Intro to Women's, Gender + Sexuality Studies

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“Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving.”

The document “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?” highlights the United States’ interpretation that Islamic women in the Middle East are oppressed by their religion and government, and then shows that the United States extremely patriotism may have blinded our country from seeing the reality, that Muslim women really do not need saving.  This article appalled me. Not because I didn’t agree with the facts the document defends, but because it made me realize how deceitful my education was when teaching this topic.  In High school, I learned the complete opposite of what this article depicts.  I learned that the burqa was invented by the Taliban, that the burqa is a form of oppression, and that the Islamic women of the Middle East hated wearing them; all of which are completely false.   The article re-informed me that the burqa was not invented by the Taliban, that the burqa is not a form of oppression, and that the women of the Middle East saw the burqa as a “liberating invention.” This article and our discussions  in class made me realize that the United States assumes that when a country’s culture and values contradict theirs, the citizens of the country are oppressed and need to be liberated, when reality deems it not necessary.

-Maggie Wagenbrenner

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Met Gala 2019: Testing the Borders of Gender

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Media Project 

Brandon-James Debrah

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One of the biggest restriction on Transnational feminism is the way in which issues are treated and how international support may not be supporting local activists in a good way. In the article “Challenges in Transnational Feminist Mobilization” by Aili Mari Tripp it says, that sometimes outsiders, international support systems, may not feel the need to consult with the local activist team about any action plan that they have  to help any issue that the local actors may have. They believe that they are providing good action and want to mobilize everything they do because they are quick to bring it out to the public just so they can get agonized and feel good about their involvement with the issue that was happening in the first place. An example that they gave in the text was about Amina Lawal Kurami who was sentence to death by stoning in Bakori Katsina State on March 2002. She was found guilty by the Sharia Court of adultery after she gave birth to her baby. In the Lawal case thousands of petitions were launched to save this women from stoning her to death and more than 33,000 Websites mentioned her cased. Now that it was all over the internet it was easier for people to see what was going to happened to her. She was finally freed from her crime and all social media did was give full credit to international pressures. In one hand they did as much as possible to be able to get her from being killed. However in the other hand they failed to see the actual reasons why she was release. They failed to see that it was potentially damaging the campaigns and they never realize the damages that they might have caused. The Nigerian activist and lawyers believe that international activists are doing this protest and sending letters about the cases not knowing that many of the letters were based on inaccurate information. Not knowing that local activist had provided the inaccurate information to the international activists. The BAOBAB send out an email addressing this issue and said, "check the accuracy of the information with local activists, before further circulating petitions or responding to them." I believe that if an activist group does not know the real information and absolutely all of the information they shouldn’t really participate in an event to stop something from happening. Asking for the full report and then asking local activist if they need help. Consulting with them first should be the way to approach any situation.

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30 Year of Tongues Untied

There is so much to unpack about this documentary. This was my first time seeing or ever hearing about Tongues United and so watching it for the very first time was a lot to take in. A lot in the sense that I had never seen real representation of Black Gay Men or at least was introduced to their perspective and their struggles in its entirety. In addition, it was my very first time seeing Black gay men being intimate or at least talking about their intimacy. It was also a lot to take in because of the way it was filmed. I’d like to preface this by saying the film was definitely ahead of its time in regards to technique and production. I was amazed by the director’s choice in space and camera filming. Most of the time, when the speaker was talking they were in front of a Black background and all of the audience’s focus was centered on the speaker. I really liked how the camera would often zoom in on the speaker’s face or mouth to give a sense of embodiment of all the words and emotions that each speaker expressed. I can go on forever about what cinematic aspects that I found clever and enjoyed, but I think it’s important to address the content. Tongues Untied is categorized as a documentary and I can attest that this is not your typical documentary. There is a lot of spoken word , choreography, scene cutting that is included and there isn’t one person dictating or guiding the documentary as seen in typical documentaries. I thought that was brilliant because it changes the way that we define media and how we think of platforms for people to express themselves. One of the most interesting or reoccurring themes I found in the documentary was this juxtaposition of silence. Throughout the film there was many discussion on silence as well as even having silent moments implemented throughout the film. It also touched upon toxic masculinity and how that plays a role in the oppressive state of Black gay men. Lastly, I was thoroughly impressed and amazed by our panelist Dr.G Dr. Wimbley, Chris Neal and Justin Collado who all offered intriguing insight and knowledge about the film, their research and what it means to be a gay man in the Black community. I wish more people would have attended because it was a really really rich discussion. 

- Kayla T

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Media Project: The Feminist Awakening in China

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Choice vs. Force

I think it’s pretty agreeable that women deserve to have rights whether they are forced to do something or they choose to do something. When it comes to prostitution however, some people think that the rights that are deserved depend on if its by choice or by force. In “Forced to Choose” it describes the different distinctions on what it means to really “choose” to prostitute oneself, or to be forced. And the breakdown of these two leads me to believe that no matter if a man/women chooses to prostitute their body or if they are forced to, they still deserve rights. I think that this is an issue that needs to be brought into the spotlight, despite if one believes if it is morally impermissible to prostitute themselves. The person is still human and deserves to have rights.

