Tainted Roots: A Woman of East Indian Heritage Eyes “Swept Away” by Drashti Mehta

"You can be the servant for me because women were meant to serve men!" (Wertmüller 00:59:32). Creating controversy among its crowds at its initial release, Swept Away is known notoriously for offending feminist audiences. As the overwhelming tone of the patriarchy created its prominence in Lina Wertmüller’s film, I was reminded of the oppression that branches from my own ancestral roots. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to grow up in the United States and not fall into the submissive patriarchal culture of India. However, as a bystander in my own culture, it dawned on me that the character of Raffaella was merely exposed to the oppressive patriarchal cultures many women endure worldwide.

For centuries, India followed a caste system, and despite their differences, the one thing they could all agree on was that women were inferior to men, a view that the male characters in Swept Away seem to be strongly in agreement with. According to an article from the from the Huffington Post, "The vast majority of Indians (64%) are of the view that the role of women in society is to become good mothers and wives and they should focus mainly on home" (par. 2). When a girl is born in India, she only has one purpose in life: to be trained to make the perfect wife and mother to her future husband and kids. From as young as seven-years-old in certain parts of India, girls spend their days with their mother learning to cook and clean, so they may be the perfect servants to their husbands in the future.

Wertmüller opens her film with Raffaella in a heated, politically based argument with her husband. As she expresses her anti-communist views and beliefs on abortion policies, her husband is shown immediately proposing his rebuttal in an attempt to belittle her opinions (Wertmüller 00:04:24). It is from this scene that Wertmüller manages to carry the theme of women's oppression throughout the film. Similar to Raffaella, women in India were often discouraged from speaking their minds, particularly in political matters. Furthermore, they were expected to adopt their husband's political beliefs after marriage. Raffaella's independence deteriorated as she became dependent on Gennarino much like the millions of Indian women that were forced into an arranged marriage.

Gennarino was quick to recognize that Raffaella wouldn't be able to survive without his assistance in obtaining food and put her to work. It was in the next few scenes that Raffaella’s life reflected the life of the average Indian woman. While many filmgoers and critics would argue that Gennarino was abusive towards Raffaella when he made statements such as, "My pants do get dirty and someone has to wash them" (Wertmüller 00:54:25), household labor is part of everyday life for many women in India. Additionally, I noticed in class that many of my peers began to feel bad for Raffaella when Gennarino demands chilled water and cooked fish (Wertmüller 01:04:57). Upon observing their negative reaction, I began to doubt my feminist qualities: was I a bad feminist for not being phased by Gennarino's demands for food, or had I simply come to view this as a societal norm through witnessing my grandmother perform these tasks on a day to day basis throughout my childhood? In many parts of India, it is not uncommon for the man, the financial provider in the family, to come home from work and rest while the wife prepares dinner. Furthermore, in smaller villages, the wife is expected to serve her husband and in-laws dinner and wait until they are finished before she seats herself.

As unfortunate as it may be, societal norms in India run deep with patriarchal characteristics. In many Hindu communities, the idea of "until death do us part" is nonexistent, for if the husband is to die first, the community expects the widow to partake in the practice of sati, a self-sacrifice ritual for the recently widowed woman. She commits suicide by burning herself with her husband, so they may be together in future lives (Kashgar, par 3).  Many women must additionally endure a virginity test on their wedding night. In this degrading practice, a newlywed couple is expected to consummate their marriage on a white towel while immediate family from both sides wait outside. If she does not bleed during intercourse, she is considered impure and her husband is allowed to divorce her for her impurities (BBC, par 4). Historically, a woman in India has never been seen as an individual; if she is not under the control of a man, she does not exist. Women in India were expected to abide by the rules set by society and do nothing more. However, it is knowledge of these practices that allows me to say that Raffaella is deeply feminist for sticking by her beliefs and opinions.

Film critic Roger Ebert criticizes the film for being anti-feminist: “Although Lina Wertmüller is a leftist, she is not, apparently, a feminist" (par 5). While many people may agree with Ebert's statement, I personally connected with a statement made by Samantha Storms in her analysis of Swept Away and Walkabout: “The negative light that is shed upon women such as Raffaella is not a symbol of inhibition, but an indication of forward movement and progression within a corrupted, subjugating culture” (par 6). Raffaella is the epitome of feminism.

At the moment in which Raffaella left Gennarino, I felt as though she symbolized freedom, reassuring women worldwide that the patriarchy only exists until we women fight for our rights and put an end to it. “Some women can escape social conformity and become conscious of the incredibly sexist, patriarchal society we live in. Others are trapped and are incapable of realizing their true identity because they are the product of someone else’s identity formation” (Solis, par 2). Wertmüller's film conveys the message of oppression through Raffaella.  This is not an anti-feminist film or the story of a damsel in distress; it is a statement. It's time for women to rise above the submissive culture they have been pushed into and receive the equality they deserve.

