Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Cultivating Love
The past couple of days had been really crazy. Busy with school work and a lot of other things. There were tons of moments that I cherished in my community. A lot of students took initiative to work together for couple of different activities (gymnastics, soccer, movie night and more).
I had a really good conversation with one of the student in my community. We went for a walk and talk about my life, his life and our community as well. One of the thing that he mentioned was how challenging it is to avoid conformity. In a group, a lot of things that is done is done just to be "cool" or "stand out". I am at a position where I am not even sure what my true identity is. I am exploring myself. Sometime, I am not OK with myself. I see a difference in what I would like to achieve or perceive and what I am actually participate in. But, still there are certain things that I don't participate in. The poster that was up in my suite was objectifying women. I was not OK with that. In fact, I am not OK with objectifying any culture, race, heritage or any group of people who are marginalized. We specifically, discussed about the poster in our community class. It was very different experience than what I expected. The girls in my community were OK with having that poster on the wall. I was completely surprised to hear that. And, then I thought, maybe we all as a community need to work on our gender biases, culture biases, race biases or any other form of biases that we have. I am not exactly sure, if I was cultivating love by having that conversation in group but I am pretty sure I was challenging what they had learned before and was acceptable to them. I am trying to invite them to re-learn/un-learn some of the stereotype that they have as a young individual. I hope to cultivate the love for self-exploration and world-exploration in coming days, weeks, months, years and may be their life time. At the least, I can invite them to take part in and ask question to themselves.
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Prasanna, thank you for sharing your thoughts about this poster and how it got up on a public wall in the residence hall suite. I, too, am not pleased with seeing women objectified in this way. We are inundated with these kinds of images and we even become numb to them. It is not surprising to me that young women said that they were not troubled by the poster. Dominant culture floods us with these images to the point that if we oppose them, then there is something wrong with us. Women in general have so many struggles with body image that come from images like these that saturate the air waves. Also, I think sometimes that if women object, they are punished and berated and told they are too sensitive. So, we go on and it just becomes more "white noise" in the culture. I am so glad that you noticed these posters and talked about why you didn't appreciate them. It means a lot to me as a woman and an educator. Education is a process and it is a tough process at that. It is easy to become discouraged, but I always go back to why I have chosen this profession....I certainly learned and un-learned a lot in my college education. AS a freshman, I would have thought that poster was OK -- in public. IN my heart, I wouldn't have liked it because I didn't look like that nor would I have been able to compare. However, I wouldn't have objected openly due to how I would be judged by opposing it...a plump girl who is jealous that she doesn't look like that, because that's how dominant culture rewards women and gives them access to things....anyway, thank you for posting and confronting and sharing...
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