Activism Log # 10

Seabury Stoneburner

Nina Perez

WST 3015

26 April 2010

Activism Log 10

Activism:

Now the project has come to an end. My group just gave our presentation, summarizing our semester, to the class a few hours ago. It went well and I think we actually continued spreading the awareness. Yes, all the students within the class know about domestic-home violence and such; however, I believe most of them were not aware of Animal Safehouse of Brevard. It was great expressing to the class all the hard work my group and I put into this project. I was happy to share with them how much the organization affected me and how I am planning on helping them out will I finish the rest of the year in Florida. Even though our legit project was over, I thought sharing everything to the class was just as active as the past semester.

Reflection:

Looking back on this past semester I feel a great source of accomplishment. It seemed like everyday I was learning more and more from Animal Safehouse and the classroom. Since I have been active and trying to spread the awareness to everyone, I have been hoping that higher people might over hear us at one point and make the organization even more well know, “An increase in government funding and increasing professionalization of work involving violence against women may be seen as major success” (Kirk 270). I personally would see it as a huge step if Orlando’s government branched out to the group for support. Wishful thinking, but one will never know.

Reciprocity:

With everything at an end, I am extremely proud of everything my group has done for Animal Safehouse of Brevard. I personally feel like we all put in hard work to get the organization known to those around us. We wanted to have people know that they were helping poor animals, but also giving a violence victim a chance to recover. Seeing how people contributed to our donation drive event, and even small donations throughout the semester, I believe we completed a very successful project and helped out the poor domestic-home violent victims and their loving pets.

Kirk, Gwyn and Okazawa-Rey, Margo. "Violence Against Women." Women's Lives Multicultural Perspectives. 5th Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 257-273.

Activism Log # 9

Seabury Stoneburner

Nina Perez

WST 3015

21 April 2010

Activism Log 9

Activism:

It has been a little over a week now since our donation drive at Louie and Maria’s Italian Restaurant. Animal Safehouse of Brevard’s director, Arielle, was amazed with all the donations we collected throughout the past months. Since our main focus on the project had come and gone, my activism slowed down a little, not to mention the schoolwork load has gotten really heavy with the semester ending. Even though the donation drive is over, I am still suggesting to others that Animal Safehouse could always use some extra supplies if anyone has extras that they no longer use. Knowing how much our donations meant to the program, I want to make sure to spread the awareness among my friends and relatives. I want to continuing spreading the importance of how Animal Safehouse helps women and families that suffer domestic violence.

Reflection:

Even though the event is still over, I think it is important I still spread the word of what exactly Animal Safehouse of Brevard does. In the past few months I informed a number of people, just in a few months. If I continue spreading the awareness just think of the amount of people who will know. The continuing of spreading of the awareness and having others contribute is similar to what Seeley is stated in her chapter ‘Catch A Wave’: “Most of all, we must recognize that we can join together in this movement- for its future and ours” (51). Hopefully our activism will lower the future statistics of domestic violence.

Reciprocity:

Overall, I still am proud of our group for being successful throughout the semester. We followed Seeley’s guidelines about how to spread activism and accomplished a lot. It was slow getting started but in the past month our awareness spread like a wild fire and the donations came soaring in. I feel as if a lot was accomplished by providing Animal Safehouse with many donations and spreading the awareness of domestic-home violence against women.

Seely, Megan. Fight Like a Girl: How to be a Fearless Feminist. New York and London: New York UP, 2007. Print.

Ecofeminism and Film

Seabury Stoneburner

Nina Perez

WST 3015

12 April 2010

The Real Secrets of NIMH

As educated adults, we may sometimes view cartoons in another aspect then when we were young, innocent children. Some animated films are made with a hidden message to adults, such as The Secret of NIMH. It seems as if the film wanted to make more individuals aware of the environment in which they live in.

