I took CS 110 because I am a feminist. Long before I could attach a label to my beliefs I have always had conviction that women and men are equal. Sitting in my high school classrooms, I looked forward to college because there were no courses on gender studies where I attended. I looked forward to taking classes that provided me with a space to learn something I am so fascinated with. I admit that I took CS 110 because Gender 10 had filled before I could enroll, but I do not regret this decision, because I have learned multitudes.
I also took this class because I am applying into the Communications major. I am fascinated by how men and women of American society are conditioned to act and think certain ways, and I believe that mass media has a huge hand in this. The advertisements we walk by, the films and shows we watch, all have real effects on how we perceive gender and gendered identities. How a human being can grow to normalize violence and sexism frustrates and motivates me to help facilitate change. I took this class so that I can perhaps learn to understand how these cultural attitudes about gender develop, so that maybe I too can work alongside the likes of Jackson Katz or Jean Kilbourne.
I have been in love with film since I was a child. Film taught me about feminism. I watched The Mummy when I was 8 and have since admired Rachel Weisz for playing the librarian-turned-adventurer Evelyn Carnahan. I grew to love all of her films, and in studying her IMDB page, came across a trivia bit about how she had been a radical feminist at Cambridge University. I did not know what that was, and so began to research radical feminism. Right then and there, I decided I was a feminist as well, because as far as I was concerned this meant I believed that women were worth neither more nor less than men. I told no one, because I had assumed that everyone else was a feminist as well. I don’t remember the first time I felt like I had to hide being a feminist, but I do know that I often still feel the same way.
I took this class because I wanted to learn how to articulately defend myself when others question and belittle me for my beliefs. However, what I have learned strays from this initial goal. Instead, I have come to understand that feminism encompasses such a vast array of ideologies, that there are too many to accurately describe. They all center on the notion that men and women are equal, but I feel that sometimes this is misunderstood. Some may get the wrong idea and it’s not always their fault. Sometimes I have the wrong idea.
I think I have done best completing the writing assignments. Going to Target and consciously searching for the differences between toys meant for boys and toys meant for girls is an experience that I’ll remember each time I revisit this part of the store. Yet, I believe the second assignment has affected me more because reading Lisa Maria Hogeland’s “Fear of Feminism: Why Young Women Get The Willies” has made clear what I feel like I should have already understood. I believe I have been rather naive about feminism in thinking that those who do not identify as a feminist are wrong or otherwise lousy human beings. However, reading the article has opened my eyes to a new understanding of why I have felt ashamed at times to admit being a feminist, and why others are just, if not more reluctant to do the same.
Moreover, I’ve enjoyed the videos shown in class, though am still horrified by the sequences in Dreamworlds 3 that juxtapose sexual assault with music videos. Just how explicit these music videos are had been something I was completely unaware of until then. This, I believe is how insidious the sexualization of women has become. It is commonplace, normalized, and often times a stepping stone towards justifying violence against women. Watching Killing Us Softly and Tough Guise reminded me that our attitudes towards gender are so deeply rooted in our culture that we don’t even notice sexism when it happens right in front of us. Both these films remind me of a documentary I watched last year, called Miss Representation. Like Killing Us Softly and Tough Guise, Miss Representation seeks to highlight the lack of women in substantial roles both in and behind screen. All 3 relate to gender roles that will be extremely difficult to erase completely. I am hopeful, though. I am cautiously hopeful.
This portfolio is the culmination of what I have learned about gender and American culture up until this point. I hope to articulately comment on our cultural attitudes towards gender roles, the pressures of power and violence in our society, and how social media is a helpful platform with which to approach feminism in the 21st century. It is a cumulative portfolio that takes in what I have learned both before and during this quarter, but I believe that I will never be finished studying gender. There is always something more to learn.
Table of Contents
Click Each Link To Be Directed To Competency
1. Orphan Black and The Media’s Influence on Gendered Identities
2. North Country, The Whistleblower, and Power and Violence
3. Feminism in Social Media – A Cultural Approach
4. Postscript
Cultural Attitudes 