Monday, November 12, 2012

Who We Are!


We have had several requests to post a bit about ourselves! 
For the next week we will be posting a little about us and our experiences.
And I get to go first, enjoy. ~ Kyra
Please comment - what experiences/events/comments have made you who you are!


Hi All, 

It has already been an amazing experience getting to know you and read your comments, ideas and thoughts on the topics we have touched on. I am so excited to get to delve deeper into topics relating to women as they are near and dear to my heart. 

I come from a very unique family, I am the oldest of five- four girls and one boy. I have a father who is secretly superman and a mother who is wonder-woman (no secret about that one). We were raised being told we could do anything and be anything we wanted to be, and more importantly, we were expected to be those things. Therefore, it was shocking to me to be told at 17, after finding my new co-workers open check in the bathroom, that the reason I was still making minimum wage after a year and he (who was hired two months ago) was making 1.50 dollar more than me an hour was because I was a girl. In fact, the manager on duty continued and said it was something I was going to have to face- women make less then men. I was flabbergasted. It was that night that I understood why there are feminists and why I was one of them. 

Sorry, the more recent family picture was on the day of our wedding 

Since then my interest in women’s studies has become deeply rooted at the very core of my soul. I have been blessed to travel to several different countries on multiple continents and have been deeply saddened by the situation of my sisters abroad (as well as at home- we aren't a perfect society by any means). I have also seen the amazing, fantastic power that comes when women understand their true, divine potential and unite for a common cause- nothing could stand in their way.  It is this knowledge of the devastating reality of women around the globe and the strength that they wield that drives me onward.

And I have to admit, I am a bit of a history junky. I have fallen in love with the history of the LDS church, particularly the quiet often untold stories of the women who were actively involved.  As I have researched topics and individuals I have a far greater respect and love for my sisters of Zion. I am so excited to introduce them to you- for we truly are their progeny. 

It is my hope that together we can explore what it means to be a woman in the world today, a woman of faith and of hope and understanding. I know that it is only together, united that we can change the world.

Can't wait to hear from you!
Kyra


Daily Quote

November 12, 2012: "Danger has been a part of my life ever since I picked up a pen and wrote. Nothing is more perilous than truth in a world that lies." - Nawal El Saadawi 

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Gender Roles and Victim Blaming


Our world is operated by gender roles and each society values different gender roles.  These gender roles are a way that society has organized specific characteristics of the sexes in order to function. However, as most of us would agree these gender roles may not always be a positive thing for women and also men. I hope that this blog post will be more of a discussion.  I want to share some research information and then have an open discussion about how we can go about teaching benevolent sexism and traditional gender roles in an appropriate manner.

Victim blaming became a passionate subject for me after this past spring when my husband and I had the opportunity to help a friend plan a Take Back the Night event.  She planned this event in regards to a recent rape that occurred on the Provo River Trail.  After this attack, the young woman who was out running received a lot of blame for the attack. After this even  I thought a lot of how gender roles and benevolent sexism contribute to victim blaming. I was reminded of a correlation study that a professor, whom I have had the opportunity to do a lot of work with, conducted.  I want to share her findings and help lead our discussion.

 Let me explain her research.  Her study focused on how strength of benevolent sexism, hostile sexism, and gender role tradionality contribute to the level that a rape victim either of a stranger scenario or date-rape situation influence the victim being blamed and the rapist being excused for the behavior.  In this research, hostile sexism was defined as negative and antipathetic attitudes toward women that are typically thought to comprise gender-based prejudices.  Benevolent sexism was defined as positive and sympathetic attitudes toward women that are not typically thought of as necessarily sexist. For example, opening the door for a woman or pulling her chair out for her at the dinner table would be part of benevolent sexism.  There were 126 participants that ranged from ages 18-26. All participants were attending a university in the Rocky Mountain region and all were undergraduate students. 58 were women and 60 were men. The participants were randomly assigned to read a scenario that focused on a date-rape situation or a stranger-rape situation.  After they read the survey they were asked to complete the Rape Supportive Attribution Scale, the Sex-Role Stereotypical Victim Blame Attribution Scale, the Excuse Rapist Scale, the Sex-Role Egalitarianism Scale, the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory, and a demographic survey.  What she found was that the date-rape scenario was minimized in seriousness compared to the stranger-rape scenario. They found that hostile sexism and benevolent sexism were positively correlated. Those who scored high on the benevolent sexism test and gender role traditionaltiy were more likely to blame the victim in a date-rape situation.  However, in a stranger-rape scenario they almost always blamed the rapist.  Those who scored high on hostile sexism tended to blame the victim in both scenarios.

“Abrams, Viki, Masser, and Bohner (2003) found that ambivalent sexism, particularly benevolent sexism, was a significant moderator of negative attitudes toward acquaintance rape victim...for benevolent sexists to protect women, women need to be seen as sexually pure and innocent. Therefore, if a woman violates benevolent sexists’ expectations (being raped by her date when she is supposed to be sexually pure), she no longer deserves to be protected. Abrams
et al. (2003) proposed that benevolent sexism can explain the phenomenon of victim blame in the case of acquaintance rape.” (Yamawaki, 2007). 
From this quote, she found that for those who scored high on benevolent sexism, once a woman violates the standards for being “sexually pure” she no longer deserves protection or respect.  Often times we hear,” Well, she shouldn’t have worn that, she should not have been at his place that time of night, she shouldn’t have gone alone.” These statements unfortunately are still a problem in our society. 

Does anyone else find her findings interesting or even alarming? What particularly sticks out to me is that almost half of the participants were women.  Some of these women still felt that the women in the acquaintance-rape scenario were the one to be blames for what happened. Why would this be? Here is where the questions for the discussion come to play.  We as a society, LDS or not, encourage our children, especially our boys, to be gentlemen. We encourage them to open the door for women, pull out the chair at the dinner table for her, ect. Now, I will be the first one to admit that I love it when my husband opens the door for me and I do not want to ignore teaching our son how to be a gentleman.  But how and what ideas or experiences do you have in teaching children these gender roles in a manner that they do not end up blaming a rape victim of an acquaintance scenario in the future? What do these findings of her research mean for us?   

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Daily Quote

November 7, 2012: "Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, 'She doesn't have what it takes.' They will say, 'Women don't have what it takes.'" - Clare Boothe Luce 

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Remember Our Suffrage

In honor of the American elections today, we thought we'd pass this along for your viewing pleasure. Regardless of who you vote for today, vote. If at all possible, make the effort to vote. Men and women around the world have given their lives for the right to vote, and many still do not have that right.