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.