See You Next Semester, Ramapo!

This has been a very busy and fun semester, for the Women's Center and the blog but sadly all good things must come to an end. As you've probably already noticed blog posting is over for the semester, but we will resume posting in the last week of Januray!

In the meantime, please feel free to stop in today or tomorrow to check out our Finals Week Relaxation Time! In order to help us all unwind during this very stressful time the Women's Center has been providing holiday music, a  projection of the Yule Log (complete with crackling fire sound effects!), awesome decorations (including our plastic instructional penises decked out in Christmas hats, as pictured below), cookies, delicious Cocoa, coffee, tea, and free warming condoms! Some come by before 5pm Friday 12/17 (when the fun, unfortunately, must end) to enjoy some WC Holiday Cheer!

Good luck with finals Ramapo, see you next semester!

It's a Gay Relationship! Let's Not Be So Serious!

So, as I've previously pointed out - I'm a fan of The A-List. Yes! I'm a reality TV junkie, I'll admit. I can't help it. It's just so darn entertaining.

In my previous post about The A-List, I attempted to shed some light on why I think the show shouldn't speak for the entire LGBT population. To which I still agree. Viewers of the show shouldn't take what is said by the cast as the thought process of every gay person in America.

However, I'm really upset with what I heard last night while catching up on some re-runs. Reichen, while being one of the more likable characters in my opinion, said something really offensive. He said," I don't think gay relationships need to mimic straight relationships. I mean, let's lighten up and not be so jealous, let's have more of a good time. I mean, this is a gay relationship."

Wait. What?!

Reichen, Reichen, Reichen... I really liked you! (I still do) but I'm really hurt and bewildered as to why you would think that. I think we as gay men have a hard enough time validating our relationships as being exactly the same as any heterosexual relationship. We certainly don't need "one of our own" speaking out against us and undermining the worth of gay relationships!

Fail Reichen. Major fail.

Kissing Cops Discrimination

This is pretty interesting...goes to show there is still sex discrimination out there...

SLAVERY in America

They arrived in the United States from Ghana, West Africa; young girls held against their will and forced to work for hours on end. But this time, it didn't happen hundreds of years ago, as told by CNN. These young girls were brought here by promises of better life and education. The girls' families sent them to the United States after being assured constantly of it. But once they arrived, they were forced to work in hair braiding shops across the Newark area -- just a short drive from New York City, right in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty. They were slaves and captured by an evil heartless family thrilled by the extra cash. The girls described their life as meaningless, supervised, and horrible. Their living environments were horrible. Nicole and Zena were two of the twenty women who were captured. As said by Nicole, “I always have to behave, behave, behave, behave. No freedom at all.” They had never spoken publicly before the incident and now that they could they had something powerful to say. “It was horrible," said Zena Amevor, who was 15 when she was brought over from Togo. "Sometimes there was not enough food for us to eat. ... It was like a prison. I was just stuck there. ... It was horrible."

They were victims of human trafficking and walked the streets everyday and no one would have known. They had the chance everyday to run away and make themselves free, but who would they run to. When they were younger they knew no one and spoke to no one, how would they have escaped? They were on their feet all day, sometimes for more than 12 hours, weaving intricate and elaborate hair braids, seven days a week. At times, they were forced to braid the hair of American teenagers no older than they were; girls who were free and had no idea the people braiding their hair were slaves. How would they have known? What would you have done? Would you have seen it as human trafficking? Scenarios like these go on everyday and people ignore them because it is the norm. Now will you be watching, will you think twice about funny situations? Then again would you really ever know? These are the questions we must ask ourselves. Slavery is a serious issue, Trafficking is modern day slavery. End the Misery, Stop Human Trafficking. Put the RIGHT back into Rights for these people dealing with this reoccurring nightmare.

A Blast From the Past????

I have had interesting conversations with people, but one conversation I had last week has been bothering me for a while now. The conversation has really made me reevaluate the things that I thought I knew about this person. It started with a conversation on wedding dresses, and I said as a side note, “do you realize that less and less people are getting married nowadays…” with that one question the conversation ended up with some “blast from the past mentally”. She says to me, “that it depends on the couple on whether they will treasure marriage or not.” I thought she was going to stop the topic right then and there, and I agreed with her on that statement.

Then she went on saying, “women has to be the one to compromise, and they will always be inferior to men.” In utter disbelief, I was stunned and sat there not knowing what to say and all that came out of my mouth is: “DO YOU REALLY BELIEVE THAT???????” I thought I knew this person really well, I mean I grew up with her, but to think that all these years she thought of women as inferior, until today, just completely blows my mind. Then she says to me, “yes! I really don’t think that women will become equal with men, and they are the one who has to compromise”. I said to her, “compromise is not a one way street, if one compromises then the other should too, men can compromise in a relationship too you know!”

I was trying to figure out why she would say something like that, since when we were younger she was always the one who was independent and didn’t want to be a stay at home mom. Her reply eventually made me end the conversation because I didn’t know what else to say after she said to me, “yeah! They can compromise, but it usually does not work that way, the women has to be able to compromise more than men, and that’s why independent women will never marry because they have so much high expectations. Like I said, women will never be equal with men, and as I have learned, when a woman marries to a man, that’s her family now, and her family becomes her priority. I mean, my parents and siblings are still family too. But if I were to choose between my family and my son and boyfriend, I will choose my son and boyfriend.” I was completely silent and was sitting still on my chair and the conversation ended with, it was only her opinion and she’s saying what she believes in.

