Section 1:
Hi, my name is Sarah Lykins. I am currently entering my senior year at Eastern Kentucky University. My focus in school is Occupational Science, to one day become and Occupational Therapist, and minoring in American Sign Language. I have always found the interactions and beliefs or thoughts of others to be interesting and an important part of society. Seeing how people treat each other shows what society needs to work on as a whole. For my expected line of work, elderly individuals are very important and treating them equally is something that needs to be focused on. With this outlook on life, I recently chose to take a Women and Gender Studies class to see other issues going on in today’s society.
When the class first began, I thought it seemed interesting. We sat around in a circle and talked about our opinions on different reading covered in class focusing on various issues within feminine culture around the world. Some things, like domestic violence, rape, and the unequal pay issue were all things I felt familiar with entering the class, but there were many other new topics covered as well. Things like gender stereotypes, images giving in the media towards women, and the idea of marriage are all examples of topics I had not focused as much attention on when thinking of women.
Section 2:
Looking back at the time spent in the class, there were three main activities we focused on that stand out to me: the Vagina Monologues, our group presentations, and the video “Beauty Academy of Kabul. The Vagina Monologues is a play put on each year on campus by different groups of women. It was created by Eve Ensler to show women should be heard and how we should not be ashamed of being female or their body parts. Before this class, I had never heard of The Vagina Monologues and was very unsure what it would be focused on. We had to attend for class, but I think everyone should go see it. It has a range of ideas from moaning to exploring one’s vagina, and some sad topics about rape around the world. The whole experience is very eye opening, and though some people go in feeling uncomfortable, everyone is able to enjoy this play. After seeing the play, along with many of my friends, we all feel more comfortable talking about things going on with our bodies. In addition, I understand now that there are huge issues pertaining to women around the world falling victim to war and being taken advantage.
Our group presentations were able to be about any topic covered throughout our class, and I felt very strongly about doing female gentile mutilation. I knew that FGM was a procedure done is some countries typically in Africa, but didn’t have very much knowledge on the subject. After doing research on the topic, I found out a lot of information that I found very disturbing, things like the different types of FGM, where FGM is practiced, the reasoning behind these procedures, and the type of health problems that can occur after having FGM. I found even more sad when looking for pictures to put in the power point and seeing girls being held by their mother as they scream in pain and fear. Even though it may be a part of different cultures, I find it shocking this continues after people see the health issues coming from it. After completing the assignment, I haven’t really used the information with other people, but when asked about the project I give people enough information to understand the problem without taking it too far. It seems as though the biggest shock for people would be that FGM is actually practiced in places like the U.S and Canada, because of immigrants taking the cultural practices with them. I think it is important for people to understand that this issue is not one that goes away because people choose to ignore it.
The video “Beauty Academy of Kabul” was something we watched towards the middle of the semester when looking at women of different ethnicities. Before seeing the film, I was confused about what we would see. I always thought of the Middle Eastern women being completely covered head to toe and living in a way where they must obey the men. I have heard and read about stoning or women being beaten because they don’t do what their husband or father has said. However, I had never heard of women there being able to have a job or go to school. This video was about women coming in from more modernized societies and trying to help the women of Kabul to earn their own pay and have skills they can use. The outside women felt as though having a beauty school would not only help the women know how to do things the correct way in a beauty salon, but also would help them make others feel better about themselves and not be completely owned by their husbands. I was surprised to see many of the husbands were actually happy about their wife having a job and earning money. Though I have not shared this video with my friends, I have mentioned that differences in the culture from what people believe it to be. It is important for people to understand the different changes going on in other countries around the world.
Section 3:
When looking back at the class, I think there are many things I will take with me. I will remember the importance of being a confident, hard working woman because society projects how flawed the average woman is and how uneven wages are in the work field. Also, I will remember, when I become an occupational therapist, the stories we read about how bad elderly women are treated. I will ensure the equality in care and importance of the patient not based on their gender or race. After the class, I think many other women will understand how to deal with harassment situations or other types of violence against women. I have always been taught to be cautious, but I know many girls that think nothing can happen to them. More women should take the self-defense classes available on EKU’s campus or anywhere else given.
I liked many different aspects about the class, for example, talking about so many different aspects of trouble in society related to gender. I also liked that we had many group projects, helping build team-working skills. Another thing I enjoyed about the class would be that the students created the questions to be discussed in class. Often, the teacher does this and it doesn’t make students want to participate, but it seemed like having it done by students helped people to feel better about talking in class. One thing I did not like is that often the discussions went let field of the main topics. I feel that it would be better if things went off topic that the discussion leader or the teacher would stop and go back to the main focus. Another thing I would change would be the aspect of too much information being given about a person’s personal life. When discussing women’s wages, some people went in a direction that made me feel uncomfortable listening. Though everyone is in a different economic situation, saying things in a way to get a reaction from people is not helping discuss the topic in a class of peers.
As I mentioned before, keeping the discussion topics focused and not sharing too personal of information would be the only things I would really change about the class. Besides those two areas, I found the class very interesting and eye opening. Many of the topics discussed help you to see how different opinions can be between people how are close and vise versa. In the future, I will recommend this class to many of my peers that will take it seriously.
