Claudette Colvin, the Original Rosa Parks

A newspaper article about Colvin's arrest

Yesterday, December 1, was the 60th anniversary of that iconic day when civil rights activist Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in favor of a white person. With this act, Ms. Parks was at the forefront of a rebellion, the Montgomery Bus Boycotts, which would change the face of the civil rights movement forever. Politicians and everyday people alike celebrated by changing their Twitter pictures to honor her, hosting youth summits, and dedicating statues to her.

Rosa Parks was an important figure in the movement, and her efforts both before and after the boycott were integral in helping fight for equality.

Colvin, around the time she was arrested

The problem is that she was not the first woman to refuse to give up her seat on a bus for a white person in Montgomery.  

Claudette Colvin was the first woman arrested for saying "hell no" to giving up her seat, preceding Rosa Parks by 9 months. But why don't we learn about her in school?

Unfortunately, it's because she didn't look the part.

For one thing, Colvin was only 15 when she refused to give up her seat. By comparison, Parks was in her 40s. 

Colvin was also poorer than Parks, and dressed as such. Her skin was also much darker than Parks's, which may have contributed to the civil rights movement's idea that she was an imperfect face for their cause. 

And only a year after her arrest, she found herself the unwed mother of a baby whose father was much older, and married.

Her age meant she was "too mouthy, too brash, and too emotional" to head the planned boycott; the organizers passed her up in favor of a calmer, more experienced Parks to act as a publicized catalyst for the movement.

Colvin in the present

All of this makes me consider an ugly side of activism: in an effort to be taken seriously by oppressors, they often turn against one another, projecting their oppressor's ideas and perceptions onto themselves as a way of self-censoring. But Claudette Colvin deserves to be honored, if not then, now. As the first girl to be arrested, setting off the chain of arrests which culminated in Rosa Parks, she should not be a footnote in history.

And perhaps the way she was treated and denied her true title as the one who began the Montgomery boycotts makes her even more deserving of our honor.

Design Post #5

For my final design post, I've been thinking optimistically: toward flowers!

The queen has spoken

But really.

Even though it's practically December now, I've begun to notice how many floral patterned objects I own and use daily, and in looking at my blog, I see how that appreciation has bled into my blog design.

One floral design that hangs in my closet (and often around my neck) is that of this scarf. What I like about it is the way it's floral, but against a dark background. As I've stated before, I really like the look of dark backgrounds, and the way the burgundy of this one compliments the other colors used (all of them fairly dark) is appealing.

Another source of floral inspiration comes from a favorite mug, from which I'm sipping tea right now. The colors on this one are closer to the colors of my blog, which is why it caught my attention; they are bright pink and much lighter than the colors on my scarf. However, 

Even though my blog more closely reflects the colors of the mug, the wavy design is reminiscent of both objects and the general theme of florals because its flow looks like an element found in nature, like the wind blowing petals or leaves, or the waves on the lake.

Fantastic Female Fiction!

I've always wanted to be a writer. I've always loved reading, and it's rare to find me without a book (in fact, I have one in my backpack as I type this very blog post).

The problem is that once I hit high school, books stopped being written about people like me. 

I'm not saying that books about young women didn't exist (young adult fiction is full of interesting stories about young women -- and young men -- navigating youth), but in classes, I noticed that all the books assigned to me were the Classics -- great novels like The Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, The Lord of the Flies, every Shakespeare play written . . . 

I love all of those books; the problem is that, with the exception of To Kill a Mockingbird (my favorite book of all time, FYI), none of them are written by women. Women have always written, so the question remains: where are the books? Why aren't we teaching them?

It brings to mind a quotation by the great writer Virgina Woolf: "For most of history, Anonymous was a woman."

When so much of what we read is written by dead white men, it's important to remember who is being silenced at their expense; often, it's female writers, particularly female writers of color.

So today, I've compiled a list of Fantastic Female Fiction, which is totally accessible to men too, don't worry. I'm not all about exclusion. 

Give some a try. They're great books by classic writers, and if you're afraid of not being able to get into a story narrated by a woman, try to image literally every girl's struggle with getting into high school reading.

This list is in no way comprehensive, and not ordered by quality or taste. Use some imagination and dive right in!

