I <3 UD Day

In class we have talked about religious discrimination against the LGBTQ community and how the religion and sexuality do not have to be mutually exclusive. I never understood the religious arguments against the LGBTQ community. To me God loves all his children and Jesus took in the rejects of society, so why would God hate the gays? It’s antithetical Today we saw this hate speech come to our campus yet again, and yet again I was overwhelmed by the response our campus had. There were counter protesters surrounding these hateful signs with signs of acceptance and love for all blue hens. Students were drowning out the speech with chants and screams. They handled themselves with profound maturity and I couldn’t be more proud that our campus consistently responds in this way. Gaga Manifesto called for more extreme measures to be taken to right the wrongs of our systems, but the acts of the counter protesters showed that even small actions are important. We will never be able to convince these people that ‘gay is ok’ simply because they will never listen, but we can protect other students from having to hear these words and feel the impact of the hatred from these few.

Gaga Feminism

I was really intrigued by the Gaga Manifesto reading. It really forced me to re-evaluate my own thinking. How extreme and radical should our ideas of feminism be? How much of the system really needs to be replaced? I think that these are important questions to continue to ask ourselves. Putting women in power may not solve structural problems that our society faces. When we look at issues of class or race they may not be addressed by putting more women in leadership. We might not see women addressing larger issues of gender either. How can we start to insure that we are able to address all of these issues? Is our system salvageable or should it be completely re-written? I’m still not totally sure how this would even really be done and it is definitely something that I have been thinking about a lot lately.

Good vs Bad Feminism

While watching Roxane Gay’s TED talk, I often found myself nodding and thinking ‘me too’. I also love the color pink, I also love fairytales and princesses. We talked in class about her ideas of “bad” feminism, of Nicki Minaj and Taylor Swift. We talked about feminism an academic subject as well an activist movement. We talked about what feminism often entails for many women, but I felt as though we barely touched on “good” feminism.

Our brand of feminism, since many people define it differently, is an inclusive movement. It is intersectional with race, class, sexuality and gender. This means that we often talk about the experiences of women of color, poor women, gay women and transgender or non-binary women. We talk about the experiences of all women as well as the patriarchal structures that negatively affect all people. We talk about dominant groups and the unequal power in our society. Modern feminism can at times be too general, and Gay talked about how at times this can be a detriment of the movement. At times it is often difficult to adhere by all of the rules.

On one of the first days of class, my group talked about the women’s march and the signs that talked about vaginas or uteruses and how that might affect feminist trans women, as it seems to align the idea of womanhood with female bodies. Most of these signs were not meant to be non-inclusive, they were simply trying to protest the very real threats to reproductive care and shed lights on these issues. We must use our language carefully in order to talk about these issues, to let it be clear that a reproductive body parts, while an important part of feminist discussion, is not what defines a woman.

While I think that it is theoretically possible to be a “good” feminist, it is often too difficult, as we often equate it with being a perfect feminist. As Gay said, we often put good feminists on a pedestal and then knock them down. There may often be times where you unconsciously mess up, like with the signs at the march. Perhaps you’re just human and it is easier to function within the constraints of society and you conform with feminine ideals. You can still be a feminist, even if you aren’t perfect.