Service Activism Log #6

1. The event was successful! I certainly expected the turn out to be much more astounding, yet I was still pleased with the crowd. It was nice to finally be able to chit-chat with Jackie, since we've only been communicating via facebook and e-mail. When I arrived, Jackie didn't have the movie, which obviously was a concern. Suddenly I remembered that I had Netflix and thankfully it was on Instant Play. I thought that having the actual movie would be the easiest part, yet I guess in the whole process of planning I forgot the simplest and most important responsibility! I guess next time I do something like this I will make certain that I have all the necessities for a successful movie extravaganza!

2. This week was exciting. I learned a lot from the planning and I definitely realized how easy it is to pull a group of people together for activism. Seely gives 12 simple steps to follow for creating an event for feminist activism. Although events are exciting to plan, sometimes I think people can get too wrapped up in their day-to-day lives, which is why I found an excerpt from "Fight Like A Girl" so inspiring; "I live my life as an activist. I live my life politically. We can all do this. We all have it in ourselves; titles don't make us leaders. It is our actions that mean something and impact our community. It is our voices that inspire. And our commitment to justice that makes a difference (Seely 24)."

3. I was impressed with the encouragement that NOW supported me with. It was definitely difficult not being able to go to my community partner's meetings since I had class at that time, but I managed and they were very excited to have me working on an event. Hopefully next semester I won't have class during the meeting times and I will get to join in on even more events, but if not at least I will know that they are extremely responsive to me.

Works Cited

Seely, Megan. Fight Like A Girl. New York, NY and London: New York University Press, 2007. 24. Print.

Service Learning Activism Log #5

1. This week I e-mailed and Facebook messaged Jacqueline Sheppard about the upcoming event. Since Patricia won't be able to attend, I offered any extra assistance they might find neccessary. I am still waiting for a response. It's making me feel very antsy and I just want to fast forward to the event. I will be missing one of my classes, which is definitely a downfall but I think that the event's success will certainly be worth it. Something I find exciting is that "Bigger, Faster, Stronger" will be screening for the event. I'm anxious to be in an environment that is contributing to the masculine community, since it will be a polar opposite to what I've been learning about in my Women's Studies class.

2. In the trailer for "Bigger, Faster, Stronger," it asks the audience, "If you had to take a drug, with the known side effects of anabolic steroids to keep your job right now and support your family, would you do it?" This quote has the most obvious correlation to the global war on drugs, which is analyzed in further elaboration in the text. Clearly, there are medicinal purposes to steriods just like there are for other drugs. In 1986, however, Ronald Regan passed the Anti Drug Abuse Act which made a "critical break with the concept of drug users as a medical population in need of treatment and instead targetted them as a criminal population (Okazawa-Rey, and Kirk 484)." My community partners understand that women will do anything to support their families and that although there is no justification for the illegal trafficking of Class A drugs, minimum mandatory sentences for crimes such as treatment programs and community service have become the most common forms of punishment (Okazawa-Rey, and Kirk 484).

3. Although I know a little about anabolic steroids, it will be interesting to see how it will be defined through perspectives of masculinity. Not only will it be interesting but I'm hoping it will be beneficial to my understanding of gender roles in our culture. Extremely excited!

Okazawa-Rey, Margo, and Gwyn Kirk . Women's Lives - Multicultural Perspectives. Fifth Edition. New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 2010. 484-485. Print.

Women and the Workforce Assignment

Last night I finished the first season of Dexter. If you are unfamiliar with this TV show, it is primarily based on a serial killer who works for a Police Department in Miami. He works as a dective and a blood analysis specialist.The show follows Dexter Morgan through his many trials and tribulations at work as well as at home. There are three main women that I found had the most prominant characters in the show. His foster-sister, Deborah, works alongside him at the Police Station as an officer. He is dating Rita, a single mother of two children whom works at a hotel. Dexter's lieutenant, Maria has a major role in the TV show as well. Although there is a main plot for each episode that follows Dexter himself, there are side stories that follow these women as well and the correlation with how the media and society depicts and percieves women in the workforce is astoundingly conspicuous.

Rita is always being depicted as distraught. Although she is portrayed as a sweet, calm, and happy woman, her hair is never in place, she is always picking up after the kids, and she is constantly trying to avoid confrontations with her ex-husband. Initially, like for most viewers, I was oblivious to the message that the media is trying to send regarding working, single mothers. I asked myself, "Why isn't Rita impeccable, vivacious, and confident? Why does it seem like she never has anything completely under her control?" It can be "...argued that it is not motherhood itself that is oppressive to women but the way our society constructs motherhood (Okazawa-Rey, and Kirk 307)." The only plausible reason for Rita seeming like a complete mess is that she is a single mother and needs to juggle her work as well as giving her children a sufficient amount of 'TLC.'

