Thoughts.
OUR LIVES BEGIN TO END THE DAY WE BECOME SILENT ABOUT THINGS THAT MATTER.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
10/4/2015 0 Comments It's TimeSo here we are, 2 months after my last post. A lot of things have happened.
Here’s a short update: I’m back in school full-time. YAY! I love my major now (Sociology). I’ve made some new friends and that’s exciting! I am now PRESIDENT of the Gay-Straight Alliance at LSUS!! As of yesterday, I am also the Vice President of LSUS’s Student Organizations Council (SOC). [End of short update] My goal as President of the Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) is that I want to make our campus a safe and open place for everybody. If you are someone who doesn’t like that, here’s an idea: next time you get upset about “those gays” or whatever, go put yourself in a closet and hide who you really are for a while. It’s not a fun thing to do. Being able to express who you are and voice your opinions is important. If you are someone who doesn’t like the LGBT* community or someone who just doesn’t like rainbows, here’s a fair warning… get ready. I want to make the GSA visible on our campus. Let’s make equality the standard and acceptance the norm. Also, I’ve decided I’m over hating myself and my body for being “chubby” (or whatever you want to call it) right now. I am working on improving myself and my life one thing at a time and I care about other things more soooo yeah. I just don’t give a cuss anymore. I’ll get to that when I’m ready and until then, I like myself. WHICH IS EXCITING! I’ve wanted to talk about this next thing for a while now, but didn’t know how to go about it. I was worried that I’d be taken the wrong way or some BS like that, but I don’t care anymore. This is my opinion and I want to share it. So here we go… Feminism… I just finished the book We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi. It was such a great read. It’s a speech she gave for a TED Talk. In her speech, she talks about being called a feminist for the first time when she was young and not knowing what that word meant. She went home and looked it up and the definition she found said: “Feminist: a person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes”. That’s the definition I use when I happily identify myself as a feminist. I’m not pulling for a matriarchy or against shaving my armpits or things like that. (I mean, to each their own, but I like smooth armpits.) Feminism is a movement that is about the equality of sexes. When I have kids, I want my son to express his feelings, be sensitive, and be respectful of everyone. If he like the arts and playing with dolls, that’s wonderful. If he likes sports and being dirty, okay. If he likes both, even better. I don’t give a rat’s ass if he’s “manly” or not. Also, I want my daughter to be tough and opinionated. I want her to fight for what she believes in and be whoever she wants to be. If that means she wants to play football, great; be a ballerina, wonderful; be a scientist, fantastic! I know that means I’ll have a tough and busy life as a parent, but I don’t care. I want to do whatever it takes to raise strong, proud feminists because that’s where the real change will start. I don’t want people to give my daughter Barbies and cooking toys, while they give my son sports equipment and trains or whatever. That’s not cool. Kids are born with personalities, yes, but we shape who they become with how we socialize them and what we teach them!
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I'm spent.I feel so spent right now. I cried a couple times today, not because anyone was mean or they upset me. I cried because a friend and I talked about a couple things lately that've been hard for me. Today was a good day until I cried... since then I've been mostly exhausted.
I know that crying is a normal thing people do and it can sometimes make people feel better. However, it is not a normal thing for me. Crying physically exhausts me. It emotionally exhausts me. If I were to sit around one day and cry off and on all day, I would probably need a full day afterwards to sleep it all off. I've had people say things like "It's not healthy to never cry" or "You need to allow yourself to feel your feelings/process your feelings/etc"... all of that might be true for other people, but crying all the time isn't an option for me. I feel physically ill now because I cried earlier. MY BODY DOES NOT DO WELL AFTER FEELING OVERWHELMED LIKE THAT! Recently I had I friend die. She was originally a teacher of mine, but we grew to be friends and I valued her so very much. When I found out she'd passed away, I wept. However, the crying allowed me to mourn the loss of her life and process that situation. That is one of the rare cases when crying does not wear me out. Crying then actually helped a lot. In normal situations where I have not lost something, I am usually just in a tricky situation or a stressful thing has happened, crying does not help. It stresses me out and adds to my already full plate. This is something I learned about myself today. I had an inkling before, but today really drove that inkling home. It's for sure now. |