Penny Arcade "Diversity Loungue"

For those of you who don't know, the Penny Arcade Expo is one of the biggest events in gaming, where developers, creators of other media, and gamers are able to mesh together for a few days, and discuss the overall state of gaming. Since the event has been plagued with issues, including but not limited to lack of women presenters, perpetuating rape culture (via rape jokes), homophobia and transphobia etc, this year, they organizers are making an attempt to promote diversity at the event. They've gone about this by creating what they refer to as "diversity lounges", were information specifically pertaining to minority groups will be distrinuted/discussed.

On the one hand, it seems that this is a great way to provide safe spaces for gamers who aren't straight/cis/white men, and that's always a good thing. However, on the other hand, it seems rather odd to attempt to create/maintain diversity by shoving gamers from minority communities into one dedicated area, rather than trying to make the entire even a safe space for all minority gamers. An author at Jezebel seems to agree with me in this article (http://jezebel.com/penny-arcade-rolls-for-diversity-with-segregated-loun-1485928139), were she accuses the organizers of PAX of "missing the point". As such, I'm interested in what other people think about this, so please, share your thoughts in the comment section!

SLU Art Museum

Fionna and I, and another friend of mine, went to the SLU art museum for class. The exhibition there was called "No Place Like Home: American Scene Painting in the Sinquefield Collection." The exhibition, not surprisingly, contained only works completed by men. Men were also the subject of almost all of the paintings containing human figures. Many paintings were of landscapes, but some of them were of farms and farmers. These farmers were exclusively men, which is not only a reflection but also a perpetuation of the notion that only men are capable of doing farm work. The absence of female artists was also an obvious reflection of the sexism within the art world - not that women artists do not exist, but that they are hardly ever put on display or given recognition.

There was one piece in the collection that struck my attention because of its subject being a woman. The woman looked pretty hard-off and angry/desperate. The description of the piece said that the artist chose to use women to evoke sympathy for the impoverished and unemployed during the Great Depression. I found it revealing that women were used to evoke sympathy instead of men, and telling of social notions that women are weaker and should be pitied more than men. There is a deeper underlying message here that women are less capable of taking care of themselves than men are.

Overall, I wasn't surprised by what I found at the art museum - it was a collection of men's artwork that was exclusive of any women artists, and had a very traditional depiction of gender roles when people were present in the paintings. aaaaand here's a selfie!

Successful Women Do Not Fall in Love

Thought catalog had a nice piece this week called "Successful women do not fall in love" It was a blog by a women who makes the point that women are not capable of getting married and growing their careers in the capacity that they would if they refused to become a wife. She has several funny and provoking moments. She draws out the idea that for women getting married is taking on a second shift of duties and caring for another human being where as men benefit from the status and other benefits.
"Because, when men fall in love, they get a wife. When women fall in love they get a husband. Despite idealism, the reality of these two paths is very disparate. For men, falling in love is an asset, for women it is a sentence to hard labor. I have no interest in marrying a woman, but I would love to have a wife. They cook and clean for you, remind you when it’s your mother’s birthday, and shoulder all the biggest burdens when it comes to raising kids. Hell, my ideal relationship would be if my husband and I could have a wife so we could both be supported without having to deal with all that minutiae ourselves."

Now I didn't know if I was on board at this point. It seems like with work there are couples that do make a fairly equitable division of labor with in the home. But after thinking about it, I was sold by the "remembering your mother's birthday". Even if you have a very progressive house hold there is still the idea that no matter what women are supposed to be more thoughtful and on it when remembering all the little details. I feel like there are many tiny details like that which would take up more and more energy when in a relationship like this. It truly does come down to a supporting kind of role. 

"I don’t mean stating my personal preference to be an insult, but it’s not the truth they relay during any other conversation about their relationship, even if they don’t use those words. We’re kind of brainwashed to take care of other people, and make them happy and for me, being single is kind of an armor guarding against whatever cultural or biological intuitions are telling me, as a woman, to be self-sacrificial."

