EXCEPT after this week's readings I feel like I have nothing BUT questions. Much of what we read and talked about in section was the fact that women as a class were not adequately dealt with under traditional marxist ideology, especially in the economic notions that go into society-supported unions, like marriage. I agree with the idea that we need to focus on women's place and women's labor and how that is valued in society, but I also am wondering what this means personally for my future. Is getting married conforming to an antiquated notion designed to cloister me in the home, even if I work and have a life independent from my spouse? How will I be seen by people who do not spend so much time thinking about society and its constructions. (Will I have my mom walk me down the aisle now, since she was the one there with me in life the longest? Probably...) I feel like every article/essay posits the problem in a different way, some complementary and some radically different. But none of the answers are fully satisfying.
How do we go about changing the state of things now that we see what some problems are, but maybe not the ultimate root cause? Is it too far back to deal with, do we shrug it off and say it doesn't have that much effect if we don't think about it or give us power?
I feel like the more I progress in this class, the more aware I am in every advert I see or movie I watch, of how we're being told to act and live. But rebelling against it doesn't change society, it just makes me aware that I'm swimming upstream, and maybe gives my friends a headache when I share my thoughts with them. It's easier to blind ourselves because once we start to see, we see the problems in every minuscule instance of gender relations (that frat party theme of Librarians and Barbarians...) and you don't know how to keep acting like everyone knows it's just a joke. Because some people think it's not. Three girls were raped around campus this weekend, one in the middle of the street after being drugged... and when passers-by simply think that a girl is being loose and dumb and walk along, we're paying a big price. How do we change and find a balance between giving people the freedom to "be what they want" while at the same time realizing everything we've been programmed to want is an artificial construction? Where do we go from here?
(Comment and challenge as you please.)
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