Service Learning Proposal

Community Partner: The National Organization for Women, UCF Chapter

Contact: Jeannina Perez

Community Partner Mission Statement: According to their website, NOW’s mission is “…to take action to bring about equality for all women. Now works to eliminate discrimination and harassment in the workplace, schools, the justice system, and all other sectors of society; secure abortion, birth control, and reproductive rights for all women; end all forms of violence against women; eradicate racism, sexism, and homophobia; and promote equality and justice in our society.”

Political and/or Social Basis for Organization: NOW is formed on the basis of equality, freedom from sexism, racism, homophobia, and all other types of discrimination. Our view is that the utter lack of any holiday recognizing the fight for women’s rights is a form of discrimination, and as such, falls under the aims listed in NOW’s mission statement.


Memorandum

TO: Jeannina Perez

FROM: Rachel Collins
Jessie Gereno
Adam Green
Enrique Irizarry
Kelly Quintero

DATE: 2/3/10

RE: Proposal to Write a Feasibility Report for the effort to create a national women’s holiday.

This proposal aims to outline the needs, reasons, and feasibility for a service learning project with the intent to create a national holiday for a woman influential within the women’s right movement. Contained within is background on the needs for and benefits of a national women’s holiday, an outline of the work we plan to accomplish, justification for its inclusion in WST3015, and a proposed timeline. This proposal may need to be adjusted after we begin the project, and also needs to be flexible in order to meet the needs of both the project and our community partner.

Need for a national women’s holiday: This project does not have a community partner in the same way that others do. Our community partner is our professor, and our effort spans from student organizations to national organizations and politicians. However, the need for the proposed holiday is clear. There are holidays recognizing many historical and influential figures, such as Martin Luther King Day, yet there are no holidays recognizing women, particularly those who fought and died to secure basic rights of citizenship for women. Such a holiday would promote awareness of the heroic sacrifices of such women, and would demonstrate a movement of our society toward equality and equal recognition.

Plan Proposal: We propose that we will carry out our plan to create a national women’s holiday by formulating a letter detailing our rationale, and send it to student organizations, local, state, and national politicians, national organizations, etc. We will base the letter on legislation that created other similar holidays, such as MLK day. By doing this, we will raise awareness among the community of the need and lack of such a holiday recognizing women. This increased awareness will, we hope, lead to a grassroots effort to create this holiday.

Rationale for Women’s Studies: Women’s studies is concerned with both looking to and shaping the future of the struggle for equality, and honoring and recognizing the contributions and sacrifices that have been made in the past. The holidays recognizing public and historical figures that exist today inspire education because they make common the knowledge surrounding that figure. The fact that there is no such holiday recognizing women such as Alice Paul mean that far too many people in our society are utterly unaware of this crucial knowledge about the progression of women’s rights. Our efforts for the future must be based firmly on a critical understanding and full appreciation of the repercussions of past events.

Action: To begin, Rachel will write a letter detailing the rationale and necessity of this holiday. All other group members will then read and contribute to this letter, and then this letter will be read and finally edited by you, our professor. The rest of the group will be looking up national, state, and local governments, politicians, and student organizations. We will create a Facebook page to promote awareness of our cause. We will then collaborate to distribute our letter to all of these places. We can use the unlimited printing in the honors computer lab to print the letters that we need.

Timeline:
Meet with Nina to discuss the plan on 2/1.
Turn letter in to Nina on 2/5/10.
Create Facebook page – 2/5/10.
Establish definitive list of organizations to send letters to by 2/17/10, then email the ones that we can and send letters to those we can’t by 2/22.
Turn in completed reflection paper on 5/3/10.

Princess Diaries

Enrique Irizarry
Jeanina Perez
February 17, 2010
WST 3015

Princess Diaries:

“Shut-up!” These are the words of Princess Amelia, or Mia for short, as she realizes that she is the heir to the throne of Geneva. She is shell shocked and realizes that the implications are far too great to handle. As she stated, “I am only fifteen.” Mia disregards her grandmother’s wishes about running the country of Geneva not realizing the social benefits that come with power and inner-beauty, hence, the erotic.

After failing to address her fellow classmates about the importance of uniforms and how they bring about “equality” among the students, Mia realizes that she does not have the courage or beauty ideals needed to possess change, let alone run a country. Mia is a spear headed women who is active on issues that deal with equality and diminishing the stereotypes at school. One of Mia’s greatest challenges is based on the double bind, which society and her Geneva kingdom requires of her. As Jean Kilbourne mentioned in reading twenty-six of “Women’s Lives: Multicultural Perspective,” titled “The More You Subtract, the More You Add,” “Somehow girls are supposed to be both innocent and seductive, virginal and experienced, all at the same time (236).” Furthermore, Kilbourne also states, “…at the same time there is relentless pressure on women to be small, there is also pressure on us to succeed, to achieve, to ‘have it all (235).’” And, “Most tragically, they are told they have to give up each other (237).” To follow such harsh standards, like Seventeen Magazines 1997 ad, “The more you subtract, the more you add,” is nearly impossible for Mia. She lost ties with her Geneva heritage after her mother moved away from a life of riches in order to keep Mia safe. Safe from the pressures of having to constantly perform and demonstrate how a lady should look and act. Mia grew up with a mother who demonstrates that being powerful and outspoken are important attributes, and following stereotypical norms of “femaleness” do not necessarily contribute to a happy life. As Audre Lorde stated of women and the erotic in her essay, “Uses of the Erotic,” “The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings (161).” Mia was intertwined from multiple sources. As her grandmother attempts to transform her from everything that is not princess like, Mia is struggling to keep a stable relationship with her best friend Lily who indicates that she is a sell-out and she is contradicting everything that they stand for.

