Updated: Slut Shaming and Sexual Choice

Slut-shaming (I wish there was a better word for it) is a product of sex negative images. So not only is slut-shaming sexist it is also a process of policing gender. Slut shaming privileges men over womyn, by telling womyn that they are responsible for the sexual responses of men because womyn's power is sexual while men's power is material. "Put on pants instead of shorts, so men won't holler at you when you walk down the street." "If you weren't drinking so much, you wouldn't have been raped." In both of these situations, womyn are expected to be responsible for what men do, because supposedly men can't control their responses when women assumed to be hypersexual, show that they are indeed sexual beings. Slut shaming is telling womyn not to fall out of the confines of modesty and what the stereotype of what a woman should be: dainty, submissive, etc. When a woman falls out of those restrictions, society, including slut shamers ridicule her for not lining up to what their standards of a woman should be, for stepping out of line, for being a sexual woman with autonomy which womyn were never believed to be. They tell her she's not a real woman, that instead she is a ho, and strip her of her gender identity all together. This is the worst situation for a young woman of color to be in. They make her feel so bad that she'll get back in line and never stray again. Slut shaming serves to keep stoic ideas of what a woman should be in tact: pure and passive.


This type of logic disproportionately affects women of color. Since women of color are already seen by dominant society, including men of color, as hypersexual, callous deviants who use sex for purely economic and/or man stealing gains, our sexuality is even more boxed in. We put on a modest persona to seek acceptance not only from other womyn but from the men of our race also. Our sexuality is dictated for us even more than it is for white womyn. Most womyn are so afraid of being ostracized from the community based on sexual choices deemed inappropriate, that they make those choices, not based on love or fulfillment but only so they won't go through this process of gender stripping slut-shaming. My plea is for womyn to start making sexual choices based on what their desires are and what their own definition of a woman is and also allow every other woman to make those same rules, decisions, and choices for herself. Don't let society determine what your sexuality should look like. Define your own ideas and give every other woman the right to do that for herself, she deserves it. Shatter the degrading stereotype of what a woman should be.


My message to women is to be proud of the sexual choices you make when you don't care what others will think of you. Don't restrict yourself based on what ideas are out there about the purity of a woman. Even if afterward, you felt like it was a mistake and regret it later on, remember it happens to the best of us. Be proud that at that moment it was exactly what you wanted. Be proud that you had the clear mind and will to make that decision. If for no other reason, do it for the womyn who didn't get to make the choice about what sexual choices they were going to make.


"SEXUAL VINDICATION ladies, taking back whats ours!"

Sexual vindication: doing what you want, with your body, regardless of preconceived notions and not caring what people think about what you are doing, with your body.

Sexual Violence and Sex Negative Messages

The other day was the first day that I masturbated without guilt. I was in high school when I first started to masturbate. High school was also the time in my life when I was going through my die hard Imma-be-a-minister-when-I-grow-up Christian phase. Not only was I being sent covert messages from the media about how dirty and disgusting masturbation was but I was also being sent similar overt messages from the adults in my life that I loved, trusted, and believed about how wrong and sinful masturbation was. These messages didn't make me stop though, they only made me feel ashamed of what I was doing. I had found a part of myself that felt too damned good to stop, which made me feel even more bad and on top of that I was being told in church every Sunday to let go of the flesh and how only sinful, worldly creatures choose flesh over the Lord. I was a wreck, but a sexually satisfied wreck. Instead of persuading me to stop, those messages that were embedded into my psyche triggered an guilty response every time I felt the fruits of my masturbation labor. I relished the physical goodness but my mind felt like what I had just done was wrong, the physicality of what I was feeling was wrong. Pretty much, I felt bad about feeling good.

Every time, I told myself that I needed to stop, that I needed to get my life in order, that I needed to ask for forgiveness and I did. Over and over again. Imagine what that can do to a person, you continue to commit what you feel is a crime, a religious crime, one even worse than those committed against the law. Imagine what it did to my sexual health. I felt screwed up. The connection had already been made: sex is bad, dirty, wrong, and worst of all sinful.

