Campus Engagement 2

    For my last campus engagement, I attended Taking up Space, which was a lecture about the bullying in middle school and how if affects young students. Now, I'll start by saying it was not what I expected it to be. I thought this was going to be something along the lines of hearing people's stories and feeling sympathy for them but it was an actual study. There were hypothesizes, experiments, results and reporting--sorta reminding me of what I do with my biology. This lecture leaned much more towards logical than emotion and I found it interesting.

    Now with that, the most emotional part of this even were the interviews with parents. I remember there was one women who was devastated by the way people were treating her daughter and she was willingly to do anything to make sure she was okay. And then there was the school officials who didn't seem interested in conducting the study and simply wanted to ignore the problem of bullying. The speaker, Pr. Santana, described how there is a tug of war between the schools and the parents. The schools say "well, if you're child is acting up at school, it's usually because of the situation at home" while parents believe schools are not taking care of the issues properly. I'll talk about something that I generally keep to myself. When I was in elementary school, I was severely bullied. And while I'm not going to go into details about it, let me just say, there was two years of my life that was pretty much a living hell. And this little tid bit into my life serves as a connection between school and home when it comes to bullying. There isn't one person to blame, it's a combination. When I was a kid, both school and home were the worse places to be. My school life was horrible and my home life was unstable. And what did the school officials and my parents do? They just kept blaming each other. I went to a school guidance council and after I told her my home situation, my mother got mad at me for telling the school about it. And then the guidance council would talk to students who had bullied me and that just made it worse. So much worse.

    This event, while interesting and very well conducted, did not sit very well with me. It brought back to many emotions, to many painful memories and thoughts of how I wish things had been done differently. I would join the Young Leaders Program if I had the time because I think I have a lot to offer to young people because I experienced bully first hand. It's hard, unnecessary, and can emotionally scar a person for the rest of their lives. And while my schools days are far behind me and what students called me doesn't necessarily hurt me anymore, there is that lingering bit of anger and injustice. An open wound that will never heal. I want something to be done about bully but at the same time I don't want to have to deal with the issues and emotions that come with reliving those memories.  

Bad picture of me LOL but I was there

Activism Log 2

Week of 04/4/2012

1. Activism:

This week on April 4^th, I tabled with other members of VOX. This was actually my first time meeting a lot of the members as I have a fairly busy schedule throughout the semester. I believe it was successful, in terms of letting people know what was going on and what VOX was. Next week, I might try passing out fliers but frankly, I'm too shy to attempt it.

2. Reflection: 

This week's activism for VOX, which want to help women , is very much in tuned with the chapter we are currently studying about violence against women. Gender violence is a very sensitive topic and it is not one that should be taken lightly. It can come in many forms: emotional, verbal, physical or sexual. Each of these acts can leave behind scars that traumatize women for the rest of their lives. On a marco level, I think interesting that it is probably one of the few topics that bring all “societies, socioeconomic classes, all races/ethnic groups” (Kirk, Okazawa-Rey, 257) together as it affects all women. Culture plays a huge role in trying to legitimatize the notion of gender violence with the idea that husband have the right to “discipline his wife” (Kirk, Okazawa-Rey, 266). This is a very old idea of course, but until 1993, rape in a marriage wasn't even considered a crime in the United States! And then in the workplace women find it“difficult to speak up about sexual harassment” (Kirk, Okazawa-Rey, 266) because of the power employers hold over employees; men's power over women. They don't want to make a fuss about anything and potentially lose their jobs. Another macro level explanations for gender violence also comes from legal systems, which have “inadequate laws and practices concerning violence against women” and is part of the reason why participial power influences women in their everyday lives.

This gets very frustrating to write about. But how can it not be? Working with VOX and reading this chapter has really changed a lot of my own personal views about feminism and gender violence. I'll be honest, I didn't have any opinion of it before this. And while I thought, yes this is an awful thing that happens to people,but it's never happened to me so why should I even bother thinking about it. And I am also not trying to blame everything on our society on men. There are those men out there, like the ones at MAC, who recognize the power and fear men hold over women sometimes. “When I walk on campus at night and a woman In front of me sees I'm a man walking behind her, her shoulders tense up and she starts walking more quickly” (Kirk, Okazawa-Rey, 286). For generations is seems like women have been taught to act in certain way in order to prevent violence. We have a check list, we don't wear provocative clothing and if we go out, we go with our friends let someone know when you are going out, and never leave your drink unattended. And yet even if we do all fo these things, it's not always preventable! Sometimes the unthinkable happens and it's completely out of our control. And yet sometimes, people still “blame the victim” (Kirk, Okazawa-Rey, 265) even if she did everything right. I think organizations like VOX would support ideas on ending violence against women and as for the community? It has to be something we are all willingly to change. We should word on providing more support for victims, to more of what VOX do by providing more public and professional education about violence against women and change political strategies when it comes to these issues. And the saddest part of this entire reflection is that this is even an issue to begin with.

3. Reciprocity:

I like to think that everything I get in return for volunteering is that I learn something. This week, while pretty much changing my whole opinion about certain aspects of violence against women, was more about interacting and educating people about different aspects of VOX and what they stand for. I However, that also depended who came to your table and who was interested in hearing your speech about your organization. And I have to say, there aren't many people willingly to take the time and listen anymore, which is unfortunate. I think if this week taught me anything about feminism, or any kind of activism (in my case, animal organizations), we have to find new ways to let our voices be heard. I know a lot of activists have been turning to new resources like social media websites and YouTube and have had some varying degrees of success. But still, it's not enough. For example, I volunteer with big cats at a place called Central Florida Animal Reverse and while we have all of these new flashy websites and YouTube channels and what not but hardly anyone knows who we are still. People are literally shock when I tell them there are tigers living only twenty minutes from their house. So, while I don't know what the answer is, I am sure in the future will give us many opportunities to spread the message.

