Valerie Ochoa
Dr. Kubal
17 May 2018
Chalking Tactic
This tactic was one of my favorite ones to complete because it allowed me to write and draw something that was supposed to grab attention of the spectators walking by. Unfortunately, I only participated in two different days of chalking, but I feel as though my messages were strong and eye catching to the passersby.
The first day for the chalking was the day of the March Forth event. Our group had decided to meet early, that way we could grab enough people's attention to come and join our group and march with us or just participate in the march without supporting women's rights. At first a few of us, including myself, felt uneasy with writing different messages that could be seen as offensive to some. However, after we all wrote one message down, we felt significantly better and were eager to write more. One of my first messages was just an invitation to come and march with our group for women's rights, that way people knew exactly where to go and what they were going to march for. One of my favorites from that day was a play on the song "Feeling Twenty-Two" by Taylor Swift and it read "I don't know about you but I'm feeling 22 cents underpaid." I figured it would grab the attention of the girls who walked by because it was a reference to a song they might know. Our chalking even attracted a fellow student who was just walking by! He had said that he did not know that there were other students who thought like he did. He also showed us a different symbol to draw and it looked the same as the female image, except the cross in the middle was directly below the circle to signify the equality of the two sexes. A few other chalked messages were more invitations to join the march and simple "women's rights are human rights."
The second day for chalking was just a random day picked to get together and complete the task, May 2. At first we were unsure of whether we should even do it, because we did not have the safety cushion of doing it with our classmates around. For me, I chose to go slightly more controversial with my messages. Two of my favorites were "Fight like a girl" and "What she wears doesn't mean yes." I messed up the last message, because I could have made it rhyme with a different choice of words. I felt like I had more fun with this round of chalking because I had already done it before. For this day, I noticed that we had more people stopping to look at our messages, it was a good feeling, because people were getting a different opinion in their minds about what they think about women.
As far as any changes, the only thing I would have changed was the amount of chalking we did as a group and location wise. For the last day of chalking, we only had half of our group show up and participate. For the location, we mostly stayed near the speaker's platform, I would have liked to go to where the McKee Fisk building started and over in the pavillion in the middle of the Social Sciences and Mckee Fisk building are.
Valerie Ochoa
Dr. Kubal
16 May 2018
Social Media Tactic
This tactic should have been one of the easiest complete but for me it was difficult. Unfortunately, for Lent, I logged off of all my social media accounts, but fortunately I had one open and it was my Snapchat. My sister had control over my account to keep up my streaks and to post a picture of the flyer for our movie. Even after posting on my account, I did not receive any responses to the movie about whether people were going to make it or just in support of it. I knew that the people who are my "friends" on Snapchat saw it because it shows along the side of the picture, and I was disappointed to not hear from those who were going to State at the same time as I was. After Lent finished, I got back onto my accounts, I regret to say that I did not post anything again.
It was not until our "leader" Isabela made a Facebook and Instagram account that we really had a page specifically for our group and for our purpose. Even so, our page did not include very many pictures or posts, because it was only the people in our group following the page and maintaining it as well. First of all, our page is misspelt, so it is hard to even find it. Second, our Facebook page has only four of our group as "friends", so we cannot all see the postings and sharings of the page. So not all of us were able to take over the account.
As far as changes, I would make a few of them. My first change would be to go to Twitter to make an account, because more people will hear what you have to say and some will respond to it. Another change would be to let more people know about our group and invite them to look at our page and our message. Another change is that I should not have only limited the people that I reached out, but I wish that I had talked to others about our movie and our group.
Valerie Ochoa
Dr. Kubal
16 May 2018
Interview Questions Tactic
This was one of the harder tactics to complete. For this one, we had to conduct a series of interviews that spanned into two hours with questions that our group came up with. The original idea was to use a call center website to conduct our interviews but our professor decided that we could interview people that we knew over the phone or face to face. For this paper, I just want to focus on my interviews with my father and my friend Helaina.
My father tends to be a little bit on the conservative side when it comes to talking about women's rights and treatment. He was raised in a Catholic household, so naturally he was taught that all lives, no matter the state they are in, are worth something. He does not believe in abortion and we have come to intense arguments over why abortion is right or wrong. When it came to interviewing him, the question that got him a little riled up was " Do you believe that you must be a woman to be a feminist?" He felt like it was a simple answer with a yes answer. As I tried to explain that being a feminist is most about wanting equality for both sexes and you did not have to be a woman to want that he kind of relaxed but he was still against being labeled as a feminist himself.
My friend Helaina was the easiest one to interview for feminism and women's rights since she has gone to marches in San Francisco for them. However, she was also raised in a Catholic household and consequently for Pro-Life. For her, she takes that stance more from the religious aspect, almost as if it was expected of her. Even with that, when I interviewed her, I was pleasantly surprised with how enthusiastic she was about equality in the workplace. She brought up how she felt like she had been discriminated against for a job, but when I tried to probe, she switched it to a different topic and I went with it.
