To start off I want to admit that I was beyond confident, almost to an arrogant degree, that I had a firm grasp of what it means to be a woman. I was certain that I knew everything (well mostly everything) about what being a woman entails. I felt that especially as a Black woman that my experiences with both race and gender were enough to make me knowledgeable about the world and how I and women like me move throughout it. Seeing that Angela Davis was one of the required readings also gave me enough confidence to know that in this class my experience would be considered and intertwined into the makings of the course and that I would feel included in the dialogue. Learning about the different waves of feminism, seemingly clued me into a new unfound world of liberal and progressive female movements that I didn’t even know existed. Thinking back over the course of the semester, what I didn’t realize is that in this class I would learn and discover that as a woman, regardless of how you identify, all of our experiences are unique as well as important. There is no single way to live as a woman nor is it possible to sum the female experience into one monolith dialogue.

First off, I have to admit that I really enjoyed writing my blog post. While writing my post I took a personal risk and stepped out of my comfort zone. Typically, I focus on writing things that I feel like that I can connect to on a personal level, and as someone that is CIS and straight, writing about LGBTQ+ representation in the media wasn’t something that I felt like I could do effectively. However, this changed after watching the YouTube video on trans representation. While watching the video, the issues and topics that they discussed resonated with me in a way that I couldn’t have imagined. Out of all the readings and videos (even from my Idol Angela Davis), I feel like I took the most from that video. Even as someone who isn’t trans, I can understand why trans people would want to see themselves represented in more progressive and healthier ways. As a small yet growing group in our society, trans people are often stigmatized in the same ways of other minority groups. It is easy for people to fear-monger or promote negative assumptions about a group they aren’t familiar with, and this often has detrimental effects on these groups. When thinking about LGBTQ+ representation (specifically trans representation) I am reminded of how important it is to have allies both in and outside of our social groups that can help uplift and promote healthy and productive discourse on new ways to engage with these types of issues. Being able to publish my post to the blog is a way of helping to facilitate this discussion and ensure that more people, regardless of if they’re LGBTQ+ or not, see and hear the issues that impact the community.

In addition to the blog post, I also had a huge takeaway from the group project. When researching and learning about reproductive justice and abortion, I was shocked to learn about some of the lesser-known issues that relate to abortion. When breaking down abortion by race, I was surprised to learn that abortion laws have a greater impact on women of color. Oftentimes, when abortion and abortion laws are mentioned on the news details like this are left out. Something that I found particularly troubling about this is that when people take a pro-life stance, they are severely undereducated about the details and circumstances that surround abortion, and this makes the discourse on abortion seem even more troubling. I’ve come to some personal conclusions on the matter and one of the more grating ones is that abortion is seen more as a political topic than it is a women’s health topic and ultimately this has a negative impact on all women in the present as well as the future. By adding my research to the group project, I supplemented my group’s overall take on the other social issues that impact abortion like racism and the need for abortion to be depicted in more accurate ways in the media. When the true stats behind abortion and restrictive abortion laws are so distressing and impactful, it is important for reproductive justice to be taken seriously and more fairly by the government.

Furthermore, I sincerely enjoyed the readings and other components of the class. Seeing the gender texts that other classmates brought in exposed me to new viewpoints and encouraged me to look up other content that surrounds feminists and gender discussions on the internet. I found myself engaging more with this type of content on the internet and learning from it. One of my favorite things about the class was that it was a safe space for us to share and learn new things from each other in combination with the coursework. Coming to class and being able to hear about how different students interpreted the readings and other media assigned was enlightening and I feel as though I learned valuable information that I will be able to utilize in the present as well as the future. This was my first time learning about trans experiences as well as learning further information about women’s movements and the deep history behind these things that isn’t known to most people. While we did learn a lot in this class over the course of the semester, most of it felt engaging to me on a personal note. Using the class site to submit work and view the work of my peers made me feel like I was a part of a community and not another student on a roster. Rarely can I say that a class invoked this kind of feeling in me and will cherish this learning experience in my future college endeavors.

Linxin Jiang

After doing the public writing, I was able to learn from different women who grow up with different backgrounds and view things differently. After working on the topic: gender stereotypes with my team. I was able to reevaluate my knowledge about how gender stereotypes can affect the lives of women. One thing I think I can improve next time is becoming a better team player.

