woman, artist, thinker, knitter, friend, lover, mother (not of children-just other people+cats), student, worker, chef, dancer, gardener, optimist, c.o.d.a. (child of a deaf adult), sister, daughter, and many more. and believe it or not, i HATE labels.
What does it mean when a blog has gone silent for 12 years and suddenly comes back to life? It probably means an academic is trying to work through some writing and projects. I'm trying my hardest to not hide the older posts - I just finished grad school for the first time and trying to use writing to parse through all of the new things I was learning about.
I'm hoping to use this space for a few projects, the main one will most likely be cultural commentary - specifically through the lens of intersectional feminism with a strong anti-racist leaning. I'm all over the place with my interests currently. I'll probably cover topics like pop culture, politics, environmental racism and climate change, and maybe some reviews or reflections of books I'm currently reading. I don't know where this will go or if I'll be able to maintain it, but here we go!
do i have to add this to the ever growing list of made up phrases that are used to describe me? according to this recently posted article on NYTimes: "Femivorism is grounded in the very principles of self-sufficiency, autonomy and personal fulfillment that drove women into the work force in the first place." the article goes on to describe the way that i feel i have been trying to steer my life:
Given how conscious (not to say obsessive) everyone has become about the source of their food — who these days can’t wax poetic about compost? — it also confers instant legitimacy. Rather than embodying the limits of one movement, femivores expand those of another: feeding their families clean, flavorful food; reducing their carbon footprints; producing sustainably instead of consuming rampantly. What could be more vital, more gratifying, more morally defensible?
i hate that this article, and honestly, the whole idea of femivorism, is so tied up in the women's lib movement. first women were stuck at home, then we were allowed to go work (and most women strongly embraced working outside of the home), more recently feminists have argued over the decision to be a stay at home mom. i have no desire to be a stay at home mom, but i would love to essentially run a small farm (when i say farm, i mean turn my regular sized back yard/front yard into all producing plants including fruit trees/bushes, and maybe chickens and/or goats) as well as continue to work outside the home. i realize i may be falling prey to that other feminist problem of "having it all," but most of that farming stuff is so far in the future, i am not even worried about it. since most of my femivore dreams can't come true yet, i just try to grow as much of my own food as i can from my community garden plot, get a larger portion of my food directly from farms, and supplement the rest of organic/locally produced items. to many people, the ideas of independence and self-sufficiency seem like a step backwards in modernity. i don't agree with this, this new idea of modernity is made with a full understanding (and mostly appreciation) of technology and it's impact on the world. it is not a complete rejection of technology or civilization (these would be steps backwards), instead it is a broader viewing of the world, it's people, and how we effect nature.
ok, so as far as i know, the produce box is going to be just for chris and i?!?! zach casually mentioned that late last week, but i really think i will be trying to pawn some of it onto him and allison. here is the round up from this week:
herbs: basil and parsley bunch of beets some turnips white/pink a few radishes bag o spinach head of cabbage green onions (that are significantly larger than last weeks!) garlic scapes one zucchini one yellow squash 3 more heads of lettuce bunch of kale a little more swiss chard one head of broccoli
and this is a pic of a radish from last week, i just thought it was so beautiful!
I just wanted to sincerely congratulate the next President of the United States of America, Mr. Barack Obama. I am so proud of our country right now. I know that the country will not become perfect over night but I do think we are moving in the right direction with electing Obama president. Thank you to everyone who went out and voted.
In October 2007 people all over the United States gathered physically and in spirit to speak out against violence against women of color. Some of us wore red all day and explained that we were reclaiming and reframing our bodies as a challenge to the widespread acceptance of violence against women of color. Some of us wrote powerful essays about why we were wearing red and posted them on the internet. Some of us gathered with bold and like-minded folks and took pictures, shared poetry and expressed solidarity.
This year, on the first anniversary of the Be Bold Be Red Campaign, we invite you to make your bold stance against the violence enacted on women and girls of color in our society visible. In D.C., Chicago, Durham, Atlanta and Detroit women of color will be gathering to renew our commitment to creating a world free from racialized and gendered violence, and this time, we’ll be using a new technology called CyberQuilting to connect all of these gatherings in real time. To learn more about CyberQuilting, which is a women of color led project to stitch movements together using new web technologies and old traditions of love and nurturing, visit www.cyberquilt.wordpress.com.
