Rowan

Dec 8, 2017
AM Class
Womens Rights and Movements: Supporting Them on Both Sides of the Border

Introduction

I have chosen this topic because it is something that I feel very strongly about and have a
very strong connection to. What drew me into choosing this topic is the fact that I am a woman
and there are still a lot of injustices done against women. I feel that there is a lot of speaking out,
although there could be more, but not a lot of listening or changes in action. Women are
becoming bolder about speaking up and out for womens rights and against all of the injustices
that they face. I think that people dont really listen or try to understand problems unless the
person speaking out has high status in society, or there is a large event where so many people
speak out they have no choice but to hear it.
At the onset of our project, a product that I thought would help people hear the problems
could be a mural and march. I want to create a mural with a focus on Womens Rights. I want it
to show women that they have power and choice in the world. Even if it isnt evident, they have
a voice and can do great good. I want the mural to include lesser-known women in history who
have had a great impact, and to use images that convey the inequality that women often
experience. My plan was to work with multiple people researching this topic, and to make
something that will have a lasting impact on the community. I also want to coordinate a march
for womens rights and have people speak out for womens rights and against any injustices they
have felt related to that topic.
Discussing women's rights evokes strong feelings within many, as I have observed;
whether those feelings are good or bad, people I have spoken with are almost never neutral on
the subject. Whenever the subject of womens rights comes up, the subject of feminists comes
up. Feminism would be the high end of the spectrum, where they feel strongly against the
injustices that women face. What I know about Womens March in January 2017 is that they
encouraged all women to voice their opinions and share what matters to them and all women. As
for murals, I know that they allow the community to learn something visually while enjoying a
nice piece of art.
As I began thinking about my ideas, I wondered if I need a permit in order to organize a
march, and who I need permission from in order to create a mural? I wanted to figure out who I
wanted to paint the mural of, and what I want it to depict. I also wanted to know what it takes in
order to plan a public march. I want to know how much work it takes and what it entails for it to
be successful. I wanted the mural to be easy to understand and to teach people something
through the art.
In order to answer my questions, I wanted to talk to the coordinators of the Womens
March that took place in San Diego in January of this year. Talking to the coordinators could
help me coordinate another march, in both San Diego and Tijuana, and hopefully help it be
successful. I also want to talk to some womens rights enthusiasts, as doing this would help me
understand more in what to convey in both the mural and the march. I also wanted to talk to
people who paint murals. Talking to these people will help me understand everything I need to
do and how and what I need to prepare for the mural. Overall, I think talking to these people
could have helped me accomplish my goals very well.

Search Process

When I first started researching, I wasnt sure where to start. There were a million
different angles I wanted to take. The first step was reading a book in class, Into the Beautiful
North, by Luis Alberto Urrea. It highlighted some things that are important to women, such as
having women in political power and teenage heroines leading the groups crossing the border.
When I started searching for sources, the route I first took was finding women in history
who made a big impact and who were lesser known. I took this path because I wanted to include
them in my mural. I ended up straying from this path a little bit and researching more about the
march I want to plan and less about the mural. I ended up reaching out to a coordinator of the SD
chapter of the Womens March and interviewed her.
Interviewing her was very informative. She was very helpful. She gave me an advice on
how to plan another march and execute it successfully. She gave me new people to contact who
could help me as well. She was talking about how she went about planning the march and what
went into it. She was talking about how we could get our march out there for people to see and
hopefully come and participate in. One thing that stood out to me from the interview was the she
said that we needed a good strong message and to have a unified voice and that will help us
immensely. We will have something meaningful and consistent to keep coming back to and put
out there. It will help the people know what it is about.
The women that I researched were Edmonia Lewis, who was the first African American
professional artist, and Hedy Lamarr, who was the inventor of the technology that is used in
phones and wifi. I researched these women because I wanted to put them into my mural and
maybe some others as well, to show that there are a lot of women who made a big difference in
history but arent necessarily remembered. Researching and looking for women who have made
a difference and arent very well known helped me and let me know some of the women
throughout history and what they have done to better the world. After learning this, I felt that it is
something that a lot of people should know and I was wondering why more people dont know
about them.
One additional topic that I researched is the #niunamenos movement, which means
not one less. This is a movement against femicide, and it means not one less women. This
movement brings to light all of the femicides that have been happening and I think that it is very
powerful. There is also a sister movement, #niunamas, which means not one more. This
movement is against femicide as well and means not one more woman. These movements gave
me a lot of inspiration for the mural and I am really looking forward to incorporating them into
my final product.

