I began this class doubting my own ability to be a useful contributor. Most of my experiences with gender and sexuality classes in the bi-co have been cross-listed, so I was able to tackle the gender and sexuality using a specified and known framework (e.g.  political implications, literary structures and syntax...). This is the first class I have taken, in which there was purposefully no status quo framework within which I could situate myself. This was difficult, and I enjoyed it at times, and really dreaded it at others.
    On a personal note, It’s taken me a long time to feel comfortably situated within the academic world of Haverford. I doubted my ability and capacity for this school since the first day of my freshman year. It’s taken years to feel comfortable enough to speak aloud in a class discussion; to understand that I’m at this school for a reason, and all matters of voices should be heard. I realized (halfway through my junior year) the reason I harbored this sense of unease was due in part to the fact that many of my classmates were constantly performing a part of academia that I had not grown up with, never grown accustomed too. However, the recognition of certain language and style as a performance allowed me to overcome the initial fear of being heard. This is the roundabout way to say that I perform much better in small, intimate groups than I do within the class as a whole. Speaking to a few people is less of a performance than addressing a crowd. Both are essential, and I’m still learning.

    The difference that Humbach makes between rights and right relationships can be teased out within the debate on food security/sovereignty. Food security, as an ideal, is the right for all people and communities to have enough culturally appropriate food. Food sovereignty builds upon this by accentuating the importance of process in food acquisition. It places importance on community food systems, non-exploitation, and health.
    The issues of food justice and food security have always been important to me. On the surface, they are merely about food: having enough, access and availability. And on the surface, these are simple problems to fix, right? To fix hunger, farmers should plant more. Grocery chains should build stores in neighborhoods that lack them. But relationships always prove to be more complicated than their surface implications.

I enrolled in this course after Kaye recommended that I take it following an internship I had last summer at National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) that was funding by Haverford’s Center for Peace and Global Citizenship. NAPW does a lot of different things, but basically provides legal support for women who have been incarcerated or had their children taken away because of a drug charge. While I didn’t get to do much reflecting on these issues specifically, this course did teach me a lot.

I entered the class a little unsure of exactly what to expect. It was my first Bryn Mawr class and my first course that was listed primarily under gender and sexuality studies (I had taken gen/sex classes in the past that related to political science and anthropology). On the first or second day, we were asked to do a “wagon wheel” and talk to various members of the class. One of the prompts was to say all the gender pronouns we knew. I began, “He, she…” The student standing across from me added, “Ze…” (What?) I responded with a smile, “It…” The student answered, “I don’t think a person would appreciate being called “It.” Okay. Got it. Can’t make jokes about gender here. Don’t want to offend anyone.

In Culture as a Disability, McDermott and Varenne) present the argument that the system in which the conventions of our culture is set up disallows each all individuals to be perceived as ‘able’. (McDermott and Varenne, 1995) Varenne then, in a later article entitled “Extra burdens in the search for new openings”, claims that our culture is “simultaneously enabling and disabling”. (Varenne, 2003)  Whatever act is taken to enable a certain group will invariably disable another.  To ‘disable’ is not limited to the literal definition and I will expand on this later. An extrapolation of this claim would indicate that there is no possibility for a collective Utopia; culture does not work as an interconnected whole. Rather, it is a system that separates, disables and causes injustice.

“Rights

And

Pride

Equal

Resistance

Ability

Power

Equality”

Source: Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape

Haverford College is a small liberal arts college that prides itself on its community, Quaker roots, and commitment to social justice. Upon matriculation in 2008, however, I was dismayed by what I perceived to be a lack of resources for survivors of sexual assault* on campus as well as the broader absence of conversation about these issues. In the winter of 2009, two other Haverford women and I started a student-run support group called Survivors of Assault and Rape (SOAR). Since then, a small group of committed Haverford students has embarked on a quest to instigate rape and sexual assault policy reform. Although we have faced frustrating bureaucratic barriers, what has at times been perceived as resistance and a lack of support on the part of the campus administration, Haverford has substantially altered its rape and sexual assault policies in the last three years. This paper is the continuation of a number of pieces that I have written about rape and sexual assault in colleges (see “Consent is Sexy at Haverford? Not Yet”). I hope that this paper may serve as a resource for other college students hoping to change the rape and sexual assault policies on their campuses.

Dear Anne & Kaye,           

            This class held quite a few firsts for me. It was the first class that I had that met only once a week and at night. The first class that was co-taught by two different professors (and from two different colleges). The first class in which the internet played a role larger than a resource for research. The first class I have taken in gender and sexuality studies. The first class in which we were asked to challenge everything – the way a class should work, how we performed and acted in class, the way a paper should be written, and most often, the gender binary.

I found a video on Yahoo news about the missing females in India, babies aborted, neglected, or murdered because they are females. There is a town in India that has the least gender diversity in the world. The video is about 6 minutes and really ties in with our discussion about abortion. They speak to one woman whose husband (who is a doctor, as she is) and inlaws tortured her when she refused to abort her twin girls, and her mother-in-law threw one of her twin daughters down the stairs when she was 4 months old. She says that everyone admits the growing gender gap is a problem, but no one wants to take on the responsibility of having girls who are a financial burden because of the illegal dowry system.