this course

I enjoyed all of our class discussions and I liked all the diversity everyone brought to the class. I liked to just sit and listen to what everyone had to say because it really makes you look at things from many different perspectives.

I honestly can say that I gained a great deal of knowledge from this course. I am glad that I had Laura Knudson as my teacher because she always helped make things interesting. I am going to miss this class next semester and everyone in it, even if I don’t know some of their names (my bad). I was glad that this was the class I started my long Monday’s and Wednesday s off with. It just seemed to make the day start good, even if biology killed it after this class. At least I started off on a good note.

I would definitely recommend taking this course to my friends (as long as it’s the same teacher). I hope to see you all sometime later, maybe around campus or even in another class. I hope everyone does well in what they are trying to achieve!!! Good luck and God bless!

Men and feminism

We talked about men joining the women’s movement, but to society that just seems awkward. I am not going to lie it is kind of a funny thought thinking about a guy fighting for women’s rights. Most women would not honestly fight for them.

If men joined the movement they would most likely be looked at as gay. It is really nothing to be ashamed of though. They are just fighting for what they know is right.

When you think about it they are for equality in certain situations. For instance, if a women commits the same crime a man does it is expected that they will get the same punishment. So why during situations like this do they feel it is okay for equality?

Society is not consistent with how they view gender equality. If you want the negative to be equal then the positive also needs to follow suit. I feel that the men who are fighting for the movement understand this kind of hypocritical situation. They realize how unfair it is. Now everyone else, men and women, need to figure it out.

There would be more men involved if everyone would stop acting like it is so weird for a man to want to help fight this movement. If people start accepting it we would go so much farther.

Foster care

I do not think that it is fair that anyone, especially males, try to tell us about our bodies. I feel that it is up to the woman whether or not she wants to have an abortion or not. I will say that I would much rather see them give it to someone who really wants a child and not able to, but that is up to that person.

I am not even sure that putting more children into the foster care system is good. I have personally experienced how the foster care system works because of a family friend. The living conditions were not ideal by any means. I mean she did have a house, running water, and heat & air conditioning I will give her that, but she was a single lady with 5 foster children. That is on top her three grandchildren that she took care of. They had to do chores such as clean up after the horses that were outside her house and other off the wall things like that. It would not have been so bad had she actually cared about these kids. All that she cared about was that check that she used to get in the mail. This is not a way for any child to have to live.

religion

One of our readings had to do with the Native American women. In their culture they are looked at as having many recognized responsibilities, just as the men. The men are the ones that go and find the food, but the women make all the clothing and cook all the food. They are looked at as a very valuable part of the tribe. It has always been this way for the Native Americans. It is part of their culture and religion.

Many other religions really never speak of women as being valued for anything more than reproduction. In other countries the religion does not allow women to even show their full face in public. They must wear coverings. Here in America we just find that degrading, but the women over there know no better.

In other places the women are not allowed to even walk by the side of their male partner. As part of our culture it is normal to see men and women walking side by side. Now if the man is following most of the time he is looked at as a punk. This is not true but it is how our society has been trained to observe things.

Being broke

I do not understand how the government expects anyone to survive off of minimum wage, especially with a family. A person that only has to take care of themselves may be able to just get by, but that is not living comfortable. Now a person that also has to worry about children, that’s even worse.

There are programs out there that are made specifically to help families that can afford things, but now and days they are hard to get anything from. There have been major cut backs.

 

It is especially hard for people with children not school age. They can not afford to send there children to daycare. Some of the programs do provide money for it or a discount, but normally the good quality daycares do not accept it. The lady I know that watches the foster children has to send her kids to a daycare that watches the kids, but it is not nice by any means. She has to send them there because it is the only one in the area that accepts whatever help she receives to keep them there.

The government has no room to complain about the number of people in poverty in our country if they are not willing to work to help fix it. The price of everything else is going up why cant minimum wage? If minimum wage went up every time the price of gas went up things wouldn’t be so bad.

Guest speaker

I really enjoyed our guest speaker. She gave me a lot of insight into domestic violence and ways you can help. I think we comprehend the intensity of the situation more if we hear of personal stories and how they felt.

