by Shira Devorah, student staff at the Women’s Center (she/her) 

Every student has their personal struggles that make being in college difficult – responsibilities and personal needs to attend to while also working towards a degree. Like many other students, I also face mental illness on top of every other responsibility.

This is probably one of the more pleasant stock photos I found when searching for “mental illness.” Get on that, photo people….

I struggle with major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and ADHD. These diagnoses do not define me, but they do tend to get in the way of my school day. Sometimes classes have to be skipped, assignments need to be pushed back and plans must be cancelled, all in the name of mental health.

Beyonce from her music video “Flawless,” which inspired the hashtag #wokeuplikethis (screen capture)

As a woman with depression, I can’t always look happy for the sake of making someone else feel good, as stereotypical female empathy demands of me. I will not seem ‘flawless’ because sometimes I can’t remember to eat, let alone put on lipstick. I cannot be around people for an extended period of time without being exhausted. I am no less woman than someone without depression, but I have to work harder to be accepted by a sexist world as worthy of the title “woman.” This pressure is made more difficult when you factor in the fact that I am a full time student. I am expected as a student to do my best and succeed while also fitting into the tiny box of “womanness.”

Society presents a very limited definition for what a woman is “supposed” to be and look like and these strict gender roles rarely fit the dynamic and complex individuals we are, but they are even more inadequate for people of color, LGBTQIA-identified people, and people with mental illness and/or disabilities. Women students who navigate life with a mental illness have to deal with often unachievable standards, including the expectation of “effortless perfection.” 

As a woman with mental illness, I have to work twice as hard to just appear “normal.” Putting on clothes, taking showers, eating enough, getting from point A to point B — these everyday activities can completely consume my time and energy. While the mere concept of normal is problematic, it is further complicated by the fact that I have to conform to the standards of being normal and a woman.  Why do I have to go through the day existing as if I do not have a mental disability while also pretending that being a woman is effortless and easy? I don’t function in the normative ways that society demands of me. If I don’t look a certain way or act a certain way, am I not only less “normal,” but also less “woman?”  Is normal just a synonym for being unobtrusive and invisible in my disabilities?

Are you sick? Tired? Hunover? Nope, just not wearing makeup. (credit: AlexandraDal.deviantart.com)

People often forget that looking the way society demands women to look takes a ton of effort. Being unwilling or unable to meet society’s expectations of femininity and beauty should not be seen as a failure or a sign that something is wrong.

The truth is, no one should have to fit into a category to be valid. You are a woman if you feel like a woman. Period. Amen. You don’t have to be hairless or made up or a certain size or have/not have certain body parts. You don’t need to have a healthy, thriving mind in order to be yourself. You just need to feel like a woman and that alone is enough to make you one.

I feel very lucky to be part of the Gender and Women’s Studies department, where we deconstruct these notions of gendered stereotypes and unfair expectations placed upon certain people. I have been taught in my studies to harness my uniqueness in order to subvert the expectations that a hegemonic world places upon me. 

(Not actually what your RX bottle looks like if you get your meds at Target)

I do not apologize for my mental illnesses, and I am not quiet about them. I will tell anyone who will listen about my depression and anxiety. I will pop my Paxil or Ativan in the middle of class if I need it, and I will not bother to explain why I carry my prescriptions with me always. Personally, I choose to be open about my illnesses in hopes that discussions will cultivate a culture of understanding. I want to make my mental illnesses more visible to counter the idea that mental illnesses are inherently “bad” or not worth discussing.

Still, a lot of women with mental illnesses do not want to be subversive; they just want to be understood and included. These women do not owe the world their stories and still always deserve support. I have linked an article by Jess Myers, the director of the Women’s Center, if you want to read more about supporting people without knowing their story.

I am using this blog post to carve out a space to appreciate women who are also students with mental illnesses. You can have a diagnosis or you can just be realizing your illness. You can be medicated, in therapy, or not doing anything at all, and you are still valid. You can have accommodations, be a straight-A student, or be failing a course, and you still matter as a woman, as a person, and as a student. Mental illness is just one factor that in no way defines you.

