Women's Studies Class: April 2015

Savanna Wingard

Money and Ucker

WMS 2000-92

17 April 2015

For this blog, find your own articles/videos/etc. using social media/the internet that discuss topics from Chapter 10 and/or Chapter 11. Bring in articles from those chapters to help support points you are discussing in the articles you found yourself. You must discuss at least three main points (that relate to the class) from the article/video/other media that you found.

A week or so ago, I came across a video shared by one of my friends on her Facebook news feed. It’s by feminist YouTuber and actress Anna Akana. The main video that I would like to talk about is called, “How to Not Get Raped.” This is one of her satirical videos in which she starts off by giving you over the top examples of how to not get raped. At the beginning of the video, she sarcastically says that she is making the video to “help women everywhere not get raped; because it’s totally our responsibility.” She says this to draw focus to the fact that society often puts the blame on the victim, which has been discussed in weekly journals and blogs, and in videos and the textbook. There is a scenario in which she shoots a guy, but please remember that this video is satirical in nature and is not in any way saying that you should shoot someone that knocks on your door. This reinforces an idea stated throughout various parts of this class: that society expects women to do all these over-the-top things so they so not get raped. After the scenarios that Anna presents, she discusses her point for making the video; which is how absolutely stupid it is that women have to be paranoid about getting raped. As she states in the video, women are conditioned throughout their whole lives by their families and by society to not get raped. Like Anna, I was put into martial arts classes when I was young to learn self-defense; and my grandmother still gives me knives and pepper spray and most recently, a stun gun. When I was a kid, my grandmother would tell me stories of how kids are kidnapped all of the time, and how to not get kidnapped and sold into sex slavery. I am still paranoid to this day, even though I am not as paranoid as I once was. To give you an idea of how paranoid I was, my younger brother and I used to run and hide from the ice cream truck and any other car that came down the street (my grandma told my brother similar things that she told me, but not to the extent). There is also a part at the end, where Anna briefly mentions victim shaming. Society tends to blame the victim for his or her own rape; whether it was the clothes they were wearing, because they were on a date, or simply because “they were asking for it.” No one asks to get raped…

Anna Akana’s video reminds me of a couple of things from Chapter 10. The first thing is the story at the beginning of the chapter when the business woman went on a date with a man who got very pushy and beat her after she left the restaurant. In the video, Anna briefly mentions that some men feel entitled to sex because they were on a date. Fortunately, in this story, the woman did not get raped; but the man felt that he was entitled to her and expected her to be submissive. When she wasn’t, he found her information and beat her. The second is the billboard sign near the story that says, “How do you stop a 30 year-old from beating his wife? Talk to him when he’s 12.” The billboard and Anna Akana have a point. Instead of telling women how to not get raped, society should be telling boys and girls that rape isn’t even an option.

Akana, Anna. "How to Not Get Raped." YouTube. 6 April 2015. Web. 17 April 2015.

Savanna Wingard

Money and Ucker

WMS 2000-92

2 April 2015

Racism and racial injustice continues to be a huge problem in today’s society. Whether you are Caucasian, African-American, Latino, or Asian, racial injustice is applied to everyone, not just one specific race. I like how Anup Shah defined racism in his article on racism in Global Issues. He says that, “Racism is the belief that characteristics and abilities can be attributed to people simply on the basis of their race and that some racial groups are superior to others.” I like this because dictionaries that I have looked up “racism” in define it as, “a belief or doctrine that one's own race is superior and has the right to dominate others or that a particular racial group is inferior to the others;” and while that may be true to a point, racism is more than one race believing that it is above another race. A large portion of it is the stereotypes that certain races automatically have certain qualities; such as that “African-Americans love fried chicken,” or that “Asians are bad drivers,” or that “Caucasians can’t dance, or have no rhythm.” The simple stereotypes such those are small parts that, when combined with the right things, can lead to what I am going to call, “superiority racism.” Examples of superiority racism can be seen throughout the world and throughout history, and include the colonization of modern day North America, Native American genocide, slavery, and the Holocaust. Many things that people associate with race stem from the European era of exploration and colonization. Back then, socio-economic status was based upon wealth and religion. When the Europeans first colonized North America, their laborers were European indentured servants. Indentured servants were lower-class people, who had agreed to work for a number of years set upon by their employers in exchange for passage to the New World. After the slave trade grew and developed, the employers opted for slaves that they could keep to work for as long as they pleased over indentured servants, who would eventually pay off their debt. This is mainly how skin color came to be the main factor in a person’s socio-economic status. In “There Is No Hierarchy for Oppression,” Audre Lorde states that, “wherever oppression manifests itself in this country, Black people are potential victims.” African-Americans are not the only targets. Depending on the situation, the targets could be those of Asian, Caucasian, Middle-Eastern, or Native American backgrounds. She also mentions that the Ku Klux Klan goes to court to force the board of education in Detroit to remove books that they think “hints at homosexuality.” While the Klan is full of white-supremacist, homophobic members, at this point, barely anyone takes them seriously. However, in today’s society, we do deal with injustice in gender and sexual preference. As the child of a lesbian mother, I know this all too well. The city in which I live is mostly populated by conservatives. When we first moved here, our neighbors had a hard time accepting what my mother and her partner were, and would go so far as to not let their children go to our house. Eventually, they have accepted it, although they still may not like my mother or her partner, they are at least polite to them now. I think that this is partly due to the fact that my parents are the nicest women ever, and the fact that being gay is becoming more prominent and socially acceptable as the number of people fighting for the equality of all rises. We have made a lot of progress in ending social and racial injustice, but I believe we still have a way to go. I believe that trying to end systems of social injustice and racism is a crucial part in making the world a better, and more peaceful place for everyone. If you want to get involved, I links to websites and their contact information are listed below.

Also, enjoy this video. I absolutely love history and loved being reminded about how the color of our skin became relevant through the years: