Where I Was, Where I Am Now

Before I came to this class, I didn’t have any experience with feminism or gender studies except for the thinking I’d done about situations in my own life. My parents recently got divorced, and going through that process at an older age gave me more access to some of the conflicts in their marriage. Many of the problems seemed to be caused by their gender roles, and I wanted to see where they went wrong so that I could try to avoid making the same mistakes for myself. This course gave me some of the tools that I was looking for, the tools to realize some of the limitations and restrictions that women feel and understand that I can make my own decisions. I also have begun to think more critically about what it means to be at a women’s college, both the benefits and the drawbacks. I have also begun to gain some insight into queer theory, through readings like Halberstam as well as our discussions both in class and online. 

I did almost all of the reading for this class, with the exception of some of the articles surrounding Persepolis. Among my favorites were In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives; The Book of Salt; “Masculinity as Homophobia,” and Feminism is for Everybody. The ones that were more difficult for me were “Three Women’s Texts and a Critique of Imperialism” and “Three Guineas,” as well as the graphic novels. I think that these readings have expanded my learning edges to include queer theory as well as some of the history of feminism, and a little bit of where feminism is today. I think that I still have yet to understand feminist literary theory (like Spivak) as well as more on what feminist work is going on today. A lot of the scene-setting that we did in class just served to make me disappointed with what seems to be a lack of feminist thinking in the world right now.  

As we did more small-group discussions, I felt that I learned a lot from my group members but I also felt that I could contribute things too. The large-group discussions were a challenge for me at first; sometimes I felt intimidated and I didn’t think I knew enough to say anything. However, I grew more confident and comfortable as the semester progressed, and I learned how to make my comments much more specific. These discussions helped me to articulate my thoughts carefully and clearly.

Collaborating on the second half of the course was a new experience for me, and one that was somewhat difficult. I came into this class expecting to read what was assigned to me, not coming up with the readings myself, and so I didn’t know what I should be reading—however, coming up with the general topics of discussion was useful for me. It also felt sort of abrupt, so maybe working a little bit on co-constructing the course from the beginning would work better.

The essays in this class gave me the opportunity to explore things that I was truly interested in, which was a new experience for me. I see the purpose of writing differently now, as a way of working through questions for myself instead of showing that I already know the answers. My first web-event dealt with the reasons why I wanted to take a feminism class in the first place, and I think it helped me to see the complexities surrounding gender roles. My second web-event was more grounded in literature, and was a good work in analysis for me. It was also more similar to other papers I'd written for English courses before. In my third web-event, I decided that I wanted to focus on social issues again, and the issue of women in sports led me to my final project. The final web-event was a big breakthrough for me for multiple reasons. I found a topic that I was genuinely interested in, as well as a real problem that didn't have an answer yet, and then I tried my best to come up with alternatives. It is also the longest paper that I have ever written. I think that I did my best with each of my essays and I found the answers to some of my questions in the process of writing them, but I don’t think that I can assess the quality of my own work very well. I posted in our forum a lot, and as the semester went on I found more ways of contributing to existing conversations instead of starting new ones.