Education Designed to Give Experience

My name is Kelsey Steed.

(I'm the colorful one in the middle)

I'm a Junior psychology major at Southern Utah University. In October of 2013 I helped to organize a week on my campus to raise support for the LGBTQ community along with the Queer Straight Alliance (QSA) at SUU. There were a number of activities that happened on the week of October 7, which lead up to National Coming Out Day on Friday, October 11 and the SUU Homecoming Parade on October 12.

The week started off on Monday when the NOH8 photo shoot was held. It was an event open to the entirety of campus. NOH8 is a "a charitable organization whose mission is to promote marriage, gender and human equality through education, advocacy, social media, and visual protest".  QSA helped to put on the event with the permission of the official NOH8 campaign as well as the photography club at SUU who took on the responsibility of taking the pictures.

(Painting NOH8 on cheeks before taking pictures)

On Tuesday, QSA held their weekly meeting on campus. The weekly meetings are a chance for students on SUU, members of the LGBTQ community, allies, or anyone on campus who wishes to attend, to come together and socialize. They are able to just hang out with one another, talk about current events and issues, and have a space on campus to meet. The meeting held on that particular week was a social meeting, so members gathered to just hang out with one another and play games.

(Let's play some games!)

Wednesday and Thursday were both used to do prep for the Homecoming Parade, but Friday was National Coming Out Day. We set up a three-sided, black painted closet on the business quad that students were encouraged to sign with chalk to show their support of LGBTQ individuals. It was so much fun because it was a real chance to be out on campus and raising visibility, not to mention the chance to interact with the student body. 

(Our closet, complete with signatures)

(A student signs in support)

Finally, the week was ended off with the QSA's participation in the Homecoming Parade. Members helped to decorate the care and walked with the club. One of the goals of QSA is to be able to increase visibility on campus and in the community. Events like the Homecoming Parade are great ways to increase that visibility while also being involved in a campus wide event. 

(Our little car is going over the rainbow)

It was such a blast to be able to help plan all the activities that went on during the week, and to be able to work with all the amazing people who helped to make it happen. It was a lot of work and planning, but in the end we were able to help get some real visibility for the club, as well as plan some great events for all SUU students to participate in. So much hate grows from ignorance, and I really believe that events like this, giving people a chance to learn more about a group of people or and organization, can help to cultivate understanding and help us all to know each other a little bit better.

Taking a Step Back

Some days I feel like I need to take a break from the internet.

The troubling thing is, I never know which side I'm more disappointed at. In a perfect world the internet and social media would be a place for the spread of ideas, a medium to allow people to express themselves and to connect with people they would otherwise have never had the chance of interacting with. Instead, when I look on Facebook, or Twitter, or read the comment section of any article or page, all I see are people in pissing contests with one another in a pointless contest to validate their personal beliefs and prove everyone else wrong. These aren't pleasant discourses either. Some of them make me sick.

A page on Facebook calls itself Heterosexual Awareness Month and mocks the struggle for gay rights and equality in our nation, the people who disagree post hateful and disturbing comments to their page. Their is an article calling for better and safer practices in the adult film industry, the comments section is full of people who cry "that's what you get" and "serves you right". You can't get on Yahoo.com to look at the news without being bombarded by hate and ignorance in every comment, more often than not having nothing to do with the aforementioned news. People are attacked for merely holding opinions, and not only from one side.

There is a preacher who very often comes to my University and stands on a corner outside the library and preaches. Many people simply smile, shrug, stop and listen, or walk on by. However, every now and again there comes along someone who doesn't identify religiously, be they atheist, agnostic, or what please you, and they shout at him. Some shout "praise Satan" and some yell at him, telling him to prove his claims and calling him false. I don't identify as religious, but to see these people decry his "ignorance" with their own makes me stop and reconsider the way we communicate our ideas to one another. Less and less do I find that we do so in a manner than affords respect to the opposite position. We no longer have discussion, we simply try to make ourselves the biggest person in the room, asserting that we must be the right side and disregarding and disrespecting all other views in the process.

I may not agree with every thing everyone around me says, but as I get older I find that I cannot simply dismiss them. To do so would do nothing to expand my understanding and would only leave me ignorant to that point of view. I wish I could look into the world around me and see a similar attitude. This isn't to say that things people say don't still make me angry, or upset, or sick to my stomach, but I have come to the realization that I gain nothing by beginning a fight over the social media used. It only serves to make me look as if I'm insecure in my own beliefs, that I need to assert them in order to validate them, and I don't feel the need to do that. I'm comfortable in the way I live my life and the beliefs that I hold, and nothing I read or see on the internet is going to make me change that. Fighting brings us no closer to understanding, and if I am to have a dialogue with someone, I would much rather have it with them face to face.