One thing I learned from reading public writing from other people is to understand that everyone can have different ideas. When I was reading other women’s writing, I tried to be as neutral as possible. I was trying to understand what her idea was coming from. For example, I don’t agree with the first writing I read. I carefully read her writing, and I tried to understand her ideas before I made any comment. I wrote down everything that I think can be changed, and things that I don’t understand after I read her work. I shared what I love about her work first, and pointed out some structure issues she had. Since I have a different idea than her, and I want her to write what she supports. Therefore, I thought it would be great for me not to question her ideas. I was focusing on how she was introducing her idea and making transitions in different ideas. 

One thing I can improve next time from reading public writing from other people is I should wait until other people give out their thoughts, so I know what she wants to hear from people. She was very happy that people agreed with her idea. I think that it is very important for me to share more about what I liked about next time.

One thing I learned and can improve next time when I do public writing is to communicate and learn from as many people as possible. I found it important to be able to get comments from other people. When I was writing my draft, I felt my eyes and thoughts were covered by something invisible. I thought my draft was good enough until I got suggestions from others. After our in-class break-out section, I shared my writing with others too. Hence, I got more great suggestions.

I learned how to improve individual work from reading and writing public writing. On the other hand, I learned how to work as a team from working on group research projects.

Communication and helping each other are very important for a group. I was doing great talking to people in our group chat. I kept track of everything. For example, I update every task that we discussed during research day for group members who were not able to come to the class during our two research days. I came up with the idea and asked all the team members if they agree to talk about the life of the girl so we can cover all the gender stereotypes that our group thought is important. I tried to be a bridge between all our group members. Put all the tasks together and remind everyone. One of my team members was not comfortable with talking in group chat. She directly messaged a lot. Therefore, I tried my best to update her. I imported a template for our PowerPoint Slides. I reminded my group members to keep using the same format as well.

A few things that I can improve next time include that I should encourage my group members who are not comfortable talking in group chat. I will tell them it would be great if they can also tell other members of our group. It will be more efficient. Another thing that I can improve is stopping using ‘I think’ when I am working in a group. The use of ‘I think’ and ‘I guess’ is a habit of mine. I reminded one of my members several times that I think using paragraphs was not a good choice. We can talk more during the presentation. But we should keep our slides short. But she didn’t want to delete anything. If I have a second chance. I will spend more time convincing her. Additionally, there is an animation in slide 17. However, I didn’t check with my team member who is sharing the screen before the presentation. I found out she is using a local file during the presentation. Therefore, the image with numbers was not able to appear. I decided to say it instead. It is all because I am not confident, and I don’t like conflict. Even when I suggested things that I think are very important. I used ‘I think’ and ‘I guess’ at the beginning of my sentence. And if they don’t want to change it, after all, I will stop saying it. These are something I will improve next time.

This is the best class that I have taken this semester. I was able to take a break from all the mess that I had this semester. I learned to be ‘sensitive’ because I viewed most of society’s issues in a positive stander. However, I noticed many voices against women this year both from men and other women. I was so disappointed at talking to people online, but I see hope from this class. I meet a lot of people just like me who care and want this society to change. I have a little brother who is nine years younger than me. I can change all the men in the world, but I would teach him how to be a normal guy. Someone who can think independently, respect women, support Feminism, and can empathize with women.

I can not believe it has already been a semester of being in this class. This class has helped me be knowledgeable in things that I thought I knew but clearly did not know the whole details about it. Like how in the group high heels and that those torture devices were made by the King of France to make HIS legs and butt look amazing. I love that this class was like a free for all and how we were able to talk about everything and anything! From gushing over how cute Yara’s kitten is to how frustrating toxic masculinity and white supremacy are. 

In all seriousness, we talked and learned about many important topics in this class. For instance, my first blog post was about the myth of the black rapist, and how yes rape is awful and I would never support it however there is a sad truth that most people in jail for rape, especially if their race was black, they were not the ones that committed the act but or blamed that they did. There was a section that was mentioned in Angela Davis’ book and we are all Davis’ lovers in this class as we support everything that she says and does because it is all the truth. Along with Angela Davis, we also read works and talked about Judith Butler who was an amazing author that had horrible grammar. However, once you were able to decipher her work you are in awe and angered by her line of work because as fascinating women history may be, it is always frustrating seeing how women were treated in the past and how the thing was normalized so nobody needs that how the men were treating women was actually horrible. 

