Learning Analysis

Brenda Njinjoh

Women Studies

Due May 13, 2008

Learning Analysis

Women, Art and Culture was a class I signed up for to fulfill one of my core requirements. I did not know anybody who took the course before so, I came to the class curious about what the course going to be about. Personally, since the class was called Women’s studies, I thought the class was probably going to be about the history of women in the world and how the struggles they have been through to in order to make a difference in the world. For instance I imagined in the class, we would talk about famous women such as Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, or even Emelia Earhart. But to my surprise none of these women were mentioned in lecture or in discussion class. As time went by I realized that Women ’s Studies was more complex and deeper than I had imagined. This class was purposely about art by women, feminist art, and the ways women have analyzed and changed everyday life. To help us get more from the class, we read certain books such as Fight Like Girl, by Megan Seely, Feminism is for Everybody by bell hooks and Kindred by Octovia Butler. Further by visiting certain exhibitions solely to do with art, Museums in Washington D.C defiantly enriched our view about feminism and art.. Moreover through the group projects and discussions in class, it defiantly helped our discussion class feel more comfortable with one another and helped us take away something we did not know coming to the class. All these projects, books, trips helped us understand the true meaning of feminism and overall, although the class is almost over, with the new knowledge that I’ve acquire, there are certain things in the world and within my community that I will see and analyze differently or simply will not make assumptions about them because through Women Studies, I’ve grown to become a more educated individual.

I remember my very first week coming to the class and Professor King assigned us to visit various art museums in Washington D.C. Personally, I was a bit reluctant to go because I thought about the weather and how it might be difficult simply walking from one museum to another. Moreover, I thought going to these museums was a bit pointless and a waste of time. I wondered why Professor King could simply just show us slide shows of the art pieces from these museums. Instead of going to the museums with a group from the class, I decided to go alone. To my surprise, I did not regret any moment of my trip to Washington D.C. Being there in person to analyze the works of arts was very different from looking at them on the computer or a slide show. Being there in person gave you the ability and the opportunity to closely analyze the art pieces closely and see details you wouldn’t be able to see from a computer screen. I was able to build felt more closer to the art pieces and made me think about how it relates to my past experiences. Before coming to each museum, I wrote down several assumptions about Art and Feminism. For instance, some included that feminism was a concept that applied only to women, how feminism started after World War II and even how the National Museum of the American Indian would not have a lot display for women. To my surprise the National Museum of the American Indian had a section dedicated to women and the various practices that they did and how their hard work and practices made a difference in the community. One particular artist that I impressed was by is Alexander Calder. I can not really explain the connection I felt when I saw his art works. Maybe it was vivid color or the weird figures with circle on the painting. His painting is the type the at I would hang in my room to admire every day and enlighten my life. Through out my transition from one museum to another, I thought realized that although I grew around this Metropolitan Area, it is a quite amusing how we do not take advantage of the different exhibits around us and maybe if we took our time to simply appreciate them by visiting and talking about them, it will make a difference in our lives and erase several assumptions we have about people, culture, feminism and even art.

The next project was a group project with our discussion class But unlike previous group participations, the feminism group participation was different because it was my first time communicating with all of the members that I really didn’t know. Yet, overall, we had a great discussion about feminism and learned a great deal about the concept through communicating and expressing our thoughts. In the beginning, because we weren’t familiar with each other, speaking out was a something that each member did not really do. In addition, we understood what it is we were suppose to do but felt unsure about how we would be able to form a definition about feminism. At the end our group came up with a fantastic idea that in order to help others in the community to learn about feminism, our organization, Terps for Women, would sponsor an activity on campus dealing with feminism in relation to sport. The event includes both a movie and a baseball in hopes of spreading awareness about Title IX. This event is intended to be both a social and educational for those who participate. Although we came up with a great event, at the beginning it was not so easy. Each group member had ideas that they brought up and I think the fact each group member participated lead to the creation of the final event. During our group discussion I mentioned that we could spread awareness outside of the country because there are so many conflicts dealing with women all over the world. I felt the group project was an important assignment in this course because we got the chance to share and exchange views about certain topics. Moreover, I learned that each person came to the class with a different idea of the meaning of feminism.