As the movie progresses, Mia begins to transition herself from an inward to an outward self, as she eventually stands up against the popular cheerleader and starts to notice her true power. Audre Lord Description of the erotic describes perfectly what Mia has discovered. “…when we begin to live from within outward, in touch with the power of the erotic within ourselves, and allowing that power to inform and illuminate our actions upon the world around us, then we begin to be responsible to ourselves in the deepest sense.” The realizations of becoming what other people want you to become hit Mia hard, but she learns to make the best of her situation by continuing to carry herself through her unique erotic.

Works Cited:

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. 5th ed. New York, New York: McGraw Hill, 2010. Pp140, pp231. Print.

Activism Blog Reflection #1

The purpose of my group’s activism project is to create a women’s national holiday. We would like the world to recognize the significant roles that women have played in making history and in pursuing meaningful ways to equality. During our first couple of meetings, our team established norms and goals. Our norms, in regards to communication, would be through email and through face to face discussion in order to address current issues.

Our goals were also established during our first couple of meetings. Various group members are working on different parts of our activism project in order to expand this message of creating a women’s national holiday. From contacting major organizations, to researching the steps in creating a national holiday and starting a face book page for awareness are some of the goals that have been established and are currently in progress. As of now, we have approximately 550 fans following our face book page which has been awesome. Through this face book page our project and message is spreading faster than ever. Yet, with this quick spread of awareness, our group has had to come across many people, in particular men, who do not seem very polite about our message. Our group has managed to stop certain people from posting inappropriate messages while at the same time, addressing those people from an academic point of view why it is we are spreading such a message. We will continue to address and clear any misunderstandings about our project, while at the same time providing meaningful information that will further provide our fans and others the opportunity to gain a more focused meaning behind our goal.

The Wounded Erotic

As Audre Lorde states, “When I speak of the erotic…I speak of it as an assertion of the life-force of women: of that creative energy empowered, the knowledge and use of which we are now reclaiming in our language, our history, our dancing, our loving, our work, our lives.” Furthermore, Lorde also states, “Recognizing the power of the erotic in our lives can give us the energy to pursue genuine change within our world.”

An article by Julia Dinardo, of SyleList, posted “Chanel Iman Talks’ Valentine’s Day Fashion Week and Her Underwear of Choice,” which speaks of model Chanel Iman and her services to L.e.i: Life, energy and intelligence. Iman is a judge for the Model Citizen contest, which is searching for young women ages 15-21, who model the Life, Energy, Intelligence style. In this article, Iman shows that models are being proactive and demonstrating to young women the positives of modeling and living a high-quality lifestyle.

I believe, from an analytical standpoint of a feminist, this article reflects a positive image of women who are empowering themselves through their physical and mental features to achieve success. As opposed to simply focusing on looks, as many success stories in modeling have followed, this article reaches and strives to select young women who are more than just looks. The article, as Audre Lorde mentioned, is searching for women who are embracing their erotic. I, like many Americans, thought of the erotic as dealing with only women’s sex attributions, but, as Lorde also indicated, “…U.S. culture takes a limited and distorted view of the erotic, reducing it to sexuality, and restricted notions of sexuality at that.”

Yet, this article depicts what the erotic truly is, and that is women who are striving for success through the use of their subtle and not so subtle features, their bodies and their minds. Searching for young ladies that are full of Life, Energy, and Intelligence are pivotal in this contest and is a great way of truly showing that women are more than what the myths of the erotic usually state. Even the image that is used of Iman, the Victoria Secret model, shows a woman who is proud, free and confident.

Jean Kilbroune states that the ads used of women’s bodies typically to sell products are also selling heterosexuality. As mentioned in the Women’s Lives text, according to Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okasawa-Rey, “As sex objects, women are commonly portrayed as child-like or doll-like playthings. These images flow from and reinforce macro-level patriarchal construction of gender and sexuality…” which is based on assumptions. This is not the case in this article where women are encouraged to show their true erotic and create a stance of true beauty through mind and soul.

In closing, I believe this article was very powerful in such as way that enticed young ladies to strive for success for all the right reasons that are not alienated by a heterosexual standpoint. I believe in what Aurora Levins Morales says about women’s inner drive, that it is “the wounded erotic.” Julia Dinardo wrote an article that stems away from typical storied articles that rarely embrace women with their bodies and mind. As Lorde already mentioned, I believe that Iman is showing that women are taking back the erotic and making a statement about what it really means. Clearing up the “bad air” of the erotic is done in a very creative manner in this article.

Citation:

Seely, Megan. FIGHT LIKE A GIRL: How to be a Fearless Feminist. New York: New York University Press, 2007. 40. Print.(citations from various researchers and other feminist can be found within the article)

URL:
http://www.stylelist.com/2010/02/07/chanel-iman-talks-valentines-day-fashion-week-and-her-underwear-of-choice/