This letter is an invitation for you and yours to participate in a gathering in your city on Thursday, October 30th that will be webcast to similar gatherings in other cities. We are calling on you because we recognize and appreciate the work that you and the organizations you work with are doing everyday to make this a more loving and less violent world for women and girls in oppressed communities. Please join us on October 30th so that other warriors in this struggle can be strengthened and affirmed by the energy of our collective ferocity!If you are not located in D.C., Chicago, Durham, Atlanta and Detroit for the webcast, you can still participate by wearing Red on October 30, 2008 and send us your pictures to beboldbered@gmail.com
Also we are asking once again that people wear Red on October 30, 2008 and send us your pictures to beboldbered@gmail.com
As we receive them we will upload your pictures under “Red Pictures Today.”
Also, as well as to share your stories of Red on this website under “Why are you wearing Red on October 30, 2008.”
so i could be doing a million other things but this is what i am doing today instead: before baking
and after
i need to and want to: go to the grocery store go to hancock fabrics and i really need to write my lecture for class! like big time! maybe i will get all of this stuff done. we'll see.
i just feel the need to talk about this sarah palin deal. i cannot comprehend how anyone thinks this person is fit to be VP let alone be a heart beat away from being the Prez. sexism and feminism is finally being talked about, but, sadly i would rather distance myself from the way these things are being defined. palin is NOT a feminist, not by the original definition. she has done NOTHING to forward women's rights, she consistently defines herself as a woman/mother/even sex object as opposed to being a politician. she has done NOTHING to prove that she is qualified for office, it seems that while mayor and later governor she abused her powers, ran the city government into debt, and thought it was a good idea to charge rape victims for their rape kits at the hospital. i know that her family is her own personal business, but how can you not believe in age appropriate sex education and family planning and then have a pregnant teenage daughter? palin wants to teach creationism in schools and doesn't seem to believe global warming could have been caused by humans (although she might have actually changed her stance on this). although i am not completely against hunting, i dont think people should hunt unless this is truly your source of food.
i am absolutely horrified at the thought of any woman who initially planned on voting for clinton, deciding it makes any sense to instead vote for mccain/palin. i have decided (for my own sanity) that this segment of voting women must be made up. or else these are women who secretly were always going to vote republican and are now just finally admitting to it. what is the point of electing a woman to such a high post? just because she is a woman? especially when that woman is a pandering weakling when compared to the woman that could have been in office. i am fully for obama, although it was admittedly tough for to swallow that there would be no woman in office. part of the reason that obama was a difficult choice is not because he is a man though; his ideas are slightly different than mine. he supports coal much more strongly than i do, i cringe at how much he feels the need to show his spirituality (which i think should be none for a political office) and im not sure if i agree with his war views, although anything is better than the bush doctrine (whats that? :P)
a few people already know this, and maybe i shouldnt even write this horrible possibility in full, but, IF (and thats a huge if) obama some how doesnt get elected, i really dont want to be a part of this country. a country that will likely overturn roe vs. wade, a country that denies and belittles science, and a country that prizes a killing mentality- whether its kill a wild animal for fun, kill your neighbor, or preemptively kill a whole population because faulty information tells you you should. i wish i could just take the whole portion of republicans in the US and just shake them, and say "REALLY?? these two people??" i am so flabbergasted.
this is slightly off the topics i normally talk about but i just wanted to let everyone know that chris and i are engaged! i have a feeling that most of you that read this blog already know but i just thought i would try to reach the few of you that dont know yet. i think the wedding is going to be next summer, we havent set an actual date yet. i dont know how cheesey/overly optimistic/elitest this makes me sound, but i really would like this to be an expression of my eco-friendly feminist views. so, for example i plan on use as many locally sourced products as possible as well as making the event about our relationship as opposed to just being about me. i guess we will see how everything turns out!
just a couple announcements to anyone and everyone:
i am in a show that is currently up in Joliet, IL called: index: directions in contemporary photography where: the Moser Performing Arts Center Gallery on the Campus of University of St. Francis (www.stfrancis.edu) when: now through October 10th who: Jeff Otto O'brien (www.otto-obrien.com) Johanna Reed (www.johannareed.com) Esteban Schimpf (www.estebanschimpf.com) Amy Wainwright (www.amywainwright.com)
also, please go to my blurb site and vote for my book for the Photography.Book.Now People's Choice competition. you have to register to vote, but it's worth it!
two videos posted recently at my favorite blog: the curvature. they originally came from a different site but this is the way i found them. they are incredibly awesome and very appropriate!
This project was created to consider the differences in forms communication. I was raised in a family with two deaf parents and two other hearing sisters and I feel that this has formed my personal identity as well as my cultural identity. I learned from a young age to be the connection for my parents between their culture and the hearing world. The title of my video piece “C.O.D.A.,” stands for Children of Deaf Adults. C.O.D.A. is an international group for the culture of hearing children of deaf adults. These hearing children are in a similar situation to the children of immigrants, in both cases the children may have to negotiate between two very different ways of life.
