GWSS 1001 - Gender, Power, and Everday Life

I also attended the scholarly lecture given by Jack Halberstam on Thursday evening, April 26th in the Nolte Center.
After awkwardly making my way to a chair nearly touching the podium in the small lecture room in Nolte (too late to get an inconspicuous seat!), introductions to scholar and author Jack Halberstam were made. Maybe I’m sucked into grand introductions (usually not the case), but just by listening to the person describing both their own relationship with and the personal achievements of Jack, I could tell that he was special, and important. I learned that this influential transgendered author had done a lot of work at the U of M, but is currently a professor at the Center for Feminist Research at USC.

When he took the podium, I didn’t know what to expect; I also didn’t expect the person sitting to my right to be Jack himself.
When he stood at the podium, he had a presence that captured the audience. When he opened his mouth, I held onto every word. Aside from his unapologetic, strong attitude, I was struck by his vocabulary before I noticed anything else. It harkened back to many a conversation we’d had in class about feminist scholarship, and how many words get adapted and created- to note a few, I heard ‘transbiological’, anthropomorphizing, collective imaginaries before anything else. My instincts told me to listen as closely as possible and apply what he was saying to his subject matter. Now I sound clunky and foolish- what I mean to say is, his manner was learned and very smart.
I didn’t really know what sort of subject matter he’d be talking about; the info I’d gotten on the course blog suggested that he’d be discussing sexualities, norms, and ways of making change. To my surprise, these themes were explored using the lense of popular films and animation.
Jack used the term animation loosely- he construed it to mean any type of heightened, removed reality—although he mentioned CGI movies like Finding Nemo, TV animation like Spongebob Squarepants and claymation like The PJs, we first discussed the ‘collective imaginary’ found in the popular documentary ‘March of the Penguins’. Jack discussed the ways in which the film contradicted itself, how the Christian right grabbed a hold of this film that essentially preaches family values (according to Morgan Freeman’s narration) though may in fact not capture what the narration is attempting to portray. Jack discussed the inherent assumptions made in the narration about females vying for male sexual partners, about the tragedy of a small family unit of penguins being torn apart. By imposing heterosexual, “family” norms upon the penguins, “we” are seeing what “we” want to see, a collective imagined reality, as opposed to what might be occurring with the penguins (be it homosexual expressions or collective care of babies as opposed to couples alone).
Yet the ability of some animation to capture deeply entrenched norms wasn’t what Jack was truly getting at in his presentation- instead, he spoke about animation’s ability to break molds and fight against social norms by nature of being abstract expression. He discussed many ‘breakout’ stories, including Finding Nemo (father fish a mother character, Ellen Degeneres’) and ‘Seed of Chucky’. He discussed the fact that animation can in fact express radical, new ways of thinking to help us imagine a new reality in which heterosexuality, homosexuality and gender are not the rigid categories that they persist in being in contemporary times.
Jack talked about a host of subjects tangentially, all of which were very interesting (the politicization of the nuclear family, the ‘wrong’ thing being animated often when certain stereotypes are broken but others persist, especially racial stereotypes in animation; animating revolt in the mainstream). I came away impressed and very thoughtful, because the lecture was both understandable and accessible in addition to being very fascinating. I have a keener eye and understanding of the imagined realities that we find not only in animation but in any pop culture caricature, and the ways in which we can change these realities to stop reinforcing closed-minded norms.

Posted by Annie at 11:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Organizing all of my paper work for finals and whatnot, I found the worksheet we did at the end of the class on priviledge titled "Location Exercise" I filled out most of it and intended to post my paragraph on here earlier and then realized I never did. Going back to it a few weeks later it is quite interesting to read what I wrote and to now reflect on it.

The part that surprized me reading back over it was question 8 asking when I first became aware of race, class, gender, sexuality, nationality, religion and spirituality? Race I recognized at a young age, I grew up in the St.Paul student housing and played with kids older, younger, both sexes and of all different races. White, black, hispanic or "tan" as I called them. I remember asking my mom about why they looked different and she gave me a vague answer of their ancestors came from a different culture but they were no different becuase of it. I played with all of them everyday and feel my open mindedness towards all people was shaped at that young age by my mother's comment.
Secondly class I noticed when it came to birthdays. I am not sure of what age this was at but for my birthdays my parents and grandparents totally spoiled me and my siblings. When we lived in Iowa City most of my close friends had huge birthday parties and got great presents, but I realized sometime in those few years that I received many more cards and gifts from family and friends. For the first time I realized that this special treatment by my family, although the tradition it was amongst my cousins and siblings, was definitely not the norm with some of my friends. My parents were by no means rich as we still lived in student housing, but our birthdays were always very special days. So maybe class wasn't completely known but I realized I was more spoiled than those around me.
Lastly I wrote a quite note about gender. In all of the student housing places we lived, many of them had a play ground or enclosed area where all of the kids played together. Most of the kids my age were boys and so I played with them and didn't think much of it. I grew up a tom boy with all of the influence from my guy cousins, but also found "boy" activities (sports, fishing, playing with cars and tools) more enjoyable than playing with dolls and dress up outfits like my sister did with her friends. My parents always thought this was cute, I had started my collection of boyfriends, but once I hit 5-6th grade they started to question me about all of my guy friends. Until just a few years ago, I have been told that I "like" all of my guy friends and I should just date them already. Now they just say, yeah she is just one of the guys and have reaccepted the idea that its okay for girls to play/hangout with guys just as friends.
In most other reflection exercises about such topics I generally write about the present ideas that come to mind or less detailed responses. I was surprized when reading my quick notes that I had such memories from my childhood that were first instincts related to these questions. As others have mentioned in other posts you don't really recognize your own priviledge until you really think hard about it. With these brief examples I realized the priviledges I have held my entire life being from a European American descent with well educated parents. I learned how they taught me to be open minded and accepting of all people despite their similarities and differences (since both of them worked in diverse work environments.)
It was fun to run across this sheet now at the end of the semester and I thought since I did I would post my few thoughts on here. :)

Posted by michelle lynn at 09:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I attended the Race Exhibit at the Science Museum March 9. I learned several facts about race issues that I never was aware of. I will share them here with all of you! A good starting definition of RACE is “respect all colors equally.” A part of the exhibit discussed how racism is in people’s heads. We are what make racism real. We, as a whole, can make a difference, but separating others out continuously does create true diversity- and can lead to harmful treatment. Why do we have to strive for diveristy when we are all the same?

Patricia J. Williams, a columnist and legal scholar wrote, “How can it be that so many well-meaning white people have never thought about it, when so few blacks pass a single day without being reminded about it?”

Patricia was discussing how every day blacks are reminded they are black; whether it’s certain situations or ways they’ve been treated and that white people barely think about race every day.

In the context of this quote, I being white can agree that I barely think of racial differences. I am not trying to be one-sided or ignorant, but I am not affected by race as often– except in certain situations. I did think about it when I was in Chicago, because I was more of a minority on their “L-train” and it was interesting to be around people from the area.

Another quote said, “Labels don’t cause racism; they reflect it.” This quote is true as well, because saying someone is Black or Hispanic is not racist, but when used in derogatory ways – it can’t be hurtful.

“As long as the government keeps asking people about their races, Americans will always suspect that race plays a role,” Ward Connerly, chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute.

This has always bothered me. I never knew why anyone needed to know what race I was. In every questionnaire I’ve ever answered, even applying to the “U,” I never stated what race I was. I felt that I should be able to answer questions without people knowing what color of skin I have. Either I’m not going to be taken seriously because of my color, or my opinion is going to matter more than somebody else of a non-white color.

In the case of the “U,” I felt that I should be getting accepted based on my application and my grades, not because I was or wasn’t white. I know that the university was trying to be diverse, but accepting people based on color is a really crappy way of deciding who goes and who doesn’t go here.

Also, I’ve never understood why there is a scholarship for African-Americans (based solely on color) but because I am white, I am not allowed an application based on my color of the skin. These days, things need to not be so much about skin color. And I’m not trying to be ignorant in any way, things are unfair for everyone.

I know this was true because I know a girl who applied to the “U” and she didn’t get in because she got a letter stating they were trying for a more diverse university… meaning, it was color based.

Random facts that made my stomach ache were statistics on housing differences between blacks and whites. Between 1934 and 1962 (and I’m sure this statistic is different today) the federal government – through federal housing administration- insured $120 billion in new housing loans. Less than two percent of those loans went to non-whites.

