J D

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By J D • 11 years ago

Healthy Masculinity(ies)

Recently, I volunteered at Men Can Stop Rape’s Healthy Masculinity Summit through my internship at an organization that focuses on dating violence. It was awesome.

There were roughly 200 people there and it was easily the most truly diverse group of people I have ever been in. In keeping with the conference theme, there were actually men in attendance (which was the FIRST question that about half of the people I told about this conference asked me).

And despite the fact that I was only a volunteer, there were a number of ways that all of us volunteers were able to participate, which made it all the more exciting.

However, despite the fact that I have never felt so at home with such a large number of (mostly) like-minded people, my real realization came less than two days after the conference when I was hanging out in a friend’s apartment with a small group of people.

The original purpose of the evening was to celebrate a friend’s birthday but mostly we ended up chatting and playing card games. Now, I still don’t know how this leap in conversation was made, but at one point, a female friend of mine lost it a little bit and started calling out a male friend of ours about his white male privilege and how unaware of it he was.

By this point in the evening, she and I are the only women left in a room full of our male friends. Now, ...

By J D • 11 years ago

Todd Akin and the American educational system

A SYTYCB Entry

So I am sure everyone has heard about GOP senate hopeful Todd Akin’s rape doesn’t result in pregnancy statement. If you haven’t, there are a number of other posts on this site that summarize the statements very well so I’m not going to go into too much detail. These comments are rife with issues to discuss and cringe at, but putting aside the issue of characterizing some rapes as more legitimate than others and the bizarre political maneuvering to criminalize abortion (again) because I have seen a lot of really good discussion surrounding those issues (a recent one here at Feministing itself and here at the Huffington Post). So I’m going to, just for a ...

A SYTYCB Entry

By J D • 11 years ago

“Our differences are the only thing that everyone has in common”

On Wednesday August 8th, I attended a candlelight vigil in front of the White House for the shooting in Wisconsin at the Sikh temple at the suggestion of one of my roommates who found out about it from her job at an interfaith advocacy organization. It was a beautiful vigil with some wonderful speakers who spoke on the importance of love and peace, but there was one girl who was particularly moving. This local 12 year old Sikh girl spoke about accepting and embracing differences, the quote in the title was from her and I hope I captured it correctly. She may have been the smartest person I have heard talk in a long time and her words struck me as ...

By J D • 11 years ago

Degrees in Feminism

I am a recent college graduate looking for a job armed with my degree in History, minor in Women’s and Gender Studies, and another certification in Women and Politics. It has been hard. I have been attempting to navigate the non-profit and advocacy world with mixed success. But this post is not going to be about my hunt for a job. Rather, this post is going to be about a phone call I recently had with my mother that prompted some musings and speculation on my part.

The other day I called my mother to update her on the soul-crushing experience that is generally referred to as job hunting. Somewhere in the midst of me telling her about where I had applied and ...