Service Learning Activism Log #2

Activism: This week, I alone represented our Global class at the Woman to Woman Conference at the Hope Community Center in Apopka. To be perfectly honest, I was very disappointed in the turnout from our class because it was my understanding that this or the AMA event, which no one went to either, would be the component that would connect our class's experiences to women, and I now hold significant reservations about how well we have managed to do so.


More importantly, however, YAYA definitely made the best out of what could have been a bad situation, considering that we had intended to mobilize ten YAYAs and only had six. We had a great time playing with the kids, and it was very gratifying to know that farmworker women could learn valuable information without having to worry about domestic constraints. This is the last week of our project, but I plan to stay involved with YAYA in the coming months, including the FLOC mobilization to North Carolina, so that's exciting. In terms of the group dynamics, I think that the group of YAYAs we mobilized was diverse enough to replicate coalitions of people from multiple backgrounds, as would be the case in transnational activism, and at this point, I consider most of them very close friends.


Reflection: Lack of access to childcare is a recurring problem in keeping working women oppressed, as their time outside of compulsory labor is spent occupied by the oft-discussed "second shift." Our role in the Woman to Woman conference exemplifies how coalition-building can offset the tremendous toll of managing personal responsibilities with practical politics. Like the "invisible women" discussed in Sharon Navarro's chapter of Women's Activism and Globalization, these women may face "language discrimination, discrimination because they are Mexican, and discrimination because they are women" (89). Their role in the workforce and at home is delegitimated, but the problems they face in both spheres— sexual harassment, domestic violence, issues with reproductive justice, and more—can be offset in some ways through education and community-building amongst themselves, as the work that AMA and the Hope CommUnity Center have been doing indicates. 


Reciprocity: As I've discussed throughout these logs, this project has left a lasting impression on me, not only through learning about organizing and working better in groups, which is an invaluable skill that I was definitely previously lacking, but also in instilling a passion for YAYA and farmworker/labor rights. I cannot say enough positive things about the experiential aspects of this project. While I had expected the aspects of the class focusing on women organizing globally/transnationally to be more apparent or stressed in some ways, learning to cooperate, mince words while remaining decisive and assertive in my communication, and generally just meet people where they're at to a greater extent has been much more important, ultimately lasting progress for me.

Works Cited

Navarro, Sharon A. "Las Mujeres Invisibles/The Invisible Women."Women's Activism and Globalization: Linking Local Struggles and Transnational Politics. By Nancy A. Naples and Manisha Desai. New York: Routledge, 2002. 83-98. Print.

Girls Like Us Response

"Many girls, even in this country [emphasis mine], are growing up in a society that does not provide real and viable opportunities for the future. At the same time, they're living in a culture that increasingly teaches them that their worth and value are defined by their sexuality. Parallels can be found between girls in poverty in this country and girls in poverty internationally, as well as with girls growing up over one hundred years ago. In an article on the commercial sexual exploitation of girls and the abolitionist movement in Victorian England, author Deborah Gorham writes of a young woman who "allowed herself to be entrapped in a French brothel because life had given her little reason to believe that any genuinely satisfactory possibility existed for her. In a society that told a girl who had no possessions that her chastity, at least, was a 'precious possession,' some young girls might well have been led to believe that they might as well sell that possession to the highest bidder." If the word chastity were replaced by sexuality or body, then this paragraph could easily have been written about commercially sexually exploited and trafficked girls today in the United States" (82).

As I read Rachel Lloyd, I find myself becoming increasingly frustrated at the disempowerment she clearly believes is not only inherent to the forcible domestic trafficking of young girls, but also sex work in general. Though that passage is concerned with "girls," the fact remains that she talks about sex work as an absolute indignity, the universal product of girls not believing they have more to offer the world than their "bodies." In flashing to memories of herself as a young girl, scared and exploited, Lloyd seems to imply that her story is the norm, or worse, that she got off easy. Part of this discourse is explaining that prostitution often includes forcible victimization in the form of unreported rape. Often, when rape is reported, it is not taken seriously by people in power, leading to a hierarchy that treats prostitutes as less than human (126). Yet rather than question the neoliberal economic policies that force girls/women to feel that prostitution is desirable or at least passable labor that involves informed consent, or engage with a discourse that dehumanizes women in any way, regardless of their choices, Lloyd resorts to comments about women lacking self-respect due to the culture, and in no way recognizes those choices as affirmative. Furthermore, she uses the crutch of Western difference and American exceptionalism to reaffirm the arbitrary division of "us" vs. "them," "over here" and "over there."

