- Coming into this class, what are some of your initial impressions of the terms “feminism,” “sexism” and “gender and women’s studies?” How do this week’s readings define or explain these terms? Use specific quotes or examples in your response.
Coming into this class, I hadn’t really had a full understanding of the words “feminism”, “sexism”, and “gender and women’s studies”. I mean I had a rough idea of what they meant but not a full understanding. Feminism, for me, is the idea of women’s empowerment, to establish the idea that women are equal to men. While this isn’t exactly wrong, after reading “Feminist Politics: Where We Stand” I realized that the whole idea of feminism is to solve sexism imposed by our society. Sexism by definition is “prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.” which I already knew. Although not explicitly expressed (for most cases) sexism is very much rooted in our society, whether it’s in the wage difference between men and women or the military. While it’s true that we are taking steps to improve the problems of sexism, it’s still a problem that we face.
This brings us to the term gender and women’s studies which I had little to no idea the meaning of. I mean I could kind of guess what they meant but it’s very vague. According to Dr. GUY-SHEFTALL, women and gender studies are “the study of women and issues surrounding women such as: race, class, gender, sexuality.” Dr. GUY-SHEFTALL talks about why he was drawn into this field and how women and gender studies being one of the most transformative courses. Although not far into this class myself, I look forward to learning more about this course and I think that if everyone is willing to take this course, future generations can move forward faster to get rid of sexism.
