I am not what I am.
Ok. This has been a long time coming, and I hope you'll bare with me. I don't normally turn this LJ into OMG SERIOUS BUSINESS, but for now I feel it's necessary.
Those of you who aren't Vassar students might not know this, but there's been a movement on campus for, oh, I'd say about the past two years or so, to move towards a system where at least a good percentage of the bathrooms on campus are gender neutral, meaning that both sexes (and all those people in between) are free to use them without issue or judgment. All dorm bathrooms are, by their very nature, gender neutral, but the campus is currently in the process of switching over bathrooms in administrative and academic buildings. The library is included in this. Due to the unequal balance of females to males in the student body (on average, 60:40), most of the bathrooms that have been switched to gender neutral have previously been men's restrooms. This is important.
The second thing you have to understand is that Vassar has a pretty big GLBT population, and the topics of gender and sexuality come up pretty often. This is not some out-of-the-blue, random issue; it is a very pertinent problem to a portion of the student population who feel uncomfortable defining themselves as one gender or another. On top of this, Vassar has a large population of women who would refer to themselves as feminists. In case you're unaware, I am one of these ladies.
Kathryn told me last week that, during the process of switching these restrooms over, they were renovated and given a fresh coat of paint. Nonetheless, she said, the tradition of vandalizing the walls of the men's bathrooms has remained. Today, curious and possessing a tad too much free time, I decided to investigate.
I do not like what I found.
The bathroom stall in question. Keep in mind that there is only one stall in this bathroom, and that it was recently given a fresh coat of paint. All of this graffiti is new.
The quality of the photo sucks, I know, but this statement of "I'll keep writing on the walls even if you paint over it" is somewhat to be expected. This is not what I have a problem with, really. It's this:
To quote:
"Women can use this bathroom solely to give head."
EXCUSE ME?
Around the world, women are mistreated, distrusted, objectified, subjugated. We are beaten, raped, mutilated, sexualized, paid less, cast out of the town square. We are called weak, stupid, emotional, irrational. We are made into whores, madonnas, mother figures, cougars. We are not who we are. We are who you TELL us we are.
And finally, FINALLY, some priviliged few of us find a place where we feel that we can be ourselves. There was a reason I chose Vassar: I knew that, socially speaking, I wasn't going to like a state school; I wasn't going to like how I would be treated, I wasn't going to like how other people saw me, and I wasn't going to like how others would react to me in an academic setting. Vassar has a long history of nurturing progressive, forward thinking women AND men; it's a school that prides itself on helping all students feel comfortable and safe, regardless of gender, sexuality, race, or socioeconomic background.
And you fuckers don't get ANY of that. You, who don't understand what it's like to have to always walk with a friend at night, to know intrinsically that you're going to have to fight twice as hard to get what you say heard, to know that your every emotion and reaction and desire is going to be chalked up to your sex. You, who don't understand what it is to be judged as an object and not an individual.
And you come into OUR safe place and tell us what we're "good for"? Even now, in a post-women's rights world, is your mysogeny ingrained that deeply, that we're not even good enough for you to share your BATHROOM with?
I won't even start to get into the message that this might be sending to the transgendered individuals who finally have a place where they don't have to feel uncomfortable. I am not transgendered, and I don't think I'm qualified to assume what they must be feeling when they see this. But I do know how I feel, and I will not let you invalidate that.
Please understand this: I do not hate men. Far from it! My definition of feminism is this: that all people, regardless of their gender, deserve to be treated equally and afforded the same intrinsic value and respect. To all of the men-folk who read this: you are no less my friend than anyone else, you are no better or worse, and I love you just as much. Y chromisomes can be great!
But. That being said.
I will not apologize for overreacting. I will not calm down. I will not just shrug my shoulders and say, "Well, some people are just assholes." Too much in this past month has shocked me, offended me, targeted me, hurt me, solely because I am a woman, or because I am mixed. When these things are out in the world at large, when they're issues that I can't personally do something about, I am usually willing to sigh and shake my head and hope that things will get better. I suppose I'm a little too "live and let live" to actually do anything about it.