Earlier I mentioned posting a blog post and honestly, I had a lot of fun with it. Even though I struggled with the website and it is my first time using the CUNY Commons website, however, it gave me a sense of journalism and it felt like I was about to post my article that would open the public’s eye and even cause controversy but get people talking about a topic that needs to be addressed. Ever since middle, my English teachers would always tell me to pursue journalism as a profession since if it was a topic that I was passionate about and had a lot of opinions about said topic, my opinions were actually eye-opening and got my teachers to think about the article they assigned us in a different way then they originally read it in. I also loved the idea that we had creative freedom to write about anything we wanted to shine light and attention to as long as it was from the readings from class, or is a different source but has the same ideals of the reading we were assigned. 

The blog post gave me and all my other classmates in this class to explore the world of historical events and allowed us to sink deeper into our ideas and opinions on certain events and topics and help us see if we actually know the topic we are studying or if we just brushed the surface and never really got to the core of the problem or topic. Again referencing my blog post about the myth of the black rapist, I knew about the topic of rape and how it is a horrible crime to commit and I believe all rapists deserve to spend the rest of their lives rotting behind bars, but I never knew that black men would be targeted for this crimes. Sadly, I also knew that black men are more likely to be incarcerated for crimes they did not do, or if they did commit a crime they would be given a higher and stricter punishment in comparison to a white male that committed the same exact crime. So it was not really a big shocker that white males would actually be the one gang-raping a woman but pushing the blame to multiple other black males that had not even been near the unholy scene and end up sitting behind the cell until they take their final breath. It is extremely frustrating but when you live in a world where white supremacy is constant, this is the sad reality many Americans have to deal with. It is complete and utter bull shit, but it’s the truth.

Do you know what else is complete bull crap? Gender stereotypes! Why is it that because I was born with a vagina rather than a penis I am immediately deemed sensitive and less capable than the opposite sex? Why is it if you are born with a penis that you are the strongest which means you can never cry about your problems unless you want to be seen as feminine and have your sexuality and masculinity questioned? This happens because of gender stereotypes that are so outdated that they should not even be used in the twenty-first century. Since I am a woman my favorite color is either pink or purple and not blue or green because those are colors that are associated with man and they are manly and not girly at all. If you are a guy wearing the color pink your sexuality is questioned as you are showing a feminine side of yourself and it is not normal for men to wear pink and any other color that is associated with women. Sadly gender stereotypes are not just implied to colors and clothing, but also to many job professions that I and my group members explored.

My group decided to focus on the job profession aspect of gender stereotypes since gender stereotypes are such a major topic and it is almost like an umbrella with how many topics can fit under gender stereotypes. We decided on professions that we are interested in pursuing or interested in learning more about. For instance, I chose to learn and write about teachers and those stereotypes because that is what I am majoring in and what I want to be in my career in the near future. Whenever I told family members or friends that I was going to be a teacher they all responded with the same line that “Oh my god! That is the best job a woman can ever have!” Which got me thinking about why is it that women tend to always be teachers and professors in comparison to males in this profession. If you ask the internet they just reply that teachers’ salaries are low compared to other professions like doctors, lawyers, and mechanics. If you ask an average person they say it is because teachers have the same dismissal time, and vacation days as their children do so the mother is able to both provide and also take care of the children once they are home from work and school. 

I constantly made the comment in our presentation that being a teacher is the next best thing to being a stay-at-home mom, or housewife. This was the main reason why I did not want to become a teacher because I did not want to be pushed into that stereotype and I also did not want to be in school anymore as I have been in school since I was four years old. However, I am not a natural-born leader so I can not run my own company, I am too sensitive so I can not be a lawyer, but I love helping people in any way I possibly can whether it is by donating to charity, participating in walks to bring awareness to illness, or just regular community service by decorating senior homes for the holidays, working at soup kitchens, delivering groceries to elderly that can not leave their homes, etc. What better way to help my community by educating the youth and shaping the future generation to be the best people they can possibly be and help change the future for the better. The idea that in the future I will be teaching future doctors, lawyers, politicians, musicians, veterinarians, maybe even teachers like myself excites me even more and makes me want to work harder so that I can become the best teacher I can possibly be. 

All in all, I had a blast taking this class this semester. It made me feel different types of emotions. From anger and sadness to happiness and joy. If there is someone reading this post that was not in our class or did not take this class but is debating on it, please take this class! It is basically free for all and you are able to rant about anything and everything that is happening in today’s world. As for any male students that may be reading this post, please join this class. Trust me the class is going to attack your gender constantly because we are not white feminists. You can learn so much in this class and a lot of valuable information. Please take the class because believe me when I say that you will not regret it. 

