Activism Blog 2

Activism: For the past few weeks I have continued to work with MVP by doing various works.  I did tabling in front of the Student Union to raise awareness about domestic violence and human trafficking.  During my first tabling experience, a few other girls and I informed students including how one might be able to help if involved in that type of situation and the training we offer in the Wellness Center.  The second week I tabled was a more fun way to raise awareness and for students to learn. By the time I got there, there was a poster with different types of questions about human trafficking such as Demographics and Laws. Students would pick from a category, answer the question, and given a piece of candy as an incentive. Most people answered the Demographics category because it was the easiest. We were handing out flyers about human trafficking as well.  In addition to tabling, we were also working on a drive for Harbor House to help victims of domestic violence as mentioned in my last activism blog. Jamie and I decorated boxes and taped the list Harbor House needed for its victims.  The list included office supplies, cleaning products, clothes, bed sheets, diapers, etc.  When we were done one box was kept in the Wellness Center and another one was put in the Women’s Studies building.  I learned throughout the week that the boxes were full! We still have a few more things we can do to help Abigail and the organization of MVP.

Reflection:  All this relates to the chapter we have been talking about in class about the environment. Surprisingly, the environment has a lot to do with gender oppression which leads to violence against women. Politicians use the environment to make products for people to consume. The majority of those products are targeted towards women, such as cleaning products and cosmetics all advertised by the media.  The media creates the false representation of women known as the beauty ideal because women are often objectified and seen as products. This relates to domestic violence because some men don’t value their wives or girlfriends seeing them as their property and forcing their will on them. Similarly, human trafficking works the same way. People are not valued for their person.  Instead they’re bought and shipped from country to country as sex slaves or other forms of oppression because they are seen as PRODUCTS.  Another drastic way that violence against women relates closely to the environment is that Earth is given female sexuality and qualities. We hear and see this all the time, for example “Mother Earth,” “virgin forest,” and “rape of the earth.”  As mentioned in our text, “. . . in the Western model of development, sources, living things that can reproduce life –whether forests, seeds, or women’s bodies –are turned into resources to be objectified, controlled, and used” (Kirk, Okazawa-Rey 539).  If not these resources are seen as unproductive. Therefore, the way our society is using and abusing the environment portrays how women are viewed creating violence against women including domestic violence and human trafficking.

Reciprocity: The past few weeks have been a lot of work in trying to finish my service learning hours and juggling all my other productive and unproductive work. I mentioned before I had never volunteered for anything but now that I have gained a little experience doing volunteer work I would definitely do it again. It was hard making time for it but I managed to squeeze it in any break I had. Tabling gave me a chance to meet new people and socialize more. I had a lot of fun decorating the boxes and it gave me a sense of self-fulfillment knowing I was doing something for a very good cause. I wasn’t so thrilled at first because I don’t really like to draw and I don’t think I’m creative. However, I did bring out my creative side and I decorated a really cute box. In class, our lectures seem to amaze me each and every time. I can’t believe everything relates to each other especially to WOMEN! I do have a hard time putting it all together and contributing ideas to “unpack” it. But when we discuss it is a little crazy and very shocking. It makes me sad because it’s all a system that oppresses women no matter what. Everyone should take a Women’s Studies class so they can become aware of what type of world we’re living in. That way we can all contribute by taking baby steps that will eventually lead to big change.

Kirk, Gwyn , and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Women and the Environment. 5th ed. New York, New York: McGraw Hill, 2010. 535-546. Print.

Campus Engagement

For one of my Campus Engagement assignments I decided to attend a speech given by Corban Addison. He is the author of the book “A Walk Across the Sun,” which is a fictional story based on human trafficking in Mumbai. In his speech he talked about young girls being slaves. He argued the rates of slavery in society today are so much higher than ever before because so many of these girls are being used as prostitutes in the human trafficking business. Human trafficking is the fastest growing criminal industry in the world. There are about 22 to 30 million slaves and 2 million of those are children used as sex slaves mostly in their 13 to 15 years of age. Addison emphasized that this is a very difficult topic to talk about and therefore, it’s often overlooked because society blocks it out of their mind, especially adults with children who can easily relate. Addison is a lawyer in Virginia married with two kids, but being a lawyer wasn’t what made him happy and he knew he didn’t want to do that for the rest of his life. He loved to write stories and for many years he’s had a pile of manuscripts which have gotten denied by publishing companies. But that all changed when his wife suggested he should humanize human trafficking into a fiction story.

In order to write his book he needed more information and he turned to government reports and scholarly journals. The things he read were awful and as he described it in his speech, the deeper he got in the subject the darker it was, and he we wondered if there was a light, a hope in all that darkness. He found inspiration in Mother Theresa, known for helping others in need and that's what he wanted to do. He said if there were any solutions in general, not just the human trafficking industry, we should commit our lives to solve it. His speech was very interesting and easy to understand and follow. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to stay the whole time because I had a class to get to but I am definitely considering reading his book to learn more about this horrible industry and insight on how us, as a whole, can help end this slavery.

