Based on all the topics we have discussed I liked learning more about privilege. This topic was a huge eye-opener for me and I now understand what it means to be privileged. Most of us have a helping hand in certain areas but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you should be ashamed. At least acknowledge it and help others who don’t have a helping hand. 

I also liked last week’s topic about activism. There are so many forms of activism. For instance, I’ve been hearing a lot about a petition to make CUNY schools tuition-free. I’ve heard about this through various professors and other students. I even had a professor have an activist in our classroom and speak to us about the cause. 

Since speaking about woman rights I felt as though another set of important circumstances we should understand is that, individuals find almost anything and everything to argue, fuss or fight about. Everyone feels as though their opinion is right, and anyone who opposes is wrong. Over the years, one of the most controversial debates has been around the topic of Abortion: whether a woman should be allowed to have one, whether a man has a say in that part of the pregnancy, and even whether a underdeveloped embryo should be considered an actual human being. Through research around this topic, I feel as though a woman is entitled to do as she pleases to her body, and a man, if said before the birth of the child, shouldn’t have to take on fiscal responsibility if he really doesn’t want too. Before the 1970’s, Abortion was illegal, and considered a crime. Women went through a series of unsafe methods, as well as treatments, in order to terminate pregnancies they did not want. Many of these procedures were done “underground”, and had really terrible consequences, health wise, after. Many of these women would get sick, die or even badly injured just to do something that would affect their bodies, no one else’s.

This week’s reading “What’s in a Name? Writing the history of Feminism” by Claire Goldberg was very informative about the term feminism. Claire stated that the word feminism has meanings that can change with time and place. To my understanding, this statement means the term feminism has different meaning the changes with time and place. I see where Claire is coming from, but society just knows that the definition of feminism is a person who advocates for women’s rights and equality for both males and females.

To Claire, feminism or feminist is to separate things. Feminism to her is a women’s collective activity to advance women’s condition. While she states that feminism is often assigned to women’s collective that occurs before the word even exists but she believes that the word does not yet exist.     

After finished reading materiels of this week, it reminds me of the discussions among people that what is the real feminism and feminism develops more and more genres today. “White feminist “”Black feminist” “Feminist from first world” and so on. That’s why I like Bell Hook’s definition about feminism that is about ending sexism. More genres developing means that there are different problems and issues exist. According to multiple reasons as countries’ developing status, classes which make these problems and issues more comlicated.

For conservative groups, their demands are almost the same since traditional value apply similar in different places in the world which make them eaiser to united. Being liberal could face more standards and I feel like if a liberal misses either one standard they would be facing judges or they would be categorized to the convervative groups.

My personal opinion is we should unite more and less divide. We are all human and we all have something in common. Let humanitiy goes first and what we demand is ending sexism, we want to have more team mates instead of creating more enermies.

I do remember learning about Women’s Suffrage, in both high school and in middle school. In middle school I remember having to make a project, it was a lot different compared to high school because they didn’t talk about all the explicit details. When we got to high school, it was very painful to watch the way these women were treated. I hope to learn more about Women’s Suffrage and in more detail what it was like. In high school, we were possibly limited, but we did get to see the physical impacts they had when they were being forced to eat, or hit. I hope to learn more about them in the upcoming history aspect, and probably learn about ways other countries have experimented. It is known that in many other countries, women aren’t allowed to do much, so I am proud of the small progress we’ve made over the years.

For this week, “‘What’s in a Name?’ On Writing the History of Feminism”by Claire Goldberg,I came across the history of “feminism,” and the origin surrounding it. Claire goes on to discuss how the term “feminism” does not have a set definition, as she mentions that it was often used for women’s actions that had happened prior to the existence of the word. As per the reading, “Feminism, so broadly accepted, was a term, then, that encompassed many different views about womanhood and many different strategies.” The extensiveness of the term saw “Jewish feminists,” “spiritual feminists,” “Christian feminists,” “Black feminists,” “multicultural feminists,” and others. Through their unique strategies, these feminists revolutionized empowerment and saw gains. Just as our history regarding unbound freedom and no discrimination are prevalent, so is the term “feminism.” 

            Feminists are common women who have the desire to see change in tomorrow, who seek to end the struggle that women face all around the world. In order to be a part of the feminist women, we must first understand what feminism is- and one can only understand such a broad term through its rich and critical history. Through the past, we are able to recognize the pivot of feminism and the precipice that has led to today feminism today.

Beginning the readings this week with Claire Goldburg Moses’ What’s in a name?: On Writing the History of Feminism, I noticed the topic of intersectionality begin to circle my thoughts regarding the term, feminism. It allowed me to understand more of the history involved in it’s naming and why I had felt it was a brand new term when I first heard it quickly becoming overly-utilized to define one aspect of feminism- the sexist male-hating outlook. I understood that Moses was asking us to look at the bigger picture regarding the essential causes of the movement. That we keep moving towards those goals without focusing so much on exactly how alike each intersectional belief is within us because those differences separate us from uniting for the cause.

Intersectionality in oppression, patriarchy, and now feminism seem to have taken over my brain since learning about it and I look forward to having more examples of it broken down to hopefully continue expanding my knowledge in these areas. Currently, it feels like a lot of information jumbled together in a way that kind of makes sense yet doesn’t allow me to formulate specific examples of each and this is how I know I still haven’t grasped it fully.

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.