia Keys, fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, writer and producer Shonda Rhimes, YouTube sensation Lilly Singh; and more. For more info, visit MAKERS.com

MUSIC/PERFORMANCES Under the Apollo Marquee DJ:Musical Pathways Radio Show RhythmAndSoulRadio.com is the urban eclectic internet radio station where you can listen to your varied music tastes in one place.On May 7th, under the Apollo’s marquee, the hosts of RhythmAndSoulRadio.com’s Musical Pathways Radio Show (The Mad Spinner Jamelle Mel, Lady Scorpio, and Mama Soul) will serve as DJs with a unique music mix celebrating women across the globe. They will play new soul, classic soul, R&B, Hip-Hop, Spoken Word, Reggae, Soca, Calypso, Black Rock, and more from artists you know and love and independent artists who you need to know.

WOW Mainstage DJ: DJ CUPPY Florence Ifeoluwa Otedola, famously known as DJ Cuppy, is a musician and entrepreneur.  In 2014, Cuppy released her first compilation House of Cuppy, which saw her pioneer a fresh new sound she dubbed “Neo-Afrobeats” -an electric blend of Tropical House and Afrobeats music.Urban WordThe Sunday program will feature special performances by young poets from Urban Word NYC.Urban Word NYC champions the voices of New York City youth by providing platforms for critical literacy, youth development and leadership through free and uncensored writing, college preparation and performance opportunities.

[globalwomenslit]