Our very last project which required us to work with another member of our discussion class was by far my favorite project. This is because the concept and the knowledge I got from this project helped me analyze and really think in depth about my community, the structure of power structures everyday life, about how art participates in our abilities to make things change and move; participates in our abilities to work with, around, through and against these structures in dynamic ways. In the past I never really thought or analyze the distribution of power by analyzing it through marked and unmarked categories. Obviously, I knew that the world that we live in not equal. There have been conflicts in the past and they are some conflicts that we as individuals, groups, family, the world are dealing with. I enjoyed the opportunity to present our projects about the marked and unmarked issues in our lives to the class. Doing so was a way of telling others class members, people you usually do not talk to, a part of who you are and certain adversities you’ve goon through. Most of the time, people are venerable of judging people simply by looking at time, and they make assumptions that, for instance because she’s a black then, she’s not smart or can not write”. Most people just make assumptions because it is what they portray in the media and unfortunately because are so capable of believing what they see in the media. This is because the media for most people is their primary source of information. A perfect example came about BET and how it is not proper that the name of the channel was titled Black Entertainment Television. Most member in our discussion class felt that calling it Black Entertainment Television was improper because it is biased or one of the things that can spark a controversy amongst races. Unfortunately, what she failed to realized is that the title of the station has a deep meaning. The station is very positive of the black community in the United States because it is place where they can come together and learn about what is going on in the black community because most television station fail to recognize this. So through this class discussion, in the marked category was that BET should not be titled Black Entertainment Television while in the unmarked category, some people fail to realized that majority of television are mostly for Caucasians.

Aside from the assignments, through the books we read in class such as Kindred by Octavia E. Butler, and Fight Like a Girl by Megan Seely in addition to Feminism is for Everybody Bell Hooks are some of the books that made the course more enriching and enjoyable. Kindred was favorite amongst all the books that we read because it covered the abuse of power, the limits of traditional gender roles, and the repercussions of racial conflict. Moreover, the free writes we did during lectures was necessary because they helped us write our reactions right away after Professor King finished talking about a certain topics. Writing our first reaction was beneficial because it helped us engaged with the topics being conversation. Putting our reactions on papers is also beneficial because you can always keep it and look back on what you wrote.

Overall Women, Art and Culture is a class that I had to, would defiantly take again. Also this is a class I will defiantly recommend for those whose have several misconceptions about the term feminism and the true meaning of this term. I enjoyed the conversations in discussion class, exchanging and reading other people works in the blog, the books, the trips and all the other great things this course had to offer.

Assignment Four

Lauren Kessler
5-07-08
WMST250 Sec. 08


I entered this course with an array of misconceptions about feminism and a limited knowledge of its relevance to me and to society. I had never taken much time to objectively think about and define feminism, feminist art, or art in general, nor did I understand the significance of relationships shared among these concepts and the world around me. I took this course both to fulfill a core requirement, but also because I am interested in art and culture, and I desired to take a class in women's studies in order to learn and develop my thinking. My interest developed as the course began and progressed. I immediately appreciated its construction, its emphasis on learning rather than upon insuring good grades, and found the readings engaging and the professor excited to teach. I journeyed through the course as the center of a story about my life in this society as it relates to what we all thought about, discussed and learned together. Now as it draws to a close and my story continues elsewhere, I appreciate the integral knowledge I have gained and the new associations I have formed.

The assignments, readings, freewrites and subjects for independent thought proposed for us in the course have all been vastly essential to our new understanding of women, art and culture. I also valued reading the class blog, which shared a wealth of information and interesting topics for thought and discussion. I had never had a class that went so in depth with what it provided, nor have I had a teacher so eager and willing to teach her subject. In the beginning of the class, I very much enjoyed visiting the art museums and analyzing art in ways I haven't before done. It is exciting to look at something new and evaluate it innovatively, and even more so to look at something I have seen before and see it in a new light, to change my perspective and draw conclusions from that I wouldn't have otherwise drawn. Through this I better learned how to think and engage critically, and was a wonderful stepping stone for the beginning of the course to learn to denaturalize assumptions. Cynthia Freeland's book, But is it Art?, was integral to me for this reason; she reveals to us the vastness of art in all its strange, shocking and ground-breaking ways. This book allowed me to think openly about art and its possible definitions, about my place in the world of art, and how this relates to feminism. I am an artist, as a writer is one in her crafting of words or a philosopher is one in her crafting of theory, and I am free to observe art and to observe how it effects me as a woman and as a person in general. Assignment two asked me to think about a definition of feminism that was objective and all-encompassing, which forced me to dispel previous notions and subjective assumptions of what I had thought feminism was. For the assignment we created an event which would help spread understanding of feminism and appreciation of equality, which was important considering feminism requires action, as Megan Seely and others highlight in their work. In this assignment and in the third, I worked with others and learned a lot about the differences between us, but more importantly about the similarities. We are all in our respective stories that involve our journeying throughout the course, but we are also interconnected and share parts in eachother's stories. In assignment three I learned about the concept of the matrix of domination and was asked to think about the various factors influencing oppression and privilege in our society and the intersectionality of people because of the categories with which they are identified. I spent a lot of time wondering independently about the way power is set up in our society and I thoroughly enjoyed what I learned while writing my paper for assignment three.

