Grading

Hi everyone,
Just to clarify the grading scheme a little bit. Each assignment is worth 25% of the grade. There are no allocated points for attendance, participation and posting. However, I do take it into account. Because most of the grading is done through letter grades (except assignment 3 where I actually assigned points), this gives me a lot of leeways in determining the final grade. For example, a B can be 84, 85, or 86, etc. So, when determining the final grade, I look at all your grades for the assignments, and I add or substract a + or - to your final grade according to your attendance, participation and postings. So a B+ can become an A- according to your involvement in class, just like a B can become an B- if you did not attend or get involved in class. I hope this is clear and that you all think it is fair. I do not have control over the points allocation (it was determined in the syllabus). But I do want to acknowledge in some ways people's involvement and dedication.
Have a great summer, and let me know if you want more details about the breakdown of your final grade.
Gen

assignment 4

This course has made me think differently about certain things. When I first read the course description before I took the class, it seemed interesting so I signed up for it. When I did, I thought it would be all about looking at art pieces made by women. I thought the class would be feminist. It turns out that it was more than that. The class gave more input to just looking at art pieces, it gave information behind art in general and feminism.
The story of the course was finding out how art affects each and every one of us in our everyday lives. During the first few weeks of the course we got an introduction about art and feminism. We had to go to museums and look at different types of art and we had to make our own assumptions about each museums and the art in there. I think this helped the students get a better understanding of art. After we went to the museums, we went to class to discuss what we had seen and what our assumptions where. The teacher gave us a little more information behind each museum and that furthered our understanding about each of our assumptions. I believe this introduction was put in to help us better understand art and clear out any assumptions we may have had.
The next weeks were about art and feminist activism. We had to read the books Fight Like a Girl and New Creative Community. Both these books talked about how to start being an activist and gave tips and ideas. I remember we talked about the shadow project in class and how we ourselves could get involved. I also remember another form of activism which was about how people would change billboard signs to say something against what the billboard was actually advertising.
We were assigned a project where each section had to work together. We were supposed to come up with a feminist event and a definition of feminism. Our event was about raising awareness of domestic violence. As guests, we had many celebrity speakers and singers, some of which included the Spice Girls, Christina Aguilera, and Oprah. Our definition of feminism was strong, independent people who raise their voice to fight for equality amongst women and men. In our event each guest had a past of domestic violence and was raising their voice against it. This part of the course tried to show us that we can get involved and make difference in our communities.
For the next weeks, the class was mainly about seeing art and feminism in our everyday lives. We read Kindred in those weeks. That was a very interesting book. The main character would go back in time to save her ancestor’s life. It showed how well the main character was affected if something would happen to one of her ancestors. If something did happen to that ancestor, she would most likely not exist so she had to save him or her everyday life would be come to an end.
We also discussed the matrix of domination. It was a diagram showing marked and unmarked categories. The marked categories were specific and included the oppressed. The unmarked categories were general and included the privileged. All this led up to our third assignment which was the analysis of our everyday lives. We had to include in it where we landed in the matrix of domination whether we were oppressed or privileged. This assignment really helped us see where we stand within power. It led us to an understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of each category. For example, with the category of class, if one is in the working or poor class, one has less of a chance of getting into a university but if one is in middle or upper class there is a greater chance of getting into a university. During these weeks we learned how power affects us everywhere we go.
The last weeks of the class were about taking action. In class we saw a video someone made with the music of Chicle Atomico. In the video, it showed various t-shirts showing words and graphics that may seem rebellious and going against laws. For example, one t-shirt said “DAUGHTER OF AN ILLEAGAL ALIEN.” Another one said, “Warning: due to shortage of robots, this worker is a human being and may react unpredictably if abused.” The t-shirts were a way of taking action in something someone did not like and putting it out in public just the as the maker of the video did by posting the video on YouTube. Those people took action which was what the last part of the course was teaching.
I picture the story of the course to be how art affects our everyday lives because that was what I learned through each teaching. It made me realize art was just not looking at paintings or sculptures. Art can be done through being an activist and speaking out about things we do not like that may affect us every day which also shows what feminist do. Each part of the course connected to show how art and feminism can be a unique part of our lives. Each part led up to the next part. For example, the first part of the course was an introduction about art and feminism. This led up to us learning what feminist activist do through books like Fight like a Girl.
I can put myself in this story because I think I learned more about myself through this course. In the first assignment, we had to come up with assumptions about each museum. I found myself coming up with things I would have never thought about if I had not visited those museums. One assumption I had was when I went to the American Indian museum. I saw that American Indian boys collected elk teeth to give to their future wives. It was a symbol of marriage. The women would sow each one onto their wedding dress. I assumed that there would be no special symbol of marriage in tribes but I was wrong. I gained a lot of knowledge by doing the third assignment. I never thought that there would be a diagram showing who the privileged and the oppressed were. I found myself being in both the oppressed and privileged groups. There was an even mixture. For example, for the oppressed group, I am Hispanic, female, and speak Spanish. But for the privileged group, I am heterosexual, U.S. citizen, Christian, and middle class. The assignment did make me realize that it is really hard for the oppressed group to succeed and it showed me in what areas it was harder. For example, in the category of nationality, you have to be a U.S. citizen in order to vote and change things in the country. If you are an undocumented alien and there is something you do not like you cannot make a change legally. The matrix of domination taught me that certain categories can and has changed. In the category race, the only races included back in the 1950s were whites, blacks, and other. But now there are many other races included in the category.
Being in the discussion groups gave me a better understanding of each piece of the course. Students were able to discuss the readings and gain a better understanding of it. Each person contributed their thought or idea in the section about the reading or any other topic we were discussing. I contributed by giving the thought I had about each reading and also by posting a post about a reading on the blog. The post was on chapter one of the book But is it Art? Also when we did assignment two, I contributed by giving ideas on how the event could be organized.
What worked for me throughout the course was when my TA would give out handouts in our discussion class about a topic we were discussing or more information on how to do an assignment. It helped me out a lot in order to do my assignments. Throughout the course, I was able to connect my experiences with each assignment either by making new ones like going to the museums or using old ones like my background culture. The teacher and TA also helped me out by discussing each assignment in depth.
Out of all the readings, the three that I found the most interesting were the first and fourth chapters of the Freeland book and the book Kindred. But is it Art? chapter one caught my attention because of the disturbing pieces of art it talked about. I found the fourth chapter interesting because it talked about where the money is coming from in order to hang art in a museum. Kindred was interesting to me because I had never read a science fiction book. The other books like New Creative Community did not interest me because it talked more about being an activist and that does not appeal to me.
The first chapter in But is it Art had my face making a disgusting gesture because of what I read as the first paragraph. The author states that at a conference, artists on stage were using blood as part of their performance. I was just very appalled when I read that. Then it went on and gave other examples of art work like the Piss Christ. When I first saw it, I thought it was so disturbing. But also this chapter made me realize that not all art had to be beautiful. In the end, the author states that art does not only include works of formal beauty but also works that are ugly and disturbing. I agree with the author. All artists have their own style and their own way of thinking that can make their artwork great and beautiful. But still artists using blood or urine to create art can be disgusting and not very beautiful to me, just interesting.
The fourth chapter of the same book talked about how art was valued and by whom. Some art works were put in museums by wealthy people who collected art. Alexander Girard was one that made the Folk Art Museum in Santa Fe come about. Museums were also built up from private collections, like the United States National Gallery of Art. Now there are corporations that give money to museums to promote art and culture. But corporations fund exhibits in museums for their own gain. For example, government sponsored art loans are to attract investments and good foreign relations policies from other countries. Another way to gain money is from art auctions. A lot of money is made by just selling one piece of art. Van Gogh’s Irises sold for $53.9 million dollars. But with this much money being paid we may not be able to appreciate the actual artwork anymore only for how much it is worth. I liked this chapter because before I had never thought about how much art was worth or how it got to be in a museum. It made me open my eyes and gain knowledge. I came to a realization that there is more background information in the artwork.
Kindred was my favorite reading. I had never read a science fiction book before because I thought it would be boring and it was just not for me. It turns out I really enjoyed reading that book. I could not put it down once I started reading it. I kept wanting to know what happened to Rufus and Dana, especially Dana, because in the beginning it talked about her losing an arm so I wanted to find out how she lost it. During the whole story, Dana would time travel to the 1800s and back to 1976. She would go back to save her ancestor Rufus because without him she would not exist. I did not really learn anything new from this book since it was a fiction book but it was an enjoyable book. The one thing that I did think about while reading the book was that we never know who we may be connected to. Dana was black but her ancestor Rufus was white. It shows that not all of our ancestors are the same race as we are but we will never find out until we research it. In the class, I know there was a section where we discussed who we may be connected to.
The course was interesting. It made me think about things surrounding me every day that I would never think about, like power. Power is everywhere and I did not realize it until I did assignment 3. It is at home, school, and work. I learned new things about art and feminism. Art is not all just pretty landscape paintings but that it is also pictures that can be disturbing to other people like the Paulo Rego collection at the National Museum of Women and the Arts. And that feminism is not just women trying to be like men but it is about standing up for what you believe in. I liked the fact that this course made me think outside the box.

FINAL PAPER!!! YAY!!!!

