This week’s readings gave us a very visual and raw understanding of what females endure, and how they can learn and become more aware of the power they hold as a woman. In our first reading, Mainardi breaks down the complaints from men (that I’m sure every woman has heard at least one of those examples before-) and gives us strong translations to showcase the truth behind these dismissive remarks. A liberated woman is someone who can see through that, understand the translation, and know what to do when these situations arise. This also ties into our second reading when Koedt shares how intricate the female anatomy is, and how it is necessary to understand it. Men can be selfish when it comes to sexual intercourse and not go out of their way to help their partner reach orgasm, just as they did. This is yet another example of a liberated woman. One who is self-aware and wants a partner who is willing to put their own needs aside and work together. Outside of these readings I came to the conclusion that a liberated woman is also someone who does not require a man to do her bidding for her- or for anyone to take care of her, she is able to do it on her own.

The importance of a liberated woman stems from our past discussions about feminism and its significance in fighting patriarchy. Without the millions of self-aware woman who can fend for themselves and takes pride in their strengths, feminism would not continue to prevail, as it has for centuries. The more we educate ourselves on these oppressions, the more progress is made in changing the way we think about such topics. Had it not been for people like Pat Mainardi and Anne Koedt, we would not be inclined to share our knowledge and change the preconceived notions about how women should act, what they do, and what they should look like.

These readings showcase “the person is political” because these issues are all political issues that require an intervention to create change. Some women stayed comfortable in their decision to be a stay at home cooking and cleaning mother, while many were extremely unhappy and concealed these feelings as a private issue. Once these personal issues were talked about and women started realizing these “private issues” were very common, it was able to generate change on a broader scale.

In this week’s videos and reading we see similarities between suffrage, labor rights and the equal rights amendment. Labor rights ties into sufferage because of the mass amount of women working in industrial factories. When the workplace is not safe, the people who are affected want to protest for labor rights- but this will not work unless women have the right to participate in voting elections. That is when the equal rights ammendment comes into play. In order for women to vote and have a political standing, the govermnent must recognize that women play a major role in the workforce and their safety needs to be a top priority. We see examples of this in the reading when the ERA’s success fails due to the lack of widespread support. The members were focused on gaining workplace safety, but were also concerned that if doing so, this would limit the amount of hours women could work. Because of this, the ERA was put on hold for a long time before it would resurface.

Labor rights are major issues of gender justice because of the simple fact that these industrial factories were mostly made up of women. Once the workplace became more inclusive, it allowed for women to make their own money for themselves and their families as opposed to men being the sole bread winners. In the early 1900s many women wanted to work rather than be the usual stay at home mother, therefore when the triangle shirtwaste factory fire occured, mostly women and children were affected by the lack of safety. We saw in the first video the uproar that commenced after so many women died due to the locked doors and faulty exits- a huge protest was held afterward to spread awareness of the injustice women face when working for these major cooperations.

In the second video we watched this week we see the same neglect to sweatshop workers when another fire broke out in a Bangladesh sweatshop. I constantly see infographics all over social media stopping the support of fast fashion brands such as Shien, Forever21 and Zara. These brands pay their workers less than a dollar an hour to produce garnments that sell for 10x that amount. It is really hard to navigate fast fashion when you would rather buy clothes for a good price over something really expensive, but it is important to remember the people who make these products are not being treated properly. Now that there are laws in place to protect the workers it helps to create a safe work environement, but there are still so many articles and photos showcasing the mistreatment of garnment workers who manufacture products for the United States.

This week’s readings helped me start to shape the waves of feminism and how they impacted one another over the course of history. Along with the additional articles and Wiki definitions, Prof. Waychoff provided for us, I continue to learn new terms such as cultural hegemony and transsexual separatist. While reading Guilty Pleasures by Jackson Katz, I immediately was reminded of this Tik Tok I had seen: A 18-year-old boy is portrayed walking into a strip club asking if he can go inside and the bouncer says no sorry you’re too young to come in. Then an 18-year-old girl walks in asking if she can work there and they say “Of course! Come in.” I thought this was a good comparison to the reading and plays a role in the way sexual exploitation shapes the experiences of women from a young age. I also enjoyed reading “What’s in a name?”, diving into the fixed notion that feminism has no singular definition. This ties heavily into our discussion of activism and non-binary persons where there is no one way to define how to stand up for people, and there is not just the male and female gender. As we saw in the reading by Tina Vasquez, people who define as transgender or even gay can choose to not support the groups that support them, which relates to how we perceive some groups as feminists and others not.

