Naomi's+Social+Activism+page

2/14/10 Happy Valentine's Day!!! Yes! Naomi has finally decided to launch her Social Activist Group page TODAY!! I will be recording my online activities here from now on and hopefully it will be a fun and rewarding experience by the end of the semester!!

First I wanted to focus on a particular social activist group that interests me and I can relate to. From what I learned in my Sociology and Women's Studies courses, I decided that I would want to observe and participate in activist groups that center on women's issues. Therefore what I did next was that I went on Google search agent, then I typed in "social activist group on women's issues". One of the many results I got was a website which categorizes different women's activist groups based on the topic.



I found several websites that appear to have instructional and meaningful information on women's issues. I have briefly viewed their websites, but I have not decided yet which ones I'm going to pay particularly attention to. There is one website that stands out by having a public forum which allows women to discuss in cyberspace. Here is a snap shot of it:



I will continue to explore the websites I found and to discover the missions these activist groups have. Most importantly, I will be studying the interactions between the internet users and those websites that visit.

2/26/10 There are quite a few websites which are about women's issues online and I have decided to look at one particular topic: **Pregnancy and Parenting.** Today I choose to surf on the Female Forum website and see what they've got for this topic. Pregnancy and Parenting is one of the six major topics that this website focuses on. The web page has a very clear layout and it is decided into four parts, which are featured article, featured discussion, most popular pregnancy and parenting articles, and most popular pregnancy and parenting discussion. The featured article is entitled "Ten Things Every New Mother Should know", and the featured discussion is "Constipation: My Poor Baby". I am not sure if these two sections only have two articles fixed. I would go back to this website after a few days and see if the featured article and the featured discussion are changing over time. Here is a screen shot of what the web page looks like:



Furthermore, I want to take a step into the discussion broad, therefore I clicked the "Bad Behavior" discussion forum which was created on 2/16/10. The top post was a person telling her encounter that day about meeting with a couple along with their kids. The canter of the argument is about whether kids running around in a stranger's house is not appropriate and they definitely needed more of their parents' guide or it's just a kid's nature. There are several posts following the discussion. The rest of the people have different opinions, some people agree with each other and others oppose. It seems that it's an open environment where people can speak about their own opinions and it's OK to not agree on the same matter.

This is my search and observation today. I will go back to visit this site more frequently while trying to discover other sites that share the same topic.

3/1/10 Today I visited iVilliage site. This website is dedicated to young girls and women, the topics that you can find one this website include both health-related content and also home/family/style/fashion/entertainment content. Pregnancy and parenting is one of those sections that gather great amount of information to help women with their daily lives. Besides the parenting articles, debates and hot discussion issues, one thing that particularly caught my eyes was "Your Took Kit" section. This blue box is designed to be personalized; it has a evaluation calculator, the pregnancy calendar, a baby names finder, and other stuff that you can play with. I think this tool kit is extremely interesting, handy, and useful and helpful in terms of recording body changes in an organized way. Also, there are mom-to-mom discussion boards which allow pregnant women to exchange their ideas and questions about things that they want to share or they need help with. Here I want to post a picture of what the tool kit looks like:



Next, I will post a picture of what a general discussion board looks like. You can search by topic, and one interesting topic I found was "pregnant with multiples". The discussion board is actually divided into different sections, from the 1st trimester discussion section to birth. I think that dividing one discussion board to multiple sections in terms of pregnant time and needs is a very smart idea! By doing so, it will help women to locate their place and find people who are like themselves more effectively.

3/3/10 As I said on February 26th, I was planning on going back to Female Forum Website to see wether or not the featured article and the featured discussion topic would change over time. And yes! My prediction was right! Today, the featured article became "Recognize Fat Diets and Their consequences", and the featured discussion was "Hypnagogia". Since I have never seen the term "hypnagogia", I decided to click the discussion section and see what is it all about. After I went into the actual discussion board, the content made me laugh! In fact, Hypnagogia describes a state which a person is between the wakefullness and sleep. The person often experience leg jerking and feeling a sense of drifting away/falling down. The person who created the discussion topic was just simply asking other people if they have ever had the same experience. There were quite a few responses posted under the discussion topic, and almost all of them said that it's a common thing and either they themselves or their family members have experience the same thing. Some people repeatedly used the phrase "don't worry", it seems to me like a comfort. People can be surprised by how quickly they can actually find people who are onlline that share something in common with you, and that makes you think that you are not alone and you have some support, even if you have never met these people. It makes you feel a bond, a connection with others and I think that shared knowledge can ease one's anxiety and help a person to find a feeling of belonging. This website does have a set of rules for users to follow, they seem like nothing new to computer users. However, one thing they clearly point out is that if you have violated the rules, such as using inappropriate language or being offensive to others, you will be banned from getting access to this website without warning and notifying prior to the time. Therefore it is important for users to take their own responsibilities seriously if they want to continue participate in online activities.

