Ana’s Comments (group member since Jan 08, 2016)

Ana’s comments from the Our Shared Shelf group.

Adam wrote: "That place where women begged for help to the people who allowed the problem to exist? It was heart touching. Feminism is definitely on the right track."

Well, you could also say it's just going to the origins to change former wrongdoings, maybe? :) Gotta watch the video, though.

Haha, OMG, Skype would totes collapse. I can hardly use it with my friends as it is LOL.

Janet wrote: "Hi, I have not read Gloria Steinem before, but I care for my adult daughter who is profoundly disabled. She admires Emma Watson and thought joining this club a good idea. She cannot write for herse..."

Janet! Yesterday at night I read your comment and felt deeply moved by it, but then I feel asleep and could not post an answer LOL. I could not find it today! How great it is that your daughter has you as her voice and that there was a way for her to still enjoy this book. Having read the book myself (BTW I had never heard of her before either!), I am sure that Steinem would be more than honoured to have readers such as your daughter. Please stay tuned for the book discussion at the end of this month. If there's a Q&A with the author, perhaps your daughter would be interesting in participating as well.
Lots of love for both of you and happy reading!

Lacy wrote: "Do we already know the book for next month? I tried to read through some of the discussions but didn't find anything. Does anyone know?"

Stay tuned! There should be some news sooner rather than later, I'd say. :)

Kikki. If you can't handle me at my Strider, you don't deserve me at my Aragorn wrote: "XD you summed up how I feel about the series perfectly"

Always pleased to find people who enjoyed this beast of a book series. <3

Annnnd I'll keep with the oldies but goodies. Has somebody mentioned Kestrel Hath from William Nicholson's 'The Wind on Fire' trilogy? Because I would clap and write another enthusiastic post.

Yay!! Thanks a lot!! I'm really excited!

Para todos los miembros hispanohablantes de Our Shared Shelf...¡que se nos oiga más! :) (Hey, Spanish speaking people! Let's get even more engaged with this book club! :D )

Simon wrote: "Hi Ana!

I'm so happy to hear that you like it here!
Its awesome to have this kind of positivity around ;) I hope you have a wonderful stay and that you, just like me, discover a lot of great stori..."

Why, it's because of people like you! :D Also, oopsies, I hadn't commented on your idea. I would opt for a blog. More freedom to structure your writings whichever way you deem appropriate and it could allow for further growth of your 'baby', hehe. :) You can keep us updated here!

Tamia wrote: "I really enjoyed The Queen of the Tearling!
And also Red Queen.

Both have strong female leads with other good female characters in the mix.
They both also have their little love things going on bu..."

OMG how weirdly fantastic. I saw this thread and thought, 'Hmmm. Too sad I cannot do anything other than catching up on YA recs, because it's been yearrrrrs since I last read YA lit. Oh wait. Oh wait, there's Lyra from the His Dark Materials series, she's an oldie already, but I can suggest her to younger readers.' Next thing I know, one of the latest comments is talking about Lyra!!!

Lyra Silvertongue is the greatest badass girl character everrrrrrrrr. She is this wild, indomitable adventurer since...well, she was born that way, period. She is brave, foul-mouthed, full of strength and determination, is eager to discover new worlds no matter the cost and she has the skill to read the alethiometer (the alethiometer, gosh, I was hoping that the film would allow for merchandising to appear and possibly let me own my own fake alethiometer, but alas, the film was a giant flop!). However, she is also sweet, vulnerable, generous and a loyal friend. She goes through such an amazing personal change throughout the book series. She and Will are such an amazing duo, and Will quickly learns to respect her for what she is, and...
...Well, I will shut up because otherwise I will spoil you, but suffice to say that Philip Pullman is this incredible, brilliant author that created a piece of art with His Dark Materials. It's been more than a freaking decade since I first read his series and I will still just about die whenever he finishes his Book of Dust. All of you, go and read them, now LOL.

Can I just say how grateful I am that I found this group? You guys and girls give me hope and remind me that we should never ever surrender to pessimism and dull, boring reality, which is pretty much what I have been excelling at lately, haha. Seriously, people. I recently returned to my hometown after spending a couple of years in a really international atmosphere and boy, am I missing it. Here, I kind of gain a bit of such atmosphere back, plus I get to educate myself. Gee. Thanks. :)

Birch Berry Bunny wrote: "I'm only 3 chapters in, but I have a sub list of everything she's already inspired me to acquire. Her life is amazing."