I was shocked by the numbers. That means that white people were buying house after house between 1934 and 1962, and everyone else was merely paying rent somewhere.. or something else.

Also, the net worth of an average African-American family is 1/10 that of the average white family. This statistic shows that white people are still making more money and non-white people are still not living the same lives as white people.

A play I attended called “Voices Project” was a compilation of the Twin Cities youth’s perspectives, thoughts and words on race. Their debate was on what creates identity and told through their stories.

Many discussed several tribulations concerning how they feel everyday. An important factor was that non-whites did not recognize themselves on a day-to-day basis.

A fifth grader was first introduced to slavery in her history class and was angry that nobody else was mad when learning about the subject. Because it related to her race, she was completely distraught, but others in the class acted as though it was just another boring piece of history. This bothered the young student.

I’ll leave you with this quote.

“Most of the benefits of being white can be obtained without ever doing anything personally. Whites are given the privileges of a racist system, even if they’re not personally racist,” John A. Powell, legal scholar.

Posted by JMP at 09:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

For my scholarly event I attended the Minnesota Science Museum Race Exhibit. When I was there, I noticed a few specific portions of the exhibit that I was really taken back by. I never realized how much I personally have created racial images and stereotypes in my own mind. I also was able to experience firsthand the amount of privilege I have as a white male. There was a wall full of pictures of people from various ethnic backgrounds, and I tried to determine what background each came from before I looked at where they really came from, and I was wrong with nearly every single one. I thought that I had a pretty good sense of where peoples’ ancestry lied based on how they looked. I was very surprised at how little I actually knew.

The second part of the exhibit that made me realize the kinds of stereotypes that I had created in my mind was a display that had pictures of twelve different people, and then it had them each say a phrase. For example, someone had a strong Australian accent, and there were pictures of blonde men as well as black, Hispanic, and Indian men. I immediately picked the blonde man out of the group as having the voice who said the phrase. The person who actually said it was black. I got only two out of six of each of the men and women within this display correct. Again I was shocked at the images and stereotypes that I have built up in my mind.

The final portion of the exhibit that left a glaring image in my mind was a portion that brought out discrepancies in healthcare and insurance and education between different races. I was standing in front of a screen that was flipping to a new page periodically and showing statistics based on some of these different aspects of systems that exist in America. As I was standing there, I was next to an African-American couple. As each new page appeared I saw myself as a white male at the top of every list, and the couple next to me was saying, “oh look, we’re at the bottom of the list again.” I was at the top of the list of who is least likely to not have health insurance, who has the highest life expectancy, who makes the most money, who has the highest scores on standardized tests. In every category I was at the top and the couple next to me was at the bottom. As I stood there, I couldn’t help but feel the amount of privilege that I was able to experience as a white male. I left the exhibit feeling somewhat bad about who I was. I know it is ridiculous, but I felt like I was somehow responsible for and I felt bad for being privileged. The exhibit really gave me a glaring example of how minorities in this country really feel on a day to day basis. In that moment in front of the screen with the statistics, I was the minority and I felt as though everyone was looking at me for a reaction. I had none. I just shook my head and walked away.

As a business and finance student the final portion of the exhibit that I noticed was the financial condition of families and people of different races. There were stacks of dollars that showed the net worth of Hispanic, black and white families…

Posted by Derek Blanchard at 06:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On April 28, I went to Chicago’s Soldier Field for an event called Displace Me. Chicago, being one of the 15 cities across the U.S to take part in the event, had almost 4,000 participants. Displace Me was sponsored by an organization called Invisible Children, which is trying to open the world’s eyes to the heinous crimes that have been committed against the families and children of Northern Uganda for years.

The Invisible Children started with three traveling filmmakers in their early 20’s from San Diego, California who set out to Uganda in the summer of 2003 in hopes to capture a story about the truth of Africa. They first found themselves in a desolate Uganda taking video footage of termite hills, fighting wild snakes, and throwing up from dehydration. This was until they met a 9 month pregnant woman in a neighboring village named Jolie. Jolie did something that broke the societal norms of her Ugandan community. She informed them about a silent secret of Northern Uganda. Jolie drove the young men to a Sudanese refugee camp in Gulu, Uganda and here is where they uncovered exactly what they wanted to document and show to the world.

Gulu is home to the Acholi tribe who is under direct attack and constant fear of the rebel army, the Lord’s Resistance Army. In this small town hundreds upon hundreds of boys and girls, ages ranging from about 5 years of age to 12 years, travel here to find shelter to sleep at night in local hospitals, churches, and bus verandas. These young, innocent victims leave their families at night and travel to a more populated area because they are targeted by the LRA. The children are big enough to carry guns and young enough to brainwash, so the LRA abducts the children, influencing them, and convincing them to fight for their cause.

Families are forced out of their home by the Ugandan government and into Internally Displaced Camps where they are forced to live in extremely harsh conditions in order to keep safe from the LRA. The 21-year long Civil War has been kept a secret for so long and the Invisible Children aim at raising awareness about the war and increase efforts of creating peace treaties and getting the U.S government more involved in spreading the word in order to aid these displaced people.

The event was, as you could probably guess, to show Americans what it would be like to live in a displacement camp for 24 hours. All I brought with me was a sleeping bag, pillow, saltine crackers, a liter of water, and a few cardboard boxes for shelter. People all across the Soldier Field parking lot built temporary cardboard tents and homes to sleep in for the night and the Invisible Children crew of Chicago put on a few different events, including screening of the Invisible Children video, a simulation of how Ugandan people can get food and water (including having the women stand in line to get some water for our group and men standing in line for crackers to provide for the women), writing letters to government officials, 21 minutes of silence in honor of those affected by the 21-year long war, and a guest speaker, which was what I chose to write about for my Activist Event.

I felt lucky and excited when Jolie, the lady who took a stand and went against societal standards to share with the filmmakers the story of the civil war in Uganda, came on the stage to speak.

Jolie began her speech with sharing her gratitude for the Invisible Children and for everyone who showed up to the Displace Me event in support of the IC efforts. Jolie is a mother of three who has not seen peace in her life since she was 18 years old. She spoke to us about how most people in the displacement camps in Uganda have never seen peace; this is their way of life and this is all that they know. She explained how women often have to walk three miles every day just to find water for her family and can only obtain one liter at a time. In the Invisible Children documentary movie, the boys interview and talk with some Ugandan children about the war. One boy said that he had been abducted by the rebels and escaped and now can not show his face in public because the LRA is searching for him by name. The children pleaded for the filmmakers to show Americans the footage of their time in Uganda because they knew that there is nothing that anyone can do over there, but that Americans would be able to help. Jolie reiterated exactly that, but she was not afraid to speak out. When she goes back to Uganda, she is going to to be targeted by the rebels because she is seeking help. The main slogan for the event was “Every War Has an End.” Jolie played off of that, and said “It is true. Every war has an end. But the question is when will it end? It is not fair that so many people will never see peace, will never know what it is like to be free and young and actually be able to act like children.”

I feel like Jolie played such a huge part in making the Invisible Children happen. The campaign has been centered around raising public awareness in the U.S. in an attempt to spur youth into action and to change the current policies of both the American and Ugandan governments, who have largely let the conflict fester. 9 months pregnant, she still led the American filmmakers to a secret that no one dare to speak of. She knew that they would be able to make a change. And because of her, so much money and awareness has been raised for the cause and already, so many lives have been saved and changed. It was an honor to hear her speak in Chicago on Saturday and I encourage you all to look into the cause. Visit Invisiblechildren.com for more information!

Posted by Jen Smith at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Last Thursday my roommate and I went to a Voices from the Gaps 10th Anniversary reading. I didn’t really know what to expect from this reading, all I knew was that there would be two minority women reading excerpts from their work. The two readers were Latasha Natsha Nevada Diggs and Ana-Maurine Lara. Voices from the Gaps, or VG, is a web based organization who’s goal is to recognize the works of women artists and writers of color that might not otherwise get the recognition they deserve. The website was started here at the University of Minnesota by the American Studies and English departments in the College of Liberal Arts. However, tens years after its beginning the organization has stretched its reach far beyond the University. It reaches the public domain via the Women’s Prison Book Project and reaches out to high schools and the community through literacy and learning programs. The website (voices.cla.umn.edu) provides links to biographies about the different artists that have been featured, events that are up and coming, and a blog that discusses the different projects, authors and works on the site.

