College Democrats of Madison

This post is a little after-the-fact, but I just wanted to quickly comment on the amount of sexism that was evident in the commercials during the 2010 Superbowl.

Here is one ad that I found particularly frustrating:

And here is a spoof that was made in response to it:

I just wanted to draw attention to the gender stereotypes and sexism that pervade our media. Most of the time we don’t even realize that what we are watching is acting to reinforce societal gender roles and discrimination.

So next time you are watching a commercial or television program, consider the message.  How does it depict the relationship between women and men? And why do people find many of these types of ads humorous?

Commercials, television programs and other advertisements affect our perceptions of societal roles. So next time you laugh at a beer commercial with women wrestling in bikinis or a car commercial with men complaining about women, consider how you are participating in and helping to reinforce gender discrimination.

Today I walked to my polling place  to vote in the primary for the 4th District Court of Appeals. I entered an empty room with no line to vote. The three ladies and one man working the polling place were very excited to see me and almost burst out of their chairs to help me register to vote.

Upon filling out my voter registration form, the nice lady asked for my proof of residence. My heart dropped as I realized: I did not bring my proof of residence. I told this to the lady and she said, “Oh no. Are you sure?” The other people working the polling place echoed her sigh and asked me to check my backpack for any possible bank statements or pieces of mail. I felt silly. How could I have forgotten that you need a proof of residency when you register at the polls? So I told them that it was no problem because I lived right around the corner. I told them that I would go home, grab some mail, and come back. They looked at me in disbelief. So I promised the nice old ladies and old man that I would be right back.

Well I kept my promise and when I returned with some official mail, they had me sign my name on the “change of residency” list. I was the second person to fill out my name. The person who signed above me, I noticed, was fellow College Democrat Josh Fogarty. Then the lady handed me my voting slip. The number on it? 0007.

I was the 7th person to vote at Porchlight today at 4:00pm. And because I was only the second person to register my change of voting address, I can assume that I was only the second student (or close to that) to vote today (as most students have changed residencies since the last election).

And so I returned home, echoing the sigh of the nice old ladies at my polling place.

On Saturday, February 13th I had the pleasure to attend a production of The Vagina Monologues at the Memorial Union Theater. During the performance, I laughed, I cried, I moaned, I giggled, and I shouted “CUNT!” at the top of my lungs, along with many other students and members of the campus community.

The Vagina Monologues, created by Eve Ensler, is a performance of monologues that discuss all things related to the vagina including pubic hair, sex, pleasure, love, menstruation, orgasm, lesbians, masturbation, societal expectations and perceptions, rape, mutilation and birth.

Produced and promoted largely by the Campus Women’s Center, proceeds of The Vagina Monologues went to benefit the prevention of violence against women, specifically in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

It is hard to describe how I felt while I watched a dramatic discussion of vaginas, women, and men and how they all interact with each other and society. Surrounded by beautiful and confident women (and some men), I have to say that I felt completely at home. I felt empowered, aware, proud to have a vagina, and simply happy.

The monologues convey a vagina as something sacred, beautiful, important, and powerful. This message is critical for women’s rights and human rights around the world. Many societies, including our own, see the vagina as ugly, unclean, promiscuous, inferior and unwanted. Commercial products are constantly advertised to women, telling them how to clean their vagina to keep it fresh and smelling like perfume. Cultures in Africa practice female genital mutilation, leaving women’s reproductive systems, bodies and lives destroyed. Soldiers around the world systematically rape women as a tactic of war, and their governments use women as supplies for the hungry soldiers. Many women live their entire lives without ever seeing their own vaginas.

The Vagina Monologues raise awareness to all of these issues, perceptions, and discriminations (among many more) that surround the female reproductive system. They call on every woman to grab her hand mirror, spread her legs, and discover her vagina, touch her clitoris and experience the pleasure of knowing and loving her body.

I find the monologues powerful, fun, and incredibly important. Both women and men must be aware of how the world treats vaginas. And more importantly, how we treat our own vaginas and other vaginas we encounter.

So do it. Grab a mirror. Grab a partner. Discover the sacred flower. Become a vagina supporter. Love the vagina, and treat it well.

There are a lot of exciting things coming up and I just wanted to make sure everybody knew about them!

-Week of March 1st is Human Rights Awareness Week (I think Amnesty International is doing a couple of events)

-Protest the Supreme Courts campaign financing decision! Friday, February 19, Noon at the State Capitol

-Wisconsin Student Lobby is having an open house on Saturday, February 20 from 8-9:30 pm

That’s all I have for now!

A Letter to the Editor in the Badger Herald, written by The College Democrats of Madison.

A recent article, “Elected officials seldom act in public interest”, published in the Badger Herald portrayed our president as a weak moderate and the College Democrats of Madison as a useless organization. As a whole, the College Democrats would like to refute the article’s absurd attacks on both President Obama and our organization.

There is plenty of room in this country for varying viewpoints — the Founding Fathers made sure of that. The author of the article in question proudly considers himself a radical, and in this country that is not only welcomed, but encouraged in the name of true political debate. The Founding Fathers also crafted a multi-branch system of checks and balances, purposely making radical change exceedingly difficult to enact. Calling President Obama a “fraud of a candidate” simply because he has not enacted “radical change” in his first year in office reflects a callow ignorance of our system of government. No matter how frustrating the slow pace of change is, the fact that a president with a sympathetic congress cannot simply pass whatever agenda he pleases is a testament to the stability of this system. President Obama, who in his first year in office has taken on universal health care and made enormous decisions to help rehabilitate our flailing economy, realized change would be a long process. Barack Obama, a pragmatist and refreshingly honest president, has warned people of the slow pace of government. While political extremists increasingly deplore ideological diversity and open dialogue, we as the College Democrats support our president and hope for a nation that works together to create better futures for our children.

Yet while we continue to support the president, the College Democrats need no reminder that elected officials come and go. We remain loyal to fighting for the fundamental platforms of the Democratic Party: supporting our students and education system, creating jobs that fuel our economy, establishing basic liberty and equality, and working toward a safer world, both domestically and internationally. Last semester we held campaigns for equal access to health care and for women’s sexual health. This semester we plan on doing even more. Our LGBT Caucus has been busy planning a leadership workshop to present at the Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgender Ally College Conference, as well as a day of lobbying at the Capitol against the Wisconsin gay marriage ban. We plan to register voters as we bring students to the polls for the county board races this April and the midterm elections this fall.

It is wrong to confuse radical change with immediate change. College Democrats are true progressives who consistently advocate for fundamental transformations in our country, and yet recognize great changes happen over time. True progressives do not abandon their collective organization after one year of political and passionate debate. True progressives look past the first year and even the first term in office. Their lives may be short, but true progressives advocate for the lives of their childrens’ children and generations beyond.

College Dems show progress on UW campus