Final Thoughts

This is the final post on this blog…for this school semester at least. I am glad I chose to pursue a blog to help me explore my feminism and how it fits into my life. Through my posts and my interests in specific topics, I have learned quite a bit about myself and where my feminism lies—my feminism is rooted in the protection of women and children from violence. My feminism is rooted in compassion for others, and learning from others’ experiences. As my manifesto points out, my feminism is guided by my beliefs as well as the need to support and care for others. I believe that this blog will have a future, much like my evolving feminism.  

The way I look at this blog is much the same as how Nona Willis Aronowitz and Emma Bee Bernstein looked at their book Girldrive. After reading this book and understanding that feminism comes in many different forms, I wanted to explore what feminism meant to me. I have always had my doubts about feminism, I always thought so negatively about the term, but as my studies progressed I learned that I was associating feminism to the backlash it has faced. Through working on this blog for the past few months, and wrapping up my final semester in university I have been able to dissect feminism and how it fits into my life.

This blog had a few purposes set from the beginning which included, but were not limited to:

• Developing my skills in personal expression and keeping it open to others
• Developing my knowledge of feminism and knowing myself and feminism
• To understand the meaning of blogging
  
  

I believe that I have achieved what I set out to do. Through blogging I have become more aware of how I express myself and my beliefs, and I have learned to keep these expressions open for discussion. I have developed a sense of my feminism and of feminism in general. What I have learned is that everyone’s definition, acceptance, and displays of feminism vary greatly. The motto of the third wave of feminism is “my feminism is my own” and this is what has helped shape my feminism. So, from this I have learned that I can fit my feminism into the third wave, but the roots of all our feminisms come from older generations of feminism, so we cannot discredit them.

The process of blogging was a great experience for me because this was something completely new to me, and out of my comfort zone. I have never been so open with the topic of feminism, besides with academic papers where only professors could have access to it and not my peers or family. This was the greatest challenge for me, because I have not always been comfortable with the term “feminism”, every time someone associated me and my major in women’s studies with feminism, I would immediately get offended. I cannot pinpoint the exact reasons why I was offended, but I think one of the main reasons was because I thought feminism was reserved for women who felt oppressed, women who hated men, women who just wanted to complain about anything and everything. As my studies in feminism progressed, so did my acceptance of feminism. Through blogging I have also learned to be open about my feminism with those around me, I have encouraged family and friends to take a look at the blog and discuss with me what they thought. This felt like a freeing experience, I am glad I was able to do that.

One of my learning objectives for my semester project is to understand the meaning of blogging, so I have conducted a very mini-research on blogging and blog etiquettes. I had a few concerns with blogging which were related to blogging etiquette.  I thought it was important for me to know blogging etiquette because my posts are public for all to see, and I do not want to offend anyone in any way.

The first place I decided to look for information on blogging is from the host website for my blog. From here I have found some great information ranging from getting a blog started, to what posts can be, and how to maintain a blog.  Here is an excerpt from blogger:

“A blog is a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox.
 A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to
the world. Your blog is whatever you want it to be.”

I think I could classify my blog as a personal diary, but in a more open and public sense. I could also classify it as a political soapbox, since it is about finding my feminism, and feminism could be considered a political standpoint. I could also classify my blog as memos to the world; I have left the blog open to the public simply because I want to know what others are thinking, beyond my academic peers, family and friends. One of the biggest fears I had going into this blog project was lack of comments/communication from the blog readers—and finding blog readers! I found ways to advertise the blog, but this did not always result in comments from visitors, which is okay.

With regards to publishing posts, I found this description on blogger: “A blog gives you your own voice on the web. It is a place to collect and share things that you find interesting.” I liked this description because I thought it fit nicely with the topic of finding my feminist voice. Having blogger as an option to express my feminist voice is definitely something I am glad I have the option to use.

There were no blog etiquette posts on blogger so I had to perform a Google search and I found five etiquette facts on www.ehow.com. These were: don’t copy content without permission; check your facts; be polite; respond to comments; and make your blog easy to read. I checked a few other websites, but there was not much with regards to how often to post or how fast you should reply, it is simply something you must gauge on your own. 

