Eyes Wide Open: Dora the tween-aged fashionista??

(originally posted 03/09 at wordpress)


by Talia Jae Potter

I am just floored by this. I have two little girls, ages 3 and 6, and they LOVE Dora. She is a strong, independent, educating, little girl on tv. It's a great role model for a preschool girls. She is dredging through jungles, swimming, climbing, outside-- not city life or social material BS. But that is all about to change....

Now she will be transformed into a tween Dora who lives in the city, shops, goes to middle school, and has a social click.... Dear god. Why?? Well, I know why. It's about marketing, getting the largest group of viewers possible, and tweens are the target audience these days. Not to mention they spend the most money on merchandise out of any age group, maybe only rivaling teenagers.

So now you can interact with Dora online, buy her the latest fashion accessories, and make "important social decisions" for her at school and in the city. I am so disturbed by this. It is turning into just another stereotypical female role model that matches barbie, bratz and all the other oppressive children's dolls out there in the market. I am saddened by this change and would like to encourage anyone who feels the same to write to Viacom and Nickelodeon and let them know your thoughts. I will be.

You can read the press release here. It's really, really disturbing.

To write Viacom, click here.

For information on how to write Nickelodeon, click here.

Eyes Wide Open: Lets talk about you and me, lets talk about oppression baby

(originally posted 02/09 at wordpress)



by Talia Jae Potter

Today my class went to an Illumination Project performance. If you don't know what that is I'll tell you....

It's called the theater of the oppressed. They perform real-life oppressive situations that have to do with racism, immigration, religion, sexism, etc... they run through the play once without stopping the oppressive circumstance and then they run through again and ask the audience to intervene. Good rehearsal for a future incident.

The Glass Crack: Painfully Palin

(originally posted 10/08 at wordpress)


by Gwen Davis

The Glass Crack is a new weekly column from PSU Grad Student Gwen Davis that revisits the previous week’s news stories and looks at them through a feminist eye. Granted, personal opinions, bias, rhetorical questions, and perhaps even a few logical fallacies will appear. At times it may seem like the author is confused, and that assumption is totally correct because many ways of the world—especially people—do not make sense. Comments, suggestions and guest columns are welcome and encouraged. Let this be an honest place to discuss the unfair, the beautiful, the perplexing, the wrong, and the right.

The title of the column is a reference to those 18 million cracks in the ceiling Hillary Clinton spoke of in her concession speech:

Although we weren’t able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it’s got about 18 million cracks in it. And the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time. That has always been the history of progress in America.

- Hillary Clinton

With the presidential election mere weeks away, I have become increasingly interested in the Sarah Palin debacle. One news organization postulated that the initial excitement that surrounded the Republican Vice Presidential nominee was a result of voters considering her to be an answer to a non-existent Hillary Clinton Democratic ticket. Unfortunately for Republicans, hopeful women, and many swing voters Sarah Palin is not Hillary Clinton — to the relief of Democrats.

I recently received an email from a very good, liberal friend of mine from Colorado. The email contained an article written by Eve Ensler, playwright best known for The Vagina Monologues. The article expressed Ensler’s disgust over the McCain/Palin ticket. “I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them,” she writes. “It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical.”

Book Review: Dance Lest We All Fall Down by Dr. Margaret Willson

(originally posted 08/08 at wordpress)



review by kristyn stolze

Hey shesheet readers… I just finished a fascinating book a couple of weeks ago by an anthropologist living in Seattle, and I think you might enjoy knowing about it. You can order it through In Other Words and I highly recommend it.

The book, titled Dance Lest We All Fall Down, is by anthropologist Dr. Margaret Willson. It describes her experience living in Salvador, Brazil and developing the non-profit called Bahia Street alongside an incredible woman and friend of hers from Bahia named Rita Conceicao. These two women put their intelligent and creative minds together and came up with a way to make change available to young girls trapped in poverty in Salvador. After lots of conversation and research within the communities of Salvador, these women created a non-profit that provides young girls with an opportunity to get education otherwise unavailable to them. With often painful insight to the realities of these young girls’ lives, the book lets us see into some of the struggle involved in getting a non-profit started in a way that keeps the focus on the people it intends to serve.

Feminism Isn’t a Four-Letter Word, Part III

(originally posted 08/08 at wordpress)


by Blythe Pavlik

I am finding my voice thanks to feminism. I’m sure this is much of the reason why feminism and its participants get such a bad wrap. It is as if feminism is the can opener – and the can, of course is institutionalize, traditionalized, socialized… patriarchy.

Sexual Assault Capstone: Finding Voice

(originally posted 07/08 at wordpress)


by Kristyn Stolze

I didn’t think enough about acquaintance rape until it happened to someone close to me. Then one of the women I love was raped by her housemate and the light bulb went on.

I grew up learning that sexual violence happened too much and needed to stop, but never went further than knowing, wishing it were different but feeling totally helpless. It took an act of violence against a friend to light a fire under my ass, and I only regret that it took this long for me to really freak out and get busy. I see the fierce, brilliant pack of people answering back to interpersonal violence with action and wish I had joined sooner. I thought I needed to be someone different to do something about sexual violence, someone more educated, more trained, more informed. But I see now that as long as individuals feel powerless, we give our real power as a group away. Fortunately, a lot of people figured this out a lot faster than I did…and they have been busy. For decades. As I learn more about the realities of sexual violence I find some grim statistics, and I used to make the mistake of only seeing the darkness and missing the hope. After my friend’s rape, I felt crazy and powerless, but driven like never before to find out how to get involved somewhere, with something. I decided to take the Sexual Assault Capstone at PSU to connect with the PSU Women’s Resource Center and get more information, and that connection brought me to the shesheet.