 

Author Drashti Mehta (left) and friend Manjari Parikh

Works Cited

Dutt, Rimin. “A Shocking 64% Of Indians Think Role of Women Is to Become Good Mothers and Wives: Survey.” Huffington Post India, Huffington Post India, 17 May 2017, www.huffingtonpost.in/2017/05/17/a-shocking-64-of-indians-think-role-of-women-is-to-become-good_a_22095588/.

Ebert, Roger. “Swept Away by an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August Movie Review

(1976),” https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/swept-away-by-an-unusual-destiny-in-the-blue-sea-of-august-1976

Farajollah, Ariana. “An Abused Woman’s Colonization and Declaration of Independence in Swept Away.” https://giantstepspress.blogspot.com/2017/06/an-abused-womans-colonization-and.html

Kashgar. “The Practice of Sati (Widow Burning).” Kashgar, kashgar.com.au/blogs/history/the-practice-of-sati-widow-burning.

Solis, Lola. "Is Feminism the New F Word? From Resistant to Responsive." 

         giantstepspress.blogspot.com/2016/04/is-feminism-new-f-word-from-resistant.html.

Storms, Samantha. "Passion’s Dark Side: Roeg’s Walkabout vs Wertmüller’s Swept Away,”

https://giantstepspress.blogspot.com/2016/12/passions-dark-side-roegs-walkabout-vs6.html.

“The Fight to Ban a 'Humiliating' Virginity Test for Newlyweds.” BBC News, BBC, 1 Feb. 2018,

www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-42814681.

Wertmüller, Lina (Dir.). Swept Away. Perf. Giancarlo Giannini and Mariangela Melato. Romano

         Cardarelli, 1974.

"My Subcontinent Is Always in My Subconscious: Indian Heritage in America" by Alisha Andrews

One’s identity can be found through life and the experiences within it. In our WSC class my peers found their identity in different ways: going into the army at the age of 18, living in a negative town their entire childhood, being a certain religion that is misunderstood in America. The experience that helped me find my identity was being the first generation, American-born citizen and living through the struggles of my immigrant parents.

The process of immigration is difficult, but the process of an immigrant adjusting to America is never ending. Both my parents came to America at the age of 18 with their cousins from India, all without their own parents. All 15 of them lived in a 3 story rental house in Queens Village where everyone lived paycheck to paycheck. My parents had 3 jobs at one point so they could live a decent life. My mom took on a job as a cashier at JC Penney and Walmart and as a bank clerk. My dad took on a job as a limousine driver, bank clerk, and a cashier at a local department store. Even though these jobs seemed simple, it was tough for my parents. They had thick Indian accents and would get yelled at by customers to “learn English” and comments like “you should not be working here.” When my dad was a limo driver he had to learn all of New York City's streets and directions to get his clients to where they needed to be. He had no GPS back in his day and would get awful comments if he made one mistake, but little did the people know that he was just learning about America, let alone these locations! Both my parents always got the comment to “go back to your own country!”

These comments reminded me of Gloria Anzaldua’s remark, “We know what it is to live under the hammer blow of the dominant norte-americano culture” (Anzaldua, par 43). The white Americans around her felt as if they owned this country. They believed not knowing fluent English, not having an American accent, and not having white skin means that you do not belong in America. They viewed people with brown skin as inferior and stupid and that they weren’t “qualified” enough to live in this white man’s world. But my parents had tough skin. They were ready to endure these kinds of indifferences and not let it affect them. I give them so much credit for staying strong because they are humans, too, who have feelings, but were treated like subordinates. They worked 7 days a week to save up money for a car so they could have a vehicle. Before they had a car, they were walking to all their destinations and this was hard especially in the harsh, cold winters of New York. Both my parents and their cousins saved up $3000 to buy an old, used car. Even though it was a junk from a shady store in Queens, it was something they could use to drive places. They gave the car dealer all the money they saved up for months to get a car that stopped working the day after they bought it. Yes, they got played. They were just learning the hustle for money in America. But this experience helped them learn that not everyone is who they say they are. My parents struggled so much their first years in America. They went through these hardships and sacrificed everything they had and started a new life all over again just for my brother and I to live a better life than they had.

