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.