3/4/10 I am back to iVillage again. I always feels that every time when you revisit a website, there are always something new that can be really exciting. This time I found an experts section which is dedicated to women and men who have health-related questions that they want to ask. The experts listed on the website are educators, doctors, professional health providers, and even BABYSITTER EXPERT. wow....people really need assistance in every aspect of caring for a child, don't they?

Under the title "AS seen today" are the featured experts that can help you with childraring questions. Let us take a look at the babysitter expert, and see if she's got anything new or beneficial tips for us.



Actually, as you can see in the babysitting solutions box, variety of quizzes are made for the people, the quiz normally has 10-12 questions and they would calculate by the end. In stead of giving out the score number, the website would give you a analyze on what situation you are in and how you may change the current situation. But the credibility and accuracy of the quizzes are to be questioned. They don't seem like super accountable sources to get professional responses, I think people just do the quizzes for fun and take them as advice if they think the information is helpful.



3/6/10 I started off searching for women's issues website, and the majority I found so far are support-oriented websites ins stead of activism websites. I decided to change my direction and dig deep in women's activist groups since my project topic is about social activism. With my awesome TA Liz's help, I found this website which advocates the practices of midwives and doulas, and against hospital settings for women who are giving birth. The creater of the website is a young pro-choice health practitioner Miriam. Mariam is a doula herself and also a reproductive rights activist, a speaker, a writer, a blogger. She is an active member of many respected grassroots organizations and she publishes articles in varies media forms.

This is a picture of Miriam and her doula website:

and this is the website home page:

The website mainly provides the latest news about doula communities and the policies that's made towards doulas and midwives. The website also gives out information about how a person can become doulal; this includes getting trained, getting the certificate and finding a work. However, the website has relatively limited content and sources that would allow people to communicate with other and exchange thoughts, and it does not have a public forum. Nevertheless, Ms. Miriam is closely related to the website "feministing.com". She is the editor and she writes blogs frequently on that website.

I will be exploring Miriam work in other organizations next time and see the activist actities they do in order to meet their goals.

3/8/10 Today's Doula website has published a new article! yeah!! Good news-Wyoming becomes 27th state to legalize professional certificated midwives

As I mentioned last time, the website creator Miriam is part of the editor team on a feminist website-Feministing. I visited the website before for brief snap, and the website features articles about women's issues such as homosexual marriage conditions and women playing more men-orientated sports. Feministing.com advocates women's power by emphasizing women's ability in doing anything they want to; crossing borders such as race, sexual orientation and ability. The latest article is about last night's Oscars. Yes!! I don't know about you guys...but I watched part of it.. as a film major.. how can you miss Academy Awards, right??



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Last night's Academy Awards gave the best best director to Kathryn Bigelow, who is the director of The Hurt Locker. She is the first women who ever won this category and it showed that directing is not always a men's thing. Also, MoNique won the best supporting actress, she thanked Hattie McDaniel, who is the first African American woman that won a Academy Awards. It is blessing to see that feminist power has showed in the film industry and on the ultimate stage.======

3/15/10 It's time for updates!! I have two updates today from two different websites. One is about an interesting blog article posted on Feministing.com, another one is my new discovery about the a breastfeeding activism website called La Leche League. Let's talk about feministing.com first since I have ready been to this site several times. The blogger discusses the Life & Style magazine cover "Why is Angelina turning Shiloh into a boy" in her article. Not surprisingly, the author Miriam bashes magazine's viewpoint that a girl should dress like girl, should behave like a girl. Mariam argues that Pitt and Jolie's three-year-old daughter has not developed a gender identity yet, and it is OK for any child to dress like whatever they want. Miriam asks the question: " what if Shiloh wants to be a boy? what is she grows up with boyish clothes? does that mean this little girl is having trouble and there's something going wrong in that family??" Clearly, the magazine highlights the stereotypical look for girls. I completely agree with Miriam's opinion. As a feminist, women's freedom and equality in every aspect of this long-time-men-dominated society is something that we should work on. Here is a screen shot of the blog:



OK.. I'm going to move on to La Lech League.com. First of all, we need to make sure this community's goals and the work the do. (what kind of activism group are they really??). Bringing this question, I clicked "about us" link, and there's a page that describes their missions and their history. Basically La Lech League is a group which promotes breastfeeding globally. The website has a Q & A section, a discussion forum, a marketplace, a store, a donation site and a resources site. The resources site is like a navigation which helps users to find whatever they are possibly looking for on this website. The website impressed me with ten different languages that can help users who speak languages other than English.

Today's La lech League experience made me feel that this website can be a fairly good example for online activist groups. I am going to get more involved with this site and see what users can do/learn/get from this group. :)

4/2/10 The Le Leche League website has posted a new notification on the main page of the forum section. It says that the forum has been upgraded and there are many new features, such as the anti-spam system, will benefit users in making the website searching experience more convenient and secure. The public forum page is categorized with different topics in breastfeeding, and after you click the topic you are in interested in, you will be guided into that topic page, and there will be questions and posts about that particular topic. One example can be "breastfeeding multiples". Under that topic, mothers and ask all kinds of questions about breastfeeding their own twin babies(mostly), such as "When did you start assigning a breast to each child?" Following the question, there are other mothers who have old multiples sharing their previous experience, and many of the advice can be quite useful.

The Feministing website has the 4/2 updates on the several news resorts. One of them is about the current controversy over Japanese online rape games. Feminist groups think that such games emphasize on violence and sexual harassment against women and Japanese government should apply policies to regulate gaming content. Moreover, there is a seperate specific post about the latest health reform on abstinence-only education.

4/4/10 Today I'm going to update my progress in using the Radical Doula website. The new post features popular birth blogs in the nation. There is a link to 50 Best Blogs for Midwives; after you click the link, you will see different blogger' URL link and most of the blogger are either midwives themselves or health care educator. Some blogs are mainly providing service to minority groups, some of them are open to everyone who needs help.

I think this new post on the Radical Doula website is very helpful in answering questions such like "how to be a midwife" and "what is it like to have a non-hospital setting birth environment ". And some of the blogger write stories of real life couples' challenges and experience in having a midwife or doula help them deliver babies.

Besides the new post about midwife bloggers, the founder of the website Miriam wrote a Q&A letter to the viewers. She answered some of the frequently asked questions and continued to encourage viewers to leave messages and questions for her. There is also another Q&A letter which features another doula, Laurel. She has answered some general questions which will help new comers know the work that doulas do and why she herseff chose to be a doula.



4/10/10 Today I want to share an interesting post on the Feministing.com website which is titled " CLPP 2010: Speaking Out for Reproductive Freedom" This article writes about quotes that are from influencing human's reproductive rights activists across the country. These activists speak bout human rights issues, LGBT reproductive health and recent policies which have concerned them. CLPP refers to "Civil Liberties and Public Policies" program, and this organization is has a long-term friendship with Feministing.com. What Feministing.com does is that bloggers live blogging latest updates from CLPP and they help CLPP spread their messages to more people.



And here is the home web page of CLPP, and you can see the icon of Feministing.com on the right hand side:

I learned from this latest article on Feministing website that Feministing.com is an women's rights activist group that not only write about stories and news that their members have seen or participated. What's more, it associates with other grassroots organizations to take actions and to pull off more events that would allow their voices to get heard.

4/20/10 Radical Doula Miriam blogged an article about a lesbian and a scholar's response to her essay that is entitled "Sexual Violence Against Immigrant Women". The blogger Judy praised Miriam's opinions in violence against immigration women and added her own understanding into it. Below Miriam's post, there is a comment posted by a reader who has volunteered as a doula to a female immigrant from the Middle East. She tells her story in her comment of how she supported that woman through her pregnancy, child birth, postpartum and helped her get out of an abusive relationship. This reader appreciates Miriam's deeper description of women in abusive relationships and Miriam's analysis of the significant correlation between immigrant status and violence has reminded her of her own story. She thinks that people should pay more attention to immigrant women and help them as they need.