assingment 4

Women Studies is important to everyday life. Feminism is an issue that we come across everyday. Feminism is about women equality and the rights that women should be granted. This class explains feminism, equality, race, gender, nationality, different situations, violence and many more. This class goes through a story, with me in it, and there are many reasons as to why the class flowed the way that it did. I will be explaining the story of our class through a description/argument of the class story, putting myself into the story, and discussing three readings from the course.
This class started with an introduction to women, art and culture. The class addressed themselves as a subject in history. We were asked to see what events have occurred in our lives, our memories of history, the historical importance, etc. This was a start to the class because women studies has to do with history and how things occurred the way that they did. After this assignment, we were introduced to art. We discussed how to interpret art. With this discussion, we were assigned to go to museums to look at art and how it relates to women and feminism. This was the first assignment because Katie King wanted us to be able to make our own interpretations of feminism and art and how they relate. What do the students call art? How does it relate to feminism? These questions were asked when the students were completing the assignment. We were also asked to give assumptions that we had about certain things in the assignment and how we were wrong. It taught us to think outside of the box and to make our own assumptions and to relate them to feminism. This taught us how to un-learn assumptions and not to make any assumptions and stereotypes. After the first assignment, we were assigned to read Fight Like a Girl which explained feminism and the different stereotypes that people think of when feminism is brought up. I think that this was the first reading assignment because we had all made our own assumptions and Katie King wanted us to see that many people do the same thing and create stereotypes about feminism. Next we learned what the true definition of feminism is. We discussed the many stereotypes that people assume when feminism is brought up.
Our next topic was art activism during which we had our second assignment which was to create a feminist event and come up with our own definition of feminism. Our event was about the different stereotypes that people place upon feminism and how they aren’t what feminism is really about. Our group noticed that we had all made some assumptions coming into this class about feminism and women. It was interesting to learn that everyone is making these same assumptions and that it isn’t true. After that day, everyone in our discussion group learned what the true meaning of feminism is. Art activism is about power, which lead us into our next assignment.
After talking about what feminism is, we started talking about women violence and the different types of violence. In this discussion, we came to the matrix of domination. The matrix of domination is basically that whoever is not in the unmarked categories experiences violence and discrimination. We learned that the unmarked categories were white, Christian, Us citizen, English language, male, etc. We talked about different situations where people are not in these unmarked categories and result in violence and discrimination. Our third assignment was about the matrix of domination. Reading Kindred explained a lot about the marked, unmarked categories and the matrix of domination. For this assignment, we had to place ourselves into the matrix of domination and analyze if we were in the marked or unmarked categories of society and how we were affected by the category that we were placed in. Throughout the semester we did many free writes in the lecture section to see what needs to be improved in our writing, what we liked the most, and ways that we can make our next paper more efficient.
There was a reason to learn the things that we did in the specific order that we did. We first made our own assumptions about feminism through our first assignment. This was first because we had to make our own assumptions and then see that they were not always correct. We then learned the real definition of feminism and made our own definitions of feminism. This was the second main thing because we first made our assumptions and then were taught what it really was. After this assignment was when we were taught to un-learn things. We learned this after we learned the definition of feminism because we had made assumptions and then realized that we were wrong so we noticed that many people do what we did and so we have to un-learn our assumptions because they are not always true. After learning the definition of feminism, we started learning about violence, power and the matrix of domination. We learned that people who are in the unmarked categories have the most power. People who are in the marked categories are discriminated against and go through violence. Then we had to place ourselves into the marked and unmarked categories and prove that the matrix of domination is true. This was the third assignment because after learning about feminism, which is basically about equal rights, we learned that nowhere has equal rights because of the matrix of domination.
When first learning about assumptions and feminism, I had many assumptions of my own. I thought that feminism was about lesbians wanting to get equality. Every time I would think of a feminist, I would see a butcher woman who was very rude and hated the world. With this class, I learned that all of my assumptions about feminism were wrong through my first assignment. When we came up with our own definitions of feminism, our group definition 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.” Our group came up with this definition by giving different definitions from each individual person and then combing them. I also learned that I am in many unmarked categories but yet I am in some marked categories as well which determines my power in different situations.
