I'm back at school, so expect more obnoxious quotes from my reading this semester.  

Classes are as followed:

Beginners Czech

Feminism in Popular Women's Genres

Race & Gender in US History

Natural Disasters

& Ancient Philosophers (my good friend Jay's class)

I love Czech, but I'm also really terrified of not doing well in that class so I've been keeping on it everyday.  I've even been watching videos online and making notecards like there's no tomorrow.  It's something that I want to learn very badly and I want to be good at it.  I hate doing things that I'm not good at, which is mainly why I do nothing at all.  haha.  This year I want to tackle things that I've always wanted to do.  I think I say this every year but it's becoming increasingly apparent that I am NOT getting any younger and I don't want to fuck this up by sitting around and doing nothing for the rest of my life because I was too scared to do it.  That's a lot to share.

So, I'm gonna step back for a second and talk about the Gainesville Women's Liberation talk that I went to the other night.  The featured speaker of the night was Carol Giardina.  She is the 1968 co-founder of the Gainesville Women's Liberation.  She works as a History and Women's Studies professor at Queens College in NY.  She was hilarious and awesome and she shed a lot of light on the history of Gainesville's involvement in Women's LIB.  Did you know that Carol Hanisch wrote, "The Personal is Political" in a duplex on NW 3rd ave???  Neither did I!!!  Fucking rad.  A lot of important figures in the Civil Rights movement and the Women's Lib. movement were there and it was overwhelming to sit in a room with people who actually FOUGHT to bring about desegregation, Roe v. Wade, the Civil Rights Act and all the little accomplishments we take for granted.  For instance, it used to be mandatory for women at UF to wear a dress until 5PM, if they were caught more than three times not doing so they were forced to stay in their dorm all weekend.  That's 48 hours of being confined to a building for NOT WEARING A FUCKING DRESS!!! That shit's insane.  Because of the Women's Liberation movement we no longer have to do that...and ain't that a beautiful thang??? 

♥

A few posts about my experience at Feminist Summer Camp are forthcoming but for now I am sick and very sad.  I found my cat Mr. Scrunchie Face (aka Big Fat Meow Meow, Scrunchers, Zee Scrunch) dead yesterday.  She had been hit by a car and crawled to my back door where she laid down and passed away.  I am killing myself over what I could have done, but I know that this kind of thinking is useless.  Goodbye Scrunch.   

Phem: Web | Blog | Magazine: Day 1 FSC: Sex Work and Trafficking

This is an article about our first day at Feminist Summercamp!  I'm finishing up my soon!

Phem: Web | Blog | Magazine: Day 1 FSC: Sex Work and Trafficking

"Girl, you make me think"

There are two books that I have been reading for my Independent Study this summer that are really blowing my mind.  They are Tidal Wave by Sara Evans and Grassroots: A Field Guide to Activism by Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards.  These books have given me the history of activism in the feminist movements as well as the passion to start something here in Gainesville.  I want to shout out from the rooftops about feminism and activism.  I don't know what I am going to do get but I know I want to do something.  I want to change so many things, I want to inspire others about feminism and activism....I'm going to go think of something to do......

it's been a long time, i shouldn't have left you without a dope beat to step to.....

"...in an early meeing of New York Radical Women, several women described their experiences with illegal abortion.  For most it was the first time they had told anyone beyond a close friend or two.  A group of women, subsequent founders of Redstockings, then decided to disrupt a legislative hearing scheduled to hear testimony from fourteen men and one woman (a nun).  Claiming that women who had experienced abortion were the "real experts,"  they demanded to testify.  When the legislative committee refused to hear them, they held a public "speak-out" on March 21, 1969, drawing an audience of 300.  Thousands of women, hearing about such speakouts, joined in.  Journalist Gloria Steinem recalled that "For the first time, I understood that the abortion I had kept so shamefully quiet about for years was an experience I had probably shared with at least one out of four American women of every race and group."

pgs 46-47 Tidal Wave: How Women Changed America at Century's End by Sara M. Evans

watch this hot doc!!!

Hip Hop: Beyond Beats & Rhymes! 

The whole thing is on youtube.com 

women's rights are human rights

"It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls.

It is a violation of human rights when women and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution.

It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small.

It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war.

It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide among women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes.

It is a violation of human rights when young girls are brutalized by the painful and degrading practice of genital mutilation.

It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.

If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, it is that human rights are women's rights - and women's rights are human rights. Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely - and the right to be heard." - Hillary Clinton. Beijing, China. 1995.

Feminist Summer Camp

that's right. I'm going! And NO KELLIE we don't burn our bras in a campfire.
Although I laughed out loud at that joke.
I just filled out the contract and questionnaire for it and I'm getting very excited. Looking at Leslie Feinberg's blog today and finding out that Les is going through some serious medical treatment made me want to cry.



I don't have any questions but I want to know so much.

