Crucial Figures? Easy!

This week we read Barbara Smith's Interview. It was really long and basically talked about her life and how she got into/what she has done for Black Feminism activism. Now, what we did with the reading in class, on Tuesday, was go over "what were her struggles in life that led her to her activist work." Making direct correlations (and finding/remembering them) was a slightly difficult task, but the events that stuck out to my group were her Flight Hostess interview (where, if she took the job, she could never progress because she's Black and a woman) and the typewriter incident (where she couldn't get one because she wasn't married; but a single man could). What I, when reading (and even noted this with my discussion question, kind-of), and my group noticed and discussed after locating these struggles was how she brought up the topic of intersectionality in movements (though she refers to the topic by a different name that I can't remember). It feels like a "new thing" in movements since we're now acknowledging and talking about it. Thus, it is interesting to see through the eyes of an activism who's lived through these, for lack of a better phrase, "old times," or "old movements" and how they saw/interacted with intersectionality, even though it didn't have a name or acknowledge presence at the time.

But! Moving on to my project/movement... the example for this week was basically tailored for me because my whole timeline is focused on people crucial to my movement. Thus, I just cherry-picked, from my timeline, who I thought made the most notable, in my eyes, "achievements" in terms of "breaking into" the gaming industry. That person is Carol Shaw, who is the first female game designer/programmer, first women to get her name on a game box (that's so cool!), and earns like a Pioneer award so... I think she deserved the spotlight.