3-18 Upload: Let's Hang Out & Talk About Feminism

SOFIA FALCON / 3.18.13

SOFIA FALCON / 3.18.13

250 Word Statement This project will explore the issues of feminism, feminist identity, and the stigmatization of feminism by posing conversations as a vehicle for progress and observation. By presenting environments of honest, non-academic, and non-antagonistic conversations about feminism among friends, this project explores how creating such conversations can demystify and make accessible the topic of feminism. Feminism’s stigmatization makes many feel uncomfortable with discussing the topic, therefore through depicting these kinds of conversations this project attempts to encourage others to create moments of honest dialogue within their own environments. It also serves to confirm that no social movement is monolithic and disagreement within respectful discourse is necessary for progress. This project proposes that by creating spaces for conversation within communities of people we can begin to destigmatize feminism which can lead to critically addressing societal constructs surround identity, broadly, and feminism specifically.

SOFIA FALCON / 3.18.13

Method These conversations are conducted with groups of ranging from two to seven. Within the scope of thesis, this specific collection of conversations will serve as a template for more conversations to be conducted the future. In the development of my own identity, I have grown greatly through conversations with people within my circle of friends and peers. I will be using the people that have had an impact on me to demonstrate how similar conversations can be carried out within other communities of people. This will allow the conversations to be more personal and uncensored, providing a more honest look into how we can begin to carry out discourse about feminism. The project specifically targets people in their late teens and twenties, as this is when much of the development of identity around social justice and culture occurs. The people interviewed belong to a specific community as are not meant to represent all scopes of opinions or points of views. They should be viewed as a template of how one group of people deals with this issue and serve as encouragement for other communities to have discussion that are relevant to that specific community.

SOFIA FALCON / 3.18.13

Product These conversations will be presented within a book/zine. Each conversation will be separated, but all will be presented together. The form of the zine has historic and prevalent traditions within feminism. A book is an intimate object, as is the contemplation of identity. It will best hold up the integrity of the people who are willing to share their thoughts and experiences.

Printed matter is often disregarded by some as becoming obsolete, as is feminism. Disproving both, the zine will contain transcripts of the conversations, illustrations, photography, handlettering—treated with the same care as the subject matter and conversations. Some parts of the dialogue will be linear, some will be breaking that linearity. Interest will be created with use of humor and explorations of the visual language of type and illustration. Conversations will be linked by common themes. A poster will also be accompanying the book.

SOFIA FALCON / 3.18.13

Full Artist’s Statement This project will explore the issues of feminism, feminist identity, and the stigmatization of feminism by posing conversations as a vehicle for progress and observation. I am moved to explore this subject because my own development of identity in relation to feminism has been very recent and very much full of questions. Being previously ignorant of feminism, within the my time in college, I began to gradually observe the way that my gender identity and expression being female affected and characterized my experiences. As I became more politically and historically aware, I also realized ways in which things in my life were inherently shaped by patriarchal culture. The initial anger that accompanied these realizations was never fully replaced but became more and more accompanied by the desire to read, learn, and talk about these things. I became a feminist. I identify as a feminist because it gives me a feeling of strength, a feeling of unity, and a feeling of agency. Feminism, to me, means equality. The term is a tool in the fight for the equality and acceptance of all genders. However, simultaneously, I do find it problematic in certain ways and I am very conscious of the multiplicity of the term feminism, the negative connections, and the legitimate shortcomings of using a word that is so loaded and academic.

With that realization came the desire to explore these issues through what comes most naturally to me - conversation. I spoke with my friends and peers about many of the issues that concerned me. These conversations helped me develop and critically assess my own opinions but at the same time I because conscious of my privilege in being part of a community of people who have these kinds of conversations. The majority of my peers around the country don’t talk to their friends and classmates about feminism, or at least not in the same way.

The fact that people feel uncomfortable or ‘uncool’ discussing feminism and gender equality openly serves only to perpetuate those negative connotations that cause that discomfort in the first place. Perhaps by starting a simple conversation within a group of friends can create a chain reaction of discourse. The alteration in the way we as a society regard a certain subject is phenomenally significant. A person feels uncomfortable talking about feminism and therefore brushing aside the issue is like confirming that those who condemn feminism are right.

