Bucket Lists + Books: The life of Trina Z

A Tumblr where I share my passion for bucket list adventures, teaching, and reading. Come along for the journey, and hopefully be inspired to try something new!

[buckets2bookstrinaz]

Poem

Girls Have It Harder Than Boys Girls have it harder than boys. Boys have uncomfortable, embarrassing erections that come and go at random and voices that creak and crack at the worst possible moment. Girls have breasts that swell over time rising front and center so eventually we come to wonder have our eyes permanently migrated south? Boys have wet dreams. Girls have their periods. Boys have priests and coaches and predatory babysitters. Girls have fathers, step fathers, uncles, boyfriends, strangers… each eager for a piece of our pie. Pie served in silent terror because we are raised being told, “Be good” “be quiet” “be nice” “be helpful” “Don’t argue” “don’t fight” “don’t scream.” Programmed to slice away at ourselves for the sake of others, told that our bodies are temples, but constantly shown that our bodies are objects for sale. The myriad names for our “flowery bits” and “front bum” become tinged with revulsion, violence, and sin: slit / gash / hole / p-ssy / c-nt. Meanwhile guys are vested with strength by virtue of their penis / dick / cock and its ability to conquer, dominate, even plunder. Is it any wonder we have grown men proud their last tear fell at age 5 taking advantage of women who submit because they’ve been taught to fear their own strength?

[mrszedsbooks]

Death Valley, Zion, and Bryce Canyon!

[buckets2bookstrinaz]

Recent activities

I successfully completed another round of Instructional Rounds which included colleagues observing the first day of the empathic making project in my Maker 7 class. I've tried a bunch of foods for the first time as an adult including: black and green olives, tapenade, pate, cherry tomatoes, "fancy" cheeses, assorted salami, frozen yogurt (an actual bucket list item)... I'm busy working on two committees related to library learning commons I hosted the 4th annual human library to great accolades. I scheduled over 1,600 appointments for 32 living books! I went to the Vancouver Opera version of Sweeney Todd. I trail ran a portion of the High Rim Trail. I've had a student teacher teaching my English 9 block.

[buckets2bookstrinaz]

I'm a sucker for a useful infographic!

[socimages]

Where do negative stereotypes about feminists come from?

By Lisa Wade, PhD

Television evangelist Pat Robertson once described feminism as “a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians.” His comment is frequently used as a particularly extreme version of the feminist stereotype, but how far are his sentiments from those of the general public?

A more systematic investigation into what people think about feminists found that many people think that feminists are ugly, uptight, angry, aggressive, harsh, strident, demanding, dogmatic, man-hating lesbians… or think other people think they are. Only 26 percent of people say that feminist is a positive term.

This suggests that actual feminists have lost control over their own reputation. It would be counterproductive, after all, for feminists to portray themselves as unlikeable. Negative stereotypes about feminists, instead, are likely spread by anti-feminists.

Anti-suffrage campaign material is one example. The images below tells a story about who the feminist women fighting for suffrage are and what they want. It’s all pre-1920s, but the stereotypes and fears are similar.

Feminists are ugly:

Feminists are manly:

Feminists neglect their natural role as a mother/are uncaring toward children:

They’re angry:

They want to emasculate men and take their role:

They’re mean to their husbands, if they can get married at all:

They don’t want equality with men, they want to dominate them:

Next time you hear that feminists are ugly or hate men — or any number of stereotypes about women who seek equality — remember that this is exactly what anti-feminists have wanted you to think for the last 200 years.

Thanks to Jay Livingston for the tip!

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College and the co-author of Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook. 

[buckets2bookstrinaz]

Selfless Women

Please ignore the weird spacing until I can fix it!

We are born into a sea of pink. Praised for being pretty, beautiful or cute;  rarely for being strong, tough or smart. We are brainwashed from infancy. Come adulthood we embrace the falsities: “I’m born to be a mom!” “I’m here to nurture!” “I’m self-less.”

I am self-less. Less than those I care for. Proven by my pay check (showing I’m worthy of 76.5 cents per dollar). Proven by the expectation that I work full-time, parent 1.5 children, take care of my husband (wink, wink), keep the house presentable for company, volunteer for my church or local animal shelter, and stay hot— all without complaint.

