Tag: feminist activism

Why Are You So Angry? by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente

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Please be warned, this post details violence against women.

A new March 8.
Another year protesting
Another evening taking the streets of our cities around the world
In Rome, in Lima and Santander
A new slogan, a new banner, for the same rage

A decent man, one of those who define himself as a good citizen and father stands in front of me asking: “Why are you so angry? …. Why are feminists so angry? I am asking you: Why are you so fucking angry?”

Why are you angry?
Because my friend went to the police to put a complaint that her husband beat her and they did not take the complaint. When she returned home, her husband hit her again.

Why are you angry?
Because I am 16 years old and every day after school, older men shout sexual things to me in the street, they even follow me and when I get upset and tell them not to do it they say that I am being rude … I am afraid to walk in the street. Continue reading “Why Are You So Angry? by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente”

The Feminist-O-Meter by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente

 

Not my way to see Feminism_ then that's NOT Feminism_

Have you heard about, applied or received the Feminist-O-Meter lately?

The Feminist-O-Meter is a tool that often appears in feminisms and women rights activisms, fostering power struggles, cliques, jealousies and -if that is not enough – encouraging the reproduction of mainstream socialization that fosters competition and alienation among women.

It can be summed in the expression:

“Not my way to see Feminism? Then, that’s NOT Feminism”

I see feminisms as revolutions of subjectivities based on the radical idea that women are people … and it turns out that people are diverse, we are the result of our experience and the way we interpret them.

So, I do not understand why there is so much drama, judgment, outrage and social punishment in feminist spaces when those involved are undertaking the process of discovery, of claiming back our personhood by legitimizing our different ways of thinking, our understandings of liberation, and our acknowledgment of what makes us happy and makes us feel feminist.

Continue reading “The Feminist-O-Meter by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente”

30 Years of Activism by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente

Diseño sin título

My first memory as an activist is of attending my first political public meeting to listen leaders of the resistance talking against the  Dictatorship, marching holding a sign that read “Democracy Now,” and taking my first dose of tear gas. It was 1988. I was 13 years old. My first menstrual period had come six weeks before. At that time, I didn’t know what feminism was; there were many books forbidden. Social Sciences such as Anthropology, Philosophy, and Sociology were banned in most universities.

But lack of theories could never prevent experience from happening and leaving its imprint. In 1990, at 15, I was gender conscious without recognizing my actions as feminism.

Continue reading “30 Years of Activism by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente”

Woman Is Not Anonymous by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente

Vanessa Rivera Virginia Woolf

Lately I have been reflecting on this quote of Virginia Woolf: “For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.” Here she points out the deliberate invisibilization of women’s contribution in all areas of human endeavors.

Patriarchy always takes these contributions for granted. For centuries, domestic labor has been invisible and not considered work. It has put beauty over intelligence, even with women of outstanding intelligence. And in terms of knowledge and intellectual production, patriarchy has appropriated women’s ideas and in presenting them as “anonymous,” presents them as it’s own.

Thanks to the feminist reclaiming of history, and proving the accuracy of the premise that “Anonymous is woman,” we have learned of the long list of inventions that were made possible due to women’s ideas who were kept invisible, unnamed, unquoted,  and erased;  after all, she was “just” a “woman.” Continue reading “Woman Is Not Anonymous by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente”

Great Hera! Wonder Woman and Taking Women’s Power Back from the Mainstream Media by Carolyn Lee Boyd

Carolyns new lookWhen I was a teen in the 1970s, Wonder Woman was everywhere. A feminist cheerfully determined to right the world’s wrongs, especially against women, she boldly sprinted onto the cover of Ms. Magazine’s 1972 inaugural issue. Her tv series spun off toys, t-shirts, action figures, lunch boxes, and more. Now she’s back. Jill Lepore’s new book, The Secret History of Wonder Woman, tells of her bizarre 1940s creation and subsequent history. In 2016, a revamped Wonder Woman will be sword-fighting her way into movie theaters worldwide in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

ms coverWonder Woman is just one of many currently popular women warriors or superheras, including the X-Men series’ female super-mutants, the Hunger Games’ lead character, the women warriors in the Avatar tv series, and many more, whose power comes from the ability to fight.  Even Snow White became a martial arts expert in 2012’s Snow White and the Huntsmen. Like Wonder Woman’s recent regeneration, however, these characters seem grimmer, and more deadly, violent, and dystopian than the earlier Wonder Woman with her optimistic, colorful comic book style, and an innocence that would now seem naive. Continue reading “Great Hera! Wonder Woman and Taking Women’s Power Back from the Mainstream Media by Carolyn Lee Boyd”