Deborah represents the 'Ultimate Mommy Tax," in reference specifically to 'childlessness.' A steady increase in the percentage of middle-aged, educated, American women who remain childless went from about 9 percent in the 1950's to 10 percent in the late 1970's, and in the 1990's about 17 percent (Okazawa-Rey, and Kirk 344). Deborah is loud, assertive, very committed, and attractive. Her schedule is flexible - she works when she's not on the clock and enjoys it. Don't let all this fool you, however. Deb still has a soft spot for love, and this is shown when she begins to date a doctor named Rudy (which happens to be a serial killer). Although Deborah probably dreams of having a family, contemporary work ethics show that "...the longer a woman postpones family responsibilites, and the longer her 'preparental' phase lasts, the higher her lifetime earnings will be (Okazawa-Rey, and Kirk 342)." Society molds Deborah into a delineation of the equivalent of idealogies of a man, "but trying to be a man has its own risks. Many baby-boomer women postponed families only to discover that they wanted to become pregnant, it was too late (Okazawa-Rey, and Kirk 342)."

Maria also faces the same desires Deb does. In one episode when she saves a little boy from a murder scene, her motherly instincts get the best of her and she is reluctant to give the boy back to his family. What I find the most interesting is that Maria and Deb never openly admit to wanting children, which supports the idea that, "Americans have a hard time realizing that such deeply personal choices as when or whether to have a child can be powerfully circumscribed by broader social or economic factors (Okazawa-Rey, and Kirk 344)." In confliction with popular beliefs, making decisions between family and work is much more of a deal-breaker in America, than in European countries where there are more 'favorable' policies that encourage pro-family ideals (Okazawa-Rey, and Kirk 344).

Okazawa-Rey, Margo, and Gwyn Kirk . Women's Lives - Multicultural Perspectives. Fifth Edition. New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 2010. 301-369. Print.

Service Activism Log #4

1. This week was uneventful mainly due to the fact that from this point on everything should go along smoothly. The anticipation of the event is absolutely dreadful since I'm looking forward to it so much. I have been telling my friends as well as strangers about the upcoming event and they also seem to look forward to it. Honestly, other than spreading the word there really isn't anything on my to-do list. Patricia invited me to help her make food for the event but she lives really far away from me and I'm not quite sure to get around Orlando yet so we'll see. Still looking forward to tabeling with her outside of Publix to fundraise for Animal Safehouse!

2. This week we read and discussed about women in the workforce, which directly correlates with our service learning project specifically under the topic and reading "The Mommy Tax," by Ann Crittenden. Because this reading was based on an issue that is critical for pregnant women and mothers today, I found this reading especially appealing. I had heard of the concept of the "Mommy Tax" but never really read or looked too much in depth with it, so I feel as though this was a good opportunity to become more knowledgeable about issues our mothers are facing today. In order to support her context, Crittenden writes, "...research reveals that working mothers not only earn less than men, but also less per hour than childless women, even after such differences as education and experience are factored out (Okazawa-Rey, and Kirk 337). " I found this fact extremely startling as well as unsettling. Furthermore, in reading and a class discussions about feminists' solutions to this obstacle, my classmates and I concurred that by creating an equal wage for comparable work could offer more stability. Aside from the unequality of equal labor, however, I find myself struggling to interpret the hypocrisy of the employers' perceptions of women's worth ethics. In a comic, a boss says to his worker, "This society doesn't value children anymore! You women would rather persue a selfish career than stay home with your kids!" In the next drawing, the woman is seen holding her child in a non-work environment and her boss says, "This society doesn't value work anymore! You welfare mothers would rather stay home with your kids than get a job!" (Okazawa-Rey, and Kirk 303).  I think this comic depicts the confliction of what mothers are going through in the workplace perfectly.

3. I'm really looking forward to the event because I feel like I will take a lot from it during as well as after, in retrospect. I'm hoping to take a lot away from the event with a more solidified feminist perspective on expecting mothers and hopefully this knowledge will benefit me personally as well.

Okazawa-Rey, Margo, and Gwyn Kirk . Women's Lives - Multicultural Perspectives. Fifth Edition. New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 2010. 211. Print.