This women’s studies course was constructed to educate students on the power struggle for women within economic, social, and political structures in everyday life both in the past and present. This course was devoted to topics concerning women, feminism, gender, and politics. Women’s studies also included feminist theories and women’s history including women’s suffrage and oppression. Women, art, and culture are three major parts within this course. Women’s art can include art by women, feminist art, and art activism. These ways of art have been helpful to women to analyze and change everyday life. Art is one of the most important forms of politics that feminists have assembled to make life better, not only for themselves but others. During this course we have seen many different performances of art forms, through music, dance, sculptures, and paintings by and of women. These art forms relate to culture because culture refers to the patterns of human activity, such as singing and dancing, and structures, such as paintings and sculptures, that give such art forms their significance and importance. Within this course, we have observed how women, art, and culture relate and intertwine with each other to educate us on women’s studies. It is put together in this way because culture defines people and in this course culture defines women through their suffrage and oppression in the past and still in the present. Women artists use their culture of meanings and symbols to display this in their artwork.

I am a part of this story of the course because I registered for the class, attended lectures and discussions. Being associated and present in this class in general would put me or anybody in the story of the course.  At different parts of the story of the course, as a class we were learning about different aspects of women’s studies. So at these different points I had to change from one state of mind to another to be able to consume and comprehend the new information in the lectures. Although most of the time, what was taught in one lecture carried over to the next. So in class you could apply what you learned in the last lectures to the future lectures to get a better understanding. Art activism was a big issue in this women’s studies course. Art activism is a deliberate action to result in a certain social or political change in support of or opposition to a controversial argument. Assignment two was a hands-on art activism project within our discussion group that made me feel like a big part of the story of the course. We came up with an idea to hold a concert to raise awareness against domestic violence to portray our discussion groups meaning of feminism. My discussion groups’ definition of feminism was “strong, independent people who raise their voice to fight for equality amongst women and men.” This assignment related to the art activism we learned about in lecture because as a discussion group we put together an event that would raise awareness about the mistreatment and oppression of women.

A big question throughout the story of the course was “What is art?” Assignment One assigned us to go to Washington, D.C. to four different museums. We were supposed to discover our assumptions about art when we were surprised by a piece of artwork or object. I remember going to the Museum of Women in Art, the National Gallery of Art, the National Museum of the American Indian, and the Hirshhorn. All of these museums but the National Museum of the American Indian had obvious artwork, including sculptures and paintings. The National Museum of the American Indian is where culture and art relate and make the story of the course much more clear on why the course is called “Women, Art, and Culture.” This museum instead exhibited the ways of life, art, and history of Native Americans. There wasn’t obvious art displayed around the museum but instead there were objects and artifacts that described Native Americans and their culture. These objects had meanings and symbols behind them that described their culture in a way that portrayed a different kind of art. For example, there were quilts, dresses, jewelry, and headdresses. I always had the assumption that art is only displayed through paintings, sculptures, dances, etc. This museum changed my assumption and now I know that art can take any form and it doesn’t just have to be in an art museum to be called “art.”

Assignment three was a partner assignment, where we had to observe our life as both past of the majority and minority within marked and unmarked categories. Marked categories include your differences in society or your disadvantages. Society knows that you are marked, you are labeled as different compared to the dominant group in which exploitation begins and you are treated differently and don’t have the same opportunities as ‘normal’ people would. The unmarked categories consist of the dominant group, which include the ‘normal’ people. This group involves the privileged and powerful people within society. These people have not been marked by society and they remain in the position to mark those they see are different. In Assignment three, my partner and I had to analyze our life within different structures of society, including our gender, age, nationality, religion, race, language, social class, etc. After observing my individual life within these aspects I found that I can be part of both the minority group and majority group within one structure. I feel that this assignment placed me deeper inside of the story of the course because I found out a lot about myself and could relate to the issues we were talking about in class better. For example, the few lectures about oppression of women, I could relate to those lectures because my life had some aspects in it that made me part of the oppressed group within society. Also, I feel that this assignment placed all of the students farther into the story of the course because it gave us an opportunity to analyze what we were learning in lecture in relation to our individual lives.

The meetings in small group discussions made me feel included in the story of the course on a more individual, personal level. Because the discussions were so small, I feel that this was a good way to review lecture information more thoroughly and take a step back and relate it to our own lives. We also discussed the readings in discussion which was good because what we read for homework related right back to what was discussed in lecture. Also, being in such a small discussion made it possible to listen to the other students within the group and compare and contrast my life and issues with theirs. One event I will never forget about discussion was our trip to the Tunnel of Oppression. The fact that we went in discussion and not in lecture was better because we got to analyze every little piece of information without being with 100 other students doing the same thing. The trip to the Tunnel of Oppression opened my eyes up to the real issues of oppression and suffrage around the world. This trip related back to the class because we were discussing oppression at the time and going to the tunnel broadened my thoughts on the whole issue.

The reading that meant the most to me was “Kindred” by Octavia Butler. When it was assigned over spring break I was not too fond of the idea of reading over the break but once I got started it seemed like I couldn’t stop reading it. “Kindred” was about a present day African American women, Dana, who was being called back into the past to help a certain boy who would end up being her ancestor. Any time this boy, Rufus, would get into any kind of trouble where his life was threatened, Dana would vanish from present time and appear in the past to prevent Rufus from dying when he gets into his dangerous situations. It was vital that Dana kept Rufus alive because if Rufus didn’t survive, Dana wouldn’t be born. I liked this book because I never knew what was going to happen next. As I got further into the book things that were happening got more intense and more detailed where I couldn’t help that my emotions get involved. This reading connected to the class because we have discussed women and oppression and how women are the minority in some situations. When Dana was in the present time, she wasn’t a minority and was treated with respect and had her rights. When she got called into the past for Rufus, Dana was a minority because she was a slave and had no rights, she was beaten on certain occasions and had to sleep in an attic. This book showed me an example of how certain groups of people, of different genders and races are treated differently not only in different time periods but in everyday life.

Another reading that I really enjoyed was by Cynthia Freeland, Chapter 5 in her book “But is it Art?” This chapter was basically about how gender and sexuality relate to art. Freeland says that gender and sexuality shouldn’t matter when it comes to art. She says that in the past it wasn’t normal for women to be artists and have their art displayed like men did. Freeland discusses the situation further by saying that it was normal for women to be in the household raising a family; women who weren’t were deviating the norm. This reading is connected to the class because through the lectures we were discussing how women are a minority and should change so that women are equal to men. This reading connected these lectures and made me see that gender does really matter to people. The art that people like and want to buy sometimes does depend on whether the artist is female or male. Freeland concludes her chapter by saying that gender and sexual orientation of an artist sometimes is important and other times isn’t important. She says that gender has always mattered in the history of art. Paintings of nude women done by male painters dominate museum walls. Male artists have always seen women as sexual objects, but with art they see women as inspirational figures. Gender can also matter if gender reflects a deep personal anxiety that the artist wants to portray in a piece of work. Artists might have a political aim, or expressions of religion, or feelings about death. The feminism and gay liberations were important political movements that made gender and sexual orientation actually matter in art work. But, then Freeland goes on to say that the role of gender and its affect on art in relation to meaning and expressions isn’t very clear. She says that someone’s sexual orientation does not affect the meaning of someone’s music or artwork. In my opinion, whether gender and sexual orientation affect someone’s views on a piece of art or not is completely up to that individual.

Some major issues we have talked about in the story of the course is women’s liberation and the feminist movement. Chapter 10 in Bell Hooks book “Feminism is for Everybody” addresses these issues and explains how both race and gender affect women in everyday life. In the story of the course we have generally observed the difference in race among females. Hooks says that white women know their status is different than black women. They know this because when they were little girls they would watch TV and look at pictures in books and magazines and only see girls and women similar to their image. White women know that being white is a privilege and one thing that links this idea to the story of the course is through Assignment three. Assignment three like I explained before gave me an opportunity to look at my life through structures such as gender, race, nationality, etc. and see how I could be both disadvantaged and advantaged. Being a white female, I know I have a lot more privileges and opportunities in life than women of color. This is sad because so many events in history have laid down the fact that blacks and whites no matter what gender have equal rights. But still to this day, people of different races have lack of privileges and disadvantages compared to those people of white color.

I made a collage because I thought making a creative part to Assignment four would be a relevant addition to my paper. I didn’t really have a certain idea of what I wanted my collage to entail but I decided to look through magazines and cut out words that I thought corresponded to the story of the course. The basic background of the collage is a foot painted to look like a woman. I thought it was cool to just overall represent the story of the course because the basic idea of the women’s studies is to learn about WOMEN, art, and culture. I just pasted words and phrases all over the paper in no particular fashion. One quote that I found that I liked a lot is “No girl should need a guy to get that tingly-all-over feeling.” I thought this quote was relevant because through the story of the course we have been looking at the empowerment of women. This quote makes me think of women being independent and not needing men to fulfill any of our needs. So, basically the collage is just images, words, and phrases that I’ve heard through the lectures in class and/or thought were relevant to the story of the course. 

