Rebecca Walker

I decided to make my post focus on Rebecca Walkers reading for class. I found this brief essay entitled, "Becoming the Third Wave" the most relatable document we have read thus far for class. Up to this point, a lot of the readings especially those of Elizabeth Cady Stanton spoke in great power to me, but they also always seemed somehow distant and less applicable to my life (specifically my life at Colgate). However, now that we are talking about the Third Wave of American Feminism, which as some define is our current wave of action, I feel much more connected to the words of these writers. Specifically those of Walker.

When she describes her experience on the train trying to ignore the sources of aggravation surrounding her, she buries her nose in her book. She is somehow used to hearing these types of derogatory remarks which fill our vernacular speech, our pop culture, and as Walker illustrates, even issues which extend all the way to the Supreme Court. I think that the sheer fact that the men on the train weren't even attempting to quiet their voices or keep their conversations out of earshot says a lot about just how commonplace such remarks are. To speak out loud, in a public place in such an offensive and misogynistic manner is an abomination. It really struck me to think about how man times i hear men talk in passing about their "ho" or their sexual escapades from the weekend before, etc. All these issues are spoken about as if the self-decency of the woman in question is non-existent.

One quote in particular really struck me, and I think it is a pervasive idea which is very present in life at Colgate. Walker writes: "I am sick of the way women are negated, violated, devalued, ignored. I am livid, unrelenting in my anger at those who invade my space, who wish to take away my rights, who refuse to hear my voice." But more importantly, I think Walker points out that while the men who treat women this way are repugnant, she also thinks of the the men and women whose "silence makes [them] complicit." Her mention of the complicit people who let these things go ignored is what really struck me about this passage.

I think it is important when studying feminism, and activism in general, that people do not just attack those who say and do bad things. But to me, and I believe to Walker as well, it is just at contemptible to see these atrocities being committed and saying or doing nothing. At Colgate I think many of us are complicit in our silence against misogynist actions and derogatory behavior. I think it is important for us, as a community, to speak out against the evils which we see. For this reason in particular, I found Walker's "Becoming the Third Wave," and her plea for women and men to join her movement, very poignant.