The first of the two artists to read was Latasha Natasha Nevada Diggs. She is an artist from Harlem. She is a sound artist and a poet who writes about anything and everything. At the reading on Thursday she organized some of her works into three categories T.V. (or pop culture), language and dealing with a death in the family. In her first reading she used the black face characters from Pokemon and Dragon Ballz to make observations about the representations of blacks in the media whether it be in cartoon form or real people. In another selection in the pop culture grouping, she discusses and pokes fun at the Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, scientology and daughter Suri media bit. She covers the ridiculousness of Tom Cruise’s behavior to the ridiculousness of Tom Cruise’s behavior. The Language grouping uses pieces of languages ranging from English to Spanish to more unusual ones like a native Cherokee language or oriental dialects like Japanese. It was interesting to hear the different tongues put together to make different pieces of work. She provided translations to these readings after each one, but I think to really understand what statement she was trying to make with these one would have to sit down and really look at them because just listening to them and a quick translation could leave you kind of confused. The last works were deep and moving. Talking about the different things we go through when trying to deal with the death of a family member. She covered murder, slow peaceful death and unexpected occurrences. She was a great presenter who really evoked emotion into her reading. It’s easy to see why the women on the VG board selected her as one of the artists to be honored at the 10th anniversary celebration by presenting some of her work.
Unfortunately I was not able to stay to hear the reading of novelist Ana-Maurine Lara, but they did provide some background on her and why she was the other of the talented artists to be selected for this celebration. She is an Afro-Dominican writer who was raised in East Africa and Mount Vernon, New York. She graduated from Harvard University. Her breakthrough novel, Erzulie’s Skirt, is about growing up in the Caribbean. While this is her major breakout piece, she has also had fiction writing and poetry published in journals. Lara is a writer and an activist working to improve things for women and especially women of color.

Posted by Desiree Guida at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

For my activist event I attended the talk by Judith/Jack Halberstam. This event took place at 6:30 on April 26th in room 125 of the Nolte Center for Continuing Education. This talk was sponsored by the Global Sexualities Research Collaborative of the Institute for Advanced Study and the Transgender Commission.

Going to this event I didn’t really know what to expect my first thought was that it would just be a boring lecture. At first it was a little slow with the other people introducing Jack. However once Jack took the podium it was very interesting. He discussed how the how movies and more specifically animated movies portray sexuality. She also explained what she meant by animation. Since her first example was The March of The Penguins would not typically be thought of as an animation.
The way The March of the Penguins becomes an animation is through the narration of the story. The Penguins go about doing whatever penguins do while the narrator suggest what the Penguins are doing. In this sense he is guiding you to think of the penguins actions in a certain way. He talks about the male penguins courting the females however without the narration the penguins may not have been seen as either male of female since the all look very similar. Jack talks a lot about penguins and even suggest that there are a lot of lesbian penguins. This is because even penguins have a hard time distinguishing between male and female penguins. There are also more females penguins so if there are not as many male penguins then the other penguins are female.
Penguins also have to work as a collaborative whole to keep the eggs from dying. Even the penguins who are not breeding that year still have to help keep the babies warm.
The other movie Jack talked about was The Seed of Chucky. In this clip the possessed doll Chucky and his wife have a child. Their child has been working in a freak show and now it is searching for and has found its parents. When the doll finds its parents it revives them. Once the parents are alive again they are shocked at how ugly their child is. They can’t seem to tell whether they have a son or a daughter. They make his drop its pants to find out. They still can’t agree on the sex since the doll is not parts. The mother wants a daughter and the father wants a son. Then they go on to kill people.
The talk was very interesting and brought up a lot of things I probably would never have thought about or considered. I never realized how our society shapes things to conform to such stereotyped roles of gender. People just assume that penguins and other animals behave in a heterosexual way similar to the majority of humans. However they don’t even consider that these may not be the norms for these animals.
At the end of the talk there was Jack answered questions from the audience. Some of them brought up some good points and one talked about another show she had seen about penguins where they were not gendered in the same way as they were in The March of the Penguins. I think this talk was really interesting and informative. It was easy to understand even though Jack did use some jargon that was tricky at times. When I went to the talk I didn’t really know what to expect. There were a lot of interesting people who were there a lot of them looked like older people and not like students. The talk ended up being really interesting.

Posted by Tyra at 02:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For my scholarly event I attended a talk called “Race is not a card” by Tim Wise at Mondale Hall from 7-9pm. The talk was witty and compelling. Tim Wise used statistics and personal anecdotes to portray the national problem of white privilege. The most important part of Tim Wise giving the lecture is that he is a white man, a white man that grew up in the south. He spoke about how colored people have been bringing up the same issues of racism for years, but until the white majority accepts it as an institutionalized problem, the battle will continue unsolved. The problem back when the civil rights movement was in progress was not that the whites were uncaring or unsympathetic, it was that they really believed what they said, such as 87% of white people thought that black children had equal education opportunities. This is obviously untrue only to the people who have been educated about the inequalities in the United States and elsewhere. If we are never told, how are we supposed to know? There needs to be a widespread dispersal of this knowledge. This is why we are so thankful to have Tim Wise come and speak. He has spoken in 48 states and over 400 colleges. This is a profound statistic, so why is racism still institutionalized?

One of the most important ideas that he portrayed in his talk was that the white majority didn’t suffer at all if we were in denial. We could look blindly through the problems of racism without any consequences. We are not tested if we know their reality. Colored people in America are tested on our history though, on our music and our culture. By dismissing the problems of racism, we accept the responsibility of being overprivileged. Overprivileged is not a word that people recognized, but we should. Overprivileged is the white societies’ term if the colored peoples of America are underprivileged. You cannot have one without the other.

We are not taught about our privileges, just about their disadvantages, which inn reality were created and repeated by us. This privilege has created a comfortable bubble for white folks. We were not taught to give up the good things we have in life, we were taught to take advantage of them. Tim used the example of if you were a young child at dinner and your parents told you to eat your peas because there are dying children in Africa, they tell you to have seconds, not to box up the peas and send them to the children. Though it is very unlikely that we even could send our loose peas, the problem here is that we are told to take more of our advantages. We are told to take it for what its worth, rather than sharing the wealth.

I really appreciated this talk. The audience was really interactive and receptive. I believe it does send a different message when coming from a white male, rather than say a black female. I do not believe that this is how it should be, but that is what we need to work to change. In order to make change in our society we need the white majority to accept racism as a systemic racism and realize that without working together, people of all colors, no significant change will be made. In many stories racism ends in death, so literally this problem is a life or death situation for many people. This is their reality, but we need to make it known in our realities also. By educating people about racism and institutionalized racism we can make a difference. One of the most profound statistics that Tim told the audience was that when asked if racism is a significant problem in the United States, only 6% of whites said yes. This is what we need to change.

Please check out Tim Wise's website if you are so inclined. Enjoy, Learn, Teach.

Posted by believer. at 12:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I attended the Race Exhibit this weekend at the Minnesota Science Museum. I was really impressed on the variety of areas of race that were covered. They had little exhibits explaining the science part of race to psychological part to the historical parts. Because I am a science major, I was really fascinated on learning about race and the human body, but also liked how it reflected much of what we have been learning in class and the issues with race today.