Resources

Blogger: http://blogger.com/tour_start.g
e-How: http://www.ehow.com/how_2136641_practice-good-blog-etiquette.html

©2011, Zain Alglaieny

 

Feminist Fact - Third Wave Inspiration

For the past four years I have been a majoring in women’s studies, and in all four years of discussing feminism and feminists I was never introduced to someone I could relate my experiences to on a cultural level. Sure we speak about Latino feminism, Black feminism, and the majority of the time White Western feminism – but never Arab feminism. Up until my final year, in a course about third wave feminism I was finally introduced to an Arab feminist, Susan Muaddi Darraj. Darraj is an associate professor of English at Hartford Community College in Bel Air, Maryland, a published author and the managing editor of the Baltimore Review¹. Even though it was just one article in one class, it still meant something to me that finally my major in university represented me.

The article we read was called “It’s Not an Oxymoron: The Search for Arab Feminism”² and in this article Darraj speaks of her struggles in feminism, the struggle between white Western feminism and her Arabic culture. Darraj sums up my thoughts on my feminist studies over the last four years by stating that “these were not representative feminists” (pg. 296). We are endlessly taught about many well-known Western feminists, and although they do speak on some level to a shared struggle based on the fact that we are all women, these women do not share the same culture struggles.

I look to Darraj as inspirational because I finally found a feminist who I can connect to, who understands my struggles and puts them out there for others to be witness to. I also look to Darraj as inspirational because through her work she is aiming to diminish the pre-conceived notions western society has of Arabic women by educating the truth. 

Through reading Darraj’s article I was introduced to another Arab feminist, Nawal El Saadawi and an organization she helped build: the Arab Women’s Solidarity Association. This network was “established by a group of 120 women who agreed that the struggle for the liberation of Arab people and freedom from economic, cultural and media domination cannot be separated from the liberation of Arab women.”³ These women stand as an inspiration to me because we often have a false image of what Arab women’s lives are like, silent and obedient – never challenging what needs to be changed. 

Finally, I wanted to share this point from Darraj: “once I realized my own version of feminism, I found myself better able to understand white Western feminism and the many outer storms and internal divisions it has had to weather” (pg.311). I am thankful that I had the opportunity to learn about feminism, even if it was not a feminism I could not connect to right away. As I continue to learn and grow, my feminism will evolve with me and its roots are planted in the early stages of my feminist education.

Resources:

¹ http://www.susanmuaddidarraj.com/biography.htm

² Darraj, S.M. (2002) “It’s Not An Oxymoron: The Search for an Arab Feminism” in Colonize
  This! Young Women of Colour on Today’s Feminism. Emeryville, CA: Seal, pp.279-292.

³ http://www.awsa.net/profile/index.html

 
  ©2011, Zain Alglaieny

Tupac Amaru Shakur & My Feminism

Many who think of feminism would not look to the late rapper Tupac Amaru Shakur as inspirational, I however do. Tupac was a rapper in the early 1990s up until his tragic death in 1996. Although many of his lyrics came across as violent or misogynistic he had a softer side to him, one which valued women. Rap culture has a negative image placed upon it, that it is as far from feminism as possible, but Tupac found ways to break from those negative images. 

One song in particular which comes across with a feminist anthem is his 1993 hit Keep Ya Head Up. This song talks about the struggles of both young men and women, but the message is clear: have respect for women. For an artist just breaking into the rap scene, trying to make a name for himself, a song such as this one shows his desire to uplift all. You can listen to the song here, but this is a few verses from the song: 

“And since we all came from a woman
Got our name from a woman and our game from a woman
I wonder why we take from our women
Why we rape our women, do we hate our women?
I think it's time to kill for our women
Time to heal our women, be real to our women
And if we don't we'll have a race of babies
That will hate the ladies, that make the babies
And since a man can't make one
He has no right to tell a woman when and where to create one
So will the real men get up
I know you're fed up ladies, but keep your head up”

As you can see, lyrics such as these are usually unheard of in rap songs; it is more common to hear the exact opposite. I am not going to say that Tupac was the perfect rapper who always respected women, because that wasn’t always the case. However, Tupac found a way to speak to young men, to encourage them to treat females better.  This song has always been an inspirational song for me because it discusses a need to end violence against women in a way that I have yet to hear another rap star express it. 