Search Results

According to the information in the article This is What We Learned by Counting the
Womens Marches, published by the Washington Post, millions of people came out to support
womens rights. In total, the womens march involved between 3,267,134 and 5,246,670 people
in the United States (our best guess is 4,157,894). That translates into 1 percent to 1.6 percent of
the U.S. population of 318,900,000 people (our best guess is 1.3 percent) (Chenoweth).
Womens rights is an issue that many people believe in, and want to help. As a result of my
research I have found that a lot of people support women's rights around the world and are
willing to go above and beyond to not only show that they care, but that they actually want to
make a difference.
During an interview with Kelsey Wadman, a coordinator of the recent women's march, I
talked with her about women's rights, the march she helped coordinate, and how I might go
about planning another march. You need a good strong message because it gives you something
to go back to and so you have a consistent message that youe putting out there, you want to have
a unified voice. She gave us this advice after hearing what we felt strongly about and what we
had started as our message. We want to help do our part to equalize societys gender norms and
recognize people who are trying to change them. This was a message that I had put some thought
into and I felt it captured our beliefs on the subject of womens rights.
Not only did we talk to Kelsey, but we also talked to a prevention coordinator from the
Center for Community Solutions, Sarah Diamond. We talked to Sarah about her work with
sexual harassment and assault and what the Center for Community Solutions is. Center for
Solutions is a non-profit here in San Diego that helps survivors of domestic violence and sexual
assault. We have lots of different services for people whove experienced sexual assault, such as
advocacy, support people, we have legal services, we have counseling services. But what I get to
do is the prevention and education work. Sarah talked with us about defying gender norms and
how its normal to not fit into societys gender boxes. She was saying that something she teaches
is that we arent disney princesses and they arent good role models. They fit into societys box
for women perfectly, and have no traits other than what is to be a true or normal woman. She
talked with us about ways to help prevent sexual harassment/assault by speaking up to the level
you are comfortable with. You want to make sure that you are 100 percent comfortable with how
you are speaking out and how you are trying to prevent it, whether it be by stopping the act from
happening or alerting someone who will stop the act for you. Talking with Sarah about sexual
harassment/assault and gender norms gave us even more inspiration to plan and create another
march.
 After the interviews I wanted to know even more about the womens march that shook
the world. I did some digging and found an article. The article gives a lot of statistics about the
march and explains about why the march happened. But if a march inspires, convenes and
energizes, it can catalyze a great deal of change. Very large movements are more likely to
translate their goals into real political, social, and political change, particularly as they expand
their networks into leverage (Chenoweth). There were marches all over the world. In the U.S.
there were at least 653 different marches with hundreds, possibly more people at each one.
About 68 percent had about 1,000 or fewer participants (Chenoweth). The womens march on
Washington had sister marches in international locales ranging from Antarctica to Zimbabwe.
We found at least 261 marches abroad, with attendance totaling between 266,532 and 357,071
people (our best guess is 307,275 people) (Chenoweth).
Similar to the marchs message, there is a movement in Latin America that is slowly
making its way everywhere else. As Abbate explained to Argentina Independent, the framing
was open to all: Ni Una Menos belongs to everyone, and there are groups who want to identify
as Ni una Menos in the other provinces and parts of the country who unexpectedly use our logo
to promote their local demands (Friedman). The Ni Una Menos Ni Una Mas movement is one
with great meaning. It means not one woman less, not one more death, the movement is against
femicide and gender violence. In this society abuse is so normal, that we still think women are
the ones that provoked it (Friedman). This movement started in Argentina with a day called,
Black Wednesday. Black Wednesday was a day for everyone who was willing to take a stand
for womens rights to wear black to show that they support. One lecturer recalled going to teach
her class wearing black in solidarity with Argentine women, only to find that many of her
students were wearing black as well (Friedman). It didnt stop with black wednesday, there
were different protests that had an impressive attendance. On June 3, 2015, the first massive Ni
Una Menos demonstration against gender violence gathered 300,000 people in front of the
National Congress and in major cities around the country (Friedman). People were chanting,
singing, and yelling all in favor of what they believe in. Not even one women less! We want us
all alive!, thousands marches and sang, drummed and yelled (Friedman). This protest was so
powerful, it is to my understanding that this march helped with the new laws regarding violence
against women. Nearly every Latin American country outlawing some form of violence against
women in the last two decades (Friedman).
After interviewing everyone and completing my research, I concluded that marches and
protests of any kind are very powerful political tools and, if done correctly, can lead to real
change. It may just be a small change at first, like having someone look into your cause and
become passionate about it, or someone in a position of power might take notice and help your
cause, or it might be somewhere in between. I learned that even the smallest things can spiral
into great things.

