ACTIVISM

The documentary by Nick Kristof and his wife Sheryl WuDunn, "Half The Sky" was remarkably moving and heartbreaking.  The film focused on the oppression of women worldwide, including rape, violence,  sex trafficking,  religious discrimination and education. For myself, education seems to be of the utmost important. Until the word is able to educate its female population, none of the other problems will be solved.  Women within America have worked so very hard at getting equality for women, its time we share our hope and success with the rest of the women around the globe. Its time to get involved and help those that cant help themselves yet. We as a nation are educated and understand the repulsive prejudice that is happening, yet we have done very little to help. Its time for America to care about the women across the globe,  for if we don’t the world will reap the consequences. Once you educate a woman, she marries later in life, bears less children, is better prepared to raise said children, and is able to provide a better life for them. Once you educate a woman, she is better equipped to fight for herself, her rights, and for her community. 

It was uplifting to see the program that John Wood has established within Vietnam, known as the “Room to Read” program.  Girls from below the poverty line are sponsored by the program and taught the fundamental reading and writing skills. Their stories were painful to watch; yet these little girls had so much ambition and will power to succeed in this life. Duyen, a young girl who was 14, road her bike 17 miles one way to get to school everyday. That is determination if you ask me. Another young girl name Nhi sold lottery tickets for her father every single day to be allowed to attend school, her father did not approve of her education, so she had to pay for it with whatever money her father would give her, sometimes sacrificing eating lunch to be able to pay. He was not proud of her for her hard work, he said if he encouraged her it would make her soft. The culture in some of these countries is still so backwards and behind the times. For Nhi, women getting educated is still frowned upon by many in the older generations. However these ambitious young girls are fighting the good fight and going against the grain because they know it will better their future and their children’s future. 

Yes Yes Yes

God Says Yes to Me

Kaylin Haught (1995)

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic

and she say yes

I asked her if it was okay to be short

and she said it sure is

I asked her if I could wear nail polish

and she said honey

she calls me that sometimes

she said you can do just exactly

what you want to

Thanks God I said

And is it even okay if I don’t paragraph

my letters

Sweetcakes God said

who knows were she picked that up

what I’m telling you is

Yes Yes Yes

 This poem catches the essence of every little girl at some time in her life. Asking God if its ok to have feelings, be pretty, and be nontraditional, trying to find her place in the world. It is such a simple yet powerful example of one girls views on her God. I love that God is continually telling the little girl yes also, showing her  tender soul compassion while trying to find her way. I myself like to think that its ok to pray casually, speaking to God as if they are your best friend, the one you would turn to for anything. If they are your best friend, you wouldn't have to address them properly, or be kneeling by your bed; you could talk to them whenever you felt the urge to. Seeing God as a woman figure is not that common within Christianity, but i do think every child needs to be able to identify with God in one way or another; even if that means making God a female, a male, an animal, or just a ghost. This poem is so very sweet and brings to light the societal view that God is only a man, and that she is conflicted within herself about viewing god as a feminine, which is all too common among LDS, Fundamentalists and Jews. This should never be the case in my opinion. Believe God is whatever you want them to be. All God wants from you is to believe. Nothing more, nothing less. Believe in him/her/it and become best friends with them. That is all. 

Dear Mr. Trump

Dear Mr. Trump,
Your response to what is happening within the military was quite disgusting, as a father of young women you should be ashamed of yourself.  What if one of your daughters felt compelled to join the military? Would you tell her that men and women should not be mixed together, and since it is that way she is probably going to be raped and should get over it? I highly doubt it. You would fight for her, and you, with all your money and power would probably go to the ends of the earth to make sure whoever did that to your daughter was convicted. "The top generals never wanted a mixer" was part of your second tweet, in which you assume that it was up to said generals to decide whether women should be aloud in the armed service or not. Your responses to the outrageous exploitation of women is not just appalling, but makes you look like the biggest chauvinistic pig, the typical white guy with too much money and power, the kind of man the rest of the world despises and fights against, the kind of person that makes other countries hate America. You, Donald Trump are a disgrace to our country and women and men everywhere.  Unlike you Mr. Trump, I am not just going to evoke a word vomit on you, I am going to give some advice. Please, find it in your heart to go watch a short clip on Ted TV by Jackson Katz. He brings to light the issue of womens violence not just being about women. It is a issue more for men like yourself, the kind of man that thinks he is so masculine and powerful that he can conquer anything and anyone. You do not want this kind of man around your daughters. And you should care and get more involved in this topic because it hits close to your home. No matter how many security gaurds you have protecting the women in your life, perpetrators are just as smart as you and will find a way to get to your family. I would advice you to get more involved in the conversation, you will all your money and power, and you, with precious women in your life, you should be more mindful of what is happening to women.

