During the week before the OU/Texas, I worked with the Women's Outreach Center to pass out fliers and information about Sexual Assault Awareness Week. At a booth outside the radio station in the Union, we handed out condoms with "Got Consent?" written on them and bracelets reading "Designated Thinker." The idea was a play on "designated driver" and it was just to remind people to be careful in a fun and creative way.
We also handed out pamphlets with more serious information about sexual assault and places students could go if they did suffer assault. That was about it. We gave away quite a few bracelets in the two days I was there. I think people were too embarrassed to take the condoms, although one student came up and grabbed a large handful. Not that I'm judging.
Extra Credit 2
Blog 12
One organization that I am involved in on campus is the GLBTF (Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, Transgendered, and Friends). Mostly this is because I have quite a few friends in the group, but I support all the work they're trying to do on campus for people of alternate sexualities.
On their website, ou.edu/glbtf, they give the following description:
"GLBTF is a student organization at the University of Oklahoma that caters to the GLBT students on campus and in the community. We are a social organization that strives to meet the needs of our students in various ways, including educational speakers, entertainment, social outings, and support."
One of the current objectives of the GLBTF is a petition to get more co-ed housing on campus. The reason for this is that people who may identify with a gender other than their birth gender are being forced to live according to their sex. Or a person who may just be uncomfortable living with their same gender has to do so unless they can somehow get housing off campus. This isn't an option for freshmen and so the GLBTF is writing Daily articles and getting signatures for a Housing bill.
They also do a lot of activities to educate people on campus and in the Norman community about gay people and gay rights. Just before Thanksgiving, for example, they (along with the student film organization) hosted a showing of "The Bubble," a movie about two gay men living in Israel. The GLBTF goes beyond gender on campus and works to educate everyone about human rights all over the world. It's wonderful.
One of the things I like most about this group is they aren't at all bitter or aggressive. They get things done by being persistent, patient, and friendly. Next semester I plan to go to as many meetings/events with them as possible to help them further their causes. I'm heterosexual, but they're working every day to get equal rights for all students on campus and I fully support that.
Paper 2
Paper 2—Kabul Beauty School
The documentary film Kabul Beauty School details the struggle of a group of American and Afghani women to start a beauty school in post 9/11 Afghanistan. Although the film deals with the many challenges of women in Afghanistan to gain equality with men, one of the most striking elements of the film is the similarity of the challenge the Afghani students face to balance their work life and the need to care for their family and children. Like women in America, women in Afghanistan are expected to take care of most domestic tasks, even when they are the primary source of their family’s income.
In her essay “The Opt-Out Revolution,” Lisa Belkin describes the conflict American women in high-paying corporate jobs experience between the responsibilities they feel toward their job and their perceived responsibilities toward their family. For example, she says, “while a national correspondent in Houston I learned you can’t hop on a plane every morning to explore the wilds of Texas while leaving a nursing baby back home” (Belkin 6). Belkin struggles to satisfy her love of her job with her need to fulfill the definition of a “good mother” and her career suffers because of it—she leaves a high-paying job to become a freelance news writer working from home.
The life of the women in Kabul was a much more tragic and extreme example of this same scenario. One of the women in the school, Nazira, brings some of her American teachers to her home to see what her life is like when she is not at school. Like Belkin, although her job brings in much more money than her husband, she is still expected to care for her entire family, cooking, cleaning, and caring for her in-laws. She must work extremely long hours to accomplish all of this and her career as a beautician suffers because of it. Her husband, like Belkin’s, is not expected to play any role in the domestic duties of the household.
This is not to say that American women are anywhere close to being in the same situation as the women in Afghanistan. We are not. We experience on a daily basis more freedom than women like Nazira even believe is possible. And yet, it’s interesting that Deborah Rodriguez, the author of the book on which the film is based, presents herself as better informed about the “right way” women should live, when American women are still dealing with the same problems as their Afghani sisters. Rodriguez says in an interview, “I always feel pressured to fix everything because I am American” (“Author Interview”).
Although Rodriguez may have originally intended Kabul Beauty School to draw attention to the horrible circumstances of women in Afghanistan and their struggles to overcome them, she also serves, whether consciously or unconsciously, to echo a serious problem facing women in the United States—the very women who were supposed to show Afghanistan a better way of life. Kabul Beauty School shows us that women everywhere need to work together to redefine the expectations of gender if we are all ever to truly be liberated. The issues facing the women in Afghanistan are global are global ones and show us that we need to work more for global solutions.
