I remember originally when I found out about the Roe v. Wade leaked document it was on twitter through the trends, and then on Tiktok. But for some reason both times I just assumed that it was fake news, that there was a typo somewhere, that maybe some professional photoshop major had created a fake document to generate some interesting news.

“The immediate impact of the ruling as drafted in February would be to end a half-century guarantee of federal constitutional protection of abortion rights and allow each state to decide whether to restrict or ban abortion … No draft decision in the modern history of the court has been disclosed publicly while a case was still pending.” One thing about this whole situation that has left me confused is how did anyone even get access to a top secret drafted document and upload it for the whole internet to see? I also can’t grasp any understanding as to why all of a sudden in the year 2022 we’re trying to delegalize abortion. It seriously does feel like we as a human race are taking a huge step backward rather than forward and it’s also somewhat comical in a very synical way because America is known for being ‘progressive,’ however you choose to define that.

One thing I learned about is the Hyde Amendment, I had no idea there was a law in place to prevent government funding for abortions for women, although it doesn’t necessarily shock me because even getting affordable and helpful health care is a struggle for most people. Another thing that was newly introduced to me was the concept of an abortion hotline, of course I’m familiar with suicide hotlines but this concept is very different.

At this time, I think it’s really important to keep in mind that there will always be ways for people to get abortions, even if it’s not always necessarily legal. I just think it’s ridiculous to take away the right for someone to be able to obtain the help they need because of the opinions of someone else who’s not even going through the same thing as them. In both the short film and documentary, all the people who were against abortion had never actually been put in a situation where they would need to consider getting one. So it felt very ingenuine to hear people speak about problems that they’ve never had and try to force their own input on the situation.

It is important to recognize the patriarchy as a system and not an individual indentity because it is a system, it was created to oppress a specific group of people while simultaneously powering another group. A man doesn’t have the patriarchy as a part of his identity, but his actions or words can portray that he supports the patriarchy as a patriarchist.

Lorde does an amazing job explaining that we as humans all have things that either oppress us or give us some sort of privilege, however they’re not things that can be seperated, which perfectly explains intersectionality. She’s a black lesbian mother, poet, feminist, and more “Any attack against black people is a lesbian and gay issue… Any attack against lesbians and gays is a black issue… There is no hiearchy.” This ties back greatly to the example of all humans being cakes instead of salads because everything that makes us up, whether it oppresses or gives us privilege mixes in and becomes one form: our self.

The structural level addressed for the example in the text of a man raping a woman dives into the fact that first, before we ask why we should also inspect what kind of society that man grew up in. “From wife beating jokes to the routine inclusion of sexual coercion and violence in mainstream movies… what kind of society would produce so much male anger and pathology” (Johnson 28). Then we touch upon the institutional aspect of the patriarchy, for example women in porn are portrayed as very submissive, easy to control and sometimes violently exploited but our Constitution allows people to produce and distribute these things for profit and ‘enjoyment’. Women are expected to be a very specific way because of the patriarchy, they should know how to cook, be a caregiver, have the trending body type of the decade, easy to dominate etc etc. The institutional aspect of the patriarchy portrays this through media, in magazines, movies, tv shows we constantly see the depictions of how society expects women to be whether that’s super sexual or mind bafflingly innocent, there’s a model. This then effects the interpersonal level because men speak about women differently and treat them differently than other men. They do ‘favors’ for women (holding doors open, the ‘ladies first’ mentality, paying the bill) and usually expect some favor back as a reward. On the other side of the spectrum some men look down on women, they belittle and berate them, because they don’t believe a woman could do what a man can do. I believe the interpersonal and personal elvels always merge together, especially in this context.

Although I had already seen the short film Period. The End of a Sentence, I remember watching it for the first time I was beyond baffled at the fact that the men in the village didn’t know what a period or menstration is. It really opened my eyes to the fact that men and women experience life so differently from one another and that it’s almost impossible to understand the other’s point of view. Rewatching it I was still confused as to why periods and menstruation were such taboo topics for the women living in the village, and it was really bizarre that some of them couldn’t even explain why the experience they have every month even occurs.

