Aaliyah’s Personal Reflection

 

Throughout this class, I have learned a lot. I expected this class to be engaging, but I was surprised to know about how much I looked forward to this class. I enjoyed learning the different topics in class such as gender myths, black liberation, and feminism and trans liberation. I was able to learn a lot about the gender, such as women were told to be “household wives”, while the men went out and worked. I enjoyed reading the books, “Women. Race, and Class” by Angela Davis and “Transgender History” by Susan Stryker. I enjoyed reading “Women. Race, and Class”, which taught me more about the stereotypes women had to endure and how black women faced oppression. I enjoyed reading “Transgender History”, which taught me more about the transgender people and it gave me an insight into the LGBTQ+ community, which I didn’t know much about. The learning in this class was very different from my other classes. Even though it was a three-hour class, it didn’t feel like that. I felt very comfortable in this learning space because we were able to voice how we felt about any topic, without feeling that we were restricted. Even if we had opposing views about certain topics, it was never a time where someone felt as though anyone was against them, for their opinion.

 

As for public writing, this was a new experience for me. I’ve never written a blog post before, but I enjoyed doing it. I especially enjoyed writing my personal piece on women being housewives. This topic was very interesting to me because it still trends up to this day. On social media, I see a lot of posts where men want a woman that stays home, cleans and cooks for them, while they go out, have fun or work. Luckily, women have beat this stereotype by not allowing a man to confine them to this stereotype. Women have chosen to be much more than stereotypes, to be businesswomen, entrepreneurs, and much more. I’m extremely proud to say that we are evolving into much more than “housewives”, where even the reality shows about housewives show that they have their own and they aren’t just cooking and cleaning for their spouses. In addition to writing the blog posts, I enjoyed reading the other blog posts from my peers. They were interesting topics like marriage and gender equality, which taught me more about these two topics. I also enjoyed discussing these topics together in class as I was able to learn more opinions on it.

 

As for the research project, this was by far, my favorite research project that I’ve ever done. My group’s topic discussed gender stereotypes within professions, and I especially liked how we did it on professions that we were interested in. In my group, we figured out what we wanted to research and began working from there. If we had any questions, we would discuss it with each other, to make sure we all agreed. For our group project, I believe that I brought insight on the stereotypes placed on male nurses. I hadn’t expected most of the stereotypes to be on males, but after doing the research, I realized the reasons for it. Some of the stereotypes I saw were shocking to me because they were unbelievable. For example, there was one that talked about men wanting to be male nurses so they could see women naked. I had never ever heard of that one before. It was nice to learn about the profession because it relates to my future career. I was able to teach my peers how the stereotype came to be, who the first male nurse was and how the stereotypes have changed in the present day. It was a very fun project for me, and I enjoyed also learning about the other professions my peers researched as well.

1 thought on “Aaliyah’s Personal Reflection

  1. Hilarie Ashton

    Aaliyah,

    Thanks for this thoughtful look into your experience. I’m glad you liked the Davis and Stryker readings, and I especially appreciate that you lay out what you learned from them — and those things turn out to be some of the main reasons I assign them! I also appreciated this: “I felt very comfortable in this learning space because we were able to voice how we felt about any topic, without feeling that we were restricted.”

    Your public writing thoughts have in them the seeds of another public writing post! Particularly this: “I’m extremely proud to say that we are evolving into much more than “housewives”, where even the reality shows about housewives show that they have their own and they aren’t just cooking and cleaning for their spouses.” You certainly don’t need to write anything on this, but if you had time and wanted to, I’d enthusiastically read it!

    And I’m so glad you enjoyed the group research project — it really came through with what a stellar job you all did. And I learned a lot from your segment in particular — I came in knowing a little bit about male nurses, but now I know more!

    Take good care, and keep in touch,
    Prof. A

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