Blog 11
For my NGO, I chose a group called RHIYA in Bangladesh, which stands for EU/UNFPA Reproductive Health Initiative for Youth in Asia. This group basically works to bring sex education and gender sensitivity education to people age 10-24 in countries where traditional values may prevent this important information from being given to young people.
This group’s work is a gender issue because older members of many Bangladesh communities tend to view young people who are knowledgeable about sexual issues as immoral, especially if those young people are women. In Bangladesh, women are at a greater risk of reproductive and sexual health problems and are generally less likely to receive education about these issues. This group will help put an end to that.
Since the group’s founding in Bangladesh, contraceptive use has increased from 60-78% and young people’s knowledge of STDs has increased from 1.5-20.6%. It’s important that RHIYA has the funding and support to bring education to women in these areas would otherwise be at a higher risk for unwanted pregnancy, STDs, and HIV/AIDS.
This group is relatively unknown in the United States, so reviews are few and far between, but in countries where RHIYA operates, like Bangladesh, the response has been mostly positive. Their website is http://www.asia-initiative.org/bangladesh.php?area=2&page=1&option=1
Blog 10
I think men put on the “tough guise” because they think it gives them power and respect, especially with women. In movies, books, and television, women are portrayed as always falling for the strong, independent man (like Clint Eastwood), instead of a man who freely expresses vulnerability and emotion.
Men of color in particular, like the video said, use this guise because they feel like they have no other way to gain respect in our culture. They don’t have access to education, high-paying jobs, and political influence like white men do and so they resort to the tough guy image.
I think, honestly, that this image makes things worse for men of color. The tough guy persona carries with it a stereotype of danger and unpredictability (you never know if Clint Eastwood or, say, the Godfather, is going to kill you or save you). I think this makes it even more difficult for “tough” men of color to get jobs from white employers. It’s not fair and it’s not right, but white employers might assume that the “tough” colored man will be less reliable than another employer. They might assume he will start fights and just generally be less effective in the work force. They’ll probably never look past his front of dangerous behavior to who he is as a person.
And yet, as harmful as the media’s portrayal of colored men is to them, it hasn’t stopped. I would even suggest that it’s used by white culture as a way to separate and control men of color or to justify giving them unequal treatment. And men feed this discrimination by playing up to the image of the “tough guy” as the best form of masculinity, instead of presenting themselves to the world as the sensitive, emotionally well-rounded people they really are.
Blog 9
From what I could find on the internet, the responses to Belkin’s essay are varied, but fall into three main categories—those that agree with her, those that don’t believe her, and those that actively disagree with her.
Many people agree with her, that it’s fine for women to opt out of the workforce (or partly out of the workforce) in order to create more satisfying lives with their families.
But not everyone believes that this is even happening. Columbia Journalism Review argues that women’s participation in the workforce has steadily increased over the years and that this shows that women are even more influential than they have ever been. http://www.cjr.org/essay/the_optout_myth.php
Mother’s Movement Online agrees that the trend exists, but argues that this trend is a negative one, not a positive change for women. They argue that women who become housewives lose their financial security and run the risk of their supporting marriage not working and leaving them out on the street. http://www.mothersmovement.org/essays/KAGranju0401.htm
But I don’t see sacrificing some money and power in order to be with your family as a bad thing. My mother gave up a job as a career counselor for a powerful business in order to go back to college and get her teacher’s certification and become a high school teacher. I’ve asked her why before, and she told me she realized that my sister and I were growing up without her and she hated it. She and my father both teach high school and were both very present all throughout my childhood.
I don’t think my mother regrets leaving her higher paying job. I don’t think I’ll even have one. I want to be a writer and, if I ever have children, I’ll want to spend a lot of time with them, even if my career suffers a little because of it.
As far as childcare for my children, I think my parents will move closer to wherever I end up so that they can be closer to my kids. That’s what my grandparents did when my sister and I were born, and they took care of me after school and on days when my parents couldn’t be there. That would be my ideal situation, hopefully with my partner taking time off with me.
Blog 8
When I started planning my life on minimum wage for myself and three other people, I realized that it’s practically impossible. An apartment for four people (with utilities) would be at least four hundred dollars and child care another couple of hundred alone. That’s at least half of my minimum wage budget.
