Activism blog # 2

 

Activism: During this week our group hosted a donation drive for the Harbor House, which is a domestic violence women’s shelter. Some of our group members decorated boxes that housed the supplies that were donated to the women.  Other group members were picking- up boxes and dropping them off to the Harbor house. I was able to contact other donations sites on campus to pick-up and drop-off these donations boxes to the wellness center.  It was very crucial that I got these donations in by Friday, since the drive was going to be done by Saturday. It was very chaotic contacting the offices to pick-up the boxes, but I was able to accomplish my goal. It was great to see so many donations that were going out to these women in need. Although, I was only able to help out a little this week, I still felt like my job was very important. I know that after I finish working with MVP, I will definitely be a part of this important organization.

Reflection: The donation drive that was hosted this week, made me really think about our consumption of our resources. Many of these women count on the donations that are given to them for their daily living. Many of these items such as toothpaste, sheets, & clothes many of us probably have more than enough of these resources at the convenience of our homes. This idea of what we consume on a daily basis, relates to the article we read this week entitled, “Consumption.” The idea of consumption ask the question of how much resources do we utilize on a day-to- day basis. When I ask myself this question, I was shocked to think that I use more than I actually need. One thing the article talked about was how people “learn to assess their real financial needs, how to budget, and invest to achieve financial independence on a sustainably reduced income” (Kirk, Okazawa-Rey). The result of doing this impacts their lifestyle on the environment by using less energy, products, and waste. Many of us cannot live on the idea of less is more, because we like to live a fancy lifestyle.  Unfortunately, the women who are in domestic violence situations have to think about the idea of less is more, because their needs are bigger than their wants. This really has impacted me in my daily life to live one less resources.

Reciprocity:  These past weeks working with MVP has taught me a lot about time management, when it comes to school and service learning hours. I have also learned a lot about these women in domestic violence situations that has made me want to be an advocate against domestic violence.  Through our WST class I learned a lot about how domestic violence plays a part in working atmosphere and the environment. This made me realize how domestic violence really impacts everyone’s daily life and not just the victim This service learning project has honestly opened my mind up and made me really think about the world around me. Although, I might have played a small part in helping the donation drive this week, I feel like I helped many women in domestic violence situations. I really enjoyed my time with MVP and I hope to continue working with them in the future.

 

Works Citied

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Rey. “Consumption." Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. 5th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 567-573. Print.

Campus Engagment 2 / Quiz

For my second campus engagement I volunteered with Vox (Voices for Planned Parenthood), which exist to educate students about reproductive health and rights. This year Vox was out in the polls to encourage students to vote no on amendment 6. This amendment interferes with a women’s right to choose, placing a woman’s personal medical decision in the hands of government instead of her own. Although amendment 6 was the main aim of Vox, they were more focused on getting students to go out and vote. There were many locations on campus that Vox gathered at such as the gym, arena, and the student union.  I was located right near the student union, where I canvassed outside to the students. What I learned from canvassing was that many students didn’t want to vote or were very enthusiastic to vote. Many students felt that there vote would not make a difference, which is why they chose not to vote. It was a very interesting to hear that a lot of students were unwilling to vote this election year. When we went out canvassing we had a sheet of paper that asked students who they would be voting for. Through this sheet we learned that most students knew who they would vote for and some were still undecided. Vox also helped the student see the ballot questions ahead of time, to help students know there answers before they went to vote. By doing this, we helped a lot student’s save time in long voting lines. Sometimes we would get very opinionated students at our table, who expressed their political stance. Vox did support Obama and took a strong political stance on amendment 6. This made a lot of republican students very angry, where they would quickly turn away from our table. The enthusiasm of all students was shown this year as many found different ways to get students informed by rollerblading around campus with flyers, handing out pins, candy, & shirts to get students encouraged to vote. The dedication of students showed me how important it is to vote. I believe that our former feminist & black leaders fought for our rights a long time ago, so that we would be able to vote. We now have a voice to speak up and we should use it to vote. It is a crucial time to vote and we should know that it is our natural born right to vote.

