Feminista

Feminitsta is a non-profit organisation that helps activists conduct a campaign, through varies resources they publish on their website. It was created in 2010 as they believed that men and women were not equal. Individuals who want to get involved can either create a campaign to suport equal opporunities for mean and women, or support them by donating. They use online tools such as;

• twitter (26.1k followers)
• facebook (11,756 likes)
• youtube (200 subscribers) and flikr.

The site is very simple and easy to natviate around it, with published stories of those involved with Feminista. As well as press realses, e-newletters, coverage and a message board. In the UK their statistics show that;

• Approximately 100,000 women are raped each year, and just 6% of reported rapes end in a conviction.
• Men outnumber women in parliament 4 to 1, and just 4 of the 23 cabinet members are women.
• Women working full-time earn 16% less than men, and two-thirds of low paid workers are women

Feminista believe “The creation of a world where women and men live equally won’t just ‘happen’. And it can’t be achieved solely by small groups of policy makers in closed meeting rooms. It takes all of us to stand up and be counted and take action for the world we want to live in”

The Fawcett society highlighted that women face a ‘triple jeopardy’ (The Fawcett society,2012:5) suggesting women are being hit in three ways due to the austerity measures; public sector jobs, benefit reduction and service withdrawal and as a result of this service withdrawal – women are left filling in the gaps (Fawcett society, 2012:36)

Feminista is important because it’s helps indivudals to create thier own campaigns in support of bring men and women together and making them equal. Campigns can be started in schools, and others in any envirmonment or from any backgroud. It gives people the opportaunities to come toegther and create social change, and campign for what they believe in. The more people are involved the more they are heard, the bigger the change.

Job Search

From 9 this morning I have been searching for jobs, and I think I have looked at around 60 plus jobs and applied for 7! I think it has been getting frustrating when I look at their criteria and some of them… I don’t meet them but I also have my own criteria and I know what I want, they know what they want. It’s not as simple as sending off a CV, I had to answer questions and fill out references and employment history boxes! One thing that really pee’s me off is having to register and sign up to all these profiles! I would love just to have one, and it would just reach out to every other site out there. I know it will be worth it in the end!

Blog Appearance

When I first found out that we would be making a blog on WordPress, I can’t say I was best pleased about it. I thought, great another thing to manage. I used to have Facebook, BBM, Viber, Whats App, Twitter and Instagram. I deleted the other social networking sites and kept two. Over time I have grown the like my blog, you can write more and people don’t seem to be as opinionated as they are on other sites. With a little help from Clive, my blog has started to get better in its appearance. I have pages, with pages underneath it, that are linked to it. Tags, Categories, embedded my twitter account into it. It feels like it’s all connected together. I also like making it a little personal with photos, for example the banner on the home page. On that day I went for a walk down the canal with my brother and my puppy after work, It was such a nice day! It seems to flow, it’s not cluttered. The only social networking site I have that is embedded into my blog is twitter, looks neat at the right hand side of the page! It is difficult trying to get used to all the tabs, and widgets and settings knowing what will work and what won’t so it takes a while but once you get the hang of it, you start to like it more. I will be posting on my blog even after the final year is complete.

Staying Safe Online

I am not a techy person, and I have only really used word, emails, and official sites for getting academic journals and books. I only use twitter and Instagram on my phone. I have two programmes on the laptop known as ‘CCleaner’ and ‘Mcafee’ to protect from viruses and hacking and deleting any unnecessary files. I use the CCleaner on a regular basis if I am shopping for anything and there is an option for paying via pay pal then that’s the best way to do it. It is so easy to gain other people’s details and set up instagram, facebook or twitter and pretend to be someone else, there is actually a programme called Catfish that is in America. They help people meet the person they say they have been in a relationship online with and then visit that person, the majority of the time it turns out to be someone else. It has been in the news recently in the UK that someone has been pretending to be a man, and he has had to speak out about it because so many women think they are in a relationship with him. I was watching ‘Keeping Up With The Kardashians’ the other day and someone had hacked into Kris Jenner’s icloud and gained access to her camera, she ended up being blackmailed for money, if she didn’t pay up then they threatened to release the footage of her changing in her room. I think there are so many apps, and sites that people can use and it can be difficult to manage. There is always someone hacking something like the PS3 years ago. Having programmes like Mcafee and CCleaner can help, because it shows you which website are legit and those of which will not harm the computer. It has a green, amber, and red system, which shows next to the links.