He also found a way to connect to women and their struggles. An example of Tupac’s connection to women’s struggles is evident in his song Brenda’s Got a Baby (Click here to listen). This song comes off of his debut 1991 album and discusses a young female who is faced with a wide range of issues such as: family violence, rape, teen pregnancy, drugs, prostitution and more. What he is doing with this song is educating his community that no matter what hardships you are faced with, this should not limit you. Although Tupac himself may have never identified as a feminist, it is clear through his music that he does have feminist motivations. 

Apart from uplifting women, Tupac found ways to speak to his followers, to let them know that they can prosper in life. Another piece of Tupac’s work which I hold close is his poem The Rose That Grew From Concrete. This poem is a powerful piece of encouragement for all. It has a feminist anthem to it in the sense that it is advocating triumph over hardships.

"Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete? Proving nature's law is wrong it learned to walk with out having feet. Funny it seems, but by keeping its dreams,
it learned to breathe fresh air. Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else ever cared."

I link Tupac to my feminism because his words are encouraging, they help me go on when I feel like giving up on causes I believe in. I also applaud him for aiming to change the world through a wide variety of his songs, unlike other artists of his time. I also link Tupac to my feminism because of his relationship with his mother. Tupac credits his mother as his source for his compassion to women, and to struggles in general. Afeni Shakur (his mother) was a Black Panther, so as he was growing up he watched and learned from her. I look up to my mother, and I learn everything from her as well. Although in the end the world tragically lost Tupac, we still have many generations listening to his words, and if that creates a change on some level, then that is amazing. 

"I like to think I am socially aware. I think there should be drug class, a sex education class. A real sex education class. A class about police brutality. There should be a class on apartheid. There should be a class on why people are hungry, but there are not. There are classes on...gym. Physical education. Let's learn volleyball." --Tupac Shakur

This quote gets to me every time. All throughout high school I always thought to myself how pointless certain classes were, I learned many things not from school, but from personal experience and my connections to certain types of media. 


"So I thought, that's what I'm going to do as an artist, as a rapper. I'm gonna show the most graphic details of what I see in my community and hopefully they'll stop it quick." --Tupac Shakur



Resources:
Tupac Resurrection, 2003 film. 

©2011, Zain Alglaieny

Girl vs. Woman

While working on an assignment this semester for my third wave feminism class I found myself immersed in this issue of girl vs. woman. Jennifer Baumgardener and Amy Richards published an article entitled "Feminism and Femininity: Or How We Learned to Stop Worrying About the Thong" and in this article they discuss the idea of femininity within feminism. The bulk of their argument is that feminism should accept femininity, which is acceptable there is nothing wrong with that. However, what is wrong is the fact that they are calling this a "girlie" feminism. 

I have always had a strong issue against calling grown women, over the age of twenty “girls” rather than calling them women. I believe that when you call a woman a girl, you are diminishing her worth, you are eliminating her power. If we look at music, from any genre, we have grown men lusting after grown women, but they choose to call them “girl” or “baby”, why is that? Would a grown woman lusting after a man resort to calling him “boy”? I don’t think so; if she did she would be diminishing his power as a man.  Also, when we want to describe a strong man we use terms such as “macho-man” not “macho-boy” because man is more powerful than boy. 

My personal stand on this topic is this: are all females to remain girls for the remainder of their lives, or do we not grow and become women? I see the use of “girl” as a form of violence, it diminishes a woman, and it infantilizes her and creates an image of woman as the weaker sex. I refuse to identify myself as girl, I am twenty-one year old woman, and I am no longer the girl from my childhood days. What is so wrong with identifying with the term woman? Absolutely nothing, the term woman to me emits power, and the term girlie feeds into men’s fantasies, why should we feed them what they want?

Resources:

Baumgardener, J. & Richards, A. (2004) “Feminism and Femininity: Or How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Thong” in All About the Girl: Culture, Power, and Identity, (Eds.) Anita Harris & Michelle Fine. Routledge, pp.59-67. 