My brother, Albie, and I were the first generation to be born and raised in America. We were the first to go to school and to university in our families in America. Both of us were exposed to the American culture right away as we entered the school system. We grew up with English as our first language and Malayalam, which is a South Indian language common in Kerala, India, as our second language. My parents made sure that Albie and I became adjusted to both the American and Indian culture. But these two cultures clash at times. In India there is a hierarchy with gender. The male is the head of the family and is seen as superior and has all the freedom in the world. The female is seen as inferior and taught to be conservative and quiet. My parents immigrating to America and seeing a different viewpoint instead of sticking with India’s traditional ways helped build my identity. “Some women can escape social conformity and become conscious of the incredibly sexist, patriarchal society we live in. Others are trapped and are incapable of realizing their true identity because they are the product of someone else’s identity formation” (Solis, par 2). Since I was fortunate enough to grow up in America, I was given the opportunity to put my education first before anything else. I could get a job that did not include housework and I do not need to settle to be a housewife like in India, where it is common for 18-year-old girls to get married off. America holds opportunities to show that women are just as equal to men and can succeed in anything they do through careers and having empowering platforms. In India these opportunities are looked down upon, so many women put a hold on their life so their husbands, fathers, or brothers can live the life they want. I learned that I am more than what a man sees me as even if it is an object, reproducer, or inferior. I was born a woman and therefore need to hold strong to this identity, especially coming from an Indian, sexist community.

The South Asian community also has a persistent point of view when it comes to careers. If you had a daughter, she was supposed to be a nurse or a doctor. If you had a son, he was supposed to be an engineer. Indian parents have such a limited mindset for jobs. They believe only the STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) jobs can make you money and be successful. This gets me furious. As a woman not interested in any of the four choices, I feel as though my brown people look down upon me. I am a public relations major in the communications field, which is nowhere dominant with colored people. But this taboo on communications and how it is a “useless field” did not stop me. Constantly getting comments like “communications is not stable,” “you will never make any money with public relations,” or “you should switch your major before it is too late” did not hinder my decision. In fact, it encouraged me to prove them wrong! I chose Hofstra because it is one of the best schools for communications and will continue to go to this university for the next four years. “People might not always think the same way as me either because their identities have been more or less developed, or because their identities have been established in a completely dissimilar system” (Davis, par 9). The brown community does not see the value in communications, but I do. Communications is part of my identity. I am a social person who needs to see “the real” in every person and see the bigger picture of that person’s purpose. Working in public relations is not just a “hello” and “goodbye” conversation, which many people think it is, but investing value in a person, company, or venue. I knew that if I listened to these people, I would most likely be in a nursing program and dreading every second of it. These people have minimal capacity when it comes to career choices. I am proud of myself for keeping true to my identity and my own interests because my career in public relations will define who I am instead of being someone who I am not.

Staying true to my identity as a brown-skinned Indian woman was like fighting a battle with myself. Growing up I realized that I was different from other people in my elementary and middle school. The kids and teachers had lighter hair than me, different colored eyes, and fairer skin tones. To be honest. I felt out of place and wanted to fit in and the only way was to be white. This mindset of fitting in with the white kids destroyed my self-esteem entirely because the reality is that I am brown. I wanted to be from Europe and not Asia. In middle school we had culture day where we talked about our heritage and I was extremely embarrassed to tell everyone that I was Indian. I avoided using words like “curry” and talking in my native language so kids would not laugh at me and see me as the “weird girl.” I wanted straight, thin hair and not thick, curly hair. I remember one white girl coming up to me in elementary school and asking me, “Why is your hair so curly and black?” I just stood there and questioned my hair as well because I did not know why my hair was different. I wanted to be superior and not inferior. This hierarchy between races that I mentally created really affected the growth of my identity. When I was younger I viewed white people as a higher race. I belittled myself because of my own skin color.  I was one of the few colored people on my school bus in elementary school. This led to the white kids bullying me and calling me names like “Indian warthog” and such. This created the fear in my mind that the whites had power and control over me. If I saw a white person standing behind me on the lunch line, I would let them go in front of me. If I needed to pick a partner for projects, I would instantly pick the white girls first. In a sense, I idolized having white skin. I saw white skin as the key to having a successful, easy life.

Oh boy, was I wrong! As I got older I realized how limited was my mindset. There was no real reason to think of my brown skin and my culture with a negative connotation.“...you’re dumb enough to walk around continuing to identify yourself with that Party, you’re not only a chump, but you’re a traitor to your race” (Malcolm X, par 13).  I needed to accept that I was an Indian, brown-skinned girl and that will never change. I had to be proud of who my parents were and who they raised me to be. I had to get out of this narrow-minded environment where I superiorized white people.

