State Law and
Social Policy
Activism and
Feminist Futures
Read: Chapters 11 and 13
View: Video 6
Write: Final Blog Entry
Take the Final Exam on Blackboard August 1.
Blog Entry Chapter
11: State Law and Social Policy
The key concepts contained in Chapter 11 include aspects of
the state, institutions, government, and representation. The author discusses
suffrage, the Founding Fathers, the US Constitution, the Congress, Senate,
House of Representatives and other dimensions of inequality and privilege.
Other topics include the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the criminal justice
system, the police and the military.
For your reference, I have attached a link to the
Southeastern Institute for Women in Politics, offering support for women
seeking public office.
Blog Chapter 13:
Activism and Feminist Futures
Key concepts contained in Chapter 13 include feminism,
activism, politics of knowledge, future trends, backlash, transformation,
global issues, economic vs. political democracies, capitalism, consumerism,
environmental justice, peace and justice-based politics.
For your reference, I have attached a link to the video of
Natalie Merchant singing “Wonder” a song that celebrates the differences among
us and emphasizes that thriving involves love, patience, and faith.
July 30 : Final blog entry
What have you learned
during this course? What surprised you most?
This course was very informative. It didn't go the direction that I had initially hoped, but it gave me more understanding of things I had not considered before. When I look back at what I said my objectives were, I now see that they didn’t completely line up with what the course covered. However, everything discussed was applicable to my life in some way, shape or form. I must say the thing that surprised me most was the realization that society assigns Gender. Knowing this I was able to talk to someone about her sexuality, and actually understand what she meant about not identifying as a girl or boy. It all made sense! The most interesting chapters for me were Chapters 5 and 6. These were very personable chapters for me, especially as a minority woman. But I also loved seeing what everyone else in the course thought as well. It’s amazing that despite the culture differences we all have, we can all agree on the matters that affect us all as women. I have also gotten a better understanding on the different types of sexual harassment. Knowledge really is power! By taking this course, I’ve been able to shed some light upon fellow engineering classmates. Also for my minority female mentees, I feel as though I am now able to talk to them about sexuality and actually know what I am saying is legit and accurate. I am glad that I had the opportunity to take this course. I have definitely enjoyed it, and those of you who I have been able to respond to and/or hear from. Enjoy the rest of your summer!
ReplyDeleteI also got a better understanding on sexual harassment. I feel that it is very important for all women to read because we are so easily victims of sexual harassment. I hope you have a wonderful summer as well!
DeleteI am definitely in agreement with you. The course didn't necessarily go in the direction that I thought it would, but there were still some valuable key points that I was able to take away from it.
DeleteThere was a lot that I learned through this course that I thought I never would. To be honest, when I first signed up for this class I thought that this was going to be a huge waste of time. It was definitely been the complete opposite of that. I never understood the importance of my rights as a woman. So many woman fought so hard to give us rights against men, equal job opportunities, the right to vote, the right to do what we want with our bodies, etc. I was happy I had these rights, but I did not realize how important it is for all women to understand their rights. There are so many things that I thought was appropriate for me to do as a woman like clean, cook, and take care of my future husband when he comes home from work. However, I learned that I should never limit myself to just these tasks. As a woman, I deserve to have high expectations for myself, and that I have the right to achieve just as much as any man. If I want to get a job then I have the right to do that, and I am not just limited to doing things around the house. I did not realize the rate of sexual harassment and rape before this course. I found that so appalling that women everyday go through something as horrible as rape or sexual harassment. Through the reading I learned how to protect myself, and that I have a voice to stop sexual harassment if it was ever to happen to me in the future. The most important thing I learned through this course was that I have a voice, and that I am not limited to what simple-minded people think is appropriate work for a woman. I now see the importance of being an activist for women because we still have so much to fight for in order to obtain complete equality.
ReplyDeleteWomen really are overshadowed, and aren't given the deserved respect they are entitled to. I also learned that many women made many great strides to help me be where I am today! I agree, we do still have much to fight for. However, the battle is already half won just by us recognizing that there is still work to be done!
DeleteIts great that this course helped you gain a more positive self image and level of respect for yourself, it did for me as well! Its very important that women learn to respect themselves and each other before moving forward with any women's equality movements. The key to that is knowledge, which this class provided much of!
