Volunteer Option

So, we had this really neat option to do volunteer work instead of writing journals, which I thought was pretty cool. For my volunteer work, I'm teaching a group of girl scouts things about feminism - laws that were put in place to hinder minority groups, societal standards we unconsciously ascribe to, etc. They're having a ball learning about it, and I get to hear what kids in high school are doing these days - the pressures they face, what they get angry about, etc. You might think that they get angry about high school drama, but the underlying issues are what we address in these "teaching sessions."

For example, one of the girls is having trouble with her friends because her friends are more interested in boyfriends than hanging out and having a good time. She gets upset because they're always trying to get hooked up with some guy. So, in order to address that, I talked about the norms of society, where a woman must always be thin, beautiful, big breasted, dependent upon someone with a penis, and oh yeah...a virgin. It's kind of fun to see them develop a sense of righteous anger. Now all I have to do is teach them what to do with it...

WSS 240 is going wonderfully. The quizzes have been pretty difficult, but that's because they require a close reading of the articles.

I'm excited to finally be able to get into our group project for the semester. Topic: disabilities. More about that later...

Au revoir for now...