Campus Engagment 1

For my first campus engagement, I attended Corban Addison, A Walk Across the Sun: Abolishing Modern Slavery, which was held on November 1st. I was exposed to the lucrative business of human trafficking for the first time, when guest speaker Corban Addison, called to my attention how this form of slavery still exist in the world. I was astonished to learn that unfathomable form of slavery still exists around the world. Through exploitation of young girls in highly sophisticated, organized crime business of human trafficking is a worldwide problem. Corban brought to my understanding that, human trafficking victims are held against their will through acts of coercion and forced to work or provides services to the trafficker or others. The work or services may include anything from bonded or forced labor to commercialized sexual exploitation. The arrangement may be structured as a work contract, but with little to no payment or on terms which are highly exploitative. Sometimes the arrangement is structured as debt bondage, in which the victim is not being permitted or able to pay off the debt. What made this more interesting to me was the fact that the people who buy these young girls are upper-class American men. These criminals are making a business transaction with people who have corporate or executive jobs, not to mention men who have families. This just painted such a vivid picture in my mind of how serious a problem sex-trafficking is around the world. Corban Addison book, “A Walk Across the Sun,” is a narrative that entertains, but also calls attention to the problem of human trafficking. The events in the book begin with two young Indian girls being abducted into the sex trafficking business, and their fate is left at the hands of a lawyer. The lawyer then makes it his mission to rescue these girls from the ruthless criminals. Addison writes in a very understanding way for other women who have been victimized by human trafficking to understand that they are not alone. After listening to the Corban Addison, I found the similarities of his zeal embodies the lawyer that had to help the girls in “A Walk Across the Sun. Corban Addison has made it his mission not only to bring awareness to the problem, but to seek out a reasonable solution to end human sex-trafficking. He explained in his speech how there are two problems that surround human trafficking, which are that people must demand change to stop human trafficking and that this problem is not seen as a priority. People must realize that they themselves are the solution to stopping this world-wide problem. If we realize that we are the solution we will be more willing to demand change by speaking-up against it and talking to our government officials. Also once we demand change it will be seen as a priority that needs to be stopped. We also need to realize that the government has the money to stop this issue; they just don’t want to invest the money to do so. However, if we make our demands, this problem will be seen as a priority that needs to be stopped. Human trafficking is a lucrative business and the fastest growing criminal business in the world that needs to be put to an end. By the end of Corban’s speech, I realized that slavery does have human face, which is little girls around the world, who need us to help them fight the injustice they cannot.

 

Activism Blog for Service Learning

ACTIVISM:

The community partner that I decided to work with is MVP, which is a domestic violence organization that aims to bring awareness to sexual abuse.  This week we ended up meeting with the director, Abigail Malick, to plan events that are coming up for MVP. Before we began the planning for MVP, some my group members and I had to meet up for a training session. In this session we understood what MVP was and how it goes about informing people about the organization, which is through an interactive group session.  In this training we got to discuss how we felt about domestic violence and some of our ideas for events that MVP could hold.  One of the activities we performed this week was an informative table in the Student Union to bring awareness to students about domestic violence. Another activity that  we will be holding is a drive with the harbor house that will bring supplies, such as clothes, to women of domestic violence. The success that we have had is being able to meet up as group and discuss how we are goint to get things accomplished. However, the only pitfall seems to be getting more events to be hosted. Other than that, this service learning experience has been an enjoyable one for me and I am happy to have my group members to share it with.