The first exhibit I went to had about 20 people’s faces of all different types of races and backgrounds. They asked questions about yourself and then you could see which other people had those traits in common. I was surprised that there was no correlation between race and things like fingerprint pattern, blood type, and height. They explain that traits are inherited independently and that the frequency of a specific trait in a certain population is the result of evolutionary responses to various environmental conditions. A good example would be skin color, one major factor that categorized people, which is related to the intensity of the sun in that area of the world where a group of people lived. I also learned that the geography of the world keeps people apart. Mountains, deserts, and oceans keep people from moving around and mating with other people. Culture also had a great deal in separating people as well.
Another part of the exhibit presented the net worth of the average African American family is about one tenth that of the average white family. This is due to the differing rates of home ownership between these two groups and to the generally lower values of homes blacks own than homes owned by whites and the gap tends to be passed down from parent to child. They also explained that it is much harder for African Americans to get loans approved than it is for whites. I was really interested in the display bounded dollar bills representing the home ownership rates according to the US Census Bureau, where Caucasians and Asians had much higher stacks than the Latinos, African Americans, and others. I also was interested in a large picture of about ten people from different backgrounds. They had plain white t-shirts on with a certain year and then a description on how they were categorized on the US Census for that year. It was interesting to me because the descriptions changed for each year they had. An example would be a woman with the year 1900 Indian, then 1980 Eskimo, and then finally 2000 Alaska Native. I noticed that there are more and more types of races on the Census now then one hundred years ago, but it is still hard to classify someone just on a few choices. The Census race categories basically tell Americans how they are expected to think of themselves and of each other.
I was surprised on how much of the exhibit related to our class discussions. They touched on white privilege, marketing “white” products including toys, television shows, and beauty products, medical research for whites and colored people, and many videos that we have seen in class. It seemed like the biggest question asked throughout the exhibit is “What is race?” There really isn’t a clear-cut answer, but it is society that makes race a distinct category to place people in. It is good for people to know their entire background, and to force society to realize that there really isn’t much of a difference between people of different colors and cultures, and that just because they have dark skin, doesn’t mean they have to be categorized as African American. I think this exhibit was really good because so many people have access to it and it was for all types and ages of people. I would defiantly recommend this for everyone in the class!

Posted by Kari Kummer at 11:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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So many of you may have heard about this on the news but I have been under my nursing school rock and just read this tonight. Apparently this high school in Georgia had its first integrated prom! I guess I didn't realize that there were places still in the U.S. that had a white prom and black prom (or white and black anything)
AND the crazy part was that it took a majority vote of the students to make it happen, the faculty and teachers haven't made the decision to bring all the students together, it took the students to bring them together and start a "new tradtion"...duh? most of the country has been doing this for many decades.

"I've asked, 'Why can't you come?' and they're like, 'My mommy and daddy -- they don't agree with being with the colored people,' which I think is crazy," she said. A quote from a white girl that attended the prom.

Just unreal...says alot about south Georgia...but hopefully this will bring some change for the school and the community since they are apparently behind the times.

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/04/23/turner.prom/

Posted by michelle lynn at 08:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This past week, I attended the sexual assault presentation in the basement of Coffman Union. Since April was awareness month for domestic violence, the Aurora Center had plenty to share about spousal abuse, rape, and other instances of violence occurring in relationships. They also had plenty of handouts targeting each category of domestic violence, and were encouraging onlookers to fill out a question about prevention to be eligible for an ipod and other prizes. The Aurora Center is a sexual violence program that got its start after a case where three UM basketball players were convicted of rape. The president at the time wanted quick action so the students would feel safe. Since being founded, the Aurora Center offers training to volunteer peer advocates who also run a 24-hour crisis line. The center has worked in conjunction with the Hennepin County Sexual Violence Center and the University hospital, which contacts the Aurora Center every time a victim goes into the emergency room. Many times, a victim of assault or rape is often confused and doesn’t know where to turn, especially since they may be college. The Aurora Center along with the UM police offer transportation to the emergency room and to court for orders of protection. The University has established a sexual assault victims’ rights policy, and was actually the first college in the country to form a campus safety improvement program that perform safety inspections for all campus buildings. Other services provided by the Aurora Center include: arrangements for different housing, some tuition advice, classroom safety arrangements, filing complaints, and additional walk-in services.
The Aurora Center’s booth focused primarily on the feminist theory of abuse that I researched. The theory was that abuse is a demonstration of the structure of power created in a relationship. The victim is the passive, weak partner usually characterized as the woman, whereas the man is the superior, dominant perpetrator. This form of feminism also believes women’s position in society is based on the oppression from the patriarchal society. Essential to this belief is that women are dominated in all aspects of life, and men are looking only for control. The flyers that I received focused mainly on prevention tips for men such as: understanding the effects of rape, confronting sexist or racist jokes, not buying magazines that degrade women, supporting political figures that care for domestic violence, don’t exploit women sexually, etc.
Since I happen to be researching on domestic abuse, I thought it would be nice to share my opinion on how I could prevent violence; yet, I found it very hard to describe what I would do in the small space provided. As a guy, I think the first step in preventing abuse is by becoming aware of it. A class such as this allowed me to see the female side of current events, and really made me understand what they have to go through. After learning about power structures and patriarchal societies, I think it’s only appropriate for a guy to share what they’ve learned with their friends. This doesn’t have to be in a classroom type of setting. It can be in a bar, at a party, or at any game; sexist comments are commonly heard at these places, and they offer a good chance for a man to stand up against the sexist remarks. I think every guy should take the opportunity to either take a women’s’ studies class or attend an event sponsored by a sexual awareness group like the Aurora Center. I think their relationships would most definitely improve as the sex barriers representing control and power are broken down.

Posted by Tony Reuter at 06:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When we had the discussion of globalism yesterday, I don't think I had really thought of what globalism means to me and the rest of us in the classroom. I get so caught up in my own life and forget to think about society in general as a whole. We are very much an individualistic society, but through a common thread we have been able to expand this country's power and morals: capitalism and mass production. The idea of globalism is one that may not seem so bad to a large majority or everyday citizen. There's McDonald's in every corner of every country, making it seem like you (the tourist) can always feel comfortable with what you're familiar with, even in an unfamiliar place.

I see globalism as a threat to our own individual culture as well as many other countries'. By selling American culture to other countries, we have made others assimilate and see that their own is not even worth remembering and practicing. Westernization of ideas such as feminism, democracy, and others that we hold so dear intrude into other countries and become victims of the plague we bring. Globalization makes those with high positions of power become even more powerful and that starts to bring a big ego with it. America does not have the right to go to another country and tell them how their government should be just because we think it's the best and capitalistic way.

I feel that in this space and time, feminism has been a more or less positive movement. However, feminists and scholars need to understand the boundaries and limits that opinions have and should only go so far. Western feminists have no right coming into a country and try to free all women because a person or group may think they are being mistreated or violently beaten. There are many things Americans still need to learn and yes, we are still very ignorant of other cultures.

Globalism is both a blessing and a curse. But if swayed too much to the side of the curse, it could become a worldwide threat for all people.

Posted by Lauren Alms at 01:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A few weeks ago Kevin and I went to the screening of a documentary entitled, “Ferry Tales”. Cutely named for sure, this film explored the unmentionable realm of one powder room shared by many-a-woman. The viewer is able to witness a miraculous bond that has been developed between these women. Leaving the age-old divides of race and class at the door, there is a force that can only be defined as absolute unity.

When first attending the viewing, I was a bit surprised to see that 5 people (Kevin and myself included) had shown up. As a side note, there was candy…and I ate a lot of it. Keeping this in mind, I will plug the Office of University Women and unashamedly say: got to more events; there will be candy and interesting topics.
Moving on…”Ferry Tales” explores the conversations and relationships of women traveling from Long Island to Manhattan via the ferry. This is about a 30-minute ride that most people use to dope up on coffee or pass out for one last spell of sleep before the drudge of work consumes them. However, the women documented seek out their ever-present sisterhood they rely on every week morning. Barely touching on how this gaggle of girls became, one can assume that it took on the effect of a snowball: members infiltrating in and out of the powder room until sooner or later they have the tight-knit group shown in the film.
Interestingly, these women only rely on seeing each other on the ferry. Mentioning the need to attend to their busy lives as wife, mother, worker, cook, etc., they rarely have time for anything else. They look forward to their 30-minute retreat; it’s a release from their usual life, which allows time for themselves. Of the footage shown, it seemed that this was the time to let everything off their chest, and bitch to people who will confide all information. Because they are not involved in one another's lives outside of the ferry, these women are unbiased to the stories shared.
This trip is a sort of retreat from the women’s busy worlds, which, at times, feels dull and monotonous. The water dividing Long Island from Manhattan serves as a sort of transitional body between homemaker and career woman. The central focus of the movie was the makeup these women applied between their “life shifts” (…if you will). That makeup carries a symbolic reference to recreating oneself and becoming some other character within, in this case, becoming a professional woman.
After viewing the film, Joanna O’Connell, a University Professor, led our discussion. While discussing many relevant issues within the film, I really focused on the interpretations of makeup. I began to wonder about the burden a women carries of proving herself to the rest of society, not only as an adequate mother, but also as an adequate worker. There are so many roles a woman is expected to fulfill, that it seems natural to put on a different costume for everyone.
In an effort to prove our existence in the workforce, we must prove to the male-dominated realm of professionalism that we belong. There is a certain way to dress, a certain way to wear your hair, and a certain way to apply makeup. If we deviate from these social norms, we risk not being taken seriously. If we are not taken seriously, we lose credibility in our position, and so it goes for being a wife and a mother. Women have certain guidelines to live up to within various facets of their life. Each role they attempt to take on carries certain restrictions and penalties for ignoring those restrictions.
To me, the ferry ride was an escape from all these roles. It gave a chance for the women to forget cultural demands and societal pressures and just be women. Talking about whatever they want, forgetting the façade of differences, for 30-minutes they allow themselves to take a break. Upon reaching Manhattan, they are different characters, ready to take on a different world.