Thank you Professor Ashton for this amazing semester! I always looked forward to your class and even if I was tired that day, your class immediately woke me up and I learned so much in this class so thank you! I hope everyone in this class continues doing well in their academic journeys and happy holidays!!! Merry Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year’s Eve, and New Years Day everyone!!!!

Valerie Kominer

Professor Ashton

WGST 1001

20 December 2021

Upon entering this class, I thought I knew what to expect. Just by simply looking at the name of the class, I thought that it would be a generalized version of women, gender, and society. After the first day of class, I quickly realized that this class was not going to be the “typical” class. It was a breath of fresh air to have a professor take time in the beginning to ask how people’s days and classes were going. More specifically, it was so nice to have the professor give actual feedback to the student’s personal problems and care about them, rather just asking for the sake of seeming nice. Additionally, the class took a very informal approach to education as a whole. We spent a lot of time talking about current issues and how they connect to sexism and misogyny. The same applied for assignments, as students would get a voice on both the progression of assignments and the rubric. Overall, it was a great class to take as I entered my final year of college.

There were a couple of interesting topics that we covered over the course of the semester. One that was particularly interesting was our discussion of TERFs. Finding out about a radical group of women who denounce the trans-community due to extreme ideals surrounding gender was shocking. I found it interesting to hear the professor’s comments about the hypocrisy surrounding the group, along with their strange definitions of activism. Another topic that stood out to me was the discussion of the history of transgender activism. Reading an article about the first protests and civil discourse that surrounded it was very moving. The professor would often connect the topics that we were learning, with her research from the book that she is currently writing, which gave a very interesting perspective on both how little and how much progress has been made.

The blog posts were my favorite part of the class. It was nice to get one topic and focus your research on that and that only. It allowed me to write a piece that contained a lot of information from both the text and my background knowledge. Having time in class to ask your peers for edits was also insightful, because I was able to hear people’s opinion on both my writing and the information before submitting it for a final grade. The two-step writing process, of a draft and a final, was a nice addition to the class, because it allowed me to improve my writing in order to get the best grade possible. I got very lucky with the peers who reviewed my writing because they really took the time to read and give me great feedback. As a result, I found myself doing the same when I was asked to review other’s work, which hopefully gave them the opportunity to improve their writing as well. It also gave me so many different perspectives on what we were learning, which aided in my understanding of the topics and provided me with more comprehensive answers to share out in class.

The group that I was in for the final project chose to research gender stereotypes. I really liked being able to choose a topic and have full creative control over the presentation. Because of this freedom, my group chose to cover different professions which resulted in a great presentation. Personally, I really like to study history, so I chose to cover the historical perspective in relation to hegemonic masculinity and toxic perceptions of gender. We were given plenty of time to work on this in class, which was helpful as we did not have to worry about reaching out to people outside of class to meet. My group discussed everything that we needed to in class and worked on it together. This not only decreased my stress levels but made me more confident when presenting.

Overall, I think that the format of this class took into consideration the student and craziness that is this pandemic. There was a lot of discussion about the topics, the assignments, and the ways for students to deal with everything as a whole. I think that I truly improved my public writing skills and learned a lot about the ways that gender has been misconstrued over the course of history.

It feels as if a tide is turning in our culture in the United States. Women’s issues are being taken seriously. There is also progress being made for transgender liberation. While there is a lot of disheartening news in today’s age, such as the current consideration to overturn Roe v. Wade, and marginalized communities are still under constant threat of surveillance and violence being perpetuated against them, there have also been events, such as the Women’s March, where millions of citizens walked and protested in defense of women’s rights. During this class, I have been able to work through the current literature in these subjects, as well as develop my own personal beliefs on these matters. Under the guidance of a great professor, I was able to expand my working knowledge of the current theories in gender and the intersections that factors like race and class play in its development.

