Assignment 4

Akash Garg

May 13, 2008

WMST 250 - King

Section 0107 – Perez

“The Story of WMST 250: Women, Art, and Culture”

The class WMST 250: Women, Art, and Culture really changed my views about these three things. The purpose of this course was to open our eyes so that we could see how art and culture in the world around us relates to feminism. To do this, the course was divided into four segments. The first segment was an introduction to women, art, and culture and allowed us to get firsthand looks at various pieces of art. The second segment allowed us to become art activists by using art to bring attention to the controversial issue of feminism. In the next segment, we looked at our everyday lives and analyzed power struggles between the marked and unmarked categories. Finally, we looked back on everything we learned to see the overall story of the course and how we fit into it. We used various meaningful readings to relate us to the overall story of the class.

In the beginning of the course, we were able to look at artwork done by different people to figure out the relationship between the artwork and feminism. We visited different museums in Washington D.C. to view the artwork. We went to the museums with our own assumptions about what we would find and we were supposed to write all the reactions we had to the artwork. The assumptions we discovered were the foundation for the other parts of the course. We needed to begin a process of unlearning these previous assumptions in order to really learn the relationship between art and culture and feminism.

Trying to figure out our assumptions in this way was extremely effective. Going out and actually experiencing the museums and then writing down our reactions/assumptions as they came about was not only fun but very helpful and effective. Professor King made it easier for us by making us go out of our way to see the artwork in person opposed to looking at it online or in a magazine/brochure.

After figuring out our assumptions about women, art, and culture we then became art activists in order to use art as a means to get rid of our assumptions and learn the truth about feminism. We created a fictional event in which we would speak about our assumptions and they were wrong. We came up with a general definition for feminism which was: Feminism is the movement whose goal is to make the social, political and economic rights for women equal to those of men; eliminating gender barriers, and overall pro-woman but not anti-male. They are not saying that men as individuals are the problem; the problem is the unquestioned power they receive because of their sex. Women’s worth in the world has to lead to a system that creates inequalities based on perceived gender differences. Making this event and brochure let us take our assumptions and figure out which ones were correct and incorrect. It was not only my assumptions that we looked at, it was my entire discussion group’s assumptions which made it even more interesting because we were able to see which assumptions were more common than others.

In lectures, Professor King stressed the fact that in order to truly learn about women, art, and culture and to truly grasp the main point of the course we would need to unlearn our previous assumptions so that we would be open to newer ideas. Doing the brochure for the fictional event was a perfect way to do this process of unlearning. In discussion groups and other times were my group met we were able to break apart our assumptions and learn about what feminism was really about through discussion. Another thing we gained by doing a brochure was we fought with the issue of making the brochure interesting. One of the assumptions we had was that the majority of people didn’t care about feminism and simply weren’t interested. We were able to experience the same barrier that other feminists had faced when trying to have real events and talks about feminism. Being able to get that experience made doing the brochure even more interesting and enlightening.

At this point in the course we had gotten rid of our assumptions and were open to newer ideas. We began discussing the ideas of power and marked and unmarked categories. This third segment of the course was more about examining our everyday lives and analyzing how individual power is influenced by the idea of marked and unmarked categories. We learned that placement into either of these categories is determined by a person’s race, gender, class, sexuality, language, religion, nationality, or age. The unmarked category is always the majority/what is normal. However, this is dependent on the specific situation being examined. For example, the unmarked category for race in the United States is white, while the unmarked category for race in Africa is black. More specifically, we learned that how much power a person has is determined by which category they are in. More often than not, those in the unmarked category have more power than those in the marked category and are able to dominate the latter because of it. We also learned how this idea of marked and unmarked categories relates to feminism and that women are generally considered marked and because of that have always been dominated by men.