Posted by Stephanie Taylor at 10:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For the artistic event, I too decided to attend the Vagina Monologues Play. Without knowing what it is really about, I had dragged my boyfriend into going. We went to the show on Feb 27 at the St. Paul Student. This program was sponsor by they Minnesota Public Interest Research Group and its main purpose is to raise awareness to end violence against women.

At first, we thought that it was just a play that we were seeing. But to my surprise, the Vagina Monologues is actually about the many realistic views that real women share with their audience on the issue of vagina. This is illustrated by a variety of different monologues throughout the production. The topic includes every aspect about the vagina whether it is sex, love, rape, menstruation, mutilation, masturbation, birth, orgasm, the variety of names for the vagina, or simply as a physical aspect of the female body. Overall, the main focus of the play is to promote the idea that the vagina should be considered as a tool of female empowerment and that we as whole need to put away the taboo that has been haunting it for many years.
There were many different monologues throughout the productions. While some are purely funny, others take on a more serious note. Nevertheless, whether it is humorous or somber, each monologue does focus on the many problems of vagina that women have to face. One of the amusing monologues that I remembered was called My Angry Vagina, in which a woman humorously rants about injustices wrought against the vagina, such as tampons, douches, and the tools used by OB/GYNs. Before attending this event, I have never considered items such as tampon and douches could anger my vagina!
Also, besides the many entertainment monologues, there are two serious topics that struck me the most. The first one is about the women in Juarez. This monologue discussed about the increasing rate of women being abused and mysteriously disappeared in Juarez. Most of these women were factory workers who had to endure through harsh living conditions. The majority of these disappearance and murdered cases took place during the time that these women travel to work. Furthermore, another topic that I was very taken back by was genital mutilation. In certain cultures, women were forced to mutilate their vagina as a right of passage. The reason that both of these monologues really had an impact on me because these are the topics that I have been recently researching on. Initially, my interest on these two topics began when I was watching the Opera Show. The first topic on the disappearing of women in Mexico was documented by Lisa Ling. The information provided from that documentary was very shocking. I was surprised by the numbers of women that have been murdered and raped. I was even more astounded by the fact that none of these cases have been solved. The local authority did not take this matter seriously at all. What is even worse is that no security measure has been established to prevent these tragic incidents from happening again. Up until today, women in Mexico are still facing the dreading fear that they could be the next victim.
Last but not least, the other topic that was also showing on Opera is female genital mutilation. The cases that Opera presented during her show were girls in South Africa. It is believe by that culture that it is only natural for girls to mutilate their vagina as they approach womanhood. Mutilation of the vagina is seen as way for girl to preserve their purity. It is because of this ridiculous belief that had caused many deaths in these innocent young girls.
Overall, I really enjoy the show. In the beginning when the show first started, I was afraid that my boyfriend would not like it. I was prepared for him wanting to leave. However to my surprise, he really liked it as well. We had a good discussion about the topics that were presented during the play afterward. In the end, we came up with the conclusion that while some of the terms as well as issues that were demonstrated might be a little overwhelming at first, they really bring forward the real challenges that women are facing today. People who come to watch the play need to keep an open mind and be accepted of the play’s blatant method of delivering its content. It is only through this that one can really grasp the important message that the Vagina Monologue is presenting.

Posted by Thuy Pham at 05:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Tuesday, March 6, I attended AIDS Action Day 2007 at the Minnesota State Capitol. I have been working on my senior thesis entitled: AIDS, Ethics, and Accountability: Local Activism and Global Politics, and I decided attending this event would give me insight into local AIDS activism. AIDS Action Day is organized by Minnesota AIDS Project, (MAP), and it serves as an opportunity for the community to personally lobby their representatives and senators about policy issues. This AIDS Action Day, volunteers came to lobby for the Senate initiative S.F. 678, (House initiative H.F. 942) regarding the MAP AIDSLine. The AIDSLine is a vital resource for Minnesota as it is the most recognized comprehensive source for AIDS-related information and medical services. In recent years the AIDSLine has experienced drastic cuts in funding that resulted from cuts in federal HIV prevention allowances. Lobbyists came to participate in AIDS Action Day to lobby for public health by advocating increased state funding to keep the line in operation.

I arrived at the capitol building at ten am and went down to the Great Hall to check in. I introduced myself to the MAP interns that were orchestrating the event and talked with them about my thesis and my particular interest in HIV/AIDS. At 10:30 a MAP lobbyist gave a half-hour lobby training session and then we were off in groups to our respective constituent meetings. My first meeting was with the DFL representative Phyllis Kahn at 11:00 am. Representative Kahn’s office is located in the State Office Building. I was with four other constituents and we briefed our representative on the upcoming bill and asked for her support of the AIDSLine. Representative Kahn expressed sympathy for our cause and informed us that she would support the upcoming health bill.
After this meeting I returned to the Great Hall with my group to eat lunch and photograph for my activism exhibit. (This is currently in progress- on display at Cupcake off of University ave.) I will include the photos from AIDS Action Day that I used in my exhibit.
After lunch I had a meeting with DFL senator Lawrence Pogemiller at 1pm. His office is located at 235 in the Capitol building. My group met first with his secretary and then with Senator Pogemiller and again, briefed them on the upcoming bill and its importance. This meeting lasted for over a half-hour and we were promised the support of the Senator for the upcoming health bill.
Upon my return to the Great Hall, I wrote thank you cards to the legislators I met with. I completed two meeting reports and an evaluation for MAP and said my goodbyes to those I had met. I am so glad I attended this event because I had the opportunity to have a voice in my government and experience activism first-hand. AIDS is a political issue framed by race and gender politics and thus such activism is essential for feminist theory and gender, race and culture studies.

Posted by Eve Kodner at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 23rd-26th

Take Action against sexual assault! You can learn about ways to end sexual assault in your community! At this event, enter your idea of how you will effectively prevent violence to win the grand prize of an iPod Nano, gift certificates from UDS and Chipotle, or First Avenue concert tickets concert tickets for First Avenue

11:00am-2:00pm each day
April 23rd & 24th @ St. Paul Student Center
April 25th & 26th @ Coffman Union

Both events are free!

Posted by Rae at 02:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today, Wednesday, April 18, 2007 I attended the RACE exhibit at the Science Museum in St. Paul. One of the main things that stuck out in my mind was the many billboards that showed the history of whites and how whites are endowed with an “invisible backpack” of unearned privilege. I think that the unearned privilege of whites is extremely prevalent in our society, as exemplified by these billboards. It made me think more about how many aspects of my life are made easier for me just because I am a white female, and then I tried to imagine what life would be like if I were a white male or a person of color. As McIntosh states in her essay White Privilege and Male Privilege (Feminist Frontiers 9-15), “I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but which I was ‘meant’ to remain oblivious” (10). We are taught to recognize the disadvantages of people of color, but we are never taught to recognize our unearned advantages due to the color of our skin. Maybe we need to start recognizing those privileges in order to better appreciate all that is available to us in our society, and it will help us address and hopefully change the situation of people of color.

Another facet of the exhibit that impacted me was the station where there were flaps with different pictures of people on top and their respective races underneath. I think this exposed the flaws in racial stereotypes, especially since I incorrectly labeled many of the pictures. There are so many categories of each race. For example, there is a clear difference between the “light-skinned” African-Americans and the “dark-skinned” African-Americans. Sometimes these variations within races causes there to be discrimination within such races. For example, in Frontlines and Borders: Identity Thresholds for Latinas and Arab American Women in Feminist Frontiers (17-30), Lopez and Hasso share the story of Teresa, a light-skinned Chicana, who was called a “white bitch” at a party (21). Teresa was more offended by being called white than being called a bitch because she was being stereotyped based on her skin color and was not recognized by the race she identifies with.

