College Feminists Connect!

"PTSD & Sexual Violence" by: Maddy Hoffmeister

After a traumatic event, such as rape or sexual assault, often victims suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD. I wanted to research how common the disorder is in events like this. This disorder affects nine to fifteen percent of the general population, and close to fifty percent of women who have reported being raped. In the 1989 U.S. Bureau of the Census, the estimated population of U.S. adult women was 96,056,000. Of those women, thirteen percent (12,151,084) women reported experiencing complete rape and fourteen percent reported experiencing other sexual assault (13,755,219). Of those women, sixty percent reported PTSD symptoms after the rape or assault, and twenty-six percent reported long-term symptoms. These alarmingly high numbers show that therapy for PTSD is extremely important.

            One of the complications with PTSD is that it can be hard to diagnose because of the similarity in symptoms with other types of anxiety disorders. Although PTSD can be hard to diagnose, it is not a rare disorder among people who has suffered a traumatic event like rape, as many as one half of rape victims may suffer from chronic PTSD (Rothbaum, Astin, and Marsteller, 607). In one study by Edna Foa and Barbara Rothbaum, they found that seventy-six percent of rape victims reported PTSD symptoms at some point within a year after the assault (Foa and Rothbaum, 13). Foa and Rothbaum found that nearly one hundred percent of all rape victims in their study presented with PTSD symptoms soon after the incident, but by six months post-incident it went down to fourty-one percent. Luckily, there are multiple types of treatment for PTSD. Trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy, family therapy, medication, and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) are all types of treatment used for PTSD (Smith and Segal). After researching both cognitive-behavioral therapy and EMDR, I have found that cognitive-behavioral therapy elicits a greater response than EMDR therapy, however, both are effective.

            After all of my research, it has come clear to me how important it is for people with PTSD to become diagnosed and get treated. It is also important for those suffering from it to know that it is not an uncommon disorder, and that they are not alone. So often after traumatic events like sexual assault or rape, the victims blames themselves and does not confront the psychological effects it has on someone. But the more people learn about the disorder and how treatable it is, the more awareness the public has about the disorder, the more people can confront rape, sexual assault, and the psychological effects of it. 

 

Foa, Edna B., and Barbara Olasov Rothbaum. "Diagnosis and Prevalance of PTSD Following Assault." Treating the trauma of rape: cognitive-behavioral therapy for PTSD. New York: Guilford, 1998. 8-26. Web. 25 April 2013

 

Rothbaum, Barbara Olasov, Millie C. Astin, and Fred Marsteller. "Prolonged  Exposure Versus Eye Movement Desensitization And Reprocessing (EMDR)  For PTSD Rape Victims." Journal Of Traumatic Stress 18.6 (2005): 607-616. EBSCO MegaFILE. Web. 1 May 2013.

 

Smith, Melinda, and Jeanne Segal. "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): Symptoms, Treatment and Self-Help." Helpguide. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 May 2013.<http://www.helpguide.org/mental/post_traumatic_stress_disorder_symptoms_treatment.htm>

 

 

Maddy Hoffmeister

'The “Angel” in my Head: Feminism and Identity' by: Natalie Hofmeister

 

“She never had a mind or a wish of her own, but preferred to sympathize with the minds and wishes of others” (Davis 592).

 

Virginia Woolf’s polite, selfless “angel” surfaces again in Debra Anne Davis’ story of her heart-breaking rape. Tellingly, Davis recounts her indignation at his accusation that she fought back. She was a good girl, with all the pain and irony that entails, and living up to that myth came at a cost. Davis’ story is agonizing, especially when I can almost hear the voice of that angel in my own head two decades later in this supposedly “post-feminist” culture.

I became a feminist when I recognized these destructive, limiting gender stereotypes in myself. I know now that idolizing that angel and holding myself to that unrealistic image might have destroyed me. In the process of explaining why I and my peers worked so hard to live up to this impossible “angel”, I found solidarity in the feminist community. But, as Davis says, “just because I can see, understand and believe that something is false, that it’s not right, now, doesn’t mean it won’t continue to be a part of me, always” (Davis 591). Like so many others, I am still afraid of feminism when that need to be the “good girl” resurfaces.