This was the main point of the course, this idea of power and marked and unmarked categories in our society today. The course was set up in a way that we could learn and grasp this idea as best as we could. In the beginning, we learned about our personal assumptions of women, art, and culture, and then we began to unlearn these assumptions after that. Finally, we analyzed the world around us and figured out how the fundamental concept of power and marked and unmarked categories relate to feminism. Professor King made the first two segments prepare us for the third, main segment of the course.

Now as the course comes to an end, I look back at the course as a whole and want to figure out exactly how I fit into its story. I came to a lot of realizations about women, art, culture, and also myself. In the beginning I knew that I had assumptions about the course and about women, art, and culture. The first assignment allowed me to realize all of those assumptions and I was surprised as to how many I had. Going to and experiencing the museums brought all of my assumptions out and really made the rest of the course a meaningful experience for me. Then putting these assumptions into the brochure and talking about why they were wrong and what the truth really was, was extremely enlightening. At first I felt that going to these museums and making the brochure would not really help me realize anything or be meaningful at all, but after seeing how they both related to the third assignment and the main focus of the course makes them meaningful and enlightening. The course was about showing how art and culture relate to feminism and about proving that it does happen in the real world. Looking at marked and unmarked categories I saw the struggles of power that women face from being in the marked category and it really proved the focus of the course. It really allowed me to see what the course was getting at and why we did all of the things we did. I also learned a lot about myself with the third assignment because we looked at ourselves and saw which category we were in for different things. Before the course, I felt that I would be very marked and would be in more marked categories than unmarked, but in reality I am only in the marked category because of my race and religion. With regards to gender, class, sexuality, language, nationality, and age I am part of the unmarked category. This was a big epiphany for me because I had experienced racism and had seen times where people of my race were marked and had less power than others and because of that I felt like I was also very marked, but this simply was not the case.

Throughout the course we were assigned various readings, and a lot of these were very interesting and meaningful to me. One of these was Megan Seely’s Fight Like a Girl. The main thing I liked about her book was that she constantly said that feminism is not about hating men but about making women equal to men. This was really meaningful to me because one of the main assumptions I had about feminists were that they all hated men for putting them in the subordinate position and wanted women to be seen as better than men but that really isn’t the case. Feminists are more about gender equality than anything else. They simply do not want women to be treated differently than men and that is really the fundamental concept behind feminism.

Another one of the readings from the course that I found to be very meaningful to me was bell hooks’ Feminism is for EVERYBODY. One of the main things I really liked about this book was that it was a short, concise handbook about feminism. In her introduction, she talks about how she wanted to write the book because she wanted to have a simple book for people to read because she felt that if they knew more about feminism they would not have such negative biases about it. I agree with her on this point and am glad for a book like this one. It is short, easy to read and gets its point across effectively. She goes back and describes feminism very generally and talks briefly about her experiences with it. One point of hers that I do not agree with is what she said about romantic, patriarchal love being all about possession and male dominance. However, she did make an interesting argument for that point and the fact that the divorce rate in the U.S. has been steadily increasing supports her point.

Out of all of the readings, the one that was most enlightening to me was Cynthia Freeland’s But is it art? In this book, Freeland talks a lot about the reasons behind art and it was very interesting to see that a lot of artwork is done to expand our awareness and to emphasize social reforms. I had always known that art was an artist’s way of expressing his or her feelings but I never really grasped the idea that most of them were making statements about social reforms and about the world around them. Freeland showed many examples of art and then analyzed them and discussed the reasons behind them. These analyses she made are what made this book the most meaningful one in this course.

At the first lecture for the class, I thought that I would not enjoy the course and that it would be all about feminism and about how men were bad and all of the other assumptions I had. However, after going through the class and meeting the requirement Professor King set for us I have been able to realize that the goal of the class was to get us to realize the relationship between art and culture and feminism. After unlearning my assumptions and then learning all about the how power is influenced by the marked and unmarked categories and about how this idea relates to feminism, I look back on the class and am happy to have taken it. I learned more than I thought I would and the class became a very meaningful experience for me.