Like jugglers or plate spinners it’s quite magical how we keep afloat. Perpetuating the myths and burdening our daughters with these ideals. We’re shaking our money makers, doing squats to get a thigh gap and yearning to look like the girls in the magazines and we’re bombarded with imagery that tells us being desired is a natural feminine need. While surrounded by unrealistic fabrications of a lingering patriarchy, we strive for misogynistic standards of beauty and we achieve desire. But desire is not respect!

  Sadly we’ve become martyrs against our own cause. Throwing shade at other women: Suburban moms, Mother Earth moms and Choose-not-to-be moms, Skinny bitches and “have another donut” ladies, we’re unknowingly complicit in our own demise. The struggle should not be against one another! Our sky high heels need to smash the glass ceiling Making room for other women to embrace positions of power.

Support other women; quit judging. Reconsider the smiling great grandmother,  and that palpable joy when her husband of 52 years passed. Empathize with the loss and freedom registering on her face. Learn from Gertrude, and Frannie, and Elizabeth. Two decades from now we shouldn’t be nearing retirement trapped in a life we never realized we never wanted, watching our daughters add another spinning plate!

We were born into a sea of pink, but we can change the expectations. Women can be strong and beautiful, smart and kind, tough and nurturing. It isn’t an either or. Choosing self is not selfish. We are more. Don’t settle for less.

Trina Zuyderduyn, 2014

[buckets2bookstrinaz]

[buckets2bookstrinaz]

A kindred spirit--Bear Grylls and I share the "why not?" philosophy. This was a fast read with some eye rolls and annoying font, but still offered some ideas to ponder and reassurances that I'm on the right track.

[stunningpicture]

70s Lego had the right idea

[smartgirlsattheparty]

Perfect!

[buckets2bookstrinaz]

Yes!

[lezbeyan]

Femme Nation: A photo series by 16 year old Hailey Corrall to provoke a message about misogyny in our youth.

[buckets2bookstrinaz]

Yay for political teens!

[troyesghost]

Benny - Little Game

[incredible-demon]

i still cant fathom the fact that a 15 yr old kid came up with a video as powerful as #LittleGame

[gold-talisman]

 Tumblr I dare you to make this video go so viral that CNN has to talk about it

[buckets2bookstrinaz]

Well done!

[smartgirlsattheparty]

And dare I say, more than enough

[buckets2bookstrinaz]

For JMM

[mrszedsbooks]

We’ve started our “create your own personalized logo” project in Maker. The students did shockingly well at brand recognition, in particular colour matching logos on brandseen :-)

[buckets2bookstrinaz]

Maker

[buckets2bookstrinaz]

I learned how to arm knit on Monday and it is so easy (once you find a tutorial that makes sense to you) that I made a scarf in about 30 minutes and have now made one that is about 15 feet long which I'm going to use for World AIDS day. The tutorial I used was #37 by Fibre Flux on YouTube. Thanks to my assist and Dana for figuring out how to cast on :-)

[mrszedsbooks]

[buckets2bookstrinaz]

I am learning a little Spanish each day thanks to this fantastic free app, Duolingo! A bunch of Spanish exchange students arrive on Wednesday so I’m excited to be able to practice with them.

Give it a try!

[buckets2bookstrinaz]

Self-Less Women (SLAM draft)

We are born into a sea of pink, Praised for being pretty, beautiful or cute;  Rarely for being strong, tough or smart. We are brainwashed from infancy. Come adulthood we embrace the falsities. "I am born to be a mom!" "I'm here to nurture!" "I am self-less." I am self-less. Less than those I care for. Proven by my pay check (showing I am worthy of 76.5 cents per dollar) Proven by the expectation that I work full-time, parent 1.5 children, take care of my husband (wink, wink), keep the house presentable for company, volunteer for my church or local animal shelter, and stay hot-- all without complaint. Like jugglers or plate spinners it's quite magical how we keep afloat. Perpetuating the myths Burdening our daughters with these ideals. It makes you reconsider those smiling great grandmothers,  the palpable joy when their trusty husband of 52 years passed... their faces registering a complicated mix of loss and freedom. We should learn from Gertrude, and Frannie, and Elizabeth. Two decades from now we shouldn't be nearing retirement trapped in a life we never realized we never wanted, watching our daughters add another spinning plate! We were born into a sea of pink, but we can change the expectations. Women can be strong and beautiful, smart and kind, tough and nurturing. It isn't an either or. Choosing self is not selfish. We are more. Don't settle for less.

[buckets2bookstrinaz]

A modified version of this painting by Diane Ekker will become my second tattoo!