The only food I could afford was things like ramen, soup, and macaroni and cheese. I could barely afford any meat or dairy at all and had a hard time fitting in fruits and vegetables. I would hate to have to raise children on such a diet. They would be malnourished and miserable eating the food I could afford. At the very least, they would be constantly protein deficient, which is very dangerous for growing kids.
I don’t think it’s possible to live on such meager funds. Maybe I could do it by myself (I’m a college kid, after all), but children need much more than noodles and diapers. They need clothes, vacations, toys, etc. Children need pets and to not have to worry about getting kicked out of their home.
Not to mention how completely helpless I would be if anyone in my family needed medical care. I remember a few weeks ago, I was having problems with my insurance company and I ended up paying for some of my pills on my own. Thirty days of medication cost me nearly two hundred dollars. There is no way I could afford medical care or insurance on my minimum budget. I don’t know what I would do except take out a loan, but who is going to loan money to someone who can’t pay it back?
I thought I would be able to complete my budget because I’m fairly frugal and a college student from a lower middle-class family, but there just wasn’t enough money in a month for it to work. I don’t know how people live on minimum wage. I couldn’t do it.
Blog 7
Like McIntosh described in her article, I’ve never really thought of myself as “white” and so I’ve never really noticed that I take advantage of my race in everyday situations.
One of the ones that struck me the most was buying makeup in my color. I’m a ginger, so I have extremely pale skin, so I should have a more difficult a time finding makeup in my shade than should a woman of color. But I don’t. No matter where I go to buy makeup, they always have the “ivory” that is my shade. Always. I think that’s unfair. I’m an extreme color, but because I’m white, I can find makeup whereas a black women might not be able to.
I have felt disadvantaged because I am a woman, though not really in the English department (it’s a pretty gender-neutral department). But when I was in high school, I was an active member of the theatre department and those of us who could drive would take turns running to the local hardware stores to buy paint, nails, lumber, etc.
It’s very difficult to get sales associates to take you seriously when you are a woman alone in a hardware store. They just don’t believe you know what you’re doing and they tend to follow you around to make sure you don’t break anything or burst into tears or whatever they think you’re going to do. I’ve never been able to figure it out. Having people treat me as incompetent makes me feel incompetent. It’s a strange sensation and I really hated it.
I’m also lower middle class and so, while I generally feel pretty average class-wise, there are certain situations where I am made uncomfortably aware of my financial state. Sometimes, when I go into particularly nice stores, the sales associates and other customers look at me with something like disgust for my non-designer clothing and I guess poorer appearance. They don’t follow me around, but they do keep an eye on me, which is extremely insulting.
As far as being young goes, sometimes I feel like I’m not being crazy or reckless enough. There’s this stereotype that young people don’t take anything seriously and are just out to have a good time, but I’ve never been much of a partier or a go-with-the-flow kind of person. That can be frustrating.
But, all in all, I guess I’m at a much higher advantage to a young woman of color in my same situation. I just don’t have to fight as hard for respect and opportunities. Hopefully, that won’t last and in the future, people will be judged on what they can achieve, not based on their stereotypes.
Blog 6
I have hated a lot of commercials over the years, but right now the one that irritates me the most is the Danica Patrick Go Daddy commercial that seems to pop up on television about every 2.3 seconds.
The short version is horrible, but Go Daddy promises a longer one on their website. I found it and, surprisingly, I like it a lot better:
Although I was tempted to dismiss this commercial as stereotypical and sexist because the police woman rolls around on a car like a sexually frustrated cat, the portrayal of Danica Patrick tells us a very different story.
The story starts out just like many other commercials geared toward men—a beautiful blonde woman goes from serious to sexually promiscuous after meeting someone she really likes. Just like the police woman in this commercial, the powerful woman immediately starts fawning over the object of her affection. She loses whatever power she has and becomes weak, needy, and eager to please.
The Go Daddy commercial plays with this stereotype by having the police woman perform her gender to a woman, not a man. And not just a woman, but a clearly heterosexual woman, who shows no interest and is, in fact, a little horrified to be in this situation.
For example, juxtaposed with the police woman's pretty ridiculous display of stripping off her clothes and dancing on top of a red convertible are Patrick's embarrassed expression and comments of "You wanna not scratch the car?" and "Did that make your neck hurt?"