Through this course I better learned how to read actively, how to cultivate interest in material that was completely foreign to me or was something I would normally not have picked up to read. An example of this is bell hook's Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics, which taught me valuable information about the definition of feminism and the practical ways in which the perspective is relevant to everyday life. I felt the book was written as an introduction to people who knew little about feminism and desired to challenge their assumptions, and this made it easy to understand and enlightening. I learned how to look at social problems such as sexism and racism and basic social existences such as capitalism and class disparity and apply them to feminism to theorize new causes. I was empowered by hook's explanation of true liberation in social, economic, and other arenas. She discussed the meaning of women increasingly entering the workforce and earning more money than in the past, and critiqued the common conclusion that this implies greater freedom, opportunity and equality for women. This was interesting to me because I had never thought about this in regard to class structure, how this opportunity varies for wealthy and poor women, and defined roles. hooks explains that if women are working to make money for greater spending rather than for greater well-being, then the influence of this societal change is void, as liberation is the key. What I learned from this book helped me during assignment three in which I challenged myself to recognize oppression and privilege in my own life with regard to the matrix of domination. I was better able to relate my life's experiences to the inequality inherent in today's world.

Megan Seely's Fight Like a Girl: How to be a Fearless Feminist, was an informative and inspiring book which teaches about feminism for the present time and for the present youth, and forsees its future. I appreciated that her book offered practical solutions and emphasized the importance of taking action rather than simply espousing ideologies like similar books do, and I learned a lot from it. I particularly enjoyed reading about issues of body image and the struggles of women with their bodies, and I felt I could relate to the author's grapplings. It is interesting to think about such concepts in relation to feminist issues, how our perceptions of ourselves are influenced by the gender roles imposed upon us from our parents and from society, and how we struggle with positive self-image despite the array of negative influences by the media and other avenues. Seely's book is essential for all women because we all live in a society where feminist issues are relevant and where women are affected, whether or not we choose to recognize it. She encourages us to defy the defined roles and boundaries imposed upon us and to appreciate the strength and power of women, which helped me to contemplate how I am vastly capable and worthy as a woman and as a person in general.

Kindred, by Octavia Butler, is a fascinating novel concerning racism and oppression, abuses of power, and gender roles. I enjoyed that it is a science-fiction book also interesting feminist readers that challenges our assumptions in imaginative ways. The main character, a contemporary African-American woman, is continually transported back into time in order to rescue her white ancestor. Dana's and Rufus's lives are interconnected and interdependent; he is dependent on her, a black woman, for his survival, and her life in the future depends on his continued survival and his production of a child with Alice. When she is thrown into the past, she can no longer be herself. The threat of harm forces her to act differently, as if she were a slave, and adjust herself to the boundaries imposed upon her by her slave owners and the assumptions of her by others around her. It reveals how simple it is to fall into imposed categories and act accordingly, and is relevant to any occasion in which a person is put into an unfamiliar category or markedness; they must reassimilate and re-examine their circumstances. As she learns about the great struggles of African-American women during slavery in the 1800s, so does the reader, and together they feel, actually and suggestively, what it was like to be a slave. Kindred effectively put me in the perspective of understanding the mentality of a slave, how it hurt and conflicted the mind and body, and what it felt like to be oppressed, persecuted and abused for seemingly no reason.

Upon enrolling in Women, Art, and Culture, I was unaware of what level of fundamental understanding I would leave with or what vastness of knowledge I would gain. I certainly learned about women's culture and art, activism and feminist politics, but more importantly, I learned about the dynamics of the society in which I live and how I am affected by this, my assumptions and then my reevaluations of them, and how all of this reshapes myself and possibilities for myself and others. I was surprised by my readiness to participate in freewrites and to, for example, spend time thinking about what I heard someone say in discussion. This is because the subject matter was important and relevant to me, as it is to everyone. Feminism is about the way our society would ideally be, but also about how it is, and its intrinsic value is evident in everyone's lives if they look for it. This encouragment of independent contemplation is what makes this course essential, and because of it we become part of story. We leave the lecture and the discussion but what we heard and what we talked about stays with us and is directly applied to our lives as we go about them. We are changed by what we learn, we are enlightened by our dispelling of previous beliefs, and we are encouraged to continue in our paths of development.

