a p roduction of the
Visit us at the RMC Learn about us on women.rice.edu Like us on facebook.com/RiceWRC Contact us at womenrc@rice.edu
[3]
letter from the
editors
thoughts on a porcelain throne He Yutian
feminist your innerla E. Canales Micae
rice talks about Joseph Mapula, Pr
feminism
iyanka Mehta
womanism te hy
Danielle W
wild, a film
review
Sophie New
man
lessons from gender and transnational asia Nicole Zhao
music women inKachkou Danya
miley cyrus Kaching Ho
vagina monologues ts rwrc upcoming even
Let
ter
from
the edit o
rs
This zine is a collection of thoughts, comments, and research on gender and related topics. It is a continuation of the discussions that are already happening within the Rice community and beyond. The purpose of this zine is to create a platform that consolidates ideas and perspectives to give voice to concerns specific to our Rice community. Our goal is to engage the entire campus by exposing students to conversations on gender and sexuality among other things through a unique lens a lens created by and for our community! Even as mainstream platforms propagate the fallacy that gender inequality is a thing of the past, we recognize that true equality of opportunity is yet to be realized. It’s even more difficult to find identities outside the gender binary of man/woman in popular discourse, but we firmly believe that the representation of diverse identities is essential to any movement towards equality and recognition of all human dignity. It is with this in mind that this zine was created. We hope that this zine will engender discussion among friends, classmates, and colleagues about the many ways in which gender and sexuality shape and are shaped by our culture. We welcome your feedback and contributions - contact us at womenrc@rice.edu or stop by the Rice Women’s Resource Center in the RMC. Thank you for reading, and be on the lookout for future issues of engender!
[5]
by
Yu e H
tian
Thou
ght so na
Po r
in a l ce
e n o r Th
Indeed, the daily ritual of physically visiting a gender-assigned space reaffirms the dichotomy between the two genders, and subliminally re-enforces an individual’s gender identity.
Upon conducting a comparative survey of various bathrooms at Rice University, a banal daily functional space that we are all too familiar with was defamiliarized and seen in a new light, allowing many intriguing insights to be drawn. The bathrooms of Herzstein Hall, the RMC, Anderson Hall, Rayzor Hall, and Martel College were selected as case studies, with their interior features carefully observed and recorded. All the bathrooms were housed in buildings that could be roughly categorized into older buildings constructed during Rice’s initial conception a century ago, and newer buildings that were retrofitted as recently as just a couple of years ago. The age of the bathrooms was almost the strongest differentiating factor in the variety of materials, space [6]
organizations, uses and style present in the bathrooms surveyed – more so than the function of the building or the location of the building. The materials varied from bathroom to bathroom considerably. The RMC bathrooms had a distinct color palette of red, black, and while, with patterning ceramic wall tiles and bold red accents on walls with black framing on the large mirrors within, giving the bathrooms the most modern aesthetic out of all the bathrooms surveyed. The Rayzor Hall bathrooms also looked to be of a more recent, modern style, with both featuring tiled floors and sleek woodveneer stall doors. There were even potted plants in the female bathrooms. So was the Martel quad single bathroom, which had basic simple tiles and whitewashed walls. The most anachronistic bathrooms were the ones at Anderson, as the floors were made of terrazzo
and the walls of marble, corresponding to an older style, but the bathroom stall doors were all made of steel and plastic. This is consistent with the fact the the stalls were renovated just recently in 2011. Herzstein Hall, on the other hand, had undeniably the oldest bathrooms, characterized by its distinct style of square sinks with double taps, high clerestory windows, and ornately carved door knobs. One thing consistent throughout all the bathrooms is the binary division of each of them into the men’s and women’s bathrooms. Notably, the women’s bathroom in Herzstein is significantly smaller than the men’s, with much fewer stalls. This could possibly reflect how there were more men than women enrolled as students and employed as faculty members when the bathroom was built. Also, given so many design considerations that maximized efficiency, the gendered nature of bathrooms does not always correspond to functionality. For example, in Anderson Hall, the men’s and women’s bathrooms are on two separate floors despite there being both men and women on both floors, necessitating a trip up or down the stairs for many. In the book “Ancient Bodies, Ancient Lives: Sex, Gender and Archaeology” by Rosemary Joyce, it is said that “much of the the way we learn about how to be men and women in any society comes not through explicit discussions but through the inexplicit experience of a living in a world of things.” Indeed, the daily ritual of physically visiting a gender-assigned space reaffirms the dichotomy between the two genders, and subliminally reenforces an individual’s gender identity.