Both Patrick and the unnamed police woman are very physically attractive women; the difference is is that Patrick in this commercial advertises GoDaddy.com without demeaning herself with sexual displays. By having her the calm, rational-seeming one (because what woman is really going to randomly strip and start pole-dancing in public?), Go Daddy actually supports the view of gender that women have value in things other than in their appearance. Danica Patrick is introduced by her achievements as a race car driver, and this makes the full Go Daddy commercial more feminist-friendly than I originally expected.
I just wish they would show the full version on t.v.
Blog 5
I hated What Women Want for how heavily it used the gender stereotype that a woman—no matter how powerful, how strong, how competent she is—always needs a man in her life in order to be happy. I especially hated the Darcy character, even though I desperately wanted to like her.
Even though she started out as a wildly successful and authoritative woman, her character revolved around the men in her life, her first husband and then Nick, and she eventually dissolves into a puddle of needy mush when Nick shows her a little attention. Is that really what the producers wanted women to take from that movie? That “what women want” is male attention? That that’s all we think about?
I have so much problem with this message because I’ve struggled with that stereotype since middle school, when I realized that I would never get a date as long as I was the independent “smart girl.” I angsted for years because the people around me made me feel like I wasn’t a “real woman” if I didn’t have a man in my life. To show this, I picked Missy Higgins’ “Where I stood.”
My favorite line is
I don’t know who I am,
Who I am without you.
All I know is that I should.
For years, I felt like this androgynous half-woman because I more far more interested in school than boys. I think a lot of girls feel this way and it’s not fair.
Now that I’m in college, I’ve lost most of the feeling that I have to be one way or another, mostly because most of my friends (both female and male) went through a similar experience. We were the “geeky kids”—girls who weren’t “feminine” enough and guys who hated sports and “man things” with a passion. So I picked the songs “Grace Kelly” by Mika and “Scar” by Missy Higgins (again).
“Grace Kelly” is a ridiculous song about a man offering to change everything about himself in order to please the woman he’s in love with. The song is so over the top it shows how pointless it is to change yourself to fit into another person’s expectations.
Why don’t you like me?
Why don’t you like me without making me try?
“Scar” is more aggressive and is Missy Higgins telling off people who tried to force her to act/look/whatever a certain way. I agree with this song completely. Like many people, I’ve had these experiences with people trying to fit me into a certain gender role.
A triangle trying to squeeze through a circle
He tried to cut me so I'd fit
And doesn't that sound familiar?
Doesn't that hit too close to home?
Doesn't that make you shiver; the way things could've gone?
And doesn't it feel peculiar that everyone wants a little more.
So that I do remember to never go that far,
Could you leave me with a scar?
So now gender to me is really whatever I feel like being at the moment. I can squeal at Disney movies one day and build a bookshelf the next and not feel like I’ve failed as a woman. And my guy friends can alternate between watching football and baking cakes without me thinking less of them. To this end, my current gender song is “Androgyny” by Garbage, where I think the best lines are
Boys.. Behind closed doors and under stars
Girls.. It doesn't matter where you are
Boys.. Collecting jewels that catch your eye
Girls.. Don't let a soulmate pass you by
because they’re basically everyone’s okay, no matter where they fall on the masculine/feminine scale. Your gender characteristics don’t make you a better or worse person.
To come back to that horrible movie, the only thing this woman wants is a better, less stereotypical movie.
Short Paper 1
And the Girls Will Color
When I was in the third grade I learned that boys and girls weren’t treated the same way. I was eight years old, caught somewhere in between wanting to be Bill Nye the Science Guy and a teacher just like my mother, and before one pretty depressing day at school, I honestly had no idea that sexism, misogyny, or chauvinism even existed.
I guess you could say I have feminist parents, although they would never admit it. Nevertheless, I was raised to believe I could do anything I wanted. My gender was never an issue, especially with my father, who lovingly nicknamed me “space cadet.” He still uses it on occasion to this day.
But when I was in the third grade, all that innocence came to a crashing halt, although I didn’t know it immediately. I had recently been enrolled in a class for gifted students that met once a week with a teacher named Ms. Murray. I loved her on sight; She was interesting, she was funny, and she gave me something to look forward to outside the monotony of my regular classes, which probably appreciated my absence (gifted children are very annoying at the best of times). She also was a sexist.
