#sr1124

Spirituality vs. Religion, my acceptance of spirituality, my introspection.

I really enjoyed the plenary with Prof. Jackson-Brewer and I think it is my favorite one yet. I really appreciated that she spoke a topic that was not a necessarily a wholly feminist topic, which was a refreshing detour from our usual conversations and plenaries. I took her Buddhist stories and advices to heart. In my own spiritual quest, I have many questions that Prof. Jackson-Brewer answered yesterday, and for her I am very thankful.

A few years ago, prior to my older brother taking a Buddhism class at Rutgers, he and I had a lot of discussion about Buddhism and our individual spiritual quests. He had me read Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, but as a thirteen-year-old with more trivial priorities, I didn’t get much from it at the time. Then I read the book again in my senior year of high school for my literature class, and analyzing the novel in that setting gave me a wholly wonderful understanding of why my brother had me read that book years earlier, why the book was so important to him, and ultimately, why the book is so important to me.

I understand that Buddhism comes in many different forms, and is closely related to Hinduism and similar beliefs that I may not know of. But universally speaking, Prof. Jackson-Brewer’s presentation of spirituality, her stories, and her emphasis on introspection all reminded me of Hesse’s book and the Buddhism I studied with my brother. It reminded me the specific spiritual aspects that I accepted into my own life in the past few years, which does not include all aspects. 

Plenary Reaction:

My overall exposure to NPR has been at a relative minimum. My only real exposure and loyalty to NPR was related to This American Life’s and NPR’s extremely successful podcast, Serial. From listening to this podcast diligently and for getting through half of it in the absurd mindset that what I was hearing was just a fictional story (I, midway through, realized that it’s definitely NOT fiction), I realized the power that NPR holds.

From this mild exposure to NPR, and from hearing Pam Fessler speak to us Douglass women the other day, I realized how important and essential it is for young people like me to have this kind of extremely informative, unbiased, factual and critically-thought-out outlet for news. NPR brings real issues to the table. It brings real people to the table, rather than the politicians and other social leaders who often are the ones to speak up (or not speak up) for a population’s issues. It doesn’t always make sense to me that politicians and related leaders sometimes have the most prominent voice in these kinds of social issues. I think that fact doesn’t make sense to NPR either, which is why the organization does what it does, and why Ms. Fessler does what she does.

Reaction to in-class material: 

The F Word

Recently in class, we discussed the “F word,” or the term “feminism” and our perceptions of it, whether we identified with the word or not, and our personal experiences within a feminist culture or outside of it. Although some may tell me that my indifference to the word is bad, my indifference still exists. Yes, I am indifferent to the word feminist. I don’t call myself one, because I don’t find the need.

Let me explain.

I’m not anti-feminist. My exposure to feminism has been, for lack of a better word, lacking and hazy. My greatest feminist influence yet is a teacher that I had just this past year. He didn’t introduce me to feminism by telling me about it or even engaging in conversation with me about it. Rather, he had me read. He had me read greats works by Virginia Woolf and Margaret Atwood, including, just recently, the Handmaid’s Tale. For an assignment, I even had to watch the first of three Twilight movies, and through an analytical lens, discuss the regressive impact it had on the forward-reaching waves of feminism. My point is, I was given many mediums to explore the concept of feminism, and make my OWN decision about it. 

Knowledge and Power is a class that sometimes makes it hard to make one’s own decision, because it often only throws one-sided opinions at the students sitting in the room at the time. I think everyone in my class expects me to be a feminist, but I honestly can’t define that word. I’m indifferent to it, because my exposure to the concept of feminism has taught me about human rights, and striving for equality, which is not necessarily related to gender or sex. I know, everyone will often tell me that “feminism is just that! Striving for equality” but I don’t have a word for it. Some people do.

I think this film is gravely important. I’m glad it was shown at Rutgers, and that it continues to be screened at universities across the nation. It truly increases awareness of sexual violence on college campuses, and is definitely a call for action. I felt encouraged to seek out the support systems and resources related to these issues at my own school, and if there weren’t any, I was encouraged to fight for some. I was encouraged to get my government involved and to learn more about my own rights beneath Title IX.

In regards to these rights, I truly don’t know as much as I should. Andrea and Annie really didn’t either until they began researching with a purpose. I shouldn’t have to wait for a purpose, or for something to happen, before I know my own rights and what my own country will protect me from. My sister, an attorney, always tries to educate me and my immigrant parents about our rights as American citizens, but sometimes it’s either too much to take in, or in the back of my mind I think I’m too far away from it. Subconsciously, we think it doesn’t get real until it happens to us.