For anything I would change, I think it would be how I conducted my interviews. I do not think I gave my interviewees enough time to talk more about what I asked of them, it was all spur of the moment. I would also change who I interviewed, I interview my friends and family because they are easily accessible, but it would be nice to get a change of opinion.
Valerie Ochoa
Dr. Kubal
16 May 2018
Movie Tactic
Our movie day was terrifying, exciting, and fulfilling all at the same time. For the days leading up to it, we were all nervous and excited at the same time. We were most nervous about the kind of turn out we would get for the movie, for me, it would be my first video presentation of sorts. We had our flyers that looked great, thanks to Isabela Medina, and we made sure to hang them up where we could and to tell our friends about the movie. Unfortunately, none of my friends could make it due to previous plans that day. We all wanted to motivate others to come to our showing, so we decided to have some snacks and refreshments for our movie goers. It was a big help for me that my parents allowed me to tag-a-long on a Costco. run with them, so I could just by a multipack of snacks without spending a large amount of money.
On the day of our movie, March 8th, we were all checking in with each other every hour to make sure we all had what we needed and that we were ready. Since my last class ended fifteen minutes before our movie, I had to try and get to the room as fast as I could, but I got lost and ended up being later than I had hoped. Before we put the movie, She's Beautiful When She's Angry, we made sure to introduce our group's name and purpose and then we went down the line to introduce ourselves. After our movie finished, we held a Q and A session. Since there weren't many individuals in the audience, we didn't expect any questions, but we did get a couple. Our professor, Dr. Kubal, asked us as a group about our reaction to the movie and our thoughts about current events. I talked about how the government had no right to tell us what to do with our bodies since they belong to us and not them.
As far as making any changes for this tactic, I only have a few. I wish that I had played a bigger role in getting people to come to our movie, other than just hanging up a few flyers and asking my group of friends. For our group, we communicated well with each other and we all kept in touch to make sure we all had everything together for our movie and presentation after.
Valerie Ochoa
Dr. Kubal
Soc. 122
14 May, 2018
First Tactic Paper: March Forth Event and 17 Minutes Event
For me, these two protests had a significant part in changing my views on what it is like to protest or to bring attention to a cause that is not being talked about actively. The first protest that I participated in was the March Forth event. I remember things I thought about leading up to the event: I was nervous for my job, I did not know what to expect from my classmates or my group, and I had no prior experience to get a general idea of how this might go. The class before the event, all the groups were tasked to create posters for their cause. My group's cause is focused on bringing Women's Rights into the light and having people notice the inequality that still persists in society. We all made a few signs that had some catchy lingo on them, one of my favorites was "My neck, my back, my p***y will grab back."
The day of the event was hectic. We were all unsure of what was going to happen before, during, and after the event. Before the actual protest, we all stood up on the speaker's platform and had one of our teammates read our mission statement, after this, it seemed like my group got a little jump start. When we were waiting for all the groups to finish their statements, we came up with a couple of chants, and I was chosen to lead them. I am usually uncomfortable leading anything, but with this I was glad that I did it. I actually started to enjoy walking with my group and yelling out our chants. I felt like if we could have had more people marching with us, our mission would have been fulfilled. Sure we had people videotape us, but to get people involved and actually change their mind would have been the best. I think that if we had a larger turn out for our march, we would have made a bigger impact on those who participated.
As far as promoting the event, Dr. Kubal handed out little flyers for us to put around the campus, but I thought that they were too small to gain enough attention to have a big turnout. I had told my group if friends that we were having a small march and that they should come, but they all had classes at the same time, so none of them were able to make it. I do wish that I had played a bigger role in promoting the event, such as sending a notice to the school's paper or just to some of the clubs on campus.
The 17 Minutes to End Gun Violence march was very inspiring, due to the fact that it was organized by high school students. Many of my classmates had heard of this event due to social media sharing and from listening to news stations, I had heard of it from my younger sister, who is still in high school. She had told me that many of the students were going to be allowed to participate in the walk out, but she could not due to an off-campus class. The of the walkout and march, Dr. Kubal took a class vote to see who would like to participate in the walk out, and most, if not all of us, raised our hands to participate. Since it was a last minute decision, there was no way to get a large organized group of people to come together. That would have been the best thing to happen for that day.
In the beginning of the walkout, our class stood in a circle in the pavilion outside of the social science building and we began to shout out the chants that were designed for that day. Our voices were so loud, they echoed throughout the pavillion. As students were walking by, a couple of them began to stop and listen to our chants, after a couple of minutes, they began to join us as well. After that, we decided to take a short walk around the campus to see if we could get anyone else to come and join us. As we began to march, people mostly stopped to listen or just watched us walk by. As we walked we kept our chants going and I led them a few times, I stopped because I was starting to mess up the chants. As far as spur of the moment decisions go, I believe our that our class walk out was successful: we were able to get a few students to join us, our class's chants were strong, and we all had a good time. The only thing that would have been better is if we were able to get a larger group of people participating in the walkout with us.
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