reason to have a child: so you can dress them how you want

j. crew crewcuts $198 girl's sparkle sequin jacket

do they make one in my size?

it's funny my last post had "materialism" in the title.

for media, materialism, and feminism

anyone know if you can download videos from youtube? i want to use this in a media literacy session at burke.

it's sad because i expect so much more from padma.

privelege is hard word to spell

My inability to spell the word privelege -- privilege -- manifested itself in such a real way this week. I've mentioned before that I am writing my bachelor's essay this year on global feminism/international feminist interventions, and I've read sooooo much so far. (I'm actually going to turn in an outline of my paper this upcoming week!). The last thing I read was a piece on Cosmopolitan Feminism that used a lot of the language and ideas I had read about before, and I was sort of bored with it, so I took one element of the article and wrote my response paper on it. The author was examining the work of international bodies and groups and claimed that their work could be justified by the philosophy she was advocating, but not that the groups necessarily held the notions she said their actions reflected. I ended up pondering the link between consciousness and activism:

To what extent do people need to be aware of what motivates them to act in a certain way if that certain way creates positive outcomes? Does the extent of one’s knowledge about what one is doing make an action more ethical? Consciousness has always been valued by feminism, and during American second wave feminism it came before everything else, both action and scholarship. Now it seems as if it is more common to become involved in activism related to women’s standing in the world (especially if it isn’t called “feminist”) without really thinking about structural inequality first. It seems possible that individuals could be passionate about an isolated issue, like a lack of funding for medical research on women’s health, without it changing the way they think about the world in general.

I ended up sending out a late night email to some people I regarded as feminists asking them about this. Here's what I said in the email:

which came first for you: reading/learning about inequality or volunteering/working on/doing something related to equality but in a less specific way, like maybe running race for the cure or volunteering at an organization for underprivelged girls?

or was it entirely different, like one day you realized you only read two women authors in your entire 10th grade english class and that seemed wrong? was that the first glimmer of "feminist" in you?

were you acting like a feminist before you became one? if so, why did you become one?

(look I couldn't even spell privileged up there.)

Three of my friends said they were doing feminist things before they were introduced to Feminism, which they found out about just before and during college, and that they wouldn't have called themselves feminists in their past because it was an uncommon thing where they grew up.

When I went to my meeting with my professor she turned my questions on their head. She pointed out that I hadn't acknowledged that it is often things that happen in a person's life that makes them a feminist. Like being sexually harassed, experiencing assault, or general misogyny.

And I said "Wow."

I completely forgot about this option. Why did I forget? Because I haven't really experienced any discrimination because I'm female. Sure, I think that I was influenced by attitudes about gender that dulled my appreciation of sports and math (both which I regret now). But I never was deprived of anything. My (white, upper middle class) privilege helped me along in the world and made up for the times when being a girl was an issue. (And sometimes it feels like if you don't claim to have experienced discrimination based on sex/gender then people will claim that you shouldn't bother with feminism... and by people I mean extended family members. That is equally bad as not seeing one's privilege. But that's a whole other post.)

I voiced this to my professor in fewer words: "I guess I forgot about it because I'm me, and I never experienced that sort of thing."

And she said, "Yeah, that's my problem too," because she occupies the same space in society as I do, more or less.

I consider myself to be well versed in intersectional discussions of race, gender, and class. I feel aware, and that I might even be capable of seeing how privilege serves others. But here I completely missed how my own privilege shapes my thinking and questioning. What's even more ironic is that I've been concerned with women's movements this semester, and those always start when women experience things - not read or volunteer.

So privilege. That's how you spell it!

(I could make an a corny joke about how "I" is in privilege, but I won't.. or I just did. Oops)

what i do with my time

I spend a lot of my time reading Christian motherhood blogs. My favorite one (link fixed!) is now the first suggested link that pops up when I start typing in a website address. I refuse to add to my google reader because I feel like that will just enable me to waste more reading time. I've already talked about why I feel this is unhealthy for me here.

Today I came across this thread and I found it absolutely fascinating. I love it when women talk about sexuality in any way, and I think that these ladies are in debt to the second-wave feminists to a degree (debate me if you think I'm wrong).

*Update: Maybe they should be classified as motherhood blogs written by conservative Christian women. The lady I link to is doing something with Focus on the Family... I'd say that's conservative. ;)