Introduction and Feminist Selfie

My name is Terese, I'm 19 years old from Rochester, NY. I'm currently a French and Spanish major at Fredonia, but I'm hoping to add a Women's and Gender Studies minor. After my first visit to the Women's Student Union on campus my freshman year, I realized there was a name, feminism, for all of the things I already cared about and believed to be true. As recently as last semester, my eyes have been opened to so many new ideas about gender and sexuality that I had never thought about before. This even led to the discovery of my pansexuality, different than the bisexual identity I associated with before.  Equality for all genders has become a passion of mine and something I plan to work towards promoting in all the communities I'm part of. My name is Terese and not Teresa because my parents didn't want my first and last names to rhyme. My favorite band is Fall Out Boy and I'm not sorry about it. I really like iced coffee and pretending to be a photographer on instagram, along with eating mozzarella sticks, looking at videos of baby animals, and admiring my Eiffel Tower tattoo. 

My #feministselfie sign says, "I need feminism because it should be socially acceptable for women to express themselves as sexual beings (the way men can) without facing judgement and immediate assumption (slut, attention-seeking, low self-esteem, etc.)" I chose this phrase because throughout my life, any sexual expression of mine, which I had always felt was normal and natural, has been dismissed as one or more of the things I listed. I have seen the same thing happen to friends of mine, celebrities, and women in the spotlight in media. I want to work to change society's view of women and women's expression of sexuality as a whole, and help make it a recognizeable idea that women do not need to supress their sexual identities to appear appropriate and "lady-like," and that they should be able to embrace them without shame.