Cover up...

Very rarely do things get me so angry that I have to get out my frustration somewhere before I put a foot through a wall or something else of value.

The reason I'm so angry is because I'm disappointed and saddened that in our society these attitudes are still so present. Before I jump into that, here is a screenshot of a blog post recently shared to my timeline by a friend, and the ensuing conversation. I'd like to draw particular attention to the bottom comment, and preface that this was posted along with a very detailed rant by my friend, who I can only assume finds this as saddening and troubling as I did:

The blog post is from a mother concerned with the kinds of photos being posted by girls her sons are friends with on Facebook. If her sons are under 18, I have no issues with her wishing to monitor what her sons view as far as the internet and social media is concerned. While I am not a personal advocate for this sort of monitoring of children, I am not a parent and will not put anyone down for wishing to raise their children this way.

What troubles me about this blog post is not that she want's to monitor her sons Facebook, or that she is concerned with who and what they are viewing. Those things are something that is left to any parents discretion. What does trouble me.... Actually, there are a few things about this that really trouble me.

The first is the tone that she uses throughout the post. Sentences such as " Wow – you sure took a bunch of selfies in your pajamas this summer!" and "Will you trust me?" with such a tone of condescension and judgement, for young women that she may not even personally know. And trust you? Trust you to tell me that I am purposefully trying to lure your sons into impure thoughts? That I have some pictures on Facebook that you don't agree with  I need to "run", of all things, to take them down in order to have value in your eyes? And then, at the very end of this public humiliation of this poor girl who is thankfully never named, the gall to add "I'm glad we're friends". Again, like you're doing this girl a favor, not shaming her for pictures that may give your sons "impure thoughts".

This brings us to the second reason this bothers me so deeply, and that is that it is reinforcing this societal mentality that it isn't the fault of the man should he have impure thoughts, but that it is the fault instead, of the woman. This is illustrated so clearly in the final comment on my friend's post. If you can't read it too clearly from my picture, let me re-quote it for you:

"Um. Lawl.

If you pose provocatively and dress provocatively, you are expecting people to think of you in a provocative manner. Its horribly naieve to think you can dress however you want and not be at least a bit responsible for how someone else thinks. Turning this into a man vs woman appropriateness problem.... double lawl"

I've heard this logic before. Its the same thing that happened in Steubenville, Ohio. No one stopped to say that these boys were responsible for raping and abusing this girl. All I heard anyone say, on almost any news network, was how terrible it was that these boys lives were ruined by it. Yes, those boys lives are ruined, and that girl who was raped, videoed, and put on Youtube will walk away as if nothing has happened having wrongly ended the promising careers of two high school athletes.

And that isn't the only instance. Everyday there are Facebook posts and tweets calling girls who dress less conservatively "sluts" and "whores". Our culture is full of people who are willing to look at a situation and decide "well, look how she was dressed. Clearly she was asking for it." That's convenient for all the guys out there. You don't have to take any responsibility for your actions because you weren't the one at fault. You saw a woman who was dressed in a way you deemed provocative, which you view as a neon sign saying that she's up for anything. If you should do something like make a sexual advance or force something on her that she doesn't want, it's not your fault or responsibility because she was tempting you. It's her fault. And I'm not trying to stereotype all men into this category, but there are a significant number in our society who think this way.

I urge you, whoever is reading this, to do what you can to stop this kind of thinking. Just because a women dresses or acts a certain way NEVER makes her an object, and NEVER makes it okay to blame her. If men can't keep their thoughts "pure", that's on them. It's things like this that poison our society, that make people disregard serious topics like harassment and rape. It tells young girls to always be cautious of everything they do, and that when something terrible does happen to them that they only have themselves to blame. It's disgusting, and it's wrong.

Finally here's the blog post for those of you are interested in reading it:

http://givenbreath.com/2013/09/03/fyi-if-youre-a-teenage-girl/

Try now, to imagine someone writing a blog post criticizing the photo she used of her sons, saying that it is too provocative or that they need to cover up. No one thinks twice, and that is a disturbing double standard in our society.

It Sucks...

I don't often bitch about my own life. Well, right now I'm tired enough to not care.