 

final paper

I believe that this course was designed in a way that introduced different facets of women, art, and culture individually at first then brought the different elements together in order to analyze each through an interconnected web. The pathway through these different components came together to create a story for the course. As time went on, I realized my part in the story and I became a character. As a character I was able to learn about the different and interesting parts of feminism and how that connected to art and culture. The different assignments from the course helped guide my journey and provided me with reinforcement in learning.
First, this course started off with us going to different museums of art, which introduced and allowed us to explore the different types of art. Those who were unaware of art theory learned about it and those who had previous knowledge were able to brush up on it. For me, I learned how wide the gamut of art could be. The National Gallery of Art showed me how art can be really formal via portraits by oil on canvas or untraditional. The National American Indian museum showed me how things that could be considered as crafts could also be art. The Hirshhorn showed me just how abstract and seemingly meaningless art could be.These observations helped us ponder the question "what is art?" and develop our own opinions on different genres of art. Readings from the book But is it art? by Cynthia Freeland helped develop our art knowledge by introducing art theory vocabulary. The museum trip also introduced the part of the course about women when we visited the Women of the Arts Museum in D.C. This museum helped to introduce the idea of feminism and what it is. I believe a lot of people, including myself, changed their perceptions of feminism because the museum wasn't as bold, loud, and in-your-face as I thought feminism would be. Instead, much of the museum simply displayed works of art by women, which showed me that feminism doesn't have to be so loud and fiesty. Simply being heard and claiming a stake in a world dominated by other groups is feminism as well. The Freeland novel also tied art to women in chapter five entitled "Gender, Genius, and Guerilla Girls." This chapter introduced us to the Guerilla Girls who fight for equality for women and especially in the field of art. This connection between art and women was an important step in the story for the course. I learned a lot from this book as well that shaped my knowledge of women in the arts: what had barred them from flourishing in the past and why they didn't seem to be so prevalent in the art world until very recently.
As the course changed our views of what art could be and what feminism is, we entered a new stage of the course, analyzing feminism and women in our everyday lives. We were allowed to apply what we had learned in the first part of the course to our personal lives. This engendered a personal stake in the story of the course. Before, I had felt like an outsider learning about different theories of feminism, but through an analysis of my own life, I was able to connect to the material and establish a personal relationship to feminism, power, oppression, and many other topics. The novel entitled Feminism is for Everybody by bell hooks helped in establishing the connection as well. It taught me that feminism isn't as abstract a concept than I had previously thought it was. After readings from the book, feminism was much more straight-forward and simple. This book also opened my eyes as to how feminism is not just the fight for the equality of women, but for equality for all. hooks shows how feminism connects to class, gender, women's rights, families, sexuality, and more. Feminism encompasses so many more things than I had known. After realizing feminism had so many different elements, I was sure to be able to find a niche in feminism that applied to me directly, and I did.
The story continues with how we then learned about power and its effects in our everyday lives. I also learned through readings and class about the power system in our society. I learned that so many different people are being oppressed because there is always a dominant group and a group below that has to deal with the decisions of the dominant regardless of whether or not it may not be beneficial for that group as well. The way some groups are being oppressed in this society is an injustice. The matrix of domination was a useful tool in analyzing lives of individuals in this society and assignment number three helped me to apply this concept to my personal life as well. I learned about how being in marked and unmarked categories gave me or limited my power. I learned about how power can be measured by how many privileges I hold.
After having learned about feminism and all the injustices in our society, readings from Fight Like a Girl: How to be a Fearless Feminist by Megan Seely helped us realize what us as individuals could do to change what we didn't believe was right. She showed us how to be activists. I learned through this book that being an effective activist doesn't have to be as ambitious as I thought it had. Doing little things everyday like telling your friends about what you learned and what you believe is right or putting up some flyers now and then help to make a difference. This book helped to create in me confidence and a sense of purposefulness because I feel like I can make a difference by doing things that I had previously thought would have absolutely no impact. This book also opened up new dimensions of how women are being oppressed and how we can combat this. She talks about how the way society responds to women in regards to rape and abortion oppress women and they deserve much more respect than the amount they are receiving.
The story continued by adding elements of culture and art in communities. New Creative Community: The Art of Cultural Development by Arlene Goldbard helped for me to learn about communities and how art can transform them. The collaboration of individuals in a community can help to bring together and change the way it functions. It also helped me realize how important collaboration and cooperation is in achieving success in whatever I may set out to do.
The story of this course was set out strategically so that the students could learn about art and feminism little by little then collaborate all the new ideas. The readings helped to guide the way for learning and helped to supplement the new ideas we were grappling with. I found myself following this story and I also found that as I did, my views of art and feminism changed. I had started out thinking of feminism in a stereotypical manner-- as loud, bold, and very in-your-face. But after I realized that I had made this assumption about feminism and I learned more about what it actually is, my perceptions changed. Now, to me, feminism is simply put, the fight for equality of women. Nothing less. I have learned about the multi-facetedness of feminism and how it encompasses so many more things than I had ever expected. I was able to connect to the material like I had never done in my life because I was forced to analyze my life in terms of the theories we had covered in the course. I could harken back to experiences from my past to connect to the material and now all of my future experiences will be different because I have changed as a person. I have also learned that one important step in changing my prejudiced or wrong ways is to first evaluate my reactions to new experiences and analyze the assumptions I realize I may have held. This helped me out a lot in this class. My view of art has changed as well as I followed the story of the course. I learned about how it can convey the pain of the oppressed and carry other meanings that are important to cultures.
Overall, this course has changed the way I think about society, women, and how we all function as judgmental human beings. I have learned to be more open-minded. I have also learned that I have the power to take action and change what I want changed even as one individual. I have learned so much and I plan to spread my newfound knowledge to others.

