On Tuesday, October 8, 2013, my high school feminism class hosted an assembly at our school to mark the second-ever International Day of the Girl. This assembly gave our peers a taste of what our class is like. Two of my classmates explained that feminism is not just “the equality between sexes,” it is much more.
On the first day of class, we were asked to answer the following questions: What does feminism mean to you? What are your associations with feminism? What are your definitions of feminism? How does feminism matter today? Why are you taking this course? What do you want to learn about? These questions were shockingly hard to answer. I had always considered myself a feminist because of how I grew up, but I didn’t even know what that really meant. I made it my goal to figure out what being a feminist really means.
Over the past month we have learned about the history of feminism. We read articles by Gloria Steinem, Bonnie Thornton Dill, Cherrie Moraga, Audre Lorde, Rebecca Walker, Jasmine Burnett, Sojourner Truth, Ileana Jimenez, and many more inspiring feminists. We watched a variety of video clips and the documentary Gloria: In Her Own Words, and we also went to see Slut: the Play. I feel that the only way that feminism can continue and progress is to be educated on what women have already accomplished. It is truly inspirational.
At our International Day of the Girl assembly we showed a speech given by Malala Yousafzai at the United Nations on her 16th birthday. Malala Yousafzai is a 16 year old girl who was shot in the face about a year ago, by the Taliban, because she promoted her support of education for girls. Her cousin Shahid Khan said Malala “has been a voice for peace, love and education.”
In this speech she tells the United Nations that the way to stop war is not with war, it is with education. Later that week after our assembly, our class watched the full interview of Malala on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Jon Stewart asked her why she was trying to protest the Taliban and she said, that you can’t wait for the government to make the change for you, you have to change it for yourself.
She also talked about how the Taliban are scared of education and more specifically, scared of women being educated. Malala believes that if all women had an equal education to men that women would be more powerful than men. After watching the Jon Stewart interview, our class discussed how inspiring Malala is.
During our assembly, after screening the Malala speech, the majority of my classmates read pieces from their intersectionality personal narratives. Intersectionality is a concept and theory which was first coined by Kimberle Crenshaw in 1989: “It is a concept that is used to describe the ways that oppressive institutions such as racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, and xenophobia are so connected that you cannot examine or look deeply at these aspects separately from one another.”
Our assignment was to explore our own lives using intersectionality as a lens. When I first started writing my essay I started describing different parts of my life, and when I went back to try to connect all the different parts together, I saw that Judaism had done it already. I had never been aware of how big of a role Judaism has played in my life. After making this discovery, I went back and rewrote my essay with a Jewish perspective.
When planning for the IDG assembly, our teacher, Ileana Jimenez, asked people to read excerpts of their essays to the school. I chose to close the assembly with a small speech, in which I quoted Audre Lorde. “My silences have not protected me. Your silence will not protect you” and “the transformation of silence into language and action is always acting self-revelation, and that always seems fraught with danger.”
“The transformation of silence into language and action is an act of self-revalation.” -Audre Lorde (photo credit: Lexie Clinton)
After the assembly and seeing the school’s positive respond to it and all of the essays I wish that I had read mine. I originally did not want to share because I thought no one would want to hear my story. Who wanted to hear about some Jewish girl and how she dealt with the world? When my feminism teacher told another student “your story is important, everyone’s story is important” I agreed, but I then contradicted myself when I believed that my story wasn’t important.
When Jasmine Burnett came to our class to talk about Womanism, she asked us, “who would you be if you could be the ultimate you?” This simple question was hard to answer at the time, but I think I have an answer now. If I could be the ultimate me, I wouldn’t be so afraid. I would have read my essay to the entire school. Unfortunately, I am not the ultimate me right now, but I think I am getting closer.
Since I was not able to share with my school part of my essay I will share part of it now:
Judaism has influenced my perspective on everything. Since my bat mitzvah, when I was 12, I have been an adult in the eyes of God and the Jewish people. In the Reform movement you may also be confirmed at the end of tenth grade. Through the confirmation process, I attended classes and went on many trips that made me realize that being Jewish did not just mean going to Hebrew school until your b’nei mitzvah. I have now participated with NFTY-NAR and also with the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (RAC).
I have also participated in two L’Taken Social Justice seminars. This program is a three-day weekend trip to Washington, D.C. Reform Jewish high school students come from all over the country to learn how to use Judaism to make social change. Throughout the weekend, we heard lectures about important current issues such as homelessness, mental illness, ability, reproductive rights, America’s relationship with Israel, and the Israeli government. We visited the MLK memorial and spent a long time at the Holocaust museum.
We also got to choose two programs about current issues. I have attended programs on LGBTQ policy issues, the separation of church and state, and reproductive rights. At the end of the weekend everyone chooses a topic they feel passionate about and writes a speech that we will use the following day to lobby at the Capitol. There is nothing like talking to an elected official about something with which you feel so connected. I am so lucky to have discovered this lens. In everything that we absorb over the course of the weekend, we learn from a Reform Jewish perspective. This first trip with the RAC was when I really started to find my Jewish identity.
This was also the first time I discovered how passionate I was about reproductive rights. When learning about abortion laws, we studied sections of the Talmud: “If woman’s labor becomes life threatening, the one to be born is dismembered in her abdomen. . . for her life comes before the life of the fetus. Once most of the child has emerged it is not to be touched, for one soul is not to be put aside another” (Mishna, Ohalot – 7:6).
After studying this text and others like it, I felt proud to be apart of a community that gives women the right to their own bodies. This quote moves me: “Women are commanded to care for the health and well-being of their bodies above all else” (Maimonides, Mishneh Torah).
I had never been more proud to be Jewish. Knowing that my personal opinions and beliefs were very similar to what the Talmud says are very reassuring. Reflecting back on these RAC weekends, I really can understand and relate to Bonnie Thornton Dill when she writes, “intersectionality is a tool for social justice.”
I lobbied on Capitol Hill in support of reproductive rights as a Jew, a teen, a woman, and all the other parts of me. Intersectionality is a way for me to express all parts of me at once.
