Friday, January 20th, our psych of woman class had its first class discussion about readings that we were assigned. both of which i found interesting. we were assigned a book called we should all be feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and a passage by Barack Obama, "This is what a feminist looks like".
In the book, Adichie presents a Modified version of a speech she delivered at a TEDxEuston in 2012. She hits important Points about what feminism is and misconceptions about it. She also talks about the various violations based on gender there are, being as there are many that most don't notice because we've become so accustomed to them. For example she talks about when she was in primary school there was a test in order to be class monitor and she got the highest score but didn't get the position because the teacher forgot to specify that it had to be a male, despite the rule being that the one with the highest score would get the job. And the she ties this in to the grown up world in which despite the woman who might be better at something than men, if what happened to her in Primary school, in which it was assumed that it was obvious a make had to be the class monitor, continues through all of their life, it'll soon just be assumed that men should take top positions and not women. This is only one of the topics she touches on, but every thing she mentions, every experience can be related to, from female and male perspectives. While going around in the class I was able to see exactly what Adichie was trying to get at in her book. She says, "Yes, there's a problem with gender as it is today and we must fix it, we must do better." and this is her definition of a feminist, man or woman. Both the males and the females in are class were able to recognize these gender problems and so I agree with Adichie, in saying that we should all be feminists.
In "This is what a feminist looks like." by Barak Obama, what I like about this passage is that one of the reasons why he is saying all of this is in order to open the eyes of those who believe that only woman are feminists. He later goes on to explain why he is a feminist, which is because of all of strong influences by woman in his life and also for the sake of his daughter. But i cannot agree more with him saying that we should tech our Kids, boys and girls the same set of rules and morals, rather then setting different rules for them because of their gender. an example of this wrong way of raising kids that he gives us is raising girls to be demure and boys assertive. I love this idea because then these kids will grow up to be more so equal than their parents generation and have a brighter future to look forward to.
Good first post!
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