I know right? You read and you think:

1) Oh wow, now this is a meaningful life.

2) What the hell am I doing with mine? Ugh.

Elizabeth wrote: "When it comes to the Bible, at least, no, you can't cherry pick. You don't get to choose to obey one thing because it appeals to you and ignore something else because it offends you. The Bible is a..."

I am really sorry, but your view on religion is seriously depressing. I had pretty conservative sunday school teachers as a child and yet this is the first time I have been told that I'm either for or against Jesus. O_O To begin with, are we talking about an army or what? I don't think such a thought ever crossed Jesus' mind. It's so sad that someone would think that way. The self-righteousness that must come from believing that you're for Him is second only to the disdain one must feel towards those who are against Him in your mind.

As I said before, if you don't want to be a hardcore, conservative Christian, and I do not, yeah, of course you can cherry pick. I mean, actually, the normal thing is that you would cherry pick, because that would mean that you are reading a text with a critical approach instead of just blindly swallowing the whole thing with a smile upon your face. Baa.

Believe me, there is indeed a grey area, There is, in fact, a pretty huge colour palette when it comes to human beings, luckily so, for that matter. Why should religion be an exception? Religion is nothing but a social construct that we have in order to channel our belief in a superior entity. While we all stem from this superior entity, this belonging did not come with a club card and a whole pack of institutions. Those we created ourselves, in the hopes of better tending to our origins, and as such, why yes they're highly fallible. As far as I know, the Holy Bible has several authors that were in charge of recording the testament of Jesus Christ, as well as his message. It's not like Jesus himself wrote the book page by page, let alone the fact that even the best historians can sometimes let their bias slip into their text. Not to mention that there have been several translations of the Bible, and last but not least, there's the fact that, um, centuries and centuries have passed since then. As such, the church is supposed to adapt to its current times and move forward. An ever-changing church for an ever-changing congregation, with a sole belief that carries on through generations - the belief in the teachings of Jesus.
The Holy Bible was written in a time of survival. Take that into account while thinking of some of its deeply wrong derivative notions. And yet, since you seem so keen to believe that morality comes from your choice of book (because there are other religious texts out there!), read some Luke 6:31:
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
This. This is the only principle we should blindly adhere to. If we did, the rest of them would automatically follow.

"Morality as a whole stems from the Bible, so if you agree that certain things like lying and stealing are wrong, you would have to support the notion that homosexuality and swearing are wrong. All sin is equal."

Um, no, all sin is not equal. That's why we have a whole legal code. Also, I'll just pretend I didn't read the bit about homosexuality being a sin. Again, Jesus was seen with sex workers and all sorts of people out there, so I would say he would be just fine with same-sex intercourse.

Seriously. I guess I don't get to be considered a real Christian for you, and frankly, I'm OK with that. Perhaps I'm moving towards the universalism that Marina mentioned in her post. I'd also be fine with that. My roots are still in the Catholic church, which is why I still kind of identify as such, but names and banners are not important to me. The belief that God is everywhere is. He/She is loving of all of His/Her imperfect children, for contradiction is inherent to human beings. And why would we want it to change? Being imperfect and contradictory has a certain beauty attached to it.

Huh? I cannot cherry pick a religious text? Where's that rule so that I can go check it? Oh, right, nowhere. As far as I'm concerned, I am free to choose the parts of a text I like and the ones that I don't. Religious texts are not an exception.

Also, to Ryan who said having any sort of spiritual belief means that you're an ignorant...oh, nice way to make blanket statements about people. I don't get angry. It's just that you are wrong. You can know everything in the world and still have faith. It's really not that difficult to grasp.

Hey everybody!

So, as for the proposal, well it's rather early but here's a series of considerations. I am posting them here because I guess it is the most appropriate place for all of us to see them. This is my own view, you may or may not agree with them and that's just fine.

