First post

Hello, my name is Elisabeth and I am one of the 2013 WomenNC CSW Fellows. I am senior at the UNC-Greensboro studying sociology with a concentration in criminology and am currently applying for law school. I love to read, enjoy ice skating, and as a feminist am very interested in working to end violence against women and girls and violence overall.

Learning I had been selected to be a fellow was an amazing moment and I could not contain my excitement at the amazing opportunities that would arise from this fellowship. As the excitement settled, nervousness sunk in, realizing how big of an undertaking this was, but ultimately I knew that while the fellowship will be a lot of work, the work would be on a issues very important to me and that all of the experiences and skills I would gain from this work would make it completely worth it.

There are a lot of topics related to the issue of violence against women and girls that interest me, however from a sociology point of view, I am interested in how society can help to perpetuate and create certain things, which is why I chose to research rape culture in society and the media, to examine the ways in which the society and the media create a culture of rape that blames the victim, justifies the actions of the perpetrator, creates myths, etc. In my sociology courses we have looked at socialization and how the varying ways in which people are socialized can result in them having different outlooks or perceptions of certain things. I already had an idea of what I wanted to look at for my topic; how the socialization of men and women can affect the ways in which they view sexuality, rape, etc, how society creates myths about rape, how the media perpetuates these myths, etc. Once I started my research and reading articles I found the abundance of research into these areas and more and I look forward to learning a lot and sharing it through my paper and presentation.

I am new to this whole blogging thing so I am running out ideas of what to write, but I am looking forward to this amazing journey that is the fellowship and to sharing it through this blog.