I have to start by addressing just how much this class has changed my life. It changed the way I see, feel and connect with the world and has opened my eyes to the absolute strength women possess. When we started this class, we got to pick out a “meme” that spoke to us, I chose “The gift of good literature is that it begins difficult conversations.". Little did I know just how relevant and crucial that quote would be throughout the entire class. Every story we heard, whether TedTalks, articles or the novels, there were themes, questions and realizations that arose. For this Tumblr I chose quotes and/or images that truly spoke to me throughout the class and pushed me to do more research outside of the class. As one can see my "logo” is the quote “Women belong in all places that decisions are being made” this spoke to me after watching and annotating “Tales of Passion: Isabel Allende”. Her story brought up some of the most heart-breaking stories I have ever heard. Stories, that make you feel helpless and small, yet the story was about strength and passion and making sure women had a voice, especially in places of power. “I think that the time is ripe to make fundamental changed in our civilization. But for real change, we need feminine energy in the management of the world. We need a critical number of women in positions of power and we need to nurture the feminine energy in men”. These words left me feeling empowered for the future. Isabel did a wonderful job not only speaking on the fact the women need to be in power positions, but that men also need to have their feminine energy nurtured. This spoke to me as today there are old white men who are judges or politicians who believe that a women’s body and rights are up for debate. When you look at large political groups, they have one large thing in common, most are older white men. This means that laws and important decisions are being made through the need and wants of themselves. Women, especially women of color need to have a voice in place where decisions are being made. Going off that, my next post is a woman holding up a sign that says “why does every woman know another women that was raped but no man knows a rapist?”. Now, this made me think about how women are viewed when they do report violence. I came upon a article “Courts Misogynistic Rules For Rape Survivors” this is about how judges in India continue to this day, to have extreme bias or stereotypes about “rape culture”. Mrinal Satish who is a professor at the National Law University stated, “Rape stereotypes continue, and not just amongst judges but amongst lawyers and students too”. The idea that a woman who has been raped has “lost her most cherished position aka her dignity, honor, reputation and chastity, is blatant bullcrap. This, as well as judges continuing to fall back on how a woman who has been raped, SHOULD behave is misogyny at its finest. Rape law is rooted in it. “You don’t blame a murder victim for provoking her murder. You look at evidence. Why is it so hard to do that for rape victims?”. I then of course started researching many other countries and how Rape Law is conducted, and as I guessed, many are rooted is misogyny. In the US, a 16-year-old boy raped a 16 year old girl at a party, he filmed the entire thing and then decided to share it to his friends with the text “when your first time having sex was rape”. Judge James Troiano said “this man comes from a good family who put him into an excellent school, his scores for college entry were very high, the pressing charges would destroy his life”. What a pity, let’s take a moment of silence for the poor rapist who filmed himself raping a girl and then sent it around. The reason I am bringing this up is because when I read the Tumblr post, I kept thinking about how many male judges, male friends of rapists continue to enable this behavior. If a powerful judge tells men you’re a good boy and gives them a slap on the wrist, what is going to stop them in the future. Men and women need to be on the same side when it comes to rape culture, the side of  “its unexpectable and there will be consequences”. We allow to continue what we don’t change. Women’s voices are important, but if men don’t use their power and voice to help, we continue down a path where women stay oppressed. When reading Under Western Eyes: by Chandra Talpade Mohanty I found myself drawn to the paragraphs about violence against women. As someone who has gone through violence at the hands of a male, wanted to learn or try to understand the ideology behind it. I began to feel once reading, that creating the narrative that women are the “victim” aka powerless and the male the powerful creates a notion that men attack or hurt because they ARE more powerful. Now, violence against women is different in countries but that basis of it, is power. In countries where girls get their genitalia mutilated for the reason that women should not feel pleasure as their duty is to have sex, get pregnant and then raise the child. “this, in turn, leads her to claim that woman’s’ sexuality is controlled, as is her reproductive potential” (pg 66) After this reading I did some research and found that many “religion based” ideas like genitalia mutilation are just continued ways to keep women down, and the weirdest part to me is how many men continue to do so. My personal opinion on this topic is that a lot of people (men especially) like to use “religion” as an excuse to continue to “exert their power” on women. Religion and tradition have a lot in common, in the reading “radical women, embracing tradition” Kavita Ramdas speaks on how when she was a younger girl in India her aunt lost her husband, so her other family members came and ripped off all her jewelry, her colorful sari, and wiped her bindi of her head. Her father’s response being “there is nothing I can do. This is tradition.” I am all for traditions, mine really revolve around spending time with my family and doing charity, so I shouldn’t judge other traditions right? I found myself struggling with this because I respect other cultures, what I don’t respect is people doing things out of religion or tradition that damages or hurts someone. As Kavita says “Women don’t make those rules, but they define us and they define our opportunities and our chances.” What I enjoyed about this is she also speaks on her father’s inability to save his own sister from suffering due to the “rules”. I’ve never been so empowered then I am right now after this class, I want to travel and listen to stories and I want to document everything and be a leader of change. As we have heard many times throughout this class, stories have a magic about them, they let you into a perspective that you may have never seen or heard. Story telling allows those who might not have a voice in their own community, a voice in the public, one that inspires, or scares or just plain explains. We all have a perspective on life, due to the information we read, see feel and hear. I’ve learned that there is no gift greater than a story as it gives us a view we aren’t accustomed to and may change the way we previously thought or went about our lives. What I have learned, is that feminism is for EVERYONE. Feminism isn’t the idea that women are better than men or that women hate men, it’s that women and men should be equal and treated as such. I have learned that a story can change lives, and truly fight against oppression, but that without women in power and having a voice in decisions, change is hard to come by. Systematic oppression is a real thing, and during these times today, when people are far more open to the discussion, we have a duty to each other to speak up and to vote and to continue to support all women, globally. I have forever been changed by this class and I am beyond thankful for being able to listen to these stories and share my own thoughts.

Marguerite McGettigan- Reflection 

[dareread]

Meet Scott Yenor.

Yenor is a mild-mannered, bald, bespectacled professor of political science at Boise State University, a college known more for its blue football field and run-and-gun offense than for its history of philosophical debate. Yenor’s intellectual credentials are spotless: He has never received complaints from students or faculty about his classes or his papers. He’s a teacher and a thinker by trade, fully tenured.

But Yenor, you see, is also the devil.

At least, that’s the new public perception of Yenor at at Boise State. That’s because Yenor published a report in 2016 with the Heritage Foundation titled, Sex, Gender, and the Origins of the Culture War. The central thesis of the piece was simple and rather uncontroversial in conservative circles: that radical feminism’s central argument decrying gender boundaries between the sexes as entirely socially constructed has led directly to transgenderism’s attacks on gender itself as a social construct. As a philosophical matter, this progression is self-evident. Yenor’s report was academically worded and rather abstruse at times, filled with paragraphs such as this one:

For Beauvoir, the common traits of “immanent” women result from pervasive social indoctrination or socialization. Beauvoir identifies how immanence is taught and reinforced in a thousand different ways. Society, for instance, prepares women to be passive and tender and men to take the initiative in sexual relations. Male initiative in sex is “an essential element” in patriarchy’s “general frame.”