This American Life

Barbara
"This American Life" did an entire broadcast of audio from a single mother living in the projects. If you were to judge a book by its cover, you would probably assume this mother was on welfare, a drug addict, had many children by different fathers, and probably spoke in only in only Ebonics. This was far from the case though. Barbara Clinkcale is a data entry worker, speaks very good grammar, drives her 17 year old children to school every morning, and does not have any drug or alcohol problems. She does live in one of the worst neighborhoods on the south side of Chicago though. She made it a point in her audio to let the public know her apartment was spacious and a good size for the money she paid, hence why she still lived in the projects.  Barbara is a very loving and caring single black mother, who only wants the best for her children. Her number one goal is getting her children to graduate from high school, especially her son. Barbara has a special connection with her son. He is the one and only man min her entire life that has merely loved her for her, because she is his mother. It is very touching the way she speaks of him.
Barbara's story is far too familiar for many mothers in poverty. They are not provided a living wage, and until recently the fathers were not required by law to pay for their children. At least now the court system requires men to help these mothers feed their children. Barbara is just like Josephine from Sri Lanka in the reading "A maid by any other name". Although she is still with her children, she is out working hard to support them because no one else is there to help. She is doing it all on her own. And although Josephine has moved further away from her children, distance doesn't always make the difference. If a mother is not around, morals and ethics begin to sway. This is why Barbara is so adamant about taking her son to school every day. She wants to make sure he gets his education, whether he wants to get it or not. All she wants is for her children to get a good education so they can get out of the projects. i dont think thats too much to ask.
U.S. fast-food workers protest, demand a 'living wage' | Reuters
This article was quite intriguing about how far people have to take things in order for anyone to pay attention. A living wage should be in the constitution.  Maybe the gap between the richest of rich and poorest of poor would stop growing.

THE GOOD MOTHER

Motherhood is a very complex, heated and complicated discussion. "A history of American Motherhood" gave a great overview of what has happened in the past and what is currently trending in our world right now. For most women, once she bears a child, her entire world shifts. There is no going back to being just you, now you have someone else very tiny and completely dependent on you. And although this can be very stressful and time-consuming, i believe it is one of the most fulfilling things a female can do with her life. Fathers too, i shouldn't leave them out. I have seen my husband get all teary eyed over our children many times when they melt your heart in a way that you never imagined would happen. Now, back to the point. The pod-cast by Backstory Radio was very interesting and educational. If you don't know much about how mothers have came to be who they are today, i highly recommend you listening, its only 55 minutes. At the beginning of the discussion Linda Kerber addresses a pivotal point in history, the 1795 commencement speech. It was stated that the future of our world was in the hands of the fair ones. Although this did have some negative connotation to it by acknowledging the "fair" ones, i think it was the beginning of a change in how womens roles were viewed. Women do shape the future by how they raise their children. It makes me think of the cheesy Michael Jackson song "I believe the children are our future"...haha. But in all seriousness, it is so true. Even if you are completely an egalitarian couple and do everything equally, there is no way to equally birth a child or breastfeed a child, and no matter how hard you fight the traditional roles, somehow they sneak into your daily life anyway, i personally believe it is inevitable.
Towards the end of the discussion the Guys decided to inform the public on how Mother's Day came to be. This story was so heartwarming and rather tragic in the end. Anna Maria Jarvis was a femminist, activist and socialist in her own time, before any of these words had definitions. She would go out rallying for women to come together, and she nursed both sides of the civil war back to health. She was  truly an inspiration, especially to her daughter; Anna Marie Jarvis. The younger Anna loved her mother so much, she followed in her footsteps and continued her mothers cause until the day she died.  In 1914, Jarvis finally had gotten Mother's Day to be a nationally recognized holiday in West Virginia. What an accomplishment of a woman at that time! She wanted mothers nationwide to be acknowledged for their hard work and dedication, but what happened was not what she intended. Within her lifetime, many females wrote to her thanking her for creating such a day to honor their mothers, and Jarvis; who never beared her own child, became furious. The whole point of the holiday had become commercialized and marketed and profited from. She didn't want people sending her stuff, she created the day to honor her own mother, not for people to honor her. In the end, she petitioned to remove the holiday she created, because the public did not respond the way she intended them to. By loving their own mothers and showing their gratitude and appreciation for them and their hard work. It was a very sad ending for the younger Jarvis, who's life ended in a state-run home.

