Discover Top Posts Tagged with #stopstaringatmycollarbones

Week 10 Outside Post

I had a conversation with my roommate this week about Megan Trainor’s new song “No”. The song is about a woman who is hit on when she goes out to bars/parties and how she says no to the men that approach her. The very basic and clear lyrics of the chorus are:

“My name is no My sign is no My number is no You need to let it go You need to let it go Need to let it go Nah to the ah to the no, no, no”

My roommate had come home upset because she had worked with a girl who is “antifeminist” because she is “sick of the feminism shit”. This person quoted lyrics from a verse that read:

All my ladies, listen up

If that boy ain't giving up

Lick your lips and swing your hips

And stated “she’s sending him mixed signals.” My roommate asked her coworker if licking your lips and swinging your hips while you are dancing is supposed to be exclusively for a man. The coworker was very unreceptive but I think this is a huge issue in our society today. It is assumed that women do things for the sole purpose of pleasing men. It is the expectation that our motivation should always be to satisfy them and it is a ludicrous idea that a woman could really be doing something for just herself. This applies to the common book in that it is very often assumed that when a woman dresses a certain way it’s to “impress” someone or to “get attention”.

I dress how I dress because it makes ME happy, because it makes ME feel good.

It’s got nothing to do with you. Don’t flatter yourself.

#stopstaringatmycollarbones #don't flatter yourself #this is for me

Week 6 Class Post

This week my group presented our chapter from the Rebel Girls book titled A Politics of Participation. My specific portion of the presentation was on pleasurable political communities. The book talked about political communities building a sense of community and how that solidarity could be protective against other issues teens face, like depression. The goals of these communities are constructed to maximize participation and then events are centered around youth culture to draw youth in. The political events are designed to be enjoyable and make the youth want to attend.

A large portion of the discussion of pleasurable political communities was on the meaningful relationships the young girls create and the important social connections they become over time. The author explained that activism was such an emotional experience that the bonds formed end up being extremely strong. While this can be so beneficial in so many ways (solidarity, companionship, closeness), it can also have drawbacks.

When interviewed, many of the girls expressed sentiments like “I have nothing in common with the other girls at my school” and see other teens as “frivolous” and “unlike them”. This mindset ends up hindering the cause because the communities can be seen as closed off to new members. Judgmental and prejudiced attitudes from the young activists can become an obstacle for creating participatory political communities.

This links to my common book in that they are both examples of women being pitted against one another. Messages from society tell young girls that they are one another’s competition and you shouldn’t like someone who is more beautiful than you or more intelligent than you because she makes you look bad. Instead of seeing a woman in charge of her own sexuality, we see a slut. Instead of seeing a woman who has put on a short skirt because it made her feel good this morning, we see her trying to get attention. We have to come together and realize we are all women. We have that in common, and it’s so incredibly important. So stop trying to find ways that we are different.

#wearealike #stopstaringatmycollarbones

Guiding Questions on Feminisms Matter

Week 3 Class Post

Below are a few of my favorite questions with my responses to the assignment we had on Feminisms Matter by Victoria Bromley:

How does considering gender as performance rather than biology help create new understanding/knowledge in relation to your interest area?

This is such a cool concept. We really do perform our gender. Our sex is different, but with everything we do, our clothing, our hair styles, our mannerisms and the way we speak, all contribute to how we act out our gender in society. In relation to my common book, we act our gender through our dress. At the same time, others evaluate our gender based on the clothing we wear to present ourselves to the world. You see someone (man or women, male or female) wearing a dress and you assume they are female, because that is a huge component that goes into how one evaluates the gender of the people around them.

How does considering the language used to discuss your interest area help generate understanding of that thing? (Remember the move from arguing to asking. For example, if someone says women are less capable athletes than men instead of arguing you ask why would that person use this language to discuss gender and athletics?)

For example, if someone were to say “she’s a slut” when they see a woman dressed provocatively. I could ask why do you say that and what about her and what about your experiences lead you to say that. It’s important to remembers that the statement reflects more about the sayer than the subject; it’s about their thought processes and what they have learned and been taught throughout their lives.

How does considering your interest area as undefinable affect your understanding of that thing? Of yourself? Of others?

I think that considering my area of interest as undefinable actually creates a better understanding. Because there are no “rules” or “boundaries” of a concept that is undefinable, it allows the issue and the movement towards equality in that aspect to be flexible and to flow and apply to more than one conversation or topic. Women’s dress is used to evaluate them, it’s used to categorize women into “good girls” and “bad girls”. Women’s dress is regulated and controlled by schools, places of employment, our state, all the way up to our federal government. Women’s dress is used as an excuse for why something bad happened to her or why something was done to her. Women’s dress and how it is seen and interpreted is not definable. This gives me a better understanding of myself and of those around me because it tells me that at any time: I am being judged and evaluated on the clothing I put on my back that day, and that someone may or may not tell me that what I am wearing is not appropriate, and that what I choose to wear may be used as the “cause” of a sexual assault on me.

#feminism matters #feminismsmatter #victoriabromley #doing gender #stopstaringatmycollarbones #she was asking for it

Why Does It Matter?