In this way, bathrooms can be seen as one of the material factors in our lives that influences and dictates the performance of gender identities, and one that silently but not so subtly states that gender is binary, as if it were a functional fact. As a common space used daily by the general public of the university, bathrooms serve as powerful indicators of the prevailing social norm of gendered spatiality. But does it need to do so? Looking at how the bathrooms at Rice have evolved over time, the shift from Herzstein Hall’s platform stalls and stepped urinals to the much more handicap-accessible bathrooms in all the newer bathrooms points to how meeting the needs of the handicapped have become a priority. This change in industry standards for bathrooms reveal a changing attitude towards meeting the needs of a particular group, by institutionalizing handicapped accessibility as a building requirement. The same can be said for the expansion of female bathrooms, or rather, having the same number of stalls for both male and female bathrooms in the newer bathrooms. (continued on page 30)
Hence, the gendered spatiality of current Rice bathrooms can similarly be challenged, firstly to acknowledge and serve the needs of individuals who might not necessarily identify consistently with either gender, and secondly to reflect the increasing ambivalence, even obsolescence, of gendered spaces.
[7]
fighting misconceptions and challenging realities
Are you a secret feminist? I have encountered many Rice students who agree with feminist ideals but are reluctant to label themselves as feminists, and I continually ask myself: why the hesitance?
by Micaela E. Canales First published in the Rice Standard with Marilyn Groves as the contributing editor. [8]
Maybe it’s because there is persistent confusion about what it means to be a feminist. I cannot offer a concrete definition of what the term feminism means, because like all social movements and philosophies, feminism is fluid. What matters is how you define feminist ideology for yourself. Feminism is something I encourage all people to discover for themselves, especially in the context of what it means to your life. To aide in this quest for the feminist within, I investigated definitions of feminism at
Rice. Fortunately for us, as we begin to explore our personal definitions of feminism, we can draw on the opinions and ideas of others to build our own interpretations. If you are in need of immediate guidance for developing your personal take on feminism, I recommend looking into a current campaign on campus. Duncan juniors Anastasia Bolshakov and Clara Roberts have recently brought the “Who Needs Feminism” campaign to Rice, aiming to promote discussion about gender equality. Participants in the project are given a white board with the heading, “I need feminism because…” and then encouraged to fill in their reasons. When I participated in the campaign, the set-up was pleasantly informal. Anastasia was standing outside the Rice Women’s Resource Center in the RMC with a couple of the whiteboards and a camera. She casually asked passer-bys if they wanted to offer their input, and the response that I saw was impressively positive. The most significant part of the entire interaction was the moment before people wrote their statements, when they paused to think and engage in discussion with Anastasia. Men and women, young and old, took a minute to think about feminism.
According to Roberts, this the precise aim of the project, to get people thinking and to address misconceptions about feminism. “For me, this campaign was really about starting dialogue and getting people to give real thought to the issue(s). I know feminism can be controversial and it works to the advantage of the campaign. Controversial topics catch people’s attention. They cause tension and spark conversations. That’s the goal; I want people to question their assumptions,” Roberts said. A quick tour of the Who Needs Feminism at Rice Facebook pages confirms that Bolshakov and Roberts’ hopes were realized -people are questioning their assumptions and bravely stating why they personally need feminism. One board states, “In four years of physics classes, I have still only had one female professor,” referencing the lack of female representation in STEM fields. Another reads, “Feminism doesn’t mean I hate men,” boldly answering an accusation frequently made by people who do not understand feminism. “I’m tired of watching movies that are told from a male perspective,” another board reads, (continued on page 30)
From this collection of quotes, one could conclude that feminism at Rice is about equality of the sexes and about questioning gender norms. Examining what feminism means at Rice allowed me to reaffirm why I myself identify as a feminist, because I identify with the opinions voiced in the quotes above. But that’s my feminism, and it is by no means representative of what feminism means to others, or what feminism can mean to you.
