College Feminists Connect!

Take Back the Night a Success!

This past Tuesday, October 23rd the Minnesota Women's Consortium and the ACTC Women's Studies Programs co-hosted Take Back the Night-Twin Cities. Take Back the Night is an internationally held march and rally to protest and take direct action against rape and other forms of sexual violence. This year Take Back the Night Twin Cities was held on Hamline University's campus.

An estimated 150 people attended the event, including students from Hamline, St Catherine University, St Thomas University, Augsburg College, and Century College, faculty and staff from these schools, and many community members. 

The event consisted of two open mic portions where students performed music, spoken word, and shared their personal stories about sexual violence. There were organizations tabling with resources for students as well as activites including t-shirt and sign making. The Hamline University Gospel Choir also performed during the event.

The rally featured a number of fabulous and inspiration speakers, including Sarah Jane Johnston, President of Minnesota NOW, Erin Parrish, MN Women's Consortium Executive Director, US House Representative Betty McCollum, Bobbi Holtberg, Program Director at the MN Coalition for Battered Women, Katie Kramer, a representative from the office of Senator Al Franken who read a letter of support from the Senator, Donna Dunn, Director of the MN Coalition Against Sexual Assault, Susan Hadley McCormick, Founder of WomanKind, and Adrik Curtis, a representative of Outfront Minnesota.

The event was concluded with a moving candlelight vigil led by Hamline Women's Studies Professor Kristin Mapel-Bloomberg.

For those of you who were unable to attend this year, be sure to watch for the event next fall. The plan is for the event to rotate between ACTC college campuses.

This event was co-sponsored by Minnesota Women's Consortium, ACTC Women's Studies Program, Hamline University Women's Studies, Hamline University Women's Resource Center, Hamline University Sexual Violence Prevention Task Force, Hamline University Students Preventing Sexual Violence, Hamline University Poetry Slam, Hamline University Hip Hop Collective, Hamline MPIRG, Hamline Democrats, University of St. Thomas Luann Drummer Center for Women, the Minnesota Coalition for Battered Women, HU Hedgeman Center for Student Diversity, Minnesota NOW Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault, Augsburg College Anne Pederson Women's Resource Center, St. Catherine University Abigail Quigley McCarthy Center for Women, Twin Cities Save the Kids, and Gender Justice.

 

Feminist Halloween Costumes

If you're looking for a feminist halloween costume, it can be tough to trudge through the masses of 'sexy' this and 'slutty' that and find something that wouldn't put your grandmother in a coma upon sight.

So, I did some trudging for you. I searched through endless sites claiming to have 'feminist' options, and found a few key costumes to give you some ideas!

 1. The National Organization of Women created a list of feminist costumes that would haunt McCain's House of Horrors. Many of these costumes are still very relevant to the current election. My favorite is the Safe-Sex Pusher: with the tagline, "If birth control is made illegal, where will you get it?" Check out their website for a few more clever ideas!

From NOW's website

Keep reading for more ideas!

Take Back Halloween?

Yes, I know. I already wrote a 'Halloween' post. 

Really? Sexy Big Bird?

But the more I thought about how Halloween gets used to objectify women and sexualize young girls, the more upset I got. Especially because, I LOVE Halloween. It's by far my favorite holiday. I mean, you get to dress in a costume and pretend to be whoever you want--real or fantasy--and your friends will address you as a princess, or the president, or a teenage mutant ninja turtle! Not to mention the candy and pumpkins! To me, it's a fantastic time to party with your friends, get a sugar-high, dress up and nobody says 'boo' (unless they're dressed like a ghost!). 

Unfortunately, our society has somehow taken what should be an innocent holiday and turned it into an expectation for women to dress in lingerie or be labeled a prude! Everywhere you turn there's a “slutty” or “sexy” version of an animal, cartoon character, monster or even historical character. Don't even get me started on the double entendre of a 'sexy' domestic staff woman. 

Twin Cities Take Back the Night 2012

Twin Cities Take Back the Night 2012 is coming up next week! Hope to see you there!

Check out our event on Facebook!

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month!

Domestic Violence Awareness Month evolved from the first Day of Unity observed in October, 1981 by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. The intent was to connect battered women’s advocates across the nation who were working to end violence against women and their children.

Domestic Violence can involve physical, emotional, and/or sexual abuse. Physical abuse means any form of violence such as hitting, punching, pulling hair, and kicking. Emotional abuse (stuff like threatening, intimidation, and humiliation) can be difficult to recognize because it doesn't leave visible marks, but can have just as dangerous immediate or lasting consequences. Sexual abuse is being forced into any type of sexual experience that you don't want. 

