Xicanista

by: Alejandra Ramos

Womyn of color feminism has been placed under third wave feminist movement; the push and struggle of womyn of color to have their voices heard and their experiences validated by the white feminist movement is a continuous one. From Colonize This! a lense of womyn of color feminism is presented from perpective in which the experiences of womyn are intertwined initmately with colonization. Rehman and Hernandez state, 'colonize means "to create a settlement". It sounds simple and peaceful. We rewrote the defenition. To colonize is to strip a people of their culture, language, land, family structure, who they are as a person and as a people."...We can't have someone else defining our lives or our feminism." Feminism as taught in the academia continues to be from a very white-middle class persepective and as a womon of color I want to identify as a feminist but the fact that stories of womyn like myself are like chocolate sprinkles on vanilla ice cream makes it hard, but it continues to prove that my presence is necessary in these circles. The urgency and importance of womyn of color voices within this movement to end sexisim in our community will not come if we don't also eliminate racism and other forms of oppression too. As womyn of color redifining feminism and making it our own is essential. Redefining my identiy withing the White/Black spectrum of feminism is an act of resitance itself. Claming the identity of Xicanista as coined by Ana Castillo, refereing to her identity within the chicana feminist movement as an act of decolonization she states, “A crucial distinction between labels we have been given by officials of the state and our own self-naming process is that only doing the latter serves us.  The very act of self-definition is a rejection of colonization.” Rewriting our herstories  a nuestra manera, "...is our task as Xicanistas, to not only reclaim our indigenismo-but also to reinsert the forsaken feminine into our consciousness.”(Castillo). Not only is our task to reclaim or indigenous roots, but with that the feminine power within us from our abuelas, to bring forth the otrocities of what colonialism has done to ours spirits, memories and experiences.

http://web.utah.edu/venceremos/Xicanisma.html 

No Feminism, Just Colors

by: Zhiqi Zhou

In "Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism," the author not only depicts feminism but also feminism of colors which sparks my brain in a multi-racial way. We have been talking about feminism all along in this class, and I am not going to address feminism any more. I want to point out my concerns of racism on mass media nowadays. In 2010, US demographics census reports: Whites are 63.7%, Blacks are 12.2%, Hispanic or Latino are 16.3% of the US population. Now, let us move the focus of our eyes to the mass media, TV, advertisements, movies, newspaper. Generally, this demographic statistics tells us, for every 6 white people you see on mass media, there should be an appearance of a black person, or for every 4 white people, you should see a Hispanic person. Is it how things are in real life? My answers is no. To intuitively support my point of view, I want to use a Corona commercial as example. In the commercial, there are four people drinking on the beach, and three of them are white and one is black. The commercial majorly focus on a white couple flirting with each other and drinking corona. Surprisingly, the black person in the commercial only makes a "hard-to-see" appearance. What did I think when I saw the commercial? I thought the commercial maker didn't want the commercial to be too racist so he or she put a black clown there to make it appear less offensive. However, all of this seems to be so overly done that audience like me would obviously notice the commercial maker's intention and the black "clown."

Corona Commercial Link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bfsE-VMqQk    

Women’s Rights: Who Defines What Women’s Rights Are and What Is Feminism?

By: Stephanie C. Martyr

            Learning about third wave feminism is very interesting to me because it is so current and also is continuing to develop with our contributions added. Taking from the introduction in “Colonize This!”, Women who have been taught by “white feminism” in universities are now understanding their mothers’ choices for motherhood, and are currently carving out schools in feminism for particular sects for women belonging to certain races (Rehman & Hernandez xx-xxiv). What is I find striking is that while the current (third) wave of feminists are criticizing the second wave feminists for having a dominant voice (the white suburban housewife), the same group of women is now missing from the dominant message and literature. This message of stereotyping also pits women from different schools of feminist thought against one another, and could this approach be leaving some women (those who do not want to identify as a feminist) out of the feminist club entirely? I have observed that feminists use rhetoric such as “Are you a feminist? If not, you’re a bigot.” –Gloria Allred (from the youtube.com). These types of fallacies ultimately turn women off from identifying as feminists- when they should learn that as a woman you are a feminist because every woman has the basic right to be- like a citizenship to a country. Asking a woman what her ideas about feminism are should not always be reduced to a rhetorical question meant to trip one up and make an example out of. Are you a feminist? Yes. We all are, in fact. If I answer no, I understand that I still am because (Insert any reason here since it IS valid). Women need to be delicate in bringing resistant women into the sphere of knowledge feminists are aware of; this is not an arms race for which group privileged or not can get the most rights first- feminism is about empowering each other as women and seeing each other finding our own paths and succeeding.

As an Irish-Native American woman, I enjoy having my individual story, and I agree with the authors in “Colonize This!” that there has been a white wash of culture in America, and as a result people have lost a sense of their identities and heritage. Feminist theory seeks to rectify this by establishing women as individuals, with their own struggles, stories, and rights. However, feminist theory also seeks to deconstruct gender, which tends to exclude issues such as labor and breastfeeding, a highly gendered womanly activity. Therefore, this “choice” (to be a mother or not, to be gay or straight, to abort or not, to use birth control or sterilization or not) suggests sexism is within the very content of feminism. I personally see this inner division of feminists into self-labels for the purpose of saying, “I’m not that kind of woman, I’m this kind of woman” and that should no longer be any kind of accepted form of feminist thought. Because third wave feminism is our generation, it is up to us to further women’s rights and power in society by defining what feminism is. I appreciate the women from the 1^st and 2^nd waves of feminism for fighting for the right to choose. I like how the 3^rd wave feminists are diverse, individualized, and fight for everybody’s rights. However, I am dropping the attitude that feminists are a separate group of women. All women are feminists whether they claim to be or not, all women have an equal voice- a woman’s right is to choose anything and it be allowed, and she will have her sisters to support her. Feminists should not criticize women who deny being feminist, since we know that society constructed them that way anyhow. When it comes to my understanding about the history of feminism, I know that all women were fighting for rights any way that worked and as long as we continue to have a history of pitting certain women against each other (mothers and non-mothers, white women and women of color, gay women and straight women), then it is impossible to achieve equality for all.

Works Cited:

Rehman, Bushra; & Hernandez, Daisy “Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism” Introduction. Seal Press

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dddgkEg2XSA&feature=endscreen&NR=1