Reflection
 Research
I learned a lot from my research. Not just facts, doing this project helped me learn how to
research more effectively and learn some new researching techniques. Researching took longer
than I thought it would and made me wonder if there would be enough time to complete our
product afterwards. In the time we were given, I was able to have two interviews that were super
helpful to me. They gave me insight to womens rights and sexual harassment/assault. I really
enjoyed researching about and interviewing people about my topic. I truly learned a lot. There
was a lot about marches that I learned, including how to plan a march and how to create a
successful message.
Speaking of messages, we had to create a papel picado that represented our topic and had
a message that supported it. My message was Ni Una Menos, I chose this message because it
resonated with me and I thought that it supported my papel picado really well. Cutting the papel
picado was a long, hard, and tedious process. Mine was very detailed and had a lot of small
things to cut out, so it took me forever. I had to be very careful that it didnt rip. My final did rip
and I totally freaked out, but I was able to fix it with a little tape. When I was cutting the rest out
I was praying that it wouldnt rip because I didnt have time to restart. Finishing the papel picado
felt so accomplishing, to have something that I had gone through a lot of drafts with and worked
on for so long finally finished just felt good.
Our chats with IMAN werent that helpful for me regarding research, considering I didnt
ask my partner about my topic, but they were very enjoyable in making connections with new
friends across the border. We were able to talk to each other and get to know each other more
and more with each chat. There were some complications, such as, there were a couple of times
where we didnt have school or they didnt pick up, there was one time where I was out sick so I
didnt get to talk with my partner that week. Other than the few complications that we had, the
chats were very successful and very fun but awkward at the same time. It was a good
combination though, both groups really clicked and were able to get along really well. When the
IMAN students came and visited us, it started out a bit awkward because we didnt know what to
say but then once we started talking we really started rolling. The conversation never came to an
awkward pause, just a pause to think about more to say. I felt that we really got to know our
partners better and we got the chance to connect with them on another level than we had the
chance to on Skype calls. I think that we all connected and bonded really well together.

As a result of this research I have chosen to create a mural with my colleagues who are
studying womens rights as well. We want it to depict the struggle for women and the
inequalities we face. We learned a lot about the inequalities that women face and we want to help
bring them to light. We read multiple articles about protests that fueled our fires and really
launched us into researching womens rights. There were really powerful articles that moved me,
whether they were talking about protests, movements, or new laws being made, the articles that I
chose each moved me in a different way. That was why I chose them.
 I enjoyed researching this topic because the articles that I read and the people that I
interviewed gave me new insights into these issues, and more facts about womens rights than I
ever had before.
 Works Cited

Chenoweth, Erica, and Jeremy Pressman. Analysis | This Is What We Learned by Counting the
Womens Marches. The Washington Post, WP Company, 7 Feb. 2017,
www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/02/07/this-is-what-we-learned-by-
counting-the-womens-marches/?utm_term=.50f4212f6e3c.

Diamond, Sarah. Personal Interview. November 13, 2017

Edmonia Lewis. Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 1 Feb. 2017,

www.biography.com/people/edmonia-lewis-9381053.

Friedman, Elisabeth Jay, and Constanza Tabbush. #NiUnaMenos: Not One Woman Less, Not
One More Death! NACLA, NACLA, 1 Nov. 2016, nacla.org/news/2016/11/01/niunamenos-not-
one-woman-less-not-one-more-death.

Hedy Lamarr. Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 28 Apr. 2017,

www.biography.com/people/hedy-lamarr-9542252.

Precita Eyes Muralists. Precita Eyes Muralists, www.precitaeyes.org/.

Wadman, Kelsey. Personal Interview. October 31, 2017