That’s hard for me to admit, that a woman I admired so much blatantly discriminated against women, but she did. Only in the last few years have I been able to realize how serious it was and how very much it bothered me. One day, a few weeks into the program, Ms. Murray gathered all of us together and told us what we would be doing for the rest of the year. Along with various activities, field trips, and puzzles, she told about her plan for our end of the year project. She said, “My boys are going to build bridges and the girls are going to color.”
I frowned. I knew at once that something was wrong with this statement, but I didn’t know what. I loved to color (what little kid doesn’t?), but I also deeply loved jigsaw puzzles and building bridges seemed right up my alley. Why couldn’t I do both?
I left school bothered that day and, since my father picked me up that day, he asked me what wrong as soon as I got in the car. I told him the story and his reaction was instantaneous—he stiffened, face darkening, and turned to me slowly, “She said what?”
“That the boys were going to build bridges and the girls were going to color.”
He took a deep breath, “I need to talk to your mother. We’re going to have to talk to someone about this.”
“Dad? Why?”
“Because that’s sexist.”
And I asked. Of course I did. I always have to know; it’s part of my personality, “What’s sexist?”
He wouldn’t tell me without my mother there and I spent the rest of the car ride thinking that my teacher had done something truly awful. I know now that it’s true. She did. When we got home my parents sat me down on the couch and told me very plainly, “Sweetie, do you know what racism is? Being mean to someone because of the color of their skin?”
I frowned, “Yes.”
“And you know it’s wrong?”
“Yes.”
“Sexism is like racism, only it’s being mean to someone because of whether they are a man or a woman.”
And that’s all they said. I went about my day and my parents had that conference with Ms. Murray. I still don’t know what they said, but I built my bridge that year. It was a good one.
That experience, my first to realize that I was expected to other people’s ideas of gender and femininity, really changed my life. Because of my parents’ reaction, I learned that although I’m going to have to face such stereotypes my entire life, I don’t have to tolerate them. They’re ridiculous, they’re wrong, they can be changed. This belief has served me well so far—it’s the reason I’m in college, it’s the reason I’m in this class, it’s the reason I’m a feminist. If I want something, I have to fight for it, plain and simple, and not accept it when anyone tells me I can’t because I’m a woman.
Blog 4
After looking through the women's studies course offerings, I'm especially interested in three classes--women in Ancient Greece, contemporary feminist thought, and American women's writing.
I really want to take women in Ancient Greece because I'm a Latin minor and I love hearing stories from Greece/Rome. But most historians (especially ancient historians) almost completely leave out women in their documents. To have a class that specifically focuses on what little evidence there is of women's achievements sounds right up my alley.
I also am a writing major with a deep desire to create strong female characters (because there aren't very many). To that end, I want to take contemporary feminist thought and American women's writing. I want to know the current ideas of feminists so that I can sneak them into my writing. Or blatantly put them into my writing, if I can get away with it.
I know this sounds like a weird, undefined goal, but I want to become an activist. And a writer. But mostly an activist. I feel so passionately about my beliefs that I want to channel them into something productive. That, and my friends have told me that I need to stop ranting at them. If I could somehow channel my writing into gender equality, that would be the best of both worlds.
Blog 3
What surprised me the most about the movie was how very long it actually took women to get the vote. I knew in theory that women got the vote in 1920, but watching the women in the film suffer day in and day out for something they believed in was heartbreaking. I literally cried when they were dragged to prison.
However, I was disappointed to see how much racial tensions played a part in the movie. Just the thought that suffragists would exclude any women from participating, much less women of color, was ridiculous. I understood Alice Paul perspective--that she couldn't get support from some of the women's groups--but the whole idea of being prejudiced while trying to get rid of prejudice really struck me as stupid and pointless.
But, all in all, the film made me prouder to be a woman and more appreciative of the rights I have. After watching it, I want to become more politically active.
As for the readings, I'm not sure that I agree with the author of FIFE that the feminist movement has lagged because of women's studies being taught in universities, although I agree that it makes the message of feminism seem more geared toward people with higher education. I think the more people who know about feminism, the better and a university is an excellent place to filter large numbers of men and women through a w s class. I'm not sure why we don't have a strong feminist movement today, but it's not colleges' fault.
Extra Credit
Last Wednesday I attended a lecture the Sexperts gave in the Union. It was...kind of awesome. Normally, I'm very uncomfortable talking about things like that--STDs, types of birth control, safe sex, etc--but they made it really relaxing and fun.
