In the readings, Sex & Gender 101 by Kyl Meyers and Feminist Politics: Where We Stand by bell hooks, I found a lot of information that is new to me. Recently I have read a lot and learned as much as possible about gender, but as with any new conversation, there is always more to hear and new perspectives to gain. In Sex & Gender 101 I was happy to have these terms really broken down. I have learned that there is a difference between biological sex and gender. Which, sadly, has been groundbreaking recently. I never learned any of that growing up, there was never talk of the nuances of a human’s gender and sexuality. Although I have become aware of it, some of the stats given in the reading are new to me and very enlightening. How Kyl Meyers presented the three biological sexes: male, female, and intersex, then goes on to explain how within all of these are vast differences and uniqueness. Especially the intersex traits, this is rarely talked about and it is as much a sex as female or male. He states, “being intersex is as common as red hair.” Then moving into the gender assignment, gender identity, and sexual orientation in a way that ties them all together while making it very clear how truly separate they are and can be. My favorite takeaway is how well he paints a picture of how fluid people are and how unbelievably unrealistic the mainstream thinking really is.

I felt similarly about Chapter 1 of Bell Hooks Feminist Politics: Where We Stand in that she really broke down feminism into categories that helped me understand where confusion has come in. I am really happy to read about the original pledge of feminism, “simply put, feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression”, as this makes sense to me. I always found it confusing how many different takes on feminism there were and how much attention there was on having what men had, it seemed to miss the point. So, hearing the history behind the progress of the movements really helped clarify things. I especially loved how she shined a light on the inequalities that came from the direction that movements took. Specifically white women that started to gain from the idea of equality that was being offered to them from men and how they then pushed other women even further down so they could continue to benefit.