I dedicated my statement to struggle. Not only the political struggle we undergo as women under white supremacy and the heteronormative patriarchy, but also the internal struggle I undergo as a person with trauma, fears, and cultural identity that shapes a large part of who I am. I hope that with my writings and my photos, I am able to display my truth, and how I see the value of my fight in every single woman, femme, and vagina owner that I have had the blessing of encountering in this life. I was writing with the purpose of understanding power better, of being able to see where it lies and where it is taken away precisely. I realized after working on this project and after a meeting with my community organization New York Boricua Resistance that there can be two truths that co-exist. While men are the first ones needed to divest from toxic masculinity before we can do anything for gender equality and justice, it is women’s position as a marginalized group that has allowed for us to see the mechanisms of the system at play. Feminist deconstruction is what granted us this understanding and gave the beast a name, therefore, men’s liberation will always be a feminist struggle too. Nevertheless, I aimed a lot of my discussion on women’s liberation towards the brutalization of black and brown women by men in our communities. It’s relevant to me given the current state of things in Puerto Rico. I hope you enjoy it.
Author: Hailey DelValle
DB #13: Hailey DelValle
The workshop on healthy relationships helped me assess the quality of the dynamics between myself and those in the past that I have been involved with. The notions discussed of clinginess, possessiveness, and lack of respect for boundaries are all things that I experienced in previous relationships because of my partner and/or because of myself. Calling someone 50 times is excessive, and it’s on the same level as blowing somebody’s phone up almost 50 times due to lack of response. I have been insecure and not respected my partner’s boundaries; although it wasn’t physically hurting my partner the pattern of behavior was setting itself up to be more corrosive as well as consistent with emotional neglect. I see now how I could have made my needs known while also respecting and holding space for my partner’s boundaries and what my partner needed. All in all, it was a great workshop and I’m glad were we able to see the Women’s Resource Center and the Counseling Center do a collab because they killed it!
Hailey DelValle: DB 6
Hey everyone! I hope this weekend has been good to you all, and that you find yourselves safe and (if in NY) warm. I gave this week’s discussion board prompt a lot of thought and knew that I wanted my post to be something of a comfort. What always comforts me, takes me from relaxed to cozy, is music. So I thought instead of recommending albums and artists that I enjoyed, why not just create a way for you to access them directly.
So I made our class a playlist. It’s sort of girly I guess due to the majority of women artists but I hope that it can serve as something that may help you focus, unwind, or just be. This playlist can be used to study, cook, write, meditate, whatever you want! Here are just some songs that have been there for me and I’m hoping that they may so for you too.
Finding that the music is not really your style? That’s ok because (and here is my favorite part) I made it collaborative! Please, please PLEASE add songs, EPS, albums, whatever you want to the thing. I’m starting it off but I would love for this to be for all of us to discover and collectively enjoy music. I want to see what everyone is listening to so send the new tunes our way. Unless you have Apple Music in which case that’s what you get for using the inferior streaming service. (KIDDING! hit me up on WhatsApp if you want to add stuff but aren’t Spotify compatible) Here’s to curating a soundtrack for the coolest of classes, not to mention the first one I have ever made for a class in general.
Lots of love to you all! Hailey <3
Hailey DelValle: DB 5
I feel like if this week’s readings were a tree, La conciencia de la mestiza would be the Chicana branch, The Combahee River Collective statement would be the Afro-American branch, and Carrillo’s poem would form part of the root. These women are asking to be seen wholly and entirely for what they are and for the freedom that they as different groups need. The Black feminists understand that sexism and misogyny is what erodes the bridge that could exist between Black liberation and Black feminism. The Chicana understands that the Chicano’s machismo prevents him from seeing every other woman besides his mother as a being worthy of true respect, and therefore, true love. Both groups understand how they are brutalized because the men of their community fear what could happen if they were to become empowered and self-actualized. It’s two pages from the same book. These women of color are trying to understand how their race and culture play a part in their pursuit of liberation, and then they are letting the white feminist know that her feminism won’t do much if she is not conscious of her race, and therefore her privilege.
Which brings up another idea that I found interesting and quite liked from the Combahee River Collective statement; the concept of having consciousness-raising sessions. The word consciousness also shows up in the title both in English and Spanish in the Mestiza reading. I think there is something to be said about the fact that these women don’t regard this social, political, and intellectual evolution as acquiring knowledge or intelligence, but rather they see it as becoming more aware, as simply being conscious. Something about that feels much more spiritual and wholesome, like the affirmation of our value and our worthiness will do more than heal just these institutions that have been built on white supremacy; it will heal much more than that. It makes me wonder what a consciousness raising session in the Combahee River Collective must look like or have looked like, and what can be classified as one.
On a personal note, as a Nuyorican (member of the Puerto Rican diaspora in New York) I was able to draw so many parallels between the Chicana narrative and my own. When it is said that “this weight on her back – which is the luggage from her Indian mother, which is the baggage from the Spanish father, which is the baggage from the Anglo?” there is not a single difference between this person’s experience and my own. Being a mix of many things (and then a remix of that mix) allows for a lot of internal confusion and turmoil. In the same sense, it is extremely easy to be ambiguous. To belong to many places and none at all. Deconstructing and constructing is the most seamless of processes, and it’s due to the fact that that very process is engrained in our identity. Because of all these parts of the Chicana, and of me, that are both fragmentized and nuanced at the same time, it seems natural to “reinterpret history, and using new symbols, shape new myths.” There is no struggle in “adopting new perspectives towards the dark-skinned women and queers”, in strengthening our tolerance, our willingness to share. To make ourselves vulnerable to foreign ways of seeing and thinking, in surrendering all notions of safety, of the familiar. The Chicana, as well as the Nuyorican woman, as well as the Black woman, are able to do this; and I think that’s sisterhood.