Fantastic Female Fiction!
1. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Alice Walker's genre-defining novel about Southern women of color in the 1930s is both brutal and beautiful. The story of Celie, her abusive husband, and his gentler (though insecure) son and the powerful women that move throughout their lives is a slice of Southern life and also a testament to the power of strong women. With characters like Shug, Sofia, and the scrappy Squeak, the novel blurs boundaries, depicting problematic "alpha" masculinity and the power of female sexuality, ending with Celie finding true love in the arms of her husband's mistress.




2. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath 
This semi-autobiographical novel by the late poet/novelist Sylvia Plath follows Esther, a young woman plagued by mental illness who spends time in a mental institution when she considers killing herself. Frustrated with her life between college and "the real world", battling a mother who doesn't understand her, and living with doctors who won't take her seriously because she's a young woman, Esther navigates the world inside her head: her depression, her anxiety, and her sense of self.




3. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
The Help tells the story of black maids working in white Southern homes in the early 1960s in Mississippi, and of Miss Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan who returns to her family's cotton plantation the find that her beloved nanny, Constantine, has left; no one will tell her why. Although Skeeter tries to behave as a proper Southern lady, she has trouble balancing her life on the plantation with her growing concern about the racial barriers between the white people and the black "help." She is inspired to pursue her real dream of being a writer, and decides to tell a hard story: an expose about race relations in Mississippi. This is truly the story of Aibileen, a friend's maid, and it is made more powerful for the way white voices are necessarily silenced to make way for voices that have been otherwise unheard. Maybe you've seen the movie, starring Viola Davis and Emma Stone; the book still bears reading. 

4. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily's fierce-hearted black "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily decides to spring them both free. They escape to Tiburon, South Carolina--a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. Taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters, Lily is introduced to their mesmerizing world of bees and honey, and the Black Madonna. This is a remarkable novel about divine female power, a story women will share and pass on to their daughters for years to come. Perhaps you've seen this movie too, starring Queen Latifah and Dakota Fanning. 

                                 5. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Mikael Blomkvist, a once-respected financial journalist, watches his professional life rapidly crumble around him. Prospects appear bleak until an unexpected (and unsettling) offer to resurrect his name is extended by an old-school titan of Swedish industry. The catch—and there's always a catch—is that Blomkvist must first spend a year researching a mysterious disappearance that has remained unsolved for nearly four decades. With few other options, he accepts and enlists the help of investigator Lisbeth Salander, a misunderstood genius with a cache of authority issues. This book has been a hot issue for feminist critics, as it toes the line between feminism and misogyny (it doesn't seem like a thin line, but in a world of third-wave feminist "empowerment" meaning a lot of different things, it's thinner than you  may think), but I've included it anyway so you can make your own choice.

6. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

I'm here to tell you that science fiction and horror was created by a woman. Mary Shelley began writing Frankenstein when she was only eighteen. At once a Gothic thriller, a passionate romance, and a cautionary tale about the dangers of science, Frankenstein tells the story of committed science student Victor Frankenstein. Obsessed with discovering the cause of generation and life and bestowing animation upon lifeless matter, Frankenstein assembles a human being from stolen body parts but; upon bringing it to life, he recoils in horror at the creature's hideousness. Tormented by isolation and loneliness, the once-innocent creature turns to evil and unleashes a campaign of murderous revenge against his creator, Frankenstein.Frankenstein, an instant bestseller and an important ancestor of both the horror and science fiction genres, not only tells a terrifying story, but also raises profound, disturbing questions about the very nature of life and the place of humankind within the cosmos: What does it mean to be human? What responsibilities do we have to each other? How far can we go in tampering with Nature? In our age, filled with news of organ donation genetic engineering, and bio-terrorism, these questions are more relevant than ever. 

7. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Their Eyes Were Watching God follows the life of Janie Crawford, a girl of mixed black and white heritage around the turn of the century. As an adolescent, Janie sees a bee pollinating a flower in her backyard pear tree and becomes obsessed with finding true love. From there, the novel documents her emotional growth and maturity through three marriages.

8. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft

Wollstonecraft, mother of Frankenstein author Mary Shelley, was one of the first women to write feminist criticism, and no feminist book list is complete without her series of essays. This principled, logical tract is an inspiration for three centuries of subsequent human rights thinking. Wollstonecraft identifies natural rights as inalienable and God-given. So they cannot be denied to any group in society by another. Enemies of the Human Rights Act, please note.

9. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

A graphic novel by Bechdel, a cartoonist, Fun Home is her autobiography. Distant and exacting, Bruce Bechdel was an English teacher and director of the town funeral home, which Alison and her family referred to as the Fun Home. It was not until college that Alison, who had recently come out as a lesbian, discovered that her father was also gay. A few weeks after this revelation, he was dead, leaving a legacy of mystery for his daughter to resolve.

10. A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket

A personal favorite of mine, I read these books when I was seven years old, and although I didn't know it at the time, they helped shape who I am and how I think. The series, about three orphaned siblings escaping heaps of trouble, manages to eschew traditional gender roles (letting the oldest, Violet, be the inventor, and the middle child, a boy named Klaus, be the more mild thinker), while still allowing them equal opportunities for their strengths to shine. Both the boy and the girls are allowed moments of bravery and moments of weakness without losing character, and retrospectively, I can understand how that impacted my worldview on how I view people emoting even today. I could write volumes about the brilliance of this series, and the benefits of reading it for both children and adults.

Design Post #4

If you want to read an actual post, scroll down just a little bit; I wrote a quick overview of how awesome Canadian politics are these days (which sounds so boring, but trust me, it's not). 
Please read about Canada.
I love Canada.

But today . . . it's more design.

I found this example of web design online, and it reminded me a bit of my own blog design. 

CatsWhoBlog.com

This blog reminds me of my own because of the busy background design that utilizes a lot of colors, the left-justified posts, and the right-justified information. On this blog, the information are links to tutorials, a tag cloud, and advertisements; on mine, the information is my bio, YouTube links, and a hierarchy of posts.

What I like about this design is the visual interest created by the multiple colors; it is eye-catching. I think the background on this particular design is a bit busy. However, I think this design utilizes white space very well, because it simplifies the text space.

This design makes me think about my own blog, and I worried that my own background is too busy.

Why I Love Canada

I work in a shopping mall where I meet and help hundreds of Canadians every shopping season.

I grew up on Lake Erie, where on a clear day, you can see Canada like a haze in the distance.

Hockey is one of the only sports I can actually become invested in watching.

None of this explains why I'm suddenly so interested in Canadian politics. 

Be still, my beating heart

Nah, I'm into Canada because its new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (who's been in office only two weeks) has appointed his cabinet -- and it is completely gender-balanced with 15 men and 15 women. The news has me wanting to bundle up and go enjoy some maple syrup and universal healthcare for the duration of their time in office. 

When asked by reporters why he's chosen to represent men and women equally in the Canadian government, Trudeau, who is "proud to be a feminist," said nonchalantly, "Because it's 2015." 

Jody Wilson-Raybould, REPRESENT

What's even better about Trudeau's appointments is the fact that not all of the people in his cabinet are white, which means that Trudeau's Canada is getting close to gender and racial equality. He wanted to "present a Canada that looks like Canada." And I don't mean tokenism; his appointments of people of color have been smart decisions based on merit and logistics. 

For example, Jody Wilson-Raybould, the new justice minister, is a First Nations woman; as Canadian indigenous women keep disappearing, Wilson-Raybould certainly seems best suited for the job which focuses on tribal legalities. 

(I'm not gonna lie, I'm getting so pumped up here that it's hard not to say "we," counting myself as an honorary Canadian, which I'm not. Unfortunately.)

Come on, America; keep up.

While some reporters say that we shouldn't celebrate this because gender equality should be common sense, I tend to disagree. I mean, of course equal gender representation in politics should be common sense; in America, didn't we secede from Britain because they wouldn't represent us? But that doesn't mean that these steps which are happening shouldn't be celebrated, because the simple fact is that they aren't commonplace.

Even if it's trendy to be a feminist in pop culture (I'm looking at you, Certified White Feminist Taylor Swift), it's hard to find politicians who are out and proud about true gender equality.

All hail the cabinet

So I'm going to keep celebrating Justin Trudeau and his cabinet, and I'm sending mad love to my friends in the north. 

H&M: "White people convey a more positive image"

Some of the photo ads found in the South African stores

This week, popular clothing retailer H&M came under fire for using only white models in ads for their new South African store because they "promote a more positive image for the brand."

What?