It’s okay to not be okay all the time. (credit: Gunshow by KC Green)

We as students need to support each other and be mindful of the intersecting issues that our classmates face. Supporting someone with a mental illness can be challenging at times, but it can also be as easy as asking how somebody is. Maybe send a text asking your friend if she is doing alright. Or schedule a dinner with someone you know is going through a hard time. You could even offer to walk your classmate over to the Counseling Center if they need more professional help.

There are so many little things that we as peers and friends can do to help support each other and it can start with creating spaces where we feel like we don’t have to pretend to always be perfect. 

The Dresher Center invites applications for new Faculty Working Groups in the Humanities. Faculty Working Groups are collaborative, interdisciplinary communities of scholars working on humanities projects, research concerns, or matters of public interest. The Dresher Center provides support for the formation and first-year activities of these groups in an effort to promote intellectual exchange and support research activities in the humanities among scholars across campus. Working groups meet regularly and may also use their funds to travel to sites or archives, host speakers, explore technologies, create new resources or materials, or other similar activities.

 Faculty Working Groups can apply for up to $1,000 in annual support ($500 per semester) for their first-year activities. Priority will be given to groups with at least one member from a humanities department.

Apply by April 1, 2016 for groups beginning or continuing in fall 2016. 

To download an application and to find out about current Faculty Working Groups, visit: http://dreshercenter.umbc.edu/scholarly-resources/faculty-working-groups-in-the-humanities/ 

Contact for questions: Jessica Berman (jberman@umbc.edu), Director, or Rachel Brubaker (rbruba1@umbc.edu), Assistant Director

The Women’s Center Advisory Board is a collective of faculty, staff, and students with an interest in supporting and cultivating the work of the Women’s Center at UMBC and advancing gender equity and social justice on UMBC’s campus.

Board members participate in monthly board meetings, scheduled for the first Friday of each month during the academic year. This forum allows Women’s Center staff to share information about the Center and similarly allows the board members to share their knowledge, wisdom and unique perspectives to advance the mission of the Women’s Center. 

In addition to advising the Director and Assistant Director of the Women’s Center, board members provide support in the planning, programming, and advocacy of the Women’s Center. Board members are encouraged to attend Women’s Center events when possible and volunteer at larger events such as Critical Social Justice or the returning women students networking event. These responsibilities may entail additional hours of commitment outside of the monthly board meetings.

Board members are appointed for two-year terms, with the possibility of renewal.

The Women’s Center seeks to serve a diverse community of people interested in women’s, gender, and social justice issues.  We seek a diverse board to assure that varying needs and interests are represented.
For more on the Women’s Center mission, guiding principles, and priorities, visit womenscenter.umbc.edu

DEADLINE: Monday, April 24, 2017

For additional information, please call the Women’s Center at x52714 or email womens.center@umbc.edu. 

All Are Welcome So Long As They Respect Women’s Experiences, Stories & Potential

Poli Students,

The Baltimore Zeitgeist, a rapidly growing national undergraduate political magazine founded at Johns Hopkins University in 2014, is looking for undergraduate writers. The magazine is committed to expanding its reach throughout the region in accordance with their commitment to engage politically thoughtful undergraduates at peer institutions. 

The staff application and all of our articles are posted to our website -http://baltimorezeitgeist.com.

For questions, please contact Zachary Broner at zbroner1@jhu.edu, or the editor in-chief, Jonathan Loewenberg, at jloewen2@jhu.edu.

Best!

    A post by Women’s Center staff member Daniel Willey

Earlier this semester, as I’m sure you all remember, we got hit (bombarded, pelted, buried, whatever) by winter storm Jonas. BWI airport recorded almost 30 inches of snow and the wind blew the icy flakes sideways into drifts best navigated with a harness and rope or a tunneling machine. 

