Day 8- Reading Response

Today the focus of the class was Women and Politics. Although I didn’t think that it focused so much on politics as we would normally view them. I think it focused on the way in which women have been entering the political arena and how women have been making a name in the sphere.

The first article that I read “Women’s Rights, Women’s Liberation, Women’s Studies” discussed the myths surrounding feminism and talked about the women’s rights movements. It discussed the waves of feminism and how all that has been done in the past has lead us to where were are as a society today. I was really intrigued when I read the article because I didn’t realize that when the women were working for women’s rights that worked alongside the men that were pushing for equality among the races. Even though they eventually splintered off from the men it was interesting to see how the groups originally worked together in trying to achieve their goals. Another interesting idea that was brought up was how women have started a new type of movement that is moving away from calling females “women” and kind of moving back into the idea of a woman is a female, but a female is not a woman. I think that it is an interesting way of looking at things because from the time I was born it has always been “woman” but there are people out there who are females who do not consider themselves to be “women”.

The second article I found a bit hard to read but I think that the idea of oppression was really interesting. I thought it was ironic how Westernized women have felt the need to go into 3rd world countries and change their way of life. I think that we have enough problems going on in our own country surrounding women and women’s rights that we need to focus on curing those first before we go on a crusade. That being said I am not against helping women in other countries I just think that when people do it as a “feel good thing” as opposed to really helping it does more harm than good in the end.

I was not really a fan of the video. I thought that the way the ideas were being talked about was kind of poking fun at the issues at hand, and although they discussed great issues it was hard to take the segment seriously. Michael Moore had a really funny line in though where he said that men have been getting away with so much for so long and that it is just now that women are getting into the idea of I Am Woman Hear Me. He made an interesting comment also about how women allow themselves to not be heard in the political sector. Even though women have the greatest turnout of voters, the percentage of women who represent the total in politics is really low. The ideas were really interesting I just think that the way in which it the discussion took place was not so great.