The board with the high school mascots was especially interesting. The exhibit reminded me of how our society ostracizes American Indians and labels them as violent or drunks. There were pictures of different Indian tribes that were used as mascots by different high schools across the country. It was easy to tell how the use of the tribes can be and is seen as offensive by each Indian tribe. I think this conflict could be solved if permission was granted by each tribe and guidelines were outlined so that the tribe was represented in ways acceptable to them. Otherwise, high schools can simply change their mascots to animals or non-denominational people. For example, my first high school’s mascot was the Patriots. We actually ran into trouble with that because the PTO thought it was too violent, especially since our mascot featured a gun. My second high school’s mascot was the Ramblers, which resembled a homeless person who rambles from place to place. Any time one thing is used to represent another, problems arise in translation.

The RACE exhibit definitely opened my eyes more to the problems with race in American society. I now have a greater appreciation for people of all color than I did before. What really tied the knot for me was where you were able to see the skin of different races under a microscope, and it all looked the same. This reminded me that deep down, we are all human beings, and deserve to be treated accordingly.

Posted by Amanda Leibovitz at 08:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Underground Transit" performance by Scott Turner Schofield!
6 - 9pm
FREE!
Room 140
Nolte Center for Continuing Education, Minneapolis Campus
wsac@umn.edu

ABOUT UNDERGROUND TRANSIT: Transgressing, undressing, digressing: go underground with an almost-Homecoming Queen turned gender renegade. This edgy yet accessible spoken word roll through one Southerner's budding trans identity set against the cityscape of the New York City subway features rock n? roll with a touch of drag, and incredible poetry that draws you in for the ride. ABOUT SCOTT TURNER SCHOFIELD: Scott Turner Schofield is a performance artist from Atlanta. Even more improbably, he's a Female-to-Male (FTM) transsexual with a queer, transgender identity living and working in the South. Aside from producing the fabulous work of other gender-focused artists (S. Bear Bergman, Athens Boys Choir, TEAM GINA) Schofield tours two original solo performances "Underground Transit" and "Debutante Balls" to colleges, festivals, and theaters nationwide, and has lectured on living realities of gender theory at over 30 universities since 2001.

Posted by Rae at 07:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

6:30 to 8pm
FREE!

Room 125
Nolte Center for Continuing Education
Minneapolis Campus

Halberstam examines the narrative and visual transbiological leaps that we have made in our understandings of terms like heterosexuality and homosexuality, male and female, and individual and community in an age of artificial insemination, transsexuality, and cloning. Halberstam proposes that popular culture has already imagined multiple alternatives to male and female, masculine and feminine, family and individuality, and that contemporary popular culture, specifically horror film and animation, can provide rich archives for an alternative politics of embodiment, reproduction, and non-reproduction. It is important to imagine such alternatives if only because the "transbiological" is all too often absorbed into new formulations of the same old notions of kinship, relationality and love. In other words, while it is true that reproduction and kinship relations become more and more obviously artificial, the concept of the "human" tends to absorb the critique that inevitably follows of the natural and it does so because we reinvest so vigorously and so frequently in the scaffolding that props up our flailing humanity. Judith/Jack Halberstam is Professor of English and Gender Studies at the University of Southern California.

This talk is sponsored by the Global Sexualities Research Collaborative of the Institute for Advanced Study and the Transgender Commission

Contact:
Institute for Advanced Study, 612-626-5054
ias@umn.edu

Posted by Rae at 07:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

4 to 7pm
FREE!

Room 5
Blegen Hall
Minneapolis Campus

rofessor Ana Celia Zentella, anthropological linguist at the University of California, San Diego, will present the third lecture in the series: English Only? Assessing the Many Varieties of English in the United States.

Professor Zentella is nationally recognized for her studies of US Latino varieties of Spanish and English, bilingualism, "Spanglish", language socialization, and language policy. Her linguistic ethnography, Growing up Bilingual: Puerto Rican children in New York City (Blackwell 1997) won the 1998 Book Prize of the British Association of Applied Linguists and the 1998 Book Award of the Association of Latina and Latino Anthropologists. For her scholarship and activism on behalf of Puerto Rican language and culture, Professor Zentella was honored with a "Foremother's Award" at the conference on Women and the Legacy of The People of Puerto Rico into the Twenty-first Century (University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign, Oct. 1, 1998). Professor Zentella's recent research involves a quantified sociolinguistic analysis of interdialectal contact, based on an analysis of pronoun use in six varieties of Spanish in NYC (Puerto Rican, Dominican, Cuban, Colombian, Ecuadorian, and Mexican).

Professor Zentella's lecture will be followed by a panel discussion with University of Minnesota experts from the Departments of Anthropology, Chicano Studies, English, the Program in Linguistics, and the School of Education.

Contact:
wbeeman@umn.edu
wbeeman

Posted by Rae at 07:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

7:30 to 9:30pm
FREE!

A colossal figure, intensely involved in the lives of her children, the Jewish mother is one of the best-known figures in popular culture. This talk investigates the reasons behind the caricature's enduring (un)popularity, and explains its continuing---more positive--reinventions. Joyce Antler, Samuel Lane Professor of American Jewish History and Culture, Brandeis University, author of You Never Call! You Never Write! A History of the Jewish Mother. Lecture Series made possible by ROBERT AND JANET SABES, SABES FAMILY FOUNDATION This event is also co-sponsored by the National Council of Jewish Women: Greater Minneapolis Section; Brandeis Women; Women's Philanthropy of the Minneapolis Jewish Federation; Hadassah of the Upper Midwest

Center for Jewish Studies Community Lecture Series
Room B'Nai Emet Cong. 3115 Ottawa Ave S, St. Louis Park
Off Campus

Contact:
Center for Jewish Studies jwst@umn.edu, 612-624-4914
koban003

Posted by Rae at 07:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

FREE!

8am to 5pm
Room 125
Nolte Center for Continuing Education
Minneapolis Campus

The Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies at the University of Minnesota cordially invites you to join faculty and graduate students for a one-day workshop to discuss the new challenges and new directions that the pluralities of feminisms are taking today in the Americas and how are these challenges are shaping new theoretical approaches. Participants will engage in dialogue with four distinguished guest panelists and with each other as we address recent perspectives on feminist cultural theory in/about Latin America and discuss the new directions that Latin American(ist) feminisms are taking or need to take in the re-articulation of feminist practices. Sara Castro-Klar?n, Johns Hopkins University; Jean Franco, Columbia University; Amy Kaminsky, University of Minnesota; Cynthia Tompkins, Arizona State University

Contact: spansport@umn.edu for more information

Posted by Rae at 07:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

uesday, April 17, 2007
12:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Bring all the clothes that you never wear anymore and exchange them for "new" clothes. This can include scarves/hats, purses, belts and shoes, etc. Even if you find stuff that doesn?t fit- you can use our fancy sewing machine and make it fit! And this is not just for women, men can come too! Snacks and a good time guaranteed!!!
Cost: Free!

Room 202
Coffman Memorial Union
Minneapolis Campus

Contact:
wsac@umn.edu

Posted by Rae at 07:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Selling Sickness
Thursday, April 19, 2007
7:00 PM - 8:00 PM

This documentary film examines the consequences of aggressive drug marketing through the story of "Deb", who had never heard of social anxiety disorder until she saw an ad for Paxil on TV. She diagnosed herself and started taking the drug because she was getting nervous at job interviews. Now, she can't live without the drug, and has joined a lawsuit against its manufacturer. Dr David Healy comments on the potential risks of mass marketing medicines. (52 minutes)

Cost:
$7, $5 students, seniors and museum members

Room Auditorium
Bell Museum of Natural History
Minneapolis Campus

Contact:
Bell Museum of Natural History 10 Church St. SE Minneapolis, MN 55455 www.bellmuseum.org registrations@bellmuseum.org 612-624-7083
bellreg

Posted by Rae at 07:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Nancy Manahan and Becky Bohan
Living Consciously, Dying Gracefully: A Journey with Cancer and Beyond

Friday, April 27, 7 p.m at

Amazon Feminist Bookstore
4755 Chicago Avenue South, Minneapolis 55407
612-821-9630

When diagnosed with breast cancer, Diane Manahan decided to share her entire journey openly. A professor of nursing, married to a doctor trained in both conventional and holistic medicine, Diane integrated complementary therapies with orthodox cancer treatments. She enjoyed a full, vibrant life for the next five years. This inspiring story describes her cancer years and extraordinary death at home and ends with a glimpse of Diane's ongoing journey as friends tell of comforting lessons offered by her enduring spirit. A supplemental guide at the end of the book offers practical suggestions for dealing with a life-threatening illness or death.