So here she really sold me because she totally brought it around to the idea that women are trained to be married martyrs and find joy in it. I'm not saying that married women cannot find joy and success in the work field, but I totally agree that the time and energy that it takes to grow and establish yourself in a career cannot be undertaken when you are babysitting another human being. 
http://thoughtcatalog.com/amy-glass/2013/12/successful-women-do-not-fall-in-love/

Patty Libby Art Museum visit

My museum of choice was the St Louis Art Museum. I had visited a lot as a kid with a nanny that desperately wanted me to be cultured, or at least look really cultured in all of the photos that we took at the museum. I chose it really for that reason, it was very in my comfort zone so I figured that I would know my way around pretty well. But just in case, I tried to do a little googling to figure out if I could make a plan on where I would visit first. I wanted to explore an exhibit on women, but I quickly discovered that there wasn’t one. So when I got there, I asked around after discerning which patrons were art students (they stare, and step back, and stare, and tilt their heads, and never looks at the plaque to decide what they are seeing). I asked them if they had a favorite female artists that was being displayed. In a group of three, they all had favorites, but none of those were being displayed. They couldn’t direct me to a piece that was being shown either so I had to go it alone.

I tried but I got tired. It was the worst game of eye spy that I have ever had to play. Eventually I just settled on looking at the way that females are portrayed because there was a lot of portrayal in several pieces.  I took a lot of time looking at religious art. Most of the art featured men and was made by men. If a woman was there, she was typically naked and usually depicted as an angel or cherub. It really speaks to the idea that in Christianity there is a very strong idea that women are not the center and cannot be a leading force in faith. Even when Mary was shown it seemed like there was the same idea that she was not human. She seemed almost divine which again fits with the idea that ordinary women cannot play a large and defining role in art or religion.

In the biggest sense of the trip I felt that female art and artists are not being displayed equitably. Maybe this is just a problem of the field itself (after Fiona’s presentation I feel like that is a safe assumption but again I am out of my depth on this one).

One final thing that I did notice was that women alone or those in groups with younger children seemed to gravitate towards certain sections and avoided others. I felt like they were almost absent when I visited the upper levels with the modern art. They spent more time in my estimation looking at works that featured nature more than figures. Finally it was packed to the gills down stairs with the antique furniture and other artifact like objects. Perhaps this means that while women are not represented they are certainly being catered to. I’m not sure that if I had found a section on the figures of women that there would have been an interest from any of the groups that I people watched (stalked) during my visit.  

Event Blog: Take over

I attended the take over for the women’s studies department this semester. We took over Diablitos and my best friend Kirsti and I decided to lumber in and eat all of the food possible. It was a daunting task but we made a solid dent. An equally daunting task is the idea of finding space for the women’s studies department at SLU. There does not seem to be a huge amount of knowledge or integration of this department into life at SLU. I have felt at times that I was a little lost in a sea of people that have no idea or respect for the subject matter. For example one of the activities that my sorority ZTA did this semester was to increase the focus on academics. So for a few of our chapter meetings, we were to sit in our major groups. Nursing, PT, and OT dominate most of the sororities at SLU so I was not surprised that I was going to be in a much smaller group, a few things did surprise me though. The first was the chair emailing me twice to double check that I really was a women’s studies and poli sci major because she honestly had no idea what that was. As such she had no idea where to place me. I understood and so I gave her a blurb about what both subjects sort of entailed. Her response was a choice of two groups where to sit, “Do you think that you have more in common with the theater or early education majors?” I told her that perhaps a group that focuses on communication, English, or even pre-law would be the best fit. She was still very in the dark. I was assigned with the theater majors (we had a blast, but they too were very confused). This group was awesome and they did really want to hear about women’s studies, but like the chair, they were totally unaware it existed until I sat with them. To me this really proved that there is a disconnect with our department and life at SLU. Even the women who I regularly feel that I have the most in common with and call my sisters, are totally clueless about what I have devoted my academic life to.

