Activism Log 10

April 25 – May 1

• Activism

This was the end of semester show for the Feminist Agenda Radio. It was also the last show for our host and leader, Deborah “Debonair” Bernacett. It was kind of a sappy-sweet show, light on feminist analysis and current events, and more about reminiscing about the semester. We played songs we liked, and we closed out with Vitamin C's perennial graduation hit. Debonair announced her replacements, Josh, Dom, and myself.

• Reflection

Like how Kirk and Okazawa-Rey open their text with a history of feminists, and thereby honoring those before them, we decided to honor the person who started the Feminist Agenda Radio, Debbie (7). She got us motivated about the project, and she did not make it a chore for us. We wanted to let the listeners know how much we enjoyed this project.

• Reciprocity

One thing that has had me thinking is this idea of legacies. I want the new iteration of Feminist Agenda Radio in the fall to not be remembered as “the time when Debbie's show was ruined” but as “when those kids Debbie taught made her show better.” Debbie has a good reputation, and she has friends. I do not want word to get back to her that we killed her show after she put so much into it.

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. "Women's Rights, Women's Liberation, Women's Studies." Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. 5th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 3-25. Print.

Activism Log 9

April 18 – 24

• Activism

Another canceled show. Ho-hum. Luckily, things did happen this week. Deborah has left us the reins to the Feminist Agenda Radio. Dom, Josh, and myself have decided to keep the show running in the fall semester, and we have made plans for the summer. The idea is to stay in contact and to meet regularly in order to plan out each show and week to avoid the snags we hit this semester. We plan to have more faculty and guest speakers on the show, because we enjoyed the interview with Dr. Vest. I would also like to see the Feminist Agenda revitalized. One of the issues with activism on college campuses is the fact people graduate. I would like to find the fresh blood coming in, and I want to unite the progressive groups together. Through cohesion, change will happen.

• Reflection

We now know what works and what does not (at least we think we do). In the fall, we will try to avoid these mistakes and try to bring back the Feminist Agenda in some form. The fact that what we are up against is a system, “something larger we all participate in...which is more than a collection of individuals” motivates me to have a united front against it. (Johnson 69).

• Reciprocity

I do not want any of the organizations “on our side” to fall into disrepair. I want to make connections with people, so that they all know we are all in this together.

Johnson, Allan G.. "Patriarchy, the System." Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. 5th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 68-76. Print.

Activism Log 8

April 11-17

• Activism

This was the so-called “advertisement” show, because of all the feminist-related events that were occurring this week. I was not able to attend this show, because I mismanaged my time. I stayed home and continued working on Persepolis for Women in Literature. Thankfully, the show was short. This abated my guilt for not showing up. If it had been a standard length show, I would have been grovelling for apologies from my teammates.

• Reflection

This show called attention to my lack of time management and self-motivation. It was a painful critique, but hopefully it will stick, and I will be a better person because of it.

• Reciprocity

This show resembles how the Feminist Agenda Radio started. It acted as a dissemination machine, letting the audience know about the feminist-related activities happening on campus. The show was meant to affect what Okazawa-Rey and Kirk call the “meso” level of activism (15). The radio program was designed to reach the entire student body and to let them know what the feminists are doing!

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. "Women's Rights, Women's Liberation, Women's Studies." Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. 5th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 3-25. Print.

The NeverEnding Story: An Analysis

Schuyler Kerby

Nina Perez

WST 3015

14 April 2010

The NeverEnding Story is a delightfully 80's movie that intended to have message showing the power of the imagination and the importance of books. Implicitly in the film is a constant theme about the preservation of nature. Fantasia is a lush, wondrous place. Even though it has its fair share of horrors, like the Swamp of Sorrow, it is still beautiful. The primary antagonist in the film is the gaping void that is destroying all of Fantasia—the Nothing. With these explicit and implicit themes the film tells the audience to use their imagination to save the environment.

Although these themes are still present in this movie, environmental ideological critiques are present in the film. It critiques the separation of nature and civilization, the public and private attitudes concerning the environment, and it critiques the gendered nature of ecofeminism.

Once Bastion begins to read the book, the audience sees a direct contrast between the urban New York City with the mystical Fantasia. However, this contrast is not seen again until the final scene where Falcor flies Bastian through the city streets. The NeverEnding Story breaks down the false dichotomy of civilization/nature by showing a diverse population that has its own culture in this wilderness. There is no dividing line between “This is where we live” and “This is where nature begins.” Even the capital of Fantasia is carved out of a mountain. The populations of Fantasia have performed a “way of foregrounding interconnections among [their] communities” (Kirk and Okazawa-Rey 539). This elimination of difference between nature and civilization relates to another binary broken down by the movie—public/private.

What actually occurs in the film is remarkably simple; a boy reads a book. This private action, however, has public consequence for the denizens of Fantasia. His interaction with the characters in the text destroys the public/private binary. The physical act of reading and imagining effects Fantasia and ultimately saves it.

Throughout the movie, the audience believes that the source of Fantasia's salvation lies in the Childlike Empress. Atreyu's mission is to find a cure for her illness. After she is cured, she will be able to restore Fantasia. This supports one of the core beliefs of ecofeminism, that men cannot directly help protect the environment and that they can only work as a supportive role (Perez 4/7/2010).However, that is not how the plot unfolds. The cure for the Childlike Empress is a new name bestowed by a human child. Bastian, the reader of The NeverEnding Story, saves the day by naming her Moonchild.

