Service Learning Log

Well last week was a slow week, but Saturday was the big day. That was when the Women to Women Conference was going on. This was when they had farm working women come to this event to talk about issues such as domestic violence all the way to self-care. I believe this was put on by YAYA and the person that supervised me was Dr. Santana. My successes was just seeing all the women and the children having these big smiles on their faces and seeing that they were learning so much things from the certain discussions that were going on. The chapter that we were discussing last week and this week ties in directly to the environment. We were talking to women that work as farmers and anything else that has to deal with that aspect. I do not know too much about the women’s working conditions and their pay, but I would think that neither of these things is adequate enough for them to support their families. Most of these women could not speak English very well, so they had discussions in Spanish which was very helpful to them and their children. As an aspiring social worker, I was definitely in my element seeing how the people that were leading the discussions did it in an open forum type of way which was therapeutic and enlightening at the same time. The impact that the Hope Community Center has on the community seems like it is a really huge one. It seems like they help these women in any type of way they can. Since most Latinos are Catholic, the Hope Community Center is faith based. I think that this is a good way to reach out to this population and to get through in order to make an impact. I felt like I got soooooo  much from this day. I saw many people take their time out of their lives to come and educate these women and give them resources if they should ever get stuck. And that;s exactly what I want to do when I get out into the real world.

Environment

This video and chapter put a lot of things in perspective for me. It made me realize how much my family, friends, and I use so many things and take for granted how these things came into to our household. The lady in the video made perfect sense to me when she was talking about how manufacturers make things to purposefully break in a few years and we turn around and keep on buying the same thing. It’s crazy to me how corporations and government take advantage of our money like it’s no tomorrow. But any who, while we are consuming all of these goods, we fail to realize what is doing to our pockets and wallets, but most importantly to our health. I was really shocked when the woman in the video said that breast milk has the highest toxins in it, due to all the waste around us. This is crazy. The one thing that I thought that was good for babies is messing them up in some shape or form. Another point I would like to bring up, is some of the women that work for the plants that are responsible for all these toxins, are at their peak of reproduction. While they are working in these poor conditions, they are soaking up all these harmful chemicals and at the same time damaging their reproductive organs. The lady in the video showed the cartoons of the women in the factories that were pregnant which another issue is. While the baby is supposed to be nice and warm and safe in the womb, the baby is taking in all of the toxins that the mother is soaking up. So, God forbid, the baby comes out with some type of illness, or some type of birth defect. The worst part about that is, the mother most likely won’t be able to pay for healthcare, which is already sky high (but I’m not going to touch that issue). 

Continuing the Conversation (EC)

Personally, I like the idea of the "Slut Walk" nor do I think that the name should be changed. The women who named the whole movement obviously had a purpose as to why they named it that. But by me saying this, it still over sexualizes (I guess I just made up this word) women. Someway, somehow women are all ways turned into sex objects no matter what skin color they are. Although, it's with every woman, we definitely see it happen a lot with women of color. The Hispanic community is often shown as having the most "sexiest" and "exotic" women around. In the article "Guadalupe the Sex Goddess", I love how she turned her stereotypical sexuality into spirituality. She made it no longer taboo. Also, with the Black community, we are obligated to hold up to the standards of having a huge behind, small waist, and big breast. And for what reason exactly? Me, personally, once upon a time, I have striven to have the biggest butt that I could possibly attain, but I learned that my body was not ready for all of that. Also, I realized that it was not making me happy; it was just stressing me out more because I wanted the ideal Black woman's shape. As for sexuality, I am one of the few people that are not afraid of discussing this type of issue. I don't think that anything is wrong with sexuality; I just think that it becomes something raunchy when people put more emphasis on what it is and means to be sexy.

Service Learning Proposal

Service Learning Proposal for Young Women’s Leaders Program
By: Tiy McIntosh

April 2, 2012

Meredith Tweed

WST 3015-0001

Community Partner Profile:

Community Partner: Young Women Leaders Program (YWLP)

Contact: Maria Roman

Community partner mission statement: “YWLP promotes middle school girls’ leadership abilities, pairing collegiate women with middle school girls. In mentoring pairs and small groups of Big and Little Sisters, participants focus on learning competence and autonomy, independent thinking, empowerment, self-esteem, and encouraging girls to think about their futures” (Young Women’s Leaders Program).

The Proposal: Growing up into a young woman from a young girl is tough already with the changes our bodies have to go through. Certain parts of our bodies get bigger, and things start to happen that might scare us. Then, while dealing with all of this with have to deal with our friends at school who might have developed more than us or the popularity standard. Sometimes we may feel as though our parents do not understand anything that we go through. This is when we feel like we need someone like a big sister to help us understand what’s going on with our bodies and changes in our social lives. This is where the Young Women Leaders Program comes in. They would help girls understand that the changes that they are going through are completely normal, and if they absolutely need advice or just a listening ear big sisters will be there for them.

This project relates to Women’s Studies as a whole. Women are always being defined by men (not to say that all men want to fit women into these conventional roles). And I would guess that most of them do not know what it’s like to be a woman. We are always trying to find ways to redefine our purpose in life and most of the time gets criticized for not conforming to the norms of women in society. This program helps to advocate for young girls, which is another form of activism. In my opinion, I think that’s what Women’s Studies is all about. One thing that relates to women and women’s studies is our body image. We are always conformed into being these perfect, slim, gorgeous, tall, straight haired individuals. But, in actuality how many real women do we know really look like this. So many women strive to be the ideal, but I think it is time that women strive to be their own ideal and live up to their own standards. Our text has so much written about this certain issue that it is kind of hard to write a summary of it. However, one chapter that I favor in the textbook is “Women’s Bodies and Health”. It really sheds some light on how society views our bodies and our health. I was really surprised by this because I didn’t realized how much it impacts every woman’s lives. While we try to be this impossible super perfect woman, we fail to realize that we have the younger generation looking up at us thinking that they have to do the same instead of loving who they really are.