The documentation of these conversations with people who are part of my community will serve as a template for more conversations to be conducted the future. I will be using the people that have had an impact on me to demonstrate

how similar conversations can be carried out within other communities of people.

This will allow the conversations to be more personal and uncensored, providing a more honest look into how we can begin to carry out discourse about feminism.

The project specifically targets people in their late teens and twenties, as this is when much of the development of identity around social justice and culture occurs. The people interviewed belong to a specific community as are not meant to represent all scopes of opinions or points of views. They should be viewed as a template of how one group of people deals with this issue and serve as encouragement for other communities to have discussion that are relevant to that specific community.

These conversations will be presented within a book/zine. Each conversation will be separated, but all will be presented together. The form of the zine has historic and prevalent traditions within feminism. A book is an intimate object, as is the contemplation of identity. It will best hold up the integrity of the people who are willing to share their thoughts and experiences. Printed matter is often disregarded by some as becoming obsolete, as is feminism. Disproving both, the zine will contain transcripts of the conversations, illustrations, photography, hand-lettering—treated with the same care as the subject matter and conversations. Some parts of the dialogue will be linear, some will be breaking that linearity. Interest will be created with use of humor and explorations of the visual language of type and illustration. Conversations will be linked by common themes. A poster will also be accompanying the book.

This project will not try to disguise its subjectivity or limited scope. I am not attempting to assert any ultimate mantra or definition of feminism. It is about discussion and development. It is about allowing for disagreement and a learning curve. No social movement if monolithic. Conversation can lead to understanding. Discussion dispels taboos. Through the experience of the book, the viewer becomes a part of that discussion, both intellectually and emotionally, and stop to think for a minute and then perhaps, subconsciously developing, a few weeks later bring up feminism over lunch with their friends.

SOFIA FALCON / 3.18.13

Last Semester During the first semester, I had envisioned this book contain not only these conversations, but also some historical and contextual information, academic essays, and discussion of popular culture. However, it became clear that the scope of this was much too broad and all content would become watered-down as a result. It would come off as an attempt to me an allencompasing manual of Feminism, which was exactly what I did not want. The following slides include the spreads I created for that book. I am still taking many visual and aesthetic cues from these experiments, so they were extremely helpful in that respect.

SOFIA FALCON / 3.18.13

SOFIA FALCON / 3.18.13

SOFIA FALCON / 3.18.13

SOFIA FALCON / 3.18.13

SOFIA FALCON / 3.18.13

Layouts The following slides are the flat layouts of the first conversation. These layouts are not complete and refined, some elements, such as illustrations, have not yet been placed. The others will follow the same general model. The books for each conversations may exist as separate booklets that live together in a case or may be physically bound together but possibly removable.

The book is 9.25 x 6.75 inches in size.

The tabs and the brackets serve to indicate theme. Throughout the 6 books, there will be 12 themes to categorize and link all the content within all of the books. The key will be the next page in this presentation.

The first spread following the key is the wrap cover, which is a cropped version of the poster overlaid with a gradient made up of the most prominent themes in the book.

THEMES KEY Upbringing / Family Meaning of Feminism / Identity / Perceptions / Stereotypes Activism / Politics Intersectionality Biology / Motherhood How to Talk to People About Feminism Religion Body Image / Shaving / Appearance Work Relationships Assault / Slut-Shaming / Harassment Reproductive Rights

Let’s Hang Out & Talk About Feminism

FEBRUARY 2, 2013

RYAN

Could you tell me about your identity in relation to feminism and how it’s been shaped.

My identity with feminism was primarily influenced by my mother. My mom’s this really rad liberal feminist and she’s just the most wonderful person in the world. From a really young age she raised me in this culture of kind of like third wave feminism—this thought that you can still possess all the qualities that you have and not feel like you have to change yourself in order to be a feminist, which was really lovely. She got me into Kathleen Hanna and stuff like that, I ended up reading a lot of her zines when I was in high school.