The movie is about a widowed mouse, Mrs. Brisby; that is trying to help her son recover from ammonia before “moving day”, which is occurring because “plowing” season is near. She comes across a crow, Jeremy, who directs her to The Great Owl to obtain help for her son. The Great Owl’s advice is for her to seek for the rats of NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health) in the rose bushes and ask for Nicodemus, the wise leader. When Mrs. Brisby arrives at the rose bush, the audience discovers that these rats are extremely intelligent due to past experiments and test that were performed on them when they were captives of NIMH. Their hidden world, which lies underground, is filled with beautiful lights that make one forget the evilness of the electricity, which they are stealing. Unfortunately, the rats became dependable on human electricity in order to survive. If one analyzes the rats of NIMH, they might notice that all of them appear to be male. Therefore this demonstrates the idea that males tend to be disconnected and harmful to nature “based on their analysis of the connections between masculinist social institutions and the destruction of the physical environment” (Kirk 539). Their use of electricity is somewhat destroying the natural world, in which they once lived in, and also demonstrating the need for dangerous human materialism.

Mrs. Brisby represents the feminine connection with nature; she still lives her life through the natural processes and does not rely on human electricity. Through actions and motivations Mrs. Brisby had during the movie demonstrates how women care about the environment they and their precious family members live in. She is worried about her families’ safety with the future journey of moving to avoid the plow. The plow may be gendered as masculine and is seen as a threat to the earth, which is gendered as feminine. One may view this as violence against women, the threatening plow harming Mother Nature. This may demonstrates that the nature within the movie is passive verses active. Many creatures among the farm do not plan to fight against it; instead they run from it and let it do its annual damage. However, Mrs. Brisby does become active in one part of the film when she risks her life to disconnect the fuel line of the plow. This was a minor act that represented nature fighting against destructive human machinery, but overall the nature in the film is passive.

Most of the rats of NIMH come to realize that their dependency on electricity is not much of a fulfillment that they thought they wanted. It seems the effect of NIMH finally became an issue to them. Most of the rats come to the conclusion that a natural lifestyle may be healthier for them than an unnatural one filled of toxins “A commonly held belief is that natural substances are less toxic to the human body than synthetic ones” (Steingraber 554). The rats decide to help Mrs. Brisby and her family move safely to Thorn Valley to escape the plow and the toxic atmosphere of their humanized under world development.

Overall, The Secret of NIMH is a movie that helps demonstrate the view of nature from an ecofeminist’s point of view. The film shows how animal testing can cause a negative effect on the environment. Hopefully the depressing scene of animals in cages struck the children’s hearts. The movie did a great job creating NIMH to be a place of terror and cruelty. These rats became more intelligent; however, in most cases, many become infected with some sort of disorder or death. Since the film was created for an audience mainly composed of children, instead of death being the result, unhappiness with their life is shown. The film’s representation of destruction and harm caused by humans and their materials on the natural environment may be difficult to interpret, but with education and knowledge one may notice the awareness.

Work Cited:

Kirk, Gwyn and Okazawa-Rey, Margo. "Violence Against Women." Women's Lives Multicultural Perspectives. 5th Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 535-549.

Steingraber, Sandra. “Rose Moon”. "Violence Against Women."Women's Lives Multicultural Perspectives.5^th Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 549-557.

Activism Log # 8

Seabury Stoneburner

Nina Perez

WST 3015

12 April 2010

Activism Log 8

Activism:

Finally, we had our “Donation Drive for Animal Safehouse of Brevard” event at Louie and Maria’s Italian Restaurant. The purpose was to collect donations to provide to foster parents and, more importantly, to encourage guests to become foster parents for the Animal Safehouse of Brevard. I brought all the donations I had collected through the past months so we could make sure they were all together. With the combination of everyone’s donations, we were able to see just how much our group has done for this program. We knew that obtaining foster parents would be a little challenging; however, I was impressed with the amount of supplies people donation to help. I feel pretty proud of our group for all the hard work that went into making this event possible and, of course, successful.

Reflection:

After the event, I seemed to connect more with what our class has talked about throughout the semester. The guidelines from Fight Like A Girl were definitely a helpful resource with planning it. Our event was successful; however, I would not say that it was the best attend thing. In Fight Like A Girl, it states that it doesn’t matter how large an event is only the impact: “No act is too small; you may never know the full extend of your impact. Activism is contagious. While you may be one person, your voice and actions can touch others, whose voices and actions can touch others, and so forth” (Seeley 16). This statement is very true. We spread our awareness to those who came to the drive and then they can help us by spreading it to others they know, like a domino affect.