The idea of taking over a space physically is just as important as taking root mentally. There needs to be awareness that we are a growing vital department that deserves more than a hidden corner in McGannon and little advertisement from the university.

The event itself rocked too. The food was amazing as well as the conversation. Kirsti and I got into discussions with many of the staff about the issues of birth control when you live in a small town and go to church with your doctor (result, difficult). We also got to discuss the concept of changing your name upon getting married result (I’m refusing to undergo the loss of identity she is willing to hyphenate Gesigh-Palovick I can hear any and all announcers crying at the thought of having to read that out loud. Finally we got into this great discussion about our high school classmates getting married and pregnant, though mostly jut married. And how it was terrifying and awful and totally setting them up for a difficult if not forever limited academic life. 

New Jersey Senate allows trans people to obtain new birth certificates

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2013/12/15/us-new-jersey-senate-approves-bill-allowing-trans-people-to-obtain-new-birth-certificates/

This is an article I found about some interesting progress. The New Jersey Senate will now allow transgender and intersex people to get new birth certificates. In the past there was a law in place that a transgender person much undergo sexual reassignment surgery before they could be issued a new birth certificate. Under the new law any transgender person is able to request a new one. This may seem like a small change but as the article notes I think these are the first steps towards greater understanding and acceptance. One of the Chairman on the Committee said, " “Birth certificates always have been a means of how we traditionally identify a person. In the transgender community, it doesn’t reflect who they are mentally, spiritually and in every other way but physically." Kudos to New Jersey!! 

Event Blog

Last Tuesday night I attended Ina's presentation of research from her dissertation. I'm so glad that I went; Ina was wonderful. There was two presentations, one on medieval texts and video games and Ina's on the life writing of immigrant women. I'm not very versed on medieval texts or video games so the first was a bit over my head. The overall assertion seemed to be that video game narratives are in fact heavily related to medieval texts. The presenter said that video games are most often looked at from a psychological perspective and rarely analyzed as literary narratives. He said that we can in fact "read video games and play stories". Although I understood this point, as a Psych and Gender Studies major I couldn't help but then revert this back to psychological and feminist thought. I can't say that I followed everything in his presentation, but I kept thinking if you want to look at video games through a literary standpoint, then why are we still "reading video games and playing stories" that are so sexist, violent, and over-sexualized?! Maybe medieval literature is actually to blame... (just kidding)
On to Ina’s presentation! The presentation covered the first-person narratives of immigrant women, asserting that this type of story telling can be a powerful tool to challenge stereotypes and change the political climate surrounding immigrant women. I think that this is a very important topic. I agree that oftentimes the only way to truly understand another is through their own words. In my Wikipedia project I was so disheartened by the way that the hijra were characterized and brought up in my paper that the only way to truly understand them or re-humanize learning about them is to look at first-person sources. I think this idea also connects to the consciousness raising in the feminist movement. The telling of one’s experiences can be extremely powerful. When looking at oppression in our society, it can most often be traced back to the deeply rooted mindsets of the people and culture as a collective. It seems very important to me to suggest that sharing the individual and relatable stories of those oppressed can truly achieve change on a deep level.
Ina’s presentation covered three books, which would probably be great books to read over break!!! I found it most interesting that one author, born in Korea and raised in Minnesota, through the telling of her story raises awareness about how damaging cross-cultural adoption can be. I’ve never actually thought of adoption from this perspective and it made me feel ashamed of my immediate Western notions of adopting children from other cultures as “saving” them.
Here's the books if you want to check them out...

Journey of Hope, Memoirs of a Mexican Girl: an autobiography of an illegal immigrant girl from Guanajuato, Mexico who immigrated to Los Angeles, California and eventually became an American Citizen by Rosalina Rosay 

Language of Blood by Jane Jeong Trenka

Persian Girls by Nahid Rachlin