She talked about the statistics about how many people in our class had most likely been through domestic violence of some sort. I think that even for the people that won’t admit it or still will not go to retrieve help this was good for them to realize that they were not alone. Sometimes just knowing that there are other people that know how you feel is helpful.

I feel that I am more prepared to deal with something like this if I was ever faced with it. I now know where to find information to help others or myself if I needed to. Yes, there are still many questions as to whether you should actually help someone that you know is being abused or if that will just make it worse. The least I can do is offer to help, if they want it they will take it then, and if not they know someone they can contact when they are ready.

presentations

I learned a lot of new information by listening to everyone’s presentations. There were a lot of things that I learned about the women that we supposedly learned about in our history classes. I also learned things about the women I hear and see all the time on TV and radio. The media never focuses on what women are doing to help women’s rights they just focus on the negative or them as sex symbols. The media does however touch on things of this nature when a male does a “humanitarian” thing with his money like donates it to a charity.

 

In history, the women never played a significant role in anything. Even if they were to come up with something worth hearing about the males would end up taking the credit for it. The world and especially our nation have come a long way when it comes to women’s rights, but there is always room for improvement.

I chose to do my presentation on someone that I didn’t know that much about. I had heard of her name, but I could not associate her with anything that she has accomplished. This was my personal way to learn something new about someone that has helped us all in so many ways.

 

Inscribing gender on the body

I read “If Men Could Menstruate” this was actually kind of amusing to read. The points made in this essay really made me analyze how things really are. They are funny to hear, but then you actually start thinking of ways that it is true. Men really have no way of telling women how they feel when they are on their cycle, yet they try to do it anyways.

I know that my big brother and I play fight all of the time. I may punch him but seeing that he is 6 ft 5 inches and about 240 lbs, I know my punch is not going to hurt. After we go for awhile his hits start getting harder and harder. He forgets that he is 100 lbs heavier than me and is almost solid muscle. I haven’t personally worked out in like a year. There is no doubt that he is much stronger than me. I will tell him to quit hitting me so hard and he just continues telling me that it doesn’t hurt and I am just being a baby.

Normally the next day I go to show him a new bruise I have and he is always quick to get mad and demand to know who gave it to me so he can beat them up. I remind him of when I was complaining the day before when we were fighting. He always gives me a big hug and just continuously apologizes; sometimes he buys me food, but then asks why I didn’t tell him to stop….

Family

Many people, both men and women, take the jobs of mother’s for granted. I’m not saying that father’s don’t help. When it comes to talking about a single mother or a single father, the father is normally looked at like he is really accomplishing something while the single mother is just expected to do everything well and with ease. When both parents are involved the mother is looked at by society to be the primary care giver and also maintain a full time job. People never really look at how much the job of being a parent consists of. The daily chores of cooing dinner, maintaining the house, and doing laundry are often overlooked.

Even in the corporate world, men look at women as their inferiors. Many of these women can do the same job as a man as well as they can, if not better. Women are naturally more of perfectionists and are also better at multi-tasking. Men can normally do one thing well then move on to the next project. Males also work very hard to not let women advance in the corporate ladder. Hence, the “glass ceiling”.

gender roles

My family is one that does not exactly follow the ideas that most people have about gender roles:

My dad was normally the one involved with me and my brother’s schools. While my brother was in elementary school my dad was the president of the PTA. That whole board is normally run by stay at home moms with nothing better to do. Believe me, they were not happy that a man got the job. They used to conspire against my dad to get him in trouble. They even went as far as to try and get me against my dad (I was only in 8th grade). That is just childish.

My mom’s boyfriend is the type of guy that hates yard work or anything of that nature. He loves to cook and clean the house though.

My mom has always been the one to make more money and have the better job. She isnt ever to excited to have to do anything with the school, but she will if she has to.  She used to do the yardwork until she started making my brother do it. She does the laundry because that is one thing her boyfriend doesnt like to do, but she doesnt have to cook or clean unless he is out of town.

Yes it sounds weird, but all three “parental figures” in me and my brother’s life all get along great. We all go out to dinner sometimes and we all can sit in the living room and watch games together with no problems (unless, of course, we are going for different teams).