Summer of Art

I have been working on Part 2 of my social justice series, but today I'm going to take a break from it and talk about my summer of art.

Before I do that, I want to backtrack and talk a little bit about my grandmother.  See, her mother died when she was only a week old, so my grandmother didn't really know her mom.  Into her 80's, she could be heard saying "My mother never taught me...".

Now... I love my grandmother, and I am sorry that she lost her mom.  But I figure, that's something that dominated the first 20, perhaps 30 years of her life.  I'd accept that excuse from a youngster.

Eventually?  Somewhere in the 20s or 30s, I would hope, I figure that I am responsible for my own life.  Whatever happened in my childhood that held me back then... well, now I'm a grownup, and responsible for my own learning.  If I want to learn something, I'm going to set out to do it.  Even old-school, I could always go to the library and find books with ideas, read the newspaper for classes and seminars, check the phone book for schools.  New-school, it can start with Google.

In the past, I have written about the hangups and holdups that I had with my music and art.  As an undergrad, while I did participate in the bands, I focused my non-class activities on engineering homework and other things, rather than music practice.

Want Peace? Work for Justice.

Lately I have been looking back at my own diversity journey, my social justice journey.  This is part 1 of perhaps 3.  I'm not sure how much of part 2 I'm ready to share.

Yes All Women

It has been a long weekend.  We traveled some, got to visit with family, and had some quiet family time.

My husband and I went to see X-Men: Days of Future Past.  I enjoyed the action, I was entertained, and I am interested in what I notice in a second viewing.  That said, as with most Geek things these days, there are always things that could be better.  The Mary Sue has a good post on the diminishing of Kitty Pryde's role.

We got home from the movie Saturday night, and I got on to Twitter intending to share a couple of thoughts, only to discover that #YesAllWomen had begun, in response to the Santa Barbara shootings.  Three hours later... I took a break for some sleep.

Over and over again, as I begin to talk about my experiences with colleagues at work, I find this "bury my head in the sand" reaction.  Some of the responses have been mansplaining.

Other responses have been from Men's Rights Activists.  Which is pretty weird because feminism cares about the rights of fathers to paternity leave.  Feminism cares about the respect and well-being of at-home parents, whether mothers or fathers.  Feminism cares about the abuse of power.

I'm done with the hashtag now.  There has been interest in keeping it going, to keep light on the subject.  I know that the conversation must continue, however the originator of the hashtag is getting unwanted attention and would like some peace now.

If you are a man, you should know that women experience those things from a young age.  For white women, it might begin around pre-adolescence, around 9-13.  For Women of Color, #YesALLWhiteWomen indicates they start having problems even younger.  I would like to believe that it has gotten better with time... but sometimes I think that what changed is that I drive more than I walk.

[Update 12 August 2014] After two months of avoiding the topic, the originator of the #YesAllWomen hashtag has chosen to speak up.  I now have her permission to give credit to Kaye, @gildedspine.  On this date she posted a series of tweets about the commercialization, monetization, and overall appropriation of the hashtag, and the accounts that have taken on the name.  I encourage you to read them. [/update]