I’ve already been aware of obstetric racism, however I just wasn’t sure what the name for it was, nor that it was divided into seven different categories. More that anything I believe it’s ridiculous that medical ‘professionals’ can get away with treating poc differently without being held accountable or having their positions threatened. These people are in charge of our health, wellbeing and overall life. They should remain completely unbiased towards their patients so that they can receive the help they need. After reading the article I even decided to ask my mother how her experience of childbirth was when she had me because I wanted to know if she had experienced a form of obstetric racism. She told me she hadn’t thought about it at all until I asked which is crazy because that’s about twenty years ago but esssentially my mother had told the nurse the baby is coming and the nurse wasn’t really concerned, so my mom had to tell her to call the doctor. I honestly don’t think this is obstetric racism, maybe the nurse was just being lazy but also I feel like I might be glossing over it.

As for the last article, I had no idea about the Department of Health and Human Services debating about whether or not they should be able to legally deny care to transgender people. It seems like such a ridiculous clause, it almost feels like we’re going backwards in time instead of progessing forward. I don’t understand what the purpose of passing that law would do, or even why there’s being a debate about whether or not transgender people should essentially be allowed medical care. Health care is already hard enough to obtain as is. Also, reading a lot of transgender people’s experiences who had sent in their responses felt surreal because I already knew about the discrimination in the medical field but I didn’t think it was that common. If I had to put it into a ratio I would think it’s 1:6, but it appeared to be a lot more than that.

Prior to reading, I had never personally heard of the term ‘identity politics,’ but from the name alone I assumed it had something to do with the debate of how we as humans indentify ourselves via gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, etc. After reading, my understanding is that identity politics is “a politic based on their own experiences and the desire for their own liberation, as opposed to a politic that focused on the liberation of someone else” (Garza 188). It feels like a concept that even after reading is tricky to understand, but I believe it entails zoning in on the fact that even in oppressed groups, there are people who suffer more. The example in the reading that I grasped the best was how black people are oppressed but black women are more oppressed than their male counterparts and even when grouped with other women, they still end up getting the shorter end of the stick. Though it did seem difficult to grasp at first, when reading about identity politics multiple and complex definitions, I completely understood the example about America being based off white identity politics.

I’m not sure what topics I would want to explore during our final weeks of the semester, because I also can’t believe how quickly this semester flew by. I feel like I’ve learned a lot in this class and have actually been able to talk about it in real life to people because it just feels like one big mind opener after the other with each passing week. I honestly don’t feel educated enough to even recommend a topic I would want to take a deeper delve into because I’m not sure what would go best with our class flow.

In my eyes, a liberated woman is someone who has established their own sense of femininity based on her own grounds and not by society’s oppressing standards. She is comfortable in her own skin and expressing herself in any form, she isn’t worried about her body hair or how sexually active (or unactive) she is. A liberated woman is educated, and lifts other women up and supports them. But based on The Politics of Housework, “the Liberated Woman, has sex a lot, and has a Career, preferably something that can be fitted in with household chores – like dancing, pottery or painting.” I take this quote to be half true and half satire, because I atleast agree with the first section of it.

The liberated woman is important for women’s liberation because these two things go hand in hand, you can’t have one without the other. It’s almost like the chicken and egg scenario, how would we have women’s liberation without the liberated woman backing it up and fighting for the cause?

The Politics of Housework shows that “the personal is political” because it shows us that “many American men are not accustomed to doing monotonous, repetitive work which never issues any lasting…achievement,” it then ties this point to the reason why many fathers (including my own) would rather be the house ‘repair-man’ than do the dishes. This quote alone blew my mind because it made me realize that wow, my dad is not the only man doing this, this is essentially a worldwide common issue in heterosexual relationships. I have no idea why so many men dread doing the dishes, I like doing the dishes! It’s a very short and simple task and makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something and been productive. But this isn’t about me.

The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm proves “the personal is political” because it delves into the issue that men (and even some women) are so uneducated about the anatomy of women that because of this lack of knowledge women are wrongly being labeled as frigid. This incorrect assumption about where women orgasms come from is so deeply rooted in society that there’s even a surgery that’s meant to ‘fix’ the women. This can all be applied to the personal is political because of Freuds theory being based off the assumption of female anataomy and how it caters to pleasure men. This problem is so common that it’s been deemed the ‘sex comedy’ “The vast majority of women who pretend vaginal orgasm to their men are faking it to ‘get the job’…So not to offend his ego, the woman will comply with the prescribed role and go through simulated ecstasy.”