I’m graduating in eight days, and I’m endlessly thankful that I took the time to refocus on what feminism means for me in the last, transitional, terrifying semester of my senior year. This semester has not been easy. I’ve confronted this “angel” in my head, and Davis gave me the language to describe the tension between my expectations and the reality of trying to be a “good girl”. In college, we don’t often give ourselves the freedom to reflect on our identities and relations to others, but I was lucky to spend much of my senior year doing just that. Turning the intense focus usually devoted to classes on myself was at times traumatizing, but ultimately rewarding.

An idealist at heart, I believed in perfection for a long time. Striving for selflessness – my ideal of perfection – hurt me, but I always thought that I just wasn’t good or strong enough. I thought that this trauma came from a personal struggle, but I found other voices speaking to the same struggle in the feminist community. These selfless ideals weren’t individual and isolated, but perpetuated by our culture; as Carol Hanisch famously stated, “the personal is political.” Feminism and its surrounding community embrace women as they are, helping them to confront the structures that limit their growth. For me, finding a community that applauds instead of represses the freedom to be has been immensely empowering. Without feminism, I would have few resources to explain my story.

To many of my peers, feminism seems foreign, academic, and polarizing. To me, feminism frees women and men alike to find their identity without unnecessary stereotyping, embracing the self in a community of acceptance and growth. My feminist education has been integral to my development as a person, and I will encourage every person I meet to explore feminism for themselves. I believe that the plurality of voices in the feminist community makes us strong, and helping this community grow is essential. While feminism can still empower twenty-two-year-olds like me, feminism is very much alive. 

 

Natalie Hofmeister

 

"Embracing Female Masturbation", by: Chloe Vraney... (also, last week was Clitoris Awareness Week!)

Female masturbation is perhaps the “last sexual taboo,” according to Globe writer Zosia Bielski. Whereas male masturbation is often the butt of jokes, is part of a coming-of-age process in movies and literature, and even has its own physical hand signal, many consider self-stimulation of the female genitals to be shocking and sickening. Society has created excuses for the male's need to ejaculate, as demonstrated in Bielski's research, whether for biological reasons or due to the claimed "superior male sex drive."

Oppositely, many works of literature and film such as Goobie's Hello Groin and Apatow's The 40 Year Old Virgin that actually do include a female protagonist masturbating give these characters a marginalized identity so their sexual behavior is considered abnormal and freakish. Studies such as those in Michael Gordon's Women and Language even show that the language we use is systematically more inclusive of male autoeroticism, with both sexes more familiar with its informal language than with that of the female counterpart.

So why is this biologically normal, sexually safe, and immensely self-pleasurable act so stigmatized for women? Due to its liberating qualities that imply that women can be sexually satisfied without any part of the male, let alone his penis, female masturbation is a powerful and self-determining act, addressing the woman's needs and only the woman's needs. Women who masturbate rebel against the patriarchal system, rejecting the phallic penis in exchange for their own sexual self-exploration on a healthy quest to connect body and mind by establishing and fulfilling their own sexual needs. Although masturbation in general is very stigmatized, feminists are aware of and challenge the fact that sexual self-exploration for men is more socially accepted. This social acceptance is proven in studies that show that males masturbate more than females, and there are several different hypotheses as to why.

Goodbye CFC! Love, Kelsey the Intern

My internship with CFC is ending, and I wanted to take a few moments to reflect on this semester.  I like to think of my feminist beliefs and general perspective as always being in flux. They are ephemeral parts of my identity, anchored in my self-understanding and acceptance that I will never stop having questions, that there is no end goal, and that I will always remain self-critical.  So, what have I learned this semester?

I have learned that being a feminist is hard.  Maintaining your passion and gumption about deeply intimate themes (gender, sexuality, race) in a culture that does not value cultivating an equally complicated and extensive vocabulary in order to discuss these things, is tough.  

Confronting your own privilege, not once or twice, but as a pinky-swear, forever kind of commitment, does not always feel intuitive, accessible, or powerful.  But maybe that's the point.

Community matters, but it might just always leave someone out.  Inclusion/exclusion sometimes feels like a balancing act of political correctness that makes me uncomfortable.  

But community is also empowering (duh).  And sometimes, it is the imagined communities that send me on three-hour long Internet benders reading articles and comments, that I love the most. 

I have learned that there are so so so so so many wonderful, humble, dedicated people out there doing work that makes me feel both paralyzed in awe and ambitious beyond all get-out. And to them I am grateful.  

Thanks MN Women's Consortium!  It's been lovely. 

Regarding dove's "Real Beauty" video

Here is a really interesting article to read concerning the new ad campaign put out by Dove.

