My mom says I'm setting the movement back ten years when I am sexually assertive. What should I tell her?
Why do you think there aren't more men at this lecture?
Why and how did you get into blogging?
I feel like I have to be the spokesperson for both feminists and feminists of color all the time. What should I do about it?
These were just some of the questions that Samhita, Miriam, and I answered last evening at Wheaton College as part of our Feministing Fall Tour. It was a great event, kicked off with a talk in a lively Intro to Women's Studies class, where we discussed quite a bit about the blogging life--both its highs and lows, freedoms and insecurities. Then after a podcast interview with new campus publication, The Bubble, we went on to dinner with a lot of great women's studies students, and then, of course, the official panel.
Roxie, our student panelist, was amazing. She spoke about the pressures of being an Iranian feminist leader on the Wheaton campus--how there is a double burden of pressure to do good because she wants to prove that women are capable and Iranian aren't terrorists (or other such misconceptions on the part of post-9.11 Americans). She also spoke about the need for everyone to get involved and reminded her community of the flabbergasting fact that there hasn't been a woman president of the student government since Wheaton went co-ed in 1988. We hope to be featuring a guest post from her very soon.
Thanks to all the great organizers at Wheaton who put energy into bringing us, all the students who asked fantastic questions, and my badass co-panelists Miriam and Samhita. Off to the Holiday Inn pool!
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Feministing Fall Tour: Wheaton .
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.feministing.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.fcgi/16882
I wish I had known, I would've liked to attend! I grew up in Wheaton and I still live close by. Are your tour dates posted somewhere?
Wow, that's pretty progressive for Wheaton College to have a feminist discussion. That town/college is so conservative. I don't know if they still have them, but for a while at Wheaton College they had pulpits placed around campus with organs nearby so students could proselytize when the mood struck. I went to Catholic high school in Wheaton and hated every minute of it.
Props to everyone involved for getting some feminism up in that conservative hellhole.
haha, funny story:
I went to Wheaton College in Illinois, for this feministing event, and spent approximately half an hour walking around asking students where the Mary Lyon Building was, and no one had heard of it. I finally found someone who suggested that perhaps it was Wheaton College in Massachusetts. Now I have not confirmed this, but I am going to guess with some measure of certainty that this is indeed the case.
Wheaton College in Illinois IS extremely religious and conservative. In fact, this past summer I protested with NOW, PFLAG, and GLN (Gay Liberation Network) against their Exodus International annual convention which took place at Wheaton College - they believe they can cure the gay away through therapy.
So initially I was super excited that feminists made it on campus...of course, after I figured out what was going on, it made a lot more sense.
Moral of the story: feministing, can you please post full details whenever possible (in this instance, city and state would have been helpful)? I was far from the only one who thought it was Wheaton College in Illinois.
that being said, could you make a stop at a college in Dupage county, Illinois to make up for it? :)
Damn, I thought this was at Wheaton in Illinois, as well. I got so excited and was about to insist that you come to my college, which is similar to Wheaton (though smaller and perhaps even more conservative), Asbury College in Kentucky. (Yes, Asbury College of the infamous Dr. Hager. Ugh.)
Agreed, come to COD or even UIC! I saw Jackson Katz at COD last year so I know they'd be down for Feministing.
Stephen A: Feministing was at Wheaton College in Mass. We are not a conservative hellhole (thank goodness), and I am proud of that. I can't, however, say the same for Wheaton, IL...