©2011, Zain Alglaieny

Feminist Fact - Second Wave Activism

As a women’s studies major I have always been introduced to the works of Gloria Steinem, and her work is very interesting. Gloria Steinem is a feminist activist who focuses her activism in many areas of the social justice spectrum. She is also an author with many published works. One of my favorite pieces by her is an article from the October 1978 issue of Ms. Magazine: If Men Could Menstruate. This was a short piece about what the world would be like if males menstruated instead of females, it pokes fun at men and patriarchal ideals in society.

Gloria Steinem is one of the co-founders of Ms. Magazine, a prominent feminist magazine which had its beginnings in the early 1970s. I have yet to purchase a hard copy of this magazine, but I do frequently visit the Ms. Magazine blog website for my daily feminist news stories. As a previous blog post of mine mentions, I am not a fan of popular magazines, but Ms. Magazine is an exception to this. Ms. presents the type of magazine I wish all magazines were, a magazine which is dedicated to the empowerment of women and not the degradation of women.

When I look at prominent feminists like Gloria Steinem, I am often left wondering whether or not I fit as a feminist because I have not been as active as those types of feminists. I think this is a misconception I have regarding feminism, the misconception that you need to be an active activist to be a feminist. But as I re-evaluate my interpretations of feminism I begin to understand that you do not need to be like Gloria Steinem or others like her, in order to be a true feminist. What you need is a belief in the equality of women and the end of all oppressions. 

Resources: http://www.gloriasteinem.com/

©2011, Zain Alglaieny

Gender Performance

The feminist theory of gender performativity comes from the prominent feminist Judith Butler who discusses this issue in her 1990 book Gender Trouble. Butler theorizes on page 24 of her book that gender is performed because “gender proves to be performative –that is, constituting the identity it is purported to be. In this sense, gender is always a doing, though not a doing by a subject who might be said to preexist the deed.” For me what this means is that gender is fluidly performed based on attributions we have given to each gender (a gender norm).

The theory of gender performativity has always been something of interest to me, mainly because it is not a theory I had learned in high school, only in university. I think that in a way yes we do all perform our genders, but is this wrong if we are comfortable doing so? In my own life I have not come across anyone who was uncomfortable being either male or female or who was uncomfortable performing those genders…maybe I am just not meeting enough people. The media however does play an integral role when it comes to gender performance, this could be through television shows and commercials which prescribe certain roles for women and men. 

I recently came across this video of a young boy who looks to be no older than 10 years old. In the video he is provocatively dressed in female attire and provocatively dancing to a pop song. I was stunned after watching this video, the first thing I thought was “where are his parents and why are they condoning such behavior?” It is clear in the video that someone may be filming him because of the way the camera zooms. What is evident in this video is that this young boy is performing gender as a female character. I am not sure if this boy was doing this for entertainment, peer pressure, or just out of a desire to explore a feminine nature within himself. Take a look and leave me your comments with regards to what you thought about the video. 

Click Here For Video

Resources:
Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc. USA. pg.25

©2011, Zain Alglaieny

Feminist Fact – First Wave Warriors

How many Canadians have heard of the Persons Case? How many Canadians have heard of The Famous Five? I know the answer for me is I have heard of both, however I was not taught about either in my elementary or secondary school history classes. It was not until I began post-secondary education that I heard about either, so my goal here is to provide some basic information for my readers on who the Famous Five are and what the Persons Case is. 

The Famous Five was a group of five Canadian women from Alberta, Emily Murphy, Henrietta Muir Edwards, Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney an Irene Parlby, who paved a political path for Canadian women. These women brought about the Persons Case, which lobbied for women to be considered persons under Canada’s constitution. Their efforts began in 1927 when the group of women petitioned the government asking if women were included under the term “persons” in Section 24 of the British North America Act; the answer was no. What this meant was women could not be appointed to the senate, and it was crucial that women be able to have a place in the senate in order to have equity. The women took further action by appealing to the Judicial Committee of England’s Privy Council in 1929 (this was the highest court of appeals for Canada at the time). The Privy Council decided on October 18, 1929 that the word persons in Section 24 of the BNA would include both men and women.

Political victory came about for Canadian women in 1929 thanks to the efforts of the Famous Five. Without their effort who knows what the future of women in government would look like. I find it disheartening that I was only introduced to these women and this case in my post-secondary education; these women had a major influence on Canadian history and need more recognition in both elementary and secondary education. I guess it is true what they say: history is his-story, not her-story.  