DeleteThis course has taught me a lot that I didn’t expect to learn before it started. I figured it would be mainly about feminism and not so much about all the rights women fought for and all the discrimination they endured and still do. This course was very eye opening to the history of being a woman. I enjoyed learning about the history of the women’s movement and all that women endured in history. I feel like a lot of what I learned was applicable to my life today. I feel like the gender learning is applicable because at summer camp a lot of the younger children are still learning traits of gender being boy or girl. Reproductive rights is important in my life also because I do use contraceptive and I know its my right and I don’t want any man to take that right away from me. The fact that some issues are different over different races and cultures was also something I learned. By taking this course, I have broadened my knowledge of sexuality, what it is to be a woman, workingwomen, sexual harassment, reproductive rights, family systems, and inequality against women. I have thoroughly enjoyed this course. I feel like I will now be able to give other people good and accurate advice. I am glad I had the opportunity to take this course and that I got to interact with all you ladies. I hope everyone has a great and relaxing rest of the summer!
ReplyDeleteOverall, this was a very interesting course. It did not, however, go in the direction that I had hoped it would, but I still feel that I was able to take some information from it that I can use daily. If nothing else, this course definitely helped to make me more aware of women's issues past and present. It helps me to take a more firm position for equality and women's issues that are commonly overlooked. It taught me that making a woman feel inadequate, harassment, rape, and much more do not just have to take place at work; it can be in your own home, school, etc. I was able to realize that there are more institutions that promote such inequalities than I thought actually did.
ReplyDeleteThe blogging was a different aspect of me. I'm not much of a blogger and I thought it brought an interesting turn to the course. I appreciated how the design was open forum and people could speak freely about the given topics and there was no right or inherently wrong answer. Overall, again, nice course.
I learned a lot during this short course. I learned that gender performances are associated with meanings about femininity and masculinity, while sexuality concerns sexual desire, feelings, and practices. Another thing I learned throughout this course is that there are politics in sexual relationships because they occur in the context of a society that assigns power based on gender and other systems of inequality and privilege. Our society always places the masculine gender at a higher importance than the feminine gender. Nothing good comes out of this because this allows relationships to have unequal power because the male is able to somewhat control the female. Another topic I learned about is beauty. I enjoyed learning about this particular topic because this is not the first time I have been able to see what each different society labels as pretty. No matter what society you are in, beauty ideals is that such ideals reflect various relations of power in society. I also liked learning about the politics involved with contraceptive/ birth control access and usage is equity, androcentrism, medicalization, stereotyping, and corporate responsibility. Each different politic that is involved plays a huge role in accessing contraceptive. Out of all of the topics we learned about, sexual harassment was my favorite thing we talked about. I was very surprised to learn up to 30 percent of female college students and up to 70 percent of women in the workplace have been sexually harassed. I think that it is a high percentage of women who have been harassed and it also surprises me that most of these harassment cases are not even dealt with because the woman doesn’t feel like they are able to openly report the incident. This class has really opened my eyes to some serious issues that take place in our society that deal with women.
ReplyDeleteI also enjoyed the section on what defines beauty. Americans not only use the materialistic form of beauty as what is normal or idolized, but they also often believe that everyone else agrees with their idea of beauty. It was interesting to learn about what other genders, races and cultures define as beautiful. This wrapped up for me that beauty really is in the eye of the beholder.
DeleteThis class opened my eyes to many new ideas and ways of thinking. The complexity of some theories really challenged my mind in new ways that allowed me to further explore my personal view of womanhood and what it means to be a feminist. Each topic had its own importance and was applicable in some way to my own life. The discussions on gender identity, birth control and beauty were particularly intriguing to me. I learned a lot about ways to break gender stereotypes and that doing so, being an androgynous person is really a good and evolving thing. Issues on birth control can be touchy and this topic really revealed the vulnerability in women that men so often take advantage of. The chapter on beauty, inner and outer, I really enjoyed because it was the most uplifting. I think it personally helped me gain a more positive self image which helps me to encourage other women to raise the level of respect the give themselves. All in all, I really loved this course. The one flaw I would have to mention is the one I was really afraid of. At some points the discussions seemed to be more of a bashing on men rather than encouragement of women. As it said in the book this is one of the most common myths about feminists yet sometimes our emotions lead it to be true and hard to overcome. Beyond that I really enjoyed the people and material covered in this course and am happy to have been a part of it!
ReplyDelete