← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Robbie
Thread ID: 11192 | Posts: 6 | Started: 2003-11-21
2003-11-21 23:48 | User Profile
"Society is so sexist and chauvinistic. It's patriarchal, and if it doesn't become a matriarchy in five years, I'll just die!!"
--Emma-I'm-Empowered
Fighting for female equality Sarah Knowlton Assistant Features Editor November 19, 2003
"Tell the lovely redhead to call when she's done saving the world," Rachel Whiting's boyfriend told a co-worker on the phone when he called for her.
Whiting, director of the Associated Students Women's Center, said that's no joke. She is trying to save the world.
"I want to educate people that there is a disparity in the way women are treated," Whiting said. "Educating and empowering people can change things."
Whiting oversees the center, which employs four staff members and has 20 interns.
Whiting became involved in the Women's Center two and a half years ago when she moved to Chico. She said she was looking for a place to make good female friends so she volunteered as an intern. She became director this semester.
Whiting said she saw the double standard imposed on men and women by society while she was growing up. She wanted to play sports and compete against the boys, but was told she couldn't because she was a girl.
Anger over the inequality spurred her to become involved in women's issues.
"Women have been silenced and they are silencing themselves," Whiting said. "That leads to oppression."
Senior Brad Lambert, the only male intern at the center, said Whiting's job as director has a lot of administrative aspects.
"Her job is to take crap for the rest of us," Lambert said.
As an intern, Lambert said he sees Whiting deal with people who come into the Women's Center angry because they don't agree with something the center is doing, like the recent penis registry.
"When people come to the door angry, she always deals with them well," Lambert said.
Whiting did not seem surprised by the response to the penis registry.
"When women try to voice their experience it always goes back to men," Whiting said. "It was supposed to be a way for men to say 'I don't agree with rape and I'm going to do something about it.'"
She said some people don't understand why there is a women's center and not a men's center.
"They see things as equal," Whiting said. "We welcome them to come in and speak with us. We try to open their minds, but there are some people that will never get it. That's hard for me to understand."
She said she feels a lot of the problems stem from the privilege most men enjoy in society.
"I believe we live in a patriarchal society where women are treated like second-class citizens," Whiting said. "Sexism, like racism, has become invisible to the mainstream population."
Whiting said white people who aren't racist still benefit from being white and men who aren't sexist still benefit from being men.
"A lot of women are taught to keep in their place -- not to challenge the ideologies of gender," she said.
She grew up with a single mother and saw the difficulties her mother faced as a woman trying to raise kids on her own.
Working at the Women's Center gives her an outlet for her activism and her feminism. She said the center is a safe place where women and men can hang out to share their experiences. Her goal is to open the center up to as many people as possible -- regardless of gender.
"It's not limited to just women," Whiting said. "We want to hear as many voices as we can."
Laura Hahn, program coordinator for the Women's Center, has worked with Whiting for a year and a half. After Whiting graduates in the spring, Hahn will take over as director of the center.
"I've been her shadow," Hahn said. "It's going to be hard to fill her shoes."
Hahn said Whiting is good at her job because she is able to take feminist theory and explain it clearly while applying it to real life situations.
"She's such a good activist," Hahn said. "She really cares. It's a life-long commitment for her."
The Women's Center, which started in 1971, moved into the basement of the Bell Memorial Union in fall 2002 from the University Center.
Sophomore Stacy Giles said she hangs out in the basement about once a week, but not in the Women's Center. She went into the center once to buy pepper spray for a friend, but she said she doesn't really know what they do there.
She said she thinks the center needs to work harder at getting the word out about what they do, but is glad to know the center exists.
"If something ever happened to me, like I was raped, it's a place I could go for advice," Giles said. "It's a woman-friendly place and I would feel comfortable going there."
Whiting said the center doesn't give advice if it is a serious or crisis matter, but they will help by referring people to other places like the Rape Crisis Center, Catalyst and the Student Health Center.
Whiting said she plans to continue her work after she graduates and hopes to intern at the Department of Justice to help fight violence against women.
She said one of the hardest things she has faced as a woman is trying to define her identity apart from what society tells her to be.
"Society makes women question why they want to succeed," she said. "It's a huge obstacle on a day-to-day basis to try and block the voice society has placed in my head that tells me to doubt myself."
Sarah Knowlton can be reached at [email]sknowlton@orion-online.net[/email]
[url]http://www.orion-online.net/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/11/19/3fbaa877588c5[/url]
2003-11-21 23:53 | User Profile
Is this a joke?
2003-11-22 00:33 | User Profile
Whiting said she saw the double standard imposed on men and women by society while she was growing up. She wanted to play sports and compete against the boys, but was told she couldn't because she was a girl.
Anger over the inequality spurred her to become involved in women's issues. That "inequality" is imposed by nature, as anyone with even a shred of common sense knows. If this Whiting chick wants to get angry about it, then that's fine, but there's absolutely nothing she can do to change reality. (Well, she could pump herself full of steroids....)
If today's feminists only wanted to be treated fairly -- to have the same legal rights as men, receive equal pay for equal work, and so on -- then that would be perfectly legitimate. In fact, if that were their goal, then it would have already been reached, since women probably have more opportunity than men in most areas of society today. The problem is, that's not the goal of feminism, at least not in its more radical forms. The more vocal feminists generally wish to force society to accept a fictitious model of reality -- a model in which men and women are essentially identical in every way save the obvious anatomical differences. The ironic thing is that by doing so, the "feminists" are not even really celebrating their femininity: they are repudiating it.
2003-11-22 01:10 | User Profile
What really got me about the quote you pasted is that it's as if Whiting was living in the Stone Age until she got to college. "Wanted" to play sports?? Didn't her high school have girls sports they could participate in?? Considering Whiting is college-age, I don't think that would be a problem. Then again, maybe her only motive was to compete against boys, period. Of course, I don't know of any sports programs that pit boys against girls.
"Equal Pay For Equal Work" was fem-lite for the sheeple. Do you think the American public was concerned that the failed Equal Rights Amendment was a modern-day Communist Manifesto?? Of course not. While the Media was telling SuzieSewingKit and PlumberPhil that it was all about "sex equality", the "amendment" was endorsed by Communist/Marxist organizations. A woman who wanted to work part-time did not deserve to get the same amount of money a man was doing for full-time work. It's all about common sense.
2003-11-22 01:27 | User Profile
"female equality?" Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!
Remember the good old days when men worked and women stayed at home baking things? Then these people called 'Jews' came along and....well, ya knows...
[edited for politeness]
2003-11-22 01:54 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Franco]Remember the good old days when men worked and women stayed at home baking things? Then these people called 'Jews' came along and....well, ya knows...[/QUOTE]
It's a sacrifice, but that arrangement is still possible. It's what my wife and I committed ourselves to before we ever got married and have been fortunate enough to maintain. The key component is both spouses being resolute in that commitment. So for all you bachelors looking to get hitched, don't waste time or money on a second date with a gal who says she wants to work away from home. She won't be any good over the long haul.