Question N

  I think that a good activist must really believe and have faith in what  they are fighting for. There can be a time in someone life when something happens that turns them into an activist. For Naomi Klein this happened when she was a witness to the Montreal Massacre. A man thought that he was a victim of affirmative action and one day he separated the men from women at a college and shot 14 women in a row, screaming “you are a bunch of fucking femininists.”  Klein immediately turned into an activist and many followed her.

   As a great activist one must be able to have a strong steady voice and be able to communicate his/her thoughts or feelings in a powerful manner. It is also important that along with having a strong voice an activist can pay attention and listen to others voices. “Understanding how privilege and oppression operate and how you participate is where working for change begins.” (612) It is also important to “stand up and make noise, while withdrawing support from oppressing systems, starting with yourself.” (613) If you make simple steps daily by stopping from being an oppressor your followers will do the same. It is important to be the best activist possible and be proud and loud while doing so. My most admired activist would be John F. Kennedy. He was president during the 1960’s civil rights movement and helped pass laws to make sure all blacks could vote and helped end segregation in schools. I find him an early activist that many could look up to.

Quick Blog 6

 My social sphere is comprised of people of all different ages. My young cousins are as young as 2 and my grandparents are 92! My family is very large and we get together very often. There is a range of young cousins, older cousins in their twenties, my parents and aunts and uncles in their 40's-60's and my grandparents. We all get along very well. Of course the age I most often with are people in their twenties because all of my friends are this age. I sometimes wish that I spent more time with elderly people. Some of my friends work in a retirement home and the few times I have gone to their work I felt badly for the elderly people. Most seemed bored and lonely. One woman caught me at the door of the elderly home and talked my ear off for a good half hour. I was happy to listen as she clearly did not have many people to talk to. I wish I could take more time out to simply talk to the elderly in homes such as these.
    I think that our society is segregated on the basis of age because many of the activitie we do and places we go are based on age. You dont see elderly people in night clubs and you rarely see younger generations at Friday night bingo.Young and middle aged adults are privileged because they are able to do more than older generations. They are not restricted by sickness, or weak limbs, or bad memory. There are many more things that they are capable of doing.In a way this is also a privilege of ableism.
   We can promote more integration of ages by having required programs in High Schools and Colleges. This way young youths can have a chance to realize it is nice and not as bad as they may think to talk to the elderly. They also may be able to learn from the older generations wisdom. This wisdom and realizing that older people still have a life worth living may make the younger generations respect them more and realize they are still young at heart.

Ageism

According to Robert Butler ageism is defined as "A process of systematic stereotyping of and discrimination against people because they are old." (534) I think the cause of ageism is because in todays fast paced society the younger generations do everything on the go and in a fast manner. Older people tend to be slower in instances such as driving and paying for thing. In the movie "Once We were Young" an older woman takes her time at a grocery market, walking down the street and paying for a bus ticket and many of the younger people waiting are annoyed. This is once of the reasons for ageism. I think in some cases I am ageist. It can be really frusterating when I am driving behind someone who is elderly and they are going way below the speed limit. The book condsiders "youth as criminals" (533) but I would not consider myself a criminal in this case.
   I think ageism is seldom talked about because it is something that nearly all people deal with. In the video "Once We Were Young" it said that in fifteen years over 1/3 of the worlds population will be over the age of fifty. That is 3.5 million people. Since there are so many people dealing with ageism and such a large "support system" it is rarely a subject to be talked about. I think it is great that there are so many opportunities and places for the elderly to be able to continue to have something to live to and have help in their daily lives.

Ableism

     According to the ADA "a person is disabled if she or he has a significant impairment that interferes with a major life function, such as walking, seeing, hearing, learning, speaking, breathing, care of one's self, sitting, standing, or lifting. (457) These people have to deal with ableism or oppression cause by their disability daily. In the movie Gimp there are many individuals who are disabled but challenge their disabilities through dance.
     Many may think that dance is require for only those who are lean and have full functioning bodies. However, as seen in the video Gimp the disabled dancers are able to express themselves through dance. It addresses the issue of ableism because the disabled dancers push the boundaries and anyone who said you could not be disabled and dance is wrong. These men and women have severe disabilities such as missing an arm and one woman even expressed herself without any legs. This can be a progressive step towards pushing the boundaries of the disabled.

