SID#: 914019640
ASA002 / A03
In Professor Valverde's article, "Fight the Tower: A Call to Action for Women of Color in Academia," she discusses the different obstacles she faced in her journey to obtain tenure, many of which involved some form of seclusion, discrimination, and bullying. My reaction to the article was that of shock and disbelief, because I, for some reason, treated bullying as a practice that only existed in adolescence or young adulthood. To read about a professor facing such extreme forms of discrimination in a professional setting as that of academia gave me a wake up call—injustice and oppression occurs in all places in all forms, even in educational settings I have been privileged enough to consider safe my whole life.
The article brings forth an issue of intersectionality, though not blatantly stated. Professor Valverde did not simply struggle with attacks against her as a female scholar, but there were "issues of gender, race, ethnicity, class, disability, and motherhood." It is easy to dismiss stories like those of Professor Valverde's as "female, Asian-American" problems, but this would be sweeping all of the other aspects of her life under the rug. Facing other difficulties that revolved around her mental condition (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), her giving birth, and her socioeconomic class made Professor Valverde's experience unique to her. Her call to action reminds us that our personal experiences, though all varying on some level and axis, are political in the end. It is the different struggles that we all face that show the desperate need for a "unified solidarity movement and political action to fight the tower."
Attached is a video that explains the idea of intersectionality, and why it is important.
Question: Where can we start, or, what would you say is the best, simplest way that a student (like myself) can bring social change in the aspects we discussed?
Works Cited:
Crenshaw, K. (Speaker). (2016, December 7). The urgency of intersectionality. TED. Video retrieved from https://youtube.com/watch?v=akOe5-UsQ2o
Valverde, K. C. (2013). Fight the tower: A call to action for women of color in academia. Seattle Journal for Social Justice.
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