The film I watched for this week’s discussion was United In Anger. It gives us a detailed explanation of what happened during the AIDS epidemic along with raw visuals showing real stories of the people who lived through this period. One group we are introduced to in the film is ACT UP also known as The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power. We see the major efforts from ACT UP as they fight against negligence from the United States government, social indifferences, and corporate greed. Throughout the film, we hear a lot about how there was no information. The news was not highlighting anything about AIDS, and the topic was heavily avoided by most people. The government was not recognizing this as a serious matter and inherently neglecting the thousands who were affected by this epidemic. Those who had AIDS were seen as outcasts, and that made it hard for people to come out as positive. One man during the film stated that most people thought “It was gay people and junkies getting what they deserved”. People in power did not care about the lives of those who were affected by this virus. Voices of the people helped spread knowledge and forced the government to listen to their requests. Activism requires effort from all sides and utilizes creativity to grab the attention of those who refuse to listen. After reflecting on How To Think Like an Activist and United In Anger, I started to see that activism provides a safe space for like minded people to come together and share their ideas, creativity, and strength in order to create real change.

As stated in my reading reflection for this week, I attended many BLM marches during the summer of 2020. When I walked with thousands of people from all over the five boroughs, I felt the energy radiating around me and I loved how it felt to be a part of something bigger than myself. We were all fighting not only for our voices to be heard, but for justice to the victims and families affected by police brutality. We discussed in our previous readings about gender norms and how transgender people are not seen enough in society. I would love to learn more about health care practices that surround this community. Transgender people deserve the attention and care from doctors like anyone else and I think it’s important for them to be recognized and respected in the medical world. For transgender people there is a lack of medical providers who are knowledgeable on the topic. This complicated other factors such as; financial means, discrimination, lack of cultural competence by providers, and socioeconomic barriers. One way to implement activism towards this topic is by forcing medical students and doctors to be well versed in the care a transgender person requires. For myself I think I would be able to focus my attention on what I know best; social media. I enjoy writing and one effective form of activism is publishing works that can spread knowledge to people who want to learn more about transgender care. Infographics and articles are easily accessible and when in the right hands, can be very useful to soak in new information.

• Patriarchy is taught to us from a young age that there are two sides, and that the individuals who participate chose to do so. Because of this, it complicates the bigger picture of how patriarchy surrounds us and enforces its place in society. As a system, we recognize that what we are fed on a daily basis leaves us to believe that we can only have one perspective on what is right and wrong. An example of this can be seen when a man enforces patriarchy because he works a well paying job to provide for his family and would never accept his wife to get her own source of icome because that would invalidate his masculinity. When we expand our thought process on the matter, we start to understand that the system encompasses our beliefs to controls how we percieve patriarchy. It is easier to combat these views when we realize that it is bigger than the individual who choses to participate. The system being; what we see on the news, throughout social media, in books and magazines and on television. When we become aware of how deeply rooted patriarchy is, we are more inclined to stop pointing fingers at one another and focus on how to create change.
  
  When viewing the levels of oppression, we start at the bottom with personal. These beliefs and feelings can come about in marital relationships, or even job status in the workplace. There are times when people are unconscious about their participation on a personal level because it is “how it was growing up”, but there are also people who strongly believe that there is no other way to feel regarding the system.
  The next level is interpersonal, showing us visually and verbally how people participate in patriarchy. This might take place when a man tells a woman she can’t wear the dress she wants because it is too revealing. We also see interpersonal levels of oppression when women cross the street to avoid a man who “seems dangerous”. The woman is assuming she might get hurt and choses to preemptively protect herself based on what her personal level of oppression has taught her.
  After interpersonal comes institutional – this is where things get interesting. This is when we discard the idea that individuals dictate patriarchy and oppression. The institutional level replaces the personal feelings, beliefs, and thoughts with rules and pracitices that are intentionaly and unintentionally instilled in society. An example of this is when we recently saw the Texas Heartbeat Act passed, controlling womens reproductive rights in the state of Texas. This is an intentional act passed by our American Government by mainly male republicans who believe it is not right for a woman to chose abortion under any circumstance.
  Finally we come to the final level of oppression: structural. This is the normalization of what is right and necessary for society to be based off of. An example of this takes us back to one of our first discussions regarding sex- that many people believe there are only two genders and no room for further discussion. This is the “natural” and “beautiful” concept that we are taught at a young age, and to not change our minds regarding the topic.