Activism Blog

1.      Activism: For my service learning project I decided to work with Mentors in Violence Prevention. This organization is concerned with domestic violence against women in society. MVP raises awareness to people about this major issue and teaches them different ways in which domestic violence can be prevented. Before doing any type of work with the organization, I had to attend an hour and a half training with the director, Abigail Malick.  A few other girls were there as well and throughout the training we discussed domestic violence statistics and some of our own opinions and views on this issue. After that, we have met a few more times and maintained contact through email to decide what ways we can work together here on campus. We decided to do tablings in front of the Student Union every Wednesday from 10-2 to raise awareness to other students. We are also currently planning on doing another tabling at Late Knights and working with Harbor House to host a drive for the benefit of victims of domestic violence. This will include clothes and any other supplies that would be helpful to these women. There will also be an event on Saturday at Downtown Orlando that I plan to attend as part of MVP.

2.      Reflection: Working with MVP has made me realize how severe domestic violence is in our society. This issue is often overlooked and it shouldn’t be that way. As a woman myself, this concerns me very much because I wouldn’t want to be in that position or see any other female going through that kind of struggle and abuse. This relates to the topic of “Making a Home, Making a Living” in our book which talks about women performing productive and unproductive work because lots of women in a domestic violence relationship are often victims in their own workplace. Just recently, there were 11 cases in Orlando in which the abusive partner went to the woman’s job and did a shooting. This is extremely dangerous because it also creates unsafe environments for other people that are not directly involved. As a result, other employees died that had no fault or had no idea about the issue. In addition, lots of women lose their jobs because their controlling partners are constantly calling or appearing. This makes them feel nervous all the time knowing there’s not really a safe place leading to poor job performance and eventually get fired by their employers. Therefore, domestic violence not only occurs in the personal home space but it can happen anywhere. In an act of violence, the partner is not concerned with anything but hurting the woman and this can hurt others too.

3.      Reciprocity: Since I still haven’t done any work with MVP, only planning, I haven’t gained a lot. So far I have improved my skills at planning events and being more outgoing, for example, meeting new people and talking to them about places and dates to host our events. I know at the end of the semester I’ll gain personal satisfaction knowing I volunteered for a good organization and I helped women victims of domestic violence.

Kirk, Gwyn , and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Making a Home, Making a Living. 5th ed. New York, New York: McGraw Hill, 2010. 207-210. Print.

Body Image Assigment

 

For this assignment I chose the girls from the hit TV show Pretty Little Liars.  They’re all very beautiful and I believe this show portrays the beauty ideal perfectly. According to our text, “Feminist scholars have analyzed the oppressive nature of ads and media representations that bombard women and girls with an ideal of beauty defined as thin, lean, tall, young, white, and heterosexual, with flawless skin and well-groomed hair (Kirk, Okasawa-Rey).”  As we can tell from the picture, these girls have all those qualities in the show because in real life they look like your average American girls.

The background color of the picture is a very neutral, soft color as well as their outfits adorned with glitter and flashy jewelry. Their positions are very close together, symbolizing unity and their stares and facial expressions are mysterious.  This is all part of the theme of the show, which is what this ad is trying to sell explicitly: trying to get the people to watch Pretty Little Liars. I would say other corporations are also working with this ad to try and get the consumer to buy the types of clothes and jewelry these girls wear, even though they “dress up” way more to go to school than normal high school girls. However, this ad is not only selling the show, it’s selling the beauty ideal implicitly as well. 

In order to sell their products, multi-billion dollar corporations make women feel like they need to correct their bodies by trying to get society to look like these girls.  If women were completely satisfied with their physical appearance, these corporations would not make any money. Therefore, they have to create false beauty ideals of women’s bodies and brainwash society into thinking this is what is considered beautiful and what is socially acceptable to be more successful in life.

Kirk, Gwyn , and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Women's Lives. 5th ed. New York, New York: McGraw Hill, 2010. 207-210

Balke, Jayne. "Interview: Pretty Little Liars’ ‘Tyler Blackburn’ on Being a Series Regular, Revealing “A’s” Identity.” TV After Dark with Romancia and friends.  N.p., 12 Feb. 2012. Web. 16 Oct. 2012. <http://tvafterdarkonline.com/2012/02/interview-pretty-little-liars-tyler-blackburn-on-being-a-series-regular-revealing-as-identity>.

