Author: Alexandra Olderman

I’m so glad the Womens Resource Center and Counseling Center did this collab! I thought it was great that they approached the discussion of relationships in a broader term to include but not limit itself to romantic relationships. Toxic relationships that exist within families and friendships are very prevalent and don’t usually get the same type of attention. Especially during pandemic living situations, it seems as if we are all living in very close quarters of each other, which makes setting boundaries and communication so much more important in order to maintain a healthy duel environment for living, learning, working, etc.

My boyfriend and I started living together only a few months before the start of the pandemic, I remember how difficult of an adjustment it was just to start sharing a physically small space with someone, but then when he started WFH how a whole new level of communication and boundaries needed to be implemented. It’s hard! It takes a lot of work and there were definitely some uncomfortable discussions and frustration but I’m overall grateful for the experience to practice being a good partner/roommate. However, I know how different this experience could’ve been if him or myself contributed to toxic behaviors or a lack of willingness to communicate. I think that the WRC and Counseling Center would be amazing resources for anyone who had concerns about navigating boundary/communication issues and potentially toxic behaviors!

“So if we think about this intersection, the roads to the intersection would be the way that the workforce was structured by race and by gender. And then the traffic in those roads would be the hiring policies and the other practices that ran through those roads. Now, because Emma was both black and female, she was positioned precisely where those roads overlapped, experiencing the simultaneous impact of the company’s gender and race traffic. The law — the law is like that ambulance that shows up and is ready to treat Emma only if it can be shown that she was harmed on the race road or on the gender road but not where those roads intersected.”

I think Crenshaw’s metaphor for intersectionality here is absolutely spot-on. When it comes to marginalization, it is as if the more oppression you connect with the less visibility you receive, which leads to further injustice.  This was definitely apparent in the Anita Hill documentary. Where could she go for protection and support? Would white women defend her? Would black men defend her? Obviously the old white men who were basically putting her on trial weren’t going to.  However, the way she was spoken to and treated displayed characteristics and both racism and sexism. Watching was definitely a little disheartening, seeing some familiar faces on Judiciary Committee who are still playing some pretty big roles 30 years later, and wondering if anything would actually go any differently today.

I definitely think it’s important that we challenge the idea (or at least the idea of the importance) of the nuclear family. In the Beyond Marriage article, it is pointed out that a majority of people in fact, do not live in a nuclear family and yet, it is presented as the only “legitimate” type of family in society and in the government. The concept discredits so many valuable family dynamics that exist such a queer families, single-parent families, chosen-families, childless families, extended families, (unmarried) partnerships, care-givers, etc.

Not everyone is born into the kind of family that will support and protect them, so many people create their own communities for survival. In Paris is Burning, you see the Houses have a family-dynamic that consists of a “mother” who cares for their family members, many of who are queer people who’s born-families have rejected them. Is that not what the critical structure of a family is? How they care for each other as opposed to just who they consist of?

I think that shifting the value away from the aesthetics of a nuclear family will open the door to alternative types of families who are just as valid and deserve just as much of the respect and benefits as any other family does.

I want to start by saying it was really apt that the Toilet Training video referenced the Law & Order sequence, seeing as SVU has done so many episodes addressing trans issues historically, and how many of those episodes discuss reference the bathroom issue specifically.

I’m glad that the Transgender People and Bathroom Access reading as well as the Toilet Training video address and tackles the folk theories regarding the safety of a bathroom. The whole idea that someone would argue that “if a trans woman can use the bathroom what if men disguise themselves as women” as if that’s not just assault and something that needs to be addressed on its own!?

“To imply that trans women pose a threat to cisgender women in restrooms is misinformation that preys on unfounded fears. I searched for news stories in which transgender women have assaulted cisgender women in bathrooms, coming across nothing but news stories detailing the attacks on transgender women themselves. ” – I think the BitchMedia article hit the target on the really sad irony of the bathroom issue.

Personally, TERF ideologies absolutely blow my mind, but why call someone a TERF when you can just call them what they really are: Transphobic.

I really enjoyed reading the texts for this week, particularly I Want a Wife and The Politics of Housework, the two both hitting home with a familiar rhetoric that felt very familiar to what my mother engrained in me, not as a premonition of what my life had to become, if “wife” was in my future, but what I should fight for it not to be (in agreement with those particular authors).

The readings from the 1800s seem to emphasize a call to action for equal rights, with a focus on suffrage, when we jump to second wave feminism we now see the focus on not only equality but also women’s gender expectations and their space/roles in society. I believe that by the second wave of feminism the façade of equality is unmasked, that gaining those rights that they have fought for historically (ex. suffrage, right to education, etc) have not amounted to the equality, but served as merely a compromise and a guise to equality while still keeping those in power in their positions.