Sexual assault doesn’t get real until it happens to you. No, sexual assault is always real. This film made it real for everyone. It provoked my interest in the study of my own rights under Title IX for the sake of myself and those around me. It’s always real, whether it happens to you or not.

I would also like to thank the resources we have at Rutgers for anyone who may ever need it. As a Rutgers student, I take pride in these departments, including Rutgers CAPS and VPVA. I love seeing those little blue and purple pamphlets travel around the university, because it’s a physical increase in awareness for all students that our school has resources available available for us, and here’s exactly how to reach them. 

So many schools don’t have that. We even saw Annie and Andrea not knowing who to call or where to report anything when they needed to.

I very much enjoyed listening to Ms. Cai-Lee speak to us DRC women today. 

She was very fun to listen to. Her story came across as unique but still relatable. She spoke about her Chinese culture and parents’ vices in a way that reminded me of my own culture, one that I sometimes find restrictive like she sometimes found hers. I was fascinated by her childhood: becoming her parents’ full-time English translator at the age of 12, having to help facilitate almost every major aspect of identity and finance for her family that would otherwise be impossible because of a language barrier. 

I also found her struggle with her father’s expectations of her quite startling. Especially with regards to her acceptance of a UNFPA award and her father’s strong disapproval of her, post-acceptance, I was shocked. It sounded painful. I thought about my own achievements. The awards I acquired through high school, through serving as a member of my community. My parents watched me walk across my high school auditorium stage several times to receive miscellaneous awards and a few scholarships. Imagining my parents disappointed at the sight of that...no. It’s unimaginable. 

But for Cai-Lee and her father, though the situation seems so sad and terrifying, it was not Cai-Lee’s father’s fault. It’s just his culture, and as shocking as it was for him to be so disappointed in her for accepting an award, he had the best of intentions: to emphasize the importance of and virtue that is humility, success in silence.

And that’s the idea that was reinforced for me today through this plenary. Succeeding in silence.

“Succeeding in silence” is a phrase I hold dear because a) it’s what I see through the people that most inspire me and b) as a result of these inspirations, it’s an ideal that accurately defines the importance that I, just like Cai-Lee’s father, place on humility. One of these inspiring people that I kept thinking of during Cai-Lee’s speech today is my sister. Cai-Lee spoke a lot about what it is to be a working mother; the trials and tribulations of the role, the highs and lows, the joys and the struggles. I see my sister and Cai-Lee both as prime examples of the working mother archetype. Raising a toddler and (now) enduring a very long pregnancy all the while working full-time as an attorney (and also, somehow, finding the time to help me revise my papers for school), my sister has been my superwoman for all my life, even before she was a mother, or had job. “How does she do it all?” 

So yes, my sister is a superwoman of success. But she does it silently. And I find that Cai-Lee may have done the same thing. Though she was recognized for her grand achievements along the way, someone like her father kept her grounded and humble. My sister, through her own experiences, keeps me inspired to do the same.

September 21st, 2015: 

Today, I walked into class having read “A Letter To My Daughter” by Siu Wai Anderson. I came in near-afraid but not-afraid-enough with a personal connection, residing mostly between the following lines of Anderson’s piece:

“But you, little daughter, are the link to our female line, the legacy of another woman’s pain and sacrifice thirty-one year ago.”

This line reminded me of stories my mother used to tell me about a distant great aunt who was in an abusive marriage. I don’t know many specifics, but I do know that she was trapped. Within my culture, a culture in which divorce isn’t really a word or concept that exists, in which it’s something so taboo, that great aunt of mine was helpless. And everyone knew it. The thought of Anderson writing to her daughter, telling her how much she hoped for a girl to carry on a legacy of sacrifice and pain, not just for her mother but for general female representation, reminded me of my great aunt’s mother, who, because of her daughter’s misery, prayed for no more daughters to be born into the family. She prayed that no daughter of hers would ever have to suffer in a similar manner, or deal with the overall oppression that girls and women faced within their families, communities, societies. From there on out, on that side of the family, only sons were born. Whether it was coincidence, luck, or genuine answer to a prayer, it happened. Girls were not born to be legacies of their female ancestors’ pains and sacrifices, like Anderson wanted for her lineage.