Listmania List

While my independent study didn't actually go where I wanted it to, and while I'm still struggling to get my newer blog off the ground, there are some really helpful things that came out of my research last semester. I actually have an almost 50 item annotated bibliography about sources for research on female sexuality which I have compressed into an Amazon.com listmania list on sources for female sexuality. Certainly, since you have to edit reviews to only 400 characters, the list doesn't quite do the sources justice, but, as I have said before, part of my project was to try to make the research I was doing universally accessible and that is exactly what a listmania list does. Please feel free to check it out and e-mail me/post/etc. if you want the full annotation for any of the sources.

More on sex education

My former roommate, currently a graduate student at Brown, posted this on her blog and I thought it was worth sharing. I think that sex education is such an important topic when you think about all of the issues that it (sometimes) tries to help young people with: pregnancy, disease, consent. I know that my own sex ed was abstinence only, but I've found that an increasing number of my friends have had different experiences that have shaped the way they think and talk about sex. I wish I could have been at this same panel, because I think the woman my friend mentions who emphasized the relationship aspect of sex education has a really important point. We need to be teaching our young people more than just mechanics, because the scars from having some STDs are incomparable to the scars from having forced intercourse or from the accumulation of negative self-image.

Thoughts on campus sexual assault prevention

This evening, people on campus got an e-mail regarding a rape that took place last week. A news report about the event can be read here.

In his e-mail to students (and as it explains in the article) Sam Sadler encouraged students to call Campus Police if they needed a ride home after hours. For my women's studies Community Action Project last year, my group initially investigated some issues related to sexual assault prevention including safe forms of transportation in instances of perceived danger with specific questions about how the intoxication of the student seeking help might cause problems. The police station was not very receptive to the idea of helping to get a drunk student out of a dangerous situation without it resulting in his or her potential arrest for drinking underage. Recently W&M enacted a policy that provides amnesty to students who seek medical help because of alcohol poisoning and to others who may have been drinking underage who are involved in the process of seeking medical care for their friends. It makes sense, in my mind, that this policy be extended to women and men who seek assistance in getting out of unsafe situations that could potentially result in sexual assault or rape. Preventing sexual assault means changing the ways in which students view consent and sexual activity, but it also means providing safe, reliable ways to get out of bad situations, particularly when an individual is intoxicated.

In light of this recent case of rape, and with the tendency of alcohol to be involved with cases of acquaintance rape (I realize this specific incident does not fall into that category), I decided to write Sam Sadler, Vice President of Student Affairs, an e-mail detailing some of my thoughts. I don't know if anything will actually come of the e-mail, but I felt like I needed to say something while people were actually listening. It was disheartening to know that the best advice Sam could offer to students out late was to call Campus Police since they have seemed really hesitant to help in the past. I am hoping that even by shining a little light on this problem, I might actually see some campus policy changed (or at least have the police be encouraged to respond to student's pleas for after-hours transportation).

What follows is the text of the e-mail that I sent to Sam. I know it isn't very formal, but I wanted to post it here to hopefully get people thinking about ways our campus could work even harder to prevent sexual assault, particularly since it's been such an important topic on campus over the last few years.

Sam,

Last year for my women's studies CAP project, one of my group members called the Campus Police and asked if they would be willing to give rides to students after hours if they felt like they were in an unsafe situation. They said they would only do so if they didn't have better things to be doing. In addition, when the question of the involvement of alcohol came up, they explained that they would not be able to treat the student who felt they were in danger with amnesty. It would seem to me that were an intoxicated student (underage or not) to feel safe contacting the police and certain of their positive response, unnecessary incidents that potentially put students in dangerous situations could be avoided. Honestly, I think it is unfortunate that we can only really rely on campus police to intercede once an act of assault has been committed and that while we are willing to grant medical amnesty to students who go to the hospital, we are not willing to grant amnesty to students, particularly women, who ask for help when they feel unsafe.