WMST250 Assignment #4

Assignment #4: The Story Line of WMST250 staring: Andria Bowman

It was December 4, 2007, and one of the latest registration dates for Spring 2008 classes. Being a freshman that failed to bring in any AP credits, I was naturally left picking through left over classes to achieve the schedule that would satisfy my major and CORE requirements. I basically did not have a choice but to register for WMST250. All I could think was about feminism, and how much I did not know about it. Walking in the first day I was surprised because I had never been in a class that contained over 25 people. And to be blunt, when Professor Katie King began introducing herself and the course, I was curious as to whether she was joking or not. The course was more about finding feminism than the actual grades, I was relieved yet confused. I skimmed through the syllabus and became very familiar with the content and our assignments that we would be completing. But I was still wondering a lot about the professor and how exactly she would project feminism onto us and how she would do so effectively. In the beginning I had thought that I had made a mistake in enrolling for this class because I had no extreme passion to burn my bra or protest, but I think now my perceptions have changed and this story explains how.

Reading through the syllabus, I had the impression that this course was going to be difficult and book heavy and that I would not enjoy it. The syllabus was structured in a way in which the readings that we would do out of class would be further explained and related to during lecture and discussion. But after doing a few of the readings and not hearing about them in class or discussion, I became confused as to why they were assigned. Along with the readings I had also noticed that the syllabus and its strict guide of what was going to be done on what days, I found that as a class we had ventured out of the box to discover something beyond paper in our own definitions of both feminism and art. These unanswered questions that Professor King had left us regarding what art was, what feminism was, what feminist art was, or even how these components can be used were troublesome towards the beginning of the class and the early assignments. I did not know how to complete an assignment that needed the answers to what these things were without knowing. But I later found that the answers were with me already, I just needed to find them. I found that these questions left room for the class as a whole and individuals to discover differing answers to unite as one to understand the world around us and to keep an open mind. The syllabus’s structure was not kept very well, but I certainly believe that this was under good reason because of what the course had finally exposed to me as a student.

From the syllabus, a reading that had been discussed through lecture and discussion was the book Kindred that explored science fiction that represented feminist themes throughout. This book’s relation to the class was not clear but as I read, I began to see the numerous relations from science fiction literature to feminism. The fact that this was a piece of literature in itself proves that this is a definite piece of art that not only confronts the role of women throughout history, but also the role of African American women. I connected very strongly to the story as a female with strong views and beliefs like Dana, the main character. Her bravery to understand her place in Rufus’ life and how they become related is a strong representation of how a woman can take charge in her own life. She is Rufus’s only way of survival, and in the time jump that takes place it is a strong point in the book that a white boy can only be saved from harm by this African American woman who is married to a white man and wears slacks.

This book taught me to be open minded in numerous ways that I had not expected. For example, when I began reading the book I had assumed that Dana’s husband was black. But I later learned that he was, in fact, an older white man. When I had later discovered that the rest of my peers in my discussion section had felt the same way, I was relieved. But, I thought a lot about how the media portrays relationships and how rare it is for our society to accept inter-racial couples. In reading this book, I conquered my inability to go outside of the social norm to discover what lies beyond it in regards to things such as inter-racial couples. I also had learned a lot more about males and their role in society and how it has changed greatly from what it had been in days of slavery. Rufus’s father had always seemed to have the need to be in control constantly, and he was mostly angry when the reader encounters him. In adding these new knowledge tools to my overall comprehension of the course, I found to have a new understanding of feminism and its place in my own world and the world around me.

This reading related a lot to the overall story of the class through all of the goals that they had tried to accomplish and the messages that they both had tried to convey to the same intended audiences. The various assignments were threaded together to provide the class with an questions. And in my role as the student, it was my responsibility to find the answers, more so for myself than academia. The course and its story are out of the ordinary scholarly world because it is freedom based. It provided an environment that was limitless and free for the students to find their own definitions and thoughts about what feminism and feminist art was and their places in a social and political world. The parts of this story divide into the students, the assignments and readings, the questions that Professor King was leaving unanswered, and the new outlook that each person would walk away with. These all connect together through the thought of an open mind and changed society, one person at a time. Each component educates the one before it through thoughts and opinions that come together to complement one another. I think of this class’s story as one that takes a lot of dedication to understand to reach the ending and its satisfaction, for the story has yet to end, even though the course has finished. This is because the course has provided its students with much more than knowledge but understanding of our social and political world beyond the borders that bound us.

