Feminism isfor everyone.

a celebration of feminism at UVA.
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Feb 22, 2009,8:48 PM
Be a YWLP Big Sister!

Are you or someone you know interested in mentoring a middle school girl next year?

Be part of a special group of college women at UVA and earn class credit for being a part of your Little Sister's life!

Interested? Have questions? Want a slice of pizza? Come to a short info session on Monday, February 23 in the Newcomb Art Gallery from 8:00-8:30pm!


ywlp.virginia.edu
8:36 PM
Feminist Film Night!


Take a break from studying and come watch "The Education of Shelby Knox" at 8:00 pm (not 8:30 pm!) Tuesday February 24th in Minor 125. There will be free popcorn!
Feb 20, 2009,12:07 AM
Zine this Semester: Our Body, Our Lives

Calling all writers, poets, artists and photographers:
Have you ever worried about how you look? Know someone with an eating disorder?
Do you question the images of people you see in the media?
Want to contribute to a UVa student publication that tackles gender issues?

Contribute to S|He Said!
S|He Said is a zine produced once a semester by the club Feminism is for Everyone (FIFE).


This semester, the theme is something we can all relate to:

Our Bodies, Our Lives

Our appearance is a huge part of our identity. Our ideas about appearance are shaped by gender ideology.
What does this mean to you?
example topics:
body image~fashion~race issues~eating disorders~media~athletes~tattoos/piercings/body art~queer issues~
UVa culture~international perspectives

Plus: a special Take Back the Night section

Take Back the Night is the sexual assault awareness week co-sponsored by FIFE and the Sexual Assault Leadership Council, to be held April 6-9.
Submit your thoughts on TBTN, sexual assault, and dating violence.

Send your writing (personal experience/essay/poetry/interviews/book & movie reviews etc!),
artwork, or photography to femmag@gmail.com

Submission Deadline: March 8, 11:59pm
Feb 14, 2009,10:49 AM
National Condom Week

It's National Condom Week! This is a few youtube videos that was emailed by Planned Parenthood.

Check em out!

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=48D0C2CCB4CE027C
Feb 13, 2009,11:57 AM
History doesn't explain it all

In the traditional view of prehistory, "Man the Hunter" is responsible for developing communication and social organization through hunting (since hunting, especially of large animals, most likely could not have been achieved by the individual). However, it is probably women who can credited with developing social organization, language, and spurring more complex brain development:

"The need to organize for feeding after weaning, learning to handle the more complex socio-emotional bonds that were developing, the new skills and cultural inventions surrounding more extensive gathering- all would demand larger brains." (Sally Slocum, from Who Cooked the Last Supper? The Women's History of the World by Rosalind Miles)

Hominid babies were significantly heavier than than ape infants and less body hair would have made it more difficult for babies to cling to their mother. Of course, women did not have adequate childcare back then (ironically, that's still a problem millions of years later) and would have had to take their infants with them, at least until they were weaned, when they went about gathering food and later cultivating the land (another huge contribution to society that we can most likely thank prehistoric women for). Most likely, women developed some type of sling to hold the baby against her chest, which she would have positioned so that the child was carried on her left side so that it could be comforted by the sound of her beating heart. Therefore, the right hand would have been freed to do work- which is probably the reason why most of us and right-handed today.

In addition, infant girls today develop handedness and speech much more quickly than boys. This is probably a result of prehistoric women having to communicate and organize themselves to gather food for the tribe, regardless of if they had an infant of their own to care for (In fact, it is estimated that it was gathering food by women, not hunting done by men, provided the majority (up to 80%) of the food for prehistoric tribes.)

So, It really should be no surprise that girls, and often not boys, play with dolls during childhood. Of course, society most certainly has an impact on defining gender roles of girls and boys (before the child is even born we paint the baby room either pink or blue). In fact, a recent has demonstrated that vervet monkeys showed the same sex-typical preferences of toys- females preferred a doll or cooking pot and males preferred a ball or police car. (Psychology Today)

There has been so much talk about history, from the early hominids to modern day- I think it's about time we go back and look at herstory.
Feb 10, 2009,3:58 PM
Nadya Suleman

In the light of the birth of Nadya Suleman's octuplets, I am curious to hear your opinions of her predicament.

For the sake of information, here are a few official sources of information:
MSNBC's interview
NY Daily News
Women's Issues (good opinion piece)

Before I offer my own opinion, allow me to say that I am glad that Nadya had the right to choose to start a family on her own and that she had the ambition to have a family regardless of what people thought of her single relationship status. As a western society, we have come a long way from the stigmas associated with having children out of wedlock.

However, the more I hear about Nadya the more irritated I become with her sensationalist story. On the way to classes this morning I heard on the radio that she had injured her back in 1999 as a result of a work-related accident. (This factoid is represented in the MSNBC article.) Her doctors told her that she needed surgery, but she opted out because she feared infertility. Instead, she collected $168,000 in compensation over the course of around seven years. During that time she had her first six children. Um, hello? If you have a back injurty that the doctors deemed serious enough for surgery, why would you want to impregnate yourself before you are healed?