Works Cited

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Rey. Women's lives: multicultural perspectives. 3rd ed. Boston, Mass.: McGraw-Hill, 2004. Print.

Activism Reflection 1

Week of 3/29/2012

1. Activism: 

This week I participated in two events. My classmate, Charlotte and I went around the city of Ovideo for VOX to ask for donations to their upcoming event. Then I helped with the LOL event here on UCF campus. Overall, I think asking for donations went okay. A lot of the places we went to were cooperation and they wanted us to go through their head quarters in order to set something up. We weren't asking for money, it was for miscellaneous items that we could use for prizes at the event (coupons, gift card, ect). We ended up getting a lot of contact information though. The LOL event was a little more successful even if all I did was type up some papers for them. I felt like I had accomplished at least something, even if it was very small task.

2. Reflection:

In class this week, we discussed many topics surrounding women and their home and work life. My volunteer work for VOX reflects this idea in several different ways. To start, in “Making a Home, Making a Living,” the main idea is focusing on the well being of women both financially and personally in their home and career life. Women in this country are sometimes expected to be like the somewhat empowering 1970's “super mom” (Kirk,Okazawa-Rey) who does everything: raise the children, have successful careers and be an outstanding homemaker. This ideal, however, is taxing for women and can make them emotionally drained. Women in this country have had to make sacrifices on what they wanted to do most. For instance, a women who has a successful career might not have children in order to gain a higher position. Another women in the same career, however, might choose to do the “mommy track,” (Kirk,Okazawa-Rey) which allows them to combine family time with work, by working “longer hours, taking little vacation time and doing whatever the work demanded” ( Kirk,Okazawa-Rey). This comes down to making choices and sacrifices that men would never have to make. In my work with VOX, however, I went around to many different businesses and found a surprising number of whom had women as their store mangers (some of them were major companies, such as Bed, Bath and Beyond and PetSmart). And while this isn't that uncommon today, there was a time in our country's history where women mangers were virtual unheard of. In order to be a manger of a store, people have to get some type of college education. So, to see this many women as mangers proves the point that many of them probably went to college and are breaking through the “glass ceiling” (an unseen barrier that prevents women from promotions into higher seats of power) (Kirk,Okazawa-Rey). On a macro level, this shift in power probably gives women a more equal playing field as men. They are going to college, getting an education and becoming a more powerful force in the workplace. At the same time, these women probably were also subjected to the discriminates that come with being a women in the workforce and had to learn to balance out their lives. As this is a personal reflection about what I personally experienced while working with VOX, I believe doing this was something of an eye-opening experience for me. I think that I was never really aware about just how many women there are in workforce today. And it made me think about how there needs to be more awareness about these issues with women in workforce such as still not getting paid as equally as men and treated in a negative light. I think there needs to be a lot more work done in this area as there are still many glass ceilings to breakthrough.

3. Reciprocity:  This week's volunteer work really helped me see just how many women are in the management level of work and opened my eyes to new possibilities. While I live in a modern era where women have been able to work in many new and innovating fields, there is still a huge inequality gap, where women are still not getting as paid as much as men and many people view women bosses in a negative light. For me personally, I felt good about trying to get donations for organizations like VOX, who help promote women activism and education. And while VOX is main goal is in reproductive health, through them, I was able to learn something else about feminist ideas in the workplace.

 Works Cited

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Rey. Women's lives: multicultural perspectives. 3rd ed. Boston, Mass.: McGraw-Hill, 2004. Print.

 

Campus Engagement: A Reflection

 A Blue Planet

     Alexandra Cousteau, the granddaughter of world famous French explorer and filmmaker Jaxques-Yves Cousteau, came to UCF on March 28, 2012. Her main discussion was about preserving and sustaining a healthy environment through water management. She talked about her tour back in 2009, where for 100 days she visited many countries and and discovered places where water was unclean and too poor to even drink. She received comments from people all over the United States, praising her achievements and mentioning how these sort of problems didn't even exist in the US. These comments inspire her on another tour in 2010 for 140 days, within the U.S.A and Canada to prove the ignorance of these comments. She discovered that the water resources within are own boarders are unclean, rivers are being drained and how global warming seems to interacting with this whole process. However, the most sentimental evidence she brought to the table was the complete death of the Colorado river. She showed a video, which stated that the river had once crossed over 2 million acres but now couldn't even reach the sea, has been reduced to mud and has gone through desertification. And what little remains is being sectioned off between Mexico and the USA for famring and commerical reasons and with no water being able to return to the environment. She urged the audience to understand that if the rivers do not meet the oceans, estuaries (the widening channel of a river where it nears the sea, with a mixing of fresh water and salt water) will not be created and some of the most important nurseries for fish and plant life will not flourish. She believed that there needed to be a long term plan in order to fix what was happening. By the end of the presentation, she concluded that there needs to be a long term solution put into place if we are to save our fresh water supplies.

     Cousteau is an amazing women with a very interesting idea. When I first walked into her program, I was expecting really just another rant about how global warming is destroying everything (it gets a little tiresome as I have to hear it all the time in my biology classes) but instead, I found her position to be compelling. She is obviously a women who has broken through the glass ceiling and is very intelligent and has a become a powerful voice within the environmental community. I didn't even know who she was until I got there and now I wish I had done some extra research in order to prepare more questions. She is doing something that I hope to do in the future (but instead of water rights, you know, with giant tigers). I really enjoyed her program, much more than I thought I was going too. And while I am not interested in working with water management, I hope to follow in a similar pattern she has taken and be able to voice my opinion as well as she does.

I was here! :D 

My sister took this one...sorta blurry.