ASSIGNMENT 4

Coming into WMST 250 I was unsure of what to expect. Many thought were in my mind as I set foot in that classroom. I was thinking will this class be academically rigorous as my others or not; would we be learning about theory of women and of arts or of women and arts in a practical sense? With the passing of days and weeks in the class I began looking at it from the perspective of what we were learning just like in the book Kindred I felt as if I was part of a story. All of the questions throughout the semester would be answered through the syllabus, assignments, and free-writes, as well as what my place was during class and discussion of WMST 250.

With the first assignment being geared to show the student what he or she knew about themselves I already got the feeling that the class was going to revolve around the area of women studies and art and how we relate to that world. One of the first assumptions I wrote down and made a point to place in the introduction was that that I am a “young straight male means that I have come into the class with very few facts on feminism”. This was the first assumption that I talked about in that assignment, perhaps the reason I did so was to establish that I am part of a group in society that would not be drawn to the study of women and arts. The opening sentence of that paper was also an indicator of how I felt about the class, I was skeptical about the topic and about the people that would be teaching it. I came in with the mindset that there were going to be instructors who would look down upon me just because I am part of that group that is not “suppose to understand” women art and culture. This silent assumption was very wrong, I found very welcoming and understanding lecturers. In terms of the assumptions about art I wrote, “art was only meant for aesthetic purposes, and nothing more”. After taking this course I am now aware that art is a great means of expression especially to those who are most oppressed and have no way of having their feeling hurt, kind of like in Chicana Art in which they explained the use of murals in the streets of L.A. to explain how the marginalized got their points across. In terms of the assumptions early in the semester the part of the story I played within the course was that of a curious person who had no background knowledge, who listened to his peers on discussions about race and gender and encouraged debate and challenged what feminist view as discrimination as well as defended some of those claims. Such as rejecting affirmative action as a progressive remedial policy, while at the same time chiding the government for its inability to pass the equal rights amendment, something that most Americans would agree is reasonable to pass.

The reasons to have these assumptions were to see what classifies as art and are the books we read art. Throughout the semester I have been surprised about how little I understood about women and art, but when one thinks of art it is possible one thinks about paintings but there is so much more that art encompasses. For example in lecture Professor King would almost always have a song playing in the background, I remember once it was a song in Spanish other times it was Star Wars theme song to tie in the science fiction part of the class. At other times while reading Chicana Art as mentioned before there were murals drawn mostly done my Hispanics and African-Americans in the city of L.A. Aside from learning different styles of art I found out the various type of reasons people make art and who enjoys it. In the book But is it Art?, it talks about people making lots of money of art collections and the fact that it is the upper class that benefits from this. The book also talked about who goes to museums and galleries, the truth is that it is white upper class people who go to these museums, while the rest of society misses out. This is why I found it incredibly important to have public art that appeals more to the masses. Having murals not only is aesthetically pleasing but shows art to anyone a by passer or a citizen, the point is art is shown and at no cost to the person. In this sense in this part of the class I found my self to be part of the masses because art in it classical sense is not appealing to me, but public art like in L.A. is much more interesting, its done for the people, by the people.

One of the aspects of the class that most intrigued me was the use of the free write, never in a class had I written all that came to my head for an unlimited amount of time. I found this to be hard at first just like Professor King said but eventually it easy. For example we had to do free writes about how we felt we had done on assignment one and if our assumptions had changed I wrote:

“My concept of feminism has not changed but accentuated I always believed that feminism is a struggle to put an end to institutionalized gender discrimination and allow women to take the place they deserve in society.”

These are thoughts that I have had in my head for years, but that are hard to express in words, which is why I found the free writes to be very practical. Then when we did assignment two we were asked “why we thought Oprah was used as much as a public speaker in our assignment.” During this free write I felt very adamant about my opinion because to me it seemed that the groups just thought of the most popular person and not why she would be good at a rally or event related to feminism, in that occasion this is what I wrote:

“We thought we should get Oprah because she is an entertainer that can get people passionate about a subject. She has also proven to be a political asset to presidential candidate Barack Obama.”

A pattern that I began to notice within my free writes is that I became more passionate about women’s issues than before and I would do my best to defend my view point. Whether it is defining feminism in terms of power structures or making a credible event through the free writes I was beginning to tell that the course was beginning to convince me of arguments that I had either not been presented or heeded no attention to.

Using the syllabus to try to explain the story of the class is difficult especially because there were many topics covered within a very small amount of time. But I would definitely think about it as introduction to feminism through different methods such as art and books, then through experiences in classrooms, and bringing it all together in the assignments. An example of this is assignment three here my partner Mandee talked about experiences that were very personal to her and some thing only a red head would know. For example she talks about having being able to take a higher dosage pain medication because she is a red head. Having met her in class I knew her as a very intelligent girl, hard working, and tough (she played ice hockey). But seeing this other side of her makes me think that in some circumstances although unlikely she could be in a lot more pain than most would be. I relate this to an experience that I had reading one of the assigned books for the class. In Fight Like a Girl, the book talks about how most portrayals of women are that of a weak people who need to be sheltered especially from the bad of the world. Most stories are about women being raped but not about a woman chasing away her potential aggressor. To tie this back to Mandee, I believe that people do not give enough credit to the toughness of girls and the fact that they can contend with everything. Even though Mandee may one day need this extra medication it is not going to stop her from doing activities in that sense she can be compared to a fearless feminist just like Megan Seely suggests. Again, in retrospect I look at this experience and I think to myself had I not met a girl like Mandee nor read the book I would, like the general population treat women as the weaker sex. This is a societal problem because there are many who hold this view men and women and as a matter of fact it is one of the reasons the aforementioned Equal Rights Amendment is yet to be passed. Many argue that women cannot stand side to side with men in a battle field; women like Mandee and many others with experiences described by Seely will help to dispel that belief.

In retrospect the class was a great experience, I wish that I had attended lecture more often but I feel that discussion was a good learning tool in which the broader themes of the class were discussed. I feel that in the discussion sections sometimes I played the devil’s advocate at times but I was always respectful to my classmates and to Maren our instructor. So my place in this story called WMST 250 was that of male student who was clueless about women and the study of art but is leaving with a better understanding of both and the world’s they encompass. It should be mentioned that I came in with a conservative mindset politically and that remains unchanged but I am much more sympathetic to issues I otherwise would not have been. I do not agree with affirmative action yet I understand the arguments used by those who defend it. I also had a tough time seeing “public art” as art but I can now fully understand why people resort to this art and finally understand that people and artist are not restrained to paper or portraits to convey art, they can simply use a wall to express their feelings. This class has taught me all of this so my part of the story would be of a by stander who was not necessarily revolutionized because he never sought it, rather he grew in understanding of a gender he viewed as gentle and fragile and of a form of expression he did not consider to be a legitimate source.