Learning Analysis

Walking into class the first day I knew nothing other than I has signed up for a Diversity course labeled WMST250: “Introduction to Women’s Studies: Women, Art & Culture.” The course is structured in a simple but effective matter. The fist step is to define art, then establish what the issues relating women and feminism are. Then the body of the course would be to uncover connections and evolve thoughts through a structured thorough process. The structure of this class was obvious because first the students need to understand what they were looking for (the art), then slowly uncover the underlying issues, and finally through all the reading and assignments build connections between these issues/themes and understand them.
I signed up for the course because it fulfilled my required diversity credit, but choose it over many other possibilities because it was something I knew very little about, if anything at all. I came into the course with certain assumptions of feminism and art. I assumed that feminism was just a movement, that stated that women are equal to men. I had many assumptions of what feminist art would be: women in powerful positions in portraits, paintings, literature, etc… Most importantly, in relation to this course, I assumed that feminism was an isolated issue. As a male I did not expect it to have any direct effect on my environment, or me to have any connection to any other societal issues. I came into class expecting to learn how art by women and art activism have been ways women have analyzed and changed everyday life to better themselves and others, through investigations of: gender, sexuality, racism, nationality, religion, and other factors. After closely examining the syllabus and course material I understood the course argument would be how women through their art, feminism, and activism, have analyzed and changed everyday life, through creation of movement, awareness, and support.
I have learned a lot and my general theory about feminism and art have greatly developed and changed throughout the course. The first step of the class was to develop ideas regarding how feminism, activism, and women’s art have effected society and establish a overall direction for the course. This included defining the student assumptions, or what they think the course is about, then uncovering the main issues surrounding the class which are all ideas of oppression relating through society.
The first assignment was to create a list of assumptions, about the course and feminism/art, off the top of our heads and write them down before doing anything. Then we were to visit several museums to see examples of different women’s art. In the 3-4 page paper we looked back at our original assumptions and, based on what we experienced, we discovered how our original perceptions were right, wrong, or different, or if we learned anything new. This assignment established an overall theme for the course and allowed students to first hand experience the process of formulating ideas, then based on experiences, review change and evolve their thoughts. Personally, this assignment showed me that there was much more to women activism and feminism than I had assumed coming into the class. I learned the issues of women’s rights and feminism was a lot broader and deeper than I thought. Now that I understood that the story of the class was much deeper, not just the initial assumption, the course then had to help explain the story of the class wasn’t strictly women’s art, but all the social fallout of the oppression surrounding women and other groups in society.
The first reading we did was “But is it Art” by Cynthia Freeland. In this book Freeland combines philosophy and art theory to help define and value art. In the book she discusses blood, beauty, culture, value, sex, and politics, all surrounding the interpretation of art. In a chapter about “taste/beauty,” Freeland describes aesthetics' (beauty) as a word derived from the Greek word for sensation or perception, with taste defined as: “refined ability to perceive quality in an artwork.” This really helped me understand art as work because I am also currently taking a Art Theory (ARTT150) class at the University of Maryland. In this class we also go over definitions and attempt to understand what art is. In this class we defined aesthetic beauty as “the right arrangement of things.” It really was insightful at this point of the course to cross-reference and compare the two courses, especially the theory of Cynthia Freeland, a woman’s writer, to the famous and ancient philosophies of the arts. The reading helped establish how women play into the arts and their relationship to the artistic world.
Our next reading was “Fight Like a Girl, How to be a Fearless Feminist” by Megan Seely. In this book Seely uses an interconnecting issues approach to tie together issues in feminism, race, and struggles, with her own struggles as a woman. Each chapter would open with definitions for quotes, examples of related events, and suggestions for further reading. This reading really help open up other societal issues, such as oppression, treatment, and disadvantages, related to women and arts and began building connections with other material we have covered. It really helped me understand the first hand viewpoint of a feminist and the associated struggles. While it was a useful reading I felt it was very opinionated and was more a guideline and resource for women. It was more of an informative practice with building connections than inspiring reading. It wasn’t only I who felt this, but the overall feeling I got from other classmates.
At this point of the class we have all had a chance to open up to the core issues of the class and begun to develop our own standpoints. We were put into groups for Assignment #2. The instructions were to work with our discussion groups to come up with a collective meaning for the term feminism. This assignment was our real first collaborative project where we were able to combine ideas rather than just discuss them in class. It allowed me to go more deeply into what my peers were thinking and to express what I was thinking to them. I was able to give my input to the groups overall thought process and help evolve our collective standpoint was. While the groups definition was a collaborative process, each person, including myself, was able to be a part of shaping and creating our final project. We concluded on a UMD Campus concert, which would include famous speakers such as Hilary Clinton and Oprah, with other guest women’s-rights advocating artists, all to support women in the workplace and fight against domestic violence.
By this point of the class each student had a general understanding of art and feminism and how they connect. The class started to explore new and other ideas that relate and interconnect to what we have already learned. A good example of this was our reading of “Kindred” by Octavia Butler. This reading was of a woman named Dana living in 1976 who is thrown back into the pre-war south to save the life of a white slave-owner, Rufus. She must save him so he can ultimately have a child (Hagar) with Alice. This books theme isn’t only women but slavery and racial problems. The book is filled with blood and violence (beatings, rape, hangings etc..) which really emphasizes the life of black slaves in the south of the time. The book focuses on the theme of power and corruption. We discussed in class how Rufus was a very normal and gentle child. However as he gained power through age and race he began to abuse this power and became the epitome of a corrupt white slave owner. This reading helped identify race and gender social issues and how they interact. I gained a better understanding of societal pressures and how they contribute to the abuse of power and lead to oppression between people.
During one of the class days we visited the tunnel of oppression. The tunnel covered a lot of the major social issues around the world. It had examples from recycling, to drug abuse, racial violence, gun control, the materialistic world, and even abuse of women. This tour of oppression supplemented what we were learning in class at the time, drawing together different issues and uncovering how societal interactions create and influence them. Each exhibit in the tunnel was an isolated issue but in some way connected to a network or cycle of human interaction and behavior that spawned them.
The third class assignment allowed students to really make connections between all these ideas and start to understand how they connect and interact with each other. Up until this point students were just learning to realize and understand the issues, now it was time for the class to begin to relate and understand connections. Students had to understand how power structures everyday life, how art helps us make things change and move; how people shift power to move through and around the matrix of domination that forms oppression, which is the source of many of the issues uncovered in class. For this assignment I looked at myself as an individual and how my age, race, gender, ethnicity, etc… weave together and connect me to a network of power and oppression formed by the institutions of society. By the end of the paper I had a better understanding of how power structures my everyday life through interactions with others to my own decisions in my life. The advantages some people have come from power balanced by the oppression of someone else. This constant balance of power between the “marked” and “unmarked” is what makes up the “Matrix of Domination,” which tied together the theme of oppression that we covered throughout the course.
The goal of the class was to uncover issues, help students formulate opinions, and help students evolve these opinions into standpoints, and develop thorough understandings of the issues. We had several resources to help us. Class work was the most direct source of information. This is where the major concepts of the course were laid out. In class we had free writes where as an individual I could really clarify and formulate my ideas. These gave me an opportunity to explore my own mind. The weekly journals gave students a chance to take home the material from class and help each other achieve a better understanding of the assigned material. I personally learned the most from the discussions. They allowed me to stay on track with the material, where in class we couldn’t possibly discuss to the same level of detail as a small discussion. Each student was given the opportunity to ask peers and the teaching assistant to explain and clarify the material of the class. This really helped me share ideas with others and express my own opinions. I feel most of my conclusions and standpoints were established in discussion. It really helped me fill in the missing links of my own thoughts.
Assignment Four is the conclusion of all our work. It is the final summary of everything we have done. Up until this course I have understood things in segments: art, feminism, oppression, power, etc… I knew there was some connection between them but I never took time to really understand it. This assignment helped me understand the overall structure of the class and how all its contents tied together; how Women’s arts are a feminist expression, speaking out against the oppression of women in modern society. How the oppression of women in society is just part of a larger problem (matrix of domination), how the interactions between people in other issues is related to feminism and racial problems, and how power and oppression forms these issues.
In conclusion the course followed a simple but effective guideline to make its argument, which I did not realize until writing this assignment. It started with the initial assumptions that each student brought to the class. We then developed awareness of issues, bringing up other issues such as race and class problems. Through the creative process of the class, including the group work and assignments, discussions, etc… we developed conclusions and connections between these problems. This is where our ideas and assumptions would develop and change into what I know feel and understand about everything. This course has given me a much better understanding of how society interacts, myself included, to form the balance of power between people which can lead to oppression mistreatment, how feminism is just one focus of the “big picture,” and how art is a form of expression of these issues.

Much love,
Zeke

Assignment 4

The sun rises,
The birds begin to sing
The mind turns on like a computer starting up

What is art?
What is feminism?
These are the questions it begin to ponder

The wheel begins to turn,
The modem starts up,
The machine starts to go haywire

What is art?
What is feminism?
These are the questions it continues to ponder

Is art the things on the wall?
Is feminism the FIGHT to give women equality?

What is art?
What is feminism?
These are the questions it continues to ponder

Circuits getting filled with contradictory input,
Art is everything, art is what you go to a museum to see,
Feminism is equality for women, feminism is equality for all,
Now the mind is going into overdrive

What is art?What is feminism?
These are the questions it continues to ponder

The modem begins to rewire itself
Art is and can be everything
Feminism is the fight for equality among all

What is art?
What is feminism?
These are the questions it no longer ponders

The sun goes down,
The stars come out,
The mind turns off as the computer shuts down


This poem goes through how my thought process went throughout the semester. I refer to my mind as a computer throughout the poem by using words like ponder, that only the mind can do but still using computer terminology. The sun up to sun down is to show a full day, which is in reference to the semester and how my thoughts changed throughout the semester. I begin thinking that art is something objective and feminism is the extreme fight for women’s rights (which is why I use all caps during this fight) and then go on change. I say that contradictory information comes in, which is in reference to the whole semester. Then finally it says art is and can be everything and feminism is the fight for equality among all. This is to reference how I am thinking now that I have taken the class. Through the poem I show that I think the main arguments for the course are what is art and what is feminism and that those two questions were obvious and plaguing me all semester, until the very end.

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We were assigned to read a total of six books for this class but there were only three that really caught my attention. These three book were But it is art?, by Cynthia Freeland and Kindred, by Octavia Butler. All of these books displayed different information and all in their own unique ways.

The first book we are going to talk about it is But is it art? book. This was by far my favorite of the book because it really taught and showed an assortment of interesting things. The purpose of this book was to show you interesting pieces of art and giving the background on them while explaining how the art world works as well. My favorite piece of art it showed was Piss Christ, but interestingly enough I hated it. I think the reason I enjoyed the piece so much was because it evoked such a serious emotion within me. While it was in interesting piece it goes against the basic institution I was raised within, and that is my religion. I felt as though the piece was making a mockery of Christ and that is completely wrong to me. But while I would never buy the piece myself or hang a replica of it in my house, I found it so interesting. This book also explains many interesting things about how the art world works as well. In chapter four, they talk about how money influences what is seen in museums. While many of us do not believe that this is how it should be working, we cannot deny that is does work this way. Those who have money tell us what is art, and they are supposed to tell us what constitutes as art, which is why many of us have such strong predisposition as what constitutes as art. This book did a great job of giving us a lot of information while keeping it interesting at the same time.

The other book that I found interesting was Kindred, by Octavia Butler. The reason I enjoyed this book was because it was an actual story rather than a textbook like material, but it connected to the class very well at the same time. Seeing how Dana was treated every time she went back to how she was treated and looked at in today’s society really showed me how far we have come. You keep hearing how we may have come far but still have a long way to go, as far as equality goes, and hearing this down plays how far we truly have come. While we have a lot we want to accomplish before we say women and men, as well as all races are equal it is nice to see how much of that fight we can already overcome. It gave me a feeling that someday we will eventually get there if we just keep fighting, rather than like before when I used to just say that true equality would never be reached. So I guess you could say that I enjoyed this book because it gave me hope that one day we will get there.