Going into high school everything changed. I viewed everyone as equal and that no one was better than another because of their skin color. I realized that skin color is part of one’s heritage. Everybody is still human, as cliche as it sounds, it is true. If you live closer to the equator you will have darker skin. If you live farther from the equator you will have lighter skin. This is just geography and not something you can control. So to belittle myself off these factors that I could not control was insane of me. I started accepting myself for who I was and started being more confident in my heritage. If I could go back to the girl who asked me why my hair was so curly and black, I would tell her it is because I am Indian and this is what most South Indian girls have. I learned to embrace my Indianness and become aware of the rest of the world. As I grew older I realized that there is more than the white race and so many other cultures to be exposed to. "Whereas, our argument shows that the power and capacity of learning exists in the soul already; and that just as the eye was unable to turn from darkness to light without the whole body, so too the instrument of knowledge can only by the movement of the whole soul be turned from the world of becoming into that of being, and learn by degrees to endure the sight of being, and of the brightest and best of being, or, in other words, of the good” (Plato, par 46). Plato explains how I felt with my entire Indian crisis. I needed to find strength within myself to identify as an Indian and not be ashamed of it. I was stuck in this close-minded mentality that limited my capacity and power to find acceptance in myself. My viewpoint needed to be expanded from this “white supremacy” to seeing all races as one.

My viewpoint changing really helped develop my identity. I am nowhere the same person I was a few years ago. My homeostasis changed. My parents made a pathway by immigrating to America to be exposed to many opportunities which I will forever be thankful for. Being in communications field for my career adds onto my identity as a socializer and a barrier breaker for the Indian community. Accepting my skin color and being proud of my Indian heritage, while conquering my irrational fear of white supremacy, evolved myself to be true to who I am. As they say in Malayalam, നിങ്ങൾ നൽകുന്ന ജീവനെ സ്നേഹിക്കുക (niṅṅaḷ nalkunna jīvane snēhikkuka), love the life you are given.

Works Cited

Anzaldua, Gloria. "How to Tame a Wild Tongue."

www.everettsd.org/cms/lib07/WA01920133/Centricity/Domain/965/Anzaldua-Wild-Tongue.pdf.

Davis, Brittany.  "Mastering a Free-Thinking Perspective." 1 Jan. 2017, giantstepspress.blogspot.com/2016/03/mastering-free-thinking-perspective-by.html.

Plato. The Allegory of the Cave. VII, ser. 514a-521b, faculty.ycp.edu/~dweiss/phl224_human_nature/Plato%20republic%20allegory%20of%20the%20cave.pdf.olis,

Solis, Lola. "Is Feminism the New F Word? From Resistant to Responsive,"  giantstepspress.blogspot.com/2016/04/is-feminism-new-f-word-from-resistant.html.

X, Malcolm. "The Ballot or the Bullet." 1964. www.infosec.aueb.gr/Besides%20Security/TALKS/TALKS-10-X%20(The%20Ballot%20or%20the%20Bullet).

Just Another Loose Brick in the Wall by Kelsey Picciano

Homeostasis, the tendency of a system or a person to maintain internal stability and resist change, can get easily upset, especially in the change from high school to college. I definitely felt my homeostasis slip away on September 3, 2015, as I entered my first semester's composition class. The wildly gray-haired instructor with the observant blue eyes asked us to think of him as a coach or midwife and to call him KP, just like his writing clients do in the real world. He said looking at the backs of one another’s heads put us at a disadvantage, another example of how the education industry was “running game” on us, and invited us to arrange our desks into a circle so that we could see one another better. We wrote our names on tags we hung from our seats, looked around and introduced ourselves. After we read the syllabus aloud, he asked us to take ownership of the course, journal on our experience (75 pages!), get to know each other, author our own author-ity, discover our identities as writers and not mind a little homeostatic upset.

He may not have realized that his interrogation of everything had already threatened our homeostasis. As class ended, some shook their heads, rolled their eyes or huffed their discontent. Was he too unpredictable for the grade-centric, too participatory for the shy, too poetic for the more rectilinear among us? Although some called him a hopeless nut case, insane weirdo or serious whack job, I felt intrigued by his strange antics, irreverent disposition and passionate bursts of ideas. He wasn’t merely critiquing our conventional expectations; he was celebrating an alternative that would prove life-changing for me. So, over the next few weeks, I gathered the evidence, but his medicine proved useful only after I took to heart his diagnosis of our millennial generation’s illness—we’re in peer competition; we fear being judged; we have weak attention spans co-opted by smart phones (“magic power devices” in KP-speak), computer screens, texts, TV—so we are reactive, not proactive (Gordon, interview).

