Project Reflection This project was very eye opening and intense because of the path of feminism I chose to take. I always knew I was a feminist, but I never really thought about it in that aspect until my teacher, Jessica McCallam said she saw a feminist in me. She suggested that I consider it as a topic for this project. All throughout my life I’ve had many of my friends tell my about their sexual assault, abuse or rape experiences. This gave me the drive and connection to push back and challenge the issue in a way I never thought I would. During exhibition I had many intimate conversations about rape. I had one very deep experience with a woman who read my personal connection essay and listened to my spoken world film. After she was done taking all my information in she started to cry, tears filling her eyes, and through shaking breath she said “me too.” It was really moving to see that I had touched someone but also maybe brought out her own connection to the topic through the words I had written. It made me realize the power words had given me in that exact moment. Depending on how I portray my writing, if done correctly, I can make someone feel connected, suddenly making the issue important to them, not just me. During the creation of my project I identified that there was no “other side.” The other side was simply our own ego. Our own ignorance. This shifted my perspective making me look more deeply at my own values. It made me appreciate my mother more than anything. My mother, a woman of great knowledge that has seen the in’s and out’s of this harsh but beautiful world. She taught me how to be a young woman and how to be smart. And when I say smart I mean, she taught me how to think for myself, how to trust my intuition if I felt something was not right. This project made me value what an honor it is to have the education I have. Many people in this day and age have a huge lack of awareness. The standard sex education teaches you about STD’s, and how to prevent getting pregnant. Not even once is consent mentioned. I showed me what an honor it is to be an educated young woman in this world, because not many are. We have the ability to create the democracy that we want to see, but if people are uneducated and do not know what to advocate for it is pointless. We must start teaching people what's really happening in the world. We must teach them how to raise their sons and daughters to be contributing people of the community. We must open our eyes to the enormous humanitarian issue and see it for what it is, not leaving it as an ideology of living in fear, or believing it won’t ever happen to you. In every aspect of the project I have created you must have a willingness to be disturbed. The moment I started researching and reading books about rape, assault, and femicide, there are images in my head that make your stomach curl. Parts of me wish I didn’t have images of women getting their nipples cut off and hung on chains as pride, young girls ages of five raped and beaten to death. It only got worse, but in order to really understand and look this issue dead in the face you must understand the truth of what’s happening around the world. Your willingness to be disturbed will be one of the things that will save you in this world. If you pretend genocides, rape, war, child sex trades, and everything else, is not happening. You will only be another puppet of the system, living in a bubble of false reality and safety. We need people to stand up and speak against these issues, otherwise they won’t ever stop. Imagine just for a second what it would be like to be a teenage girl, or boy, sold into sex trafficking. You can’t get out, you’ve tried to go to the police, but they are in on it to. You’ve been drugged and hooked on drugs for years now and can’t remember what day it is, they all seem to mix together. You are in a different hotel room, in a different city, with a different man raping you every night. Now do you want someone to stand up and fight for you? I am just one girl that had the willingness to be disturbed and dig deep into this Humanitarian issue. And I’m glad I did, this project worked my brain beyond my wildest dreams, and I hope that I can share my words with the world so they can start to see what I’ve discovered through a small high school project.