Rachel Lloyd's perspective is clearly shaping a macro-level discourse of consent and the universality of sex work as social ill. Human trafficking and sex work as viewed from an abolitionist perspective have become fashionable social issues, which is how we end up with articles such as "Child Sex Trafficking Growing in the U.S.: 'I Got My Childhood Taken From Me'." In presenting human trafficking from the perspective of Demi Moore, a celebrity face for abolitionism, as well as through the lens of conservative politics, as with the quotation from a Republican representative, this article is complicit in the meaning-making of sex trafficking victims as the products of a broken system or flawed family structures. Because she is so young, obviously the girl discussed is not presented as having a choice, yet I find Girls Like Us and articles of this ilk to be much too interested in this poverty-based, possibly racialized narrative, as though it is enough to say that not receiving enough love at home because of financial constraints is a nuanced analysis. The individual reasons should be delved into more thoroughly, as that determines so much about how people respond to this choice discourse.

Works Cited

Khan, Huma. "Child Sex Trafficking Growing in the U.S.: 'I Got My Childhood Taken From Me'" ABC News. ABC News Network, 05 May 2010. Web. 9 Apr. 2012. <http://abcnews.go.com/US/domestic-sex-trafficking-increasing-united-states/story?id=10557194>.

Service Learning Activism Log #1.

1) Activism: This past week, I went to the Viva la Causa movie screening, and as a whole, our class took the big trip to Fellsmere for our community garden project! It was very productive. In terms of community partner contact, we were all divided into cars with at least one YAYA core member, so we were able to form more meaningful, intentional bonds between the class and YAYA. I also attended the YAYA meeting and we debriefed on our successes and failures. Personally, I think we can always engage with the communities we are associating with more, but that was collectively considered a success more than other aspects of the trip. We all agreed class members could have respected the space a bit better, especially with regard to cell phone usage and constant, mindful engagement with those around us. This week, though the coalition building aspect of our project was conducted relatively without incident, we did have to branch out beyond what has become the safe bubble of our class sphere, and that requires engaging with people who we don't know and may not even be able to communicate with without translators. These kinds of social discomfort are no doubt routine in the scheme of global activism. In general, we are still struggling with finding the women in our project, though we were all very inspired by Yolanda and the work she does, along with the several other strong women who make the community garden possible. Regardless, this project is in no way losing steam just because its largest component is over. We're looking forward to the Woman 2 Woman Conference and establishing those connections with a greater degree of clarity.
2) Reflection: Our community garden helped me put into perspective the impact of what we've discussed about fair food. Daniel's discussion about working to learn how to tend the garden through trial and error was fascinating, but also very inspiring. As we have discussed before, one way to offset the incredible toll that farm work takes on the laborer, especially in their sense of morale when enduring terrible working conditions, is through "produc[ing] food for local consumption" (Desai 24). Being a part of that, being able to clear a huge plot of land and then see what a garden looks like when it's done, which is how the plot we cleared will look with any luck, was a really great feeling. The community garden perfectly incapsulates the localization movement that has been a response to globalization, and it was a very personally rewarding thing to be involved in.

3) Reciprocity: I learned that radishes grow in twenty-two days! Listening to Daniel talk about gardening was so interesting and I honestly could have stayed much longer, had it not started raining. Beyond that, being in YAYA has allowed me to build relationships with my classmates and my community, and I see it building my leadership potential in new and exciting ways for the future. At the YAYA meeting on Sunday, Nena, Sara, Cole, and I volunteered to plan a benefit show for the grant YAYA is trying to learn, and not only will that allow me to interact with many of my friends from the music and social community in Orlando, but it will also build my event planning skills for future fundraising and nonprofit work.

Works Cited

Desai, Manisha. Women's Activism and Globalization: Linking Local Struggles and Transnational Politics. 

By Nancy A. Naples and Manisha Desai. New York: Routledge, 2002. Print.