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            The phrase "feminism unbound" is strange to me. I thought at first I understood it, but when we began to discuss this phrase in class, I got even more confused. So I sat down to think about it on my own. I thought about the rigors of society, the boundaries have set for ourselves and others, the world we have been told should exist. As someone who has chosen to go to an all-women's college I know I follow certain boundaries within the walls of Bryn Mawr College, regulations the college sets for me. I began to think of similar institutions. A friend of mine also goes to a single-sex institution, Wabash College, an all-men's college in Indiana. Wabash sets regulations for its students as well. A potential new regulation is a gender studies graduation requirement. This debate struck a chord with me, especially when I discovered the contorted view of gender studies some members of the institution had created around this issue . . .

            "[The] wimpy, neutralized guys that gender feminists are trying to create:  men who are not committed to constructive struggle and conflict and fighting for a cause and coming out the winner." (Michaloski and Allman) This statement was made by Dr. David P. Kubiak, a Classics professor at Wabash College in relation to the debate at Wabash over the proposition of a gender studies graduation requirement.

Today is cold and snows heavily. I went to Barne's Museum in the afternoon. When I arrived at the museum, I was tired and upset because of the bad weather. However, the museum inside was pretty warm, which delight me a lot. Everyone has been there, thus I think I do not need to describ more. I enjoyed the artworks and found interest during the 30-minutes observation.

...during our go-round, after dim sum, @ my home this evening, to report on the time you spend on your own, during your final jaunt in the city for the semester, please do so here-and-now--with images, if you have them. thanks!

(I thought we were going to write a paper about this so I didn't wrote everything I wanted to say. So I added something later. )

The mural surprised me. I expected it to be color blocks and white letters according to the photos, but it was more than that. There were portraits on the color blocks and scribbles of very hopeful words on the letters. Comfort. Voice. Inspired. Dreaming. Attitude. Love. Soul. We believe life. I thought the letters should be completely white in order to shine and be seen from afar, but in fact they are filled with scribbles. I guess things don't have to be impeccable to be brilliant. 

The area can't be called aesthetically beautiful. It is run-down and imperfect indeed. But exactly because of that, it has potential for improvement. It has hope. 

The weren't much people on the street and all the stores were closed except Chinese restaurants, so I was having a hard time looking for a souvenir. Then I saw a girl's abandoned boot on the ground, bright pink in the white snow. I thought it might be a good representation of that area but picking it up and taking it all the way seems really creepy. So I just took these photos of different other murals.  

We spend our lives saturated with the ideas in media. We experience different types of media in varying degrees depending mostly on our positions in social power structures, but we all experience it. It is where the value system of our society is taught; it is where the foundations of our mythology our formed. Patriarchy is disseminated through media, where it affects the participants in and the audience of the media.

Unbinding Power Feminism

It’s easy to envision feminism as female CEOs breaking the glass ceiling, or an upper class woman who seems to “have it all” and lets nothing in her way. Many think of this as evidence that feminism is pushing women closer to equality to men. However, they forget that this is only pushing certain (and privileged) women towards equality. As with any other movement, the voice that everyone seems to hear in the feminist movement is the voice that has the most power. Privileged (often white, upper class, and educated) women seem to shape what the mainstream view of feminism is, pushing the voices that strive for equality not only in terms of gender, but also race and class. This creates a “feminism” that works within a system that caused oppression in the first place. This “power feminism,” while it helps achieve equality for certain women within the already-standing system, it also promotes the oppression that system caused in the first place.

The definition of unbinding is formally “to release from bonds or restraints.” When I think of feminism unbound, I think of it in terms of unbinding the traditional idea of feminism, “queering” it in the sense that normative views and ideas on feminism are released from bonds or restraints. Everything goes beyond the surface of its normative definition and in this case, feminism and mourning can be related in terms of unbinding traditional definitions of the two. Mourning on the surface is grieving the loss of something or someone that meant something to you. Mourning an idea sounds like it is making a mockery of the process, how can you mourn something that was all in your head? Unbinding the traditional sense of mourning offers that mourning can be a process done by anyone for anything that has been lost.

     The first wave of feminism was characterized by its overwhelming strength and empowered voice for the women who had been oppressed by the male gender.  During that era, feminism became a radical notion supported by women who would not be silenced by a ruling class.  Since then, the dynamics of feminism have changed to focus on intersectional identities as a more inclusive method of removing a broader oppressive force.  However, a negative stereotype concerning feminists has persisted, enforcing the idea that anyone who identifies with a feminist policy is automatically a flaming radical who harbors a deep hatred of the male gender.  While many feminists still fight against a traditional, male-dominated society that is still present, post-modern feminists are beginning to focus their attention on a more general entity that is being oppressive.  This new sector of modern feminists looks less at oppression in terms of gender but as a force brought on by anyone suppressing a voice or opinion.  It is time for the negative stereotype surrounding feminists to be deconstructed and unbound so that the feminist movement can be accessible to all intersectional identities.

Introduction

Within feminism, there is an extension known as Black feminism. Black feminism was developed with the belief that sexism and gender oppression are not the only issues that bind women together. It instead argues that sexism along with classism and racism are all interconnected, forming an intersectional identity. When the Black feminist movement was developed, many people felt that there were feminists out there in the mainstream who wanted to overcome sexism along with classism, but left race out of the equation. Black feminists wanted to show that race could be used against women as a tool for discrimination. It is therefore unique in the fact that it was started by unbinding itself from the second wave feminist movement. I’ve decided to explore two layers of feminism unbound by examining how black feminism itself had been unbinded. In order to do this I will be referencing a video-recorded conversation that I had with my Mom about her experiences with black feminism as a teenager in the 1970s and comparing it with my experiences from today.

Feminism Unbound/Black Diaspora

In March of 2013, New York Magazine posted an incredibly controversial trend piece titled The Retro Wife by Lisa Miller. The article features the stories of two progressive, “neo-traditionalist” women, Kelly Makino and Rebecca Woolf, who have decided to become the primary caretakers, also known as “homemakers” or “housewives,” of their families. The narratives of Makino and Woolf were aimed at exposing an alternative and empowering path for women, one drifts from the Lean In feminist mentality presented by Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook. Miller believes that Sandberg’s book “argues that the new revolution needs to start with women themselves, that what’s needed to equalize U.S. workplaces is a generation of women tougher, stronger, wilier, more honest about their ambition, more strategic, and more determined to win than American women currently are” (Miller). Shortly after this description, we encounter Miller’s complete doubt and hesitation to support this manifesto, stating that not all mothers can sacrifice the urgent demands of their families in order to become workingwomen. At this moment she reveals the true intentions behind the article—to promote and commemorate modern day “feminists” who make the decision to not pursue a demanding career.