[9]
Interviews by Joseph Mapula and Priyanka Mehta for Dr. Hebl’s Psychology of Gender class
Why is gende re mm qu W e al a d l w n u e o p h ro m to s ote hy y gen ou? de r eq Feminism to me means uali equality, and what equality ty at R ice? means is power and freedom to be does femin is hat
im
W
ity
po
Marley Foster
? nt rta
myself. It will better the world for women, and for men too!
Feminism to me means overcoming the different stereotypes and discrimination that are imposed on both male and female so that we can communicate on the same level and not have all these judgements and ideas come in the way of professional or social live.
To me, feminism is about breaking down gender norms and expectations of what gender means. And this goes for both male and female. Expectations are societally based, and not grounded in anything else, so why should we be constrained to them?
Max Payton [10]
Hailey Haut
Sam Greivell Gender equality is important because everybody deserves the same amount of respect regardless of gender. Also, people should get equal pay for equal work done.
I noticed that on days where I was more masculine presenting or decided to use male pronouns, that it was a much more powerful stance for me and I felt better regarded. Which was a super eye opening experience for how much gender equality affected me personally and how I saw the world. So, it is important for everyone, because even if it is not an explicit thing in someones life it is a subconscious and noticed thing throughout the world and how we interact with it. To set an example, Rice should change [12 weeks of maternity leave] to 12 week of paid leave.
Kathryn Hokamp To me, gender equality means equal rights for men and women. In our society, we are not necessarily treated the same and I feel like that should change.
Sonia Rao To promote gender equality, we should see people as who they are as individual, without judgment.
Mason Daumas
So much of our world has been built on the exploitation of gender inequalities. The culture and structures in our society operate on this gender-based inequality. It is so engrained that it is still a relevant issue to take into consideration.
Chloe Nguyen Zach Watterson
So as Rice students, we come from a diverse set of backgrounds and we are exposed to diverse perspectives everyday. But when it comes to gender equality, it is not something that people are always aware of or think about on a daily basis. It is our job to educate and make people more aware of these issues. It is our job to raise the subject matter and create discussions.
Jahanzeb Kaikaus
[11]
by Danielle Whyte Whether you like it or not, Feminism made a name for itself in 2014 and got a lot of people thinking about gender issues. However, it is by no means the only approach or movement out there. I subscribe to the lesser-known Womanism.
[12]
in her work Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches “As a black lesbian feminist comfortable with the many different ingredients of my identity, and a woman committed to racial and sexual freedom from oppression, I find I am constantly being encouraged to pluck out some one What aspect of myself and is Womanism? present this as the Womanism concerns itself meaningful whole, The word Womanist with acknowledging the eclipsing or denying was coined by author the other parts of unique experiences that and poet Alice Walker self.” Feminism has in In Search of our each woman faces, been and continues Mother’s Gardens: which is what Feminism to be centered on Womanist Prose. There the experiences fails to do. she offers an extensive of (wealthy and four part definition m i d d l e c l a s s) where that includes “a Black woman or straight white women. The basis of feminist of color…a woman who loves womanist thought is that women of women sexually and/or nonsexually … Sometimes loves individual men color and women of other minority sexually and/or nonsexually … Loves groups face unique challenges that music. Loves dance … Loves herself. are not addressed by Feminism and it Regardless.” Walker’s definition seeks to ultimately seeks to effect equality for capture women as complex individuals. all groups. As Liyali Phillips wrote in The Womanism concerns itself with Womanist Reader, “Unlike feminism, acknowledging the unique experiences and despite its name, Womanism does that each woman faces, which is not emphasize or privilege gender or what Feminism fails to do. Womanist sexism; rather, it elevates all sites and writer and activist Audre Lorde wrote forms of oppression, whether they are Layered Sculpture by Artist, Michael Murphy
based on social-address categories like gender, race, or class, to a level of equal concern and action.”
So, what is the difference (if any)?