 

Beauty Ideals

The reading on Chapter 5 called “Women’s Bodies, Women’s Health” emphasizes the importance of a woman’s body and how society has constructed beauty ideals in which only one type of appearance is acceptable and beautiful.  As women, we learn our physiological and emotional changes that happen each phase such as menstruation, menopause, and the elasticity during pregnancy and childbirth. However, society reduces women to only their bodies using them as sex objects, and child bearers. For example, many women’s bodies are being illustrated as advertisements to sell a special brand of clothing, cars, or some type of perfume or cologne.  This degrades the female body to only its physical appearance making other women feel as if they need to look some type of way that would be socially acceptable.

The advertising industry creates beauty ideals by displaying very thin models with flawless skin and perfect hair, therefore, making this appearance as the new “beautiful.”  Most of the population affected is young adult females that take this very seriously by going on extreme diets that can be harmful to their physical and emotional health, thus developing eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia.  What the female population doesn’t take into consideration is that these images are edited and photo brushed and that the women represented don’t actually look that way. The purpose of beauty ideals is to create insecurity, self-hatred, and distorted perceptions of size, appetite, and attractiveness. As a result, women think their bodies need correction eventually leading them to go out and purchase these products that will make them prettier than what they are. This cruel, vicious cycle undermines girl’s self-confidence and self-esteem.

As American citizens we should do our best to resist these beauty stereotypes. These standards should not be tolerable because they break the laws in unacceptable ways by being racist and sexist promoting body hostilities. Just because a person is fat or thicker than the rest doesn’t mean they’re unhappy or any less sexy or smart. They can be more or equally successful in life than thinner ones.  Still, it can be detrimental if the obesity becomes so problematic that causes major health risks such as heart disease and high blood pressue. In that case, the person should just reach a satisfactory weight that will improve their health.  Beauty ideals are standards socially constructed for the solely purpose of advertising that can create lifelong health effects.

Word Count 403

Works Cited

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Women’s Lives: Multicultural Perspectives 5th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007. 207-210.

 

Service Learning Proposal Assignment

Service Learning Proposal For MVP (Mentors in Violence Prevention)
By: Emily Leiter
Raati Kumar
Racara Jackson
Jamie Crenshaw
Amanda Santos
Fadia
September 26, 2012
Meredith Tweed
WST 3015-0001

Community Partner Profile:
Community Partner: MVP (The Mentors in Violence Prevention)
Contact: Abigail Malick

Community Partner Mission Statement: “MVP provides the leadership necessary, within sport and beyond, to address the global issues of sexism – especially men’s violence against women. In our advocacy efforts and training programs, we educate, inspire and empower men & women to prevent, interrupt and respond to sexist abuse” (MVP).

MVP is an organization put together to bring awareness to sexual abuse. Motivate and educate students on prevention against violence on gender and bullying. Their goals are to inform students on violence accruing against men/women and help bring light to those everyday issues happening. Also, the organization will be challenging and developing their volunteers to inspire and inform others on potentially dangerous situation.


Political and/or Social Basis for Organization: ‘’MVP was founded in 1993 by Northeastern University for the Study of Sport in Society and the National Consortium for Academics & Sports. The multi-racial MVP Program was designed to train male college and high school student-athletes and other student leaders to use their status to speak out against rape, battering, sexual harassment, gay-bashing, and all forms of sexist abuse and violence’’ (MVP).

Still today many schools are using the MVP program to bring awareness to those issues. The program is influencing individual to have a voice and helps to prevent accruing situations. They have events protesting and informing student on sexual abuse, bullying, rape, violence’s, and gay-bashing. MVP allowing those who have or have not been victims stand up and fight to prevent these issues from happening.

The Proposal

The following is a proposal to outline the needs, rationale and feasibility for a service learning project to benefit Mentors in Violence Prevention. The following proposal contains background on the need for and benefits of a Community Outreach project, an outline of the work I plan to do, the rationale for its inclusion in WST 3015, and a scheduled timeline. This proposal may need to be revised after beginning the project and must be flexible to meet the needs of the both the Service Learning project and the community partner.

Need for volunteers for the Community Outreach Program

The Mentors in Violence Prevention program acts to prevent violence against women. Their main goal is to raise awareness of violence against women, and to educate everybody on ways to prevent such violence. Our community does not see domestic violence as being as serious and other forms of violence. MVP strives to make people understand that this violence is, in fact, preventable. Through different trainings, MVP achieves their goal of prevention by having volunteers look at the subject of domestic violence differently, not just as this taboo subject that nobody wants to address. It is MVP’s hope that through these trainings, participants will become inspired to be leaders in our community, when it comes to dealing with domestic violence and educating others about ways to prevent such violence.