One of the most powerful readings from the class blog was the post about love and self-love in particular. Self-love is something that I have been thinking about incredibly deeply lately. As the COVID-19 pandemic has continued, I have noticed many people around me continuing habits they started during the lockdown, like smoking cigarettes, or not exercising their bodies, and this has gotten a lot of individuals, from what I have gathered from talking to them, with this feeling deep down of shame and depression. In our society, self-love has been turned into a product. Every day people’s mental health becomes worse off from the stresses of pandemic life and now the economic downturn, which has resulted in inflation on almost every day-to-day good while wages have remained stagnant. Since we live in a ruthlessly capitalistic world, companies have cropped up all over the place, promising silver bullets in the form of meditation and remote therapy apps. When I click on those apps, however, it is always an expensive subscription service being thrust on people who are desperate for a change in their lives. There was a point in my life where the hyper-consumer culture we live in, especially when it comes to self-love and self-development, disgusted me to the point where I almost believed it was better to have self-hate since it seemed more objective and less shrouded in consumer fantasy. Yet, as Angela Davis herself stated, one cannot change the world without first taking care of themselves. I have many peers who have ambitious plans, yet they focus too much on the hustle and grind of the world, never giving themselves enough time to rest. This leads them to burnout and, ultimately, a feeling of deep disappointment because we have been conditioned to think even a small break is a compromise. This is because our society runs on our constant productivity. The learning that I have done in class has conjured many of these thoughts. As a woman, I have always thought about gender and the norms placed on women in society, but have not been able to verbalize them as clearly as I can now. Partially, this is due to the readings themselves, which I have more thoughts on in the following paragraphs of this response, but it was also due to the writing assignments. Writing assignments such as the one assigned during this course do a tremendous job at helping students think their thoughts through, be able to edit and refine them, and then present the most coherent, structured version of their arguments to an audience. I believe, as a consequence of this class, I have been able to strengthen my writing skills, especially when it comes to the topic of civil rights and gender equality. These are incredibly important topics to discuss candidly.

From this class, I have learned that the culture that has influenced our warped perspective on self-love has also externalized those beliefs onto other people. The media, family, and social systems, such as public education, are where our empty perspectives about the world are shaped. The blog post about gender ideology in media shared sentiments that I have fostered for a long time. It is interesting that even the movies that are celebrated for being progressive often still have debated gender ideologies. One example of this is the recent remake of Spielberg’s West Side Story, which I was interested in watching because of the interviews saying that the director played close attention to how he portrayed the Latinx characters, making sure to not characterize them as had been done in the original version of the film, to the point where mostly white actors were cast for the roles and wore brown face during their performances in order to appear more Latinx. However, when it comes to gender dynamics, as was explained in the blog post in the bit about “Iron Maiden,” a detail that has stuck with me, the film was incredibly poor. While the woman lead did strive not to conform to the gang war around her, the entirety of her story relies on being the interest of a white man, even as a troupe at this rate in Hollywood. This is because to make a movie, one requires money and connections. Historically, people of color have been excluded from production and acting roles, as evidenced by the original iteration of that movie. Many of the people currently living in Hollywood are thus white men. As was described in the blog post, they thus encourage “unconscious ideologies” that reinforce the white male perspective. This was most evident to me during the duration of writing and revising my assignment, which I used to explore different gender and race dynamics in contemporary artists and how they broke against the norm, often to the dismay of fans and even their own families. This shows how, for people who exist outside of the gender spectrum or are in another marginalized group, simply being genuine to themselves self can be dangerous. This is what makes it triumphant, however.

In terms of my final project, I believe I brought this passion and interest in the subject to the assignment and gave it mine very all. Looking back on the group project about gender stereotypes, I believe it gives an excellent overview of how gender norms are normalized from an incredibly early age. The group project had given an extensive breakdown of what gender stereotypes are and how they are perpetuated. Not only that, however, it presented a breakdown of the current philosophical, psychological and sociological concepts surrounding the development of gender. That said, I made sure all of my research for this project was up-to-date and thought-provoking. I worked hard not to simply regurgitate the information presented in the class, but also to give my impressions and genuine thoughts about it. The aspect of the class that I enjoyed the most was the freedom to explore my own preconceived notions and what norms I had internalized and which stereotypes I have turned down simply naturally.

That said, I believe taking this class has been of the highlights of my college career. It was very informative and the class seemed like it was full of nice, interesting, and accepting people. Everything was well organized and easy to understand, even if it required a lot of critical thought to fully accomplish. A lot of professors struggle with keeping media and assignments on their pages easy to access and it can be easy to be bogged down with links, however, I never experienced that problem in this class. Instead, every week, I was excited about new developments being posted. It was truly an enlightening experience.