 

REFLECTION:

In the process of planning and informing people about domestic violence through MVP, I have realized how important the issue is in our society. Domestic violence affects not only the victim, but the people around them.  This is currently being demonstrated in the Central Florida area, as 11 shooting have recently taken place in the work place due to domestic violence. “Approximately 24% of workplace violence is related to personal relationships, which involve situations where an individual gains access to a workplace and commits a crime targeting an employee or customer who is a current or former intimate partner"(Connections Between Work place and Violence).  Typically, we think that domestic violence is something that can happen behind closed doors; unfortunately, there is an increase in domestic violence related crimes at the work place.  “Just last week a Central Florida man gunned down his former partner while she was at work at hotel in Orlando’s popular tourist corridor. While in the lobby he also shot and killed one of her co-workers. From there, the gunman drove a couple miles down the road to another area resort where he shot and critically wounded his former partner’s best friend” (Johnson). This tragic incident not only affected the victim, but friends, families, and employees. The explanation of violence against women is provided on a macro- level and a micro- level. In a macro-level perspective, the economic system disempowers women, because some women earn less than men.  This is why in a violent marriage or relationship women find it difficult to leave their partner, because they financially depend on their partner. Thus, in this case macro-level inequalities are present in violence at the micro level. This idea clearly relates to our book reading “Making a Home, Making a Living,” as it discusses how the comparable worth of women in a work place is less than men. Women need both comparable skills and knowledge in the workplace in order to compete with men. Also women are held to such a low standard in the work place that they have to fight for equality. When domestic violence enters the work place where women are already seen as unequal, it makes them an even greater victim of inequality both at home and at work.  Women have to constantly fight the toils of inequality in both a domestically violent home and a disempowered economic system at work. This is why organizations like MVP are necessary because they not only inform people, but the fight the injustice done unto women in domestic violence situations. This organization lives out its mission by educating, inspiring, and empowering men and women, just like me, to responds to domestic violence.

RECIPROCITY:

Through planning events and talking with the director I have learned a lot about the organization. I have understood how communication is key when try to get things accomplished in a group setting. I have also been able to learn a lot through my group members and this organization and about being organized. By contacting organizations and planning events I have been able to improve my communication skills and organization skills. I hope to continue growing through this experience, and helping women of domestic violence.

 

WORKS CITIED

 

    Johnson, Vicki. Domestic Violence Creeping into the Workplace. http://www.ronsachs.com/domesticviolence.shtml

 

   Kirk, Gwyn , and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Making a Home, Making a Living. 5th ed. New York, New York: McGraw Hill, 2010. 207-210. Print.

   http://www.workplacesrespond.org/learn/the-facts/what-is-workplace-violence

Wst Advertisment Project

One form of popular media that set standards of female beauty is music. It is an influential medium in today’s society that tells women the ideal beauty image is “thin, lean, tall, young, white, and heterosexual, with flawless skin and well-groomed hair”(208). This is a damaging beauty ideal for women because they think they need to be corrected or fixed to fit an unattainable ideal. For my advertisement I chose prominent male singer, Bruno Mars, because he mainly targets women that believe in this manipulative ideal. I think that when a prominent Hollywood singer or actor says something more people tend to listen. I quoted his song, “Just the way you are,” because it goes against the ideology of society and mass media. His song speaks about a man loving a woman just the way she is, she doesn’t need to fix anything about herself. Neither mass media nor society will tell women to love their bodies and themselves, because they are a multi-billion dollar business that feeds off women to buy their products to achieve the beauty ideal.

Through my re-make I established this idea that women need to love themselves just the way they are, which is not something that media nor society will tell women. I think that my remake advertisement of Bruno Mars sells that idea to his targeted women audience. He clearly states through facial expression, hand expression, and color the way he feels about the media and society. The first thing that is demonstrated, is his facial expression, which is a feeling of disgust and concern. This is shown as he lowers his head and puts his hand over his head as he is ashamed of the media and society, and their power influence on the way women view themselves. The next thing that he utilizes is hand expressions in the advertisement. This is illustrated as he makes the “I love you” sign in sign- language on his right hand. This subtle message is a clear indication to his audience that he thinks they’re amazing just the way they are, even though media and society might state otherwise. Lastly, the black/white color sets the overall tone of the advertisement from dark to light; dark being the outer self and light being the inner self. The black color (outer-self) is the perception of the media and society, where thinnest is idealized and expected for women to be attractive. In contrast, the white color (inner-self) is the real you that you see everyday and nobody else can see. When the inner self is constantly told that it needs to be corrected and fixed it starts believing this, but Bruno Mars self reassures these women that everyday when you look in the mirror you should love yourself just the way you are. This remake is a clear indication to his women audience that not only does he care, but also it is a serious topic that should be addressed. When images in advertisements, television, and music portray the "ideal woman" as tall, white, and thin, with blonde hair. This ideal has a harmful effect to women of all races, because these women see themselves as needing to be fixed or corrected. This promotes a type of self-hatred within women, as they see themselves as unattractive. This is why this advertisement re-make is powerful, because it recreates the negative ideology of  media and society into a positive one that you do not hear everyday.

