Activism Log 1
Week of 3/25/2012
1.
Activism:
This week things really got underway with our service
learning project. It had been taking a
while to hear back from the Panhellenic Council but after being contacted by
Panhellenic’s Officer of Community Service we were able to move forward in
contacting the Panhellenic sororities on campus. Sarah, my partner in the project, and I
emailed all of the chapter president’s explaining to them our project and the
opportunities we were trying to make available.
We explained that we would like to create an open line of communication
between Panhellenic and Victims Services.
This will create ample opportunities to present useful information to
their chapters and open the floor for discussion on important issues relevant
to their lives and the lives of their sisters.
In addition we informed them about the Underawarenss drive we are
having. We also emailed our contact at
Victim Services to update her on our progress. The pitfall was that it has
proven to be more than difficult to be the middleman between so many
organizations. It takes time for each
party to get back to us and then for us to get back to them as well. This is something we didn’t really
anticipate.
On Saturday we
volunteered with Victim Services at the Vagina Monologues. I didn’t know what to expect and wasn’t
entirely too sure what the show was about.
Sarah and I were ushers for the event and it was overwhelming to see the
positive response from viewers and the number of students, staff, and members
of the community who came to see the event. We were able to watch some of the
show and I found it to be very interesting.
The pitfall was that I felt there was a lot of time that we were there
that was wasted. When we got there no
one knew exactly what we were supposed to do and we were given a break upon
arriving. However once the event began
to get underway and guests started arriving we found a job and are time was
better spent.
Next week we will
need speak at a Pan meeting or some other Panhellenic function to advertise our
Underawareness drive and the speaking opportunities available.
2.
Reflection:
The issues presented in the Vagina Monologues tie directly with the
issues being talked about in the class.
On monologue that stood out to me in particularly as relating to this
week’s readings was the monologue about hair.
The woman speaking was talking about how uncomfortable, painful, and
time consuming shaving, waxing, and other methods of hair removal are. She explained that this became such an issue
in her marriage that it came up in therapy and her therapists suggested that
she compromise with her husband and continue to keep her vagina hairless. This
stuck out to me because we are reading how woman are constantly asked to
compromise when in reality this isn’t a compromise at all.
3.
Reciprocity
This week was a growing experience for me. The Vagina Monologues is not something that I
would’ve attended on my own. The
language, screaming, and topics of conversation made me uncomfortable and isn’t
something I would particularly enjoy attending.
However by attending I was able to be opened to conversations that I
wouldn’t normally participate in. It
allowed me to see issues at hand that are affecting a large majority of woman
and to see these issues in a sense through the eyes of the woman experiencing
them.
No comments:
Post a Comment