RYAN

I remember being in high school and saying like, ‘I’m a feminist, I was raised by a feminist, etc.’ and at the same time I played football. So people would be surprised and they’d be like, ‘Well that’s fucking stupid, why would you be a feminist, you’re a man, dude, you’ve gotta assert your authority as a man.’ And I was like ‘What authority as a man? I don’t really understand…’ I dated this girl in high school who liked to complain about the fact that she might have to have a career and she’d say, ‘I just don’t have any interest in going to college,’ and my mom would tell her, ‘Well, that’s your prerogative.’ Then she’d go on to say like, ‘I just don’t understand why females are fighting for their right to be equal in workplace, we have a pretty good thing going.’ And so my mom tore her a goddamn new one. She pulled me aside at dinner and was like, ‘You should break up with her.’’ I did.

RYAN

So being a feminist football player in high school, did you feel like that was difficult socially, to have to explain these things to your peers?

Well, not really, because I never identified with my peers to begin with. I didn’t associate with anyone on the football team because of that. I was also getting really big into the punk community, so it was like the people that I did associate with were more like me.

But at the same time, there are still people in those circles, those punk creative circles, that still make a lot of anti-feminist jokes, which is really weird. When you call them out on it they’re usually like, ‘Oh, well, I didn’t mean it, I was just joking. I wouldn’t mind if you made fun of me for being a male!’ You are at the top of the power structure, of course you don’t mind being made fun of because you’re just being reminded of that.

RUBY

RUBY SARAH RUBY

SARAH

I had a cool experience actually the other day with my bikers empowerment group. I planned this event where we went to a Russian bath house on Wall Street, which is it’s notorious for being really yuppie. There were four of us and we hadn’t met before. So we’re there, in the locker room and we’re just like normal people, whatever, and there were all these girls there that were in a sorority or something and I had never seen bodies like that, so many of them, they all looked photoshopped.

They all had their belly buttons pierced. And the four of us, we were all pretty rad, really different body types and appearances. The whole time I was really hyper aware of this other group and how they juxtaposed with our group. How our conversations juxtaposed too. The whole time these other girls are talking about things that were so shallow and superficial.

I had this moment of feeling really good about the women I was with. These other women were hot and sexy and what everyone has wanted to be at some point but I had a really cool sense of pride that I actually am not one of them. And I had armpit hair and the other girls had hair too and I was just like, ‘I don’t care about what these skinny bitches think.”

I know you’re kidding but saying that, ‘skinny bitches,’ is that coming from a place of resentment?

Yeah, I know, I think it’s like a body image thing. All women have some level of body image issues.

Those kinds of girls also make you feel disempowered.

It’s like they’re obviously trying so hard to fit into this role.

Maybe some people look like that naturally but most people don’t. I was waiting in line for the bathroom and one of the girls was standing there and letting her belly out kind of (not that she even really had one) and her friend comes up to her and slaps her on the belly and is like, ‘What you working on there?”

It feels like they’re working against whatever we’re working for. I think that’s why we’re resentful of that.

TINA

RUBY CASSIE

TINA

TINA

CASSIE RUBY

RYAN

It makes you think about what they’re thinking when they’re looking at you. And I worked so hard trying to be comfortable with how I look and these very thin girls that keep saying how much they hate themselves make me think, ‘Shit what do they think about when they look at me? I must be disgusting.’ And that makes you feel bad and you’re like, ‘Maybe I am disgusting. Maybe I should be worried about that.’

They’re trying to live up to this impossibly high standard.

For a while at the beginning of high school I was like that. But then Tina started getting more into the whole feminism thing and I learned from her that I really shouldn’t give a fuck about the way other people might see me as long as I feel okay with it.

Whoever is going to have an opinion about that, you shouldn’t have them in your life anyway.

So you think that women who are into their appearances and things like shaving or makeup or whatever are not being true to some part of feminism?

HELL NO, JUST BECAUSE YOU’RE FEMME DOESN’T MEAN ANYTHING. FEMME BY CHOICE. I LOVE WEARING DRESSES, I WEAR MAKEUP EVERY DAY, I LIKE WEARING NICE SHOES, BUT IF ONE DAY I DON’T FEEL LIKE DOING THAT— RIGHT, I THINK YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO DRESS AND LOOK HOWEVER YOU WANT TO! IF YOU WANT TO DO THAT, THEN GO FOR IT. I feel like drag queens are a great example of that. People who do that purely for themselves. Because you’re not doing that for someone else. I think anyone who wants to dress feminine for that same reason, that’s great.

