top ten videos

While I often feel saddened by the attachment that our society has developed to our electronics, media, and various portable technological accessories, I have to say that I also feel grateful for the increased awareness (though sometimes misguided and misinformed) of all things that open and increased access to information has enabled.

I spend an embarrassingly large amount of time each day reading articles, watching YouTube videos, following memes, etc., but I like to think that it has been productive on most days, by making me laugh, making me cry, making me smile, making me angry, or making me scratch my head.

For this reason, I've decided to compile a list of my top ten favorite videos, found on the internet:

1. This marriage equality advocacy piece from GetUp in Australia.

2. This parody of the big honchos reactions and behavior following the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico on GOOD's blog.

3. Dancing Matt's "Where the Hell is Matt?" videos. Particularly the one from 2008 because I love the song.

4. This amazing beatboxing performance.

5. My college friend Sam Haynor's short film "The Janitor."

6. Secretary Hillary Clinton's speech at the 2011 Human Rights Convention in Geneva.

7. This incredible and moving speech from Severn Suzuki, a 12-year old girl from Canada, the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development.

8. This video history (documentary) of the gay rights movement in the United States, by Ryan James Yezak.

9. An "African" version of Paradise or "Peponi" by Coldplay, performed by the Piano Guys and Alex Boye.

10. Rha Goddess' "Advocates Anthem"

drum circle

This afternoon, I visited Meridian Hill Park in NW Washington, DC for the first time and witnessed the famous Sunday afternoon drum circle. IT. WAS. BEAUTIFUL.

I sat out in the park, watching a wonderfully diverse group of something like 15-20 people with West African drums, Asian drums, drums taken off of rock drum kits, all moving and following the same group cadence that swelled and died down like one unit. With the light breeze, 70-degree weather, and bright Spring sunshine cutting through the budding trees, it felt like a perfect afternoon.

I had one particularly strange experience, though. Nothing overt, offensive, or scary, though. Just tears. While listening to the drums and looking at the group drumming, moving, swaying, an elderly couple, an old man in tattered clothes pushing a simple wheelchair carrying an old woman in worn clothes, came to the circle. The old woman's face lit up as she listened to the drums, and the old man took his seat in the circle, borrowing another person's drum to join the rhythm. For some reason, the sight of them brought to life by the sounds and the sun, the thought of this old woman relying on her old male companion to live each day made me think of all the difficulties that people fight each day and night, and I started crying. I have no idea what made my mind wander that way. Perhaps a product of my work.

I spend 40-45 hours a week thinking, reading, writing, and analyzing data about those who are barely hanging onto their dignity and their lives, forced to cash in their retirement funds to pay to keep the lights on at night; driven to live in anonymity and silence for fear of being sent away from their children, their families, their homes; waking to the expectation that each day will bring a torrent of verbal, physical, and mental abuse from hateful peers and classmates; and so many other tragedies.

I always thought that studying these things would lead me to a greater appreciation of things that I do have. I think that is the case, but it's also bestowed me with the constant awareness of the pain, the difficulty, and suffering that is experienced by another person at the same time that I get to sit in the sun, feeling the comforting warmth on my face, listening to the beating of a circle of drums at the park.

international women's day eve

Tomorrow is International Women's Day. I don't really know what that means, because to tell you the truth, being a steadfast progressive feminist whose job it is to be a feminist researcher, every day is women's day for me. But I'm glad that the world has decided to use this day to think about women, the progress made towards gender equity and civil rights for all sexes, the failures, and the work that there is left to be done.

I would try to be more positive...but, holy crap, is there work left to be done.

Yesterday, I went to a panel discussion at the beautiful Sewall-Belmont House on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, where a few researchers debated single-sex public education. At some point, Christina Hoff Sommers, a well-known (and in my opinion, ridiculously offensive) critic of 20th-century feminism, said something suggesting that there are few women in fields such as engineering, computer science, and construction because they just don't want to be, that women just happen to like journalism, teaching, and nursing. Sure. I'm certain that there are women out there that like journalism, teaching, and nursing. But I'm appalled that she failed to acknowledge that known barriers that exist to women entering traditionally male sectors of work and areas of study.

Our offices still get prank calls from idiotic men who think it's funny to harass junior staff and interns with requests for blow jobs and sandwiches.

And let's just say "GOP" and leave it at that. I think it's pretty self-explanatory as to how that shows how much work is left to be done. Ugh.

Anyways, a big raspberry to all of those backwards-minded misogynist, sexist, anti-feminist, pro-patriarchy turds, and a big "HELL YEAH" to all of the many out there who stand up against sexual harassment, pay discrimination, racism (yes. race and ethnicity are factors here), disenfranchisement, fear-mongering, stereotyping, and the various and creative ways in which societies have decided to keep women bound. Here's to women and all the amazing contributions they have made and will make in the world.