Before you read it I just want to make one thing clear: I really despise the language "REAL beauty" or "REAL women". To me this comes across as an unintentional form of misogyny. Every woman is a real woman. No women are lesser women than others. To make the assumption that models, women who wear makeup, women who get plastic surgery, etc, are not "real women" isn't combatting the right issues at hand, it's perpetuating what patriarchy wants us to believe, what it instills. We might not like the fact that women opt for plastic surgery or that we wear pounds of makeup as a way of adhering to idealistic beauty standards but it is even more problematic for us to degrade those women by believing them to not be "REAL WOMEN". This adds to the regression.

 

Anyways, I totally digress. Here is the article!

 

http://jazzylittledrops.tumblr.com/post/48118645174/why-doves-real-beauty-sketches-video-makes-me

Whores' Glory (2011) Documentary

I just finished Whores' Glory (2011), wow.  The documentary is filmically beautiful, and I appreciated its fly-on-the-wall approach to such personal, emotional, and controversial topics of gender, sexuality, economy, and globalization.  The expose lets the material and women speak for themselves, with absolutely no commentary or voice from the filmmakers.  It follows the story of prostitues in Thailand, Bangladesh, and Mexico - highlighting the tricky business of professionalism involved in sex work as well as the spirituality, religion, and personal preferences of the women.  There are women who express enjoying what they do, women who are angry but feel as though they cannot leave due to economic ties, women who have experienced abuse, women addicted to crack, and women who run brothels and find prostitutes outside of the cities.  

While sex-positive feminims in western culture celebrate womens' choices to do what they please with their bodies, there is a more nuanced understanding of sex work abroad (and in general) that needs to be discussed.  The "choices" that women make in these environments that may appear to be sexually liberating are often influenced by economic, political, and social constraints - systems of power that keep them tethered to these brothels and communities.  That being said, it is too simple to condemn prostitution altogether; many of the women expressed that this industry is one of the only ways they can support themselves, either independent of their families or in order to provide for them.  Basically, it is very complicated. We also have to question the role of the artist/filmmaker, and the power he holds to again exploit these women and transactions - at risk of glamorizing or judging sex work. I am left feeling the weight of tragedy and quiet desperation (despite fleeting moments of joy) that these women experience in their day to day, which I know I cannot fully embrace, untangle, or understand (especially as a privileged, white, western woman who does not have to consider sex work as an option).  

Here are some interesting reviews:

from Salon

from TinyMixTapes

from Slant Magazine

 

-Kelsey

Awesome Scholarships for Mankato State University Students!

Women's Scholarships
due April 25, 2013

Below you will find information about specific scholarships and how to apply for them. If you have questions please call 507-389-6146, or email sandra.bunde@mnsu.edu

Mary Jane Young Scholarship for Re-Entry Women

Learn about Mary Jane Young

These scholarships are for $1,000 each. The number of awards varies from year to year. The deadline for this scholarship is April 25, 2013. 

Eligibility requirements:

• Re-entry, single student with custody of children; or re-entry, married who have delayed their own education to raise a family with an inadequate income of their own, from their partner's income, or their partner's income make them ineligible for other financial aid.
• Full-time undergraduate student in any major attending MSU both fall and spring semesters 2013-2014.
• In good standing with Minnesota State University, Mankato

How to apply:

• Print and fill out the Mary Jane Young Scholarship form
• Write a personal narrative describing yourself, your family, why you are working to obtain a degree, and your plans for the future.  What caused you to want to continue your education now and how this scholarship will help you continue your education.
• Include an unofficial copy of your college transcripts.

Coplan Donohue Single Parent Scholarship

Learn more about Diane Coplan Donohue. These scholarships are for up to $1,000 each. The number of awards varies from year to year. The deadline for this scholarship is April 25, 2013.

Eligibility requirements:

• Non-traditional/single-parent student with primary physical custody of children.
• Commitment to parenting.
• Full-time undergraduate or graduate level student in any major attending MSU both fall and spring semesters 2013-2014.
• In good standing with Minnesota State University, Mankato

How to apply:

• Print and fill out the Coplan Donohue Single Parent Scholarship form
• Write a personal narrative describing yourself, your family, your parenting philosophy, why you are working to obtain a degree, and your plans for the future.
• Include one unofficial trasncript of your college courses 

More scholarships and scholarship information at www.mnsu.edu/wcenter/scholarships/ 

My Argument regarding "Equality" and Marriage

    This might not be the best week to argue with the terminology "equal rights", considering what is going on within the government. However, it might also be the best week to do so. So I'm going to go ahead and do it.