I was recently in a relationship with a girl who was really into shaving her whole body, which was weird for me because I identify being with a female who has body hair. So it was this really weird thing for me to get accustomed to and I’d tell her, ‘I hope you’re not doing this for me,’ and she was like, ‘No, I just don’t think anything to do with a societal pressure, I just personally prefer not to have any body hair.’ Which was an interesting thing to hear.

But do you think that can truly be a choice that a woman makes independently of societal pressure?

RYAN

Well, I think that’s a hard judgment call to make and that’s not something you can ever really know but I feel like there is definitely pressure. At the root of the argument is that most people wouldn’t shave their body hair unless there was that societal pressure to begin with.

But that being said, I think some people still would. So it’s very personal.

RUBY

If razors didn’t exist would you make the effort to find a way to remove that hair. If that wasn’t an idea that was already there.

CASSIE RUBY TINA

If being hairy wasn’t such a bad thing, people wouldn’t give a fuck.

Like if models had hair.

And if models weren’t a size zero.

RYAN TINA RYAN

DAN RYAN TINA

SARAH RYAN

TINA

RYAN

DAN

Then I’m also thinking about how that’s having an effect on males…

But what about the males! What about the white males!

What about me! What about my feelings! No, but, I just wonder how long it took for men to be conditioned to think that that’s the Adonis ideal of beauty. Because before men sought out opposite sex partners based on curviness.

Isn’t that biologically what it was? Because of childbearing.

And it was a sign of wealth.

When I realized that my body wasn’t going to change—I tried dieting and working out and I just get a little stronger, that’s how my body changes—that’s when I started really liking myself.

Yeah, it’s interesting what you’re saying, Ryan, how hard did they have to work against what used to be desirable.

I would really argue it’s the advent of advertising. The entire way that we perceive each other is completely tied into the system of capitalism that has been in place. I would make the argument that the feminine form is completely commodified because of the idea of capitalism. Once you get to the point where everything becomes an embodiment of your style of living or the way others are going to perceive you, you get into the terrain where everything is commodified. Think about the way you rate someone when you think of their attractiveness— you’re assigning a number value system. But capitalism might be entwined with human nature. So even if it were dismantled, it’s utopian to think that there would be complete gender equality right away.

Advertising for women is all about, ‘You’re so old, you’re so ugly, you’re so fat, buy this!’ And for men it’s: ‘Hey, you like beer and you like shaving!’

And the way breasts are used to sell things to men. And even though I’m conscious of it, it probably still works in some way even on people like me.

You advertise to women that you should look this way and that same advertising is also telling guys that this is what you should want.

Ladies

Gentlemen

“OUR DAUGHTERS RUBY

SARAH CASSIE

I went out with this guy on Tuesday and he talked for a half hour about what he does for work and so in my head, just to see what happens, I was like, ‘Okay, I’m not going to say anything until he asks me about my job.’ So he keeps talking and then he finally stops and it’s silent and really awkward, so finally I was like, ‘Do you want to know what I do?’

That’s happened to me.

Me too!

CASSIE

TINA

SHOULDN’T HAVE TO RYAN RUBY

SARAH

And when males interact that’s one of the first things they ask each other. Maybe because it’s a competitive thing.

When women talk to each other, it might be like that, you know, ‘I do this job and it’s really cool,’ and it might be a little bit competitive. But if I have a crappy job but I’m more attractive than you, that almost trumps that.

I work with a lot of low income families and most of the time the women end up having the better paying jobs. I’m seeing that a lot now and it’s really exciting.

RUBY

comes over he’ll say, ‘Oh, you’ll make a great wife one day.’

Growing up I feel like my mom was the kind of person that said, ‘Whatever the fuck you want to do, go ahead and do it.”

Yeah, she was very powerful but she’s also Italian.

I feel like our mothers’ generation is so different because they tell us to do whatever we want but my mom’s whole life has been stereotypically feminine. She got married and she was a stay at home mom and my dad makes all the money and calls all the

HAVE THIS CONVERSATION.” RUBY EVERYONE RUBY CASSIE

MARISSA

Do you guys think that all women are inherently feminists?

No. I think about that a lot. I feel like all women should be for women’s rights.

I didn’t start to fight for women’s rights until very recently. I didn’t understand what being a woman meant in that way. I feel like women aren’t taught to fight for themselves as much.

