How Feminism Opened My Eyes…
When I first started the course of WGS: Sex and Gender I thought I already had an idea of what feminism was and how I viewed it. I knew that I wasn’t a hard core feminist, however I wasn’t a “bad feminist” because I supported so many feminist views and went to the woman’s marches in NYC. When we were first asked to define feminism in class it took me a bit to think because I don’t like I’ve ever been asked that question. My response was, “I define feminism as respecting all genders, but being willing to defend the female gender if it comes under scrutiny. I think that there are many different levels of feminism and I often see, which I don’t support, is women putting other woman down for not being “feminist” enough. Not everyone is willing to go and march for women’s rights or put themselves in the spotlight on social media, but that doesn’t mean they don’t support the same values and views as the woman who do put themselves out.” Looking back at my response it still resonates with me however there is one thing in particular that I would change. The last sentence describes how even though not everyone wants to publicly announce their views it doesn’t mean they don’t support them the same and are just as much a feminist, however I would disagree now. Being a feminist doesn’t mean you have to always support the same views as everyone else. I also believe that there are different forms of feminism, but that doesn’t mean that each version is any more important than another because the biggest themes that I saw in the classroom discussions were respect and equality.
While reflecting back on past reflection I have written I found that I focused on finding the differences between myself and other feminists we studied. I found it extremely interesting that with all the differences I found, such as when comparing my experience to Adiche, but really being held back because I found “America is more diverse which has a huge impact on the culture.” However I can now go back and see all the similarities we possess. As i’m writing i’m also thinking about how everyone who has taken the class can relate to the supporters we read about because we are following in their footsteps. Not all of us will go on to actually change something or make a difference however I believe that just because we were willing to educate ourselves and learn about the past present and what we hope for the future that we are already making a positive change.
The article The waves of feminism, and why people keep fighting over them, explained, opened my eyes a lot to the different kinds of feminists. It taught me about the different waves of feminism and how history was not always fair and that even though people had different agendas it was all considered feminism. I also liked reading about the evolvements brought in every wave. Although the first wave wasn’t perfect and had underlying issues, It still paved the way for the other waves to become established.