I would like to know who is out there reading and what your thoughts, experiences and reactions are to the topic/issue/reality of sexual violence. Because it’s so pervasive in our culture we all live with it in some way every day; this means we all have a story to tell. I want to know what other people are doing to create change. If you aren’t usually comfortable posting responses and comments to blogs, please consider responding to the things you read on the shesheet and to this blog you are reading now. It’s a great space to interact with people who are shaking things up to make much-needed change.

I personally have never blogged until today, but I think it’s an amazing way to connect to a huge community of incredible folks. I want to take part in a bigger conversation about sexual violence with the readers on the shesheet…please join me with some of your thoughts so we can learn from each other!

On Women's Right to Vote

(originally posted 04/08 at wordpress)


by Susan B Anthony, 1873

"Friends and fellow citizens: I stand before you tonight under indictment for the alleged crime of having voted at the last presidential election, without having a lawful right to vote. It shall be my work this evening to prove to you that in thus voting, I not only committed no crime, but, instead, simply exercised my citizen's rights, guaranteed to me and all United States citizens by the National Constitution, beyond the power of any state to deny.

The WRC's Response to the Genocide Awareness Project

(originally posted 04/08 at wordpress)

Women’s Resource Center’s Response
To the Genocide Awareness Project @ PSU
April 2008

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The PSU Women’s Resource Center honors Freedom of Speech – the concept of being able to speak freely without censorship. We also recognize that the Genocide Awareness Project may be disturbing and evoke an emotional response. Freedom of speech allows us to engage in a dialogue about the Choice Movement, and the WRC strongly encourages PSU students to do so.

Please let your voice be heard too!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How to get involved!

Plan an event or volunteer at the Women’s Resource
Center.wrc@pdx.edu • www.wrc.pdx.edu • 503-725-5672

Join the student group PSU Vox: Voices for Planned Parenthood
Vox@pdx.edu

Join the student group NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon
tleanne5664@hotmail.com

Volunteer with NARAL Pro-Choice
Oregoneddie@prochoiceoregon.org • 503-223-4510

Volunteer with Planned Parenthood
http://www.plannedparenthood.org • 1-800-230-PLAN

Write about your personal experience or
write a response and submit it to the WRC’s online zine.
mae@shesheet.com (www.shesheet.com)

Register to VOTE!
http://www.declareyourself.com
Register to Vote in the WRC April 9 – April 28

An Interview With Inspiring Advocate Angela Jensen

(originally posted 03/08 at wordpress)



by Jennifer Collier

I often feel that I am living in a socially disconnected culture where individual ambition outweighs the broader social needs of the community. In moments like these, I draw inspiration from individuals who devote their lives to helping others. PSU’s Interpersonal Violence Advocate, Angela Jensen, was able to reinvigorate my optimism when she took time out of her busy day to tell me about the work that she does at PSU.

Herstory: Gladys Bentley

(originally posted 03/08 at wordpress)



by mae stephenson

Gladys Bentley (1907 - 1960)

Audio Clip from www.queerculturalcenter.org

Gladys Bentley was an out lesbian blues singer during the Harlem Renaissance. She moved to Harlem from Pennsylvania at age 16 and began performing at rent parties (thrown by artists for a cover charge to raise rent), soon graduating to speakeasies and nightclubs. She gained immense notoriety for her raunchy renditions of popular songs, always performed in her signature tux and top hat. She began recording her music in the 1930's, and while politics of the era forced her to forego including her songs with lesbian lyrics, she still performed them at clubs and attracted a predominately gay audience. Once the "lavender scare" and McCarthyism hit in the 1950's, Bentley became a prime target an as out lesbian bulldagger in the entertainment industry. Despite her previous marriage to a white woman in New Jersey, she quickly married a man and began wearing dresses, touting salvation via the consumption of female hormones. Her efforts to survive in a dangerous era are seen as a piece of her important herstory.

For more information, visit http://www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/Bentley/BentleyBio.html or http://lesbianlife.about.com/od/lesbiansinhistory/p/GladysBentley.htm

Herstory: Wangari Maathai

(originally posted 02/08 at wordpress)



by mae stephenson

Wangari Maathai “Protecting the global environment is directly related to securing peace…”Wangari Maathai is an ecofeminist who has received numerous awards for her activism, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. This professor from Kenya earned a PhD from the University of Nairobi and is most well-known for establishing the Green Belt Movement in 1977. Since then, over 30 million trees have been planted by the non-profit. The organization, based in Kenya, organizes groups of women to plant trees on their farms and in their communities. The Green Belt Movement works against deforestation and aims to empower Africans, especially women and girls.

for more information on Wangari Maathai or the Green Belt Movement, see http://greenbeltmovement.org/

Growing With My Child

(originally posted 02/08 at wordpress)



by Jennifer Collier

As a parent with a child in elementary school, I sometimes become overwhelmed and disheartened by what little influence I have over the content of what my son is taught in the classroom. It probably comes as little surprise that schools often teach lessons in history from a standpoint which celebrates white male dominancy and which underplays and distorts the contributions that women and people of color have made. So when my eight-year-old son came home and announced that his second grade class had been assigned the task of researching a famous American and that he had chosen to study Rosa Parks, I couldn’t contain my excitement. Finally…an opportunity to study an amazing female activist and the contributions that she made to the Civil Rights Movement from a feminist perspective rather than the traditional class room perspective which undermines and misrepresents Rosa Parks and the nature of the Montgomery bus boycott.