“What’s in a Name: Womanism, Black Feminism and Beyond.”) What’s most important is what you practice. For example, Author and activist bell hooks [sic] identifies as feminist and wrote a book called Feminism is for Everybody, yet her work is still discussed in womanist circles because her feminism is identical to Womanism. However, it is important to note, that the fourth part of Alice Walker’s definition states that “Womanism is to Feminism as purple is to lavender,” implying that Feminism is but an element of the more extensive Womanism.
What term you choose to identify with really depends on your experiences and your preferences. (Patricia Hill Collins offers a more in depth discussion of the various terms, their implications and their (dis)advantages in her paper
Regardless of what term you choose to describe yourself (or if you reject all labels), it will be interesting to watch the evolution of how gender issues are discussed and the impact the discussion makes on the future.
Womanism overlaps greatly with Black Feminism in terms of literature and central figures, and its goals are similar to that of Intersectional Feminism. Furthermore, Womanism is often used as a synonym for Black Feminism and/ or Intersectional Feminism, so naturally there is a lot of conflation between the three.
[13]
[14]
[15]
wild wild wild a film review [16]
by Sophie Newman
In the literary world, journeys into the untamed wilderness and self-awareness are old friends. Naturalists like Thoreau and John Muir are famous for framing the narrative of man in nature, and more contemporary authors like John Krakauer (Into the Wild) and Bill Bryson (A Walk in the Woods) document disillusioned men venturing unprepared into the wild to establish a sense of self. Until recently, however, the female version of wilderness trekking has been absent from the man vs. nature conversation. This isn’t to say that female narratives haven’t been written, and in fact there are many lady venturers famous for their experiences in the wild (Robyn Davidson, Tracks and Beryl Markham, West with the Night), but their stories are relatively absent from contemporary discourse. Enter, Cheryl Strayed with Wild, a 2013 memoir and 2014 film whose recent success has brought a woman’s wilderness adventure to the forefront of pop culture. Wild may make a dent in canonical writings, but Strayed doesn’t treat her adventure as a particularly womanly triumph. Rather, it is others, both in her narrative and outside of it, who comment on her bravery or even recklessness in venturing into the wild as a woman. Strayed, unmoved by comments regarding her potential vulnerability on the trail, frames her journey through the lens of self discovery rather than female strength. Strayed may topple societal expectations in her adventure, but perhaps her greatest accomplishment is her ability to capture and translate her experience. It is not that she is female that makes her story worth reading, it is that she is human. She does not let weakness or tragedy define her, but rather lets tribulation lead her to self-discovery. In making herself vulnerable, Strayed aspires to a universal intention of a storyteller: to successfully communicate the human experience.
[17]
NS
O ESS
L
R
E ND
GE
D AN
M FRO
A
S
N RA
T
ION T NA
IA
S LA
As a young Asian-American female aspiring to enter the professional O world post-college, our readings A ZH and discussions in ASIA 452: Gender & LE O Transnational Asia are extremely personally NIC applicable. Course readings have traced the effects of globalization on American and Asian economies, sex and sexuality, and the nation-building project. A theme underlying these areas that seems to persist is that of Orientalism. Whether with regards to sexuality, politics, economy, or geography, the West seems to consistently cast Asia as unknowable, non-normative, hypersexual (or repressed), exploitable, disposable, backward, threatening, and a site of fantasy, and thus, desire. Since I was a teenager, I’ve always known that my appearance, racialized as Asian, has marked me as hypersexual, or otherwise perverse, and submissive. I could deduce this from explicit catcalls and unsolicited
[18]
comments from men, as well as limited portrayals of Asian women in the movies and media. I had always palpably felt the racialization of my sexuality, yet I could not contextualize my feelings within any larger pattern. I felt that there might be a shared experience of Asian-American women, but I could not be sure. Learning that Chinese women were the first “peripheral sexual figures” to be defined, policed, and barred by the United States immigration apparatus historicized and lent credibility to my subjectivity (Luibheid). Chinese women were perceived to be immoral prostitutes even though they did not engage in prostitution at rates higher than women of other ethnicities; the Page Law of 1875, the U.S.’s first restrictive immigration law, which banned Asian female prostitutes, among other “undesirables,” was a response to the threat Chinese women ostensibly posed to white family structure and values (Luibheid). Building on this initial imagining of Chinese women as sexually deviant, subsequent Western depictions of colonialist encounters in war portray Asian women as erotically exotic, desiring and desirable, submissive, and sexually perverse (Shimizu). In pornography (and outside of it), this racialization comprises and binds Asian/ American women’s sexuality (Shimizu). The historical and social imagining of Asian women as sexually perverse and submissive continues up through today in Hollywood and television (Prasso). Understanding that the conception of Asian/American women as sexually perverse and submissive stems from the