Now that I've abandoned my religious beliefs and adopted love as my die hard spirituality, I have come to realize that sex is a natural part of life. To tell someone and send messages that sex is wrong is what the true problem is.

I recently read an blog post by sex positive activist Charlie Glickman. In his post he draws the link between sex negative messages and rape culture. He says "sex negative messages don't keep people from having sex. They keep people from having good sex." Brilliant. To further his argument, sex negative messages don't just keep people from having good sex they also keep people from feeling healthy, mature, equipped, and happy about the sexual choices they make. Sex negative messages are violent messages that keep people away from expressing themselves sexually in a safe, healthy, fun manner. They detach people from the very necessary connection human beings need to have with their physical body. Andrea Smith in her book "Conquest: Sexual Violence and the American Indian Genocide," says, "as a consequence of this colonization and abuse of their bodies, Indian people learn to internalize self-hatred, because body image is integrally related to self-esteem. When one's body is not respected, one begins to hate oneself. Anne, a native boarding school student, reflects on this process: You better not touch yourself...If I looked at somebody, lust, sex I got scared of those sexual feelings. And I did not know how to handle them...What really confused me was if intercourse was a sin, why are people born?...It took me a really long time to get over the fact that...I've sinned, I had a child." Therefore, I agree with Glickman's argument that sex negative messages promote rape. In order to have a mind that sees rape as wrong, you have to believe that every person's body is worthy of respect and love, but how can you respect and love someone else's body when you've been taught that all things sexual are bad? when you hate yourself and your own body?, when you're indiscriminate and careless about the sexual choices you make? This why I believe more men commit sexually violent acts than womyn do, because men are taught to be indiscriminate and careless in their sexual choices. If they turn a woman down, they are tagged gay not selective.

In Juice, Bishop said "I don't give a fuck. I don't give a fuck about you. I don't give a fuck about Steel. I don't give a fuck about Raheem, either. I don't give a fuck about myself. Look, I ain't shit. And you less of a man than me, so as soon as I figure you ain't gon be shit, pow!" Even though this is a fictional movie, it was a depiction of a real situation. When someone hates themselves they hate another person even more since society is shaped in a way where we don't give other the same respect we give ourselves. Therefore, I am making the assertion that the first step to stopping sexual violence is to stop sex negative messages. Teach people about sex positivity, so that they can be comfortable, and can respect and love their own bodies and the bodies of others. Its definitely easier said than done, but it can be done.

It took a long time of me constantly rethinking the sex negative messages that I had been sent for so long for me in order for me to fully love and appreciate my body and the body of others and it was definitely worth the wait.

I Love LA: Part 3: Eat Real Festival!

So I had been looking forward to the Eat Real Festival since I learned about it from the LA Times about two weeks previous and I finally got to go yesterday. While the festival didn't meet all of my expectations, which are always pretty high, it was still effin awesome. First, parking was horrible. This is the same crowd aligned with the green movement, so I wonder if the inconvenience was done on purpose. There weren't event any designated parking lots, only bike lots where you could get your bike valeted and shuttles. I'm all for the bikes and the like but they need to understand nonetheless 90% of people coming to this event will be driving, don't punish them for it. The festival was also a lot smaller than I expected but bigger isn't always better as showcased by this event.

The main thing I went for was the food trucks of course. The first one my mother and I decided on was the world famous Nom Nom truck from Food Network's The Great Food Truck Race. They were only selling one item, the Banh Mi, which I was a little apprehensive about since I don't really like lemongrass. However, I went ahead and tried it minus the mayo and it was the best lemongrass chicken I've ever had. All the ingredients were fresh, it had the perfect amount of spiciness with the jalapenos, and the baguette was really filling. It was delicious. I washed it down with a mango agua fresca. The next food truck we tried was Flat Iron where we ordered the house fries which were weirdly shaped potatoes seasoned with I believed to be sea salt, and some type of herb. Either way, they were dry but pretty good nonetheless.