H&M just opened their new South African stores, much to the delight of South African lovers of cheap clothing. However, after launching the store, shoppers started noticing something funny: there was almost zero racial diversity in the store's photographs. The company was contacted on Twitter after shoppers about why ads for the store contained only white models. In a failed effort to explain themselves, the company's reps sent out the following tweets:

Courtesy of @_ZuluRose

I don't need to explain why this is unacceptable. Racism is sneaky these days, and this is just one manifestation of an ingrained racism we face today. Still, society as a whole equates whiteness with beauty (and apparently, positivity?) and any other color with, you know, negativity. I guess.  

In response to the backlash, H&M released this statement:

"H&M regrets the response to a social media message that was recently aired on Twitter and wishes to clarify the intention of the message. In no way does H&M state that positivity is linked to an ethnic group. H&M is proudly a global brand that embraces all people who are inspired by fashion, regardless of ethnic background, gender or culture. We wish to [apologize] if our message has caused [offense] in any way as this was not the intention."

Which basically boils down to, "I'm sorry we let out that giant Freudian slip, please keep spending your money at our stores. We hire people of color sometimes, and we love your money."

Idrissi in one photo from her ad campaign

Two months ago, H&M hired their first hijab-wearing Muslim model, Mariah Idrissi, and I had high hopes for the future of diversity in this company (although, I still I have reservations about a corporation that definitely makes their clothing in sweatshops).

But it's clear we still have a long way to go.

Design Post #3

For this design post, I'm going to talk about fonts, and why I chose to use the fonts that I am using in this blog.

First, as an English major, I sometimes get a bit bored with standard Times New Roman fonts; it's what all of my papers are typed in, and while it holds a place in my heart, it's not quite modern enough for a casual blog like this.

So I knew I wanted a script font for the blog title to make my blog look slightly elevated and classy. Also, script fonts look feminine, which ties into the theme of this blog.  This is a font which looks very similar to the one I chose for my title. 

Courtesy of awwwards.com

However, this font is too busy for the headings and descriptions; when tracked closely with so many words, it could be difficult to read (trust me, I tried it). So I chose a more readable font, Tillana, for my heading titles and blog descriptions along the right side of the page.

Tillana courtesy of Google Fonts

Still, even Tillana looks sloppy and unreadable in large amounts of text, so for the body text, I chose a simple, standard sans serif font -- the one you're reading now!

#feministfriday

Fridays are great for a lot of reasons: the end of classes, a relaxing weekend, the chance to step away from academia with a good bottle of your choice of poison and let loose with your friends. 

But I'm going to take a moment to promote something here at SRU that Fridays are all about: feminism. 

The #feministfriday pins worn weekly by FMLA

This semester, the Slippery Rock chapter of the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance celebrates feminism by tweeting out reasons why they celebrate womanhood and equality with the hashtag #feministfriday. Members of the organization also wear pins (like the one pictured here) around campus on Fridays to spread the word and get people talking about gender equality. 

The discussion is a simple one, and a hashtag isn't going to fix the gender disparity in this country, but it's a good place for a group of undergraduate activists to start.

By making a solid effort to take part in #feministfriday, FMLA and SRU take part in a national conversation about feminism and gender equality; on October 30, several feminist organizations took to Twitter using the hashtag to discuss women's healthcare, women's roles in the workforce, and women's safety concerns. 

The goal is to talk about women's issues until they become everyone's issues and must necessarily be addressed.

Take a moment on this rainy Friday to consider what equality means to you, and to celebrate the women in your life.

And happy #feministfriday, y'all!

This photo (taken from the SRU FMLA twitter) is why #feministfriday is important

I'm too tired to fight the workforce

Last week, a friend of mine got the internship of her dreams. Naturally, I was ecstatic for 
her . . . until she came home on her first day looking severely discomforted. When I asked her what was wrong, she said that nothing had happened, that the day went fairly well -- except her new boss had asked that she not wear heels again.

The shoes with the power to eliminate my friend's credentials 

Why?

"Because the heels made her taller than the men in the office, and really, how can you expect the men to respect you professionally when you're taller than they are? It's just  not right."

That's right: my friend, an accounting student who had beat out fifty other applicants to get this position, was told that she would not be treated fairly, or judged on the merits of her work, if she was taller than the men in her office.

Hopefully this sounds as absurd and offensive to you as it did to me. I had hoped this was an isolated incident, but I wasn't surprised that it's not.

