Monthly Archives: August 2020

crossword puzzle image with "Sarah Doyle Center Feminist Crossword Puzzle Challenge Fall 2020" in the center

Sarah Doyle Center Feminist Crossword Puzzle Challenge (Fall 2020)

By: Felicia Salinas-Moniz, Senior Assistant Director at the Sarah Doyle Center

With fall semester upon us and asynchronous community building still at the fore, the Sarah Doyle Center is opening our Fall term with another crossword puzzle challenge! Test your knowledge of feminist history and see how many questions you can answer without doing a search online. But online searches are okay when you come across questions that you don’t know. When that happens, take a moment to explore more about the answer you find — you’ll likely come up with further questions and queries for research!

We invite anyone to participate. However, prizes are only open to Brown University students at this time. The first 5 Brown students who correctly solve the puzzle will win a “Radical Roots: Nourishing Feminist Work” tote bag filled with the following: a copy of How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective, edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, a Daily Undated Passion Planner (with planner stickers), a set of colorful gel pens, and some Sarah Doyle Center pens. The names of the 5 winners, along with the crossword puzzle answer key, will be posted on the Radical Roots blog at the end of the 2-week quiet period on 9/15. The Sarah Doyle Center will mail prizes to the select 5 winners of this puzzle.

Special thanks to the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women for co-sponsoring this crossword puzzle challenge. Mary Murphy and Amanda Knox, archivists at Pembroke, contributed the questions specific to gender history at Brown. HINT: You may need to listen to a few Brown alumnae oral histories to answer some of the puzzle questions. We’d also like to give a special shout out to Amy Chin and Shanelle Haile, our fabulous SDC graduate student coordinators, for contributing questions to this puzzle, too.

HOW TO PLAY: 

You can complete the puzzle online at the following link: https://crosswordhobbyist.com/827878/Sarah-Doyle-Center-Feminist-Crossword-Puzzle-Challenge-Fall-2020

When you are finished, click the “Submit Answers” button on the left (or the triangle on the left, if using a mobile device) and enter your name and Brown email address. The puzzle is best visible on a computer. (NOTE: you do NOT need to create an account on the crossword puzzle site to play).

Happy feminist crossword puzzling!

A diversity of multi-hued hands (some with painted finger nails) on a white background with fists in the air, as a symbol of resistance.

Representation for Reclamation: An Introductory Resource List for Decommercializing and Reclaiming Feminism

By: Jordan Allums ’21, Sarah Doyle Center Co-Curricular Development Summer Intern and senior studying Political Science

Point Richmond, CA

Dear readers, 

My name is Jordan Allums and I am a senior at Brown studying political science. This summer, I worked with the Sarah Doyle Center as the Co-Curricular Development intern to curate a list of resources to serve their programming around gender and feminism. I did this work in tandem with Elon and Ope, the two Digital Communications interns, and drew a lot of inspiration from their themed social media content. At the beginning of the internship, I planned to focus on Black feminist theory, but as I got deeper into my research I felt a need to highlight a diversity of topics to address some urgent needs I observed in our current moment. Namely, I decided to focus on self-care, affirming trans women, and uplifting dark-skinned Black women. These nuanced approaches to my work allowed me to expand this list beyond simply defining or diagnosing certain issues, but rather deconstruct and reframe the ways we understand them. I envision this list being used to critically analyze mainstream feminism, note where it’s lacking, and hopefully present a better way forward. 

I want to be transparent about my identity and how that may have influenced this list. I am a light-skinned, cis-heterosexual, middle-class,  able-bodied Black woman. Being that I am discussing identities that I myself do not claim, I accept responsibility for any biases or holes in the content of this list that you might observe. These are not a sign of willful neglect, but rather my limited capacity to know and address all of the concerns of these communities. Moreover, the specification of trans women and dark-skinned Black women is not intended to ignore the myriad marginalized identities that exist. Rather, I felt that these communities were particularly in need of support in our current social climate. Trans women are frequently left in the shadows, only to be pushed into the media spotlight when they are brutalized. Dark-skinned Black women face disproportionate neglect and disrespect compared to their lighter-skinned counterparts. These two issues have been especially salient in the last couple of months as racial tensions around the world have exposed which narratives and lives are centered in the movement and which are left in the margins. 

I also want to make a note about the intended audience of some of these resources. You may notice that just because an article or book is written about someone, it is not necessarily directed at them. Many, but not all, of these resources are meant to educate people outside of a certain community in order to foster greater empathy and understanding. For people who identify with those communities, the same resources may read as redundant or “preaching to the choir.” For those readers, I hope you find value in the other resources in this list or that it at least prompts you to look for outside resources that can help you better than I can. 

Finally, this work was completed during a 4-week internship. Naturally, I had to set realistic expectations about what I could accomplish in such a short time. Therefore, I relied on reviews, recommendations, and summaries to vet whole books. I cannot give my stamp of approval on the entire contents of any given book, nor should readers assume that my judgment is objectively correct. Readers are instead strongly encouraged to engage their critical thinking skills while absorbing the information in these books. Please also note that this list is by no means exhaustive; it is a stepping stone in the life-long journey of educating oneself on these topics. On a similar note, this list is intentionally structured in a way to allow you to pace yourself and avoid content overload. Feel free to ease into the material with the web articles listed first, and then when you have the bandwidth you may do a deep dive into the topics using the full-length books listed afterwards. 

Thank you for taking the time to browse this list, and I genuinely hope that it has an impact on you, big or small. Be sure to follow @sarahdoylecenter on Instagram to continue exploring issues around gender and feminism. 

Be well, 

Jordan Allums ‘21 

You can view “Representation for Reclamation: An Introductory Resource List for Decommercializing and Reclaiming Feminism” at this link.

Image credit: elladoro/Shutterstock.com