Blog about Blogging

Before this class, the thought of blogging had never really occurred to me. To be honest, I just thought the blogging world was meant for spoiled, angst-y teenagers who used blogging as a venting outlet, complaining about how life isn't fair, all the while sipping on their mocha lattes and typing on $2000 macs.

However, since this class, I have realized that blogging is so much more than that. It is a way to connect, a way to get relevant information, and (my favorite) a way to be creative.

A person who is all about the details in writing, I love the fact that blogs allow writers to fully express the scene so that many times, I feel like I am right there with the writer. I also love being able to read classmates' takes on current issues and hot topics, and being able to connect with the 'universal' undertone that is present in so many peoples' blogs.

Therefore, I think that blogging is a good component to this class; not only because of its relevancy, connectivity and creativity, but also because it is the way in which the world is moving: towards the age of ever-increasing technology.

Excuse me, Sir, Please Let me Walk in Peace

Photo of Cat Callers. Image taken from thefeministwire.com

"Mmm...baby, where you goin' with that hot lil' bod?"--This is what one man thought was OK to leer at me at three o' clock on a Tuesday afternoon, with three little kids in tow, I might add.

Lips smacking and eyes scanning every part of me--except for my face, of course--this man succeeded in making me feel extremely self-conscious and humiliated--two feelings that NO ONE should have to endure at any time, let alone while walking home from class in the middle of the afternoon.

After the humiliation had worn off, I become infuriated. What gives anyone the right to comment about my body, objectifying me and making me feel like less of a person? And furthermore, what is he teaching the three little boys that he had presumably just picked up from the bus stop? That is is OK to objectify women? That it is OK to humiliate women for your own self-gratification?

Some might say, well, what's the big deal? Its not like he touched you or anything. You just need to not be so sensitive and have thicker skin; others might say, well, what were you wearing? You were probably 'workin' it. 

Such thought-processes, such frames of mind: these are a problem. A Big One.

It is a problem that this wasn't the first time that something like this has happened to me. It is a problem that some people don't find this offensive behavior to be harassment and it is a problem that this type of thing seems to be becoming the norm, a problem that this type of behavior is "OK."

Yes, women have made tremendous strides in overcoming inequality and gaining equal rights, but shouldn't those rights include the right to walk down the street without being harassed?

Apparently, they don't.