Reciprocity:

The success at Louie and Maria’s Italian Restaurant demonstrated all the hard work the group has put into spreading the awareness of abused women and their loving pets. I could not help but feel some sort of accomplishment when I saw the amount of supplies we were able to give to Animal Safehouse of Brevard. As a group, we were able to spread the awareness of domestic-home violence against women. The award given to us in the end was a successful event that we worked very hard on.

Seely, Megan. Fight Like a Girl: How to be a Fearless Feminist. New York and London: New York UP, 2007. Print.

Baghdad Burning

Seabury Stoneburner

Nina Perez

WST 3015

5 April 2010

“Christmas in Baghdad…”

War can put a very large impact on one’s life. Everything can be affected, whether being major or minor. A woman named Riverbend Enloe created a blog about her daily life experience during the war in Iraq. She goes into great detail expressing everything that happens to share with the world how different life can be when your homeland becomes a war zone.

Christmas seems to have the same holiday idea throughout the world. In Islam, Riverbend grew up in a neighborhood with a number of Christian families. They would have plastic Christmas trees decorated and even the front gardens would have twinkling lights. Whether being Christian or Muslim, the Christmas spirit was through the air and among the people. The children even believed in the jolly man “Kids in Iraq also believe in Santa Claus, but people here call him 'Baba Noel' which means, "Father Noel". I asked the children what he looked like and they generally agreed that he was fat, cheerful, decked in red and had white hair” (Enloe). Under the living conditions in Iraq, Baba Noel does not go down chimneys and on top of that, he does not come in the middle of the night because that is considered “rude”. Baghdad’s annual tradition was pretty similar to most countries “The annual ritual around Christmas for many Christians in Baghdad used to be generally hanging out with family and friends on Christmas Eve, exchanging gifts and food… and the Armenian club” (Enloe). These traditions have some similarity and difference among other cultures.

This particular year was very different during the Christmas season. There were no lights outside because people did not want to attract any threats to their homes. The service that year was quite early with very little attendees because many did not feel safe to drive around Baghdad, plus, due to security situations many couldn’t spend time with their families. Riverbend just went over to a neighbor’s house and sat around without hardly any traditional rituals. The war had disrupted the traditions of the Christmas season and made it a hard time for most families.

This particular blog entry seemed to be a combination between a personal and educational form. Riverbend wrote the blog to educate people who are not in Iraq what happened through her personal experiences, “Her voice is clear, engaging, sarcastic, angry, fearful, and also generous, as she explains what many readers outside Iraq were not learning through mainstream media reporting” (Kirk 504). She tells us how the war had affected her family’s Christmas and at the same time; the reader learns how hard the times really were. She goes into depth about the traditional forms of Christmas every year and then explains how that certain year was different. One who is reading this blog is discovering how families were split apart through Riverbend’s personal experience. It would seem very difficult for one to imagine spending a Christmas during an event like this; however, Riverbend’s personal experience was very descriptive for the readers to learn. At one point in her blog she transcribes a complete phone conversation between two Iraqis people. Her translation helps the reader know exactly how big of a deal it is to hear from family members because many just have to have wishful thinking, hoping that their loved ones are alive. Like all her blogs about the war in Iraq, people are able to learn how the war affects those who are literally surrounded by it.

Work Cited:

Enloe, Riverbend. "Christmas in Baghdad." Web log post. Baghdad Burning. 26 Dec. 2003. Web. 3 Apr. 2010. .

Kirk, Gwyn and Okazawa-Rey, Margo. "Violence Against Women." Women's Lives Multicultural Perspectives. 5th Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 493-509.

Activism Log # 7

Seabury Stoneburner

Nina Perez

WST 3015

4 April 2010

Activism Log 7

Activism:

After this past week the collection of donations I had increased. While I was home in Jacksonville, Florida, for Easter, I decided to table again in my neighborhood for more support. In Jacksonville, I took in mind that my goal was to collect donations instead of getting people to become foster parents. I was able to spread the awareness of the program the people in my neighborhood and

Reflection:

The more I spend time with Animal Safehouse of Brevard the more I become aware of exactly how many women are victims of domesticated violence from their intimate others. In the atmosphere I grew up in, I was generally unaware of most of these incidents I would rarely hear about it for a brief moment when the news was on; however, there are far more incidents that occur without being reported “Although violence between intimate partners is illegal in this country, it is seriously under-reported” (Kirk 263). I believe many people are blind to these facts and many would put effort in to help, like me, if they actually knew about all of it.