In light of this recent event, I would love to see some sort of reinforcement of police policy on willingness to transport students after hours in the form of an e-mail sent out to the campus police officers, and I would be hopeful that there might be some sort of conversation initiated with the office of sexual assault prevention about an extension of the amnesty policy to women and men who seek law enforcement assistance when they feel threatened. Barriers that exist to seeking help make dangerous situations that much more dangerous. Particularly since alcohol is so often a factor in acquaintance rape, I think that it is an issue that needs to be addressed.

Beginning to conclude

Haste suggests in Sexual Metaphors that feminism must work to re-inform the ideologies that shape our institutions in order to actually create change, and it is largely the input we get from various sources that shapes our ideologies--what we buy, who we vote for, what we believe. That makes it important to read/receive the best knowledge possible in order to allow for the ideal shaping of our ideologies. Now, when there is so much information in so many forms readily available, this can be an extremely challenging task.

When I started work on my independent study, I was challenged by the incredible number of resources out there, and the lack of helpful information when it came to selecting the best/most relevant. Part of this problem is that the best academic criticism is only really available in elite places--like inaccessible theory in databases and academic publications that can't benefit anyone without the time, discernment and support systems afforded only in specific situations (like being a college student). I could read on university websites or in JSTOR reviews and suggested lists about which books would be the most useful (which I did), but at the end of the day I had to order my books from somewhere else. On Amazon, the reviews and comments about all of these dense theoretical books and compilations of essays were spare and generally not very helpful.

Because of this, I greatly overshot on reading materials for the semester, and have had a hard time figuring out what comes first. I realized that there needed to be a space out there where someone really provided information on what theory/books to read and what movies to watch. One of the most meaningful ways to have my work this semester make an impact on the larger discipline of women's studies, especially since as an undergrad it is hard to get ones work into more traditional public (and academic) forums, was to post reviews of the sources I was consulting on very mainstream resources, like Amazon, imdb, and Netflix.

Originally I thought that the most important thing in electronic resources was to keep each topic focused on a separate weblog, but now I think that I need to have everything in one place, linked to my identity. So, I m rolling this site over into my larger, new Wordpress account. I am calling this site "Collection Plate." I am eventually going to ask the women's studies department, Reves Center, IR department, Monroe Scholars/Charles Center staff and maybe even the English department to link my site on their pages once I get it fully up and running. I would hope they would continue to keep it accessible at least while I am studying at Oxford next year where I think I'll be moving towards research in nonviolent methods for sustainable international development with a focus on women. I want to keep my new site live then and update regularly, and in the future work towards featuring sections on each of topics in which I am engaged along the course of my studies in and outside the classroom. I am planning to have several pages including freshman year; Kyoto, Japan: classwork and case study; mytwolips; my classwork in my masters program at Oxford; and my case study international peace work/research in Rwanda in 2009-2010.

Academic blogging thoughts continued

I wanted to include here a segment from the first post of another blog project I am planning to work on in the future that documents a lot of my ideas about academic blogging and contains a significant number of links to sites/blogs/articles that address some of the issues central to the discussion around using blogs for academic purposes. The excerpt, in it's original context here, follows:

I feel like blogging will continue to be important for me, at least while I'm in school and maybe even particularly once I'm out in the world working. I know some people say that blogs are meaningless drabble and worthless, but I think that they are a really exciting tool that allows nearly immediate and virtually free access to various forms of knowledge produced not just by those in our immediate geographical/academic/traditional social communities, but actually worldwide. I also recently found out that there are projects to collect this knowledge and organize/legitimize it for general and academic use. There are certainly problems that exist for blogging academically including: academic refereeing (peer-review) and reliability/verifiability/legitimacy as a source and issues of plagiarism (particularly because of potential differences in copyright law since there is not an official international law) and citation both for the blogger and those who want to use its content. Even just in that set of links about academic blogging, a fair number of them are blogs and, regardless of whether the moderators are said to be librarians or college students, it is almost impossible to know for a fact who is actually producing the ideas and words because of the lack of a definite connection between an actual and an online identity. And even then, all these thoughts are tied into traditional systems of valuing information which are constantly under scrutiny and revision.

