Introduction: Who Am I?

A common trend that resonated with me throughout my final days at Miami University is this idea of telling one’s story. I would never call myself a writer, or a journalist, or a poet, so I automatically assumed this never applied to me. I blend in with most of my peers; a cis-gendered, white female with an iPhone in her back pocket is not an unfamiliar image. I accept my positionality on campus as a somewhat-hidden feminist at times, while constantly trying to understand others. The privilege of not standing out too much and feeling like those who look like me barely have similar interests is real. But other people my age feel this way too; they walk the same slanted sidewalks I do. I identify as a feminist seeking a career in a health profession. My dream is to become an SLP because I’ve always had a love for language and communication, and I want a profession working with kids, because kids are simply awesome. Yet, I didn’t have any interest in gender or sexuality until I started having discussions and tried to unravel what I believed for so long. So here I am. I graduate in a few months, and I still have part of my story to tell.

If you delve deeper into this exhibit you will find how I intersected my two interests. I decided to focus on both the Then and the Now. I researched the space of the Speech & Hearing Clinic at the university to figure out what role women played (or didn’t) and how that reflected culture as the years went on. Then I focused on another space, the anticipated Sexuality Education Studies Center, and a brief history of sexuality education (or lack there of) because this space is also connected to my story. Although I couldn’t tell the entire story of either subject (that could take months), I wanted to discuss these subjects because it’s part of my story, and reflects my time at this university.