#section06

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Last Plenary

The plenary coordinated by the Voorhees mentors was really interesting. Although the roles of the presidential candidates were exaggerated, they touched upon very difficult issues and it displayed how each candidate felt towards those issues. It made me really think about what is important to me and who I want to see as my next president. I also liked how they talked about the micro-aggressions mentioned during the debates. I was very surprised to see how many people have experienced micro-aggressions in their everyday life. It also opened my eyes to some situations that i might have overlooked. I think it is extremely important to address any person that makes such comments because if we want to make a permanent change in our society we must start with the people around us.

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Plenary #4 Intersexion

I really enjoyed this film I had no idea that 1 in 2000 people were born Intersex, that is a lot of people and yet we hear so little about it. I also didn't know how complex this topic was. The film discussed how many of these individuals had to go through multiple surgeries as children in order to look either male or female. I can imagine how hard it must be for a parent to have to make such a decision. They believe that those surgeries will allow their child to live a normal life but In reality when those children grow up they find themselves lost and confused. They sometimes identify more with the opposite sex so later in life they switch their appearance or they must live with complications like not being able to have sex. I would have assumed that anyone born Intersex would have preferred to have surgery at an earlier age. In fact most would have liked to be left the way they were born so they could make their own choices later on. The main lesson I took from this film was how desperately we need to stop trying to place people into female or male categories only. 

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The Pink Tax

The pink tax is one that only about half of the population is subject to. And they probably aren't even aware of it. Are you paying the pink tax?

This is an article I found further describing the ‘pink tax’. Even before this lesson I have been using ‘men’s’ products as I personally find them more effective. That being said, I know use them based on the principal that I shouldn’t have to pay more for a product that is altered in the smallest way so it’s ‘more appealing to women’. 

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Religion Panel

the The religion panel was very interesting for me as I am an atheist. Personally, religion has no impact on my life so it was interesting to see how professors and professional women deal with their religious beliefs in the workplace. I imagine being a female rabbi and a female pastor is difficult with misogyny and religious opinions on women’s bodies. For me, Ms. Reed had the biggest impact. Her experiences as a lawyer who happened to be Muslim spoke to how society sees religion and sex before they see the person and their intelligence. It’s truly upsetting to think about the labels society uses to classify people, as if we need classifying. I’ve begun to notice more and more that race identifies are incredibly common and are used to for the simplest thing, such as ‘The black guy on my plane was listening to rap music’. It’s entirely unnecessary and can be done in the same manner without using race as a factor. 

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Intersex

I really enjoyed the movie on intersex and it opened my eyes up to many different things. I never realized how traumatic gender picking could be for a person, especially for a child. Hearing ‘survivors’ stories made me think about my future and how common intersex children are born. With 1 in every 2,000 children being born intersex the likelihood of myself having an intersex child is rather high. The different categories of Intersex also led way to the question of whether or not I would pick a gender for my child. After watching the video the answer is most likely no. One ‘quick’ surgery can turn into dozens of surgeries before they’re old enough to walk and that isn’t something I’m comfortable subjecting a child to before they are old enough to make their own decisions.

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Plenary:  Intersexion

I have to admit that I didn’t know much about intersex people before the film. I was astounded by the stories of intersex individuals. Some had more positive stories, but many faced traumatic experiences in their childhood and adulthood. I didn’t realize that there are so many intersex people in the world. It goes to say that the lack of openly admitting intersex people ties back to gender norms in society. We are socialized to think of the two sexes, male and female. Anyone who is one sex, but acts another or has ambiguous genitalia is a freak. Parents might have a hard time accepting that their child is a mixture of both sexes, but the decision to raise the child a certain gender isn’t right. Society makes it difficult for people to accept intersex people as people. Many of the stories involved genital mutilation at an early age and being raised the opposite gender that they felt closest to. It is a journey that isn’t widely acknowledged and has  a lack of resources. Doctors should have better training on how to deal with intersex births and parents should be educated on the matter as well. I think that by engaging in educated discussion, parents and doctors can make a consensual decision on how to handle the situation, if at all. 

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Plenary #3

As a STEM major, it was very interesting listening to Bonnie Ridgely’s speech and learning what she went through to get to where she was in life. What really hit me was when she mentioned about a couple of mistakes that she made and her father would ask her, “Was anybody hurt and can you keep doing what you were doing?” Whenever she had yes, her father would say, “then keep doing what you were doing.” 

This hit me so much because it reminded me of all of the times I was struggling in some my classes since freshman year and last semester I did have an ongoing debate concerning whether or not I still wanted to be a doctor. There were times when I was sad, but then I thought to myself, “Is there anything else I want to do? Am I able to keep doing what I’m doing?” To this day, I will never regret saying no to the first question and yes to the second. Especially since I finally found my footing last semester as well.

Another thing I learned from her is that its important to be confident. Even though a person does not know something, she has to act like she knows. In that way, you will gain respect and people will hear you out. After this semester, I totally agree. I work at a hospital for my internship at the Cardiac Rehab ICU, and in the beginning, I did not any clinical experience but as I was learning from my friends, I still made sure and I did not mess up in front of patients because as time went on, even though I am only a college student they still looked up for me for comfort and support and being confident about my work helped with that.

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Women’s Education & Feminism

Women need an education for the same reason men do. We all want to better our minds and have better chances of getting a job. Unfortunately, women didn’t always have the privilege of education and higher education. Education empowers women to learn about history, but maybe not enough about women’s history. A lot of the history and knowledge women used to learn about was written from a male perspective. Women and Gender’s Studies proved to be a good introduction into the study of the history of women. Even so, there are women and girls who don’t have any education past elementary school or high school. The privilege that I have, in being able to attend college, is something that isn’t a reality for many in certain countries. Women need to be educated in the subjects like mathematics, language arts, history, and the sciences, but they need to learn about themselves too. Women need to be better educated on reproductive issues and other health issues. The basic human right of choosing to not give birth through a legal abortion isn’t even an option in some places (even in America). Even if someone doesn’t like the title of feminist, it doesn’t erase the major issues that women deal with that men don’t. Women have faced many roadblocks along the way, but education is the key to ensuring that the future generations of both men and women are sensitive to fixing the issues women face.