"Sharing the wisdom from a terminally ill nurse educator's journals, this book enables Diane Manahan to convey her final, greatest lesson: how to live fully until—and beyond—death.... It is a priceless template for patients, caregivers and loved ones who seek a holistic, sacred approach to a serious illness or to end-of-life care." —Mary Treacy O'Keefe, Co-founder and Executive Director of Well Within

Posted by Rae at 07:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ana-Maurine Lara
Erzulie's Skirt
Wednesday, April 25, 7 p.m.

at
Amazon Feminist Bookstore
4755 Chicago Avenue South, Minneapolis 55407
612-821-9630

Set in the age of urbanization in the Dominican Republic over the course of several lifetimes, Erzulie's Skirt is a love story between two women who travel different paths but share similar goals-securing the survival of their African birthright as healers and spiritual guides for the next generation. tale of how women and their families struggle with love, tragedy and destiny. Infused with the language of ritual and indigenous beliefs, Erzulie's Skirt takes us from rural villages and sugar cane plantations to the poor neighborhoods of Santo Domingo, and through the journey by yola across the sea between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. It is a compelling love story that unearths our deep ancestral connections to land, ritual and memory.

Ana-Maurine Lara is an AfroDominican American writer and organizer. She was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in East Africa and Mount Vernon, NY. She received her BA from Harvard University. Ana-Maurine's poetry and short fiction has appeared in several literary journals, and she has received awards from the Puffin Foundation, the Brooklyn Arts Council and PEN Northwest. She is co-author of bustingbinaries.com: a web site designed to assist in building a community of resistance by addressing the binaries in our social justice movements. She currently lives in Austin, Texas working with The Austin Project, a collective of women writers, scholars and activists of color and their allies creating and performing in the jazz aesthetic.

Posted by Rae at 07:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Discussion and Q&A with Paisley Currah, co-editor of Transgender Rights
Friday, April 20, 7 p.m at
Amazon Feminist Bookstore
4755 Chicago Avenue South, Minneapolis 55407
612-821-9630

While the transgender movement has achieved visibility and victories in the last thirty years, violence and discrimination against transgender people continues to be a significant problem. With analysis from legal and policy experts, activists and advocates, the essays in Transgender Rights bring transgender people's activism into view, articulate the challenges they face, and offer perspectives and strategies for future action. Examining crucial topics like family law, employment policies, public health, economics, and grassroots organizing, this groundbreaking book is an indispensable resource in the fight for the freedom and equality of those who cross gender boundaries. Moving beyond media representations to grapple with the real lives and issues of transgender people, Transgender Rights will launch a new moment for human rights activism in America.

Paisley Currah is associate professor of political science at Brooklyn College, executive director of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center, and a founding board member of the Transgender Law and Policy Institute.

Posted by Rae at 07:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Joanna James - CD-Release Party with the Chris Koza Band And Stook!
Thursday, April 26
7:00 pm
Varsity Theater, Dinkeytown
$8/$10
612.604.0222

Posted by Rae at 07:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

MOXIE HAIR-RAISING: A Benefit for B-Girl Be 2007
9 AM-9 PM Sunday, April 22
$30 haircuts :: DJs, MCs, B-Girls and Graff ladies all day!

Intermedia Arts is proud to partner with MoXie Salon again this year to
host our third annual 12-hour cut-a-thon benefiting the B-Girl Be 2007
Summit.

Support B-Girl Be with a new look from MoXie Salon ($30/haircut!) on
Lyndale Avenue. Throughout the day experience live body painting from
B-Girl Be graff girls, enjoy live poetry and DJs, and make room for
sidewalk breakdancing by local b-girls with live Radio K broadcasting
from the street!

More than just a hair salon and art gallery, MoXie also supports its
community by donating time, talent and funds to neighborhood events.
MoXie Salon and Art Gallery is located at 2649 Lyndale Avenue South,
Minneapolis. For more information, visit www.moxiesalon.com or make an
appointment for the cut-a-thon by calling Moxie Salon at (612)
813-0330.

Schedule of DJ and Live Performance:
10:00 am-12:00pm Angentoranje
12:00-2:00 pm In-Salon Open Mic
12:00-2:00 pm DJ Drea
2:00-4:00 pm DJ Lady Luca
2:00-3:00 pm Rhythm Queens dance
3:00-4:00 pm In-Salon Open Mic
4:00-6:00 pm DJ Eve
4:00-5:00 pm Rhythm Queens and Universal Dance Destiny
5:00-7:00 pm Indigo, Karma, Maria Isa, Desdamona and Tish Jones
6:00-8:00 pm DJ Jennifer
8:00-9:00 pm Angentoranje

ABOUT B-GIRL BE:
B-Girl Be: A Celebration of Women in Hip-Hop is a multimedia festival
encompassing the four elements of hip-hopóMCing, DJing, breakdancing,
graffitióand more. The mission of B-Girl Be is to influence and inspire
leadership to change the perceptions and roles of women in hip-hop for
current and future generations. On June 28, 2007 B-Girl Be kicks off
with the B-Girl Be Summit, a multidisciplinary summit that brings
together international, national and local girls and women in hip-hop
to Minneapolis for dialogues, art-making, screenings, performances,
workshops and networking opportunities. This four-day summit (June
28óJuly 1) showcases women through live performances, fashion, films,
videos, workshops and panels.

B-Girl Be 2007 is presented in partnership with local organizations
Juxtaposition Arts, Nubia, and Emetrece Productions. For the most
up-to-date information about this event and other B-Girl Be events call
Intermedia Arts at (612) 871-4444 or visit www.intermediaarts.org.
Intermedia Arts is located at 2822 Lyndale Avenue South, Minneapolis,
MN 55408.

Posted by Rae at 07:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For my second event post I heard of a talk that was happening in St. Cloud. My sister and most of my friend go to St. Cloud state where they have a house up there. Almost every Wednesday from noon to one St. Cloud offers free lectures which they call “Women on Wednesday.” So I took a trip up there a few weeks ago to see a seminar titled “Women, Health, and Family Planning.” I had a couple of my friends join me for this hour and it turned out to be a learning experience for them.

When I first got there I realized that these seminars build off each other. St. Cloud put together a series of lectures, titled “Global Women, Transforming the World,” that would build upon the fall semester program of addressing women’s lives form a global viewpoint, with a clearer focus on international women’s perspectives and issues. The St. Cloud women’s center put together this series of lectures to show how international women have organized together to prove that anyone can help to improve lives of women and to fight the multiple forms of oppression.

The presenter on this particular Wednesday was Dr. Patience Togo. Dr. Togo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Work at SCSU. She holds BSW and MSW degrees from Carleton University in Canada, and a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Prior to joining SCSU, Togo worked with diverse communities and underserved populations in Canada, Japan ad the U.S. She has experience working in domestic violence program management, curriculum development, training, and applied research. Togo’s research interests include anti-racist/anti-oppression pedagogy, multicultural education, community organizing, violence against women research in communities of color, and parenting practices among African immigrants and refugees. She spent a little while talking about herself, but then moved on to talk and theorize about the concept of family planning accessibility in Non-Western countries.

Her lecture was mainly about the extended family concept in foreign countries and the concept of placing western ideas on non-western families. I found it very interesting when she spoke about people who restrict their family size to mach or imitate foreign ideals. For example, having a limited number of children is alien to some Africans, where as, some couples try to have a fixed number of children. This plays into the concept of social norms. I have heard over and over again how the perfect family is a husband, wife, and 2 ½ children. I do not know what 2 ½ children represent, probably the perfect size, but obviously that is impossible. Togo showed how these families found it very important to fit to the society norm, especially immigrants trying to feel like they are equal in western civilization. This puts a lot of pressure on the women to keep control of her body and have the right amount of children at the right age and raise them in the appropriate age. This then brings up a whole different subject of contraceptives used off and on by the female to control the exact time they want to have a child. However, many of these things are not offered in foreign, especially third world, countries and come at a price.