Works Citied

 Kirk,Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Women’s Lives: Multicultural Perspectives 5^th ed. New York:McGraw-Hill, 2010.

 http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/26600000/Lots-of-Bruno-Mars-bruno-mars-26630102-500-335.png

 

Assignment for Women's Bodies, & Women's Health

Sociocultural standards of feminine beauty are presented in almost all forms of popular media, which is most influential medium that set the standards of female beauty. These standards are defined as “thin, lean, tall, young, white, and heterosexual, with flawless skin and well-groomed hair” (208). Such standards of beauty are unattainable for most women; most models displayed in media are seen below the considered healthy body weight. This multi-billion dollar industry only wants to maximize its profits, by motivating women to buy products that will bring them closer to the ideal. It is manipulative and deceptive in nature, and it continues to maintain damaging implications about ideal beauty despite its damaging effects to people of all ages and races. Ideal beauty standards oppress women to believe in perfection, however, this goal is unattainable. This type of body dissatisfaction from exposure to the media’s beauty ideal results in eating disorders, self-esteem issues, and unhealthy weight-control habits in women.

Images in the media today project an unrealistic and even dangerous standard of feminine beauty that can have a powerful influence on the way women view themselves. From the perspective of the mass media, thinness is idealized and expected for women to be considered "attractive." Images in advertisements, television, and music usually portray the "ideal woman" as tall, white, and thin, with blonde hair.  This ideal has a harmful effect to women of all races, because these women see themselves as needing to be fixed or corrected. This promotes a type of self-hatred within women, as they see themselves as unattractive. For example African American women and Latino women have to conform to the same body shape, which might be unattainable because they have curves. These women start having damaging ideas of beauty that might cause eating disorders, obsessive dieting, and extreme exercise to conform to the ideal body shape.  This starts to affect their daily lives, because now they want to start looking the way media & society tell them to.  The unrealistic images of beauty effects all ages, races, and classes of women in society to believe they need to look a certain way, in order to fit the ideal beauty standard. This type of beauty ideal damages women mentally, physically, emotional, and spiritually to conform to an unattainable goal that the media and society creates.

Works Citied

Kirk,Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Women’s Lives: Multicultural Perspectives 5^th ed. New York:McGraw-Hill, 2010.

Service Learning Proposal Assignment

Service Learning Proposal For MVP (Mentors in Violence Prevention)
By: Emily Leiter
Raati Kumar
Racara Jackson
Jamie Crenshaw
Amanda Santos
Fadia
September 26, 2012
Meredith Tweed
WST 3015-0001

Community Partner Profile:
Community Partner: MVP (The Mentors in Violence Prevention)
Contact: Abigail Malick

Community Partner Mission Statement: “MVP provides the leadership necessary, within sport and beyond, to address the global issues of sexism – especially men’s violence against women. In our advocacy efforts and training programs, we educate, inspire and empower men & women to prevent, interrupt and respond to sexist abuse” (MVP).

MVP is an organization put together to bring awareness to sexual abuse. Motivate and educate students on prevention against violence on gender and bullying. Their goals are to inform students on violence accruing against men/women and help bring light to those everyday issues happening. Also, the organization will be challenging and developing their volunteers to inspire and inform others on potentially dangerous situation.