With that being said, these separate time periods in feminism still share a communal sense of wanting recognition of what it means to live in a patriarchal society by those who uphold it. They also share a sense of understanding that to advance feminism you also must advocate against racism. These are both structures designed to disenfranchise groups and uphold the structure of those in power.

I thought it was also interesting, the emphasis on including the “inhumanity to man” (Steinem), and the role feminism has on liberating the toxic role of masculinity and the gender norms that go along with it, and how those are unfair and harmful to everyone.

“We want to share the work and responsibility, and to have men share equal responsibility for the children… man will be relieved of his role as sole breadwinner and stranger to his own children.”

Discuss the two versions of the speech by Sojourner Truth. What do we see when we compare the two versions? What can this show us about the context of that time?

The two versions of Truth’s speech, while conveying the same/a similar message, reflect wildly different voices. When we look at similarities between the original transcribed method and the one later published, key points made are used verbatim while also including embellished language. For example, Robinsons account reads as “if women have a pint and man a quart – why can’t she have her little pint full?” while Gage’s reads as “If my cup won’t hold but a pint and yourn holds a quart, wouldn’t ye be mean not to let me have a little half-measure full?“

It took me a minute to notice what happened to the speech beyond just the voice being changed. When you read Robinsons version, the speech is predominantly addressing women’s rights with undertones regarding slavery, however, when you read Gage’s version it directly addresses women’s rights and slavery. Again, Robinsons version (which is regarded as the closest to accurate version) absolutely touches on slavery, but I feel that Gage goes out of the way to be sure both issues are represented.

I feel that what we see is Gage painting Truth to fit the narrative of what America imagined (or perhaps wanted to imagine) when addressing slavery, changing Truth’s voice to emphasize the abolitionist aspect of the women’s rights movement.

On a personal note, I believe that regardless of the intention being non-malicious and reportedly effective in it’s agenda to highlight both issues, it is nonetheless reductionist, a caricature, and ultimately unethical.

Ijeoma A writes about what the expectations were of her for being a girl, namely, the Four Commandments: Her office is the kitchen, she is responsible for all the chores in the home, She is accountable for the children and their actions, And, of course, she must pledge complete and total allegiance to the man in charge first, before herself.

This made me think; these expectations were never overtly asked of me, however, I feel they were often implied. For example, I wasn’t asked to clean more than my brother, but I was expected to “be cleaner”. The general feeling I had was that although no one was telling me I had to live up to the roles that centuries of reinforced societal sexism carved out for me, it would be weird or I would risk feeling embarrassed if I didn’t.

I find that the recurring theme of norms for girls involve acts of submission, however, I find that the most common norm demanded from women and girls is more of an emotional submission. Girls are asked to be “sensitive” to men’s emotions, to put their needs to the side for those of men, and to take on the role of therapist and expect very little back in return.

This weeks readings were fantastic at tackling the subject of intersectionality in feminism. I’ve identified as a feminist from a young age, however only in the past handful of years I learned about how incomplete my definition was.

“Masses of people think that feminism is always and only about women seeking to be equal to men. And a huge majority of these folks think feminism is anti-male. Their misunderstanding of feminist politics reflects the reality that most folks learn about feminism from patriarchal mass media. The feminism they hear about the most is portrayed by women who are primarily committed to gender equality — equal pay for equal work and sometimes women and men sharing household chores and parenting; they see that these women are usually white and materially privileged.”

Bell hooks points out exactly why I think my initial definition was lacking so much substance, that my primary education about feminism was coming from a patriarchal mass media source and a place of privilege.

In Lorde’s writing, she explains why you can not be a feminist if you are not also committed to anti-racism and the acknowledging the experiences black women and women of color.

“On the other hand, white women face the pitfall of being seduced into joining the oppressor under the pretense of sharing power. This possibility does not exist in the same way for women of Color. The tokenism that is sometimes extended to us is not an invitation to join power; our racial “otherness” is a visible reality that makes that quite clear. For white women there is a wider range of pretended choices and rewards for identifying with patriarchal power and its tools.”

That quote stood out to me, especially as a reminder of my privilege and responsibility to be aware of it.

Finally, I want to add Dr. Guy-Sheftall’s definition of women’s studies; the study of women and issues surrounding women such as: race, class, gender, sexuality. As the other writings point out, it is sometimes forgotten and misunderstood what the study of women is really about or all the facets it includes (particularly with race and class).