This class has been one of the most extraordinary classes that I have taken at Brooklyn college. When I first applied for this class, I wasn’t sure what to expect because I’ve never taken a course like this before. Going more into the course, I was intrigued by not just how much information I learned, but how friendly my classmates and professor was. There wasn’t a moment where I felt left out when asking questions or hearing stories that others have been through in which I could relate to. Aside from the interactions of the class, something I enjoyed the most were the readings. Readings like “Gender and Genitals: Constructs of Sex and Gender” and  “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory”. Before taking this class, I always wondered so much about what was going on in the world, specifically with classifying different gender/pronouns, LGBTQ, transgenders and so on. I knew what they were briefly, as most people do, but I realized there it was much more in depth about it than I was actually knowledgeable about. It’s funny, I actually decided to take this class in my last semester at Brooklyn college because of an experience that I had went through shortly in the summer. I went out with a few friends and one of my friends brought their friend who I was meeting for the first time. This friend referred as a they/them. When I heard this, I was kind of confused because of my lack and knowledge and they explained it to me more thoroughly. I was so intrigued and interested, and when I saw this course on the roster I took it to learn more about everything, in which I did. The public school education system avoids teaching topics of women which is truly a shame because they’re not providing us the knowledge of the upcoming of the world, which is why I took the opportunity in taking this course to gain that information and I have successfully have after completing this course. Before taking this class, I was aware of information like female lacking rights compared to men, housewife, oppression, historical topics and so on. But everything that I have learned in this class this semester, was so impressive compared to the pea sized knowledge that I had. Especially learning about different social media accounts (followed all), movies, and influencers really inspired me the most. Another part of the class that truly taught me a lot wasn’t just the topics, but learning how to write blog posts and do annotations. I’ve learned a lot with my personal writing and technology that I will carry on forever because of this course. I am extremely happy and appreciative for everything I’ve learned in this course.

Something that I’ve mentioned that I was extremely grateful for learning was the public writing. Before I took this course, there actually has never been a class in all of 4 years in undergrad where I had to do public writing/blog posts and annotations. Usually the way it went was we would  write a paper and just attach it to blackboard or email it to the professor. Learning how to write blog posts was a great experience because It gave me a safe space where to write how I felt about certain topics we learned about and also see how my fellow classmates felt about it as well.  In the beginning when writing the blog posts, It took me a while to understand how to post it and what to use but I got used to it very quickly. I was very passionate when writing my blog post, which was about housewife. I come from a culture where this still exists and I’m extremely opposed to it, but telling one of my relatives this would upset them very much because of their old  mentality and views. But this blog post, it gave me an opportunity to let my ideas free and write about what I want, including my views which gave me a comfort since I haven’t told anyone else about what I wrote before. Not only did it help me share my voice when writing freely, it gave me an opportunity to read others thoughts on certain topics. For example, when reading Linxin’s post on Gender Stereotypes and Influences, it truly inspired me and made me realize “wow I’m not the only one who goes through things like that”. Linxin mentioned being looked down upon for picking computer science as her major because she is a woman who loves to code. It was so relatable to read that because there have been many people who have told me that I shouldn’t do political science because it’s looked as something that more men are involved in and women should stay out of it. Regardless of all the comments, I ignored them and continued to look out for myself as woman and ignore the haters. Public writing in this class has given me an opportunity to share my ideas to whoever without being judged and because of this class, I created a personal blog in which I plan to write everyday on after finals are over.

Lastly, one part of the semester that I enjoyed a lot was the research project. I was a little nervous when I first heard about the research project because since we were remote, I didn’t know how it would pan out. That shortly changed when we began to have breakout room days with our group members and I met them and realized how grateful I was to have a group like that. Even though our topic being Women’s suffrage was a very broad topic, we communicated and organized everything so well with each other that it felt like so much fun when we were doing it. This one one of the most interesting research projects that I had to do. There was so much knowledge I learned from my classmates and from my own research. For example, I was pretty surprised when learning about the National Anti-Suffrage league and how many women were opposed to women being granted the votes in elections. It was actually shocking to learn that there’s women out there who didn’t want that right. I’ve never heard about this association before doing this research project. It was important for myself that I came across it because it really opened up my thoughts about how women in history relate to everything that is going on today. It gave me an opportunity to want to learn more about what’s going on with women in the world today and in the past. This project was extremely informative, fun, and eye-opening to me and I was glad to have great group members and a great professor to help my along the way.

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