Reading “The Combahee River Collective Statement” helped me understand the oppression that black women have been facing for decades. The Combahee River Collective Statement is a group consisting of Black feminists and have been together since 1974. They struggle against many topics like sexual, heterosexual, racial, and class oppression. There are many famous well known Black women activists like Harriet Tubman, Mary Church Terrell, and Sojourner Truth. All these women have brought awareness to their sexual identity and racial identity in order to help the rest of these women struggling in their oppression. These women were a stepping stool to everyone else who was too scared of judgement for speaking out and fighting for liberation. There was a group of Black feminists called the National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO) created in 1973 and based in New York. Movements like Civil Rights, Black Panthers, and Black nationalism helped changed Black peoples lives based on their goals and ideas for these movements and what did they did in order the reach their goals. The oppression that Black women face doesn’t allow them to experience and learn new knowledge to help them grow as a person. This is unfair because no one should be restricted from broadening their knowledge and experiences in life. I agree that women are valuable and a necessity for the human life, therefore, we shouldn’t be treated otherwise. We can fight for our own oppression but it would also be helpful for men to want to help us and fight as well.

Reading “The Politics of Housework” by Pat Mainardi helped me gain more knowledge about Liberated Women which is a topic that most people don’t have any insight on. My understanding of a liberated woman is someone who doesn’t go by what society labels women as or societies stereotypes based on women. A liberated woman is independent and doesn’t need approval from any gender especially men. Mainardi goes on to explain that there is a difference between liberated women and women’s liberation. “The first signals all kinds of goodies, to warm the hearts (not to mention other parts) of the most radical men. The other signals-HOUSEWORK”. Liberated women help other women who are stuck in a place of entrapment and help those women find their freedom and independency. Many women are scared to speak up for themselves, but we as women have to help each other get out of the “chokehold” that men have over us because we are our own person at the end of the day and shouldn’t be defined by another gender. All of the stereotypes that surround women were mostly created by men which is unfair because only we as women know how we really are and what we really want. Men have to stop trying to speak for us when we were all born with a mouth to defend ourselves. I hope one day, we are all liberated no matter what gender, race, ethnicity, or skin color. We should all be free to do what we please and not be controlled by anyone.

In this weeks article “Virginia Just Became the 38th State to Pass the Equal Rights Amendment. Here’s What to Know About the History of the ERA” by Tara Law, I have never obtained so much information about the ERA until now. I knew that the ERA had something to do with gaining equality between sexes and obtaining liberation for women’s rights. I just want to know, what took so long? Why did it take us so long to have the rights we deserve and just be equal. Even now, the ERA still won’t be added to the Constitution due to the fact it would be a long and hard fight in order to make that happen. But in reality, it shouldn’t take so long because these are the kinds of topics that need to be advocated and fought for by millions of people in order to get some kind of recognition or voice heard. I didn’t know how short the ERA actually was and at this point it isn’t even surprising because what else do we expect from a country that doesn’t care for equality between genders. Women have been fighting since before 1972 to make our voices heard and fight for what’s right which has always been equality. Law goes on to say “Coberly notes that many people don’t even know that the U.S. hasn’t ratified the amendment yet”. I’m sure many people aren’t educated on the topic of the ERA or even the ratification of things. We need to bring more awareness to this topic because it is very important to understand what is happening in our country.

The reading “The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help” by Jackson Kate’s was a kind of reading I have never read before. Many people have their own preferences and do different things to bring them to sexual pleasure. I believe that women are the most objectified gender in society by men. Jackson goes on to explain that the usage of pornography can shape boys and mens view of girls and women. Men have always felt the need to have sexual dominance and essentially have women cater to their sexual needs whether it be from a prostitute, pornography, and strip clubs. Men don’t think about how all of these forms of sexual exploitation can effect us women deeply. Reading this article honestly made me sick to my stomach because I realized that all of it is true. The way men treat women just to get what they want and most of the time, us women accommodate so we can please these men. When will they start pleasing us? When will our views, what we say, and our body matter? The power that men have over us is unfair because no one should have dominance over anyone in reality. Jackson says “Thus if we want to reduce the level of sexual violence perpetrated by boys and men, we need to critically examine the environment in which we socialize boys and establish norms in male culture”. I agree with this because as a while society, we have established norms in male culture that should be changed because it doesn’t consider how we feel as women and being objectified all the time.

I’ve always heard the word “activism” but I never knew the true meaning behind it or what it stands for until now. In the reading How To Think Like An Activist, Wendy Syfret gives a lot of information about activism and different situations in which activism was shown. A person who is an activist fights for what is right and participates in protest and movements to help bring justice to important topics. Syfret explains how to effectively become an activist and also help bring others to join in your activism journey. I believe that a lot more people should become activists because there are so many issues going around that need to be fought for and brought attention to. Telling people how important an issue is to you and giving them proper facts and insight on the situation can help other individuals think about becoming an activist and help make change. You can help educate other people who might not be familiar with a serious ongoing issue and help bring awareness. If you are passionate about helping others gain liberation, freedom, and justice, then becoming an activist should be in your interest. I want to try to start participating in activism and possibly going to protests because I like to speak up for people who may not be able to. I want to do more research to learn how to start off becoming an activist or just sharing information to help get across and bring awareness to important issues that need to be talked about.

I enjoyed both of this weeks readings. In the first reading “Patriarchy, the System: An It, Not a He, a Them, or an Us”, Allan Johnson talks about the patriarchal system and how we need to understand it in order to create a new system of socialization. A part of the text that stood out to me was “there is poverty and class oppression because people in the upper classes are greedy, heartless, and cruel”. I completely agree with this statement because the social class has always been like this. People in the upper class think that just because they are at the top, the people at the bottom get to be treated like garbage. I honestly don’t think that a social class should have even been created because this is another way that people are separated into groups but they shouldn’t be treated differently based on the status or group that they’re in.

The second reading “There Is No Hierarchy of Oppressions”, Audre Lorde describes herself as “a Black, lesbian, feminist, socialist, poet, mother of two including one boy and a member of an interracial couple”. Each group that Lorde identifies herself in is usually described as wrong or not right in other peoples eyes. Oppression can come in so many different ways and is portrayed in several different topics. Lorde states that there can be no hierarchies of oppression and I completely agree with her. We must fight oppression in all the groups, not just in one topic.

Reading from the excerpt Beyond the Gender Binary, by Alok Vaid Manon really helped me understand what people who identify as different genders have to endure. People shouldn’t ask questions about why someone is wearing something unless they are genuinely curious and don’t have any knowledge about the topic of identifying as a specific gender. We unfortunately live in a society where there is stereotypes of what a man or woman should wear but people shouldn’t care about how someone’s desires to dress because it isn’t affecting that person in any way, shape, or form. Many people tend to talk about people who are gender binary and/or gender fluid, but always seem to never want to interact with them or have conversations about what makes them feel a certain way towards people who identify differently. Unfortunately for several years, there has been many conflicts targeting gender nonconforming people like reporting them using bathrooms, banning transgender athletes in sports in high school, and taking away their access to places that are “open“ to the public. The fact that the Department of Justice claimed that trans and gender nonconforming workers aren’t protected by the civil rights law like the rest of the human citizens are is appalling and sad. We shouldn’t live in a world where because of what you identify as, you have certain rights revoked from you. Everyone should be treated the same no matter what you wear, how you talk, what you like, or what you look like. At the end of the day, we are all human and all have feelings so we should be considerate of others feelings and make them feel included even if they feel different.