    When making an argument against "Equal Rights", I want to stress the fact that I am not complaining about the matters and issues that "Equal Rights" is fighting for but, rather, I am critiquing the term "Equal" itself. To me, equal rights is a very westernized idea. It is a concept that does not encompass a universal, global desire. Equal rights is a western construct, an invention birthed from our idealized minds.

    Aside from that, however, Equal Rights does not embody the entirety of the problem. I want a term that gets straight to the point. A term that completely encapsulates the needs of everybody while also being peacefully aggressive. We are not all equal and it is important to remember that. It does not mean we are lesser than one another, it simply allows us to define ourselves personally and individually.

    By adopting the words "Civil" or "Human", we are granting each other the right to be different while also accepting and acknowledging the fact that we have a right to be treated how we deserve. To be treated fairly and with respect. We are acknowledging the fact that we are: Human. 

    I think equality is laced with some issues that I do not necessarily see as progressive, especially since I do not think equality always means justice, and one is not always the same.

Justice gets the job done.

I want justice. I want civil and human rights NOW.

.........

and NOT just for marriage. 

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    As important as marriage is to some folk (and I do NOT want to minimize the significance of the marriage movement), I also wish it didn't overshadow the necessity for attention to be given to other societal issues that ALSO impact the LGBT community. We need to restructure marriage as a whole because, although I want those who WANT to be married to be married, and despite the fact that if I do get married it will most likely be to a woman, I still feel that the institution of marriage is not one that is reflective of my views. Not because I do not want to be recognized as someone who is worth being linked to someone I love, or to be able to help each other out with benefits, or to be respected...

    ...Rather, traditionally, marriage as an institution is problematic for me (from a feminists stance). Marriage as an institution is discriminatory towards single peoples, or, towards couples who do not see the necessity in getting married, yet decide to be committed none-the-less and therefor do not receive the benefits that marriage allows. I do not want to be apart of a body of people who perpetuate discrimination, even if it is as minor as what I just detailed above.

 

Let's take a look at this link to better understand what I am trying to relay: It isn't all about marriage

 

    While the country was focusing so much energy on promoting marriage justice, many other issues became invisible. These issues have just as much importance and impact a large demographic of people. As Black Girl Dangerous states in her above article:

"As someone who doesn't personally or politically feel connected to so-called 'marriage equality' and, frankly, can't fathom so much time and energy and money being poured into getting one more privilege for one group of people-- especially since the people within that group who will benefit the most are mostly very privileged already--at the expense of countless other really important and much more urgent issues facing the queer community and our society as a whole..." 

 

    Let's talk about homelessness, transphobia, bullying in schools, immigration, health issues, sexual violence, the environment, poverty, hunger...etc etc etc. Let's talk about those issues that have been overshadowed and starved by the marriage movement.

    As I remember, back during this most recent election, the Vote No campaign regarding VOTER I.D had very little coverage in comparison to the Marriage "Equality" campaign. My personal self is represented in both, and my passions and energy was dedicated in a balanced way. However, discussing these issues further with my aunt, a die-hard supporter of voting no to both, who expressed great regret in the fact that the VOTE No for the Marriage bill had so many more volunteers, money, energy, etc, because people talked about, people hardly knew what the Voter I.D stood for aside from the fact that they didn't want it. This is dangerous because marriage isn't the only important matter in this world and marriage justice isn't the only thing that is going to impact the Queer community. The Voter I.D would have been just as damaging, and to a wider range of people.

 

    Also, we tend to forget (or, white, cis-gender folks do) the necessity of intersectionality and how movements impact EVERYONE. The marriage issue isn't just about sexual orientation, it's about race, class, age, etcetera, because those are the peoples and lives that it will alter, as well. The significance of inclusion within a human rights cause that strives for inclusivity is so important. I can not stress it enough. By excluding large demographics of people from a social and political movement that works for justice is a regressive contradiction. This is why the feminist movement has been riddled with problems because it didn't follow its own mision statement of respecting and acknowledging all walks of people. The same goes for the LGBT (although transgender folk have endured their fair share of disrespect from the queer brothers and sisters, as well) community. If you want change and progress, start with doing so internally.