Not now. Not at my school. Not in my library. Not in my home.
THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.
And I ain't taking it any more.
Those of you who aren't Vassar students might not know this, but there's been a movement on campus for, oh, I'd say about the past two years or so, to move towards a system where at least a good percentage of the bathrooms on campus are gender neutral, meaning that both sexes (and all those people in between) are free to use them without issue or judgment. All dorm bathrooms are, by their very nature, gender neutral, but the campus is currently in the process of switching over bathrooms in administrative and academic buildings. The library is included in this. Due to the unequal balance of females to males in the student body (on average, 60:40), most of the bathrooms that have been switched to gender neutral have previously been men's restrooms. This is important.
The second thing you have to understand is that Vassar has a pretty big GLBT population, and the topics of gender and sexuality come up pretty often. This is not some out-of-the-blue, random issue; it is a very pertinent problem to a portion of the student population who feel uncomfortable defining themselves as one gender or another. On top of this, Vassar has a large population of women who would refer to themselves as feminists. In case you're unaware, I am one of these ladies.
Kathryn told me last week that, during the process of switching these restrooms over, they were renovated and given a fresh coat of paint. Nonetheless, she said, the tradition of vandalizing the walls of the men's bathrooms has remained. Today, curious and possessing a tad too much free time, I decided to investigate.
I do not like what I found.
The bathroom stall in question. Keep in mind that there is only one stall in this bathroom, and that it was recently given a fresh coat of paint. All of this graffiti is new.
The quality of the photo sucks, I know, but this statement of "I'll keep writing on the walls even if you paint over it" is somewhat to be expected. This is not what I have a problem with, really. It's this:
To quote:
"Women can use this bathroom solely to give head."
EXCUSE ME?
Around the world, women are mistreated, distrusted, objectified, subjugated. We are beaten, raped, mutilated, sexualized, paid less, cast out of the town square. We are called weak, stupid, emotional, irrational. We are made into whores, madonnas, mother figures, cougars. We are not who we are. We are who you TELL us we are.
And finally, FINALLY, some priviliged few of us find a place where we feel that we can be ourselves. There was a reason I chose Vassar: I knew that, socially speaking, I wasn't going to like a state school; I wasn't going to like how I would be treated, I wasn't going to like how other people saw me, and I wasn't going to like how others would react to me in an academic setting. Vassar has a long history of nurturing progressive, forward thinking women AND men; it's a school that prides itself on helping all students feel comfortable and safe, regardless of gender, sexuality, race, or socioeconomic background.
And you fuckers don't get ANY of that. You, who don't understand what it's like to have to always walk with a friend at night, to know intrinsically that you're going to have to fight twice as hard to get what you say heard, to know that your every emotion and reaction and desire is going to be chalked up to your sex. You, who don't understand what it is to be judged as an object and not an individual.
And you come into OUR safe place and tell us what we're "good for"? Even now, in a post-women's rights world, is your mysogeny ingrained that deeply, that we're not even good enough for you to share your BATHROOM with?
I won't even start to get into the message that this might be sending to the transgendered individuals who finally have a place where they don't have to feel uncomfortable. I am not transgendered, and I don't think I'm qualified to assume what they must be feeling when they see this. But I do know how I feel, and I will not let you invalidate that.
Please understand this: I do not hate men. Far from it! My definition of feminism is this: that all people, regardless of their gender, deserve to be treated equally and afforded the same intrinsic value and respect. To all of the men-folk who read this: you are no less my friend than anyone else, you are no better or worse, and I love you just as much. Y chromisomes can be great!
But. That being said.
I will not apologize for overreacting. I will not calm down. I will not just shrug my shoulders and say, "Well, some people are just assholes." Too much in this past month has shocked me, offended me, targeted me, hurt me, solely because I am a woman, or because I am mixed. When these things are out in the world at large, when they're issues that I can't personally do something about, I am usually willing to sigh and shake my head and hope that things will get better. I suppose I'm a little too "live and let live" to actually do anything about it.
Not now. Not at my school. Not in my library. Not in my home.
THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.
And I ain't taking it any more.