Week 6 Outside Post

I was out to dinner with my boyfriend this week for his birthday and he looked at the person in a booth past me and asked the simple question: “is that a girl or a boy?” This puzzled me. And with all of the discussions we’ve had in class, it made me wonder. So I asked “why does it matter?”. He told me that he was just curious. I asked him why he was curious and what would change if it was a girl or a boy. He told me that humans like to categorize things and talked about heuristics. I explained to him some of the discussions we have had in WS202 and talked about how we treat people different based on their gender. It’s easier for us to know if the person is a girl or a boy so that we can more properly and appropriately interact with the person. It was interesting.

#stopstaringatmycollarbones #genderbinary #why does it matter

Week 2 Class Post

This week, my post for class is about dress defining us. We watched the video “U People” and there was a discussion among the women that really stuck out to me. It was about “fem”, which is a word I wasn’t familiar with until watching the music video/documentary. The whole discussion was about dressing “feminine” or “masculine” and how that is each individual person’s choice. More importantly, dressing “non-fem” doesn’t make you a man, and it doesn’t take away from your “woman-ness”. There is this cultural stereotype and assumption that if a woman dresses masculine that she wants to be a man. It doesn’t mean that. It’s also not okay to assume that makes her “butch” or “gay”. And women who dress “fem” are not automatically straight. We make the snap judgements and assumptions about people based on their dress. It’s not okay.

#stopstaringatmycollarbones #it'snotokay #fem

Week 5 Outside Post

This video portrays the danger of growing up as a girl in our world today. The woman narrating the video talks about being called “whore”, “bitch”, and “cunt” as she’s grows up and how she is touched in high school at a party and raped at 21. She says “You would be so disappointed in me, Daddy, because I’m wasted”. The video talks about other dangers, later in life, like an abusive spouse. But I want to focus on the adolescent period where the girl was touched without consent and raped a few short years later. While this doesn’t directly relate to my project, which is supposed to be centered around women’s dress, it does vaguely connect to the victim blaming that goes along with women’s dress when they are sexually assaulted. It is so sad, so frustrating, so enraging, that the first questions our police officers ask rape and sexual assault victims are: “why were you out so late?”, “how much had you had to drink?”, “what were you wearing?” So sad that our victims are the ones that end up being interrogated. Does a short skirt mean “You can do whatever you please with me, I wore a short skirt because it was my intention to be sexually assaulted this evening”? I guess I missed the memo. Self -expression is a right and choosing to partake in self-expression by wearing a miniskirt does not take away an individual’s right to safety and does not invite police officers to dismiss the harm done to you as something that you were “asking for”. The narrator ends the video with this quote that gives me goosebumps every time I hear it: “I know you will protect me from lions, tigers, guns, cars, and even sushi without even thinking about the danger to your own life. But dear Daddy I will be born a girl. Please do everything you can so that that won’t stay the greatest danger of all.”

#stopstaringatmycollarbones #she was asking for it #victim blaming #self expression

“Leggings aren’t pants”

Week 3 Outside Post

This week I spoke with my coworker Janelle who was frustrated about an incident that had happened at the St. Louis Correctional Facility. Janelle explained to me that she had gone to visit an old friend and upon trying to enter the visiting room she was stopped by a correctional officer who asked her if she had other pants she could change into. My friend was confused by this question and when she said no and asked why she was told that she could not be allowed into the visiting room wearing leggings. My friend was frustrated that she was forced to go down the street and use her own money to purchase other clothing that was more “appropriate” to wear into the jail. Janelle explained that she was also wearing a shirt that completely covered her backside. I asked her how this made her feel and she explained that she was mostly just irritated that she had already driven an hour and had to turn around to go to the store before she could visit her friend. Janelle also shrugged and said it’s also not surprising to her. Janelle told me that the leggings were not tight or see-through and would have fit the same way that a pair of jeans would have. As a feminist and a strong advocate for equal treatment of women Janelle became upset when she explained that it wasn’t because her pants were inappropriate but because they were leggings and leggings have become so sexualized in our culture. Janelle also pointed out that leggings are largely worn by females, and so the issue was never one that affected the male population.

http://www.kappit.com/img/147101/leggings-arent-pants-oh-im-sorry-i-left-how-much-i-care-in-the-back-pocket-of-the-jeans-i/

https://whisper.sh/whisper/0512153eb9a22b51953138aa757e1743a7f8c5/I-hate-when-people-say-Leggings-arent-pants--Theyre-beyond-comfor

#stopstaringatmycollarbones

Free The Nipple

Week 2 Outside Post

This week I met with a 17 year-old, high school senior who decided when she was 14 years old that bras were uncomfortable and she didn’t want to wear one. When she stopped wearing a bra to school, she was called down to the office and administration told her that she had to start wearing a bra. The student demanded to see the rulebook that explicitly stated that female students were required to wear bras in school. The administrators told her that teachers had complained and said that it made them “uncomfortable”. The student stood strong and insisted on proof of the requirement of a bra for female students. When the administrators could not provide her with this documentation, she was excused and allowed the freedom to make the choice herself if she wore a bra or not. This doesn’t change the fact that the school teachers and principal tried to force and intimidate this young girl to conforming to what they deemed as “appropriate”. The student expanded on her story by proudly saying that she also inspired a entire group of girls to choose to not wear bras on certain days. This was a 14-year-old girl who stood up for her right to be a woman and not be ashamed of this fact or feel like she had to cover up her femininity. She organized a protest of young girls who stood together and said that their school didn’t have the right to dictate their dress.

#freethenipple #stopstaringatmycollarbones