That concludes the excerpt. I think this post is really important, because as I've been working on this blog for my independent study, I've realized that I have had to do as much research on utilizing this medium for academic purposes as I have actually gotten to research my initial topic.

I've got a lot to say...

and it would seem, not always enough time to say it. I have been thinking and talking a little bit more recently about some of the specifics of using blogs as a medium for independent study and education. I have noticed in the past few weeks that I've gotten really far astray from my initial project, and while I've certainly produced a lot of posts comparatively, they're all over the map. I think it's because I was allowing myself to be so influenced by everything else that was out there to link to and experience, but I am going to definitely try to do some reigning in this week so that I get back on the right page before the end of the month and the end of the semester.

I was thinking too, though, about my posting style and the difficulty I have had in posting rapidly and thoroughly about a lot of the things I'm experiencing and working with because, since I know they are "for class," I feel like they are supposed to be of a certain caliber and academic value. I was observing one of my friend's own process for blogging, and found that there is a distinct difference in the ways in which we post. I made a comment on his most recent post exploring some of these issues, but I'm not exactly sure where to go from there. I just know that I think this medium is really worthwhile, I just have to figure out how to keep it focused enough to always be relevant to its mission.

Sexual Assault Awareness Week II & CAP Projects

I am super happy that the intro women's studies classes are doing their Community Action Projects (CAPs) again this year. It seems to create this really wonderful, open space where women can talk about body issues, sexuality issues, fashion issues, abuse issues, etc. because of the various groups that are hosting all of these really wonderful events, talks, displays, and whatnot around campus. It also certainly doesn't hurt that some of them were during Sexual Assault Awareness week which is a similarly inclined opportunity to talk openly about some pretty serious issues.

I attended a couple of events during the week, including one I posted on earlier and also the pilot for a new co-ed program run collectively by members of 1 in 4 and Every Two Minutes that will allow freshmen to engage in an open dialogue about giving and receiving consent, particularly when it comes to sexual situations and will help them think about the involvement of alcohol. I wish I could tell you more about the program, but because of the fact that is is currently just a pilot, it was agreed that we would preserve the safe space of the room by allowing all of the discussion that took place to remain between those who were there. I am excited, though, that there is at least an ongoing discussion taking place.

The other events I wanted to mention, though, are both CAP projects. The first was a wall that had pictures of various women in different amounts of clothing that was meant to address body image and show pictures of real women. I am always glad to have this sort of display, but I was walking through with a male friend and his comment was: "All of the women who are less clothed are the ones we would typically think of as being more comfortable with their bodies." I also felt like maybe there wasn't enough of an opportunity for the people photographed to have their feelings about the pictures directly attached. I'd love to see a picture of a really pretty girl with the description "Looking at magazines makes me feel fat and ugly." Surely, I don't want people to feel fat and ugly, but I think that it would demonstrate that there are a lot of people who feel negatively about their bodies who others of us look at and are jealous of. I think it would help my understanding of my own body image to know what other women actually think about their bodies.

Finally, I went to an event called "Fashion Shouldn't Hurt," which was all about the different ways that fashion is bad for women. It included several sections including one that depicted the W&M approach to fashion, a lecture from a local doctor on the potential hazards of high heels and a fashion show of cute but healthy fashions. The group also maintains a website about their issue. The models were legitimately all shapes and sizes and the room was packed full of people who were supportive of everything that was being discussed. I felt like I learned at least a little bit, and I have been way more conscious of the things that I personally do on a regular basis for the sake of fashion that might not be the healthiest for me, and I guess that's the point, but my friend pointed out that most of the people in the room were probably already concerned about the issue and that it was the people who weren't there who really needed all of the information the most. I would agree that a lot of events are based on preaching to the choir. At least, though, the events are being held and the ideas are getting talked about.