Plan Proposal:

Throughout the semester, MVP will have various activities to raise awareness of men’s acts of violence against women. Some of these activities include screenings of victims’ documentaries, such as Telling Amy’s Story, at least once a month. Another activity in which MVP hopes to raise awareness of violence against women is through holding brown-bag lunches, in which people discuss attitudes toward abuse while having lunch together. During these lunches, participants will be talking about abuse in society with scenarios that people can relate to. To advertise these events, volunteers will create flyers and posters to be displayed around campus, advertise via social networks like Facebook. We will also be sponsoring a table in front of the Student Union, as well as making announcements in class inviting people to attend and support the organization. MVP will invite local community partners involved with domestic violence to attend the activities as well.

I will be part of a team of volunteers that will dedicate our time and effort into this organization, educating people about domestic violence, bullying, hazing, as well as its implications. By informing others, especially women, of our individual rights I can take part in making this community, state, and country domestic violence free and become better citizens.

Rationale for Women’s Studies:

By seeking to end domestic violence against women, MVP highly pertains to Women’s Studies, especially in Second Wave Feminism. Feminists in this area developed a radical feminism focusing on men’s control over women, including domestic violence. In order to achieve women’s liberation, feminists with different sexual orientations, social statuses, and race worked together to end patriarchy by establishing women centered institutions (Kirk and Okazawa-12).  Radical Feminism also focuses on gender roles, family relationships, heterosexuality, and the male-dominated world of work, education, government, and law still seen today (Kirk and Okazawa-12).  Although patriarchy has decreased over the years, women continue to be domestically abused by their partners.

MVP’ mission statement is to raise awareness of men violence against women because it is overlooked compared to other types of abuse or issues.  It’s important to not only question the victim but the perpetrator as well as to why they’re causing harm to the one they love. Many people think that they shouldn’t get involved because it’s not “my relationship” when in reality everyone becomes part of domestic violence. As a result, MVP emphasizes this idea by providing training and tools to properly intervene in situations in which women are in danger of their significant other.  By knowing how to react to domestic violence, we will be able to decrease violence against women and recognize those in need of help.

Action:
I have already met with Abigail Malick, the UCF Campus Coordinator of Mentors in Violence Prevention, to discuss volunteer opportunities available this semester. In addition to contacting her regularly, I will be helping to organize, as well as attend, brown bag lunches and be involved in organizing and advertising for the screening of “Telling Amy’s Story.”

Timeline:

The Service Learning Project will be completed approximately November 20, 2012. The dates that have been listed may change, due to other activities that might become available throughout the semester. Also the Social Media Blogs are continuous throughout the semester; there is no specified deadline as of now.

1. Invite people for the Brown Bag Lunch-In October 3
2. Make flyers for Tell Amy’s Story October 8
3. Social Media Advertising October 12
4. Brown Bag lunch-In October 17
5. Tell Amy’s Story October 24 6. Invite people for Brown Bag Lunch October 31
7. Brown Bag Lunch November 14 8. Social Media Blogs (no specified date)

Works Cited

Mentors in Violence Prevention. 2009.

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Women’s Lives: Multicultural Perspectives 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007.

 

Word Count: 1146

Hi my name is Amanda Santos. I’m 21 years old and I’m a transfer student from Palm Bay, FL, only about an hour away.  I’m a junior majoring in Biomedical Sciences and once I have my degree I want to continue my education and go to med school in order to become an anesthesiologist. I’m a very responsible person and I’m determined to do well my first semester here at UCF!  Goals keep me going in life and keep me motivated to work hard and accomplish them. I’m a positive person. I don’t like any type of negativity; it brings down mood, self-esteem, and gets in the way of goals. I’m an only-child so I try to meet as many new people as I can and make friends.

I moved to the United States when I was 10 years old from Puerto Rico. My first language is Spanish but I speak English fluently. I love to have fun going shopping, going to the beach, dancing, and exercising. I also have a part-time job that helps pay rent for my new home here in Orlando and a few other bills. I’m a little shy at first but once you get to know me I’m a really down-to-earth girl, funny, caring, friendly, and smart. My dad passed away when I was 2 years old from a renal failure so my mom has been my rock, my hero, and my best friend. She is the best thing I have in my life and I wouldn’t ask for a better mom. I’m extremely grateful for her because she’s always there for me no matter what and supports me in mostly everything I do, and if she doesn’t support it then it doesn’t feel right. I just love our relationship, she would do anything for me and I would do anything for her.

This is my first time taking a course on Women’s Studies so I don’t really know a lot about feminism, activism, etc. It’ll be fun attending the seminars or activities for the campus involvement section of this course because it’s always good to learn new things and be well-informed. By taking this class, I hope to understand how women in the past changed the way we are viewed today. I want to know how rules and regulations came about that shaped our society. For example, when it comes to gender I agree gender rules are important because as a woman I wouldn’t want to share a restroom with a man and vice-versa. However, when it comes to other things, like sports, both genders should be able to participate equally without being labeled. I’m ready to learn and give my best these next couple of years. J