Hailey DelValle: DB #3
After reading some of the passages for this week (but in particular the Susan B. Anthony Speech Text) I was astounded by how similar the words used between the struggle for abolition and that for suffrage are. In 1873, women understood that neither all men nor women can be equal until black, Native, and anything in between men and women are. I think it is so refreshing to know that this consensus existed in the 19th century, that the regard for human life and democracy isn’t a contemporary phenomenon. Anthony makes the point clear when she states that “It was we the people- not we white male citizens- nor yet we male citizens”. She is literally pointing each injustice that existed at the time, that currently exists, and where we can begin to start achieving true exercise of the rights our “fathers” constituted for this country in 1787. Therefore, the words of this woman, as well as the words of Angelina Grimke (whose use of verses is the first time I have ever been on board with utilizing the Bible to make a point) are advocating for freedom.
These suffragettes recognize that the pursuit of liberation must be intersectional, because there is more than one group of citizens being denied their rights; women their right to vote, and black Americans the right to own property, exist autonomously, the list goes on. Anthony time and time again illustrates with concise language and full clarity, the ultimate and only role of a government to its people. It is not to decide nor allow rights for individuals, but to establish and ordain these “God-given” and unalienable rights. It is to “secure the people in the enjoyment” of these exact rights, which are again, not to be decided by a government. And in reference to the same constitution that establishes these rights to its citizens, “there is no provision in that document that can be fairly construed into a permission to the states to deprive any class of their citizens of their rights to vote.”
The point being, that the arguments presented by these women may be applied to the struggle of any marginalized group or minority that is a citizen of the United States. This is to be applied to the freed slaves who suddenly had autonomy yet lacked the ability to read or write about said autonomy, as well as it can be applied to the literate white women who understood their rights in this country as a citizen of it, but lacked the autonomy to exercise them. Taxation without representation is tyranny, and both of these aforementioned groups were expected to pay this government.
Hailey DelValle: DB1
After this week’s readings I was left thinking about differences. We as women share the commonality of being the inferior sex within a patriarchal capitalist society, but the struggles that a white woman face are not going to be the same as the one faced by a Black woman, or a Latina, or an Indigenous woman. On the same note, the aggressions that a Black woman will be subjected to are not identical aggressions to those subjected onto Latinas or Indigenous women or disabled women or Asian women or trans women. We share a commonality in this space as women all the same, but that isn’t enough for the work to be done. Both bell hooks and Audre Lorde make striking points on this very matter. When presenting the idea of feminism, hooks makes us re-evaluate what an oppressor to women everywhere can look like. She states: “all sexist thinking is the problem, whether those who perpetuate it are female or male, child or adult.” This is the main issue indeed, and thus the commercial idea of feminism where women simply want equal pay and to be able to abort are not the sole struggles found in all circles of women; in countless spaces these are so far from the kind of oppression that women are facing at any given moment.
Lorde hones in on this very way of thinking, proving that on that same note, all racist thinking is also the problem, whether it be white towards Black, Black towards Black, Indian towards Latina, Latina towards Asian, etc. As Lorde puts it: “As women, we must root out the internalized patterns of oppressions within ourselves if we are to move beyond the most superficial aspects of social change.” And we all have them. It is a by-product of living and growing in a world that is inherently anti-us. Even more so, it is proof that we are trained to be aggressive towards others in order to successfully be more aggressive towards ourselves. Indeed, it is successful in allowing us not to see that the oppressor can be looking right at you in the mirror. And the change we must seek starts with that. As Lorde says in her essay; “it is not those differences between us that are separating us. It is rather our refusal to recognize those differences, and to examine the distortions which result from our misnaming them and their effects upon human behavior and expectation.”
Overall, when I think about the spectrums that exist within what we know as the women’s or feminist movement, it’s important to remind myself that these spectrums can also be debilitating to those of us who have yet to do the internal work needed to explore the differences that could one day strengthen us to truly achieve an end to sexism. As hooks eloquently puts it; “Utopian visions of sisterhood based solely on awareness of the reality that all women were in some way victimized by male domination were disrupted by discussions of class and race.” Let us continue disrupting these discussions, continue making our ideas of feminism intersectional and conscious of oppressions that not all women experience, but women regardless do. Recognize your privileges, and join the struggle with your sisters.
Hailey DelValle: Introduction
Hey everyone!
My name is Hailey and my pronouns are she/her. It was so lovely meeting you on our first class last Tuesday. I look forward to getting to know you all much better as the semester goes on.
I was born and partially raised in the Lower East Side, and was also partially raised in Puerto Rico, which is where I currently find myself with my grandparents and my little brother. Since arriving here I have noticed that time away from the city to decompress and recenter with everything that has been going on within the last year was much needed. I find myself laughing more and overthinking less. It has been such a great change of pace.
Speaking of what has happened in the past year, since the pandemic started and we have all been confined to the indoor world, I have picked up a new quarantine hobby- resin crafts! I find that using creative outlets has helped me deal with processing everything that’s going on, and being able to sell some of my crafts to my friends has encouraged me to continue using this method; as it makes me happy to make something with my hands and it makes me a little bit of money as well. Has anyone else picked up a cool new hobby/craft since the pandemic?