Until now I still do not know how to react about what I just heard. I mean, there is nothing wrong with having an opinion; I was just completely surprised by her reaction. There is absolutely nothing wrong with marriage, or how she wants to be a house wife, the thing that bothered me the most is when she believes that women are “supposed to be” inferior to men and they are the one who are supposed to compromise. I never thought in the 21st century I would hear a 25-year-old amazing woman tell me this.

An Amusing Take on Abstinence-Only Education

It's no big secret that abstinence-only-until-marriage education programs are still highly prevalent in our country's schools. Children are being misinformed, misled, and pressured to pledge that their chastity and purity will remain until they are married. After reading Jessica Valenti's The Purity Myth, this growing issue became even more pressing in my mind. The tactics that educators (and even parents) are using to try to keep their kids from having sex and shocking and absurd. This video, courtesy of Amplify Your Voice (check them out, they're awesome!) shows just how ridiculous abstinence-only education is and why it needs to be changed.



There are ways that you can help get rid of abstinence-only education in our schools. Start by checking out Amplify Your Voice's wesbite (there's a link directly to it in the video) and see what they're doing to help!

Katy Perry's "Firework" Shines

Let me start this blog by saying that I have not been a fan of Katy Perry in the past. In fact, her first album infuriated me and made me loath her. I thought she was totally cashing in on the queer community by releasing “I Kissed a Girl” and then also tearing them down in offensive songs like “You’re so Gay”. Besides that, she’s not a great live singer so for the most part I wanted nothing to do with her. However, after she released this video, my mind is beginning to change.



There are so many great things about this video. I love the message that there is something beautiful inside of everyone, and that they have something to contribute to the world they live in. I love that there was a body positive plot line in the video, because bodies are so rarely celebrated in the way that this character was able to embrace herself, and therefore her fireworks erupted. The queer couple also took my breath away, and gave me hope that Perry may have realized the negative impact her first album might have had on the queer community. Especially after the recent wave of teen suicides relating to homosexuality, the message of the song and the inclusion of a gay couple really hit home for me, and I’m sure others around the world. Finally, the little girl who portrayed a cancer patient was a stunning highlight to the video, showing that even with an ill body her spirit and heart were still shining.

I really applaud Katy Perry for this video. I hope that she continues to use her fame and music to illustrate positive messages to the fans who follow her.

An Experiment Regarding Domestic Violence and the Bystander Effect

A South African experiment involving the bystander effect bluntly portrays how this phenomenon allows issues of violence to continue. In the video seen below, the group People Opposing Women Abuse has a man loudly play drums in the middle of the night. Almost immediately many different neighbors come to complain and see what is going on; one would think that perhaps this community would be quick to react to a different noisy stimulus. Unfortunately, that is just not the case. When the group plays a recording depicting domestic violence, not one person comes to complain about the noise. The group went on to play the recording two more times after this and not one person ever came to see what was going on or intervene.



This sort of situation occurs so often in the world, most famously with the murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964, when a woman was murdered in her apartment complex while screaming loudly, which ended up being futile when not one neighbor came to find her. Earlier this year, a homeless man named Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax was injured while defending a woman and ended up collapsing on a street in New York. Surveillance footage shows plenty of people walking by, with no one stopping to help him – he would die from bleeding to death on the street.



While I applaud this group for pointing out that domestic violence is still a major issue, it is terrible that in this day and age the bystander effect is still an issue. That not one person would go to investigate the noises after so many came when drums were the source of the noise is heartbreaking. It is certainly difficult to confront domestic violence, but it is so important that people take the initiative to stop it when they believe it to be happening.

How Funny is Funny?

My dad was watching The Roast of Bob Saget the other night on Comedy Central. Some of the roasters were John Stamos, Jon Lovitz, Cloris Leechman, Norm MacDonald and Gilbert Gottfried. I only caught the Gilbert Gottfried portion towards the end, but I can only imagine the rest of the cast's jokes.

I am not naive to think that most comedians are politically correct. I know that a lot of them actually focus their jokes on stereotypes, racism, sexism, ageism, etc. But how far is too far? Personally, and I'm pretty sure I speak for the entire Women's Center, joking about rape and child molestation is NOT OK. These are two very serious crimes that so many people take lightly.

Bob Saget even jokes about his Full House character "Danny Tanner" and his costars as having been 'too close' with the daughters. But that's like saying "Well, I am _________ so it's ok if I make fun of myself." When in reality, you're just making it ok for others to joke about it.

At the roast, one of the first things Gilbert Gottfried said about the guest of honor was "Bob Saget raped and killed a girl in 1990" and then he went on to 'dispel the rumor' by repeating it 3 more times, and ended that part with advising the audience to report it. What really bothered me was how Bob Saget couldn't breathe because he was laughing so hard. And the camera cut to a couple views of the audience that also was hysterical. Soooo....what was so funny?

Gottfried then went on to joke about a woman asking a bartender how to make a drink called "asshurt", and referenced how Bob Saget slipped something into a young girl's drink, then the girl woke up the next morning with pain in her rear. I don't remember the joke verbatim, nor do I care to, but this was pretty much the gist. And I do remember Gottfried linking this joke to Saget's working with the Olson twins while filming Full House.

Again, I don't know what makes these "jokes'" funny, but I think Gilbert Gottfried and other comedians take it way too far. This is what comedy has become in today's society, and I believe it is tasteless, inappropriate, and shameful. By making light of these situations, we are demonstrating that it's ok...that it's funny. Well, I'm not laughing.