We walked around and visited some booths about farming from South Central Farmers and organic food where Organic Valley was handing out organic string cheese, stickers and cards with information about how to make your own butter. We also bought white nectarines from a booth by Santa Monica Farmer's Market. The best part, besides the food, was the marketplace, even though I didn't buy anything. There was homemade honey and honey products from Backyard Bees. Their handcream was to die for. I also tasted a jerk sauce, jerk as in jerk chicken, from Jabberwocky Foods Inc. The sauce was good and reasonably priced. I also tasted pure chocolate which was good until the bitter end, literally. Last, I tasted an Original flavored olive from Orgasmo de la Boca, which the owner said her vegetarian friends describe as their bacon, I can definitely see the comparison!

Overall I had an excellent time, maybe I'll be at the one in Oakland next! Check out some of the flicks I took below:

I Love LA: Part 2: Things To Do This Week

• Los Feliz Village Street Fair. Sun. 11am.-10pm.
• Venice Beach Art Crawl-Explore Venice Beach's art community with more than 20 participating galleries. Thurs. July 17th. 6pm-10pm
• 3rd Annual Summer Fest, Venice Beach-Exhibitors, Food Vendors, and Live Music from 20 Bands. Sat. July 23rd. 10am-6pm.
• Volunteer Orientation. Sat. July 23rd. 9am-11am. at Downtown Women's Center
• Beauty CULture Exhibit at Annenberg Space for Photography

*only free events are posted*

I Love LA: Part 1: Venice

Today, I spent the day with my wonderful and very good friend TaRasha at Venice, Los Angeles; which is a sort of mecca in LA. Most people don't go to Venice Beach to enjoy the water but instead go to see the street art; graffiti and live circus-like performers; shop and eat. I bought two pairs of earrings for $23 at Gonzo Africa which has a lot of cool ethnic jewelry. Fred, whom I believe is the owner was really cool and gave us both discounts on our purchases.

Venice is home to many cool restaurants like famed taco truck Kogi BBQ which makes Korean tacos, you also find them at this event tonight. TaRasha and I ate a cool little Mediterranean restaurant called Cairo Cowboy, which is known for its Kabob N' Roll food truck as well but the owners just opened up this restaurant in Venice. Despite the corny name of the place, the food was really good, the portions were small but adequate for the price. I had the vegetarian version of the Mediterranean pizza, I think it was called Zatar. It came with a puree-like sauce of herbs, sesame seeds, purple onions, and tomatoes. TaRasha had fried banana nutella bites which were like pupusas filled with....you guessed it, nutella and fried banana. They were really good too.


Check out the earrings I bought today below:

Los Angeles

So after spending the majority of my time in Riverside for the past four years, I am back in LALAland and appreciating the hell out of it. So I'm making a effort to learn more about the city that I grew up in, specifically focusing on history/historical sites, events, and cool places. I'm starting a new series where I talk about places that I've been and cool events coming up in the Los Angeles area. In addition to blogging pictures and stories about the places I'm visiting, I'll post Things To Do in LA every Sunday. Stay tuned!

DivaCup Review

After I stumbled upon much research on the ills of menstruation products such as tampons and pads, I became disgusted. But not because of menstruation, but because like everything else in this world, capitalism had gotten a hold of something as natural as blood from a cooter. Why was I surprised, of course companies at the forefront of menstrual health were male-centric, capitalist and were least of all concerned with women's well being; that's why most of these products contain harmful chemicals like bleach. There had to be a better way, I thought. (And!) there is! I settled on the DivaCup, a resuable mentrual cup. My first cycle, it was to die for. Conveinent, clean, and safe, I worshipped the dear DivaCup. But from there, it all went down hill. The damn thing wouldn't stop leaking, and you know what a bother that can be. Frustrated, angry, sad, and heartbroken were not overly dramatic reactions to my DivaCup demise, they were true from the soul. Anyway, I sought help from online forums and even the company itself to no appropriate avail. Now I'm back to regular, unsafe methods, but I'm thinking, I may try this next.

