In bell hooks’ essay, Feminist Politics Where We Stand Feminism is defined as a movement to end sexism, sexist expoitation and oppression. My understanding of this definition is that feminism aims to repurpose women’s current role in America as the history of the population has withheld an inferior standard when it comes to education, the workforce, and what is expected at home due to the sexist patriarchal ideologies which have caused us to ultimately feel oppressed. Hooks urges for an ending sexist thinking and action which can come about from both men and women. Men have obtained their dominant role in society because of the ideas such as the primarily “Christian” culture that is followed which depicts what households should look like and has set the tone for the insubordination of women. These ideas lend no leeway towards the evolution of what our roles look like today, where women make up the majority of the population that get college degrees etc. Women also have to acknowledge ways in which we can be sexist and therefore oppressive to ourselves by competing with one another and therefore getting in the way of the power in sisterhood that is required for this movement to be abundantly successful in its cause.

As hooks’ mentions in her essay, I was one of the many that had the notion of Feminism regarding mainly anti-men values due to mainstream media so her definition really broadened my knowledge on the topic. Prior to reading I had some knowledge about women fighting for gender equality- equal pay for equal work and sometimes women and men sharing household and parenting responsibilities but the topic as whole felt exhausted by the idea of a movement that seemed to focus solely on the anger towards the patriarchal values thus hating men that clouded the opportunity for me to engage with the feminist idea that I feel hooks’ has allowed through this chapter. In my years as a performer, I remember when actress Emmy Rossum from HBO’s Shameless won a highly publicized battle for equal pay with co-star William H. Macy in 2016 where I felt blown away by her courage as I can admit to feeling small in the business when it came to standing up in terms of finances in contracts because it’s almost ingrained in you to take what you get to a certain extent especially when you’re starting out and trying to make it. That aspect of the business never sat with me well so it made her that much more admirable to me and I remember it feeling monumental to witness how she exercised her feminist right in doing so.

In reading Sex & Gender 101, I again felt a broadening of my perspective of the topic of gender as I associated the word gender primarily with one’s assign sex. I had previously learned in Biology that it was possible for someone to be born with just one sex chromosome (XO) or an extra (XXY,XYY,XXX) but the explanation ended there. This article was able to provide information on the fact that gender can actually be broken down to three categories as opposed to just the one including gender assignment, gender identity, and gender expression and each explanation was very straight forward and appreciated the clarification. As someone that plans on becoming a parent sometime in the near future the topic of sex and gender is something thats always come to mind because I’ve felt unprepared in having to confront it from a parental role and this article initiated a step towards knowledge that I feel is required for knowing how to guide the following generations with compassion and support.