Final

Essay 1

Out of all the readings this semester, I decided to cover articles that defined or tried to define what the third wave of feminism actually is. I chose the article by Belkin, Pipher and Faludi. I also used two chapters in the F Word, chapters five and seven. I decided to cover these five articles because they were the ones that stuck out in my mind from the semester. I picked them randomly, so I did have to sit there and think of how they all tied together, however.
First, Faludi talk about the backlash that the third generation is facing. She argues that women have not made it to equality because every time a goal is achieved, society comes back to push it back. She goes on to say that men are a huge problem and do not want women to succeed. Women are less happy than they were when they had less because they didn’t have to choose between public and private happiness. This tied in well with Pipher’s essay on girls going through adolescence. She explains how girls lose themselves because of the media, parents and peers. Young girls these days are constantly struggling to fit in with society and the path it has created. In return, the girls are completely unhappy and rebellious in trying to find themselves. Acceptance is the main goal of all girls in adolescence and women in the feminist movement. Chapter five of the F Word tries to define the third wave. The basic idea is that the third wave who is completely unhappy and unequal, is a combination of the first and second wave. This generation is expanding on what they do, but not using the freedoms given to their full advantage. This was made clear by the video clip we watched in class about the women opting out of the workforce. A woman of the second generation was very judgmental and disapproving of the women not working and having a family. Belkin’s article on women opting out was closely tied to this belief. She wrote about very highly educated upper class women who were choosing to leave their six figure salaries to stay at home with their children. This is was such an issue because these women would have been the next CEO’s of the Fortune 500 companies. But who is to say how women should be in their own relationships? Chapter seven of the F Word talked about the variety of ways women were in relationships today. There are more single women, women waiting longer to marry and still a 50% divorce rate for married couples. Apparently, it is only now acceptable for women to have opposing political views than their husbands in today’s society. This chapter also examined same-sex marriage and the belief that they should have the right to legally marry.
These five articles are tie together because they discuss and depict how women of the third generation should be, act and feel. They get into the root of the issues today with the third generation and explore what the generation is doing. All of these articles have been important to how I understand Women’s Studies because it gave me insight to how feminists in today’s time think and feel about how far or not so far women have come. I personally never felt held back or unhappy with being a young woman but these articles show that the older women in the feminist movement have not achieved what they had aspired to by this point in time.
My only question to everyone who reads and writes these articles is why is the glass always half empty than half full? I feel like the feminist movement is a huge negative movement because all it focuses on is what has not been achieved. I am not saying we shouldn’t look to the future and progress as women, but honestly, our lives are not bad and we can do what we want whether it requires extra work or not. If a women plans and wants to really make it in the career world, she should set her mind to it and break the mold no matter how hard she has to work. If life was always easy, where would the sense of accomplishment be? No, this is not fair, but when has life ever been fair. All I am saying is there are so many worse things that people throughout the centuries have had to endure in order to merely survive. Women today are not struggling to survive; they are thriving in the world and constantly achieve what is thought to be impossible. Look at the single mother raising children on a low salary and all by herself. Look at the women in the higher government positions who are pathing the way for women in upcoming generations. Look at the women who get to choose whether or not they work or stay at home with the kids. There are endless examples of strong women making it through life whether it’s a hardship or not. For my future, I hope I can break through some stereotypes and look past what I haven’t been given and look at what has been done. I plan to be the first girl to work a full-time position in a laboring field where there has only been men. I get insulted when people tell me not to do the dirty work. I want to and I will. I plan to show people that women are not innocent and fragile creature. They are strong and powerful who can do anything.

Essay 2

Feminism. Before this class, my idea of feminism was completely warped. I thought that feminists were women who wanted to rule the world and kill all men. This was clearly not as accurate at all. From this class, I now know that feminists are much worse. I have found feminists to be the most pessimistic group of individuals that I have ever learned about. All of our readings complain about society and how patriarchy is ruining the world. As our teacher, you have even talked about women being commodities and being considered property. I take offense to that. The Bible talks about the bond of marriage between a man and a woman should be the type of relationship one should have with God. How could that be negative? Where does the line get drawn?
How dare anyone judge me for the way I choose to live my life as a strong and independent woman. From this class, I have learned to define feminism as a movement dedicated to always pointing out what is unjust for women. I have yet to read anything that is uplifting on the movement so far. Feminism is defined as having a choice. It’s sad that your fellow sisters in the movement won’t always support the path you get to choose. All I hear is negative bashing of today’s society. In my personal opinion, I think the feminist movement will always have a cause because the issue is always being brought up. It is the same thing with race for me. The only reason race is still such a huge issue, is because people make it one. No, the new Auburn coach was not hired over a black man because he was a black man. Look at sports today, 90% of the most talented athletes are black. Such accusations are obscured.
The third wave is a generation of women who are a combination of the first and second wave. My generation is the third wave. My generation is full of women who are going full throttle for the feminist cause. My generation is full of women choosing how they wish to live their lives, publicly and privately. My generation is full of women who simply don’t care. My generation is every young girl who aspires to be something in life, whether that’s a career woman or a homemaker. The third generation is a group of women who get to make their own decisions. They are all great in every way. From the previous essay, I talked about five of the readings. In all honesty, those were the ones I could stomach the most. Yes, there were issues and points where I did agree. For instance, I do agree that relationships are completely different now. I believe that women are choosing to be independent, single or holding off having a man in their lives. Good for women everywhere for saying that they don’t wish to get married or have kids. Good for women everywhere who are deciding that that way of life is the right one for them. I agree with Pipher that girls are loosing themselves through adolescence. I do think that this has been an issue for centuries, though. The past decades are the first times women are allowed to grow up and be what they want, not forced to fit a cookie cutter mold. The Belkin article was by far my favorite, though. It explored the minds and thoughts of women who are going against what many believe is the feminist movement. These women who are choosing to stay at home are supposedly ruining society for the rest of the female gender. I disagree. I think the whole purpose of the feminist movement was to give women the chance to choose. The choice is what the feminist movement is all about. The choice to do anything and everything.
I think this course should have been called Feminism 101. To me, there were so many different and amazing things we could have learned about. People, events and places that inspire could have been discussed. I do not think this class really went into Women’s Studies very well at all. I have previously taken a Women’s Studies class that I enjoyed thoroughly even though I didn’t always agree with the teacher or the class. It was inspiring because Dr. Skeeters was able to spark our critical thinking on the subject of being a woman. Women Studies classes should be focused on what once was, what is now and what is to come. This class was extremely negative and failed to really highlight the positives or even the women who made that possible. Ironed Jawed Angels was really the only insight we learned about women gaining the right to vote. To me, this is the beginning of greatness for women, and we barely discussed or got to study it.
If it is already not clear enough, I am definitely not a feminist. I believe I am person who wants greatness for men and women. Women are biologically engineered differently than men and that’s a fact. I suppose the main reason I do not want or will ever be considered a feminist is because I do not want to judge a person for having the ability to make a choice, a choice they feel is the right one for them. Everyone is different and deserves to do as they please. Wasn't that one of the most important foundations our country was built on by our founding fathers? Just having the right to have a choice was a difficult thing to come by. To me, feminism is having the choice and feminists do not respect a lot of those choices.