It sucks sometimes. Everything just sucks.

It sucks to have people lie to your face and then pretend like nothing has happened. It sucks to have your hopes lifted only to have them crushed again, and even worse to not even be surprised by it. To love someone who doesn't love you back. To put forth so much effort into keeping something you believe in alive only to find out the other person could care less. To be tossed aside while they smile and lie "we can still be friends".

It sucks to put your heart out there for someone after you've put in back together, to have them lead you on and then hook up with someone else. It sucks to have them look you in the eye and tell you that nothing's changed when everything has. To have to sit next to them almost everyday and force a smile like your heart isn't breaking. To have them complain about how hard their life is when someone denies their affections and fools around with other people. To sit there and try to feel sorry for them, and realize that you can't. To hate yourself for it.

It's sucks to feel worthless. When you wake up and look in the mirror and wonder why the person looking back at you matters. It sucks to feel scared and ashamed, because if no one has wanted to keep you up to this point, why would anyone want you? To feel like you can't help anyone and that they don't really trust you. To feel like you mean nothing because no one has shown you that you mean anything more.

Sometimes being alive sucks. It sucks to feel like you're forcing yourself forward, forcing smiles because you don't want anyone to worry. It sucks telling people that they need to care about themselves, and feeling like a hypocrite. It sucks not being able to tell anyone because every time you've ever been vulnerable, let someone in, you've been pushed away. To want nothing more than to cry and feel like you have to be strong instead. To want someone to hug you and tell you "it's okay to break down". To want someone who just understands.

It all just really sucks.

Constrictive Gender Roles

I came across this recently while lurking around Facebook:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/11/little-boy-sam-pink-shoes-preschool-photograph_n_2277397.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

And the blog post that it is responding to:

http://thestir.cafemom.com/big_kid/147885/mom_who_let_son_wear

It's about a little five year old boy who wore a pair of pink zebra print shoes to his first day of preschool. This kid has got my respect.

While Mary Fischer, the author of the cafemom.com post, is glad that this boy is expressing himself, she doesn't think that he should. Let's take a moment to wrap our minds around that. She afraid that by so blatantly stepping out of his gender role and wearing pink shoes to school he's inviting the criticism and bullying of others. I agree with her that there probably will be those who will go after this kid for what he wears. What I don't agree with is making it this little boys fault for wearing the shoes that he wants. Why are we concerned that he's doing something that makes him happy, and not about teaching our kids to be accepting of his right to express himself?

She goes on to say that if her six year old were to do the same thing he wouldn't make it through the bus ride without being taunted and "told him he was dressed like a girl". I have an issue with that sentence. We live in a society where we have "boy" and "girl" and god forbid you ever deviate from your prescribed gender role even for a moment because it will open you up for ridicule. Unless you're a girl, then it's okay to wear pants and act tough. Why are we picking on boys and stuffing them into this little box labeled "masculine" and telling them that if they so much as step out of it, for even a moment, they will be ridiculed and bullied or, heaven forbid, be told that they're gay? That worries me far more than a five year old boy wanting to wear pink shoes to school.

This is the society in which we find ourselves. We applaud boys who pick on those who are effeminate and not ideally masculine, we tell them that they're just "boys being boys" and condone their behavior, teach them that it's acceptable. Girls have broken out of their gender roles bit by bit, wearing pants and tee shirts and we look at them and say "wow, look how empowered she is". We look at a man who wears a dress or a skirt and say "wow, what a faggot". And the worst part, as a society, we are completely fine with this. We enforce it in our schools, workplaces, and, maybe worst of all, in our children. We teach girls to go out and be whoever they want to be and we teach boys to go out be good husbands, fathers, never look to feminine, never show too much emotion, never cry, and never be anything less than the perfect and completely unattainable image of a real man or they'll be worth nothing. If you aren't any of these things, for even a moment, you're ridiculed, mocked, and told that you are lower than dirt.

Why?

Please, someone, tell me why because I don't get it. I don't know why we'd go after a little boy who just wants to wear pink shoes to school and not the people who tell him it's wrong. I don't know why girls can wear blue, like hunting, and drive a truck without anyone batting an eyelash but boys who wear pink, like to shop or cook, and dress well are automatically vilified and harassed because as a society we have a problem with it and it's a problem we're not willing to address.

The people like this five year old boy who choose to express themselves aren't the problem, the problem is the people who tell him it's wrong.

I'm completely lost...

