Your age or the way in which you define yourself in terms of your age Privileges
Disadvantages
“The way in which I live my sexuality and pleasure are two of the most important things that feminism has given me, it is a subjective conquest…” - Virginia Vargas14 j In this exercise you have explored how different orders intersect in your life. You can now identify those elements that are in conflict with each other and those that mutually strengthen each other, both to your detriment and to make you stronger. These characteristics will be examined in greater detail, in the following chapter. However, this exercise will help you understand how the different facets of your personality cannot be viewed uni-dimensionally, because every individual characteristic is a form of identifying with or distinguishing oneself from others. j This status confers advantages and privileges on those who identify with it and disadvantages on those who do not. j Finally, you can observe the role that age plays in terms of your "being a woman and an activist"; probably your position of advantage or disadvantage has changed in the course of your life, or is expected to change over time. This puts you in a different power equation with other women, activists and people. Although we have touched on some characteristics of power, we will deal with this topic in greater detail in subsequent chapters. Exercise 2: What I “should” be, what I want to be, what I am… As women activists we are constantly subjected to the “should be.” Many people and institutions feel they have the authority to tell us what is correct and incorrect for a woman. We have built an ideal of ‘what we would like to be”, challenging the dominant patriarchal order through our activism, defending our rights and questioning the experiences that we do not wish to live again. What we "are" develops from the interaction between what we “should be” and what we “want to be”… Write down what you think you should be, what you want to be, and what you are according to the categories that we have worked with.
14. Interview conducted by Marina Bernal, October 2005.
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