Response Post Jan 31

I was personally touched by the two readings in “The Essential Feminist Reader”, but Rebecca Walker’s Becoming the New Wave was particularly powerful, especially in light of recent events in my life. I was impressed by Walker’s age…she was only twenty-two years old when she wrote this piece. Her writing was (partially) in response to Anita Hill’s court case against Clarence Thomas’ sexual harassment. As a black woman, Anita Hill was silenced and Thomas’ manhood was reassured. Although both individuals were African American, Thomas came out on top because of his gender, and the woman was silenced. Walker’s activism was ignited by this court case, and as both an African American and a female, she felt the need to create change in the feminist movement. In her writing, Walker addressed the third wave of feminism. She used an example of when she overheard men on a train speaking about women in extremely graphic, offensive, and inappropriate terms. After listening to these men say disgusting things, Walker could no longer contain her anger and voiced her opinions.

I had a similar experience in the Coop last week, but I was not as brave as Walker and kept my thoughts to myself. I was sitting at a table in the Coop with a girlfriend, and we were trying to get some reading done, but it was lunch time so the place was noisy and packed. The table next to us was filled with five younger boys, who I later found out were freshmen. They began having a conversation about women that was absolutely stunning to me and my friend. One of them said (and I quote): “Last week she basically begged if she could come over. I mean I would have been more excited about it if she was hotter and wasn’t so slutty, but she came over anyway and gave me a backrub. Then I was just like ‘alright you can leave’.” I sincerely hope (and doubt) that the freshman boy who said this is not in our women’s studies class…although if he was, then at least I would finally be calling him out on his hurtful and thoughtless words. This was just one example of the graphic conversation, and they used some other choice words that I have decided to omit from this post.

Like Walker, I was angered and hurt from what I overheard in the Coop. However, unlike Walker, I failed to take action. I’m not the type of person to create unnecessary drama, and I would classify having a feminist conversation with strange freshmen boys as an unnecessary waste of time….because would I have really had an effect on them? I feel like I wouldn’t have. However, the conversation was sadly not the first of its type that I have overheard, and I think that a large portion of the Colgate Community is guilty of making extremely hurtful remarks about women. Something needs to be done.

Walker would not be pleased with my outlook. In her writing, she made it clear that women need to take third wave feminism into their own hands. She basically suggests that women must criticize men until misogynist actions are eliminated from society, because only then will equality be reached. I’m not sure if this is the right approach, but I certainly wish I had the courage to speak out against the immature boys in the Coop, because maybe it would have had a positive effect on their discourse on women.