Process Piece

Process Piece

            I chose to do my project on Heterosexism because this was a topic that I didn’t know very much about but was an impact on my life. I have several relatives who are homosexual and I felt it was important to learn more about heterosexism and the oppression my family members, as well as millions of other men and women have to deal with on a daily basis.

            I decided to use “Xtranormal” as a way to portray my video and research. I began my project by using my Johnson book and reading the section on heterosexism and going on the internet and finding other resources on heterosexism. I then categorized a script and decided the most important aspect of heterosexism that I wanted to get across to the audience.  I decided to make 6 different sections in my script and wanted to explain the following: 1. Educate what heterosexism is. 2. How Does heterosexism negatively affect people. 3.  Myths and misconceptions about GLTB. 4. What GLTB is and how they are oppressed. 5.  Facts about heterosexism. 6. What we can do to fight heterosexism.

            Once I got all my research and facts together I had to put the script together. I wanted to use two characters who can get across all the points about heterosexism in a humorous way. I put together a humorous and educational script that I am proud of. I was able to learn the Xtranormal and use it successfully.  I feel like all of my time and effort made for a humorous and very educational project about heterosexism.

Resources:

Johnson, Allen. Privilege, Power, and Difference. 2nd. 1. New Yor,, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2006. 184. Print.

Herek, Dr. "Understanding Homophobia and Heterosexism." Sexual Prejudice. Gregory Herek, 16-Jun- 2009. Web. 17 Jan 2011. <http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/sexual_prejudice.html>.

Herek, G. "Stigma and Sexual Orientation."Heterosexism. Philosophy Research Base, 15-may-2000. Web. 17 Jan 2011. <http://www.queertheory.com/theories/sexuality/heterosexism.htm>.

Quick Blog 5

I read the article “Prostitution and Male Supremacy” by Andrea Dworkin. Andrea begins by speaking about how women who are involved in Prostitution “have no tomorrow” and if they think they do they are stupid. She then goes on to talk about the fact that prostitution is the abuse of a woman’s body and that men take advantage of the woman’s body in all cases of prostitution. I think pornography is making men view women as a “piece of ass” and nothing more than their body. If a man has the money and can pay for a prostitute it’s like paying for a car. The more you pay, the better quality. Women are worth their sex and nothing more. This disgusts me.

            I also think that pornography furthers the problems of sexism. According to Andrea, “a prostituted woman is seen as the generative source of everything that is bad and wrong and rotten with sex, with the man, with women.” If women are seen as nothing but a sex object then sexism and misogamy are going to continue to be major problems in today’s society. The men who are consuming these images think that if a woman doesn’t respect herself enough to believe in herself and in love, then why should he? Women who are prostitutes and do not respect themselves do not deserve a man who is going to respect her.

Transgender Women

There are many preconceived notions about transgender people in today’s society. According to Julia Serano a “trans woman is defined as any person who was assigned a male sex a birth, but who identifies as and/or lives as a woman.” (Serano, 441) In Beautiful Daughters we see these notions challenged by many strong women who decided not to hide their true identities and decided they don’t want to live in secret. In Beautiful Daughters one woman said that when her career at IBM learned that she was becoming a woman she was fired.  She did not let this get her down and she continued to go ahead with her process and become the women she wanted to be and spoke about this in the Vagina monologues. Another woman spoke about how when her boyfriends friends found out he was dating a transgender woman and they beat him to death in his sleep. The woman read from the “vagina monologues” and read/act out on these situations about the true life events of women in distress. From time these transgender woman were children they were abused and made fun of because of how they acted and because they were born the wrong way.

                I learned a lot about transgender women in this unit. Through Beautiful Daughters and Johson I have learned that there is a lot of struggles and pain that is part of the process of becoming a women and becoming transgender.  It is a process and transition that can be difficult when it comes to family and friend relationships and how others think of it. I learned that many of the transgender women feel they truly were supposed to be born as women and by fixing themselves they are just becoming who they were supposed to be born to be, which was a woman. I also learned that turning into a woman is not about sex to these woman but its about finding love in life and loving the true you.

Cisgender people can act as allies to combat transphobia. “Perhaps, No sexual minority is more maligned or misunderstood than trans woman.” (Serano, 441) I find this statement to be true because many people don’t understand or realize what it is to be transgender and how difficult it can be in the process of changing. The most important thing is to understand as a cisgender person that these men and women were just fixing the mixhap they were born with and it is important to be supportive.