Political and/or Social Basis for Organization: ‘’MVP was founded in 1993 by Northeastern University for the Study of Sport in Society and the National Consortium for Academics & Sports. The multi-racial MVP Program was designed to train male college and high school student-athletes and other student leaders to use their status to speak out against rape, battering, sexual harassment, gay-bashing, and all forms of sexist abuse and violence’’ (MVP).

Still today many schools are using the MVP program to bring awareness to those issues. The program is influencing individual to have a voice and helps to prevent accruing situations. They have events protesting and informing student on sexual abuse, bullying, rape, violence’s, and gay-bashing. MVP allowing those who have or have not been victims stand up and fight to prevent these issues from happening.

The Proposal:

The following is a proposal to outline the needs, rationale and feasibility for a service learning project to benefit Mentors in Violence Prevention. The following proposal contains background on the need for and benefits of a Community Outreach project, an outline of the work I plan to do, the rationale for its inclusion in WST 3015, and a scheduled timeline. This proposal may need to be revised after beginning the project and must be flexible to meet the needs of the both the Service Learning project and the community partner.

Need for volunteers for the Community Outreach Program:

The Mentors in Violence Prevention program acts to prevent violence against women. Their main goal is to raise awareness of violence against women, and to educate everybody on ways to prevent such violence. Our community does not see domestic violence as being as serious and other forms of violence. MVP strives to make people understand that this violence is, in fact, preventable. Through different trainings, MVP achieves their goal of prevention by having volunteers look at the subject of domestic violence differently, not just as this taboo subject that nobody wants to address. It is MVP’s hope that through these trainings, participants will become inspired to be leaders in our community, when it comes to dealing with domestic violence and educating others about ways to prevent such violence.

Plan Proposal:

Throughout the semester, MVP will have various activities to raise awareness of men’s acts of violence against women. Some of these activities include screenings of victims’ documentaries, such as Telling Amy’s Story, at least once a month. Another activity in which MVP hopes to raise awareness of violence against women is through holding brown-bag lunches, in which people discuss attitudes toward abuse while having lunch together. During these lunches, participants will be talking about abuse in society with scenarios that people can relate to. To advertise these events, volunteers will create flyers and posters to be displayed around campus, advertise via social networks like Facebook. We will also be sponsoring a table in front of the Student Union, as well as making announcements in class inviting people to attend and support the organization. MVP will invite local community partners involved with domestic violence to attend the activities as well.

I will be part of a team of volunteers that will dedicate our time and effort into this organization, educating people about domestic violence, bullying, hazing, as well as its implications. By informing others, especially women, of our individual rights I can take part in making this community, state, and country domestic violence free and become better citizens.

Rationale for Women’s Studies:

The Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP), is a nationally recognized educational program that focuses on violence against women. This violence includes, dating violence, sexual violence, bullying, and school violence prevention. The goal of MVP is to, challenge ideals, raise consciousness, open discussion, and stimulate leadership. The basic mission of MVP clearly relates to Women’s Studies, as it seeks to end violence against women, by raising awareness of underlying matters and unique subtleties of all forms of men’s violence against woman. The forms of violence against women can be demonstrated specifically on a micro level and macro level. Historically a majority of gender violence is against women because they are seen as physically smaller or weaker. That is why it is so important to not only be aware of violence against women, but speak-up against such inequality.

