The media we saw and read this week was all about history and the creation of queer and activist spaces. In the art and social justice class I took last quarter, we talked a lot about how the making of a place can shape the actions and decisions made there. In the context of last semester, we discussed how by creating arts activist spaces that were open to the public, there was more of a community feeling and each space could be tailored to the needs of the individual community. In this course, I think space has a similar idea, but can be expanded from a physical location to include the internet or media like zines. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay First, I want to talk about the documentary and Riot Grrl culture. I've been interested in the Riot Grrl movement for a while and read Girls to the Front, the book written by one of the women interviewed in the documentary. I think this culture of “third wave feminism” is absolutely fantastic and incredibly strange as it seeks to disrupt the status quo and change the accepted norm. Even though Riot Grrl culture has faded from the mainstream scene a bit, I can still see its influences. I've found that this culture is pretty much spot on with my definition of feminism. Since I'm from Portland, I still see a lot of punk culture, often emerging in activist spaces, because at its essence, punk has always been about resistance. I heard that the Riot Grrl movement encourages girls to take back their power and create things to share with other girls that reflect their own experiences. This definitely ties into pop culture, because that's what we're all working towards: creating media for ourselves and sharing it with other people like us. This ties into the idea of ​​world-building. I've never heard this term used for anything other than fiction and fantasy media, but I think it's a great idea and a great term. As one of the articles said, the internet is a great place for world building, especially now, because it's so easily accessible now. I really like the websites and projects they talked about, especially the projects that encouraged community contribution, which I think is very important. I found it interesting how the articles talked about history, because I never really thought of history as something we create. I agree that the story has been told and changed to suit the needs of the people in power. But with the advent of the Internet and the push towards cyber-culture, the idea of ​​what history is, and what matters in history, is really changing a lot. One of the articles said: “The queer world is a space of entries, exits, unsystematized lines of knowledge, projected horizons, typical examples, alternative paths, blocks and incommensurable geographies.” I like this definition of queerness because, again, it basically means that doing something queer means rebelling against norms. That same article defined heteronormativity very well, stating that “heteronormative forms of intimacy are supported, as we have argued, not only by explicit referential discourses such as love affairs and sentimentality, but materially, in marriage and family law, in domestic architecture, work zoning and politics.”