These two books together I feel really made sense of this class, and really contributed to the argument of the class. They may have presented the information in very different manners but they both keep your attention and kept
you wanting to read more and that is what made them my favorite.

final paper

Women Studies 250, Women Arts and Culture, has been a very interesting and different experience than I could have ever imagined. When first entering this class I thought we would just be memorizing different women artist and their pieces of art, but I was completely wrong. I did learn about women in art, but the art was a lot different than I was familiar with, and there was a lot more information used to put everything in this class together. I look at this class as having four parts or “chapters” that alone do not make a big statement, but teach us little things we need in order to move onto the next chapter. When all four of these chapters are put together we get the big over all message and meaning that the class serves to teach us. I have titled these four chapters “Assumptions”, “What is Feminism”, “Oppression and Empowerment in Everyday Life”, and “Conclusion”. The last chapter has a broad title because I think that the chapter has a lot of different information in it that helps to pull everything together.
The first chapter “Assumptions” has everyone realize their assumption they have about art and feminism. Project number one required us to go to several museums, including the National Museum of Women in the Arts, The National Museum of the American Indian, and two other museums of our choice. I choose the Hirshorn museum, and the Holocaust museum. After going to these museums we wrote a paper discussing assumptions we may have had about these museums before we visited them. This project helped us realize that everything is not what we assume it to be. Before going to these museums some of the things I assumed were that all of the work in the National Museum of Women in the Arts would be celebrating, and showing off the good attributes of women, but what I found out was that this was not the issue. Women were portrayed as big, hairy, fat, dirty, and mean. This came to a shock to me, I think because I had never seen women portrayed like this before, because most of our society only wants to see women as being beautiful, proper, etc. This and other pieces at the museums showed me that my assumption of art only being beautiful portraits was false as well. Art can come in many different forms, and it does not have to be anything close to being beautiful. Even though this assignment asked us to talk about our assumptions about the museums, I think it served for us to realize that the assumptions we may have about the class, feminism and art may not be true, so we should forget those and open up our minds.
In the first reading assignment in this chapter, we were supposed to pick a chapter from Freeland’s book But is it Art to read. I just choose to read the first chapter which discussed various pieces of art work. This chapter talks about how things that we never thought about before could be used for the purpose of art, like blood or urine. One piece the stuck out to me was “Piss Christ”. When the art work was first being discussed, it made me mad and grossed out. I thought that this was so disrespectful, but as the reading went on it made me realize that something like urine that comes from us can be beautiful and meaningful. The artist, Andres Serrano did not mean for his artwork to be disgraceful, but beautiful, and for it to celebrate human nature. This reading actually added to my realization that art can be more than just paintings, but much more out of the ordinary. The main purpose, of this chapter of the class I think was to introduce us to the subject of art, and feminism, and to make us realize our assumptions are not always true.
Chapter two, “What is Feminism” lets us examine feminism for ourselves. In the second project we actually work with our discussion group and come up with our own definition of what feminism is, and what it means to us. This was a really good idea I thought because it made us understand this tricky subject. To me Feminism is a really broad subject, but actually brainstorming what we thought feminism was and meant, and coming up with a definition, helped me a lot to shrink down everything and actually put meaning to the word. This project also had us come up with an imaginary event feminist event. I thought this was sort of weird at first, because I did not know what something like that would teach us. My group decided to hold an event on campus that would bring the community together, and bring awareness to domestic violence .An underlying purpose of this project was to help us learn to work with groups, and to come up with schedules that everyone could work with. For our group this came very easily. We got along great, and if there was something that we disagreed with one another about we figured out how to handle it reasonably. I myself have a very busy schedule, so having to do projects in a group is usually not something I choose to do, but it really helped me think outside the box and become more creative.
During this part of the class we started reading Fight Like a Girl by Seely, which gives us her definition of feminism, that is “1. A doctrine advocating social, political, and economic rights for women equal to those of men. 2.A movement for the attainment of such rights.” These two helped me get a grasp on the concept before actually having to come up with my own. The beginning of her book really gave me a sense of what feminist do, and fight for. At first I did not recognize injustices that women still had, I thought that we had already got rid of all of our problems by the time the third wave of feminist movements came around, but I have recognized that now we are not just fighting for well known injustices, but undercover unknown injustices that still appear today not only in our country, but in places all over the world.
Another book we read during this chapter of the class was Goldbarg’s New Creative Community which not only helped us get a sense of what it might be like working with others, which was something we had to deal with in this chapter, but it also introduced us to the idea of cultural community projects, which I later realized that this was similar to what we were planning in our projects. We were bringing the community together, raising awareness (even though it not being about diversifying the society), and helping the community better itself. This chapter covered a lot of stuff, but I think the main focus was helping us realize what feminism is, and what it can do.
Chapter three, “Oppression and Empowerment in Everyday Life”, requires us to do something that we usually do not take the time to do. In this chapter we must examine our own lives. When doing this we start to see where oppression and empowerment comes from. My favorite part of this section was the discussion on social locations. Here we looked at various parts of life, and where we stand in those locations. The ten locations that were examined were race, gender, geographic location, able-bodiness, nationality, age, language, class, religion, and sexuality. After establishing where we stand in those locations, we learned about the matrix of domination through marked and unmarked categories. I learned that I was mostly in unmarked categories, meaning that mostly where I am I hold the power in these categories. In only two categories, gender, and religion, am I marked. Through looking at all of these, I started to realize that all of these locations intersect with each other. Every part of my life interacts with and determines other parts of my life. I realize now that because in most of my social locations I am located in unmarked categories, this may be why I have such a good life, and have gotten as far as I have, not due to what I would like to believe, hard work and determination. With this we see how our power in certain aspects may affect the oppression of others, or vice versa. The idea of conceptual maps discussed in lecture, especially the conceptual map of the train tracks helped me visualize the interconnection between social locations especially in that case, race, and class.
During the middle of this section of the class, we had spring break, which we were assigned to read Kindred by Octavia Butler. This was another aspect of the class that I did not get at first either. During reading this novel, I wondered what the point was. It had been a long time since I was assigned to read a fictional novel for a class, but I did really enjoy it. After going back to school and discussing it in class, I realized that the point of the novel was to show us real oppression through the subject of not only race, because the book was about slavery, but also gender, because the main character was a women. Something else that I got to do during this section was visit the tunnel of oppression. This further helped me get a better grip on the subject of oppression by letting me actually have a visual connection with some of the subjects discussed. This part of the class was really interesting to me, because I realized for the first time how not only does everything in my life intertwine together, but how my life and others’ intertwine together. I believe what we were supposed to recognize sources of empowerment and oppression in this part of the class.
With the closing of this class, I like to think the last chapter of it is a summary/ conclusion of everything we have done in the class. In this chapter we finished three books, Perez’s Chicana Art, Seely’s Fight Like a Girl, and Goldbard’s New Creative Community. We can finally tie all of the ideas presented in each of these books together. A lot of the time in this section focused on the ideas of cultural community activities. In my words these activities are done to help raise awareness to a community about a problem facing either that community, or the country, or even the world, and help solve that problem. This helps to diversify a community, make it more prosperous, cleaner and beautiful, and a better place to life with better opportunities offered to all people. During lectures, and while reading Goldbarg’s book we were exposed to several of these community projects. One project that stuck out to me the most was the gleaners’ project, where people harvested the left over food from local fields to give to the hungry. This idea I thought was just awesome. Also through out this last part of the class I began to realize that projects like this did not have to be hard, that anyone could do it and we should to help those who need it. I realized that I want and should be helping other women out there that are less fortunate than me, and that helping does not have to be hard, or something big and radical, even small things can make a difference. I have never been very into art, I just needed to take an art class to fulfill core requirements, but what I found myself getting interested in more and more throughout the class was the cultural community projects that we learned about. These are something I can see myself getting involved in. The end of the class to me served as a summary of everything we have learned so far, and to make us reflect on everything brought up in the class.
This class was not like any other class I have taken before. Instead of laying out exactly what we should learn and get out of the class, it was up to us to figure that out. I really liked this idea, because now reflecting on the class I think I got more out of it being this way. The projects in this class taught me more than a test could have ever done. Each section sought out to add something more to what was already there. The third chapter was the most interesting to me, but the last chapter of the class is what actually led me to put everything in perspective, and in its place. This class was very different than what I expected, but I really enjoyed the way it was set up, and hope I get to take more classes like it in my years to come at University of Maryland.

Final Paper

I can say with all honesty that I came into this class expecting to breeze through with out having to immerse myself in what I was learning or even really listen to what was being taught. I was expecting to learn about women in art and women that make art, nothing more and nothing less. However, after about the first day of class I realized that this class would require a lot more effort than I anticipated. Especially after learning that our first assignment would require us to venture into Washington, D.C., museum heaven, to visit some museums. In this class, I was expected to put more effort and time than any of my other classes and to find a way to tell this course’s story. The story this class tells is one that cannot simply be told by showing up to one lecture, going to discussion, and the assumption that this is sufficient enough to understand the material. This story is one that requires constant attention and thought with a commitment to attend lecture as often as possible. Not just that but also a willingness to immerse yourself in what is being taught and to take the information and shape it into something that you can use later in your life, or even in the present. This story is one that will be told in three parts, first, the description of the “story” of the course, then how I and my thoughts tie into this story, and lastly how the readings helped me connect with the course and help tell it’s story.

            At first, looking at the way the class syllabus is constructed looks to be as if it is just a random selection of readings sitting under a distinct topic that will be discussed for a few weeks, with a different topic being discussed after each assignment. However, when I really took a look at the way the syllabus is constructed I noticed that the topics seemed to tie into the each other in a way that helps tell the course’s story. Our introduction to the course was simply titled “An Introduction to Women, Art, and Culture.” A title suggesting the briefing of the students on what is going to be taught in the class and what is expected out of us, the students. It was then that we were informed that for our first assignment we were to venture into D.C. to examine our views and assumptions about feminism in art. We were asked to do so honestly and without hesitation, to think about what we assumed feminism was and what feminist art looked like.

In the first part titled “But is it art?”, we were given a chance to examine what we thought about art and what we assumed art was. We learned from Cynthia Freeland in her book, “But is it art?”, that our definitions of and “taste” in art varies depending on our socioeconomic class and education level (93). In this part of the course we were asked to examine our definition of feminism, using the insight gained from the completion of assignment one and used that to complete assignment number two in which we gathered into groups and created a feminist event. We were also asked to examine our definition of art and what we thought was considered art and why it was or was not actually art. Freeland talks about philosophers like David Hume and Immanuel Kant who speak of art in relation to beauty and taste. They discuss an aesthetic theory that intertwines the idea of people with “taste” with the idea that things that are beautiful are “purposiveness without a purpose” (11), or that beauty serves no really purpose but to be aesthetically pleasing.