Growing up for me, my family was like, ‘You’re the girl, you have to clean up the table and cook.’ And when my grandpa

CASSIE RUBY

SARAH

financial shots.

It shows how far feminism has come.

Do you think in 20 years we’re gonna be having this conversation and saying, ‘I really hope my daughter succeeds.’

Our daughters shouldn’t have to have this conversation.

RYAN DAN TINA RUBY

TINA

CASSIE

SARAH CASSIE

Do you think that’s feasible?

No, I don’t think so.

I think people that are different from one another are always gonna fight about really stupid things.

I want to think that people are good enough to do it, but, you know...

Sometimes I forget that most people aren’t educated about this stuff. If you think about the grand scheme of American women, how many do you think are exposed to this kind of stuff and think about it and talk to their friends about it? We’re in a minority.

Whenever I go home I feel like that. Like with my dad, he’s like,

And then I think maybe the world isn’t changing.

Dad is stuck in this mind set because that’s exactly how he grew up. But every time you do something like that he’s pushed a little bit more in that direction. It’s taking a long time and maybe he’s never going to be fully there but he’s slowly going toward that.

My mom keeps saying, ‘I just want to know that someone’s taking care of you.’

My mom always talkedvvvv about my nana. My nana stayed at home, she never had a career, and she grew up being completely supported by my papa, but she completely ran the household, eventually by herself. Hearing all those stories about how she was so badass, that helped me a lot.

SARAH

CASSIE SARAH

SARAH TINA SARAH TINA

MARISSA

For me it’s kind of the opposite. My father was abusive growing up and it made me hate men. And then I found punk rock and feminism and my sister went the opposite way to where she married an abuser. When you’re put in a scenario like that you go to one extreme or the other.

I feel like that makes you such a strong person, to be able to come out on that side of it.

It took me a long time to realize how disempowered my mother was. And it was sad. And I grew up thinking my dad’s a bad guy and then I was like, ‘Oh shit, my mom’s a terrible woman.’ She didn’t stand up for herself and that sucks.

Do you think that’s a fair expectation?

In her opinion it was financial reasons. I think that’s baloney.

There are a lot of other options and she didn’t explore them.

Maybe she didn’t know about them?

No, that’s baloney.

My mom never went to college or got a great job because she didn’t know about the options. And her father taught her that she couldn’t do those things. She wanted to go into the military but she was a girl so she couldn’t do that. So she started depending on my father.

My grandpa bought my mom a typewriter and said, ‘You can be a secretary, that’s your life goal.’ And she said, ‘No, I’m going to college.’

CASSIE

RYAN SARAH

RYAN

RUBY

RYAN

RUBY TINA DAN

I feel like that’s one of the things that made me want to go to school so much. Neither of my parents did and we grew up in a shitty little town where so many bad things happened to our family. And I don’t want that for my family.

More women are going to college now.

And a lot of men take their future for granted. A lot of men I talk to don’t have plans but the women have really urgent and serious plans for their future. Those men take for granted that they’ll get a job because they’re male.

But a lot of times that does happen…

Financially though, it’s a really interesting thing because before women were largely depending on men for financial support and now, even though the Lilly Ledbetter Act didn’t pass, we’re still looking at women having more financial independence.

It also puts a lot of pressure on women because we’re now expected to do everything. It’s not fair. It’s funny that men feel so threatened that women are getting jobs...

Well the American government decided that it’s important that in our society men make more money than women. Consciously.

I feel like if men really thought about it, you know, wouldn’t it be nice if every person had the choice of working or parenting.

Why would you that when you can be like, ‘I’m the best!’ Why want equality when you can say, ‘I’m better than you.’

You just outlined the problem with the world. ‘Everything equal? That sounds good. But what if I were the best! I can be the best easily, so why don’t I do that.’ Unfortunately. Why wouldn’t you want your significant other to be successfully and powerful. Because then it’s like ‘Where am I?’

RUBY

RYAN TINA

Oh, I got a funny message from somebody on OKCupid the other day from a guy that said ‘Hey, I’ve never dated someone who’s so openly admitted to being a feminist. Your ways intrigue me.’ You know, ‘admitted,’ like it’s something I should be ashamed of. I was like ‘Well, you’re not going to!’

Well it’s like a dirty word.

