I would have to say that I have heard of the term "feminism" and seen it articles about it on social media platforms before. I've learnt about Malala Yousafzai though but didn't realize that she is a feminist. I never really cared to look up the term and do any research on it. I was never interested in it I think because words like "feminism" and "feminist" are words that I don't use on a regular basis. I used to think that feminism only applied to women and that feminists were only women. Through the reading of Chapter 1 in the book Threshold Concepts, I learnt I was wrong about feminists being only women. Men can also be feminists and want change to the traditional norms of masculinity. An example would be, men on youtube who does makeup for a living. Makeup and men are a combo that is unexpected I think to others who aren't very open-minded. The chapter talked about misconceptions about feminism to which I found that they were all false. For example, not all feminists are women and gay or lesbian. The chapter and class discussion also gave me a little bit more insight of what feminism is.
My learning goals for the rest of the semester for this course is to just learn more and deepen my knowledge about feminism. I want to be able to understand feminists from a feminist stand point and not just judge based on preconceived ideas. I also want to learn about what types of problems affect feminists to keep the feminist movement moving forward. Another thing I want to learn about is how feminism from back then is different from today's feminism. Basically, how feminism is changing.
I don't have any questions of points of concern as of right now.
Similar to you, I also thought feminism was just about women and that only women could be feminists. I'm glad that chapter one from threshold concepts has taught me that feminism is much more than that. It does upset me however that for the longest time, labels such as gay and lesbian were slapped onto anyone who considered themselves feminists. No matter what the topic is, it is never okay to label other people like that. I also like that fact that you brought up the idea of men doing makeup for a living. Just because someone has a passion that is unique, it doesn't mean it is okay for anyone to oppress him. In all, I too would like to learn more about how feminism has evolved throughout the last couple of years.
ReplyDeleteI also thought that only women could be feminist. It was actually up until recently that I realized that that is not the case. When I heard a guy say that he was a feminist, my first instinct was to be like "well how? you're a guy.", and that doesn't make sense. Why should only woman be able to stand up for woman. I now believe that we need more men who are feminist. The more people to stand together, the better!
ReplyDeleteYou rase an important point about how "feminist" isn't necessarily a term we use regularly, unless it's something that really matters to us, and then it is often portrayed incorrectly.
ReplyDeleteThere have definitely been changes over time to the various feminist movements, as well as ways of studying gender and equality.
There are words I still don't like referring to simply because they're used in such incorrect or negative ways. Though there really isn't much of a choice or alternative cause like literally all of them are words that are being used in class lol
DeleteI also did not really care or know what feminist were. I think because we're just at that age where we are growing up and being introduced to this constantly new and improving world that now we are just beginning to open our eyes and see that there are important things in this world that we should care about because at the end of the day, it is our world that our children will grow up in and we should do our best to make it the best world for them and everyone else.
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