I learned from the first reading that feminism has always been seen as “evil” and many use hurtful stereotypes to lessen the impact of the movement. Also, many get confused about what feminism actually is. I think that people fear what they don’t understand. They see feminism as women turning their backs on men. They believe that one day we’ll all just wake up and realize just how powerful we are. That’s why most men see feminism as a threat, because it means that they can’t treat women so poorly and get away with it. But it isn’t bad for women to want respect. Everyone should be treated the way they want to be treated. 

In the second reading, I learned about how harmful gender stereotypes placed on children can be. I know this from first-hand experience. Growing up as a girl in a Jamaican household, a lot was expected of me. Like learning how to cook and clean. While that is a basic necessity that all people should learn, My family mostly believed that’s what women should do. My grandma especially wanted us to learn these things for our future husbands. So they raised us in the kitchen and taught us how to keep the house clean because “it’s our job”. I was always told as a kid that I needed to learn how to cook or else my husband was going to beat me in the future. That’s a horrifying thing to tell a child. It was a tactic to scare me and my sister into the kitchen. And I think that’s the reason why I am the way that I am. After being told that I figured all men hit women who didn’t know how to cook, so I decided that when I grow up I would live all by myself so I wouldn’t fear an abusive sexist husband. I think the only bad thing is that I didn’t really learn how to cook because I was trying to be a “rebel”. So now I have to teach myself. From that experience, I learned that it’s good to know how to cook and clean, but not because you want to please a man. When I have children of my own, I want to teach them the importance of learning how to do those things for themselves, whether or not they meet someone.