Song of the Day

to all the wack rappers...these are called LYRIIICS. :)

As a Woman

As a woman, I am tired of feeling the need to look perfect every time I go outside so I won't be criticized for how appealing I don't look.
but also, as a woman, I am tired of feeling the need to dress down so as to lessen the amount of leers and jeers I get from disgusting men.
As a woman, I am disgusted that I am never not aware that men want to have sex with me.
As a woman, I am even more disgusted by the violences that I and my sisters face daily; the rapes against my body, against my sexuality, against my sexual orientation, against my womanhood.
As a woman, I am tired of having to defend my position as intellectual, as a person of having a viable conversation with any person!
As a woman, I am disgusted that I am positioned as a victim in every situation.
And as a woman, I am tired of having my thoughts, beliefs and knowledge questioned because you don't think that I am smart enough to know things about this life and about this world.
As a woman, I'm frightened about what this world will look like if this behavior continues.
As a woman, I'm thoroughly annoyed by the fact that men are given privilege solely based on the fact that they were born with a penis!, a penis that some of them don't even know how to use properly.
As a woman, I'm tired of feeling the need to live up to standards of men who do not even have a relationship with me.
As a woman, I am sickened by the fact that there are womyn who oppress other womyn just as much as men oppress womyn.
As a woman, I am tired of being ignored!
As a woman, I am tired of having to hide the fact that I enjoy sex, very much!
As a woman, I am discomforted by the idea that my body is used to sell products in a capitalist system that oppresses me more than it does a man.
I am not a ho, I am not a bitch, I am not a slut, I am not a whore, I am not a prostitute, I am not a chick. I am woman, I am a girl.
I am beautiful no matter what anyone says.
I am smart.
I am capable.
Its not easy to love being a woman with all this and more to deal with it, my only solace is to sit up and speak about these injustices, to notice that this is not right and to do something about it! I have a big voice and I will use it for change until change comes because my vagina said that I should. :)

My Favorite Slum Village song: Climax

"The concept is a menage a trois really, a guy's fantasy. We're trying to break the monotony and relax the stiffness of sexuality because it's so suppressed. We're trying to tell everybody it's okay if you wanna have a menage a trois. Do your thing, it's alright. Sexuality is freedom and we support that. I don't suppress my sexuality and we don't do it in our music, so we're sharing it with the world - something that another group probably wouldn't do." ^-Baatin

Ugh.

You know what I'm tired of?, the phenomena from people within activist circles to pant relentlessly about their disgust and astonishment with our country that we aren't as "progressive" as we seem, or apparently should be, just because we are *cue the national anthem* Americaaaa, the beautiful. Shit, tell me something I don't know... and why isn't this something that you already knew? The worst part of it is when they put such statistic as; "What does the United States of America have in common with the African nation of Somalia? Answer: They are the only countries to refuse to sign Article 37 of the 1989 UN document entitled, "Rights of the Child."; against a largely undeveloped country like Somalia in this real-life example to emphasize how "primitive" (her words, not mine) and "third world" this country truly is and juxtapose it with heightened surprise, complete with raised eyebrows. Like, Oh! My! God! My Beautiful, superior country has something in common with this ravaged and destitute country??! How could it be? There must be some type of mistake! Not Americaaa... the beautiful. Gosh! We must do something about this, and quickly!... so we can further widen the gap between US and THEM, privileged and underprivileged, progressive and unprogressive. We cannot possibly in the same pool as them and therefore doomed to the same fate. Nevermind the REAL needs of the subject or issue we're speaking about or the country we're persecuting. Sigh. Will it ever end?

Sara Tavares--->J.Cole

Marvin---->G-Unit

I fucking love this song and I love Marvin.