Reciprocity:

Most people believe that home is considered a safe zone and source of comfort “For many women and children, however, home is not a safe place but one where they experience emotional or physical violence” (260). I even believed that just from my experience of growing up with a loving, dear family. Alerting people maybe hard to do; however, it is extremely important for them to know that not everyone has the same lifestyle as them. It can be shocking to many that home maybe the last place someone might want to go, in fear that violence is the only thing that awaits for them. Hopefully through working with Animal Safehouse of Brevard and spreading the information around about how many families and their pets suffer, people will contribute more time into helping families obtain their normal, healthy lifestyle.

Kirk, Gwyn and Okazawa-Rey, Margo. "Violence Against Women." Women's Lives Multicultural Perspectives. 5th Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 257-273.

Discussion Leading: Rose Moon

Seabury Stoneburner

WST 3015

Nina Perez

5 April 2010

Steingraber, Sandra. “Rose Moon”. "Violence Against Women."Women's Lives Multicultural Perspectives.5^th Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 549-557.

“Rose Moon” Sandra Steingraber

Steingraber’s story is generally about the development of a child within the womb. She believes that this concept is one of the most, interesting, important, and beautiful things of life. She addresses the fact that most books and magazines generally forget about the main part of pregnancy around the sixth month. Media is typically so focused on the first stage, such as morning sickness, and then the last few weeks when the woman is very hormonal and has false labor symptoms. She also finds it a quite interesting that none of these pregnancy based media have never gone into detail about environmental issues. They never mention anything about the fact that solvents or pesticides among our lifestyles can threat a child. With sharing this information to her husband, Jeff, she decides to go further in depth in the situation by research.

She states to the readers her two thoughts that have engaged her to look further into the environmental issues. One, “Why is there no public conversation about environmental threats to pregnancy?” and two “In ignorance, abstain. Why does abstinence in the face of uncertainty apply only to individual behavior? Why doesn’t it apply to equally to industry and agriculture?” (Steingraber 551). These two things she wants to figure out seem to do with the past theme of “Public verses Private”. Jeff states that pregnancy and motherhood are treated as private because they are not part of the public world. Their bodies look strange, they seem vulnerable, and people do not want to upset them. Basically, when people see a pregnant woman, they treat her differently. Steingraber goes against her husband as says at the same time many people attempt to tell them what to do, such as not to eat sushi or drink alcohol. Jeff’s response to this is that its private but the industries and agriculture effects on a woman’s pregnancy are public.

The public aspect of their conversation makes Steingraber very interested in how the industries and agricultures can indeed affect a pregnant woman and her fetus. She goes to “1997 Toxics Release Inventory”. She discovers that there are twenty known chemicals that cause harm to a human that are among our world. One specific chemical she goes into excessive detail is lead. Lead has been used in paint and gas for many years. In 1925 the government attempted to banned the element being used in products; however, industries fought against it trying to get their business back. Closer to the twenty-first century the products were finally banned again; although it was already a little too late because many of our buildings were painted with lead paint and the air was filled with gas fumes.

To Steingraber, the sixth month, “sin qua non”, is the most important because it is the time in which the fetal brain begins to develop. Harmful chemicals that may float through the air and breathed into our systems cause harm to any age. An adult female can have some personal health effects but greater effects on her fetus. For example, lead maybe carried to the fetus by the placenta when the fetus absorbs nutrition from the mother. During the sixth month this may be very harmful because it can alter the growth of the brain. This could lead to axons and dendrites not growing properly so the neurotransmitters are off “Neurotoxins can impede synapse formation, disrupt the release of neurotransmitters, or strip off the fatty layers wound around the axons” (553). This is just one out of many examples in which the poisonous toxins can effect the development of a child.

Steingraber comes to the conclusions that it is not just a private issue with bringing a healthy child into the world; the public has a huge impact. Yes, woman can make the choice about drinking alcohol or caffeine or not smoking; however, we cannot protect our child from the toxic fumes that come from car exhaust. The public needs to make one large movement together to improve the health problems in our country. Raising kids may be a private matter; however, it is the public environmental and industry problems that parents face in order to raise a healthy child.