Social Justice Event

Sex Positivity, Feminism and Health Implication

By Deirdre O Donnell

The event that I attended was Sex positivity, Feminism and Health Implication by Deirdre O Donnell on March 24th, 2016. Overall I really enjoyed this event because of the subjects she touched upon were some that I learned in FNED, not only that but some I had no idea that was going on. It made me look around at how women are treated in the United States, related to abortion, health issues, social , political and economic equality of the sexes. One of the first things we did was a true and false questions about feminine health. One of the questions that really surprised me was that only less than 1% of rapist see jail time. That crazy how low that percentage is because rape occurs ever 107 seconds. That is an average 293,066 victims (age 12 or older) sexual assault each year. There are 525,600 minutes in a non-leap year. Only 1 percent of these assaults are reported. So think about how many people that is who are getting assaulted. That just shocks me. Another thing that shocked me was that abortion is not available to women in every state. I know that recently Florida defunded planned parenthood but there are actually states where it is a law to not have an abortion. Women would have to drive thousands of miles to another state to be able to have an abortion. It is just unfair because these resources should be available for everyone. It just bothers me because we have made it so far when it comes to women health but now we are just backtracking because of laws like this. 

So overall what is Feminism ? Feminism is the support of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.A few of the most famous feminists are suffragist, Betty Friedan, Oprah Winfrey and a lot more who molded this society. One of the most iconic images of feminism is Rosie the Riveter. This is an empowering female symbol that still remains an icon to this day, reminding us of the incredible female efforts during the '40s. Feminist have molded the world and broke so many boundaries not only for women but people from different ethnicities as well. Feminist has broken barriers for little girls to do something bigger like become president or more, earned them the right to vote, they call out rape culture, and fought legal discrimination again genders. These people have done so much.

Connections to authors: While I was sitting at this presentation I thought of SWAMMP, Delpit, and August. SWAMMP because while in this presentation it was not only talking about women rights but also the treatment of colored women as well. Which would connect to SWAAMP because whiteness and maleness are valued in this society. August also played a role in this presentation. Deirdre talked about her experience with the LGBT community and also broke down what LGBT meant. Which a lot of us already knew because we discussed this in class. Deirdre also wanted us to explain what sex meant. A lot of the answers were towards heterosexual couples like penis goes into vagina ext. She continued to explain that there is not a right answer to this because everyone performs sex differently. Whatever floats your boat is not a wrong way with a man or a female. Lastly, despite because growing up as a female, we are thought the rules and codes of power of how to dress. In life, we are thought to respect our bodies and not to show much skin. We are thought these rules so others will not think badly of oneself. Even though it is our body and we can do whatever we want with it but since we are thought so young we come to develop this bit of self-hatred. If too much skin is showing,you're automatically accused of being a slut or a whore. 

Overall, I really liked this event definitely opened my eyes to some of the injustice we have in this country. Our voices do make a difference so sometimes we just need to stand up and say something. I will be looking more into these problems related to women. This event was very informative and engaging as well because these problems do affect me in some way.