 -------------------------------------------

    To get down to it...what I am attempting to say is not that I don't want people to get married, and it isn't that I am without passion for this movement...however, I am without passion for the crazy notion that this is the only thing in this country that is worth our time and it is saddening to me that this is inciting so much energy that is depriving other issues of recognition. I am not going to fight for marriage or "Equal rights" as being the only movements that should yield my attention or my time.

 

I don't believe equality is enough, nor is it solely what I want. 
I believe justice is more necessary. 
I am greater than, I think highly of myself, I want to transcend. 
I am an individual, I am unique. 
I do not want to be JUST "equal" to somebody else because I am DIFFERENT from all other human beings and therefor I want to be my own personal self. 
I want equality... but I also want justice.
I want justice for reproductive rights, I want justice for the homeless, I want justice for the hungry.
I want Equal rights AND Justice NOW.

 

and NOT just for marriage. 

 

-Anna

 

Toward Feminist Accountability

    As I shared in a previous post, I have been reading Colonize This! with fervor and enthusiasm for a couple of weeks now.  In my WGSS Senior Seminar, we have discussed extensively the complications of reading this text as a white-identified person; I am not the intended audience as outlined in the essays, nor as defined in most women of color feminisms.  However, I struggle with my alienation from these texts, because on emotionally real and visceral levels, they resonate with day-to-day experiences I have had as a feminist, as a student, and as a woman.  It is too simple to merely highlight difference or draw a line where my experiences end as a white woman and where theirs begin as women of color; it is also too simple to take advantage of our similarities and shared knowledges as women dealing with similar gender-based oppressions.  My professor, Sonita Sarker, assured us that this messy space between camaraderie and respectful distance is okay – and she urged us to consider that while the text may be provoking our acknowledgment of white privilege, it also might be provoking us to engage in a dialogue about whiteness as it is racialized (not as a neutral default or non-race). 

            So this is my attempt to speak from my position as a white, middle-class, woman, who has to negotiate the everyday experience of these identities while also practicing a feminist perspective.  I want to hold myself accountable by acknowledging my privilege, but I don’t want to assume that my experiences of oppression are therefore invalid.  I want to live in the mess of what it means to be a feminist, who cannot always combat sexist or racist encounters with a cool wit or charisma; who cannot always muster the courage or energy to confront people who have hurt me; who is not an expert, but a careful listener and deeply sensitive being; who makes mistakes, that I can only promise to try and learn from.

     Every week for the past eight months, I have taken the hour-long commute on the 21 westbound bus from Saint Paul to my boyfriend’s house in South Minneapolis.  Most of the time (maybe sixty-percent of the time, when it’s not negative blank degrees outside), I genuinely enjoy the unique solitude I find on the bus, surrounded by strangers and a self-consciousness that feels safe to explore in this setting.  I find myself thinking more about my class and race privilege on the bus than I do in school sometimes, and more about how I can articulate my feminism in a way that can materialize in real-life benefits for people other than myself.  Which sometimes makes getting off the bus, at a stop that is a ten-minute walk from my boyfriend’s home, a rough transition into the depressing realities of my position as a woman.  And this is where I hesitate to say, “as a white woman,” but where I NEED to in order to understand how the racialization and sexualization of my body socially construct my identity – via both privilege and discrimination.

    I have been catcalled or sexually harassed walking down the street more times than are worth counting; this is not something specific to me, but to all women (street/online harassment are not the focus of my musings here, but there is an abundance of scholarship and personal writings about this issue out there that I encourage everyone to explore).  Usually, my tactic for surviving these situations with as much dignity as possible is pure denial; I look ahead, keep a straight face and a quick stride.  But some of the most layered, twisted, and confusing harassment I have experienced is from Black men in South Minneapolis, who call me out on my whiteness while degrading and mocking my sex.

Regarding the Steubenville Rape Case: An Article on Hyper-Masculinity

*****An Article on Hyper-Toxic-Masculinity and how it is played out in our rape culture******

Like with this cover image for Vogue magazine, where we have societal constructs of what Masculinity (angry, muscular, athletic, strong, lacking sensitivity) and Femininity (frail, wispy, porcelain, leaning on Lebron's shoulder, him supporting her) entail. Negative stereotypes, negative because they are the onl things we are allowed to be depending on our sex/gender. Teaching boys and girls that they are only given these characteristics and any other trait outside of these confines is wrong.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-Anna