& this used to be my song. :)

The Police Institution

Think about it, when you have a problem like domestic violence or robbery, who do you call? It goes without saying, the police. Yet we are all aware what the police institution has done to our communities. Oscar Grant, Sean Bell. Everywhere we look people are calling for the arrest of someone, the extension of prison time for another person. Even activists rely heavily on the police institution to end the problems that speak about. Police officers are found most often in poor, communities of color, the police institution was specifically designed to be a type of watch dog mechanism for these communities. We forget the violence done to us by the police institution, something we should never forget. Abner Louima. Duanna Johnson. They keep us in tact, whenever one of us steps out of line they send us to prison, no matter the circumstances. Entire communities are criminalized, which results in the overrepresentation of Black, Chicanos, and Natives in the prison system. Being a person of color is a criminal offense in this country. Driving while black, longer prison terms for crack than cocaine, the three strikes law, the criminalization of poor mothers of color, the criminalization of prostitution; all these issues disproportiantely affect people of color. Prison, police and the military are branches of the same oppressive tree. We cannot forget the racism and sexism inherent in the police institution. Kathryn Johnston. Amadou Diallo. We think that the police are inevitable, that they are needed. Indigenous communities, before conquest praticed community accountability. Communities that have love and respect within them do not need outsiders to maintain "order and peace."

Immigration and Race Relations

Most people assume that all Raza people are illegal immigrants. However, the majority of Raza persons in the US are legal citizens. Because of this, for the most part all Raza people get treated like illegal immigrants, as taking advantage of the system, as dirty, and as stupid. Being an undocumented person is racialized as being Raza. However, there are many more immigrant populations that are not apart of La Raza; mainly European and African. However, La Raza is targeted for the racism that comes along with discussion about immigration issues.

This also means that other races get left out of the immigration conversation. Anti-immigration rhetoric relies on the slaveability of Blackness and also as seeing La Raza as a threat to US empire building. Privileged persons who have high paying jobs and are able to successfully navigate the job world know that blacks will still be here to do the slave labor. They and anti-immigrant blacks are ignorant of the fact that undocumented persons do necessary labor for this country. With documented labor out of this country, all those people with jobs will see an decrease in the lure and viability of their position. In fact, Blacks have benefited largely and gained privilege in the job market because of mass immigration. Blacks, in the long run, are largely in a better economic position. We hold better jobs and live in more affluent areas than ever before.

Immigration can also be seen as threatening to an individual's personal privilege of being a legal citizen. Undocumented persons are seen as taking advantage of healthcare, welfare, and public educational services. This logic also seeps into the conversation when anti-immigrantion people accuse undocumented persons of taking American jobs. There is especially tension between Black Americans and La Raza. Black Americans have typically been situated as slaves in the American labor force, however, now more undocumented workers hold lower level positions; which can be interpreted as "taking jobs." However, when we complicate the notion of capitalism and white supremacy, we see that immigrants are not to blame for this. La Raza also has issues with unemployment. However, corporate entities will take cheaper labor, which is immigrant labor not black labor, because undocumented workers do not possess the means to fairly negotiate the workforce because they are without legal citizenship status. They are also pawns in a capitalist state, they take what labor is available to them out of necessity to feed their families.

The Racialization of Music: Part 2: The Power and Criminalization of Hip Hop

The following post is part two from this post about the Racialization of Music.

One area where the racialization of music is particularly evident is within hip hop. We can all agree that hip hop perpetuates stereotypes, such as black people being thugs and ho's. However, we have to make the distinction that hip hop is not to blame for these stereotypes. These defining images were created by the system of white supremacist capitalism and was unfortunately adopted by commercial areas of hip hop, which is the same area that record companies choose to propel to the forefront of the media. For example, it is incredibly evident that ideas of black womyn being hypersexual, circa the spectacle of Sarah Baartman, are also seen in commerical hip hop music through the sexed out personas of rappers. We must realize the evident agenda in this, the furthering of stereotypes sustains the purposes of white supremacy.