The second part of the course is titled “Analysis in Women’s Studies: Everyday Life Seen with New Eyes” and was by far, the most eye opening and informational part of the course. In this part of the course we were asked to examine our own lives and see where the power and oppression stood in our own privileged lives. We read Kindred, a novel written by Octavia Butler about a black woman that travels back in time to save her white slave owner ancestor so that she and her family may exist. This novel was a very interesting read and a very fitting topic as it dealt with where power is held in different time periods and social circles. We saw that the main character, Dana, and how she struggled with going back and forth through time and the experience of being a black woman in the late 70’s in L.A. and also in the pre-Civil war south. How she went from experiencing discrimination to experiencing flat out hatred and humiliation because of the color of her skin. We are introduced to the idea of the standpoint theory, which is the theory that there is information out there for you to know, but there is something out there preventing you from knowing it, that prevention being a sort of oppression. In assignment three, we were to examine oppression and privilege in our own lives and how our marked and unmarked categories are intersectional with our standpoints in life. How our privilege can be another’s oppression.

In the final part of the course titled” Arts, Communities, Cultures, Actions and Spirits” we examine the differences of what is expected of art and what is thought of as art through different cultures. Most often with a focus on that of Chicana artwork, where there is a large focus on art and its connection with the spiritual. We see how in Chicana art there is this combination of the use of altars with the use of the idea of altering reality to convey a point. The connection of these three topics lie in the introspection used to help us understand these topics and relate them to our understanding of art and feminism. So we can then say that the story of this class is one that speaks of feminism and how it can actively participate in art and how we can use the ideas presented to us in the class to form our own ideas and observations in these once new and unfamiliar topics. The class tells us the story of a culture that might be unfamiliar to us and how this culture relates to feminism and the part feminism plays in the artworks of the people and even in our own lives.

In this course, I think that I play a very important part, maybe not in the entire class’s understanding of the words feminism and art, but at least in my discussion sections understanding of art. At the beginning of the course, I thought I had a pretty set idea of what feminism and art was and how the two coincided. However, my definitions of the two were promptly tossed out the window as soon as assignment one was completed and lectures began and discussions ensued. With assignment one came the introspection on what we thought feminism and art really was and how the two ideas related. I learned that I had made assumptions about art that were not necessarily true, and assumptions about feminism that were definitely not true. By the second part of the course, I had assumed that knew a decent enough amount of information to deduce a good idea of what feminism really was. Then assignment three came around and I was told to examine my standpoint in life and my own privilege and oppression, I discovered that I have never experienced actually oppression in my life, only what could be miniscule limitations to others that seemed, at least in my life, to be oppressive. I also learned that my gender and race play a large part in my life and the way other view me upon first impression. I learned about marked and unmarked categories and discovered that I had these similar ideas in my own train of thought, but was never actually able to piece it together in such an organized and clear way. The assignments connect in a way that starts off as an introduction to what you should be thinking about and how you can define the two important words in this course, feminism and art, and then slowly but surely escalates into a deep introspection of where we see power in our lives and how it affects us and those around us. The assignments allowed use to form our own ideas on what was presented in class. Personally, I found both of these assignments to be very eye-opening as I have never been asked to put so much thought into a paper on oppression and power, or feminism and art.

 I feel that in the smaller sections of the class, our discussion, I was an important piece in the puzzle of helping myself and the others discover our ideas about this course. I used their comments and ideas to help shape those of my own. Our meetings allowed us to establish what we assumed and then helped us form our ideas, using each other’s words a kind of starter kit for the ideas of feminism and art. We worked well together on all of our projects. We were able to set up times that worked for each other and we even used the time in between discussion and lecture to develop ideas on for our projects. I feel that in this discussion I contributed several good ideas, just as nearly every other member of the discussion. We were always able to come to an understanding and never had any conflict with each other. There was not any part of the discussion that did not work for me, as it was important to the cohesiveness of my understanding of the course. However, the amount of readings was the part of the course that somewhat through me off.

The books of the course are a very important tool for the overall understanding of and success in Women’s Studies 250. Many of the readings had a lot of relevance to what we were discussing and provided valuable insight into the topics at hand. Three books that connected me to the story of the class were “But is it art?” by Cynthia Freeland, “Kindred” by Octavia Butler, and “Chicana Art” by Laura E. Perez. I chose Freeland’s books because it was the most helpful in helping me understand the various aspects of art and how sometimes what we find to be morbid and disgusting, some other culture might find it exciting and provocative, such as “Piss Christ” (17), which was a painting that provoked many disdainful feelings in our discussion section because of it’s seemingly apparent disrespect of an important religious icon. Freeland also provides us with some information on the art market and how government and private funding keep museums up and running.

I chose Butler’s book next because I think it was by far the most interesting and helpful in assisting us to understand about standpoint theory and the matrix of domination. The book itself was a science fiction novel, which is actually a very interesting genre of movie and books. The lead character struggled with her identity, and her pride and her need to stay alive often clashed as she went back in time to the pre-Civil war days. She struggled with being an independent and smart black woman in the period of time where African Americans were considered less than human. I found this book to be very interesting and it helped me better understand the concept of the standpoint theory. It put a more literal interpretation of the idea of the matrix of domination into our heads.

And lastly, I chose Perez’s book because I found it to be very insightful and a challenging read. As I began to read Perez’s book, I was thrown off by all the jargon she used and how deep her insights really were. I did not really know what to think, so at first I did not like the book at all. I was offended by Perez’s use of such jargon because I assumed that she would write so that everyone that read her book could understand what she is talking about, not in the elitist sounding language she often used. I did not realize that everyone that reads her books probably would know what she is talking about. I then started to connect to the readings in the book because I found some similarities in Chicana culture with that of my own Hispanic heritage. The altars she often spoke of reminded me of the little makeshift altar my own grandmother has, devoted to Jesus and his Virgin mother, Mary. Or even the expectation of Hispanic women to serve as maids or nannies. This book was a very insightful read into how this culture connects with the art of it’s people, not just in your typical canvas paintings, but in the altars of our grandmothers, dedicated to our religious idols, or even the large tattoo shrine to the Virgin Mary on a convict’s back (137).

Throughout this course I think I can honestly say that my feelings and attitude towards feminism has changed greatly. The connection of these readings to the story of this class is the utilization of these books as tools in helping us understand and relate to the material. With more literal interpretations, such as “Kindred” and the standpoint theory and matrix of domination”, or the more insightful and harder to read books, such as “Chicana Art”, which was helpful in allowing us understand how art, feminism, and culture connect in one culture. “But is it art?” even helped us understand the more basic concepts of art and that is probably why it was one of the first books that we read.

This course has brought a lot of readings and discussion our way. It was definitely a little difficult to put all that we learned in this class into one cohesive paper, but I think that this course’s story deserved to be told. I look back on this class and finally understand that it was all connected, maybe in a big way, or maybe even in small, minute details. The experience was a different one, requiring a newfound dedication to attending lecture and discussion and also to readings the books and keeping up with the class blog. Women’s Studies 250 is an important tool in my college career and I will carry on the things I learned in this class with me to other classes for a very long time.

What is women in art? It is more than a woman as the subject of art, and more than a woman creating art. Women’s art is beautiful, ironic, humorous, political, ugly, cultural, historical, loud, and quiet; it is the future and the past; it is change and stability; it is emotional, intellectual, dangerous, and safe; it is in the galleries or the bathroom stalls. At this point in history, it is political and a tool for change.

Early in the class, especially after visiting museums, I was concerned that the class was only about women as portrait subjects of women as artists. For example, much of the Women’s Art Museum gave me this impression, at least until I made it to the exhibit upstairs which had some pieces making statements about women’s issues. As the class progressed, and my visits to the museums progressed, the story and complexity of women in art and culture revealed its layers, complexities, and utility. Women in art and culture is much more than a painting of a beautiful woman; and it is more than women who have broken into the male artist field to become painters themselves. It is about both of those things, but so much more. Through art and culture, we can examine how we define woman, while at the same time by using art we can change the definition of woman.

The class used a feminist pedagogy. According to bell hooks, university in general has become a place of estrangement and alienation. This feminist course design however, emphasized relationships, equity, de-centering people, and active participation in ones learning. For example, we developed a grade sheet, sat in circles, applied personal experience and worked in groups. My other courses are lecture driven, where we call the professor “doctor so and so,” memorizing and regurgitating facts; not so in this class. This feminist pedagogy mirrors women in art and culture.

As I put myself in this story throughout the class, my eyes were opened to both women in art as stated above, as well as the women’s issues that several pieces of art were portraying.

The first part of the class was identifying what assumptions or stereotypes we have, then either reinforcing them or shattering them to pieces. The lecture given on February 27^th says that we need to keep space open for revision, seeing again, seeing more, wondering and building. This is the basis of the entire class. On the first day of class I may have equated feminism in simple terms, for example bra burning women who want rights equal to men. But throughout this course I revised my thoughts and assumptions about feminism and broadened my perspectives. I was able to clearly identify my assumptions in assignment 1 and have them reinforced or thrown back in my face, which happened a lot throughout the semester. This assignment taught me to notice my assumptions and keep them in mind, while having space open for revision, seeing more, seeing again, wondering and building.