Togo did not go into the contraceptive issue much, but I felt that it would have been very interesting and would have helped to get her point of view for our group’s reproductive rights project. My friends and I left the lecture talking about everything she touched on for hours and I am sure I will attend another lecture that would appear to be as interesting as this one turned out to be.

Posted by Abbey Carson at 05:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On April 16, 2007 I attended an Aurora Center sponsored screening of the movie Speak at the Oak Street Theatre. The event was organized to raise awareness about sexual assault. Sexual assault is any sexual contact (including, but not limited to sexual intercourse) when such contact is achieved without consent; or with the use of force, coercion, deception, or threat. Rape is a form of sexual assault. Sexual assault is a huge issue that needs to be addressed more seriously at the high school and college level. According to the U.S. National Institute of Justice, 1 in 5 college women will be raped or the victim of an attempted rape in college. Contrary to popular belief, men aren't exempt from this form of abuse. Approximately 1 in 6 boys are sexually assaulted/abused before the age of 16.

I found the movie to be very intense. The main character, Melinda, was a high school freshman who was raped at a party the summer prior. The plot followed her first year of high school, having to look her rapist in the eye every single day and not being able to tell anyone about it. In addition to this, she had lost all of her friends and was basically an outcast at school. At the end of the film, she realized that she couldn't run away from what had happened, she stood up for herself against her rapist, and she was able to open up and talk to her mom about it.

Following the screening was a short discussion led by crisis counselors. They started out by asking for reactions to the film. The first man to speak up brought up how the film really "shook him up". The man had been raped 20 or so years earlier and the film brought him back to his own experience. A high school teacher stood up and addressed how angry it made her that the girl had no one to turn to at school except for a friendly art teacher that helped her to open up. The teacher talked about how sick it makes her to think about how some of the warning signs are blatantly obvious at her own school and very rarely is anything done about it. Another audience member to speak up was a young woman who talked about how she had experienced something very much like in the movie and how it had taken her two years until she could tell anyone about what had happened.

This event was incredibly enlightening. Other topics of discussion included how we could help raise awareness about rape and help our friends and family members that have experienced sexual assault. We discussed ways that we could help rape victims to open up and how incredibly important it is for rape victims to be able to tell their stories. After attending this event, I know that we, as a society, need to join together to fight rape because there is power in numbers, and any form of sexual assault is not okay.

Posted by Jessie Baglien at 04:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Monday, 4/16, I attended the Feminist Colloquium which was presented by Kale Batingue Fajardo.

Kale B. Fajardo is a core faculty member in the Department of American Studies and an affiliated faculty member in the Asian American Studies Program. Fajardo completed a Ph.D. in Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz in spring 2004 and joined the Department of American Studies in the fall of 2005. Fajardo's research interests include Filipino/Filipino American and Asian/Asian American seafaring; port cities (including for example, Manila, Oakland, Acapulco, and New Orleans); masculinities; globalizations; and queer of color cultural productions.

I must admit, as an undergrad at this talk, I did not understand some of the terminology or background that was assumed by the speaker. Past that, the essay was very interesting. The essay began with a personal experience while traveling on a ship with five other seamen. He utilizes the term seamen throughout the essay rather than the politically correct term ‘seafarer’ because that is the term used by the seafarers and within the shipping community. We begin by ‘seeing’ the group of seamen sitting around drinking vodka and watching CDVs from cock fights to soft-core porn. The level of community between the Filipino seamen was much higher than other nationalities on the ship. On the Prince, the German seamen would rather sit in their rooms than join the Filipino seamen for some drinking, talking, and CDVs. The main focus was on that of the tomboy within the shipping community. This concept of tomboy within the Philippines is very different than the American idea of tomboy. In discussion after the talk, one of the graduate students asked about the origin of the term tomboy since it was pronounced differently. Even though tomboy is spelled the same as in English, their meanings vary greatly. In the US, being a tomboy is something you grow out of as a teenager or you are just given the identity of ‘butch’ or ‘lesbian.’ Within the shipping community of the Filipinos, the term tomboy is utilized to describe a female masculinity. This is where the term becomes confusing. Many tomboys are either butch lesbians or are women who want to be men. Whether they are transgender or transsexual are included within the idea of tomboy. An interesting part of his voyage, was Fajardo’s identification as a tomboy and the seamen’s reaction. Because Fajardo could enter and maintain the masculine space of the ship, he was included into their community. As a result of this inclusion, the seamen were open to discussing the tomboys that they know or have in their family. The idea of tomboy is accepted within the shipping community and tomboys are viewed as masculine despite their ‘biological sex.’ Although the shipping community allows for the inclusion of tomboys, the Filipino government and normative society does not. Most tomboys are working class or poor and have to work abroad. Some jobs enforce a strict dress code based on biological sex, which would not allow for a tomboy existence. There is little room for their identity. An interesting aspect of those who study the tomboy is their forced identification of lesbian. Most tomboys are uncomfortable with the term lesbian (possibly since they do not identify as woman), yet many studies declare them as such. Tomboys, although they are accepted within the masculine space of the shipping community, they do not identify as man or woman. The same goes for the seamen; they do not use the term lesbian. In the Filipino language, the pronouns are not gender-specific so when a tomboy is being spoken to, there is no difference in speech. What I found most interesting about the essay presented, was how such a male-dominated area can be more open to gender queers than a government or society. I also appreciated the difference between the American vs. Filipino ideas of tomboy and what constitutes masculine.

Posted by Jessica Englund at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I just saw this and I thought it was really... well I don't know. It is pretty funny and I think it is relevant to what we have been talking about. You should all watch it. You won't be disappointed.

Posted by Kevin Oran at 12:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

OUW Weekly Bulletin, April 11, 2007

View the details of this bulletin at: http://www1.umn.edu/women/bulletin.html

OUW PROGRAMS, EVENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
• REEL Dames Film Series – Mohawk Girls

CAMPUS PROGRAMS, EVENTS, & ANNOUNCEMENTS
• Sexual Assault Awareness Month Events – The Aurora Center
• New Directions in Latin American Feminism
• Women and the MBA Event
• Revolutionary Art Thing (RATH) 2007
• Tucker Center 2007 Spring Distinguished Lecture
• Film – Body and Sold

COMMUNITY PROGRAMS, EVENTS, & ANNOUNCEMENTS
• Film – Border Echoes: The Truth Behind the Juarez Murders
• Women’s Club of Minneapolis – 2007 Diversity/Inclusion Series
• Asian Women & HIV/AIDS: The Looming Crisis
• Graduate Women in Science (GWIS) Meeting
• OutFront Minnesota JustFair Lobby Day
• Play – Journey to Safety
• 17th Annual Young Women's Issue Forum: An African American Perspective

SCHOLARSHIP, GRANT, & FELLOWSHIP OPPORTUNITIES
• Scholarships to the US Social Forum

INTERNSHIP, VOLUNTEER, & EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES
• Education Coordinator – U of M Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action
• Director, Diversity & Equity Programs – Duke University

View the details of this bulletin at: http://www1.umn.edu/women/bulletin.html

Posted by Rae at 08:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Carol Connolly Reading Series
Thursday, April 12, 2007
7:00 PM at Patrick's Cabaret
3010 Minnehaha Ave, Minneapolis

Free and open to the public

Featuring:
TERESA ORTIZ: Soy una poeta, educadora, activista y madre mexicana. Nací en la Ciudad de México, vine por primera vez a Minnesota en los años '70s, y he vivido además en los estados de California y South Dakota, en Guatemala, Centro América, en el norte y en el sur de México. En este lugar, en el estado de Chiapas, trabajé con comunidades indígenas y recopilé testimonios para un libro: "Never Again a World Without Us, Voices of Maya Women in Chiapas, Mexico", EPICA, 2001.

ANA VITE-MELCHOR: I am Mexicana. I am 20 years old and have lived in the United States for 11 years I like to write because I find myself within my poems. My poems say everything and, at times when I feel sad or angry, I breathe through my words. My culture has a strong base in the arts. Its influence has reached my generation from my ancestors to my grandparents.

This Carol Connolly Reading is sponsored in part by Patrick's Cabaret.

Posted by Rae at 08:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)