These women have helped me to begin shaping my feminism in a few ways:

1.  I have the opportunity to live in a generation where I do not need to fight to be considered a person under the law, so to them I am thankful for providing this luxury to me.
   
2. I have the ability to fight for causes I believe in because they are an image of encouragement to me; if they can do it I can do it.
   
3. If feminism is about standing up for a cause and battling through until you get what not only you, but all women, truly deserve, then count me in as a feminist!

Resources: Library and Archives Canada 

©2011, Zain Alglaieny

Damaging Messages

All magazines have their flaws, but there is one magazine I feel that speaking as a woman is very flawed, this magazine is Cosmopolitan Magazine. Let me explain a few of the problems I have:

1. Any and all articles which discuss sex only discuss heterosexual sex, with an emphasis on pleasuring your man. Where are the articles for female (maybe even male) readers who do not engage in heterosexual sex? Where are the articles that discuss pleasuring the woman as opposed to the man?
   
   
2. There are many articles which feature sections such as how to score a man – again there is the suggestion by this magazine that only heterosexual women read this magazine.
   
   
3. The list can continue based on any given issue.
   
   

One of the biggest problems I have had with Cosmopolitan Magazine comes from the March 2011 Vol.250, No.3 issue. The article in question is entitled “101 Things About Men” and it features a poll entitled “Why Guys Deserve Sex…According to Them” on page 61. The poll came about after the trending topic #sheowesmesexif gained popularity on the social networking site Twitter.  Cosmopolitan Magazine does say they want to see a Twitter craze of “#hedeservesakickintheballsif” but then they continue to list responses from men as to why men feel entitled to sex. It is absolutely disgusting for a magazine to print reasons why men feel they are entitled to sex, because the reality is NOBODY is entitled to sex no matter what they think. An article such as this simply reinforces the rape myths that society loves to cling to when a woman is raped or assaulted.

I myself have never been raped or assaulted, but I have worked in a setting with women who have, and an article such as this one is truly damaging to a survivor of rape or assault. We need to have empowering articles for women in magazines, not articles which could damage a woman’s self worth. One thing I am thankful for is that I did not purchase this magazine, because had I done so I would not be able to stomach the fact that my monetary contributions would allow such a distasteful article to be published.

After reading this article I was reminded of my very first women’s studies class in my first semester of my first year: 53-100 Women in Canadian Society. In this course we were introduced to the feminist Jean Kilbourne whose work focuses on women in advertising, and then we had to prepare a group project which examined women in advertising. By the time the course ended, I found myself thinking “I will never ever purchase or read another magazine” and for the most part I have done a good job. I believe that this is my feminism shining through and shedding light on what to accept and what to reject. Back in high school I had a yearly subscription to Teen People, and looking back at those issues now all I can think is “why did I allow myself to read such garbage?!” 

Click for more information on Jean Kilbourne

©2011, Zain Alglaieny

Subliminal Message Anyone?

I was recently helping a friend with her assignment by looking up commercials on YouTube, and I stumbled upon this interesting M&M's Commercial. I won't give the hidden message away, watch the video and then leave a comment once you have found the message (if you are not the first to leave a comment, watch the video first before reading comments).

I know that this is not the first commercial ever to place subliminal messages in their advertisement of a product, but this one was just so out there (for me anyway) I just had to post right away and see what others think about it.

Is Violence Funny?

I am currently taking a social work/women’s studies third year course called Abuse in the Family. This course is designed to shed light on abuse not just in the family but in society as a whole. There was recently an issue which came up in class which really hit a hot button with me. We were watching a short film clip on male violence against women and female violence against men. Keep in mind that this is a third year social work class full of future social workers. As we were watching the clip of a woman being harassed by her male partner, the class was silent. As soon as the roles were reversed and we were presented with a woman being violent by hitting and yelling at her male partner the majority of the class began to laugh. Remember that these are our society’s future social workers...