V-Men

Victory Over Violence is hosting a V-Men event at Ustler Hall on April 3rd, from 12:00 to 1:30. V-Men is a branch of the V-Day organization (Violence Against Girls Is Not Acceptable). The topics discussed will be how men fit in the movement and how they can they can help. Refreshments will be provided!
"All that is necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing" - Edmund Burke
DON'T BE A GOOD MAN WHO DOES NOTHING!!! Come to V-Men and check out the V-Day website!!! 

one love.

www.vday.org

on menopause and sexuality

"Ellen, a 53-year-old Caucasian married for 34 years, 

has vaginal dryness and pain in intercourse.  She first 

describes sex as something she 'endures'...a second 

reason vaginal dryness is problematic for some women 

is because they do not discuss what they enjoy in sex...

consequently, heterosexual women and men who do not

 discuss their preferences rely on dominant ideas about 

'real' sex, which results in some women enduring discomfort, 

pain and bleeding during intercourse...In contrast, three 

women's ex-husbands initiated discussions about vaginal 

dryness, but these men showed concern only for their own 

sexual pleasure...Similarly, two women's accounts illustrate 

how declining libido and orgasm intensity after menopause 

are also perceived as symptoms of poor relationships, not 

menopause.  For example, when Selena, a 60-year-old Caucasian 

lesbian, became postmenopausal, she was in an abusive second 

marriage during which she 'came out of a deep denial that I'm 

a lesbian.'  She attributes her decreased libido to her relationship:  

'Because he was a very bad lover, and, yeah, totally fixated on it 

[intercourse] and no skill at all.'  When she first became involved 

with a woman, she says 'the drive came well to active levels again.'"

- "Sex, Menopause, and Culture: Sexual Orientation and the Meaning of Menopause for Women's Sex Lives" Julie A Winterich

side note:  I got Abortion & Life by Jennifer Baumgardner in the mail today!  Jennifer Baumgardner, along with Amy Richards, created the Feminist Boot Camp I'll be attending this summer.  I'm really excited to read her and Richards' book Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism and to meet them this summer.  Also I can't stop thinking about Leslie Feinberg's book Stone Butch Blues, I've always had an interest in gay and lesbian culture pre-Stonewall but something about that book seeped into my subconscious and I can't shake it.  

how men oppress women #1 & #2

They deny women [their own] sexuality

or

or to force it [male sexuality] upon them

"I'm remembering the busts in the bars in Canada.  packed in the police vans...I never told you what they did to us down there-queens in one tank, stone butches in the next-but you knew.  One at a time they would drag our brothers out of the cells, slapping and punching them, locking the bars behind them fast in case we lost control and tried to stop them, as if we could.  They'd handcuff a brother's wrists to his ankles or chain him, face against the bars.  They made us watch.  Sometimes we'd catch the eyes of the terrorized victim, or the soon-to-be, caught in the vise of torture, and we'd say gently, "I'm with you honey, look at me, it's OK, we'll take you home."

We never cried in front of the cops.  We knew we were next.

The nest time the cell door opens it will be me they drag out and chain spread-eagle to the bars."

-Stone Butch Blues, pg. 8

scavenger

Remembering that time is like watching old pictures of myself in a prison camp picking edible scraps out of the garbage heap, and knowing that without that garbage I might have starved to death...How little I settled for in the way of human contact, compared to what I was conscious of wanting. 

- Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name 

angry coffeeshop worker rant

Middle-aged men are the worst fucking customers EVER!  They talk down to you, they ask you what every dessert is in the dessert cooler and how much it is despite the fact that you handed them a menu and pointed out that all the desserts, along with the prices, are on it.  They also feel free to comment on your hair, your clothing, your physique and if you're not wearing make-up they point out that you "look tired".  And when you don't look at happy at 7:15 in the MORNING (btw who the fuck does?) they say, "Girl, gimmie a smile."  AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! plus they're horrendous fucking tippers.  RANT OVER.

Gainesville Women's Liberation meeting

I began this blog because of the classes that I am taking this semester, which are; Feminist Fiction, Interdisciplinary Perspectives in Women's Studies, Gender Studies and Cross-Cultural Perspectives, and Transnational Feminism.  It seems like everyday I'm reading or hearing about something I find really exciting that I want to share and discuss with people, so I though this blog would be a good outlet for that.  People who are interested in what I'm learning about but don't have time to take the courses can come here to find links to interesting articles or movies or organizations.  Anything I get excited about really.  It doesn't even HAVE to be about women's studies.  It can be about my deep love of Reality Bytes or Pink Flag by Wire or pulling Kilo's tail.  Whatever makes me happy.  So enjoy, or mock.  haha.  

  

WOMEN'S EVENTS THIS WEEK:

March 1st (TODAY) @ 7pm on the UF Campus, Pugh Hall Rm 150

This is a Consciousness-Raising Meeting, which is "a way to gather information about our lives and experiences." It's an awesome way to talk to other women in the community and learn about how somethings may be affecting most or all of us.  

ALSO March 3rd Sarah Weddington (the youngest lawyer to win a Supreme Court case and one of the most important cases affecting women ROE v. WADE!!!!!) is going to be speaking at the Grand Ballroom on the UF Campus at 8pm!!!! It's going to be rad, at least I think so. 

Today in my Interdisciplinary Women's Studies class we read, "The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm" by Anne Koedt, published in 1968.  We got extra credit if we brought a man to class so I brought Dante.  There were a lot of men present and everyone seemed to like the article and find it informative.  Most of the women and men agreed that education on female anatomy has become more widespread so that men now understand the importance of the clitoris.  I still feel like there should be sexuality education incorporated in sex ed.  Young men at my school were taught how to have orgasms but no one told me how to achieve an orgasm, some people might think that would corrupt young adults and encourage them to have sex but REALLY?  They're eventually going to participate in the "act" some day, they might as well be educated in how to enjoy it.  It's unfair that sex is taught with men's pleasure as the object and women's pleasure as the subject.  It perpetuates inequality and it makes women feel like the purpose of sex is to please the man or worse....reproduction yuck! :)  Anyways, here is the link:

 http://www.feministezine.com/feminist/modern/The-Myth-ofthe-Vaginal-Orgasm.html