The end is near

Well, almost done with Women’s studies as it is and i am really really glad that i actually got into this class.  I have commented before on how i thought this was just a blow off class, to breeze through while i really concentrated on my other classes.  this was soooo not the case, although this class doesn’t teach you the formula for solving a quadratic equation or how sound travels through the ear to the brain, it taught me so much more about life and about myself than i ever thought was possible.  So i guess you can say i was pleasantly surprised and now i have the urge to tell everyone about everything i learned while i was taking this course   I was kinda reserved about having to keep a blog as a requirement too, I was never a diary keeper or anything of that sort so it all seemed silly to me, but now that im starting to get used to it i like having somewhere to go to just pour out my thoughts of the day, its nice and puts everything into perspective when i go back over what i wrote.  I think in the future i would like other classes that utilize blogs.

Religion and Spirituality in relation to feminism is a very deep well that I am going to briefly try to dive into.  I was quite interested while reading this chapter.  I liked that both sides, the empowerment and oppression of women through religion and spirituality were address.  I felt I could identify more with the oppression views though.  I do believe spirituality is extremely important in our daily lives as women but I think that the majorit of organized religion do oppress women, either intentionally or by accident.  I will point out this specific example because it is something i have actually witnessed myself.  I really dislike that some religions attempt to dictate whether or not a woman uses birth control and her rights to abortion.  I know of a woman, married with one child, who converted to Catholicism and stop using birth control, not this really isn’t such a big deal except that she and her husband could barely support themselves and their first child as it was.  They were on state funded health insurance and in fact her mother was helping them out alot with groceries and daycare etc.  Now can you really justify that God does not want you to take steps to prevent  pregnancies when you can’t even take care of the child you have.  I don’t think so, or at least the God I believe in doesn’t. 

Crash

This week in WS we studied the social organization of the state and government.  To really explore this topic we watched Crash, this movie was so phenomenal and moving, it was amazing.  The opening sequence with Don Cheadle’s monologue sets the scene for the whole movie.  It was perfect.  I loved how all the stories were entwined to show you all the different aspects of all the characters.  The whole movie explores our interrelations so perfectly.  It really shows how most people aren’t bad or good but just in between and how self involved we all are.  It allows you to identify with all characters and empathize with them so you don’t really hold their actions against them, there is no single BAD villian in the movie.  This movie really pricked a guilty nerve within me, I realized that I am just as guilty as the people in the movie of judging people by race, sex, social standings, and class.  It is sad that we all have these preconceived judgements of others just because of what they are, not who they are.  I know that even since starting my womens studies class my thoughts and views of other people have changed for the better, or at least I am more aware of the judgements that take place every day.

Violence against women

This week in WS we read about women and violence.  I have to say what a horribly depressing topic, and i guess it really makes you think, all these statistics makes our world, our country seem pretty crappy.  You know you always hear the cliche i never thought it would happen to me.  But now i see it IS possible, and that scares me.  We shouldn’t have to live in a world where we are scared to walk alone outside, or scared to open our doors, for fear of being attacked, and at least, at the VERY least you can hope that if you are victimized its at the hands of a stranger.  I dont know if that sounds right but I can’t even imagine being a victim of IPV its such a perversion of a relationship, I can’t believe that it is prodominate as the statistics in the book indicate.  All we can hope for is to make greater strides in womens rights, but really what will that do but make the attackers pay?  Until we can get over the view that women are somehow less than men, we will continue to see violence of all kinds against women.

Unexpected Pleasure

Before I started my women’s studies class, i thought “oh great, a waste of time, blow off class so i can focus on my other, more important classes”  I mean I had just as many rights as everyone else and i felt good about who i was and where i was in the world.  But even after the first week i realized I, really most women, weren’t as “liberated” or equal as i thought.  I learned that all over the world the oppression of women is still extremely prevalent.  I also learned alot about just how hard other women have worked so that i could stroll through my life for 20-odd years before realizing that there were still changes that need to be made to our society and our world.  I guess my question for others is, have you felt either one or both of these yourself?  Was your course more that you expected too?