Favorite part? I now know there is such a thing as a banana-flavored condom. (I still don't know WHY, but they do exist.)
But, in all seriousness, it was nice to have someone talk about sex education without resorting to "sex is bad, abstinence is good" nonsense that my school gave me. It reminded me of what the readings said, that the majority of high schools only talk about abstinence. Apparently mine, a teeny high school in north Texas, was one of those.
Other than the condoms, they told us where the Women's Outreach Center was (across from Meachum in the Union) and that Goddard now offers the Guardasil shots. I'm very happy I went, even if they had a vagina named Audrey, which was awkward. Adorable, but awkward.
Blog 2
The F Word mentioned how women in the past were often pressured to marry and have children instead of pursuing careers, so to further investigate this in my own life, I interviewed my grandmother about her experiences living as a woman in America. My grandmother, Sue Siebman, is fundamentalist Church of Christ and is a woman who would never identify herself as a feminist, even though she's been very successful throughout her life. (Actually, she's a little horrified that I'm taking this class, although she's one of the staunchest supporters of my college education.)
Here's what she had to say during her interview:
1. What was it like growing up and living as a woman in America?
I married and had kids in my early twenties. Unlike most of my peers, I began working when my kids were quite. I began working in college bookstore management, which was considered a man's field.
My grandmother has always been a hard-worker, and so, after a number of years, she was able to earn the position of managing several campus stores in Dallas, Texas.
She also doesn't believe that being a woman has ever held her back in life. When I asked why, she told me, My gender didn't hold me back as much as not having a college degree. I believe I would have risen higher faster if I had had a degree. But I never felt that I was held back because I was a woman.
She's probably right about the degree. According to The F Word, people with a college degree earn substantially more than people who do not (p. 109). And yet, I believe that her gender was one of the deciding factors in her decision not to go to college, despite being an incredibly intelligent person. Like many women of her generation, she chose marriage and children over college, a decision she still somewhat regrets.
2. What exactly does feminism mean to you?
Feminism has changed since the early days. The women (and men) who fought to get women the vote and equal rights are to be applauded. That is the spirit of feminism at its best. I believe in equality of the sexes, but I also believe there are inherent differences in them. I love my daughter. And I love my son. I love my granddaughters and grandson. I want each and every one of them to live a full and prosperous life and achieve their hearts' desires.
But, of all the things she told me, the most interesting was when I asked her
3. Can you describe on experience in your life that made you conscious of gender?
I remember when my son was really little and I went to the women's room in Carlsbad Caverns. He was only two, so I took him with me. While I was in a stall he occupied his time looking under the stalls at all the other ladies. THAT was funny, but later on, when boys get older, a woman must decide what to do with her son when she has to go to the bathroom. Nowadays, there are "family rooms" but back them, we had to either leave them outside the door and hope for the best or just go home. It was a very difficult position to be in. It was a fairly common dilemma. Hopefully, it's fixed now with "family rooms."
Her answer really struck a cord with me because it highlights the difficulties gender barriers place on mothers. She struggled to care for her son in public because he was male and she was female. Although it’s not as serious an experience as many of the ones in our readings, she felt embarrassed and frustrated that she was not her son’s father.
Blog 1
Um, okay, I'm Becca. I'm a sophomore from Sherman, Texas. I'm taking women's studies this semester because, while I guess I've always been feminist in my ideals, I only realized how passionately I felt about gender issues after I took a class last year about myths, of all things. Promoting gender equality is something I care very passionately about.
I think the turning point for me--the reason I'm in this class--was watching the movie "Killing Us Softly," a documentary about the role of women in advertising. It shocked and horrified me how much (and how subtly) women are still being objectified in the media
I want to help change that. I to be a writer--I'm an English major. My main goal is to write stories with strong, female protagonists, something I think is missing in modern literature. Especially in my favorite genre, scifi/fantasy. Where are all the cool women? Why are they all so helpless?
So, with that said, here are a few questions I have coming into this class:
1. When I call myself "feminist," what exactly do I mean?
2. Why is there no active third wave of feminism?
3. Do people avoid the word "feminist" because it's too gender exclusive?
4. If so, do we need a new word that includes both men and women, like "equalist" or something?
5. Who are the major feminist writers and where/what are they writing?