Keep reading for tips on how to recognize domestic abuse, and what to do if you or a friend needs help:

Meet Meghan!

Hello Fellow College Feminists!

Since I'm taking over the College Feminists Connect blog, I thought I'd introduce myself. My name is Meghan Ziegel, and I'm a new fall Intern here at the Minnesota Women's Consortium. 

I am a Senior at Hamline University graduating this January with majors in Social Justice with a Gender Concentration & Women's Studies and a minor in Psychology. (Quite the mouthful, huh?) I find it's been important to study all three of these disciplines, since they overlap quite a bit but also provide three different perspectives of looking at the same thing. The 'thing' I speak of is gender equality, my passion and vocational calling.

This Spring (or perhaps after a year of teaching English abroad to become more 'worldly'), I plan on going to graduate school to pursue my Couple's & Family Therapy License. On my life journey, I anticipate working for awhile in the non-profit industry fighting for gender equality and/or providing services for women, such as sexual assault or abuse counseling. Eventually, I'd like to have my own private practice where I provide relationship and sex therapy for couples of all sexual orientations.

In my free time I enjoy cuddling with my cat June and watching X-Men the Animated Series. 

Anyways, thanks for reading and I look forward to discussing feminism on campus with you all! 

Stay tuned~

Meghan

Halloween as a Feminist

My current obsession (aside from feminism) is designing and making my own Rogue costume for this Halloween. This is particularly relevant to my work here at the MN Women's Consortium and our feminist interests, because of the nature of the costume/character.

Media portrayals of women, to include comic books, have been historically misogynist. Women are generally portrayed as sidekicks, in need of rescue by a man/men, and as sexual objects. It is important that we identify exceptions to this limited view of women so that young women have positive role models to idolize and young men recognize that women are competent, independent, and intelligent people to be taken seriously and treated with respect. To learn more, read Lowell McDonald's eloquent and evidenced opinion on feminism in comics. 

Rogue in particular is, in my opinion, one of the most feminist portrayals of a female superhero in comics. She comes from a low-middle class background, has fought adversity (she was kicked out of her home when she was young for being a 'mutant'--read: minority), is independent, unconventional (while she has a long-term relationship with Gambit, she never marries or has kids), and she can kick a**. Even when I was younger and didn't know what feminism was, I admired her for being a strong woman unlike most of the other women in the cartoons I watched. 

If you've seen the movies and are confused as to where this feminist description is coming from, this blog post articulates a woman's frustration at how the portrayal of Rogue was alterred in the X-Men motion pictures to a wimpy girl in need of rescue. I am actually working on a psychology project analyzing the differences in depictions of Rogue (and a handful of other characters) between the cartoon and the motion picture. I'm excited to let you know what I find out!

I've already made my X-Men leather jacket, and am working on the rest of my costume. I'll let you know how it turns out!

~Meghan

What are you going to dress up as for Halloween? Have you thought of a feminist costume, or how are you owning your costume as a feminist? Share your thoughts, or feel free to email me with a guest post! cfc@mnwomen.org

 

Women Leaders: Meet Julia Gillard

Julia Gillard is the current Prime Minister of Australia. She is not only the first female Prime Minister, but also the the first female Leader of the Labor Party. She is unmarried and has no children, but lives with her male partner. She also identifies as atheist, but not anti-religious.

via Wikimedia Commons

 

Some of Julia's policies:

She is working to improve healthcare by increasing placements for medical students and increasing the number of scholarships for nursing students. She also negotiated a $1.8 billion package to help fund rural hospitals during her re-election.

She is a big proponent for off-shore processing of asylum seekers.

She highly values education. She extended tax-cuts to parents to help them pay for their children's school uniforms and has developed a website where parents can view statistics about the schools their children attend.

While she is personally opposed to a carbon tax, in order to attain Green Party support she passed a fixed-price carbon tax, along with a Clean Energy Bill in 2011.

She has supported the United States involvement in the War in Afghanistan with Australian troops as well as a personal visit to oppose the country becoming a haven for terrorists.

She supports the right to legal abortion.

She does not support same-sex marriage.

Show Your Breasts Some Love!

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month!

 

via 

Magickal Graphics

Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer among women in the United States other than skin cancer, and the second leading cause of cancerous deaths. While rare, breast cancer also appears in men. In 2012, it is projected that about 227,000 women and about 2,200 men will be diagnosed with breast cancer in the United States alone.

Susan G. Komen for the Cure recommends breast self-exams every month starting by age 20. Komen also recommends women in their 40s and older have mammograms every 1 or 2 years, & women who are younger than 40 with risk factors for breast cancer speak with their healthcare provider about whether and how often to have mammograms.