Hip hop, in its present commerical state is being used to promote a capitalist, white supremacist agenda, while simultaenously being scapegoated for the world's problems. For example, remember when 2pac was persecuted becuase a guy listening to his album shot two cops? Another example is how society continuously blames hip hop for sexism and misogyny. However, the ultimate reason why Hip hop is criminalized is because blackness is also criminalized. Andrea Smith, in her article, "Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy: Rethinking Women of Color Organizing" says, that "we can actually look at the criminalization of Blackness as a logical extension of Blackness as property." Thus we can say that even though hip hop is a entity that is multicultural, it is criminalized and commodified at the expense of black bodies. I think we deserve much more as the creators of hip hop, however, white America always has the power and privilege to twist and distort good intentions.

Hip hop is a billion dollar a year industry and is also the most popular musical genre to date. It has surpassed being a part of media to become a media itself. Much like the news and also other forms of art, hip hop, as an entity of mass media, has the power to influence pop culture. No wonder why white America hijacked and now owns it. It can influence people to dance and dress in provacative or fly ways, it can inspire people to become more aware of social justice issues, and it also has the power to dumb people down. Hip hop is used to sell everything from cars to cell phones. White Corporate America has stolen hip hop to further its capitalistic purposes, however, this offers no real agency for the black people whose music is being abused. Hip hop was created as an organic, anti-colonial tool of expression and what was particulary beautiful about that expression was that it was used as a tool for black Americans, particularly black men, who had been shut up, marginalized, stigmatized and deemed invisible by dominant society. Now, commercialized hip hop is used to further ideas of black hypermasculinity, capitalistim, and violence against the female and queer; which in turn only fuels a corporate agenda for white America. Black men and black women have once again been shut up and we don't have hip hop as an outlet for mainstream expression any longer.

Do we really want to support the commercial hip hop that perpetuates stereotypes about us and therefore furthers our own oppression? We must constantly be aware of the power we have as black American consumers to dictate trends as far as what is being sold to and bought by us. We cannot allow white America to continue to own hip hop and dictate what parts of it we see, use and listen to. We must be concious consumers and seek out alternative hip hop music that uplifts, enlightens and empowers us. Nothing that you get from commercial hip hop on the radio or in the mainstream media will be good for you and definitely not good for the black American community.

Rappers and producers: Quit making music if you love money and fame more than you love the people.

"Come on baby, light my fire, everything you drop is so tired, music is supposed to inspire, how come we ain't getting no higher?" -L.Boogie

Lessons from M.X.

So as I have said before in a previous post, I have been trying to make a point to read speeches from those deemed leaders in liberation movements. So far, I have only read Malcolm X's "After the Bombing" speech, because I've been busy. Anyway, for this post I wanted to highlight that speech and specific points that he makes about social justice organizing in this country. I don't think that most people of my generation know how smart Malcolm X was, all we know is the name "Malcolm X." We don't know any of his words or what he really stood for. Or that he was pretty funny too.

One point that he talks about is oppressed people becoming enlightened and aware of the colonial situation in this country. "The newly awakened people all over the world pose a problem for what's known as Western interests, which is imperialism, colonialism, racism and all these other negative vulturistic isms. But the internal forces pose an even greater threat only when they have properly analyzed the situation and know what the stakes really are." So we can see here that Malcolm is emphasizing education and knowledge about the oppressed situation, which I totally agree with. He goes on to say, "the man knows that if Negroes find out how dissatisfied they really are -- and all of them, even Uncle Tom is dissatisfied, he's just playing his part for now -- this is what makes them frightened. It frightens them in France, it frightens them in England, and it frightens them in the United States." So we see that knowledge really is power, as corny as it sounds. That there is no hope for ending your oppressive situation if you don't even know what oppression is and that it is designed to be seen as invisible.