But that's not my point. My point is that she decided to have children before she found a means of supporting them. She plans on returning to school in the future so that she can better provide for them. My question is, "how?" Her mother seems hardly supportive of her choices and has, allegedly, filed for bakruptcy. Her father is only one person. She says she refuses to accept welfare, so how will she take care of 14 children while she goes back to school? Who is her support group?

Moreover, her comments indicate to me (though I am no psychologist) that her need to have a big family is her attempt to heal or comfort herself for what she did not have as a single child growing up. In her interview with Ann Curry, Suleman said that she "just longed for certain connections and attachments with another person that [she] really lacked...growing up." She also said that she lacked a "Feeling of self and identity. I didn't feel as though, when I was a child, I had much control of my environment. I felt powerless."

It makes me wonder if that's how her 14 children will feel when they grow older and all demand attention: a feeling of self and identity. Right now they're all just a number.

And before I step off my soap box, I also want to say that I am aghast that Nadya has no shame naming a figure for giving an interview on television. She is openly seeking $2 million for media interviews and commercials in order to counter the costs of raising her children. Where was that concern for money before you let the doctor implant you with six fertilized eggs? That is what irritates me the most: her reliance on public sympathy and media sensationalism for monetary aid. I honestly hope that she does not become the next Jon and Kate Plus 8.

I also want to acknowledge the ethical debate that this issue unearthed. I do question her fertility doctor's judgment. He should have questioned her when she first asked for IVF due to her back injury. But, this angle brings up enough concern for another day, so I'll leave it at that.
Feb 7, 2009,10:52 PM
The F-Word

The F-Word: Feminism--Love it? Embrace it? Avoid it? Hate it? Not sure?

Calling women of all shapes and sizes: undergrads, grad students, workers, mothers, non-workers, non-mothers and the not-easily-categorized. Come discuss what it means to be a woman in Charlottesville in 2009.

Come fired up!

Date:
Monday, February 23, 2009
Time:
7:00pm - 9:00pm
Location:
Body*Mind*Spirit, in Preston Plaza, across from McGrady's.
Street:
923 Preston Ave #D
City/Town:
Charlottesville, VA

Please find this event on Facebook and forward to your friends. The UVA alumnae/affiliates who organized this event are hoping for a diverse turnout...let your voice be heard!
Feb 3, 2009,6:09 PM
Film Contest

For those of you who love women's issues and film making, here is a contest for you! It is sponsored by Birth Matters Virginia, for which I am your faithful Charlottesville director.

Please let me know if you have any questions, I would love to see some FIFE submissions. Our country spends more per capita on maternity care yet the outcomes for our women and babies are shameful when compared to the rest of the developed world. When you factor race into the equation, the statistics get even worse.

It is (past) time to get women's health issues, beyond birth control and breast cancer, into mainstream discussion. Childbirth is one of many many other women's health issues but is one of the first younger women will experience. If this kind of feminism appeals to you, please check out the National Women's Health Network in addition to birth related organizations such as ICAN and Birth Matters Virginia. I met Amy Allina yesterday at the Fem2.0 Conference and she is very approachable if you have any questions or want to network in this arena.
11:08 AM
money for birth control does not stimulate the economy

according to ruben navarette jr, the $200 M originally listed in the stimulus package to defray the rising costs of birth control is a ludicrous sham of how to best stimulate the economy, which channels the eugenics movement.

of course, after evoking images of Margaret Sanger and her well-documented racism as certain by-products of birth control pills, the money going towards the birth control issue was taken out of the stimulus package.

while margaret sanger was unequivocally wrong in her supremacist, eugenicist agenda, this does not mean that birth control is terrible - nor does it mean that the idea of making birth control more available is ridiculous.

during the Nicolae Ceausescu dictatorship in Romania, access to contraceptives was widely banned and women were sometimes using abortions as their primary source of birth control.

in bringing up the example of Romania, I am of course constructing a reductionist, extremist argument. limiting government spending on birth control is not equivocal to constructing a communist regime with widespread abortions to prevent the birth of starving children.

but this ridiculous, offensive tactic is exactly used by mr. navarette, jr. spending government money on birth control does not equate to constructing a widespread eugenics movement.

what is necessary is a dialogue, since it is inescapably true that governmental policy on family planning does have an effect on the nation - socially, politically, and yes, economically.

writes author Gail Kligman,
"Analysis of reproductive policies thereby illuminates the strategies employed by the state and by individuals to achieve their respective goals and exposes how intrusions of the former led to conformity, or to evasion or distortion by the latter" (The Politics of Duplicity, link to e-book here, if you are a UVA student).

does this mean that we should include bc money in an economic stimulus package? maybe not. but it is an over-simplified and useless argument to say that spending USD on bc will, by definition, create a new-age eugenics movement.
Feb 2, 2009,1:00 AM
spoken word poetry

a friend of mine is going to see andrea gibson this month at hollins university (all women's college in roanoke, va) and i'm so tempted to go with her despite the fact that the show is right before midterms! 
here's a link to my favorite video of her performances that i've seen so far. i'm pretty sure its in response to prop 8 and its just so sincere and sweet and she's so badass. 
<3

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