The story that the class went through, I fit in because of many reasons and many ways. The main thing is that I am a female and this course was mostly about women and it pertains to a lot of my life because of my gender as well. It is very interesting because before this class, I never saw myself as a feminist because I had so many assumptions of what feminism is and who feminists are. After the first and second assignment, I realized that I am indeed a feminist because the main thing that I believe in is equality, especially since I am Persian and Persian women don’t have any freedom and are not equal to men. The first assignment I learned a lot from because I learned how to walk into a museum or an exhibit and say “This is feminist”. Our second assignment made me open my eyes and realize that there are many events that pertain to feminism. I never thought that different events, TV shows, magazine articles, etc could relate to feminism. I never saw it that way before this class. The third assignment was about art activism and power. We related marked and unmarked categories to our lives. I also never saw life in this way. It never occurred to me that there are these marked and unmarked categories that make you powerless or powerful. This related to me because I am in both marked and unmarked categories and it was interesting to see what the result of each situation was because of the category that I was in. I think that I had a major part in the third assignment because I was powerless in both race and gender, which are the two biggest categories that determine power. It was interesting to relate my life to the other two people who where in the unmarked categories. The discussion section was very good for our assignments because we had a variety of male and female as well as a variety of race. There were rarely two people who had the same standpoints and views on a topic because they were in the same marked or unmarked categories. We all had a different viewpoint which allowed each one of us to look at everyone else’s perspective and to understand where each person is coming from as well as seeing how their situation would relate to us.
The first book that inspired me was Megan Seely’s Fight Like a Girl. This novel opens up with a list of stereotypes under the word Feminist. This is really funny because when we did our event for assignment two, these were all of the same stereotypes that we had and we all believed in. It opened my eyes and made me realize that it is really foolish and immature to make stereotypes about something when I don’t really know about the subject. Also there is a section at the bottom of page 11 that starts with, “Women have the Feminist Movement to Thank for if…” This section also opened up my eyes and showed me that although I believe that women still are not equal to men; there are many things that we are able to do that means equality. For example we can vote, read, and drive without a male chaperon. It also made me realize that Iran really has no equality because women are not allowed to do any of the three that I stated. Also there is another section that says, “Spotlight on Feminism”. This section gives some quotes that many people have said. One of the quotes that meant something to me was, “I think I have always been a feminist, even before I knew what the term meant.” This quote is interesting because it is true and many people are this way. After this course, I realized that I have always been a feminist even though I never knew what the term meant and I had so many assumptions about it. This book tied in with the course because it was all about feminism and the different stereotypes that people have on feminism.
Another novel that had a great impact on my life was Octivia Butler’s Kindred. This novel was about the matrix of domination and power based on sex as well as race. I always mainly saw power as race but this novel was on both. In this novel, at first, Rufus believes in equality and is very accepting of his friends. Later on he becomes a slave owner and everything changes because he believes that since he has been granted that power then he should use it. Also it has to do with power because Dana is a young African American lady and all she did was try to help Rufus in the beginning but she ends up getting a gun pointed to her head because she was black and Rufus was white. It shows that even though a black lady was trying to help a white boy, there still is the matrix of domination because she was almost killed. This novel ties in with the class because we talked about matrix of domination, art activism, and power. This novel relates to those three subjects and shows examples of each. I learned a lot from this novel because I didn’t realize that these power differences exist, but Kindred made me realize that because of race and sex, there are power differences.
The third novel that had an impact on my life was Bell Hooks’s Feminism is For Everybody. This novel helped with our second assignment with trying to come up with our own definition of feminism. Hooks gives a definition of feminism which is, “purpose of feminism is to bring an end to sexism and the exploitation and oppression that come from it.” This helped me because it made me see someone else’s definition of feminism. We all had our own definitions but none of us saw it in this point of view. It allowed me to think feminism in another perspective, especially the way that Hook’s sees it with sexism. It helped with the second assignment because we had to come up with our own definition of feminism.
This class has been a journey through many things that I never would have addressed or thought about if it wasn’t for the assignments, readings, and discussions in both the lecture and discussion group. The class was overall about feminism, but it was put into perspective through museums, events, power, marked and unmarked categories and many more. I really enjoyed and learned a lot from this class. This class has allowed me to open up my mind and think things through a different perspective and not so straight forward.