Yeah, I had a guy on OKCupid say to me, ‘Feminism? That’s not real. That’s just a joke that women made up.’

RYAN

RUBY DAN

RYAN

SARAH

TINA SARAH RYAN

TINA

RUBY RYAN

SARAH CASSIE

It’s easy for men to be dismissive of it.

They’re just like, ‘Oh, there’s equality, there’s total gender equality.’ Yeah, when you’re up at the top it’s easy to say that.

I had a rich white girl tell me once, ‘I don’t know why we’re still fighting, women have equality. People still saying that there’s an argument means that I’m not worth as much as a man.’

It’s the worst when people think we’re there, it’s over.

I think that it’s weird because there’s this schism there. If you see someone wearing a really short skirt half of feminists will say that she’s really insecure and the other half will say that she’s really empowered.

And it can’t be just because she wants to wear a short skirt.

I wear short skirts because I think my legs are cute.

RYAN

RUBY

I always like that Iggy Pop quote that’s like, ‘I don’t think it’s degrading to dress as a woman because I don’t think it’s degrading to be a woman.”

I feel like that’s one privilege women have is being able to dress both feminine and masculine.

One thing I think of is when I was little I used to put on my sister’s makeup. I was a little kid, it wasn’t weird at all, I didn’t understand. But she gave me so much shit for it and told me how it was wrong, but I wasn’t developed enough to understand why.

Because I think people view childhood as a psychologically formative experience so they’re trying to enforce those gender roles. Think of how many awful parents say that they don’t want to have their kid turn out queer or something. It’s sad.

Did you hear about the Zhe kid in Canada? The parents are raising this kid as a Zhe and they’re not letting them know what their gender is.

I’ve read about a few families that are raising kids without telling them their gender.

It’s really cool but also very isolating. Maybe if they lived in a commune of people like that or something.

It’s a failed experiment because even if their parents aren’t telling them their gender, other people are going to try to all the time. You can’t go outside without seeing the established gender roles everywhere.

As a child you want to fit into the society.

DAN

RYAN

DAN

RUBY

I have something I wanted to bring up. I’m a comedian. Of course there are female comedians, but stand-up comedy is known to be very sexist. Literally for every 20 comedians you have only one female comedian. And those female comedians get criticized for the material they present and it’s weird because it’s a place where anyone can say anything they want, whether or not it’s funny. A guy can go up there and can literally talk about anything and it’s fine. And there’s an actual thing in place, if a woman talks about periods on stage, people tune out. It’s like anything that’s sexist, it’s a tuning out of it, no matter what angle it’s coming from. I guess there’s a definite roadblock about women actually talking about their own problems on stage. I heard someone recently say something about how there are literally no funny women in comedy.

I think it comes back to that power structure, that hierarchy.

It’s the males that are the taste makers. I think in a lot female comedians get cast into these two roles: the ‘male haters’ that make fun of men the same way men make fun of women or the ‘for females’ comedians, who talk about what men see as ‘lady problems.’ And because the men hold all the power in that form of art, just as in many other forms of art, it’s very constrictive.

The one thing that’s good and I hope will continue changing is that now funny people are starting to be seen as just funny people. I saw Chelsey Peretti and the whole place was laughing the whole time. Every time I see a show like that, it’s making it easier to tell those guys who think women aren’t funny: ‘Actually, go see these shows!; You can’t say that women aren’t funny if this woman making everyone laugh. As long as the opportunities are being given, things will begin to change.

But there are still a lot of conversations among male comics that are like, ‘Yeah women are just not funny,’ but actually (whispers), ‘I haven’t seen any of them’ Do you think also you’re placing more value on your male audience members than your female audience members? I listen to Louie CK do jokes about masturbation that maybe I don’t relate to in the same way because I do it differently, but I still think it’s funny. But most men aren’t listening to a woman tell a joke about her period and laughing along with it. It’s like saying, ‘Everything that’s funny to men is funny to all people.’

RYAN

DAN

And a lot of it is shock factor. And an easy target for that are women or racial minorities. Going after the people that don’t have as much power and just laughing at them from the top of the mountain. It’s this weird kind of play where it’s been a white male dictated universe for so long and other people have had to adjust to that. And if there are jokes about white men, they laugh along with them too because, again, when you have all the power it’s not going to hurt you. And the things you make fun of white people, and specifically men, for are pretty trivial, like white guys can’t jump or dance or whatever.