What Sparked Our Campaign?

Personally I have experienced loneliness a number of times during my time studying at university especially after a loved one had passed away, others can experience it if hey have moved away to another university away from their family home. It can be overwhelming going from college education to studying a degree. It was nothing like I expected. Many of the students were over the age of 20 plus, I remember being 18 at the time, the youngest one. I felt stupid because the other students had already had so much knowledge on the units, they had done access courses. When and If I asked for help, I felt like I should already know these things. In the end, some of the students from the first year didn’t seem to want to put the time in to explain or help me with something and I did drop out. I had never felt so lonely in the first term. I really doesn’t get much awareness, I guess when people think of going to university you think of living with friends, not doing much work, going to lectures, or missing them, and going out for drinks, and getting up late and being around people a lot. I feel that I can reach out to people because I have experienced so much already, so when a girl in the final year had been feeling lonely after losing someone close to her, I decided to reach out and let her know that she wasn’t alone and that I have two ears if she ever wanted to talk. I hope that helped, but it was something as a group we could all relate to for one reason or another. The main objective of the campaign is to let students know that they are not alone, there are people around they can talk to and they can get support from various places!

Working Together

Working together does have it’s advantages, but there can also be a few difficult aspects to it also. It does relieve the pressure of having to do so much work in a short space of time, and not feeling so alone while you’re doing it. Someone may struggle with one thing, but the other may have a solution to the task or situation.

Tuckman’s (1977) theory of team development outlined 5 stages that self-directed teams go through while working on a specific activity together. Those 5 stages are known as; Forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning. 

I think as a group we are probably at the fourth stage of performing because everyone is doing their bit. I seem to have more responsibility on the campaign blog. I like it, I think to do this on my own it would have probably got overwhelming with so many things to keep running. One person has been doing the posters, the other has been focusing on the video, another person to manage the facebook page and I think it has all worked out well.

It goes without saying that we as students have so much work to do complete in the final year and although it is all about how we manage our time and use it wisely, it is always going to feel like there is never enough time to get so much work finished. Personally I have so much time to focus on blogging and the campaign, and I have been asking what needs to be done, or is there anything that I could take part in but there doesn’t seem to be any direction as to what next… I seem to be getting confused and it’s not being made clear. Everyone has their part to play and so do I with managing the campaign blog and tweeting using the hashtag #saynotostudentloneliness , I just want to make sure we’ve done everything we can.

Promises.

I promised my Mum that I would finish my course and graduate. I am a week away from finishing all my work, and it hasn’t been easy to say the least but they say if it isn’t hard it’s not worth doing. Some days are really difficult not being able to call her and tell her how my day has gone, good or bad. I have found myself going to dial her number… even sending a text message. I will never be ready to delete it. The memories I have will always be in my heart, any choice I make, anything I accomplish in my life it will be because of My mum Sue. She has always been the drive behind me succeeding in life. She taught me how to be patient, look at things a different light, never dwell on anything in life, she instilled many of her attributes in me. I know that many people say you don’t know what you have until it’s gone, but even with My Mum I never took a day for granted, I loved the chats we had late at night, she would always listen and know the right thing to say in order for me to make my own choices. I promised to finish my course, and not think of her passing away as leaving me, I promised that I would never forget her, that I would always make the right choice for myself, I have and will continue to do that.

Day From Hell.

So close to finishing my dissertation and I was actually enjoying it, plodding along. No stress or worry. So I decided I was going to have a break today and enjoy the sun as it doesn’t seem to be out that often. I put two headings in for the study, and then the computer was not responding. Turned it off. Then put my memory stick back in and all the files were corrupt. All the editing from my dissertation gone, notes, gone, research, gone, articles, nada.. I have been watching YouTube videos, and searching for a solution but there was non. Luckily I emailed a copy to my supervisor, so all I needed to do was go back through it and edit it AGAIN! I have such a bad headache, and as much as I have enjoyed doing the IRS, I REALLY just want it done and submitted. I hate memory sticks, computers, files, and even formatting in a word document, what does that mean!! A word document named dissertation, was all in symbols, and codes, and just plain old jibberish!! I have also downloaded word from my MMU email, because it says it can store the files on-line.. and surprise surprise there was no file saved.