As soon as the film was over I could feel the rage brewing inside of me because of how inappropriate this was, for someone to laugh at violence.  So I put up my hand and posed a question to the class asking how they, as future social workers, could sit there and laugh at the violence on the screen. People immediately began getting defensive and saying things such as “well the acting was funny” and my response to that was it should not matter if the acting was bad or not, you are laughing at an image of violence. Why did nobody laugh when the woman was being beat by the man? The acting was just as bad. But we have been socialized not to laugh at male violence against women because it is considered to be "serious" whereas female violence against men is "less harmful".

People do not realize the stigma attached to female violence against men, and they do not understand the severity of their actions when they were laughing at the violence. What if there was a man in the class who had been abused by his female partner? How would he feel sitting in this class with people laughing at that image? It is a fact that women do abuse men, and that men tend to under-report this because of the way society reacts to such an accusation, “oh what you aren’t man enough to defend yourself?”  This needs to change because violence is violence, it is harmful and damaging no matter who is committing the act.

Education is key when it comes to changing stigmatizing views on issues; the more we know the more we can create change. The future is shaped by our present actions, and apparently our future social workers view violence as funny. Sensitivity training is one thing that many entering the helping professions need to get involved with and I am curious to find out if this is offered and if people actually get the proper training. 

©2011, Zain Alglaieny

My Feminist Manifesto

Feminism can mean many different things to many different people, especially to me. My feminism revolves around giving a voice to those who need it most, and for me there are only two groups which I feel are truly deserving of my attention simply because of my personal connection to each. This is not to say that I do not care about other relevant issues, I simply mean that I cannot devote myself to a cause I do not feel a connection to otherwise I would feel like an imposter. The first issue I believe in is standing up for, and listening to battered women and their children; the second is giving a voice to those women, men and children who are faced with both physical and mental disabilities.

People can be so cruel when they see someone who is not the “norm” according to societal standards. This manifesto calls for a strong voice for those who need it and it draws upon a more liberal feminist approach in that you must work with a system, not against it. My personal feminism comes from the understanding that you should fight for what you believe in, and this is what I will continue to do. 

Manifesto

• Giving others the respect and dignity they deserve, just as I would ask for myself to be treated in that manner. Understanding that we all have different viewpoints in life and that those views shape us, they don't break us.
•  I will avoid judgement – it is often easier to judge than it is to listen and learn.
• I will never assume that I know everything, no matter how rooted, involved in and committed to a movement I am. I will always listen to those voices around me, and let them be my guiding light.
• I will always stand up for what I believe in, working towards my goals and not being afraid to ask for help along the way.
• Getting involved in fighting the dirty politics that diminish a person’s worth; finding the space to fight against those which governing rules which do not work.
• Ensuring that my human needs, rights, and wants do not infringe upon another human beings rights, needs, and wants.
• Living, fighting, and believing in what I hold close to my heart, whatever it may be.
• Most importantly: I will become someone’s ally— I will go by the mantra of don’t be the voice of the people – let the people guide your voice.
  
  
  What this manifesto is meant to be is a guide for my life, a guide for my feminism. I believe that this manifesto is an opening statement for why I believe feminism is a part of my life. As this blog continues, I will be analyzing my feminism figuring out whether it truly exists or not in my life and I look forward to sharing this with my readers.

©2011, Zain Alglaieny

Introduction

Welcome to My So Called Feminist Life, a blog delving into an exploration of feminism and its connections to my life. This blog will be developing over the next few weeks as a final project for my fourth year women’s studies seminar Finding Your Feminist Voice. The purpose of this blog is to explore my feminist voice and express it to the world.

As a women’s studies major I have been introduced to many feminist concepts and have been challenged to see how feminism fits into my life. For the last four years I have wondered to myself, am I a feminist? Why should I consider myself a feminist? With this blog I am looking to answer these questions for myself in a free and creative environment. These questions will be what guides my blog in attempt to connect my life to my feminism. 

So what can you expect? You can expect a wide variety of posts which deal with: violence against women, sex/gender system, gender performativity, media portrayals of women, my music and my feminism, 
pictures, poetry, and anything else I find is relevant to the blog.


This is my blog and I would appreciate any feedback from visitors, but I must stress that the views and opinions expressed in this blog are my own  and any negative commentary will be removed. However, I will accept positive feedback as it is greatly appreciated and will encourage conversation.

 

©2011, Zain Alglaieny