Is Google sexist or just the people who use it?

This provocative UN advertisement campaign shows different women with their mouths covered by the Google search bar filling in the most frequently searched headings following: “women cannot…” “women shouldn’t….” This campaign reveals many hurtful truths about how major portions of our society view women.

http://www.bforbel.com/2013/10/un-womens-ad-reveals-disheartening-sexism-on-the-internet.html

We have a long way to go…

Sexism exists everywhere we look in society. The following link has several video clips by the Representation Project. The first video celebrates many of the wins women have had in the media in 2015, but also counters those wins with the countless normalized and glorified representations of abuse, violence, racialization and sexualization that dominate the media.

http://therepresentationproject.org/resources/videos/

Transgender Questions

Society has silenced gender fluidity and expression in countless ways, creating a strict binary. It is so necessary to push back and challenge society’s narrow and abusive definitions of gender. Ignorance perpetuates violence, empower yourself with knowledge to create a safe more inclusive society for us all.
everything-you-always-wanted-to-know-about-transgender-peopl

A Cautionary tale for self-proclaimed “Allies”

Initially, I was excited about the website: Itspronoucedmetrosexual

I have seen the Genderbread Person used frequently and thought it was a great explanation for the fluidity of gender expression and identity. I even downloaded the free digital copy of the book by Sam Killermann.

However, when I posted a link to the free digital copy of the book on my Facebook I found myself quickly informed by a couple of my activist friends that the book was entirely based on plagiarized material. My friend Sean Waldbillig, commented: “The info is important, but just remember it's not his work first. A lot of work, culture, and art has been coopted from marginalized communities. Much of it is the coopting of the knowledge of Black and Indigenous peoples (specifically women of colour) by white people.”

 Another friend posted this website which researches the entire investigation of the intersectional appropriation of the Genderbread Person: https://storify.com/cisnormativity/the-genderbread-plagiarist. Which states, “Mr. Killermann didn't mention how what he'd seen online may have been the collective working efforts of trans people and, instead of building a new brand from their work, maybe he should have been finding ways to advocate for them by boosting their voices in their name. That kind of selfless advocacy is how one earns the respect of being seen as an ally by those who experience intersectional marginalization and violence.”

This website includes an interesting visual history of the origins of the Genderbread Person Infographic. It also discusses the problems with the simplification found in all the Genderbread Person info graphics and is a very informative read.

We need to ensure that we are not applauding and rewarding members of dominant groups who steal intellectual knowledge and speak “for” marginalized communities while silencing the voices of those very communities they are pretending to advocate on behalf of.

Would you ask a heterosexual that question?

This wiki site provides some quick tips on respectfully engaging with Transgender folks. Educators need to ensure that an inclusive classroom culture is at the top of our priority list. Make sure to reflect on how you may be asking unnecessary or invasive questions.

Respect-a-Transgender-Person

"Creating Schools that Value Sexual Diversity"

“Creating Schools that Value Sexual Diversity” is an article by Elizabeth J. Meyers that discusses the silencing of student sexuality. “Sexual diversity is all around us, although it is often invisible and silenced. Schools cannot make the controversies surrounding sexual diversity disappear by ignoring them,” (p. 188). Below is the link to the PDF.

http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1012&context=coe_dean

The Day I Started To Acknowledge Systemic Racism

A visual article that creates an analogy of systemic racism as poison in the water system.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/nathanwpyle/the-day-i-started-to-acknowledge-systematic-racism#.bmyDEpQwm