Feminist Stance

I had very little knowledge of feminism before last year.  I kind of had a general understanding of what it is, but it was very basic.  I had always seen posts on social media, especially Facebook, about this topic, but it was always negative stuff, and mostly posts making fun of feminism.  Because high-school didn't really cover this topic, I wasn't 100% sure if what I kept seeing was the truth or not.  Back then, I knew that feminism was a big deal and I saw that people would always make fun of them.  I didn't quite grasp that it was more than women just being treated unequally.  I now realize that those people didn't fully understand the concept either, and a lot of the times, because the word feminism has the word feminine in it, it was a term only women could identify as.  Reading Threshold Concepts, it gave me a new perspective and a little more of an understanding.  There were a few good points that showed the wrong idea people had about feminism like, "Feminists are always making a big deal out of nothing," and "Feminists hate men" (Page 6,7).  This just shows the misconception people have, and it's mostly because they don't have an open mind, or these ideas were constantly enforced into them.  I now know that feminism is the activity of trying to enforce that women should be socially accepted as equal to men.  It's even deeper than that though like women are being held to double standards, which can hinder them so many ways in society.  It's not just women who aren't being treated unequally, but women of different backgrounds, race, religion, social standing, etc. are also being affected, which often times these 'groups' are being ignored.

Last year, I took a women’s study class, and I actually learned a lot.  I didn’t doubt that I would, but I was surprised at how much I never thought about before, or even put that much thought into.  Something I struggled with last year though, was the topic, intersectionality.  Looking at upcoming blogs we have to write, that is one we have to write about.  I’m hoping that I am able to understand this topic a little more and maybe talk about it from a different perspective.  That’s kind of a basic learning goal, but that’s what I struggled with the most last year, so hopefully this year I can do better.

Some of my concerns about this class are that I may not agree with a topic that’s being discussed.  I obviously don’t know what’s all going to be taught in this class, but there’s always that possibility and everyone has their own opinions.  I just don’t necessarily want to be ‘forced’ into thinking a different way or trying to get what I believe in to change.  I am pretty open minded, so I’m not going to ignore what others have to say.  Overall though, I’m pretty excited for this class.