The second chapter of this story was directed towards art and how we can use it to change our community, our society and even the world. Activist art such as the Shadow Project, Sweet Honey in the Rock’s lyrics and music, and even the Tunnel of Oppression which was featured right here on campus. Whether these artists are fighting for the abolishment sweat shops overseas, remembering the bombing of Hiroshima or even analyzing and displaying over 10 forms of oppression, they all use their art to open other people’s eyes and stand up for what they believe in. The Shadow Project has spread throughout the entire world in countries including, United States, Canada, Australia, France, Germany and Japan. It has touched millions of lives and continues to do so each year it is presented. Sweet Honey in the Rock has had several Grammy nominations and won one Grammy award. Their music is heard by millions of people and they are able to spread their beliefs through music. The Tunnel of Oppression has been created in Universities all over the country. Almost 2,000 students on the Maryland campus alone have viewed it and it has evoked an array of emotions in them. These three demonstrations show what art can do. We completed this chapter of the story with assignment 2. Each discussion class was able to create their own art activism event. Each student was able to help and participate in creating an event dedicated to something we wanted to see a change in. Every student was able to take part in creating what we had been learning about. This is very different from other classes I have taken because I was able to actually create what I was learning.

The third chapter begins with the matrix on dominations, marked and unmarked categories, and Kindred. All of this related to how I, as an individual, am a part of history. As we were learning about marked and unmarked categories, oppression and matrix of domination we were assigned to read Kindred. Octavia Butler’s book was the perfect model of what we had been learning about. She used Dana to portray the effects of being marked or unmarked throughout different time periods in the United States. Dana was marked in both time periods but the differences in how unmarked people treated marked people was extremely different. As a black woman in 1976 she was able to live with a white man, have a career and most importantly have rights that are much more equal to white men. When she went back to 1815 all of her rights were gone. She was no longer allowed to be with Kevin, a white man, unless he claimed that he owned her. She was a slave to white people and had to cater to their every need. This book shows how she is strongly marked in some places and times, while in other places and times her marked categories are not so prominent. In assignment 3, I also talked about how I am marked in some places, and unmarked in others. For example when I am at my father’s house I am marked in terms of religion, but when I return to my mother’s house I do not feel so marked because everyone I am around is like me and follows the same religion. The conclusion to this chapter was our interpretation of where in society we are marked or unmarked and how it affects our lives.

The first reading that I felt was important was Megan Seely’s Fight Like a Girl, Chapter 3 “A Movement for Everyone.” This chapter related to the class and really helped me while I was writing assignment 3. Seely begins by discussing how marked categories exist within feminism and tend to separate themselves from other feminist movements. White women are not always as accommodating to women of color as they should be. Women of different marked categories such as ethnicity, religion, age, disabilities and sexual orientation have views and goals that often vary from the majority of white feminists. Therefore these feminists that did not always feel included branched out to form their own movements. An example of feminist art that features on the marked race of Hispanics is Chicana Art by Laura E. Perez. Seely explains that excluding certain types of people is not intentional but can be habit or how one was raised. At the bottom of page 61 Seely describes the “Fight the Right” march, where people of all marked and unmarked categories joined together because they all had something in common, they were oppressed by the power structure. Why can’t all activist events be like this? In my opinion it’s because we all do not completely understand each other. Seely examines racism as a white person, it can be a very hard task to accomplish. This is also something I tried to do in assignment 3. I claimed that I was the racial minority because I went to a “black” school. I tried to describe myself as the minority, but as Paul Kivel states the first guideline is to “Assume racism is everywhere, every day.” This is something I did not do, I only assumed it was oppressing me at school. It did not carry on anywhere else in my life.

Seely also discusses how third wave feminist must keep older, second wave feminists in mind. The second wavers have now become marked because of their age and as third wave feminists we must remember and respect them. This chapter relates to the third assignment because it showed that even feminists can be oppressors and are guilty of unintentionally and/or intentionally discriminating against marked categories. It was like Megan Seely was also given assignment 3 and this was her interpretation of the paper.

The second reading I chose was Cynthia Freeland’s But is it art? Chapter 1 “Blood and Beauty.” I think this was a critical reading for the course because it showed me that art all art is not “average” or “ordinary” art that I am used to seeing. Some of the art in this chapter, such as Piss Christ, I would have never considered art before this course. Throughout the course we saw many other radical art forms and without this chapter in mind I would not have been able to see them as art. Things such as making, in my opinion, dull looking and plain t-shirts, or even documenting an Oral Herstory of Lesbianism Art, would not have been considered art in my eyes before this chapter. But after I read this I was able to see why some people considered such things like piss on a replica on Jesus Christ on the cross and dead sharks, cows or lambs as art. It explains that Piss Christ was made to show that contemporary culture is making Christianity out to something that is taken lightly and it is nothing like it once was. Once this was explained to me I could appreciate what the artist was trying to say and I actually saw it as art. This chapter began to open my mind throughout the semester to various types of art. It was crucial to my progress in the class because I embraced new art forms and gave each piece a chance before criticizing it.

The third reading that I found important was bell hooks’ Feminism is for Everybody, Chapter 9 “Women at Work.” In the early 1900s, before many women joined the workforce they were housewives and mothers. These women were usually lonely and depressed. It was the “problem that had no name” As described in the Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. After WWII when women began to enter the workforce rapidly, feminist began to fight for equal labor rights for women. Women would be working today with or without feminism but their pay rates, the amount of hours they work and their rights within their jobs would be dramatically different. In lecture we watched a video featuring the Guerilla Girls. They went around asking people on the street if they believed in equal pay for equal work, and to the ones that said yes, the Guerilla Girls broke the news to them they in fact, are feminists. Feminist activism has greatly impacted women in the workforce. I, for example, am paid exactly the same wage as the men I work with. I think this chapter showed me that feminism did not create things for women, but bettered them. I go to work everyday and benefit from what feminists have been fighting for year after year.

The artistic portion of my project features a collage that spells out my name. The collage includes things that I have found important throughout the course, books I have referenced in this paper and things that interested and related to me in the lectures. I also read over my free writes about each assignment and cut out a few sentences that I stated was my favorite part of the assignment. I included a few pictures of myself at participating in Buffalo, New York’s Gay Pride Parade, which is an activist event that is held every year in various cities across the globe. There is also one picture that I drew myself when I was a junior in high school. Our assignment was to create a piece of art that showed someone’s struggle or inner conflict. I chose to demonstrate the oppression of anorexia, which was also an exhibit in the Tunnel of Oppression. Lastly I have included birth control pills, which has been an on going controversy that feminists have been a part of many years. Because of feminist activism I am able to have safe, reliable birth control. My intention was to show how various parts of this class, and the generations of feminists before me, are a part of me and mean a lot to me. So by using my name I was able to literally show things that make “Allison”.

ASSIGNMENT 4

Karen Jo

WMST250

Assignment Four: Learning Analysis

The story of this course, Women, Art and Culture involves the individual’s assumptions and perspectives that evolve and gradually change to become more accepting and open to new and different ideas. The story begins with a broad opening of art and the association it has with women. One of the first things that I was exposed to were the museums, which were not new to me at the time, but the concept for which I was searching for was the key changing factor. I have been to the museums before and have seen the exhibits, especially at the Hirshorn Museum and the National Gallery of Art. What was so different this time was going into these museums and observing the artwork with the question in mind, how does this relate to women? Everything I looked at, I tried asking myself this question, and I was surprised to find that I observed many things that I would not have, if I was not questioning myself. Many times, it was subtle, seeing how women were portrayed or how the museum was set up. Especially in the National Museum of Women and the Arts, it was a surprising discovery to face the assumptions I had about women and to have my perceptions change. While walking through the museum, I felt that I was naïve in my thinking about women and even about art. I was shocked to see the Paula Rego exhibit, and the artwork is something that I will never forget in my entire life. The artistic depiction in women basically discredited the predisposed notion of women and their role in history.

The act of writing down my assumptions made me come face to face with what I originally perceived, and it was a good exercise into realizing how women and arts is more of an intricate topic than what many assumed. Afterwards, we did a reflection in class and we were asked to point out how this assignment was ours and what we liked about it and what we did not. Looking back, I see how reflecting back upon our work was an essential part of learning and gaining experience in the topic. I wrote to myself, “The point of reflecting back on our own work is to look back and learn about ourselves and how we think of our own work; instead of just waiting to hear what other people think. It makes the writer think about their writings from an outside view.” The freewrites that we did and the notes in class gave us an opportunity to reflect and then discuss our opinions with other people who experienced the same thing but came out with different feelings.

Our first discussion in class involved how we perceived ourselves as a subject in history. For me, it was a good chance to look back upon my personal life and see where I fit into. After looking back at the entire course, I fully understand how this exercise fits into my learning of women and the arts, because it matched with our assignment three and how we fit into different categories. In our world, everything about us, our different entities, combine to create the person we are and the person we become in history. At the beginning, looking at myself in history, I saw how I identified myself through my culture and race. I found that as a second generation Asian American, I was privileged in some ways to have all the advantages by being born in America, but also being disadvantaged by being a minority. Little did I know that our course would come back to this identification of ourselves, by looking deeper into the different marked and unmarked categories that make up each person. While in discussion, I heard how other people identify themselves in history and many times it involved what events they participate in, or where they come from. It was enlightening to hear the reflection of others who are so different from me and yet to have come together and share in our discussion class.