historically Orientalist Western gaze gives coherence to the contemporarily lived concept of “yellow fever” and my current subjectivity as a racialized, gendered subject. Sex and sexuality are clearly integral to the project of nation-building, as seen in Eithne Luibheid’s Entry Denied: Controlling Sexuality at the Border. Luibheid argues that boundaries around sexualities were constructed and reified, literally, at the border of the nation, in the very process of attempting to evaluate such sexualities. The Page Law of 1875, the Gentleman’s Agreement, and other immigration laws demonstrate that the nation constructed heteropatriarchal, monogamous, reproductive, marital sexuality arrangements as models of “good” sexuality and citizenship. This regulation is crucial to the nation-building project. Such heteropatriarchal ideals were crosscut by racialized and classed criteria. Although spouses were often exempt from deportation or exclusion laws, Asian immigrants were still considered “racially distinct” populations within America, the promulgation of which via child-bearing (even within wedlock) would pose racial and economic threats to the (white) American nation (Luibheid). This reading lays a foundational argument about how national borders are created, regulated and enforced, particularly around sexuality, which I had never considered before, yet which I now
I had always palpably felt the racialization of my sexuality, yet I could not contextualize my feelings within any larger pattern. I felt that there might be a shared experience of Asian-American women... [19]
recognize to be central to the nation project. In later readings, we see such “borders” destabilize. In an increasingly globalized economy, the borders constructed around sexuality and nations arguably deteriorate. Saskia Sassen posits in “Why Migration?” that talking about immigration in terms of regulating national borders is inadequate in a globalizing, increasingly unequal economy. Yet a “borderless” ethos arguably continues to reinforce Western hegemonic power structures. Migration is often thought of as a personal choice in a free market resulting from economic constraint or political persecution (Ehrenreich). But Sassen outlines how broader economic and political forces are at work: the United States’ establishment of political, economic, and military relationships in certain countries actually mobilized migra-tion. Specifically, the United States’ foreign investment in export production in other countries, p r e s u m a b l y beneficial for the local economies, actually encourages migration because the modern relations of production break down
[20]
traditional work structures and create a feminized, low-wage pool of laborers. So long as economic and geopolitical ties are forged between countries of unequal development, there will always be labor migration from the poorer to the wealthier country (Sassen). Though these migrant workers often fill care industry positions in the “First World,” supposedly fulfilling a care deficit, they in fact leave a care deficit back home, where their own families’ are neglected (Ehrenreich). Though migration ostensibly reaps economic gains for the “receiving” country, for the migrant, and for the migrant’s family back home, in reality, local infrastructures in the home country do not actually improve in sustainable ways: “No country has escaped poverty with remittances alone” (DeParle). Simultaneously, there is a human and social cost to the economic gain the First World acquires through migrant work. In No Logo, Naomi Klein illuminates the effects of a globalized capitalism that champions acquiring the cheapest bargain. Manufacturing for the cheapest price comes at the expense of Third World, mostly female, labor in tax-free, essentially lawless Export Processing Zones. Multinational corporations claim that by providing jobs to these developing countries, they are raising the standard of living there and providing a stepping-stone for these countries to future prosperity, yet this is not occurring. The governments of these countries where these EPZ’s exist woo these multinational corporations to maintain (continued on page 31) their presence out of fear that they may
Understanding that the conception of Asian/American women as sexually perverse and submissive stems from the historically Orientalist Western gaze gives coherence to the contemporarily lived concept of “yellow fever” and my current subjectivity as a racialized, gendered subject.
Yet our readings seem to make the case that I, as a female Asian-American aspiring activist, consider — in my choices around what goods I consume, how I frame identity politics, and how I conceptualize my own racialized, gendered subjectivity — the stakes for those located in unequal positions of economic, intellectual and political power.
