(More Than) Grrrl Power! Girls Studies at UCF

Original Off-West End Cast (2017) SIX is a modern retelling of the lives of the six wives of Henry VIII, the King of England from 1509 until 1547. This musical is presented as a pop concert where the wives hold a competition and take turns to tell their stories about their life and marriage. The purpose of this contest was to determine who had suffered the most during their marriage to Henry and the winner would become the lead singer. Their accomplishments and lives may seem small to some in comparison to Henry’s, they each have rightfully earned their place in history as an individual which I will be demonstrating in this three-part series blog. Catherine of Aragon was Henry’s first wife and the two were married for 24 years, the longest of his marriage. Catherine was the youngest daughter of the Spanish rulers Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, the royal couple who funded Christopher Columbus' voyage. Like her siblings, Catherine was raised as a catholic and gi...

“Women’s magazines are a central part of the multibillion-dollar industries that produce cosmetics and fashion and help shape the social construction of ‘beauty.’ Alongside these advertising campaigns are bodily standards against which women are encouraged to measure themselves. Because almost no one measures up to these artificially created and often computer-generated standards, the message is to buy these products and your life will improve” (Shaw, S. M., & Lee, J.).      Jean Kilbourne is an American public  speaker, writer, filmmaker, and activist, recognized for her work on the advertising of women and her critical studies of alcohol and tobacco. Kilbourne began her work in the late 1960s and has since been recognized by The New York Magazine as one of the top speakers on college campuses as she continues to study the links between advertising and public health issues such as violence, eating disorders, and addiction. She first began her series, Killing Us...

·         “When men and women think about a new question the first step in progress is taken Elizabeth Cady Stanton penned those words in 1848, several months after the Seneca Falls convention, the meeting that sparked the long struggle to achieve the vote for women in the United States. Like her close collaborator, Susan B Anthony Stanton strived tirelessly to attain suffrage for women she and Anthony did not live to see their vision of women as voters realize but they knew their cause would one day succeed and they encouraged legions of suffrages to follow in their way. Victory was at last achieved in 1920 when Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the 19th amendment. This film "One woman one vote" tells the story of the journey from Seneca Falls in 1848 to Nashville in 1920. It reminds us of the immense commitment, persistence and fortitude needed to gain, for half the population, the most fundamental right of citizenship. It is a hopeful story but beyond the ...

What kind of privileges do you have?             The term “cisgender” was created by transgender activists in the 1990s to distinguish between cisgender and transgender individuals ( Groth, 2020). According to Evin Taylor in her questionnaire, Cisgender Privilege , “Cisgender people are those whose gender identity, role, or expression is considered to match their assigned gender by societal standards” (p. 80). Those that do not identity as cisgender, namely transgender, face discrimination on almost all aspects of their life. The purpose of the questionnaire was not meant for those who identify as cisgender to recognized their privilege but to also recognize what non-cisgender people have experienced of fear of experiencing. I came across this questionnaire during my first semester at UCF in the fall when I took a course on gender studies. It would actually be one of the very first reading assignments we had in the course. When you first see it, you ...

              What type of feminist (or anti-feminist) are you?                      What does it mean to be a feminist? According to  Gendered Voices, Feminist Visions, there are many definitions and disagreements regarding certain aspects but there are two core principals that are agreed upon. The first principle is feminism concerns equality and justice while the second is inclusive and affirming of women across the differences. The chapter further explains that, "Feminism is a personal perspective as well as a political theory and social movement that has worked as a central force in advocating women's rights and making room for other liberatory possibilities" (p. 12).                     As a child, the basic definition I was taught about being a feminist was someone who supported equal rights for women. ...

     As I was doing some research for a previous article of mine, I stumbled across an article that mentioned something called “The Everyday Sexism Project.” The name intrigued me, so I hopped onto their website to see what it was about, and I loved what I found.      The Everyday Sexism Project is a project that seeks to give women a voice to talk about gender inequality. Their website allows people to submit their stories or experiences with gender inequality so that they can have a platform to share things that happened to them because of their gender. It has an archive of what appears to be thousands of submissions.      Their “about” page on the site states that it has become “increasingly difficult to talk about sexism, equality and women’s rights in a modern society that perceives itself to have achieved gender equality.” Women are constantly labeled as crazy, uptight, or prudish for speaking up about inequality they have faced because...

boys will be girls by awfultune. Awfultune's real name is Layla Eden. She is a trans woman and this song is about her struggle discovering her gender. She starts the song with how she thinks like a woman but sounds like a man, and how she has always been like that. She then thinks back to when she used to look in the mirror and realized that she was trans so she wrote all her songs to work through her feelings but never got to sing them. She talks about how if someone is trans they should not even think about belonging to this world but then says "you belong in this world" to remind the listeners that their identities are valid and that they do belong no matter how much others tell them otherwise. Boys Will Be Bugs by Cavetown. Cavetown's real name is Robin Skinner and he is a trans man, and this song is about him realizing he does not fit in with masculine stereotypes. The masculine standard is incredibly toxic, and he recognizes he just wants to be a gentle boy. He ...

       In lieu of the animated show Big Mouth’s recent finale, I wanted to write a blogpost about that show, because I personally loved it, and because it did a wonderful job of discussing women’s issues, as well as race, sexuality, mental health, and more. The show is set in a middle school with students trying to navigate their feelings and identities in a confusing time in their lives. One episode in particular that stood out in terms of boldly discussing a girl’s issue was, “Girls Are Angry Too.” On this episode, a girl was dressed in a tank top at the school in a woodworking class. One of the boys, Jay, gets distracted while using a saw and accidentally saws off the tip of the finger of another student, Andrew. Andrew and Jay and their parents end up in the principal’s office to discuss the issue. The principal is near retirement and indifferent about how the situation is handled, so a male teacher, Lizer, decides to handle it by implementing a dress code. He ho...