Regarding our inability to listen for long, he called the prompts we’d been given for writing assignments in high school can’t-fail, paint-by-number exercises that eliminated thoughtful responses in favor of predictable mediocrity. He delivered to us what service providers at Hofstra had delivered to him: We, having had no experience out of our homeostasis, could not make use of the university’s resources that we had already paid for (Gordon, class discussion). Hence, our first prompts, though activity-driven—a) convince the class that one’s peer interviewee is an asset to us; b) experience a service at Hofstra, interview the service provider and convince us to participate in the service—came with no written instructions. As one of our best writers put it, “At first I was frustrated with a lack of direction because growing up all we had was a sheet of paper with an assignment and we stuck to that, but with KP I discovered that there is more room to express ourselves freely without fear of being greatly penalized in our work. Not only does it allow for creative freedom, but it removes the stress from writing essays” (Solis). Ironically, his encouragement of our transcending convention rather than enforcing it granted greater capacity to express, as well as to entertain, new ideas.

He talked ideas often and he increased my attention span with his animated commentaries: a combination of playful asides and cliff-hanging transitions, puns and double entendres, song lyrics and poem quotes, jazz and jailhouse slang, exclamations in other tongues. His rapid-fire delivery burst our little high school bubbles, but I sensed another motive more sinister than shock and awe. His trust-your-gut-&-let-go-into-the-flow convo style invited us to treat language as a tool for discovery rather than a restricting set of rules that kept us in our places. He also caused me to reconsider strategies for conveying a thesis as well as new ways to interpret data. As Sydney put it, “When he first starts talking, there is that doomed moment of total uncertainty about where he is going, but after slowly internalizing his diverse ramblings into a coherent whole, it turns out that his ideas can be applied with great benefit to most aspects of our college intellectual life” (Chesworth). 

Like he predicted, we did need one another—as study buddies, as readers of our journals, as peer reviewers and as writers capable of taking feedback—to repudiate the banking concept of education (Freire, 1) with a problem-posing method that engages us as peers. My heart opened while reading a blog post from his former student fresh from the Ivy League and a life-threatening coma who described KP “as being the weirdest person in the room in order to ensure that no one feels alienated by their fellow classmates” (Weiss, par. 3). His asking us to take him as he is meant that he wanted us to be ourselves and “quit frontin’.” Because of (or in spite of) his behavior, we learned to speak our minds and share notions that we may have otherwise rejected as below standard or out of orbit.

In essence, his wide-angle, learn-by-doing method suggests that we create room for all the possibilities, including the non-rational, intuitional and oddball notion. This involves an attitude adjustment about making mistakes or getting judged and leads to a more dynamic exchange of ideas. We students are allies to each other rather than aliens and one another’s greatest resource; the success of our peers is not a threat to our achievement within the class. Intellectual growth of those around us only encourages and evokes development within our expanding minds. Learning of the upmost importance occurs within our one-on-one experience, and it is the heart-to-heart, eye-to-eye conversations with our equals that provide us with life lessons that will extend further beyond our schooling years. Developing close interpersonal relationships facilitates the improvement of our skills as writers and thinkers. As a service to one another, KP asks us to critique the work our peers have presented and to offer praise when praise is due as well as offer solutions to what is problematically expressed. Not only must one be honest and tactful but also be willing to change one’s mind without fear of failure, which is particularly relevant because, preceding our university experience, we were tricked into becoming slightly different versions of the ideal student in order to get accepted by our dream college. We lost our individuality without any recognition of it even happening. Now that we have become acutely aware of this loss, we must regain the original and unafraid voices that we rightfully possess.

Nothing has stimulated this unlearning/re-learning process for me like discussions following reading assignments. From the parable of the Chinese farmer to the Gestalt vase/facial profile image, from Chuang Tzu’s butterfly dream to Lawrence Kohlberg’s levels of moral development, from Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” to Alan Watts’ The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” to John Smitanka’s “A Reflection on the Purpose of Higher Education,” from Gloria Anzaldua’s “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” to Susan Faludi’s Backlash, from Malcolm X’s “The Ballot ot the Bullet” to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and Thomas Frank’s eye to contemporary university life alongside Roksa and Arum’s “Life after College,” I better sense reality’s multi-dimensional threshold. Talks about Taoism, Buddhism and other meditation-driven philosophies have inspired me to research ideas that had previously seemed bizarre, but I can now confidently say I identify with.

Having grown up in a strict, conservative household where I was constantly spoon-fed beliefs that I had to follow, I wouldn’t have even thought to reach beyond the Roman Catholic, predetermined, obedience-driven mold bestowed upon me. When I thought of school or church, it was the image of a machine filing in students and turning them out as plastic, uniformly faced learners from the music video by Pink Floyd, accompanied by the words: “We don’t need no thought control … all and all, you’re just another brick in the wall” (Pink Floyd). Now, for the first time in my educational career, my point of view is not limited by my mother’s fear-based, overbearing restrictions. I have expanded my ways of thinking and have been met with enthusiasm by my classmates. Having intellectually grown as an individual due to this inimitable character, I now understand what was meant by the comment: “With KP, you will do more than just learn” (Anonymous). 