1) First of all, we have yet to choose a name for the whole thing. So far we have had three suggestions:
a) Double Dash
b) W (Women Victims of Violence)
c) The Violet Look
We should choose the name that rings better to all of us! And we should choose wisely. While the three names suggested so far have their strenghts, they also have their weaknesses. Weaknesses that we may not like, but there they are anyway. I'll elaborate a bit more. b) and c) are both rather immediate in making you think about feminism, which is great, but also sort of challenging re: viewers who are not so much on board with the movement but still defend gender equality, zero tolerance to violence, etc. Particularly if we were to include men's views like Barbara suggested, well, b) would pose a few problems. I know, I know, women are the main sufferers but we want to engage people, right? So the less we incur in controversy, the better (this does not mean that we do not seek constructive criticism and debate). In that sense, I like Tadej's suggestions. Even more because, in the end, we are not an organisation of any sorts, which means many of us are not experts in this topic (myself being the first example!). In this sense, a) presents some advantage, although maybe it's a bit too broad. As I said, it should be decided collectively.

Also, what I'm going to say now would also be important for people here to keep engaged on the making of the project. Many of us, for example, do take part in this book club because we view it as a safe space to exchange opinions and participate. This project should also be just that, a safe space. Otherwise, many people, and I have to include myself here, would probably not be willing to take part in something that could eventually lead to any sort of unpleasant situations.

2) As for protecting the intellectual rights of the project, which I assume to be a not-for-profit one, I'd say Creative Commons should be enough guarantee.

3) From what I have read, both here and from the emails, the interview format seems to be the most popular option, and I have to add my vote to it, too. Acting...I think maybe not so much, unless we have people with a certain degree of experience. I'm not talking uber professional actors and actresses, of course, haha. But it is definitely tricky to find people who can really act, so I vote for the interviews. Barbara made a suggestion already and I think that it is interesting because it aims at including men's perspectives, others would be welcome too. I have to say that I also agree with Camille -short is the key word here, both in order to keep the target audience engaged and also because it will be easier to manage that way.

4) For those people who are super shy and would rather not have their face on a video, voice-only interviews might be a good idea. :)

5) As a professional translator myself, I am adding a suggestion here. It might not work for the group, but it might be interesting. If there was adequate support, perhaps some of the interviewees could speak in their own mother tongues. This might not be an option with some languages e.g. Malay or Hindi, but it would help people who don't really master English but still want to share their views. If the project sounds good enough, it might be feasible to get support from volunteer translation groups, for example, Babelistas in Facebook. I would strongly advise against just randomly throwing the appeal for help at any professional translation forum though, because this is often done by people who need professional translation services for their own benefit but are not willing to pay a dime for them, and we get really angry really fast with these requests, haha. ^^

That's it for now. :) Let's see how this evolves. Regards,

Ana

Yeah, I'll take a look at the mailbox to see what you guys send over! :)

To be honest, I am more concerned about the way the fashion world can be so damn harmful to women, what with their horrendous body standards and tyranny. They are responsible for many an eating disorder and the spread of sick concepts to many young girls and boys...and the not so young, too. In the end, this yet another form of gender violence, although it is true that in the last years disorders such as anorexia and bulimia are sadly becoming more and more 'democratic'.'

Lauren wrote: "Ana wrote: "Lauren wrote: "In addition I found two beautiful books while researching this topic that studies the lives of woman in the bible. The first is 'Women of the Old Testament' by Camille Fr..."

Not sorry at all, it's rather normal to write volumes about things that interest you! :)

Actually, I think I may sort of understand what you mean by problematic. Do you mean that there is a very strong culture linked to your faith, particularly in heavily LDS populated areas? I am Catholic, but here, unless you are really really devote, religion, community and daily life are not nearly so linked together. As far as I have read, there is a very strong sense of community in your church, even when you go to different parts of the world, right? So if you turn away from the church, sometimes your family and social ties might end up severed, if I understood well. So maybe the position of that writer, but even more of the TED speaker, is putting them in such a situation? It must be hard for them. :(

For me it has never been difficult to dismiss the doctrine of the Catholic church as old-fashioned and even plain wrong. God is certainly somewhere up there, or at least that's what I want to believe, but I have no qualms in saying that the Pope and the rest of the Vatican is absolutely fallible. However, I must also acknowledge that these issues have also played a large role in my gradual disengagement from the church I was raised in as a child. In that sense, I have a rather problematic relation with my faith too, so maybe I am not the best person to talk to. I think your religion believes in direct revelations from God to your prophets, so I understand how this could also add to the hurt feelings.

I am sorry that I cannot answer you with the same level of detail that you show! But, as I said at the beginning, it is interesting for me to read about faithful feminism because it helps me see the actual people at those faiths, not only the church and their leaders. Yours, for example, is often portrayed in a very negative light, and although I think there are grounds for that negativeness (same could be and is actually said about every religion out there), if you don't bother to find out more, you often end up putting everyone in a big sad sack of prejudice.