Personal Connection Essay
The Underlying Humanitarian Issue of Femicide The first feminist movement I remember participating in was when I nine years old in fourth grade. The movement was called One Billion Rising, a flash mob held in the town I lived in at the time. One Billion Rising is a Global Campaign, founded in 2012 by Eve Ensler, to end rape and sexual violence against women. The “billion” referring to the UN statistic that one in every three women will be raped or have had sexual assault occur in their lifetime. I was young, but there were girls younger than me, all here all in one place to stand for the same thing. I remember this being my first introduction to the real cruelness of this world. Then when I was in sixth grade, my mother would tell me from here on out more and more people I know have been raped. Then when I got into high school I began to connect the dots, soon enough I could make a list almost enough to fill up my fingers of who I knew who had been sexually assaulted or raped. My name is Sage Low, I am 16, I am a female growing up in 2019. I have seen more than I thought I ever would by this age. When I was a freshman my best friend came to school one day in tears telling me things I thought I would never hear. She was hanging out with a family friend, a few years older than her. He had abruptly pulled the car over and parked, and a car pulled up behind them. He had gotten out of the car and locked the doors. Before she knew it, her hands were tied and she was sitting in the back seat of a car she did not know with people she did not know. She found herself in a dark room in a cabin in the woods with 3 other girls. The men talked on the phone with another man’s voice on the other end of the line. They were getting sold. Sold as an object for sex trafficking. She was in tears with no hope. One of the other girls managed to hide her phone and called 911. The police came and the 4 girls were returned home. This was only one of many times that I have held my friends while they cried into my arms collapsing to the ground with their stories of abuse and objectification. This cruelness, these inhumane actions baffled me beyond words can describe. I recently listened to an audio book called, The Way She Spoke, about a word called femicide, something that is happening just across the US/Mexico border. It left me silent with a sadness sinking into my chest that this is really the kind of people we create ourselves to be. “The Way She Spoke” is a collection of the true stories of Mexican women and girls of all ages, 3 years old to 90 years old, who have been raped, their bodies brutally destroyed and left on the sides of roads, their nipples cut off and hung around the chains of gain members and policemen as trophies. This book disturbed me beyond words. But in a disturbing way, it didn’t surprise me at all. This is what we have to navigate as young woman in this world. We don’t stay out late in places we don’t know by ourselves, we are cautious of men, we are frightened that it could be us next. I have two little sisters, 8 and 10. They don’t know any better they are little, running outside my dad’s house shirtless playing in the afternoon sun. What happens when they are sexually assaulted? Why should they, so young, worry about the things I worry about. If something were to happen to them, as their older sister I don’t think I could forgive myself for not teaching them better. What has happened to our childhood? It’s heart clenching to think about my friends having the experiences they’ve had, let alone thinking those things could happen to my little sisters at any moment. “Nobody says, hey men should not drink. It’s all about women must dress differently, women must walk differently, women must drink differently. Why are we not able to hold men to account for this behavior.” Yes, I am a Feminist. No, I do not hate men. This is not an issue of gender, this is an issue around power. I’ve spent hours online watching videos of women telling their stories of sex trafficking, older brothers telling their sister’s stories, men explain how they were falsely accused. Anyone under the age of 35 grew up in a pornified world. Teenagers watching porn from porn industries that is not how sex is in real life at all, giving them a false sense of reality. I could sit here and write page after page on the issues and different stories about rape culture, sexual assault, and women empowerment but this issue is larger than any one of us. It is larger than the fear I have growing up as a young woman in this time period. It is an issue inlaid into the foundation of our ideology and our morals. I would like to say I have hope to turn this around and that no one would ever have to experience this dehumanizing act. But I will take more than just movements and protest to change this, it’s going to have to start in our very homes, our parenting, or morals, not letting our ignorance get the best of us.
Philosophy Project
This life we live is a precious gift and could end at any moment. Everyday is an opportunity to do something great. Throughout my life I have endured many hardships, this gave me a deeper meaning to the saying “what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.” I believe this is what sets the human race apart. Hardships are lessons to be learned and taken, not something to destroy you. There will be people constantly telling you, you can’t do something or it is impossible. We must believe in the impossible because miracles are real and when you work hard for what you’ve earned the universe will give in return. The beautiful thing about the human mind is how we chose to use it. We suffer more in our head than we actually do in reality. How you are affected by a situation or how much you let yourself get torn down is simply up to you. How long you lay in bed having dreams or getting up and actually chasing them is up to you. Do not put your heartache and pain on someone else when you are the only person in control of changing that. But don’t forget to let yourself feel that emotion. Do not shove it down and pretend like it doesn't exist. Emotions and the ability to feel guilt is what makes us human. We are guests on this beautiful planet and mother nature deserves utmost respect. There is something special that happens when we wonder about nature. We become vulnerable and raw. We are stripped of our modern day worries and there becomes something so wholesome about our minds. Our body and mind are all in one place not shattered into pieces by the distractions we live around. There is nothing but sky above us, earth below, and peace at mind. When we wonder to the woods and see the great beauties of this world we begin to understand how small we are, we are humbled greatly by mother nature. It is one of the most beautiful things, that you must have a great amount of respect and love for, because she is also powerful and could tear you apart in seconds. We let our souls get away from our bodies. We are constantly thinking about everything going on around us. This world has beauty in it, it's not all cruel. Take a moment out of your day to see something beautiful. Even as small as a flower growing up from the pavement. The natural world is all around us even if we cover it up with concrete. The wild is where we came from and it is our roots. Plant your roots and let them grow deep into the ground to feel something real. A real love greater than any other.