-GT

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The Alienable Rights of Women

People have been making the same arguments on each side of the debate about abortion for a while, so I don’t need to restate them. Roxane Gay talked about the privacy and intimacy of pregnancy. I had never thought about privacy as being a factor when thinking about pregnancy. It is true, that pregnancy is a very personal thing. If pregnancy is personal and intimate, then abortion should be too. Sex is personal, pregnancy is personal, why is abortion something that politicians think should be a public matter? 

MEO

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The Alienable Rights of Women

I found this essay to be extremely interesting because Roxane Gay introduces ideas that I had not really considered before. She discusses the privacy of women’s rights and how most of the time they are not taken seriously. For example, pregnancy and how the second you are showing people are entitled to feel your stomach, know the sex, when it’s due, etc. I find it ironic how society discourages discussion about more taboo topics such as menstruation or sexual violence, but encourages people to invade women’s right to privacy by influencing her right to terminate a pregnancy (with no questions asked), or belittling her because of her race, sexuality or even just her sex life in general, how much sex is she having? Who is she having sex with? If the roles were reversed, we would never feel the need to invade a man’s privacy, especially his sex life, because that’s his business. I guess the question is, why does society feel entitled to invade a woman’s privacy? Why does society strip us of our own rights, resulting in the influence of others?

-SD

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Media Project: Nike’s “Dream Crazier” Video

- Marc Lopez

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The Alienable Rights of Women

Going into reading this text, I wasn’t sure what to expect but it quickly came to my attention that this piece was written from an emotional standpoint of a woman that feels that the system doesn’t do as much as it should for a woman. It was very interesting to read about her viewpoint on how the political system works and what she views the rules and regulations that certain states are trying to do. I usually try to stay unbiased when it comes to topics like this because I believe that sometimes things should be treated based off the situation but I do think that more women’s voices should be heard and women’s rights should not just be some debatable political topic.

-GT

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Supernatural is a show about two brothers who fight the creatures that live in the shadows. Sam and Dean are constantly being put in scary situations with new monsters, higher stakes, and more stressful situations. The reason I chose this show as my media project is because I grew up watching it. People in my family would watch it for the background noise, but I started paying attention. It wasn’t until middle school that I decided to start the whole show from the very beginning. I was hooked from the start. Even in middle school, I noticed that most of the characters were men, that very few of my female friends liked the show, and that violence seems to be a main plot point. This show displays some pretty clear signs of toxic and hegemonic masculinity. There are entire government like structures that are composed almost exclusively of men, every man in the show knows something about cars, and almost every episode has a sex scene or at least an otherwise unnecessary sexual moment. The portrayal of masculinity in the show is frightening when you consider the fact that young people, like myself, could begin to imitate these toxically masculine characteristics.

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ROXANNE GAY LECTURE!

I felt shivers down my spine when I went to this lecture yesterday (the 17th of April)and the announcer introduced Roxanne as “ A visiting professor at Yale and a witty, funny activist on social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram.” It was not because of her achievements that were being announced that I felt this way but because I had read Bad Feminist and some excerpts from Not too Bad and I already knew what a powerful impact her words could make because I had felt them, every single one of them and the emotion they beheld while reading her work. During her talk, she read an excerpt from her book titled, “Hunger:A Memoir of Body”.The excerpt revolved around her connecting her loathing towards exercise with food being a calmness for her soul. She used to excessively eat because she could not resort to drugs or alcohol so food became her addiction,her happy place. Coming from so many religious and social ties,that was the only acceptable addiction she could have. I loved the grappling question and answer session and how witty and quick she was with her answers that kept the audience on their toes. When asked how she managed to write such personal stuff for an audience,she responded by saying that she pretended that nobody was going to read her stuff but that is becoming difficult day by day and she manages it because anything that is out there is something she accepted and came to terms with and its out there because she wanted it to be. She also talked about how we should not let our anger for social justice issues and injustice be so consuming that we fail to acknowledge or respect another point of view that is different from ours.I felt that advice on a personal level and I also felt that it was a very engaging one hour and we learned a lot that cannot be done justice by just one post AMH

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The Best Of Wives and Women

For my media project I decided to focus on the Broadway musical, Hamilton. For starters, it is such a brilliant and creative interpretation and retelling of American history.  I wanted to focus specifically on the women characters, Angelica,Eliza and Peggy/Maria who revolutionized the way in which we think about women in history. Although the musical focuses primarily on the trials and tribulations of Alexander Hamilton’s short life, the musical does a decent job in highlighting the women of the time. To me, what is most powerful is the implementation of women of color in the musical who were portraying these essentially white middle class women. In addition, Angelica, is an early example of fighting for women’s liberation and she is portrayed in a positive light. Not only is she intelligent and talented, but she also loves and supports her sister as well! 

Kayla T.