Works Cited 

Anonymous. “Paul K. Gordon at Hofstra University – RateMyProfessors.com.” N.p., 25 May     2015. Web. 28 Oct. 2015.

Chesworth, Sydney. Personal interview. 27 Oct. 2015.

Freire, Paulo. “The Banking Concept of Education.” thinkingtogether.org. 4 Feb. 2004. Web. 5 Sep. 2015.

Gordon, Paul Kirpal. Class discussion. 3 Sep. 2015.

Gordon, Paul Kirpal. Personal interview. 6 Oct. 2015.

Pink Floyd. “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2).” The Wall. 1979. CD.

Solis, Lola. Personal interview. 27 Oct. 2015.

Weiss, Jared, “The Power of Belief,” Taking Giant Steps Blog, 23 Nov. 2015.

Is Feminism the New F Word? From Resistant to Responsive by Lola Solis

“That’s not lady like,” my grandma scolded me as I sat without crossing my legs at seven years old.

“Do you expect boys to respect you dressed like that?” my fifth grade teacher asked regarding my outfit of skirt and knee high socks.

“You’re showing too much skin,” my dad stated when at sixteen I wore a demure blouse to a birthday dinner. 

“You’re just asking for it with that dress,” I overheard a group of men saying as I walked into the bar on my eighteenth birthday.

 

These comments repeat themselves in my head like a broken record. As a young girl, I grew up hearing these statements so often it that became imprinted into my mind. Living in Allen, Texas, was like living in an inescapable bubble where my actions hardly ever went unnoticed, especially if they strayed from typical Texas conservatism. I remember walking into my high school office during my senior year to check in and receiving looks of absolute disgust at my brand new Rosie the Riveter tattoo from the Caucasian secretaries at the front desk. They looked at me like I was some animal, and I couldn’t help but laugh to myself at their dismay. Purposefully, I lifted up my dress past mid thigh so they could get a complete look at it. Horror struck their faces as I danced away. I made sure they knew I was proud to be a feminist. In spite of Rosie the Riveter being the heroic image of the 40’s that allowed women to work, the secretaries remain politicized by their own sex and unable to realize the historical importance of her being the transformational image of American iconography.

 

Some women can escape social conformity and become conscious of the incredibly sexist, patriarchal society we live in. Others are trapped and are incapable of realizing their true identity because they are the product of someone else’s identity formation. I fortunately have been able to remove myself from the worldwide view of women that objectifies and degrades us. Through years of breaking barriers that prevented me from formulating my own thoughts, identity, and beliefs, I’m able now to shape my own experience and to empower women as they have empowered me. Why is it that some women are able to see their political potential and others only see envy?

 

Ever since Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique used the identifiers feminist, feminism and feminists, these words have gained negative connotations. When I began to voice my opinions and argue back to conservative views that inherently put down women, I and many others who wished to combat the patriarchy obtained a sort of nickname; we were called the FemiNazis. I didn’t get tough by allowing a petty nickname to stop me from fighting for women, but the fact that people are comparing us to murderers who assisted in a genocide against Jews is unfathomable. Why are people so afraid of equality? Is this because we only earn roughly 75 cents to a dollar for doing the same job that a man does? Why so mute if not to suggest that silence equals acquiescence? Are they so reluctant to not see their enlightened self interest ought to have them representing equal pay as workers? I am haunted day and night by the resistance to delivering equal status for all. While women have been objectified for centuries, and men have always been the ones to issue power, I can somewhat understand the resistance to changing what some people may call normality. Just because it is tradition doesn’t make it just. For example, slavery was an American (peculiar) institution until 1865. I do not seek to diminish the road to freedom that African Americans were on, but sometimes I wonder about the American grain. Do we want women as property or do we want women as persons? I am sick and exhausted of this war against women and I will not stop until it is over.  Breaking social and economic gender barriers is not a job that can be accomplished overnight, nor can it be done alone.

 

I never really understood the power of voicing my opinions and standing up for my beliefs until this past year when old friends from high school contacted me to let me know how much I inspired them. One student wrote: “I respect you embracing how you are different from others from how you dress to your interests…I love that you are firm on your beliefs. I love how you strive really hard for the social equality of women as well as overall feminism. I love that you are trying so hard to make social change and make you voice be heard” (Small, par. 2).

