Assignment 4

Ellen Seay
WMST250
Sect. 0101
5/13/08
Learning Analysis

This course, Women, Art and Culture, has been an integral part of my semester, as it has allowed me to complete a CORE course. However, the course turned into more than just a requirement; I learned a lot about different forms of art, and how women have come to participate in the art world. I have also learned about how people can be feminist activists through art, and how this has changed society’s view of women and their place in it. The types of readings that came with this course were also very intriguing and were a useful supplement to the topics that we discussed in section and in lecture. Overall, I enjoyed most aspects of this course, and would recommend it to students who need to complete their CORE requirements, or to students who need more course hours to graduate.
The syllabus was the first handout that we received in the class. It told us all about what the class was about, and all of the different assignments and readings that we were to complete over the course of the semester. The syllabus also said that we were going to explore how artists and activists have asked an assortment of questions about “power, gender and sexuality, racialization, nations and languages, abilities and disabilities, religion and meaning and more”. It described how we would analyze assumptions we make about women, art, culture and feminism, and look at how art can rework potential events and actual events for many different people. The course also focused on analytic writing, communication, collaborative learning. To better understand this, we participated in weekly discussions that included nine other students and TA’s. In these discussion groups, we talked about the readings and how they apply to the topics that were introduced in lecture. We also discussed different things in politics and society today, and how things for women and feminists have changed over time. These groups were formed so that each student would be able to voice their opinions about the subjects at hand, and so that we could get individual attention concerning our written assignments and other tasks that we were asked to complete. The class also utilized a blog so that everyone could connect easily to discuss any topics of interest, and to look at our classmate’s work to learn things about them and to see the types of things they think. Another topic the syllabus covered was that of assumptions we make that we don’t think about.
One of the first things we did in this course was to examine our assumptions about feminism and art, and how they connect. Our first assignment directed us to four different museums to see various types of art, by both men and women. Before we did so though, we were asked to think about what our assumptions were about feminism. The main conjecture that people stated was that they thought that feminists were extremists who think that men are inferior to women. Throughout the course, I have learned that feminists have nothing against men; they actually just want to create equality amongst the two genders. The assignment took me to the National Museum of Women in the Arts first. I had assumed that there would not be very many women artists from the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but there was in fact a very large portion of artists from this era who were represented. I suppose I had assumed that women in this time period were supposed to take care of the household and the children, and did not have time for hobbies like creating art. In actuality, information at the museum taught me that women from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries painted many still life and genre paintings. Learning about these artists gave me a lot of insight that I used during lectures when we discussed various artists from different time periods. This was a good assignment to include and to put at the beginning of the course because it is a good jump off point to learning about feminism and art as a combined topic. It is also beneficial to correct any misunderstandings that exist concerning the topics of the course so that nothing is perceived with bias.
The second assignment that was required was a formation of a feminist event and creating a poster and/or flyer to advertise the event. This assignment was a great team-building type assignment because it involved our entire discussion group. It was a little bit difficult to have everyone contribute the same amount because there wasn’t a huge amount of work to do, but we all contributed our ideas while creating the event. We tried to use lots of speakers and musical performances to get people interested in our event. This assignment was helpful in learning about how different activists organize and hold informational events that are aimed at teaching people about feminism. This assignment, and the readings that went along with it, really got me thinking that organizing an event to share your views is possible, and can attract a very large number of people. If the course did not include this assignment, students would be missing an essential piece of learning about how activism works.
Our third assignment dealt with the intricate topic that is intersectionality. We were to analyze the situations that have occurred in our life that show how we are personally oppressed and privileged due to our matrix of domination. This means that we analyzed our class, race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and age. In lecture, we talked a lot about the book Kindred and how the main characters, Dana and Kevin, are oppressed and privileged in the different time periods that they travel through. These discussions were helpful because they gave us a lot of examples so that we would be able to complete the assignment using our own life. When writing this assignment, I learned a lot about myself and about things in my life. This assignment was also a collaborative assignment, so we had to come up with a creative project to show how each partner pair understood each other. This assignment was included in the course because it is a good way to learn about someone else, in depth, and also so that we could further develop more cooperative skills, because we will have to work with people in real life, like in our careers.
Another central part of the course was the reading that was assigned, along with the webbing exercises, which allowed us to explore a multitude of different topics. One of the books that we read was called Fight Like a Girl; How to be a Fearless Feminist by Megan Seely. This book was all about activism and how it is easy to become an activist, no matter who you are. Seely includes a plethora of resources and ideas that ordinary people can use to become involved in the feminist movement today. Page 116 begins a long list of online feminist websites. She says that they can be used to learn about past and current feminist events and movements, and that you can take aspects of other events and put them into your own. Since activism was such an important part of the class, this book was a very appropriate choice for reading. It was an interesting read and I enjoyed learning about the different things that activists do.
Another book that was assigned that I enjoyed was Bell Hook’s Feminism is for Everybody. The second chapter of this book is about consciousness-raising, which is essentially spreading the thoughts and values of feminism to teach other people about the movement. An interesting way that she writes, she relates a lot of her points back to the concept of intersectionality. She writes, “One does not become an advocate of feminist politics simply by having the privilege of having been born female” (7). The concept of consciousness-raising was something that we talked about one day in lecture. We learned about how there were groups that raised awareness about feminist movements in the 1970’s. These groups were one of the activist development groups where understandings of feminism have come to play into past and today’s society. This reading connects to the class because it really tells about how feminist theory came to be. Knowing the history of a movement really gives participants of the movement a lot more reason to be part of it. If someone was asked, “How did the feminist movement begin?” and they were not able to answer, that person may not be seen as dedicated to the cause.
The last reading that I enjoyed was the Chicana Art book, which was written by Laura E. Perez. The day in lecture that we had to decide as groups which pieces of art we liked, I really gave the book a deeper look. I read more of the descriptions of the art, and I was able to learn about the artists and why they created the art they did. I feel that this is a very important piece of the course because I didn’t read the book because I had to, I read it because I was genuinely interested. This reading connects to the story of the class because it allowed us to directly examine art done by women, and we could see how other students in our lecture reacted to the art as well. I enjoyed this book the most, I think, because of the specificity of the artists included. They were only Chicana artists, which means they are Mexican-American female artists. It was interesting to see how location and culture affects what the art portrays.
Overall, I really enjoyed my time in this course. Coming into it, I didn’t think that I would actually be interested in any of it, but I was surprised to see that my assumption of the course was in fact incorrect. The lectures taught me a lot about how feminism works and how it stays a prominent issue in society today. The types of assignments that we had to complete were very effective at communicating our understanding of the concepts we learned in class, but they also allowed us to develop other skills, like cooperation and organization. The required readings were a great supplement to the lectures because they further reinforced the feminist concepts that were taught. All of these elements bring the class together as a successful whole, that enjoyable for me this semester.