In thinking about boundaries and the components that are placed into this, I think about the enlightening bell hooks, and her book Feminism is for EVERYBODY: Passionate Politics. This book provided a lot of the tools that the class used in assignment three to analyze everyday life. hooks had a wonderful explanation of her thoughts on consciousness-raising and how we as a united people can apply that effectively in everyday life. I found this most impacting because she was not afraid to step outside of the box in order to tell her readers the truth. What was most helpful in our depth into bell hooks and her works as a free feminist was her usage of the matrix of domination. This system was effectively related to the class throughout as I discovered my place in society and how unmarked and marked categories had placed in my life. It helped me to relate much closer to the class as a story because of what I needed from it to complete my assignment, as well as what it provided me in looking at feminist politics from another angle an understanding oppressions. It was meaningful through my journey of understanding the oppressions I face daily, whether I am the oppressor or oppressed. bell hooks is an excellent model for the course because of her thoughts and analysis of our society and how feminism is placed or ranked along with our politics.

Another reading that strongly relates to bell hooks and her visionary stance on feminism and its place in politics would be that of Megan Seely in Fight Like A Girl. I found this reading to be very informing about what feminism really was. It helped me to understand that although feminism was something that a strict definition could not be placed on, it was definitely not what our society initially thinks of it. While informing her readers, Seely also grabs them immediately through her explanation and analysis of the actual word feminism and what the initial reaction of most people is when they hear it. She takes the bull by the horns and faces these issues with a positive and strong attitude. Her book further dives into the feminist movement and its benefits, as well as how I can apply these benefits to my everyday life as a “fearless feminist.” It ties into what Professor King was trying to accomplish and letting us discover what that meant, other than simply lecturing us on it and doing all of the work. Megan Seely’s book was a wonderful choice but I was disappointed that we did not discuss it in discussion because I found it to be the most effective approach to education on feminism and the positives it presents to society and everyday women.

Determining how I fit into the overall story of WMST250, I have reflected a lot on the assignments and free-writes that Professor King had us compose involving our current works in the class and how they reflect feminism and a new artistic view. When I took on the first assignment I had dreaded it at first, but after seeing all of the amazing feminist art and other types of art that D.C. had offered, I was impacted greatly. I felt that this assignment was a perfect way to start out the semester and it had forced us, as students, to explore the possibilities around College Park. It provided me with just a taste of what else I was going to experience through the course and how it might change my perceptions about political and social projections of feminism and art. With the second assignment, it provided me with the ability to work with my entire discussion group in producing a feminist event that would attract a lot of people, yet inform those who are ignorant to what feminism really involves. In reading through my free-writes after this assignment, I have reflected a lot on what feminism meant to me and why this was such a difficult concept to establish for myself. In making this event with my group, I was able to not only establish my own individual definition of feminism, but I could also see it from different angles of those in my group. We established how to approach feminism in a constructive matter that would also be enjoyable through our co-ed baseball game, picnic, and movie screening.

The third assignment involved a lot more heavy thought and reflection upon the self and how I may impact others. I discovered a lot about myself and someone who was very different from me. It was an eye-opening experience because it pushed me into understanding a culture separate from my own and to understand how it is oppressed compared to me. I found that this, in relation to the class, and readings on the matrix of domination all threaded together as a story on its own to set us, as students and as a unit on the right path in understanding not only feminism, but also the world around us and our societal changes. This connected so well with the course and the story that I was in regarding feminism in political and social circumstances. I reflected a lot on this project and related it closely to the lecture that was concentrating on the art of story telling because this project was not only an everyday analysis and comparison of oppressions and how marked and unmarked categories had affected us, but also a narrative. It became a narrative of me and my historical experience and how that related with my partner, Delilah.

I was a large part of this story mainly because of the transformation I have made from the beginning of this course. I started out not knowing any answers to the questions that Professor Katie King had presented to the class, but I am leaving with the understanding of why she had done this initially, and answers to her questions to benefit my lifestyle as a strong feminist. While, at the time, this class was deeply confusing, I found that through discussion, I thoroughly enjoyed learning a lot about artistic influences in feminism and how they are influenced in societal and political movements to make change.

The overall story of this course has definitely impacted me and my place in feminism and feminist art. I have been challenged to face many parts of my life that I had not known about prior to this class. My part in this story of WMST250, I would find, is the main character. Each student is the main character, striving to find the answers to the questions that Professor King had left unanswered. But the class was not just one story, it was a story for each student, for each feminist artist, for each author that we explored, and for each feminist that has paved the way for us. We each have our own story that has begun with the awakening experience of WMST250; my story will not end as the course culminates because I will continue to use the values that I earned towards my everyday life.