akbar molkara

An important concept to our generation is feminism. This is a concept about philosophy in which women and their contributions are valued. This concept is based on equality for women in all aspects; social, political and economical. A feminist does not necessarily signify a female who wants equality, this is a revolution that has formed by women, men and all people who wish there was equality for all no matter race, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status and economic status. These people want a world that is discrimination and bias free. Feminist see the world as unequal and want to see this gaps that discrimination has caused abolish. They also firmly believe men should not be superior to women. Well, in order to view feminism in my community, I visited a few museums, and I’m going to express my feelings and emotions about this topic and what I have learned and seen in the museums. I assume that I will learn a lot more about this concept and how we should go about as humans of the same planet to resolve these discriminations and biases.
The first museum I visited was The National Museum of Women and the Arts. This museum was amazingly very small. I assumed that this museum would be a much bigger museum. I also assumed that this museum would try to persuade people to become feminists. It was crammed in between two other buildings. I don’t believe this museum dealt much with feminism, even though the museum was about women and the arts, it did not particularly show how women tried to get equality. I assumed that this museum would be a museum to persuade people towards feminism, but it was just very interesting and intriguing art. I believe that feminism is much more than the arts that have been painted by women mainly about women. This museum allows the women who have accomplished these master pieces to be expressed publicly, but I would not say that the art was about equality. At least I did not feel that expression from the majority of the arts. These arts acquire complexity and express many emotions and how the artists feel. There have been many exhibitions at the National Museum of Women and the Arts one of which is the Paula Rego exhibition available from February 1, 2008 until May 25, 2008. Paula Rego is a Portuguese artists currently residing in London. This museum shows that there are a lot of women in the arts and that their art is just as worthy and interesting as the next male artist, it is only necessary for people to open their minds and see the beauty without a bias, and or discriminating thoughts.
The second museum I visited was the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. This museum was very interesting and has a prison like feeling when inside. I assumed this museum would not deal with feminism at all. Even though this museum did not deal with feminism it had one main concept that is very similar to the main concept in feminism which is equality. This museum shows the horrifying unjust discrimination that the Jewish community had to face during the Second World War. This Museum expressed the hurt that can be caused by one race making another race inferior and discriminating against them. The exhibition I visited was the “Remember the Children: Daniel’s Story” exhibition. I assumed that this exhibition would just show the pain and suffering of the Jewish community and children. I was wrong I learned that a small amount of discrimination can lead to a huge worldwide phenomenon if it is not dealt with. Discrimination can hurt a lot of people and it is not fair to treat other unequally if we all want to be treated equally. No one deserves to be discriminated against let alone women they are in no way different from men and discrimination does happen and it needs to be abolished.
The third museum I visited was the National Museum of African Art. This was another relatively small museum. This museum is located in the Haupt Garden. I assumed that this museum would deal with some aspects of feminism or equality, but this was not true. I found this museum oddly off topic and not very related to feminism or any aspect of feminism. There are many exhibitions that get hosted in this museum but at the time that I visited there wasn’t one. The “Body of Evidence” exhibition has been taken down since late last year and unfortunately I was unable to view this exhibition and maybe get a better understanding of the museum and its relevance.
The fourth museum I visited was the Hishhorn Museum. This was an oddly shaped museum and I was not planning on attending this museum. I was interested in the circular shape of the museum so I decided to attend this museum. I assumed that this museum was mainly about sculptures and that it had very little to contribute to feminism. While at the museum I visited the “Recent Acquisitions” exhibition. Amazingly I proved myself wrong again I saw a very interesting art piece in different sections done by a young Korean Women named Nikki Lee. She would dress herself up with makeup and possibly tanning to fit a certain race, age, or group of people and have photographed pictures with them as she fit in to their community. This showed me that down deep we are all equal and nothing should be able to change that. Even though the whole museum doesn’t express feminism, this particular art piece did express itself to be standing up for the concepts of feminism.
The fifth and last museum that I visited was The National Museum of the American Indian. This museum has a very elegant and interesting interior and exterior design. I assumed that this museum would not at all be related to the feminism. There are many exhibitions at this museum including “Identity by Design”, “Return to a Native Place”, “Our Peoples”, and “Our Lives” exhibition. The exhibition that I visited at this museum was the “Identity by Design” exhibition. All of these exhibitions have a lot to do with our nature and the American Indian people and their beliefs. The exhibition “Identity by Design” shows that art by women has a major role in this museum and that it shows a lot about feminism. This exhibition shows that women were treated fairly equal among the American Indian in the work that needed to get done. They helped with their tribes in skinning the animals and making very interesting clothing for their tribes. The women had very highly fashioned articles of clothing made form deer skin. I believe this exhibition is one of the most feminist exhibitions I have visited throughout this visiting of museums in DC. I believe that the American Indian women were treated with a lot more equality than many of the other women in the world were before a lot of the women rights movements.
In conclusion I learned that a lot of my assumptions were off and that assumptions are not necessarily true. Assumptions are guesses that people make and that is how I believe we lead in to discriminations. During this assignment I have learned that concepts of feminism take place all around people, we just have to open our minds and eyes and learn a lot more about equality among all people no matter what their race, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status and economic status. Feminism is not just about women, it is the right to have equality among everyone. There were some really interesting pieces of art work that I saw by women and these art works express a lot of emotions about how they feel and view the world. I believe that the museum of women and arts should be a much larger museum to express much more of the emotions women around the world feel to the public.