Women already have a more difficult time in the work force when it comes to wage disparity and expectations from employers to lean in (a concept introduced by Sheryl Sandberg), but apparently, in some workplaces, this is not enough: women must also take care of their coworkers egos.

Graphic courtesy of  Brandon Gaille

This isn't uncommon: one-third of all women report feeling some sort of bias or discrimination at work. What's disappointing is that it isn't uncommon.

I don't have a solution for this, or frankly, much energy to fight it. The sad fact is that we live in a world that necessitates articles that teach women how to get respect in the workplace, but coddles men who feel threatened by female colleagues, or even fight back against female bosses for the sake of their fragile masculinity.

Tomorrow, my friend will return to her internship, hoping to advance in the company but perhaps to join the ranks of the one-in-three women who are sexually harassed at work. 

Regardless, she'll do it in flats.

Design Post #2

In keeping with the theme of finding inspiration while getting dressed in the morning, my next design inspiration came from my mascara wand. What I really liked about the design of the wand's label is the combination of the label colors, the shiny effect, and the typographic effect of in the "A."

The colors fade from green, to navy, to purple, to magenta. There is black in the mix as well; the effect is striking because it is dark, but also a bit feminine.  It makes me consider changing the colors of my blog to something a bit darker, because I tend to like darker colors myself anyway. 


The shine on the packaging is attention-grabbing, and although it would be hard to recreate a metallic shine in a blog, I could work on making my blog more attention-grabbing.

Finally, the "A" in the word "LASH" has a typographical effect; it swoops up beyond the rest of the letters, almost connecting to the brand name above it. This is a unique effect, and it inspires my thoughts of typography on the blog. Using dimensions outside the normal Roman fonts could be quite attractive, or at least set my blog title apart from other texts.

A Feminist Movie Review: Crimson Peak

The official movie poster.

At the risk of stepping on the toes of my classmates who run film review blogs, I would like to take this opportunity to write about a film I saw recently and loved, not just for its aesthetics (which were gorgeous) or its plot (which was spooky) or its gore (which was a little too much for me, but was all artfully done, so I handled it).

I loved Crimson Peak because it was a true tribute to women in film -- all because it didn't make a big deal about being a film about two women.

Just so you're warned, there will be spoilers beyond this point: read at your own risk!

Set in the turn of the 20th century, Crimson Peak is the new movie by director Guillermo del Toro of Pan's Labyrinth fame. Starring Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, and Tom Hiddleston, it follows the life of Edith Cushing (Wasikowska), an aspiring writer (and young feminist) as she falls in love with a mysterious man (Hiddleston) and becomes engaged in a dark scheme involving his sister Lucille (Chastain). Edith ends up further entrenched than she ever bargained for, and finds a well-suited sparring partner in Lucille.

And that's what I loved about Crimson Peak. Although it is a love story between a woman and a man, and although the love is real, the real struggle is between the Edith and Lucille: they are matched in wit and intelligence, and, by the end of the film, with weapons. Because finally, when Edith has reached the climax of her story and she must fight for her life against dark forces, she is allowed to do it for herself; no man saves her from her own fate. 

(A fate, which, incidentally, is allowed to be as bloody and brutal as any battle a man is allowed to fight. Edith and Lucille do not sacrifice brutality because they are feminine women. The effect is visually striking and politically reverberating). 

A moment from the final battle

It's also worth noting that there is a sex scene in Crimson Peak, and unlike nearly every other sex scene in cinematic history, it is the man who is undressed, all so that the overall message was that the woman in the scene could take control of her own sexuality. A conscious choice made to further the feminist ideas of the characters? I was shocked and loving it. 

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the Bechdel test for movies (Does the movie, 1) have at least two female characters, who 2) have a conversation with each other about 3) anything but a man?) 

Crimson Peak didn't just pass the Bechdel test: it bludgeoned it over the head.

(If you've seen the film, you'll know I just made a joke. Yay!)

Even more thrilling was the research I did after I saw it, when I found out that del Toro took a pay cut on his own salary to convince the studio that funding a female-centric film was a worthy venture.

SO MUCH STABBING

If this was a review blog, I would give this film five stars; even if you're not particularly interested in its feminist tones, it is still an aesthetically beautiful film (as del Toro always delivers) with a good story, twists and turns, plenty of blood, and one particular twist which had me shouting "OH GROSS OH MY GOD" to the person I was seeing the film with.