According to psychologist Hussein Bullhan, “Violence in any three domains- physical, social or psychological-has significance repercussions in the other two domains. Violence occurs not only between individual, but also between groups and societies… Any relation, process or condition imposed by someone that injures the health and well-being of other is by definition violent” (Kirk and Oazawa-Rey 266). The explanation of violence of women is provided on a macro- level and a micro- level. In a macro level perspective, the economic system disempowers women, because some women earn less than men. This is why in a violent marriage or relationship women find it difficult to leave their partner, because they financially depend on their partner. In addition, when a woman is seeking a raise or promotion from their boss, they might find it difficult to speak against the sexual harassment they are receiving from their boss. Thus, in both cases macro-level inequalities are present in violence at the micro level. The main problem with violence against women is women think they are responsible for acts of violence against them, this is not true. In the examples I gave, none of these women asked for violence against them either indirect or directly. Instead, their economic difficulties disempowered these women, making it hard for them to leave the violence against them. The misconception that should be addressed is that women do not directly or indirectly ask to be beaten or abused. People tend to focus on the victim instead of the perpetrator, which isolates women into making them think it’s their fault. When blame falls to the victim, they tend not to want to seek help against violence. By being aware of violence against women and speaking up against it, we can move towards being proactive leaders around these issues of violence against women.

.Action:

I have already met with Abigail Malick, the UCF Campus Coordinator of Mentors in Violence Prevention, to discuss volunteer opportunities available this semester. In addition to contacting her regularly, I will be helping to organize, as well as attend, brown bag lunches and be involved in organizing and advertising for the screening of “Telling Amy’s Story.”

Timeline:

The Service Learning Project will be completed approximately November 20, 2012. The dates that have been listed may change, due to other activities that might become available throughout the semester. Also the Social Media Blogs are continuous throughout the semester; there is no specified deadline as of now.

1. Invite people for the Brown Bag Lunch-In October 3
2. Make flyers for Tell Amy’s Story October 8
3. Social Media Advertising October 12
4. Brown Bag lunch-In October 17
5. Tell Amy’s Story October 24

6. Invite people for Brown Bag Lunch October 31
7. Brown Bag Lunch November 14

8. Social Media Blogs (no specified date)

 

Works Cited

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Oazawa-Rey. Women’s Lives: Multicultural Perspectives 5th ed. New York:McGraw-Hill,2010.

 

"MVP | Mentors in Violence Prevention National Program." MVP | Mentors in Violence Prevention National Program. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Sept. 2012..

 

 

WORD COUNT: 1370

Introduction Letter for WST 3015-0001

One of the things everyone knows about me is that I am very into my culture, being that my parents are from the continents of Asia and Africa. My father is Indian and my mother is Zimbabwean. Originally, I was born in the capital of Harare, which is located in the country of Zimbabwe. As a kid I took up piano, which has turned into one my special interest. Some of my other special interests are dancing, singing, cooking, and composing music. I recently, just transferred to UCF this semester as a junior. It took me a while to declare my major, but finally reached a decision before the start of this semester. Currently, I am majoring in Public Relations/Advertisement with a minor in business; hopefully this does not change any time soon. My future plans with my major, is to be an owner of my own Public Relations firm. Being that this is my first semester at UCF, I thought it was very important for me to take a class that would teach me about the women perspective. I think that woman studies will challenge my understanding when it comes to gender, race, class, & other social inequalities.

            Before signing up for this class many of male friends were asking me why I was taking woman studies. I told them that I wanted to understand the issues that have been facing woman for centuries. It occurred to me then that men have a very ignorant point of view when it comes to this course of study. Since we do live in a male dominated society, men are quick to believe that this course gives woman the ability to bash the male species. Men also criticize this course by thinking woman are only discussing their feelings.  I don’t believe any of this is true; my understanding of woman studies is that it reaches into all academic fields. I think that woman studies explore the idea of history, politics, & society of the woman’s perspective. I believe that this course will provide me with diverse points of view, which are significant not only academically, but also in the work field.

   This class also got me thinking about how genders play a role in our daily lives. I think my greatest influence on how I understand how men and woman should behave is society. I think society tells us how to think intellectually as men and woman. It is our basic structure in the understanding of our genders. For example men cannot go into a woman restroom and vice versa woman cannot go into a male restroom. It goes against the social norm and the people who break the rules end up criticized. I think that people who go against the social norm teach society how to open their minds and not be so stuck in their ways. I think if people did not go against social norms everyone would still be same and no one would be different.