What I would love to do is change the way social media views the way a woman should look, but I know that’s impossible. However, while partnering with YWLP, I would love to observe how they interact with this issue and how they help these young girls with this certain problem. While observing, I would be glad to help with any of the promoting and crafts that they might need and volunteering my time for anything that the organization needs.

Works Cited

Mission Statement from YWLP. http://womensstudies.cah.ucf.edu/ywlp/

Service Leaning Log

For the past few weeks all I have been doing is helping Maria (which is the Young Women Leaders Program coordinator) prepare things for the events and meetings that YWLP has during the week. Also, there was a little workshop that was held on bullying. It was to encourage students to speak up and speak out if they see any bullying going on. I have set goodie bags, called and contacted some of the community business to see if they could donate some things to give to the children, and seeing if there were any extra things to do. I talk with Maria every week and we also contact each other through email. Some of my successes are just helping out with the little things that need to be done. My major pitfall is that since I live and work so far I am not able to attend a lot of the events that YWLP hosts. Next week what I could do to help complete my project would be to try and attend the YWLP meeting this coming Wednesday and do some more of the little things that I have been doing.

Well I guess I could talk about bullying and how it relates to what we talked about in class on Thursday. Women seem like we have rules to adhere to and men are the ones that tag along beside us because they have to. Women everyday are being forced blatantly or subliminally fit into this type of superwoman type of person. We have to dress a certain way, go to college, get married and have kids before our eggs shrivel up and die. This week’s lecture and the event opened my eyes as how oppressive it is to be normal. We have to fit a certain criteria for us to be good women. And things are changes as time goes on. Some women don’t want to have children, don’t want to get married, and don’t want to the best cook in the world. Some women are content with being by themselves and doing there on thing without having to work around a child or an intimate partner in their lives. My belief of my community partner is all in the name which is Young Women Leaders Program. I’m glad that they take the time out of their busy schedule to mentor young women and let them know that no one in the world could stop them from doing anything that they want to do.

What I would love to get from this is, seeing young children blossom into whatever they want to be. As I was walking by the students at the Leading Out Loud event, I heard most of them having high goals such as being doctors and lawyers. I would love to see them actually reach for those goals and let no one tell them different.

One Born Every Minute

I couldn't really watch full episodes of the series but, the clips that I have seen look crazy. The first thing that popped up was "two grandmothers" fighting because they were getting tired of each other. Then another clip I saw was of a lady in season two that refused to let her husband breathe his "toxic" germs on her. But getting back to business, there was clip that I found that was a bit humorous but serious at the same time. This particular couple was having their second child and the husband said, "I think we could skip out on the epidural this time to lighten up our bill". This made me think of the documentary that we watched earlier in class. Baby birthing is where the big money is and hospitals are milking parents out of their money. From what I've seen, the show portrays women's health as one determined by the doctors. The women don't have too much say either because they're in too much pain, they are too drugged up to even know what's going on, or they're sent on a guilt trip saying that their baby needs this and that. But really it's just something to hurry up the birthing process and fill the bed again with another pregnant woman ready to give birth. The interests and concerns of soon-to-be-mothers are not really important as the doctors who are almost never there until it’s time to push. I'm glad that whenever the baby has complications, everybody is hasty to uncomplicate the situation (I think the just made up that word). Just thinking about the baby, maybe all of the drugs that are given to mothers are what's complicating children. In the documentary, they explained that the drug Pitocin, which is used to induce labor, slows down the baby's heart rate. My question is why they are giving these women these medicines and not telling them what it could do to their baby's health. But, I guess it all boils down to money. The people that are being portrayed as knowledgeable would be the nurses and doctors, of course. Mothers know nothing about their bodies and nothing about giving birth, except for these wonderful doctors and nurses, who according to the documentary never actually saw a natural birth. I would hope that the people that are being portrayed as being strong would be the mothers. They are the actual people that push babies out of their vaginas. In my opinion, that's as strong as strong gets. When I start having kids, I want to look as graceful as those women did in the documentary. I don't want to look crazy and hysterical because I'm in pain and everyone around me is being hasty and not trying coming me down like in the wild pregnancy shows. The pregnancy shows out now, truthfully scare me out of having kids. The birthing process to me was something to be feared, but after watching the documentary, it’s something that I want to experience naturally and peacefully.

advertisement

I think almost every female has issues when it comes to their hair. Either our hair is too straight, or it’s too curly, we could never actually get it right. Sometimes problems with loving our hair are deeper than those two reasons to despise our hair. As a black woman, I’m faced with the choice to either straighten my hair or to leave it nappy and natural like how I was born. When I was little I really loved my hair until it was time for my mother to do it. It hurt so much that I so desperately wanted to get a perm so my hair could match the texture of my eyebrows (I know it sounds weird, but it’s definitely true). My mom never wanted to put a perm in my head because of the damage that it had done to her hair. But when I moved in with my aunt, it was a different story. She threw a perm in my hair because she couldn’t handle the huge amount of hair I had. When she did that, I liked for a good minute, but then I realized that I couldn’t go back to my naps unless I waited till all the perm grew out, or chop it off. Chopping off my hair was and still is a “no-no” because of the notions my aunt put in my head. She often said that it wasn’t professional to walk around nappy headed at the workplace; hair looked prettier when it was straight. So this to me is my own little middle finger to corporate America. Saying that I am capable of whatever is needed despite the texture of my hair. I don’t need my hair to be straight all the time.

website for the photo:

http://www.hollywoodheartbreaker.com/2007/10/14/fashion-frightener-lauryn-hill-is-expecting-another-baby/