Yenor later translated his extensive report into a shorter, less jargon-y article for Heritage’s Daily Signal, titled, “Transgender Activists Are Seeking to Undermine Parental Rights.”

Again, his contentions were not merely consistent with mainstream conservative thought—they were self-evident to those human beings with eyes and the capacity to read. (Ontario, to take just one example, has recently passed a bill that could plausibly be read to identify parental dissent from small children seeking transgender treatment as “child abuse.”) Yenor’s rather uncontroversial article was then posted at the Boise State Facebook page.

That’s when the trouble began.

Leftist students took note of Yenor’s perspective. And they seethed.

Actually, they did more than seethe: they complained, they demanded that the piece be taken down, and they insisted that Yenor had personally insulted them. All of this prompted the pusillanimous dean of the school, Corey Cook, to half-heartedly defend Yenor’s right to publish. But then Cook backtracked faster than Bobby Hull defending a breakaway, saying:

Our core values as a School include the statement that “collegiality, caring, tolerance, civility and respect of faculty, staff, students and our external partners are ways of embracing diverse backgrounds, traditions, ideas and experiences.” As has been pointed out by several people in their communications with me, the particular language employed in the piece is inconsistent with that value.

Cook didn’t say exactly why Yenor’s writings had violated this inconsistently-enforced value. In fact, Cook’s attacks on Yenor violated this value far more significantly than Yenor’s original writing. But as shoddy as this statement was, other leftist faculty members thought Cook didn’t go far enough—even though he had pledged to “begin reevaluating our approach to social media.”

And so a knight arose to challenge Yenor’s nefarious, patriarchal dragon: Francisco Salinas, a man with the Orwellian title “Director of Student Diversity and Inclusion.”

Salinas believes that diversity and inclusion do not include perspectives disapproved by Francisco Salinas. Thus, he took up his fiery pen and wrote a post on the school’s website dramatically titled “Connecting The Dots.” Salinas explained that the Yenor controversy had preceded white supremacist rally and murder in Charlottesville, Virginia by a day. This was not, Salinas concluded, a coincidence. “Their proximity in my attention,” Salinas wrote, “is no accident.” How so? Let’s let Salinas sally forth:

There is a direct line between these fear fueled conspiratorial theories and the resurrection of a violent ideology which sees the “other” as a direct threat to existence and therefore necessary to obliterate. It is not an absolute succession and it is not a line without potential breaks or interruptions. Not every person who agrees with Yenor’s piece is likely to become an espoused Neo-Nazi, but likely every Neo-Nazi would agree with the substance of Yenor’s piece.

And so Yenor went from mainstream conservative thinker to neo-Nazi in the blink of an eye. Not just in the mind of Salinas, mind you—but in the minds of Yenor’s fellow professors and members of the student body, too.

A flyer suddenly began appearing around campus, reading “YOU HAVE BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS SCOTT YENOR.” The faculty senate took up a measure that would initiate an investigation claiming that Yenor was guilty of some ethereal “misconduct.” Here’s what faculty senator Professor Royce Hutson wrote:

A large majority of the senators feel that the piece espouses deeply homophobic, trans-phobic,and misogynistic ideas. Additionally, some feel that the piece may be academically dubious to the point of misconduct. In response, the senate has created an ad hoc committee to draft a statement that repudiates the ideals expressed by Professor Yenor, without explicitly censuring Dr. Yenor, and reiterates the Senate's endorsement of the BSU's shared values as it relates to his piece.

Yenor was forced to hire an attorney. His fellow professors cast him out like a leper. In Yenor’s words, his colleagues engaged in “ritual condemnation and ostracization.”

If this reads more like a tragicomic Kafka novel than an honest discourse about ideas at one of our nation’s institutions of higher learning, that’s because it is. Except that it’s real: Yenor wanders the halls of an institution to which he has dedicated his life, condemned for a crime nobody will specify.