Prasso, Sheridan. The Asian Mystique: Dragon Ladies, Geisha Girls, & Our Fantasies of the Exotic Orient. A comprehensive exploration of the origins of paradoxical perceptions of Asian and Asian-American women as hypersexual and/or submissive, rooted in historical relations between East and West, war, media and Hollywood, and immigration law.
sugg est e
dr
Klein, Naomi. No Space, No Choice, No Jobs, No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies. Explores how our hyperconsumerist, globalized economy exists at the expense of laboring bodies in the Third World.
n gs eadi
Luibhéid, Eithne. Entry Denied: Controlling Sexuality at the Border. A remarkably convincing argument that sexuality is constructed, reified, and regulated at the borders of a nation as crucial to the nation-building project, as seen through immigration policies.
[21]
[22]
[23]
by Danya Kachkou HALSEY Halsey had her big break this past year with her EP Room 93 (I had not heard of her until my friend jealously showed me an Instagram of her perfectly dyed blue hair). Halsey’s pop tunes and cool vocals suggest a sort of Banks/ CHVRCHES hybrid, and good news: she’ll be playing in Houston on March 22 at the House of Blues. Listen to: “Hurricane” (while it’s raining preferably) because you can feel the girl power in this one.
BEST COAST Best Coast, a female-fronted band from Los Angeles, Calif., has been around for a while, and their music still fails to disappoint. Their summery vibe is reminiscent of the surf rock of the 60s, and singer/songwriter Bethany Constantino’s feelgood or alternately angsty lyrics make for really great jams. Listen to: their classic song “Boyfriend”, which is incredibly cathartic, or their newer tune “I Wanna Know” and end up singing along before you actually know the lyrics. [24]
FKA TWIGS FKA Twigs came on the scene in 2014 with her haunting vocals, synth-heavy tracks and thought-provoking music videos (she describes her own music as “wizard synth”). She got her start singing in underground clubs and planned to become a wedding singer, yet she has come out as one of the year’s breakout stars. Check her out if you’re into Blood Orange or Grimes. Listen to: “Lights On” because according to YouTube user buildingships, “[the song] makes me want to punch myself in the neck but [in] a good way.”
Brooke Candy (yes, that’s her real name) is a pink-haired rapper hailing from Oxnard, California. You may recognize her from Grimes’s “Genesis” music video or from her feature on Charli XCX’s song “Cloud” (both also good listens), but aside from that, she’s actually kind of a badass, known for her catchy, vulgar lyrics and fun beats. I’d recommend Brooke Candy to fans of Azealia Banks, Kreayshawn or Awkwafina. Listen to: “Das Me” before a night out with friends. I’m 99% sure it’ll make you feel way cooler than you did before. If you like it, also check out Lizzo’s “Batches and Cookies.”
BROOKE CANDY
[25]
“WE CAN’T STOP”
[26]
?
If the structures are the hegemonic mainstream media and its audiences, patriarchy, and white supremacy, what do these structures’ rules and resources look like?
?
If female celebrities were to go against the grain and exercise their agency to transform the structures, thereby lifting up previously marginalized people, what does that look like?
Miley Cyrus and Reproducing Structure and Oppression By Kaching Ho
Pop culture is pervasive and whether we like it or not, its influences are steep in our culture and they both reflect and constitute the society we live in. For sociologists and feminists, one of the hottest debates surrounding pop culture is to what extent female artists and celebrities have agency and to what extent they further feminism or inequality and oppression. To begin untangling this debate, I focus on one prominent female artist, Miley Cyrus. This essay by no means tries to resolve the aforementioned debates, but I aim to add some structure and perspective to the ongoing conversation around these issues. I choose to apply two social theories, structuration theory and intersectionality, to the actions and philosophy of Miley Cyrus. According to structuration theory, the relationship between structures and agency is that agents use social structure (medium) to engage in action that transform and/or reproduce the structure (outcome). I define the structures that Miley Cyrus works with as loosely the hegemonic pop cultural media and its audiences, patriarchy, and white supremacy. I identify these specific structures because the demands and norms of mainstream media and its audiences, and the systemically oppressive forces of patriarchy and white supremacy are very much patterns of social life that exist beyond the individual...