 

Although one often hears about activists like Malcom X and Martin Luther King, Jr. and their leadership in civil rights, one never really believes that one has the power of doing the same. This is the mindset that is hindering society from moving towards gender equality. As smart and capable as I know I am to lead a movement, I need help from fellow individuals who experience the same passion and drive for justice as me. In “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” King states, “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed” (Par. 11). By demanding that we break gender norms and fight back anti-feminist comments, we are following King’s nonviolent path to social change. What we need to bring to light is how absurd it is to be so terrified of our sex. Does a women scare us so much, that we feel as though we must do everything in our power to keep us from becoming equal to us? Like King asks his readers to imagine what we are supposed to tell our colored children about Jim Crow, I wonder what do American mothers tell their daughters. As Gloria Anzaldua puts it, do they tell them to tame their wild tongues? The tongue is to feminism as the non violent sit-in is to the Civil Right’s movement. 

 

Many men and women have claimed that my wild tongue is intimidating and “unattractive,” but underneath what they are saying is the acknowledgement that I can be articulate. I am strong, independent, and verbal about issues affecting women and I will never give in to intimidation by men and counterproductive strategies by women. If we want to destroy the walls that separate us, then we must stand strong and continue to bring to light the issues that have been pushed aside and ignored by politicians for decades. 

“We know how to survive. When other races have given up their tongue, we’ve kept ours. We know what it is to live under the hammer blow of the dominant norteamericano culture. But more than we count the blows, we count the days the weeks the years the centuries the eons until the white laws and commerce and customs will rot in the deserts they’ve created, lie bleached…Chicanos will walk by the crumbling ashes as we go about our business. Stubborn, preserving, impenetrable as stone, yet possessing a malleability that renders us unbreakable. We…will remain” (Anzaldua pg. 85)

 

 

Despite the various negative connotations of the word feminist, I will never stop identifying as one. Although it takes many hits, feminism is actually an indication of progress. In Susan Faludi’s Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, she states, “In national surveys 75 to 95 percent of women credit the feminist campaign with improving their lives, and a similar proportion say that the women's movement should keep pushing for change” (Faludi Par. 23). If women are benefiting from the feminist movement, why stop?

 

Works Cited

 

Anzaldua, Gloria. “How to Tame a Wild Tongue.” Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. 

Web. 28 March 2016.

"Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, Jr.]." Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, Jr.]. Web. 28

March 2016.

Small, Jennifer. Text message to author. 8 November 2016.

 

We the Students: Independence and Ethical Growth as the Path to Greater Career Succes by Victoria Leto

Turning eighteen opens the door to adulthood for most of us teenagers. It is the time decision-making and psychological growth as an individual starts. Lawrence Kohlberg rates the individual’s advanced thinking and growth on his Moral Development scale. Observing the developments on this scale, one will notice that students reach each level at different ages depending on their maturity. Ultimately, of all the traits students must acquire, I believe that independence is the characteristic that will bring students to their highest level of ethical behavior. No one can force this upon us; we must see and understand this for ourselves.

Kohlberg’s scale is set up in six different developmental stages which illustrate one’s strengths in solving moral dilemmas which I define as choosing between two or more actions and having a moral reason for each. The stages are grouped into three levels: pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional.

The purpose of Kolhberg’s structure is to examine people’s behaviors. It is not so much a ranking of behaviors, but a set of insights into why people do what they do. For example, the responsibilities that we as college students hold may be studying for a final or writing a paper. The goal is to do well on both in order to attain a high GPA. At level 1, if your grade isn’t as high as you expected, you will realize maybe the test was just not what you imagined or the teacher was a tough grader. However, being at a level 6, you will accept responsibility for your actions and not blame your grade on other factors. That is part of being independent.

As teenagers, we don’t just become independent; some kind of experience may open our eyes to a world of freedom that makes us become rely more on ourselves, not others. Whether we are influenced by our peers, parents, or professors, we form a sense of our own independence. Conformity is not always a good thing; if we all choose to be the same, how will our world grow? College campuses may try conform us, but we don’t have to give in. If one thinks about it, we come into our courses hoping to become better educated and more open minded, not to fall into other’s opinions. Forming our own ideas and opinions is what makes us independent. Lola Solis, a freshman at Hofstra University wrote a powerful essay titled “The Anti-Conformist,” in which she speaks about a literature class offered Hofstra, taught by Professor Pellegrino, that opened her eyes. “When reading novels I no longer have to wait for him to explain the underlying meaning of the text. I create my own meaning. In high school, when deciphering novels, I never had the ability to construct my own thoughts. I have now been able to break those cultural barriers and examine language and make the worldview my own. I do not only think this way in literature, but in all aspects of life” (Solis).

Obviously, this professor left a mark on his student, but she has taken his teachings and made them her own. Professor Pellegrino did not force any beliefs onto Lola; she was able to form her own through his teachings. It is important that we as students do not just listen and believe, but listen and penetrate into our own thoughts. Her professor was so moved by her essay that he sent it to his chairperson. A student made a professor feel worthy! Lola has become bigger in the sense that she now knows that meanings doesn’t have to be taught, but understood on our own terms.