For as long as I can remember, I've always been told that if something really serious happens, tell an adult that you feel like you can trust. I only had one situation in my high school career that actual made it to an adult. It was my junior year AP US teacher, and he more or less coaxed the truth out of my after I nearly broke down in class. Other than that I have never really gone to an adult with a problem. Most things I looked at myself in the mirror and said "Don't stress this, it's something you can handle".

That's not the case anymore.

Last night I had a conversation with a friend that really scared me and left me feeling emotionally numb. I spent my whole night feeling scared, despite talking to one of my really good friends who could do little more than assure me that I had done the best that I could do and telling me "you're twenty, you're not equipped to deal with things like this yet". And he was right.

No amount of looking in the mirror and assuring myself that I'm strong enough to do this was going to help this situation. It actually holds the potential of making it much worse. So for the first time in my life I had to accept that this wasn't something that I could deal with all on my own, that I needed to ask for help. Not help like the kind you need on a final paper or on zipping up a dress, but the kind of help that requires you to be vulnerable in front of someone else and say in honesty: I have no clue what I'm doing.

Now this, scares the hell out of me. I've spent my entire life trying to always have an answer, a plan, anything. The thought of being alone and without a hope in the world terrifies me like nothing you can imagine. And so to have to admit that I didn't have the skill set to deal with this issue made me feel really worthless and like I couldn't do anything to help.

Today I talked to my academic adviser, who has been one of the kindest people to me since I came to college a little over a year ago. I told her what the problem was and that I didn't know how to handle it and that I was so scared that if I did anything wrong that the everything would end badly and that I'd never be able to forgive myself. She just looked at me and calmly told me all the options that I had available and who to contact and what steps to take and that if I needed any more help that her door would be open.

I'm an adult, and there's a lot of things that I'm very capable of handling, but there is still so much that I'm completely lost on, and that I can't afford to be lost on. I'm glad that even as an adult, I can always talk to someone older and wiser who knows exactly what to do, and make sure that I know what to do in the future.

Just walk through the damn door...

Surprisingly, I'm not dead. Also surprisingly I should be writing a paper and instead I am choosing to update this thing in the first time in literally half a year.

My friend Kelton suggested that I make a whole other blog for the sole purpose of telling stories like the one that I'm going to tell in just a minute, but that is more work than I'm willing to put into it, so I'm just going to tell you all now. It's happened three times now, so maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea. Too bad I'm such an unmotivated fuck. Anyway, onto our story. Not to mention this is more weird shit that just happens to occur in my daily life, so it fits in here pretty well. So, I was walking to the student center on campus today and a man held the first set of doors open for me. Since I tend to like to return the favor when someone holds a door open for me, I held the second door open for him. He entered the small middle ground and made to take the door away from me. This is where past experience kicked in. Oddly enough I've been in this situation more than once, and with completely different people each time. This being the case I knew that he was reaching for the door to take it from me, so naturally I held onto the handle as tight as I possibly could to prevent it being taken from me.

He looked me in the eye and said, "oh no, ladies go first". Thanks to my increasing time spent in situations such as this, I've been getting better at responding to such things, so rather than stand there like an idiot I shook my head and told him that I insisted he go first. Once again, he shook his head and said that he had a rule about this sort of thing, to which I replied that so did I, because after shit like this happens to you for the third time you develop the mindset that you aren't backing down no matter what he says. He just continued to smile at me and told me that he respected that. What happens next, Kelsey? Is probably something close to what you're thinking right now. Well, I'll tell you. Rather than just walking through the door that I've now been holding open for almost a full minute and a half, he completely side steps me and goes through the other door. This left me standing there thinking: "...the fuck just happened?".

In my opinion, not handled in the most chivalrous way possible. Clearly I'm going to hold this door open for you, you could at least throw me a bone for my efforts by taking the two seconds and just walking through this still open door. No, it's better to look like a complete jackass and just ignore me to go through another door. Should I start doing that? Just completely disregard the kindness of strangers? ... Yea, we all know that I'm not going to start doing that. Maybe only in these situations, but I'll be sure to slam the second door behind me so that I run the chance of hitting him with it.

Guys, it's nice to do things like hold a door open for someone, but that's the point. SOMEONE. Not just girls, everybody.

Oh, and just a closing note, when a girl holds the door open for you, just fucking go through it like you have some actual class that wasn't just that archaic shit beaten into your still soft skull as a child. Believe it or not, most people enjoy reciprocating an act of kindness.