Unfortunately, Yenor’s experiences aren’t rare. Professors are now routinely hauled up before courts of inquisition in true revolutionary fashion for offenses contrived post facto for the sole purpose of ensnaring anyone who dissents from the current leftist orthodoxy.

Northwestern University’s Laura Kipnis—who isn’t even conservative—has been sucked into the maw of a Title IX case for having the temerity to write about “sexual paranoia” on campus and asking for evidence before condemning professors or students to the wilderness for mere allegations of sexual misconduct.

Professor Keith Fink found himself ousted from his part-time role at University of California at Los Angeles; Fink lectured on free speech and employment law from a conservative perspective. No real reason was given for UCLA’s failure to renew his contract.

Professor Bret Weinstein was forced to quit his position teaching at Evergreen State College after he refused to comply with a racist mob demanding that white professors not teach on a specified date.

Professor Nicholas Christakis resigned his administrative position at Yale’s Silliman College after he was abused by students who didn’t appreciate him telling them that they should get over their fears about diabolical Halloween costumes.

And people wonder why academia is leftist.

The suffocating leftism in American universities has arisen in large part because they are run by a self-perpetuating clique. To be excluded from such cliques can be professional suicide. And the price of admission is ideological conformity. Moreover, public pressure from students and outside media often prompts administrators to join in the chorus—better to be part of the mob baying for heads than to join a controversial thinker on the guillotine. The few conservative professors left tend to keep their heads down and pray for anonymity.

But that’s just the start of the problem. Decade after decade, the treatment of conservative professors has gotten worse as the leftist hegemony has grown stronger. And as older conservative professors have aged out of the population there are no sponsors for up-and-coming conservatives who want to join the professoriate.

As Yenor explains, “The process of getting a Ph.D. either makes conservatives into ‘careerists’—which means that they have to toe the line on sacred cows of the left—or conservatives at the undergraduate level see what academia would be for a career and decline to join.” So the self-perpetuating caste grows ever stronger. And louder. And more virulent. Anti-intellectual bullies like Francisco Salinas—enforcers of the revolution—exist on nearly every campus.

Conservatives tend to think that it can’t get much worse on campus. But it can. And it will.

The purge is on. When even Scott Yenor can’t be left alone in the middle of Idaho to write obvious truths about sexual politics, it’s a warning to every conservative professor in America that if they speak freely on intellectual matters they’re not doing their jobs—they’re risking their careers.

[globalwomenslit]