Being the child of deaf adults has allowed me to be a part of two separate and distinct cultures. The deaf world, unlike other types of disabilities, is considered its own culture because it has it’s own language and form of social interaction (Filer). Although my parents never used sign language with our family, we have learned to communicate differently than other hearing families do. This video piece highlights one of the most important ways of communication within my family, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). While AIM is often associated with today’s tech savvy youth, my parents have quickly adapted to it, email and text-messaging.
According to Rex and Peggy Filer, in the article “Practical Considerations for Counselors Working With Hearing Children of Deaf Parents,” there is a set of shared characteristics for many children of deaf adults, although not all children have all of the characteristics. A brief summary of these characteristics, for example: the hearing children (most often the oldest daughter) become the parents link to the hearing world, these children often feel like they are neither part of the hearing nor the deaf world, the children are both interpreters and censors, they are protectors, of real threats like fire alarms, police sirens, and burglars, as well as perceived threats like discrimination.
The video starts off with a conversation between my partner and I. It is a fairly banal conversation, we acknowledge the camera and continue to talk in a normal fashion. The middle portion of the video focuses on two views of me sitting at my computer. I am talking to my mom on AIM, although this may not be immediately obvious. Unlike the conversation between my partner and I, while talking to my mom, I am checking my email, listening to music; my cat even jumps onto my desk at one point. These two conversations come in two very different forms, although they do tend to drift toward some of the same topics. The video ends with another clip of a conversation with my partner and I. We mainly focus on some of my everyday worries until my partner suddenly breaks into a description of what he sees as my “mothering” tendencies.
One of my personality traits that I have always thought of in a negative way and as a very gendered idea can be understood differently when looked at through the lens of C.O.D.A. “Mothering” turns into “protecting,” which comes across as more neutral. I am very protective with the people in my life I am close to, both hearing and not. This is the way that I have managed to bridge the two cultures that make up my identity.
this month is sexual assault awareness month. as a female, sexual assault is something that i am forced to constantly be aware of. music, movies, advertising, and the rest of pop culture all subtly or overtly constantly remind us women that we are not safe when we leave our home. most often this message is paired with the idea that rape is the woman's fault. men cannot control themselves and when women drink, dress certain ways, or walk down certain streets men are compelled to force themselves onto women. this false dichotomy is insulting to both men and women, through sex education and promoting conversation we can help break down the traditional rape culture. sexual assault is a tough topic to talk about. but many people would be surprised to hear how prevalent it is. a few years ago, while at work i talked to some of the women that i work with. all but 1 or 2 out of a group 5 or 6 had been assaulted. women constantly face sexual discrimination, sexual harassment, and sexual assault, and for the most part it is frowned upon but not always punished. i think that our culture has a problem with sexual assault because we have a problem with communication. i am not trying to blame it only on men or women, but if we could each communicate and enforce boundaries and acceptable forms of interaction, whether it be in the workplace, with friends, or within our own personal relationships, then sexual assault would be less of a hidden cancer within our society.
we watched this video in class last week. it has been bouncing around in my head since then, which is the purpose of the video. take 15 minutes to watch it. i know 15 minutes is long but i think its a very important topic.
by the way this was photographed by my phone, sorry for the low quality. i think i will attempt to scan it in later in the week so it will look way cooler....
I went to a lecture this week. The lecture was from author David Hollinger who wrote, among other things, the book we are reading titled “postethnic America.” His lecture was mainly broken own into 2 parts, with a small 3rd part. First he mainly talked about ethno-racial relations, with obama as an example. Many people have questioned whether obama is “black enough,” I never fully understood why that was even a question. Except possibly on the level that some people would say he doesn’t “act black” or “sound black” which I have always found incredibly offensive. According to Hollinger, there is a different part of the story I wasn’t aware of. In the united states, immigrants or children of immigrants from Africa or the carribean statistically do better economically, educationally, and intermarry more often than African-americans who have been here since the slave trade. So, because obama is the son of an immigrant, he is automatically set in a different category. I was curious about how many generations a family has to be here before this difference is no longer noticeable. If a family came to this country in the early 1900s, they would not have had to deal with being a part of the slave trade, but they would still have been heavily discriminated against and would have been part of the civil rights movement possibly…. During the lecture, someone asked if language was part of the problem. Hollinger did talk a little bit about language, he had a quote from colin powell about how having only a little African American in him made him black no matter what, but he didn’t sound black so that also set him apart. I think that was the gist of his quote, maybe I changed it a little bit to what I was thinking about, but either way, I thought colin powell was another great example of the situation that obama is in right now. the 2nd and 3rd parts werent as interesting to me, the 2nd part was about the jewish relationship to identity. the short 3rd part was about how hollinger was post-idaho when he finally met a jewish person when he was growing up.
