In Which I Started to Get my Act Together

Hello, hello!

This week's been pretty slow, but has had some amazing developments for me.

Over the past weekend, I attended 2 of the sessions for ASU's 7th Annual Human Rights Film Festival. During these sessions, we not only watched some note-worthy documentaries like Trapped and Do Not Resist, but we also got a chance to talk to some experts in the topics which the documentaries explored. For Trapped, a documentary discussing the difficulty of abortion in southern states, we had a question and answer session with the vice president of Public Affairs at Planned Parenthood, Jodi Liggett, and for Do Not Resist, a film exploring the militarization of the police, we were able to skype with the director of the film, Craig Atkinson.

Both speakers were highly eloquent in their responses and thoroughly excited to see all of the enthusiasm which poured through the audience. Although the crowd was not a big one, it was comforting to see the solidarity which I've been trying to seek. I'm hoping to incorporate the experiences of the festival into both my app and my internship.

Speaking of my app, I've (finally!) started to design it on a computer (it had been rough paper sketches up until this point). I'm currently using a program called Ionic Creator, which was recommended to me by a woman who I met at the Seed Spot Workshop a month ago. It's been a relatively easy program for me to use, since I am horribly new at coding. Additionally, the creators of the program have uploaded tutorials for beginners, making it even better for me! I've attached some screenshots of my progress so far. I'm hoping to finish at least half the app by this coming Monday.

Look at how easy it was to make a gradient for my side menu! Ah, this is so exciting.

As for my paper, I've written only a few pages, but I'm planning on scrapping out most of it, so we'll see how that goes.

Bye for NOW. 

In Which I Quoted A Dead White Man Because No One Seems To Listen to Me

Hey-o!

It's been a pretty hectic week. Since April 4th was National Equal Pay Day, NOW conducted a press conference to raise awareness about the current lack of pay equity. This press conference was pretty hastily done at City Hal and Representative Kate Gallego was a huge help in setting it up- usually, it takes a 21 day notice to have a press conference at City Hall, but she managed to give us a place in just 9!

If you didn't read last week's blog, let me tell you that there were several different speakers, including the (interim) President of NOW, Olga Tsoudis, ASU Professor Nancy Jurik, Kate Gallego, and me! I've included my speech below.

"Many people seem to value the word of a dead white man over that of a young woman of color, so let me, for a second, succumb to the discrimination and introduce you to one. Herman Hess was a German author who lived during World War I. In his renowned bildungsroman, Demian, he introduced the concept of a duality in our society. To his protagonist, there were two realms: 'the realms of day and night, two different worlds coming from two opposites poles' (Hesse 3). One was 'a realm of brilliance, clarity, and cleanliness, gentle conversation, washed hands, clean clothes, and good manners' (Hesse 3). The other realm was different. 'It was dominated by a loud mixture of horrendous, intriguing, frightful, mysterious things' (Hesse 4).

Now, I try not to believe or support any binary, but some part of this understanding rings true for me. We are told that we live in a post-feminist world, that we have reached true gender equality, and that we do not need an archaic movement any longer to support ourselves. This realm is a world of clarity, and of singular truths. It's extraordinarily black and white. Yet, anyone who shelters themselves in this world is a hypocrite, for they do not acknowledge the remaining realm. And hypocrisy always hurts, but in a world where this hypocrisy is being fed to us by people who contextualize our experience- our family, our teachers, our peers- the lie only hits us when we're old enough to suffer the consequences alone.

Such consequences have been creeping up around me. I feel the hypocrisy when one of my male friends noted that he, as a beginning part time, got paid more than the girl who trained him. I feel the hypocrisy when one of my sweetest friends got rejected for a job in her predominantly white neighborhood because she was too dark. I feel the hypocrisy when my first employer searched for females because "we were usually willing to work for less." I have been very privileged to live as an upper-middle class student who does not have the financial pressure to work all the time, but for my peers that do not share such luck, I witness a split between time for education and time for work. Thus, young females become caught in a perpetuating cycle, where they first split time between work and school, and then leave school to work, and then are forced into lower positions because they do not have the proper amount of training and education. Even women who do manage to achieve both the financial stability of a job and the educational capacity to be promoted are left behind in order to elevate other members of our society. At this moment in time, 38% of the pay gap cannot be accounted for by education, experience, training, industry, occupation, region, or any other factor besides discrimination. Such a number is ridiculous.

But history does not change because of the simple presence of the ridiculous- it changes because of the presence of the ridiculously brave. So, I'm asking you to be outlandishly courageous today. Protest within your communities, your homes, your schools. Show up to your representatives' offices and tell them you will not be passive in this fight. Post pictures on social media. Join feminist groups. Work for equality. Let me end with the words of a brilliant woman of color, Maya Angelou: 'History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.'

Thank you for your time."

Anyways, besides the press conference, I met up with Kathryn at the Urban Bean, and we networked a little bit. One of Kathryn's friends is a yearly dancer at the Arab American Festival, and we're hoping we can recruit more diverse members for NOW. Wish us luck!

As for my SP, I've been (slowly!) making progress on my presentation. I'll be presenting at school on Saturday, May 6th at 10:55! Look forward to it!

Bye for NOW.