I have to start by addressing just how much this class has changed my life. It changed the way I see, feel and connect with the world and has opened my eyes to the absolute strength women possess. When we started this class, we got to pick out a “meme” that spoke to us, I chose “The gift of good literature is that it begins difficult conversations.". Little did I know just how relevant and crucial that quote would be throughout the entire class. Every story we heard, whether TedTalks, articles or the novels, there were themes, questions and realizations that arose. For this Tumblr I chose quotes and/or images that truly spoke to me throughout the class and pushed me to do more research outside of the class. As one can see my "logo” is the quote “Women belong in all places that decisions are being made” this spoke to me after watching and annotating “Tales of Passion: Isabel Allende”. Her story brought up some of the most heart-breaking stories I have ever heard. Stories, that make you feel helpless and small, yet the story was about strength and passion and making sure women had a voice, especially in places of power. “I think that the time is ripe to make fundamental changed in our civilization. But for real change, we need feminine energy in the management of the world. We need a critical number of women in positions of power and we need to nurture the feminine energy in men”. These words left me feeling empowered for the future. Isabel did a wonderful job not only speaking on the fact the women need to be in power positions, but that men also need to have their feminine energy nurtured. This spoke to me as today there are old white men who are judges or politicians who believe that a women’s body and rights are up for debate. When you look at large political groups, they have one large thing in common, most are older white men. This means that laws and important decisions are being made through the need and wants of themselves. Women, especially women of color need to have a voice in place where decisions are being made. Going off that, my next post is a woman holding up a sign that says “why does every woman know another women that was raped but no man knows a rapist?”. Now, this made me think about how women are viewed when they do report violence. I came upon a article ��Courts Misogynistic Rules For Rape Survivors” this is about how judges in India continue to this day, to have extreme bias or stereotypes about “rape culture”. Mrinal Satish who is a professor at the National Law University stated, “Rape stereotypes continue, and not just amongst judges but amongst lawyers and students too”. The idea that a woman who has been raped has “lost her most cherished position aka her dignity, honor, reputation and chastity, is blatant bullcrap. This, as well as judges continuing to fall back on how a woman who has been raped, SHOULD behave is misogyny at its finest. Rape law is rooted in it. “You don’t blame a murder victim for provoking her murder. You look at evidence. Why is it so hard to do that for rape victims?”. I then of course started researching many other countries and how Rape Law is conducted, and as I guessed, many are rooted is misogyny. In the US, a 16-year-old boy raped a 16 year old girl at a party, he filmed the entire thing and then decided to share it to his friends with the text “when your first time having sex was rape”. Judge James Troiano said “this man comes from a good family who put him into an excellent school, his scores for college entry were very high, the pressing charges would destroy his life”. What a pity, let’s take a moment of silence for the poor rapist who filmed himself raping a girl and then sent it around. The reason I am bringing this up is because when I read the Tumblr post, I kept thinking about how many male judges, male friends of rapists continue to enable this behavior. If a powerful judge tells men you’re a good boy and gives them a slap on the wrist, what is going to stop them in the future. Men and women need to be on the same side when it comes to rape culture, the side of  “its unexpectable and there will be consequences”. We allow to continue what we don’t change. Women’s voices are important, but if men don’t use their power and voice to help, we continue down a path where women stay oppressed. When reading Under Western Eyes: by Chandra Talpade Mohanty I found myself drawn to the paragraphs about violence against women. As someone who has gone through violence at the hands of a male, wanted to learn or try to understand the ideology behind it. I began to feel once reading, that creating the narrative that women are the “victim” aka powerless and the male the powerful creates a notion that men attack or hurt because they ARE more powerful. Now, violence against women is different in countries but that basis of it, is power. In countries where girls get their genitalia mutilated for the reason that women should not feel pleasure as their duty is to have sex, get pregnant and then raise the child. “this, in turn, leads her to claim that woman’s’ sexuality is controlled, as is her reproductive potential” (pg 66) After this reading I did some research and found that many “religion based” ideas like genitalia mutilation are just continued ways to keep women down, and the weirdest part to me is how many men continue to do so. My personal opinion on this topic is that a lot of people (men especially) like to use “religion” as an excuse to continue to “exert their power” on women. Religion and tradition have a lot in common, in the reading “radical women, embracing tradition” Kavita Ramdas speaks on how when she was a younger girl in India her aunt lost her husband, so her other family members came and ripped off all her jewelry, her colorful sari, and wiped her bindi of her head. Her father’s response being “there is nothing I can do. This is tradition.” I am all for traditions, mine really revolve around spending time with my family and doing charity, so I shouldn’t judge other traditions right? I found myself struggling with this because I respect other cultures, what I don’t respect is people doing things out of religion or tradition that damages or hurts someone. As Kavita says “Women don’t make those rules, but they define us and they define our opportunities and our chances.” What I enjoyed about this is she also speaks on her father’s inability to save his own sister from suffering due to the “rules”. I’ve never been so empowered then I am right now after this class, I want to travel and listen to stories and I want to document everything and be a leader of change. As we have heard many times throughout this class, stories have a magic about them, they let you into a perspective that you may have never seen or heard. Story telling allows those who might not have a voice in their own community, a voice in the public, one that inspires, or scares or just plain explains. We all have a perspective on life, due to the information we read, see feel and hear. I’ve learned that there is no gift greater than a story as it gives us a view we aren’t accustomed to and may change the way we previously thought or went about our lives. What I have learned, is that feminism is for EVERYONE. Feminism isn’t the idea that women are better than men or that women hate men, it’s that women and men should be equal and treated as such. I have learned that a story can change lives, and truly fight against oppression, but that without women in power and having a voice in decisions, change is hard to come by. Systematic oppression is a real thing, and during these times today, when people are far more open to the discussion, we have a duty to each other to speak up and to vote and to continue to support all women, globally. I have forever been changed by this class and I am beyond thankful for being able to listen to these stories and share my own thoughts.

Marguerite Avery McGettigan “Reflection”