Keep an eye out for the March 2015 issue of the Engender Zine to read Kaching’s complete sociological survey of Miley Cyrus!
[27]
“I found it quite unsettling at first, my vagina. Like the first time you see a fish cut open and you discover this other bloody complex world inside, right under the skin. It was so raw, so red, so fresh. And the thing that surprised me most was all the layers. Layers inside layers, opening into more layers.” -Vagina Workshop
“In order to survive, I began to pretend there was something else between my legs. I imagined furniture cozy futons with light cotton comforters, little velvet settees, leopard rugs, or pretty things silk handkerchiefs, quilted pot holders, or place settings. I got so accustomed to this that I lost all memory of having a vagina.” -Because He Like to Look at It
[28]
“I realized then that hair is there for a reason it’s the leaf around the flower, the lawn around the house. You have to love hair in order to love the vagina. You can’t pick the parts you want. And besides, my husband never stopped screwing around.” - Hair
vagina monologues feb 12-14
Directed by Khadijah Erskine & Clara Roberts Lovett College Basement, 8pm My vagina’s angry. It is. It’s pissed off. My vagina’s furious and it needs to talk. It needs to talk about all this shit. It needs to talk to you. I mean what’s the deal — an army of people out there thinking up ways to torture my poor-ass, gentle, loving vagina. Spending their days constructing psycho products, and nasty ideas The Vagina Monologues to undermine my pussy. began as the synthesis of Vagina Motherfuckers. a series of vagina interviews -My Angry Vagina conducted by one woman
and have transformed into an
“The heart is able to forgive and repair. element of a global campaign to fight violence against women and It can change its shape to let us in. girls. All proceeds from admission It can expand to let us out. go to the Houston Area Women’s So can the vagina. Center. It can ache for us and stretch for us, Cast & Crew: Alessandra Forcucci, Linda die for us and bleed Park, Anna Durham, Emily Jacobson, Lynn Fahey, Christa Nnoromele, Chloe and bleed us into Nguyen, Hannah Abrams, Shane Alpert, this difficult, wondrous world. Helen Hoover, Geneva Vest, Zoe Matranga, I was there in the room. Olivia Hsai, Kendall Post, Kim DeBruler, Catherine Schult, KC Ho, Sarah Klein, Jessica I remember.” -I Was There in the Room Wilder, Maddie Camp, Meredith Bouchein, Bridget Schilling, Mehek Gagneja, Olivia Lee, Molly Hurley, Chynna Foucek, Selina Chen, Alex Bergin, Helen Little, Khadijah Erskine & Clara Roberts.
[29]
* Please use as a reference and check the RWRC website and FB for updates as the event approaches.
Upcoming Events 2015 23 22 Be Steadwell’s Innovative Music Performance Willy’s Pub, 8PM Learn about the artist at besteadwell.com
Come to our booth for questions & discussions! [30]
Volunteer Training RWRC, 8PM
ry
Come meet the RWRC coordinators and sign up for an office hour after your training!
ua
Lunch @ McMurtry 12PM
29
Ja n
28
Be Steadwell’s “The Vow of Silence”, a musical film, will be shown Rice Media Center, 7PM
ry bru a
Fe
13
11
Vagina Monologues Lovett College Basement 8PM
Deadline to Submit to the March Zine!
Tickets are $5, all proceeds go to HAWC. See pg 26-27 for more information.
Email yjd1@rice.edu with your submissions! We want your ideas represented! See pg 32 for more details.
15
Zine Editorial Social TBA The zine wants your opinions and talents!
