Author: rnrodriguez1

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—– Riot Grrrl Movement —–

This movement was started in the early 1990s by a band and the lead singer Kathleen Hanna. This movement was started because they were tired of the constant sexism in society so they wanted to be heard. There was one line that I really think is fitting for what they wanted to start this movement and it was ” BECAUSE we are angry at a society that tells us Girl=Dumb, Girl= Bad, Girl=Weak.“( Kathleen Hanna (1991), “Riot Grrrl Manifesto”). This goes on to show how woman are constantly seen as this fragile thing that has to be protected but also a group who “don’t know” what they are talking about or are doing. Which is how the people who started this movement were feeling in society and had enough of it.

“When we analyze the power relations constituting all social arrangements and shaping woman’s lives in distinctive ways, we can begin to grapple with core feminist issues about how genders are socially constructed and constructed differently.”(Maxine Baca Zinn and Bonnie Thornton Dill (1996), “Theorizing Difference from Multiracial Feminism”). Feel like with this from Maxine and Bonnie can also sum up how it all can go back to it just being about gender and how we as a society are split in two between men and women and have different “roles” just because of what our gender is when like we have talked about before gender is a phenomenon created by society to keep it organized. With that movements like the Riot Grrrl start because one can start being more oppressed than the other.

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—— Gone Home ——

So I watched a YouTube video of someone else playing it with no commentary in the video which was nice but also with how silent it was it was very eerie feeling that the first 30 mins of the video I had my face covered because I was expecting some type of jump scare. I went into this video not knowing at all of what it was about until I read some of the comments then I saw where the game was going but I still had my guard up incase something would happen. The look of the game very much gave me that impression of “scary” and “spooky” with how dark everything was even if I had my brightness up all the way on my iPad.

Anyways moving on to how I felt about the overall game. I liked it for sure! I was kind of lost at the beginning of the game just because we were going through everything in the house to find out why Katie’s family wasn’t there. She later starts finding clues, mixed tapes her sister Sam had left behind and just notes to hint as to where she was and her parents. I know there was two stories to this game which was Sam’s and Lonnie’s and then both Sam and Katie’s parents with their troubled marriage. Not gonna lie I watch an extra video that explained the whole story of the game after I watched the play through of it. So I didn’t really see carefully about her parents going to a couples retreat even though it was shown many times I just personally was so focused on Sam and how it ended for her. I really thought something bad had happened to her but then later finding out she ran away basically with Lonnie I was glad since her parents did not really agree with how she was feeling towards Lonnie. At the same time I also felt kind of sad for Katie. She was excited to come home after being away for a year I believe, so having to come home and find out that your little sister has ran off and your parents being gone either still at that couples retreat or out looking for her is a lot.

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— The Transformation of Silence into —Language and Action

After seeing her life on the line Lorde began to reflect on many things in her life and started to change some, one being more vocal and how much power it holds compared to being silent all the time. Reading this was very much “speak out now or forever hold your peace” type thing in my mind(if that even makes any sense) but all Lorde wanted to get across is how speaking up and breaking the silence of many women out there can do so much as a whole and better the community we live in. “And where the words of women are crying to be heard, we must each of us recognize our responsibility to seek those words out, to read them and share them and examine them in their pertinence to our lives. That we not hide behind the mockeries of separations that have been imposed upon us and which so often we accept as our own.” (Audre Lorde (1977), “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action”). Think this quote from her reading can help you understand what I’m trying to get across here about what she talked about with just breaking the silence and getting out of that safe corner she mentioned.

— Ideas I want to explore for the research essay —

So far the one topic that comes to my mind that I would like to learn more about is the gender stereotypes in hispanic/latin cultures. A lot which I wanna focus on is with machismo(which is just the masculine aggressive pride in some men) and how some families still go off with the tradition way of catering to the “man of the house” and do everything for them basically. (Calling my own family out but mind you I appreciate both of my parents but I definitely don’t agree with how they run things you know) For example in my house my mom tends to always cater to my dad and does so many things for him because he’s the only man in our house and is the one who makes the most money etc. Never do I really see my dad cater for my mom when he has a day off work and she’s the one out working. Sometimes she tells me how she wishes she would come home one day to see the house tidy with food already made for her so she can just sit down and eat. While if the roles were reversed and my mom didn’t cook dinner after my dad is off work then it’s the end of the world. I feel like this is how it is in most hispanic/latin families where the woman is catering for any of the men in the house. I believe it should be equality expected from both sides of the partnership. So this is my one and only idea I have so far and will most likely end up doing it for my paper.

— Things I do to help my stress —

Being 110% crying honestly helps me so much. Not sure if that’s even healthy or okay to do but I really do enjoy having a crying session because of how much stress/emotions I have built up because I just don’t have anyone I can really trust to talk to other than my friends from back home who generally talk me through everything and anything. Another thing I do is sometimes just sit down and breathe for a min and walk around in whatever space I’m in because I start to feel antsy if I’m just sitting down for so long. These last couple of days have been something for me just because of my car situation and it going out on me when I needed it to move around for the job I have at a school with one of my professor so it was just a lot for me to deal with on my own without having someone I trust who can like help me out with car stuff like my dad does. With all of that happening and more it also made me realize how much I miss my family and with my car being messed up in the moment I couldn’t drive the 3 hours to go see them and get help. Thankfully I did have my partner who came and helped me and was there when the mechanics came to fixed my car so it’s all good now. Just waiting for spring break to come and be on the little trip me and my partner have and celebrate her birthday as well.

“Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference”

In Lorde’s reading she talked about how the oppressed have to educate the oppressor on how they oppress people who aren’t like them, who are different, who don’t follow the same “norm” etc. Here’s a quote from the reading that may help if lost,

Black and Third World people are expected to
educate white people as to our humanity. Women are expected
to educate men. Lesbians and gay men are expected to educate
the heterosexual world.

Audre Lorde (pg.115)

So not only does she talk about Black people but she also goes on and mentions other groups of people such as, women, queer people, and different age groups. While I was reading the article several thoughts went through my head about personal experiences since being a hispanic woman having to educate those around me about certain things and how sometimes it can get tiring when those who we talk too don’t really see or understand and I know it happens with any and most likely every oppressed groups. Another quote that I really enjoyed from the reading was,

“Change means growth, and growth can be painful. But we sharpen self-definition by exposing the self in work and struggle together with those whom we define as different from ourselves, although sharing the same goals.”

Audre Lorde (pg.123)

This to me says that the world, society and space around us is changing and that can be scary to some since we have been so used to the same thing that learning something new from maybe a new group of people, new culture, new age group, etc. can be something out of the norm but it is in fact a great and beautiful thing. Being able to see more to what has always been taught and shown can be a new way of bringing everyone together since after all, we all do share some of the same goals and are just here to live a best life by reaching those goals.

Key words: educate, growth, oppressed, women, race

“The Combahee River Collective Statement” (1977)

So this article is about a group of Black Feminist that have been meeting since 1974. They talk and go on to explaining about four of the main topics of the article and each topic they mentioned explained briefly on what it was. “(1) the genesis of contemporary Black feminism; (2) what we believe, i.e., the specific province of our politics; (3) the problems in organizing Black feminists, including a brief herstory of our collective; and (4) Black feminist issues and practice.” (The Combahee River Collective Statement 1977).

“So you want to talk about race.” Ijeoma Oluo(2018)

In this video Ijeoma talks about how many people are scared to talk about race but it’s actually a necessary thing to do to break that fear of people. There was something she said that really took out to me and it was,

“What we’re doing when we’re talking about race usually, is we have people who are trying to come to their own personal goals. And usually people of color coming to talk about race are trying to get other people to understand what is harming them.And very often white people come to talk about race to try to make sure that the person they’re talking to knows that they are not the person who is harming them.”

Ijeoma Oluo “So You Want To Talk About Race” (vid time 19:56)

This was a very big realization that I didn’t even recognized that some people do when they aren’t a person who’s black or just of color that try and talk about race and try to take themselves out of the group who is doing the harm because they are “nice” and aren’t the problem. Which no they individually aren’t which is good but you have this group of people who are that are connected to them because of their skin color. (I hope that makes sense) It was a very good video to watch and even though there was some time where I was lost but I still very. much enjoyed watching it.

Key words: race, color, people, harm, understanding

Question: Where there any thoughts that you had going through your head when reading some of the articles or watching the video that you would like to share? Wether they be a realization of something you didn’t know until after reading everything from this week or just a memory of a time where some of the things we read happen to you or around you.

“The Prism of Gender” by Catherine G. Valentine(2020)

This reading was my favorite and made me think about all the things around me and how our society has basically almost gendered everything. In the reading Catherine mentions the “pink and blue syndrome”, as she says “This syndrome is deeply lodged in our minds and feelings and is reinforced through everyday talk, performance, and experience. It’s everywhere. Any place, object, discourse, or practice can be gendered.”(p.4) She then goes on into mentioning some examples of how the “pink and blue syndrome” appears throughout our life. I can say this is definitely how I was raised. As a kid I definitely didn’t think much of it or cared but at the same time part of me did without me knowing it at the time. I remember growing up hating the color pink because I saw it as oh it’s a “girly” color because that’s what I was told and I just didn’t like the idea of it being a “girls only” color. In reality it’s just a color though but society made it to where we started to categorize everything into feminine and masculine.

The overall article is challenging the idea of what gender is and how “it’s a human invention which how our society organizes itself and allocates resources.”(p.6)

My question that had me thinking when reading this article was Who started to categorize everything into genders and why?

“Androgynous” by The Replacements

I found that this weeks songs message was very similar to “The Prism Of Gender” message. How everyone is equal and the things you wear and how you act shouldn’t be the defining factor as to if you are a male or female because we are all just humans. We are allowed to express ourselves however we however we chose to do so because that’s our business and no one else.

Key Words: gender, woman, human, pink & blue, girly

“Theorizing Difference from Multiracial Feminism” by Maxine Becca Zinn & Bonnie Thornton Dill (1996)

Once we acknowledge that all women are affected by the racial order of society then it becomes clear that the insights of multiracial feminism provide an analytical framework, not solely for understanding the experiences of women of color but for understanding all women, and men, as well.

(p. 330)

I decided to use this quote out of the text because to me it was saying that we are all being affected by the same problem just at different levels when it should be all at one point(if that makes sense). I had a hard time understanding this text but took in the parts that made more sense to me. Women of color have been fighting to have their voice and ideas heard and to be seen as equal as a woman who’s white. Will that ever happen though? Not only does it talk about women of color but also women of a different class because they as well are being challenged and look down upon.

(sorry for making this short but feel free to comment and help me understand more)