Carlene Partow, President of The Hopkins Feminists

 

1. Name: Carlene Partow

2. Major, year: Neuroscience, 2016

3. Hometown: Sausalito

5. You can probably find me… protesting injustice.

6. The best thing about Hopkins is… The Hopkins Feminists.

7.  Something I’m especially proud of is… maintaining an almost quixotic idealism, even as a senior. I remember so many upperclassmen talking about becoming jaded as they traveled through college and assuring me I would undergo the same change in perspective by the end of my undergraduate career. I feel proud of the fact that I still expect the best from everyone around me, myself included and know that I will always feel compelled to speak out when I feel something isn’t right. 

8. Something most people don’t know about me is… I love to knit!

9.  This year, I hope to… check off everything on my Baltimore Bucket List! There are so many things I still want to do in this amazing city that I haven’t been able to the past three years. Baltimore is such a culturally rich city full of artists, musicians, social justice warriors, chefs and unique shopkeepers.  I really want to go on an art walk through Baltimore’s most creative neighborhoods like Station North, the  Bromo Arts District and Highlandtown, shop at Debois for amazing second hand clothes, and go to The Crown to hear some inspiring spoken word poetry, among many other items on my list. 

10. Next up for me is… promoting the Hopkins Feminists’ screening of the incredible documentary “Whores’ Glory,” which follows the stories of prostitutes in Thailand, Bangladesh and Mexico. I’m excited to share the stories of these women because I think all too often conversations regarding the morality and legality of prostitution leave out the prostitutes themselves. 

12.Why being part of Hopkins Feminists is important to me…Hopkins Feminists has been an incredibly special part of my undergraduate experience. On a campus with so few resources for women, I have always felt that our one hour meetings once a week are the closest thing we have to a women’s center. It has been so important for our members to have a safe space on campus where they know they can come to when they need to vent frustrations in their life that arise from the patriarchal world we live in.  Whether that’s due to an insensitive comment by a professor or student, or as serious as a member openly identifying her experience as sexual violence for the first time, the Feminists club is always there to support our members.

13. My best experience with the Hopkins Feminists has been… the interactions with different community members during our campus wide events. One of my most favorite memories is from “Love Your Body Day” last year in which we encouraged the school to examine their relationship with their body and challenged everyone to embrace themselves not because of how they look but because of all of the special things our bodies can do for us. On this particular day we had just finished chalking “Change how you see, not how you look. Love your body!” when a security guard stopped by and stared at us. He looked at the ground for a few minutes and then looked at us and said “Wow. You know I think that’s something I really need to work on.” It’s always rewarding when we can involve all members of the Homewood campus so that the faculty and staff feel included in our community. 

 

14. What being a feminist means to me… Being a feminist means that you recognize that the hierarchy our society has created based on the socially constructed concept of gender is wrong. It also means that you understand that this has ramifications for everyone in our society. As the filmmaker Jackson Katz discusses in his famous TED Talk “Violence against women- it’s a men’s issue,” everyone on this planet has something to gain from addressing men’s violence and determining how to combat this epidemic of toxic masculinity. Not to say that feminism should be centered around men’s issues, because women are disproportionately affected by the patriarchy, but I think people often forget that achieving gender equity is a goal that will benefit everyone. Another important part of being a feminist today is trying to promote the most inclusive possible feminism possible that acknowledges the complex intersection of all oppressive hierarchies, including white supremacy, ableism, transphobia, homophobia, xenophobia and all other means of marginalizing groups of people in our world. I think feminism is a learning process and I look forward to continuing my self-imposed education in social justice!