Ditz

Issue date: 11/2/09 Section: On Campus

Media Credit: womenatoxy.blogspot.com

Gender issues weren't always relevant to Tessa D'Arcangelew's world. But as the Occidental College student began studying social-justice-based issues and considering their ties to her personal life, she became conscious of her presence as a woman in the world. "With every single thing I do," says D'Arcangelew, "I am a woman.'"

This year, D'Arcangelew is channeling this consciousness into the new Occidental club, Women! What first started a few years ago as a discussion group and therapeutic project has turned into a full-fledged plan for female community development at the college. Read on to see how D'Arcangelew has developed Women! into a prominent organization on Oxy's campus and what she thinks about women's progress world-wide.


DITZ: What ideas do you have this year for Women!?

Tessa D'Arcangelew: We are really trying to reclaim "feminism" as a positive word to associate oneself with. Our first event was a display in the Cooler (an on-campus cafe) that showed the collective campus idea of what feminism is and why it's important. We also hold KOXY (Oxy's radio station) quad shows that play songs by solely female artists.


DITZ: Why do you think it is important to have a feminist organization on the Oxy campus?

TD: I believe that as feminist ideals progress, so will the progress of the entire world. Oxy is a relatively intellectual school with many people who have amazing ideas and want to work towards social justice. I believe that if we collectively understand the importance of gender equality, then we can incorporate it into our future work and bring about a more positive effect.


DITZ: What do you think are the biggest obstacles women face today?

TD: This depends on the time and place in which this is asked. For many women in the United States, I think that actualization of the self is a distinctive issue. Problems of the individual's sense of worth, self-understanding, and wholeness are overlooked and disregarded within the discourse of social-justice projects. However, I believe that if we were to become more whole beings with a greater sense of self, an uplifting rippling effect would emanate from us and fewer people would exist in destitute states of poverty, disease, and oppression. Women within other cultures and other nations face different problems. These problems should be addressed through the lens of their culture and assisted by Western feminist ideologies if desired. I think one of the problems women face around the world is an inability to articulate their sense of being and their ideas of equality on their own terms, without Western ideology being imposed on them.


DITZ: What would you say to a person who says, "Women are a lot more equal now than they were in the '60s, so I don't understand why women complain so much"?

TD: This is utter bullshit. First of all, in order for a person to say this so shamelessly, they must define "women" as only those who live in Western, wealthy countries... which is incredibly ignorant. I can understand how a person who does not think about the world they live in might make a quick assumption that women are equal because they can pursue a career. However, my response is this: Women were forced to pursue equality through enjoining themselves to a man's world. Feminism is about equality of genders. All that has been accomplished so far is the opening of a few doors allowing women to merely exist within the man's world. For a world to be truly gender equal, women would be able to find equality on their own terms-as feminine beings. Similarly, men would be able to reject this masculine world for a world more suited to their being.

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