The sea of snow outside my house in Halethorpe on Sunday

Baltimore shut down the Light Rail, MARC, and buses for almost a week — only the fourth MTA shutdown in the last 40 years. My roommates and I braved the grocery store on Thursday night before the storm hit and it was a nightmare. I thought my mom was just being a mom when she texted to warn me that all the bread was gone. Some impatient man in a business suit chased me away from my parking spot at the Giant by honking his horn repeatedly so he could swoop in and take it. People were getting nasty.

Now, I’m used to this kind of snow.

Our dog Raven wondering how she’ll ever get out to pee

Having grown up in the mountains in Western Maryland, I’ve seen my fair share of snow and ice storms. But I’ve never experienced it in an urban setting and I’ve definitely never been old enough to be the responsible snow survivor before. It got me really thinking about what it means to have a snow day and how the local and state government reactions to something like Jonas has a lot more to do with social issues and inequality than you might think.

The MTA shutdown is what got me thinking first. If you’ve ever taken a Baltimore City bus you know our transportation system is flaky at best. But you probably also know how many people rely on the MTA every day for school and work and errands and everything else. When it shut down, all those people suddenly lost that essential piece to their everyday goings-on. And sure, the first day or so when nobody could leave their homes anyway may not have mattered. But the people who do the hourly and low-wage jobs that are essential to the running of any city had to get to work on Sunday. And Monday. And Tuesday. And Wednesday.

The MARC and Light Rail didn’t start back up until Wednesday (on a limited schedule) and even though there were buses on Monday, there weren’t very many and it was a total free-for-all in terms of scheduling for several days. While we UMBC students and many people in office or management or government jobs (positions with salaries and benefits and paid leave) had half a week of snow days, the snow plow and bus drivers, food service workers, maintenance and road workers, hotel staff, emergency responders, retail workers, grocery store clerks, pharmacists, and nurses (and the many many others who rely on pay from every hour they can get their hands on) made the trek to work with basically no transit system.

Well, she got out but she is not happy about it

And then I thought about my horrible grocery store experience. I thought about the brave souls running the checkout aisles and managing the rapidly depleting inventory. I thought about all the families without cars or living in food deserts who would struggle to get provisions for the coming storm. What about disabled people or older adults who couldn’t hustle to the store and back in time? I thought about the low income families who are unable to spend large amounts of money at once to stockpile supplies or those who had run out of food stamps because it was the end of the month. What about the people whose heat was shut off? Or those living in abandoned houses or their cars or in the tents on MLK Blvd?

When I picked my boyfriend up from work early on Friday (because there was no bus– surprise!) he said, “The people who are running around and freaking out right now are going to be fine.” And he was right. We had the money to stock up on food. We could afford to live in quality, well-maintained housing with good heat and a solid roof. They had plowed out our whole neighborhood by Sunday afternoon. A friend of mine who lives on Guilford Ave a few blocks outside of Station North said the road was plowed a few blocks down from where it connected to North Ave, but then it just ended. There was no dead end, no cars blocking the street, nothing to indicate it would make more sense to stop there than to continue down into the poorer or residential areas down the street. The lines of where plowing happened first and last show a very clear indication of what areas of the city are important and why.

Taking a snow day is a luxury. Getting a snow day means that if you don’t have a salaried position with paid leave, you have to lose pay for lost hours. Sometimes it means making a choice between braving a dangerous commute and earning your next meal — or even just keeping your job (and if there’s no public transportation, the low-income portion of the 30% of Baltimore residents without cars can’t get to work). A snow day is made possible by people who can’t take a snow day.

Getting a snow day can be fun for some students, but many low-income students rely on free school meals. For some students, this is their only steady source of nutrition.

On the Tuesday after the storm, only female Senate members and their female staff showed up to work on Capitol Hill. Proceedings had been postponed until Wednesday, but someone had to be there to make an official motion to postpone the Senate in order for that to happen. Those people were women. Sure, some may have been truly snowed in but, like I said, a snow day is made possible by people who didn’t get one.

The way a city handles a snowstorm is a social justice issue because socio-economic status is a major factor in the health, safety, and well-being of low-income and at-risk populations. So, think about it. What (and who) made your snow day possible?