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.