Introduction!

Hello everyone!

My name is Akanksha Mishra and I am a novice blogger. On the side though, I am a high school senior attending Basis Peoria. In order to graduate with high honors, I'm required to conduct a Senior Project (SP). SPs are a great opportunity to take the knowledge that we've learned in school and apply it to something that actually interests us. We get to leave school in February and venture out into the world- sounds fun, but really, I think I'm only going to realize just how helpless I am in the face of "real-world" scenarios.

I've always been sort of an optimist (even with that statement above, I promise); I like believing that everyone will see the good in other people and in other things. Yet, I've almost always been proven wrong- people don't like learning as much as I thought they did. They like staying ignorant, for it provides them with an excuse not to care. As Albert Einstein once astutely noted, "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."One of the greatest examples where I've seen this phenomenon is through the knowledge and acceptance of feminism (*gasp* "How dare she utter the f-word?"). Feminism, by definition, is simply the belief that all people should be treated equally. Yet, a ridiculous stigma exists around the word, which includes everything from the belief that feminists are man-haters to the suspicion that they are all lesbians.

My SP is hoping to look at the dissemination of information about feminism in various forms of media. Hopefully, I will be able to understand how feminist beliefs (or stereotypes) are spread, and will be able to gauge the difference between the two extremes. My end goal is to design an app that will bypass at least some of the negative connotations of feminism- not only will it spread information in the traditional form (through news articles), but it will (hopefully) have interactive opportunities (e.g. a listing of volunteer opportunities in the area, a forum, etc). I am interning with the National Organization for Women, and I will be helping them not only in their daily activities as an activist group, but also with their newly-formed PAC, which will provide me with more opportunities to notice how people react to feminism news and ideologies.

Wish me luck and see you soon!