It goes for any art form I think, once the audience becomes more aware, it’ll start to change. There are places where the audience will laugh at racist or sexist jokes and that’s why these comedians keep getting paid. That’s why it’s such a direct art form, you’re getting the laughter right away or you’re not. But when people aren’t laughing, hopefully that’s sending a direct message to these comedians and they won’t be able to find work and have to say, ‘Well maybe I need to change my material. Maybe I’m too racist and too sexist.’

RYAN

TINA RYAN

SARAH TINA

RYAN

I wanted to bring something up too and am interested in hearing what you have to say. I was talking about this to Tina for the last few weeks… I was recently sexually assaulted by a female. It was this really weird experience for me because a lot of the people I was friends with, from the activist community I’m in, who have always been self-proclaimed feminists…

But don’t actually mean it. They’re not taking it seriously, they’re still friends with her. Because he’s a guy.

It’s really weird because coming from this community of feminists... and she’s still a self-proclaimed feminist and posts regularly online about sexual assault. It was just a really weird thing for me because all these people were like, ‘Well yeah that’s a bad thing, but you’ll get past it,’ and if I had done that to her, I would be shunned by them. Because normally I myself am very dismissive of the male plate on the opposite side of the spectrum that men who are apologists are always bringing up.

In my opinion, honestly, I find women easier to empathize with. I know she was going through a hard time.

Yeah but if a guy was saying, ‘I’m going through a really rough time,’ it still would be like ‘No, fuck you, you can’t do that.’

And even I at first said that too, like, ‘She’s probably going through a really shitty thing.’ But I know for a fact that if it was reversed I would be like, ‘No, fuck you.’

It was weird because I was very dismissive about it at first. I thought, ‘Okay, I was able to fight her off, whatever.’ And then all of the sudden I was having nightmares and I couldn’t sleep or get out of bed. Because this was someone who was my friend and the whole thing was about dominating me physically by dominating me mentally. And I thought like at least there is an activist community around me that understands these things and I called all of them and almost unanimously they kind of disregarded it. I think it’s also different because my mother was the victim of sexual assault for a while, so I don’t minimize it in anybody’s case at all.

TINA

RYAN

It kills me that people would minimize it. Maybe because I’ve dealt with that more directly than people that just read about it and are like, ‘Oh I get it!’ Like people that say, ‘Ah, yes, I understand the black struggle. I’ve read plenty of articles, I understand.’ But for her, she kept trying to justify it to herself because she became something that she was fighting against as a feminist. Who wants to admit that they’ve contradicted themselves. It’s like the survey they did of college men, when the majority of them admit to raping or assaulting someone when the word rape wasn’t used. If you said that to her it’d be the same thing.

It’s something that’s been really interesting to observe even though I wish I didn’t have to.

Thanks for sharing that with us.

TINA

CASSIE

DAN

TINA DAN CASSIE DAN

I just want to say that I’ve really enjoyed this whole discussion. I’m really glad that this many people can be together and talk about these things.

I hope that in the future as I make more friends I can talk to them about these things.

I hope I can meet more people that identify with feminism.

Well I like to think that we’re in a really great generation of people that’s moving forward.

And you’re saying, Cassie, how you want to meet people that are into feminism. But a lot of people aren’t aware of feminism.

ALL OF US DIDN’T KNOW THAT FEMINISM WAS A THING UNTIL WE KNEW THAT FEMINISM WAS A THING. UNTIL WE MET SOMEONE THAT DID. SO THE GOAL WOULD BE THAT YOU COULD EDUCATE PEOPLE. THE PERSON THAT TINA WAS TO ME, I COULD BE TO SOMEBODY ELSE. I JUST CROSS MY FINGERS THAT WE SEE REAL ACTUAL CHANGE REALLY SOON.

SOFIA FALCON / 3.18.13

Poster The first finished draft of the poster. Contains all the people that participated in all the conversations and memorable quotes. Eventually there will be page numbers next to the quotes coordinating the the books. Could potentially fold out of book or contained or serve as introductory piece to be hung in spaces. Color will eventually be applied according to theme colors.

SOFIA FALCON / 3.18.13

Poster Progress