Brainstorm Week 10 - Chloe Rabinowitz

The film about the Ovarian Psycos struck me as a total embodiment of the material we’ve gone through during the entire quarter. These women come together deliberately, convivencia, and create a space for them to be empowered, a resilience practice. The act of being with each other and riding together is so powerful in uniting the community and creating a forum to spur open dialogue between Chicanas which was never available before. I think this is truly beautiful because it emphasizes the resourcefulness of women and how through convivencia, they can create a decolonial power structure that is oppositional to the traditional structure society provides them with. Not only does this allow individuals of these communities to come together, but it also acts as a remedio, a form of healing, for them against the pain and hardships they endured and continue to endure.

Chicas Rockeras does something similar. Chicas Rockeras was formed because of the lack of opportunity and resources available to young girls in Southeast LA. This collective creates a safe space for young women to define their own roles in society and just be themselves. In doing this, it brings together women from all over and creates a sense of community. Thus, these feministas in the borderlands organize community in the present by providing outlets for convivencia that engage the younger generations in modes of empowerment and resilience to the patriarchal power structure present in today’s society. By planting these seeds in the younger generations, they envision and help to create a future where women have the power to be themselves, without being told they’re too loud, too assertive, etc. In the article “Chicas Rockeras: Empowering girls in Southeast Los Angeles”, Marin, the founder of Chicas Rockeras describes what it’s like for a young girl to attend these camps, “imagine being ten, coming into camp, and being told ‘yes you can’ over and over again, being celebrated for your mistakes, given a high-five, or even being encouraged to yell into a mic.” Allowing young women to be themselves without the values that society imposes on them early-on creates a sense of empowerment and resilience in them that propels them forward in life and deconstructs the impact of traditional societal modes of oppression.

These young feministas who have experienced these communal spaces of empowerment create a sustainable path to emancipation by connecting with others of all ethnicities, races, backgrounds, etc. Essentially, because these young women have had opportunities to connect with each other and discover themselves, they take these core values with them into their future endeavors. This creates a sustainable model of emancipation because it encourages young feministas to create community that transcends societal boundaries, promoting the emancipation of all people, not just individual groups.