As my journey towards college began, I wasn’t as much nervous as I was relieved. I was so happy to be advancing my education on a new campus. In high school, I lost most of my friends due to the high school “drama” which is really just immaturity. The common partying and drinking aspect of high school, as well as the cattiness among friends, was never appealing to me. I wanted to do well in school and make my parents proud. This led me to become more independent. My parents always told me I was mature for my age as I wasn’t focused on the same things as other students. I wanted to be successful and make something of myself. I never relied on anyone or anything to help me; I helped me. I didn’t need a group of friends to feel “cool.” I needed confidence, independence, and intelligence. A high school guidance counselor says it best: “It’s tough to be a teenager. You want to be independent while still having to rely on everyone around you” (Facebook). I was and still am determined to achieve my goals on my own. I have always known I wanted to be a “helper.” My experiences of volunteering at children programs, being a camp counselor, tutoring, and babysitting made my passion for kids grow. I absolutely adore children and somehow I wanted to incorporate them in my career. With much research I found that Speech Pathology was not only interesting, but rewarding. I could work with children and adults at a school or a hospital, and this  fact led me to change my major. I am content with the changes Hofstra has offered me and intend on becoming more worldly. My path has already changed, and I feel without my independence I would have been lost.

Entering college you choose your major, your classes, and eventually your career path. Notice how each chose has you in it? Becoming more independent may come with age, experience, and maturity. With the guidance of your guardians and the advice of you advisors, you will achieve you goals. However, you are the one making the choices, and every step you take is solely by yourself. College is your time to make your dreams a reality, but this can only be done with a clear mind and self awareness. While emailing with Jade, a freshman at Hofstra, she talked about the process of choosing a major, saying: “My major is business. Although I am undecided on the specific business, I am leaning towards either accounting, entrepreneurship, or both. I chose to study business because I had an interest in it back in high school. I took college accounting in senior year and really loved it...I see myself in the future hopefully opening up my own dance studio with my sisters (who are dancers as well). We all dream about this, and I hope we can make it a reality one day!” (Chu). She expressed her love and dedication for ice skating and dancing and told me of her experiences teaching young children. She is a perfect example of a student who is using her right and left brain strengths to emerge into a stronger individual. Who would have thought a love for dance and business could somehow coincide into a bigger dream? In order to reach your full potential, you must set goals for yourself and strive to reach them.

College students and Kohlberg seem to have something in common: they both are reaching for potential. Every college student will reach level 6 of moral development at some point in his college career. Many students may have already attained this level of universal ethical principles. When children and teenagers grow up in specific settings, they may look at life situations differently. Independence comes differently to all of us, and Kohlberg was well aware of this. We are all capable of understanding others, ourselves, and the world around us. Our right as citizens is to be independent with the knowledge that it is under reasonable circumstances (Wikipedia). Entering a college campus is a new world for many students, especially those who are coming from households or towns that held them back. Students desire the freedom and acknowledgment of being their own person. A freshman at Hofstra named Kelsey proves that breaking out of the bubble we call home is life changing. “I don't rely on others to do anything I could do myself for I am internally motivated and don't require a push from anyone. All and all, I would say that I am forging my way from a controlled and held-back household to be an independent student with her own unique set of views and morals. I’m independent in the sense also that I don't really pay any mind to the influence of the viewpoints of others, and I am not very easily influenced. I am, however, confident in my beliefs and choices which I feel makes me very independent” (Picciano). Students like Kelsey know they can fight through the conventions of society and be unique on their own. It was her choice to interview her writing professor for a paper in his class to show her classmates how fascinating she found him to be. She was able to make them see that their respect for him should go beyond the that fact he is responsible for their grades by revealing him as genuine, real person. She wasn’t afraid of what they would think of her. If you are able to build a self-esteem that allows you to move forward positively, you will gain a strong independence on your college campus.

Most eighteen-year-old college students are thinking about their futures and not about Kolhberg’s theory of moral development which actually maps out the steps for success in learning how to learn. To see and feel and think and live at the highest level (six), however, a sense of independence is necessary as Lola, Jade, Kelsey, and I have found out .



                                         Works Cited

 

Chu, Jade. “Personal Interview.” Message to the author. 8 Nov. 2015. E-mail.

Facebook. “Humans of New York.” Web. 10 Nov. 2015.

Lawerence Kohlberg. Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 28 July. 2015.

Picciano, Kelsey. “Personal Interview.” Message to the author. 8 Nov. 2015. E-mail.

Solis, Lola. “The Anti-Conformist” 21 Oct. 2015. Essay.

United States Declaration of Independence. Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 16 Oct. 2015.