The next section of the story that we moved into was looking at billboards, murals, and shadows. These types of expressions are everywhere and I see them every day, but I never recognized them as pieces of art. In class, we looked at certain billboards that spoke out to the vast public by stating blatant idea. During one class time, we looked at women in the city, which was a public art exhibition throughout the streets of Los Angeles, and looking at the types of artwork that came out of it was exciting and fascinating. It was memorable to me to see the video of where it was all different colored papers, and on each of the papers there was an inflammatory essay written to it, making this exhibition not only a piece of visual artwork, but making it a message to the general public. I was surprised to learn that this is considered to be art, because I have never seen something like this before; it was not artwork that was placed in a museum and states as “being artwork.” The shadow notion was inspiring to me, and changed the way I looked at art and how it could evoke emotions while telling a story. The shadows came from an international event that commemorates the anniversary of the nuclear bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Japan. It showed me a different side of artwork, and how by making these shadows, it represents a strong emotional event that occurred in our history and at the same time it was sending out messages that our world should prevent future atrocities from happening again.

The entire question in these exercises and looking at these types of arts was to ask the question, What counts as Art? Are paintings and sculptures only considered art if they are placed in a museum by respected individuals? Looking back on the course, I remember having an important conversation with my discussion class about what is considered art and who determines it. Is it the money that makes certain pieces considered worthy of being called art? Does that make free pieces in the public not worthy of being called art? While thinking about it in class, I realized that our societies perception of art is somewhat skewed in the fact that when we go to museums and look at different pieces, these pieces were specifically chosen by someone who either donated it to the museum because they had an extensive amount of money. For example, even in the National Museum of Women and the Arts, many of the artworks were put into the museum because one wealthy women chose to put the pieces she liked into the museum to let others enjoy them also.

This also went along with the reading in Freeland, in But is it Art? because it talked of how most museums acquired their pieces of art and how money had a big impact in it. Freeland makes a point when saying that people with money have their own specific taste than people without money, and therefore, their sponsorship in art creates a different type of art display than it would be for those with less money, belonging to a different socio-economic level. I felt a connection with this when we did our chapter three assignment, because it also connected with how our unmarked or marked category of being in a certain economic level changes the way we see power and oppression in our lives. The power and oppression connects to the topic of art, because it changes how we perceive certain aspects of art and the opportunity to see a variety of art. When looking at a view from a broader sense, we see how art is an intricate part of our countries heritage and history. Freeland again talked about how museums defined classes in certain countries and how it demonstrated sophistication for countries. In my life, this view is very prevalent to me because I can easily identify with this type of thinking. In the Asian culture, artwork and music demonstrates a certain level of sophistication in the past centuries, especially in the Song era where peace allowed the country to develop artistically and prosper. Even in America, there is a strong emphasis on education in music and art because it demonstrates that our country has culture and has history to remember. In order to make art such a big part of our culture, massive amounts of money needs to be funded into these museums and educational programs. Freeland discusses how the money has changed from being given by private philanthropist to corporations. This is a very important observation, because it changes the scheme of what types of artwork is placed out for the public and what type of message is trying to be sent.

While looking at billboards’, murals and shadows in class, our discussion class was also doing assignment two which involved all of us working together and coming up with the definition of feminism. Working collectively, we came up with the final definition of feminism and an event that would advocate feminism. Specifically, we came up with various artist and speakers who would be willing to speak out against domestic violence for those who unable to. Looking back at my individual account of the group project, I discovered how working in a group brings the strength s of different people together and allows us to come up with better ideas than if we did it individually. Everyone in the group worked together and contributed to some aspect of the project, and therefore, I felt our concert event was a success, which if it was real, would be excited and noteworthy to attend.

The story continues to progress with an analysis in women studies, and our everyday lives seen with new eyes. Reading Kindred, by Octavia Butler, was an exciting and enjoyable read. Not only was it science fiction, it talked about a lot of different aspects involving slavery and power. In Kindred, the main character, Dana, continually goes back into the past and discovers that she has to keep saving this white boys life, named Rufus, who ends up to be a plantation owner during the times of slavery. As an African American woman, she faces discrimination not only in the fact that she has to be a slave because of her skin color, but she is a woman, subject to rape and abuse by men. The book demonstrated the oppressive power that the white men held, simply because they were white and because they had the power of being a man. Back in those days, slaves were treated as objects and property, not as human beings, and it revealed how little respect some people had for others simply because of the social construction of our society. For me, I did not personally connect with Dana in the sense of being the same race or of living in the same era, but I discovered that oppression and power exist in many different forms. The oppression and power that I experience is clearer in the matrix of domination that we discussed in class.

For assignment three, we were to come up with a creative project and a paper analyzing art in our everyday lives and seeing where power and oppression lies within ourselves. This is the next part of the story, interconnected with our readings and how feminism is a part of our everyday lives. My social location is the social place in where I identify in different groups of race, class, gender, sexuality, age, ethnicity and nation. Working with my partner, Helen Paik, allowed me to compare our different situations and identify how we both fit into similar categories and how we differ. Our creative project was a model of a tree, with the base being our strongest group that we identify with, and the branches leading off to the other marked or unmarked categories. The base was our race, and ethnicity which was being Asian, and it proved to both of us how we most strongly identify ourselves and where we found power. Being Asian is a marked category, and is the most notably difference we experience from the unmarked category of Caucasians. In my life, I discovered that I found power in being privileged in areas like my age, and class, along with being a US citizen. Placing myself in all these different groups and analyzing whether it is marked or unmarked help me to realize how I am made up and how power and oppression are balanced. For every single person, in some areas, they belong to a marked or unmarked category, and it influences others by creating a social construction. Where some are privileged, it causes others to be oppressed; for example, those who are unmarked for religion are Christian, and this gives them power by being the majority, but for others who belong to a different religion, they are in the unmarked category and are oppressed because their religion is looked down upon.

In class, my analysis of looking back upon the project and our teamwork, I found that I was proud of our collaboration and the ideas that we came up with. In our analysis in the big lecture, I wrote that “I learned that power is always associated with oppression and that the one side will be given power and the other side take power from due to our systems of power.” Doing this assignment helped me look at my own life and realize how feminism is a more broad idea that I initially thought. My first assumptions of feminism was very narrow, as demonstrated by my list of assumptions from the museum trips, but gradually reading more about women and seeing the fight for feminism made me realize how feminism is more than that. Feminism is many times misunderstood, and people feel alienated from the notion of feminism because they believe it is simply about women and their fights for rights. While the definition of feminism is “the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men,” it involves making everyone more equal.

The class was not only about feminism, but also how art is involved and the expressions and feelings that are evoked from these artworks. The Chicana Art, by Laura Perez, was very different to me, in terms of art, and I really liked how it connected to feminism. One of the art pieces that I remember the most is called Measurements of Time, made by Patricia Rodriguez. The color aspects and the space dimensions of time and sharp mechanical points made a deep impact on me and how I view art. It was a depiction of a clock with a crucifix in the background, with red and white colors. To me, I saw how functionality worked with such other ideas as religion and time, and faith. Also, there were other pieces of art that each had individual characteristics and were unique in their own ways. The description that went along with the pieces was insightful, and showed what the artist was thinking and why they made what they did.

As the story comes to a close, the topics of art and feminism become more intertwined and finally come together. Learning about all these various topics allowed me to see how art is so important in culture, and along with that, how feminism is in our everyday life. The way that art expresses the ideas of feminism is not only creative, but insightful for those who are unaccustomed to the topic of feminism. The fight of feminism is always alive, and sometime political activism will only begin when we take the time and effort to fight for a cause we want. In the books we read like Fight Like a Girl and Feminism is for Everybody, I learned that it takes a voice and an action to make a difference. Fight like girl described how to change our current society and make equal opportunities for women. I really liked how in Feminism is for Everybody, there were side notes along the pages that gave interesting definitions of different insights for the reader.

As for myself, I am a part of the course because I have grown in my understanding of feminism and have evolved in my analysis of art. In the class, I contributed my ideas to the discussions and tried to benefit from what others said. I like how our discussion class was very open, and everyone could voice their opinion about the same things. For my absences, I missed discussion once, due to sickness, but I was still involved in the readings and looked at the blog for the information I missed. For our entire group project for assignment two, I showed up for the meetings we had at the library and gave ideas for speakers and activities that could occur for the concert. In our assignment three, me and my partner both gave ideas and contributed to coming up with our joint creative project. For what worked for me in the class, I didn’t like the discussion about the readings as much as the discussion about certain topics. For example, we would read some stories like “The Rape of Mr. Smith” and this exercise helped me to understand the objections toward feminisms more clearly. I also really like the Tunnel of Oppression that we participated in because I learned so much and experienced an event so worthwhile seeing. If it was not for this class, I probably would not have seen it and experienced this educational event. The story of the course is one in which we begin naïve and come face to face with our initial assumptions. I realized how different my ideas have changed throughout the course and my knowledge of art and feminism has changed to become more aware of the current situations.