12-14
Lunch @ Baker 12 PM
18
Volunteer Training RWRC, Time TBA
23
25
Lunch @ Jones 12PM
March Engender Zine Launch Pick up a copy from the RWRC or read it online! [31]
Continue Reading... Thoughts on a Porcelain Throne
Your Inner Feminist
continued from page 5
continued from page 7
More than just a functional result of changing university demographics, this change also points to the important trend of increased female enrollment and employment at the university. Hence, the gendered spatiality of current Rice bathrooms can similarly be challenged, firstly to acknowledge and serve the needs of individuals who might not necessarily identify consistently with either gender, and secondly to reflect the increasing ambivalence, even obsolescence, of gendered spaces.
reflecting the writer’s understanding of the monopoly the male gender has over media. Dr. Robin Paige, professor of sociology, offered her definition of feminism, “Feminism to me is seeing people as individuals before we see them as women and men.” Browsing these quotes helped me remember some of the inequity that exists, but that is not in-your-face obvious discrimination. Not all sexism is prefaced with a “No girls/boys allowed” sign; rarely is it that obvious. Rather, these quotes illustrate the subtle sexism that we perhaps don’t as easily identify, like media monopolies, identity restricting gender norms, or the absence of women in the uppermost leadership positions. From this collection of quotes, one could conclude that feminism at Rice is about equality of the sexes and about questioning gender norms. Examining what feminism means at Rice allowed me to reaffirm why I myself identify as a feminist, because I identify with the opinions voiced in the quotes above. But that’s my feminism, and it is by no means representative of what feminism means to others, or what feminism can mean to you. And now I challenge you, reader, to further investigate feminism and think about how it effects your everyday life. Think about how it affects your grandmothers, your mother, your sisters, your brothers, your fathers, and your grandfathers. Think about how it affects your friends. And finally, think about how it affects you. Are you already a feminist?
[32]
Lessons from Gender and Transnational Asia continued from page 18 flee to another zone with cheaper labor (Klein). Thus, a borderless, free-market economy only reinforces, maintains, and perpetuates the unequal relationship between the First and Third World. My own participation as a consumer in this economy renders me complicit in such power structures. Our readings speak to the insufficiency of insisting on national and sexual “borders” to talk about the multiple and multifaceted subjectivities present in today’s neoliberal, globalized, “borderless” economy. We read about queered and queering terrorist bodies, the unique subjectivity of the Filipino bakla in America, and several other subjects whose “non-normative” sexualities are contextualized alongside their statuses as migratory or diasporic figures. Their subjectivities resist classification or binding to a specific geographical, national or temporal context. Similarly, they resist their characterization as “universal,” “modern,” and “cosmopolitan” that the neoliberalist, globalized rhetoric seems to make about such diasporic, migratory figures. In Neoliberalism as Exception, Aihwa Ong discusses how the ethnic Chinese in diaspora, often simplistically reduced to a single category of people, are composed of so many diverse and specific subjectivities, of varying socioeconomic classes and national loyalties, that they resist classification. As an aspiring Asian American activist constantly struggling to understand how to account for the
diversity of the Asian American population, which includes diasporic figures, the “lure of diaspora” that Ong speaks of is worth pause. The notion of diaspora is not so much movement from a homeland or place of origin, but a dynamic affective and temporal process (Puar). The imbalance between certain Asians’ and Asian-Americans’ financial power yet political weakness in America facilitates attempts to bring coherence by claiming a “diasporic identity” in the face of political displacement (Ong). Yet our readings seem to make the case that I, as a female Asian-American aspiring activist, consider — in my choices around what goods I consume, how I frame identity politics, and how I conceptualize my own racialized, gendered subjectivity — the stakes for those located in unequal positions of economic, intellectual and political power.
[33]
see you in the next issue of the engender zine! Editor in Chief
June Deng
Guest Editor
Micaela E. Canales
Contributing Authors
Micaela E. Canales He Yutian Kaching Ho Danya Kachkou Danielle Whyte Joseph Mapula Priyanka Mehta Sophie Newman Nicole Zhao
Contributing Artists
Nathan Audrus Alex Bergin Emiko Buchberg June Deng Meredith Glaubach Helen Little Samantha Love Michelle Pham Kendall Post Aruni Ranaweera Danielle Whyte Julian Wilson
engender
zine is currently seeking committed content and arts
editors! Email June Deng at yjd1@rice.edu if interested. [34]
[35]
Want your ideas on gender issues published in f uture engender z ines? We w elcome a ll original content, both visual and written anything from commentaries to comics to recycled a cademic p apers. W e want y our thoughts represented! Submission deadline for the M arch 2 015 i ssue i s February 13, 2 015. E mail J une Deng at yjd1@rice.edu w ith submissions, questions, suggestions!
[36]