All of this goes back to what our identities are made up of. We saw the “new authentics” show on Tuesday, what a great show, everyone should go see it. I believe its up until mid april. All of the artists in the show were jewish in some way although not all would have considered each other to be jewish. I know I already spoke a little about the show so I won’t go over it all again.
I don’t know if it is just because I am tired (again) or if I am just in an abnormally wistful mood, but I wish we could somehow comprehend a person’s identity always as an accumulation of their personal history- as well as understand that their identity can change at any minute in answer to that personal history or in response to a contemporary situation. But I think that would require us all to be mind readers. And if we were all mind readers I guess we probably wouldnt have the life experiences we end up having.
today's nytimes had so many great articles. or at least, nytimes.com did. i'm not even sure of the dates of the 3 articles that i thought were so great but here they are: teaching boys and girls separately as someone who went to a coed public school i really dont agree with separate sex teaching, but part of this argument was very convincing. dr. sax is taking a biological approach to why students should be separate. to me this sounds too much like how science has been used from so many wrongs in the past, the biggest one is the reason to enslave africans. on the other hand, ann tisch, who founded the "young women's leadership school of east harlem," feels that their are more social reasons for girls to be separated from boys, which i can appreciate but i'm still not sold on the idea. neither approach seems to deal with children who may not fit the "norm," what about boys who actually like to sit and chat or appreciate the warmth of feminine behavior that supposedly only girls want, or girls who want to get up and run around or like to talk loudly? or young homosexual or transgender boys or girls who may not feel comfortable around their own sex? and one of the reasons that i really feel that coed is the best way to go is that i think it is necessary to recognize that students may be a distraction toward each other (especially as they hit puberty) but learning to interact with each other regardless of differences is the only way to get through life. how do you prove you're a jew? after yesterday's post i wanted to make it clear that i view jewishness as a religion only, and not as a nationality. after reading this article, i think it helped me to see how jewishness is tangled up as a religion and a political idea. and the emerging minority i am about to fall asleep on my keyboard from exhaustion, i cant say much more other than, people should stop assuming people are going to act/think/vote a certain way because of their gender/class/skin color/sexual preference/other.
im at work, i am listening to this podcast about race and identity. are identity politics dead? i think im tired of everything i am interested in dying (feminism, identity, art, painting, photo...). but the interview is pretty good at least. here's the link to the podcast page. which then has a link to the interview. i cant write more, i probably shouldnt even be doing this now.....
i am still kind of in the middle of the reading for the week, i finished the first article (nochlin "why have there been no great women artists?) and am part of the way through the second (jones "feminism incorporated: reading postfeminism in an anti-feminist age). i had been reading the jones article when i was asked by a co-worker about what i was reading. i told him the title and he just made a yucky face. then later he asked how my reading was going and i told him, and he asked about whether we were in an anti-feminist age. my answer was that i hadn't yet gotten to jones explanation of this but i could see how we could be. my co-worker (lets call him "nick") then says, "well, isn't feminism done?" i was surprised by this. i immediately said no and asked what he meant, he said that there was equality, and that was the point of feminism. i really was absolutely shocked to hear him say this. i mentioned a statistic from one of the articles, women make up about 52% of the population, museums show art that is made by women about 10-15% of the time. he just said, wow that sucks. and since that didnt seem to faze him, i said and what about the fact that in our government women probably hold 30% of the offices at most (i really dont know the exact amount, sorry!). he finally realized what i was talking about and only had to say that women were seen as equal under the law. i agreed and pointed out that a lot of people dont pay attention to the law.
so after all of that i really had a lot to think about. for the most part, at school, i surround myself by men that seem to be progressive and i would say possibly even feminist thinkers. this nick guy, i dont think hes chauvinist or misogynist, just sheltered (from a variety of types of feminism and types of women) and ignorant (about feminist theory or how people other than white middle class men get treated). it is completely strange and sad to hear a man that is close in age to me say that feminism is done. but maybe we just have different definitions of feminism. or maybe a lot of men feel the same and i live in my own little feminist world where all of the misogyny and patriarchy happens very very far away. i think i need to be having more conversations about women with my male friends.....
"while i traverse the city street alone i am subject to pestering by strange men who lewdly congratulate me on aspects of my anatomy while ordering me to smile." anna c. chave "new encounters with les demoiselles d'avignon"
what people really mean by returning to an "american ideal"- a return to "the 'ante-bellum esthetic position,' when men were men and men were white, when scholar-critics were white men and when women and people of color were voiceless, faceless servants, and laborers, pouring teas and filling brandy snifters in the boardrooms of old boys' clubs." - henry louis gates jr.