Hey, Kim! No worries at all, I think very few of us are native speakers in this thread! :) Besides, I found your comment very interesting. It is the first time I see this 女汉们 word. That's just so bad, although unfortunately not unique to Chinese culture by any stretch. There's a word for 女汉们 in my mother tongue, too.

I also did not know about this mother-shaming practice in backward areas. Oh, and could you maybe explain a bit more on the new two child policy and its relation to feminism? Either here or by private message if you'd prefer so. I guess you mean that even now that each couple can have two kids women still have to put up with pressure to have a boy?

I remember being in Beijing and going to the beautiful parks near to the Forbidden City, and one weekend there was this singles market there. So many men, much more than women. Maybe if there wasn't such insane concern with getting a girl, now your son wouldn't have it so difficult to find a partner. Although I do know that there's also a lot of pressure coming from the parents to snatch a spouse with money and property. :(

Lauren wrote: "In addition I found two beautiful books while researching this topic that studies the lives of woman in the bible. The first is 'Women of the Old Testament' by Camille Fronk Olson, and the second i..."

Hey, Lauren! By sheer coincidence, I have read a few things about the feminist movement in your church lately! There was an interesting article in Broadly: https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/articl... and I have also read a bit about Ordain Women. There was also a really great TED talk of another LDS feminist that somebody put here. To be honest, first time I started to read about your religion at all was because of Romney's candidacy to the presidency of the U.S. While I would never be a member of your church, it was interesting to find out more about women's movements in there. :)

PS I am in awe of all those people who actually choose feminism and / or gender studies as their actual major at uni. I'm sure you have to put up with quite a lot of questions.

Hmmmm. Interesting question! As many others here, I grew up with the notion that we were all equal, only to find through subtle details in life that no, we are actually not. However, as a child and even in my early teens, the notion of feminism was rather foreign to me and I never gave much thought to what it embodied. Sure, equality for all, but because I had already grown up sometimes hearing this vague notion, we surely did not need to further emphasise it, right?

Then, I became a teenager, and I started going out late at night. And I would be so angry with my mother sometimes. She was insistent that I should never go back home alone, which meant that I should ask my male friends to go with me, or else I had to take a taxi, to which I also had to walk in the company of someone else. Under no circumstances should I ever find myself alone, at night, in the street. To me, my mother was obnoxious and conservative - wasn't I worth of her trust? Wasn't I a responsible girl? Her old-fashioned ideas meant that I was mocked by all of my friends, who often refused to go with me all the way down, 'because you live in a safe area and you're a scaredy cat.'

Fast forward some three or four years, when I started paying attention to the photographs of missing girls my age or younger in the news, their bodies being found somewhere. The abuse, the violence, the cruelty - just because somebody could do whatever they wanted to them, and so they did. I realised then that my mother was nor conservative nor obnoxious (well, maybe just a little bit LOL). She wanted to protect me because, in fact, alone at night I was not the same as my brother, as I would often complain. I was vulnerable.

In retrospective, I think this caused something deep down inside myself to wake up. Perhaps it was just a seed, or the echo of that vague notion of equality from my childhood days suddenly being contested in my daily life, for the first time. I don't know what it was exactly, but that was my wake-up call. Maybe it was a silly one, compared to some of your stories. But it was mine nonetheless.

Later on, some of my readings further helped to develop that seedling within me. I started to talk to some of my closest friends about some of these issues and often found that while we basically defended the same, they seemed to reject rather disdainfully any link with feminism because...well, because...

'Feminists, you know.'

What is it that we know exactly?

Later on, I have met some other people who, much to my surprise, were fully on board with the whole notion and would engage in a conversation about it. And then, I guess, voilà. I fully came out of the closet and now, hear me roar y'all, I am a feminist. :)

Hey, Agnes! Well, we are in touch about this project in Facebook already, but I just wanted to pop in here to see people's reaction. I am glad to see that your idea was well received!

I agree on interviews being the best way to really engage people. As for the idea for the title, hmm, that's good. But maybe something even more catchy? Well, not catchy, because Double Dash is already catchy, but...something tha makes you think inmediately about feminism. I'm going to go with 'The Violet Look', although it's probably been taken already for some other project, haha.