Another important point is alliances among struggles. "They'll do it to them today, and do it to you tomorrow. Because you and I and they are all the same." I think this integral to remember. Above all, we are all one people. If they do it to them, they'll do it to you. He continues, "and one of our first programs is to take our problem our of the civil rights context and place it at the international level, of human rights, so that the entire world can have a voice in our struggle. If we keep it at civil rights, then the only place we can turn for allies is with in the domestic confines of America. But when you make it a human rights struggle, it becomes international, and then you can open the door for all types of advice and support from our brothers in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and elsewhere." Oppression is never faced in solitude, the oppression of one community is also the oppression of every other community. We must create alliances and solidarity among our communities.

With the election of Obama, people, mainly oppressed people seem to have a lot more faith in the political system with no factual basis supporting this faith. "Some of these liberals who grin in your face like they're your best friends, they have money tied up in the Congo." Liberals are not angels, and they are not anarchists. They have a hand in the capitalist oppressive system that we live in as well. Don't allow yourself to be fooled thinking that Democrats are so liberal and great, that they aren't oppressive to your situation. In actuality, most Democrats know that they have to somewhat liberal for the preservation of their party and ideals, Republicans are just more bold with their marginalizing.

Elsie's Business

I just gone done reading "Elsie's Business" by Frances Washburn. Pretty good book. Check it out if your looking for a book outside of the European spectrum. Its about a Native woman's murder. Kind of eerie but the storytelling is really good.

West Coast Hip Hop: Part 5: Dom Kennedy

I don't even remember when I first heard of Dom Kennedy or downloaded his most recent mixtape, From the Westide With Love. He was kind of annoying to me at first. It was probably because of that, that it took me forever to listen to it. But when I did, I loved it. I've been meaning to write this post for a long time, even though I'm sure most of yall already know about Mr. Kennedy.

I really like Dom Kennedy's videos. He's smart enough to know that riding down Crenshaw in a low rider dressed in your choice or either red or blue is straight played. He chooses to show different parts of LA in a interesting way. He also has dope beat selection and unique rap style.




& his newest official video from the mixtape:



Download Dom's music here.

Womyn

I recently read a book review for “Click: Young Women on the Moments That Made Them Feminists” that inspired to write about my own moment. Now, I don’t call myself a feminist, since I don’t particularly believe in labels. However, everyone who knows me, would probably identify me as such, knowing that my ideals line up almost exactly. Well the moment that made me a feminist was being a co-founder to a womyn’s organization, Great Womyn in Progress, on my college campus. In the beginning, I was sexist and misogynistic as most womyn, in my opinion, are, especially the ones I knew. Its pretty hard to plan events for the empowerment of womyn when you hate the fact that you are one. Its even more difficult to present yourself as someone who hopes to unify womyn when it’s a pain to you to come up with something positive to say about the womyn you know. It was the researching and hearing about womyn’s issues that prompted my change. It was also the fact that I needed to be someone of love and understanding, things that were always, inevitably deep inside of me. Its so easy to conform to the ways of the world and not so easy to be yourself, the person you should be. The three decisions that I credit, during my college years, with helping to make me the person I am today, would be deciding to attend UC Riverside, changing my major to Ethnic Studies, and helping to start GWIP. All my energy and time goes into being a person who seeks the liberation of all people, which was prompted by those decisions. A friend once told me to keep the good work with GWIP because it was important to love yourself, that she had never thought about loving herself before, because she had always focused so much on her family. That meant a lot to me, still does. What keeps me going through all the struggle, is the possibility of the chance I could be opening a person’s mind to the beauty and plight of the woman, or that I can teach someone about the structures in our society that make it hard for equality flourish, that a woman might not have the feelings that I once had of being confused as to why I should love mysef.

I love women, I love myself as a woman. That is something that I live and take with me, everyday in every way, its who I am, at the very core, at the most important part. The way we dress. Our quiet delicateness and fierce strength. Our bodies and the power we possess in them. Our beautiful faces, all the ways we can dress ourselves up. The French tipped nails, the make up and heels. I love it all. We’re so smart, booksmart, and we always know just what to do in every situation. Mothers. I can’t imagine the strength and patience it takes to give birth and be a mother to a child? Its amazing. We’re survivors. Womyn inspire me.