Equal Opportunities

This week in Women’s Studies we went over women’s places in the workforce.  I just find myself kind of fed up that we even need an institution like the EEOC in place.  What ever happened to picking the “best man for the job” but even that implies that the best MAN is better than the best WOMAN.  And how does the color of you skin have ANY effect on your capability to do your job?  I guess the i think the EEOC is both a good thing and a bad thing, because while it is good that we can acknowledge this and act on it, i think it also enables us to see certain groups of people as inferior, I mean we/they NEED the EEOC to get us jobs.  It just seems like a double edged sword.

After reading a few of the entries on Riverbend’s Blog I have to say I feel dirty after it. I can honestly say it makes me sick that there are Iraqi citizens that live in that horror and, in fact, are giving up there homes for an uncertain future because of the havoc and ruin we, as Americans, have brought to their country. And for what? I know there are arguments over weapons of mass destruction versus oil but sadly I must say I am woefully ignorant of the intracacies that started all this. I can’t imagine reversing our roles, having myself in her situation while she is carefree and ignorant. And on top of that I find that I have a great amount of respect for this woman who freely posts her thoughts and critques the worlds “superpower” and the mistakes that have been made. I don’t know that if I was in her situation I would be of such a strong character to do what she is doing, not only living with the terror that she is, but writing about it and letting the world know.

Change is acoming

So this week in our Women’s studies class we read an essay by Karen Steindber called “Designer Vaginas.”  Basically it was about women who have decided to follow the newest fad, labiaplasty, where the labia is altered usually making the inner labia smaller and sometimes injected them with fat to make them fuller.  I really went back and forth on my feelings on this subject.  First, i thought “Oh great, another body part for us to change as if we don’t have enough already.” I mean shouldn’t we be proud of who we are the way we are?  How can we alter our whole self and still be original?  Then I started thinking that maybe this is just another step to show how far the feminist movement has come.  A women can say, “I don’t like my labia, or my vagina, or my lips, or breasts, etc.” and decide to change it and become something more and do it just like that.  If that is the reasoning behind a woman’s desire to undego labiaplasty I don’t think I can fault her for that.  But if she is doing if because she thinks that it will appeal to her man, or if her man tells her that she should get it, then I think this is wrong.  I think the reasoning behind the desire is the most vital part of making the decision.

The sexuality of people

So I found this week very interesting in relation to my Women’s Studies class.  It’s weird how these things tie into your life experiences just at the perfect time.  One of the essays we were reading has to do with the stigma of being a bisexual, how you are not accepted by both the homosexual community and the heterosexual community.  I really focused in on what one particular arguement was, that being bisexual, or homosexual for that matter, was a choice and not the way a person is born because God doesn’t make mistakes.  This really stood out for me because my boyfriend and I were just having this same discussion last week.  He feels this way and I feel the opposite.  I can’t remember where but a long time ago i was reading something on how there are homosexual couples found in other species, like horses.  If we are honestly given the option does that mean that animals are also given the option of what sex they are attracted to?  Does that mean that animals can reason like humans?I don’t think that people who are bisexual or homosexual CHOOSE to be that way, because let’s face it some of them would choose not to be because of the hardships and segregation that goes along with being different from what is “right” and the majority.  I honestly believe that some people are just, for lack of a better term, hardwired differently.  Does this make them less?  Not at all.  It just makes them different and honestly different is good, if we were all the same, life would be sooooo boring. 

Gender roles

This topic really has me thinking and assessing my life now.  I’ve been dating this guy for about 4 months now and it has started to get pretty serious I think but I have suddenly started worrying.  I am fortunate enough to have come from a family that has realtively few typical gender roles, although i think it is impossible to have a family with absolutely NO gender defined roles.  Both my mother and my father share the household chores and in fact my father does the major share of the cooking usually.  They have let me make my own decisions regarding my life, I played and participated in martial arts up through high school.  All in all it was a pretty good upbringing I think.  But I recently found out that my guy came from what I consider the complete opposite of my upbringing.  He even told me that his father as a young man cooked for his whole family up until the time he got married THEN his wife was to do the cooking.  And this has me scared… I think that we learn what to look for in relationships by what we have seen, the foremost of those relationships we base ours off of would be our parents.  And we seem to be coming from two mindsets on that one.  I know that every relationship is unique, I just hope that he doesn’t expect me to do all the cooking and cleaning!