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. "Women and the Environment." Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. 5th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 535-49. Print.

The NeverEnding Story. Dir. Wolfgang Petersen. Netflix.com. Web. 14 Apr. 2010.

Perez, Jeannina. "Eco-Feminism." University of Central Florida, Orlando. 7 Apr. 2010. Lecture.

Activism Log 7

April 4 – 10

• Activism

The show was canceled this week, because there was an SGA event being hosted in Brooklyn Pizza. It was the NCAA finals, and the noise levels would have made broadcasting impossible. I took the time available to work on my presentation on Persepolis and gender.

• Reflection

By taking two classes about women's lives, I saw how theory and praxis intermingled. My research into gender began with Judith Lorber's essay “The Social Construction of Gender.” One of her points, that “gender creates the social differences that define 'woman' and 'man'” is how I focused by research into gender in Persepolis (65). I was able to understand how the things I learn, the things I write about, and the things I talk about on the show are interrelated.

• Reciprocity

Although no radio show was produced this week, activism still occurred. I was able to spend those hours clarifying what I know about gender theory and adding more to my knowledge.

Lorber, Judith. "The Social Construction of Gender" Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. 5th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 65-7. Print.

Combative Narratives: Baghdad Burning and the Western Media

Schuyler Kerby

Jeannina Perez

WST 3015

5 April 2010

The human mind thinks with narratives. They are how we interact and think about the world. Our inner monologues are how we process information. Because of this, the construction of narratives by institutions in culture and society can be powerful. Stories are being crafted, most noticeably by the media. They inform their audiences about how the world works, acts, and is. When Iraq was invaded by multinational forces March 20^th, 2003, one narrative was prevalent in the United States media. Iraq was a dangerous nation with weapons of mass destruction. When evidence began to lack for that story, the message was changed. Iraq had ties to terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda. When that story began to crumble, the final narrative was drafted. The Iraq people are oppressed, and America will liberate them.

One blogger decided to speak against this narrative. Riverbend, who began to publish posts from Baghdad in August 2003, sought to provide a voice from Iraq and to provide a counter-narrative to the one being perpetuated by the occupying countries in Iraq. Her blog Baghdad Burning can be characterized as a personal, politically-affected educational ethnic occupied narrative. It is personal because it is her life. The entire work is politically-affected by the decisions of the occupying forces and the new government installed in Iraq. The primary focus of the blog is to educate the audience about the myths in the narrative about Iraq. This education occurs because the narrative is ethnic (she is an Iraqi woman) and from an occupied view (she writes from the perspective of a person living with occupying armed forces). A notable entry that seeks to destroy the myths in the dominant narrative is titled “The Promise and the threat” published on August 28^th, 2003.

She starts this entry with a contrast between “The Myth” and “The Truth” (Riverbend). The myth, she states is “Iraqis, prior to occupation, lived in little beige tents set up on the sides of little dirt roads all over Baghdad” (Riverbend). She lists more myths that deal with gender roles (not every Iraqi woman wears a burqa at home while taking care of 10 children) and education (the boys do not just learn rudimentary math to count the sheep). She counters these myths with her own story about the large amount of engineers in Iraq and how the proposed $90 billion rebuilding fee is the result of not using Iraqis to help rebuild. She identifies the cultural desire for buildings to be more than “functionary”. Buildings “have to have artistic touches” (Riverbend).

The issue that sparked this post was the announcement by Bremer that $90 billion would be required to reconstruct Iraq. This figure, and the fact it exists at all is due to what Kirk and Okazawa-Rey call “the quest for control of strategic locations and scarce resources” (508). Riverbend believes that the War in Iraq is a War for Oil. Because the goal of the multinational forces was for a source-turned-resource, the occupation of Iraq can be seen as an act of colonization. This idea is enforced because of the presidency installed. It consists of nine rotating members, with divisions among ethnic and religious lines. This kind of division, according to Kirk and Okazawa-Rey, is one of several factors that “were central to this process [of colonization]” (377).

550

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. "Living in a Globalized World." Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. 5th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 371-92. Print.

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. "Women and the Military, War, and Peace." Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. 5th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 493-511. Print.

Riverbend. "The Promise and the Threat." Web log post. Baghdad Burning. Google, 28 Aug. 2003. Web. 4 Apr. 2010.

Activism Log 6

March 28 – April 3

• Activism

This show has been half-heartedly called “the failed show.” Although it did not completely fail (we had fun and we did a semi-decent broadcast) it showed that we needed to rethink our strategy. We planned to talk about Health Care Reform (which just became law that week) and the abortion related Stupak Amendment for at least two hours. However, we blazed through all of our talking points in about half an hour and received no call-ins. We had depended on our “controversial” topic to cause people to call in (and it was not like we did have any listeners that night), but we did not engage them enough to do so. We filled the remaining airtime with recent news that could be taken as feminist, like the ex-gay decision at Disney.

• Reflection

We expected a raucous debate betwixt the five of us, but even abortion, called by Kirk and Okazawa-Rey an “issue central to women's autonomy and will continue to be highly contentious”, we all ended up agreeing on the topic (214). In the latter half of the show, Debbie began to act as the devil's advocate to make a debate actually happen.

• Reciprocity

This show taught me and the group as a whole that not every week would be easy. The nervous glances around the studio as silence began to fill the room and our airtime are things I do not wish to revisit.

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. "Women's Bodies, Women's Health" Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. 5th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 207-24. Print.