The Last Abortion Clinic

The Frontline documentary "The Last Abortion Clinic"stirs up many questions of morals and ethics within America, and i think will always be a heated debate.  I was completely baffled by what had happened in Mississippi, which was the main topic of discussion during the film. Beginning in the early 90's, a group of pro-life activists started challenging Roe vs Wade, which eventually went all the way to the Supreme Court, where they discovered that they had 4 votes to overturn the right given to women. Due to this surprising split within the court, many anti-choice groups started pushing legislation to change their state laws. Mississippi has always been an anti-choice (this term was used by the pro-choicers, and i particularly like it) state with deep republican southern roots. Due to the split decision of the court, they decided instead of revoking women's rights, they would just change the wording of the law to dealing with an "undue burden". This then caused a drastic change in the anti-choicers way of protesting and lobbying.  By the end of the film, there was and is only one abortion clinic left in the entire state of Mississippi. Most women wont even approach it either because of the protesters and the ridicule they will receive by entering. I find this very sad and disturbing. I am pro-choice and not one bit ashamed of it. Every women has a right to decide what to do with her own body, even if it is having an abortion. I got pregnant at the age of 20, while going to school full-time and working full-time, not to mention the father and i weren't even officially dating. i had the opportunity to make the choice on my own, and i chose to keep my child, and eventually married his father, and we have been together for 8 years now. But when i was in that panicked state, i was grateful to have the CHOICE, the option to not possibly ruin the rest of my life due to one mistake. And i firmly believe every woman deserves that choice. In the film, it showed little teenagers having children and not getting medical attention until they were 6 months along, just because they couldn't get an abortion due to the distance they had to travel. So instead, they just didn't think about it and continued on with their lives, drinking, smoking etc. and not wanting to face the fact of having a child. The children do not deserve to come into the world where their parents are not going to care for them. There are enough babies out there needing homes, there is no need to bring ones into the world that are unwanted.

The Girl Model

"The Girl Model"
The documentary "The Girl Model" was intriguing yet sad and disappointing all at the same time. The beginning of the film captured a scene of far too many young girls putting their body images on the line just to be scrutinized and judged. Within the first five minutes of the film, it showed a sixteen year old girl standing in front of three scouts. The male scout asks her about her blemished face, and she responded that she had just started her period and the acne was only temporary. After a moment, he told the other two scouts that he felt she looked older than sixteen and none of the contractors would want her because of her mature look. This seemed absolutely absurd and disgusting to me. This first clip validated all of the "body projects" Brumberg talked about in her amazing book "The Body Project", by acknowledging the obsession girls have with their figure, their menstruation, and "acne vulgaris", which was thought to be from sexual derangement during the early twentieth century (Brumberg, 63).174


Most of this documentary was about a young thirteen year old girl from Siberia named Nadya. Her family had fallen on hard times and she somehow ended up auditioning for a modeling job. The scouts, one of which was an ex-model herself; decided that Nadya was a good candidate for Japan due to her innocent and young face and features. Although the agency "Switch Modeling" had promised her at least two jobs, she went home after her contract was up, never receiving these 2 jobs, landing her family further in debt then before.  Naydya said at the end of the documentary that this experience had made her more mature and she didn't feel like a child anymore. These feelings were because of the rough transition from young girl to young adult she went through while in Japan ultimately by herself. In my opinion recruiting girls this young could not only put them into sexist roles far too early in life, but also emotionally and mentally cripple them for life. If a young girl is not mature enough to handle a situation brought to her, it can have devastating results. I know at one point during the film, Ashley, the main narrator for the film did mention that if they didn't get to the girls first, who knew where they would end up. Im not quite sure the situation in Siberia, but if they have such a problem with young girls falling into prostitution and such behaviors, why haven't they implemented more female oriented classes/activities for these young impressionable girls? Overall the film was interesting, i just didn't quite agree with what was happening within the film.