What's that sound? It's the buzzing of the Tufts Gadflies, better known as the ongoing feminist discussion blog run by the Tufts Feminist Alliance (TFA). According to the Web site, www.tuftsgadflies.blogspot.com, GADFLIES is an acronym for Gender Awareness Discourse For Living In Equal Societies. The blog was created by the club last year to raise awareness for students in the Tufts community and beyond.
Sophomore and TFA co-president Amanda Harris explained that the blog's popularity and importance has increased since its inception.
"We had originally created the blog last year, and it was set up as a forum for discussion around campus, but it didn't really get started until this year," Harris said. "It is a way for people to have a source of debate, to get opinions on women's issues, gender issues, and sexuality issues."
TFA co-president Liz Fusco, a sophomore, said the wide range of ideas on a seemingly narrow topic has been one of the most exciting parts of the blog.
"Because the members of TFA have such a wide ranging interest in women's issues, it's a really good way to have a forum and to share what's going on with issues in the world," Fusco said. "At its most active point, the blog became a news service. I think that definitely becoming a way for all members of TFA to stay updated on women's rights and feminism."
Various groups, such as the Tufts Men's Activist Coalition (TMAC) and the Jewish Women's Collective, are members of the GADFLIES blog, offering viewpoints on gender issues from many different perspectives. Harris stressed that TFA does not want to limit opinions.
"When we started the blog, we put an announcement on Tuftslife.com and sent out e-mails to as many groups as we could think of, from the Tufts Republicans to TMAC, just to say 'look, here's a forum, feel free to post whatever you want.' There were definitely some interesting debates on the site last year around campus," Harris said. "The blog is here for your use. We want people to use it; to put their opinions on it."
Topics on the GADFLIES site have ranged from the Duke Lacrosse rape scandal to whether or not females should be drafted into the army along with men. Although there has been a month-long gap since anyone posted to the site, Harris says it is not for lack of interest.
"Everyone's been really busy and because of Thanksgiving; we haven't had a TFA meeting in a while, so that's probably part of the reason it's been inactive," she said.
Fusco explained that she hopes the blog will allow people to see feminism differently. "My personal hope [for the blog] is to make feminism more accessible, not by watering it down or making it more mild, because it's not an extreme stance to begin with, but by introducing people to the idea that feminism has so many facets," she said.
"Feminist discussions are important for a lot of reasons; the first being that dialogue is one way to spread the word about things to keep people engaged and interested in things. Especially for women at Tufts, who are mostly women of privilege, it's easy to forget the importance of feminism and women's rights," Fusco added.
Some students, though, are opposed to a movement they see as sexist or negative. "Feminist groups advocate exactly what they claim to be protesting," freshman Kevin Fender said. "They promote women's rights to such extremes that they are actually promoting a culture even more sexist than the one we currently live in."
However, Harris pointed out that feminism is often viewed with stereotypes and that the TFA welcomes many different views both in their blog and in various future campus events.
"We're trying to do a 'this is what a feminist looks like' campaign, with buttons and T-shirts and that sort of thing, to promote our idea of feminism as much more encompassing than people normally look at it. We're trying to knock down the stereotypes of the 'feminazi' and of feminists as being man-hating. Hopefully, the blog will become a place for discussion on the campaign," Harris said.
The TFA also plans to continue their tradition of a "Take Back the Night" rally, which in past years has been a popular way to raise awareness about violence against women, particularly rape.
Harris explained that the TFA's definition of feminism is far different than the one Fender described. "Our vision of feminism is very open. We base it on the idea that women and men should have equal rights. Even if they don't necessarily agree with our ideals, we are open to other opinions," she said.
