The Final Freakin' Blog

I just want to start out by saying that I hate these blogs, and I will not miss them at all. Within the first week of every month, I find myself in a frenzy trying to find out if I can, in fact, turn in the blog "just a few days late." I do not love blogs.
But getting on to the topic, we read a lot of books this year. I think that my favorite unit was the femanist movement one. It had a lot of history involved in it, and it really made me think. I found it interesting that while we were reading all of the novels, like The Awakening and A Doll's House, a lot of the females in the class were saying that they would have stood up for themselves because that's just not what they believe in. But they wouldn't have believed in that during that time because they would have been raised in a completely different way, with a completely different culture and set of beliefs; basically, they would not be the same person. I found it incredible that the "facts" on the inferiority of women could change so quickly, and how we think that we've progressed so much, but if you look more closely you still see a lot of prejudice and old ways of thinking. Personally, I think that the feminist movement was a good thing, and I love having the freedom to do what I want and say what I feel. I think that women fighting for jobs and education was good, but on the other hand, I feel that it put a lot of stress on families. Women are now expected to have jobs, but men are expected to be the breadwinner. So now, with both parents expected to work, it's really hard for parents to raise children and still keep a good hold on finances and/or a good control over their child or children. Too many of the "old " prejudices still exist.We still have a long way to go to balance out our new ways of thinking about women with the way the rest of the country still functions.

February

In all our talks about the feminist movement, I have been repeatedly surprised with the things that men and women actually believed. My favorite belief was that women, just because they were women, experienced regular and temporary periods of insanity. Obviously, these outbreaks of insanity were during a women's "time of the month," but the mentality went even further to disregard women going through post-partum depression, as shown in The Yellow Wallpaper. This mindset seems ridiculous to me. Lately, however, I was watching Dr. Oz (my Mom's favorite), and he had a special on hysterectomies. Dr. Oz was talking about how many women find hysterectomies very difficult to deal with, and that there are others way to get rid of problems without having the uterus completely removed. Something interesting that he mentioned was that the word "hysterectomy" actually derived from the belief that the uterus is the source of a woman's hysteria. He went on to say that even though we have moved forward from that mindset, he can still see lingering branches of thought. Dr. Oz said that many people have the belief that a woman having her uterus removed is not a big deal; if it doesn't work, why keep it? If you don't want any more kids, why do you need it? But he pointed out that men don't willingly go to get their penises chopped off; getting a penis removed is taking away a man's true manhood. Evidently, there is still a disconnect between men and women.
I just thought that Dr. Oz's comment was very interesting, and it related to our unit very well. it goes to show that even though we have moved forward, there are still lingering effects, beliefs, and stereotypes.

January Monthly Blog

The Awakening does make points about self-knowledge and self-deceit of women in earlier times. The novel proves that women were so used to submitting to husbands, that they did not even know what their true feelings were.
As Edna searches for herself, she finds that everything she thought she knew about herself turned out to be untrue. She knew that there was a true Edna there, but every individual thought she had was surpressed. It is even stated in the novel that "she had long been accustomed to harbor thoughts and emotions which never voice themsleves." Edna is so used to submitting to her husband that she unthinkingly pushes back any feelings or emotions of individuality. Edna even acknowledges in the novel that she will "try to determine what character of a woman" she is because she honestly does not know.
I think it is terrible that women, or any people, were surpressed so much in that time period, and at first I found it very surprising that most woman did not even want things to change. After class discussions and some thought I realized that women today cannot succesfully compare themselves to women in that time period; it is very hard to relate to and really understand. The social mindset was completely different, and the "rebellious" feelings that women had back then are what women now feel every day; being an individual woman now happens without thought. And even though I did not really like The Awakening, I feel like I got a lot out of the discussions about it, particularly more understanding about the social mindset.

Cultural Relativism

Although I did not pay much attention to the proof of cultural relativism, I do agree with many of the statements James Rachel explains in the article. The statements made are true for the general majority of humanity, and I would hope that in reading the article, many people would realize that they should be more open-minded. Rachel put it perfectly when he said that "our own way of living seems so natural and right that for many of us it is hard to conceive of others living so differently." Many people tend to forget that their own way of life is not the way for the entire world.
I especially liked the section where Rachel states "when we examine what seems to be a dramatic difference, we find that the cultures do not differ nearly as much as it appears." When faced with a "dramatic difference" more people should take a step back and ask why the other culture is that way. "Many factors work together to produce the customs of a society. The society's values are only of them...The difference is in our belief systems, not in our values." Humanity as a whole generally agrees that murder is wrong, but the other little, "strange" cultural beliefs usually have a story or reasoning behind them. And, personally, I find these strories to be really interesting most of the time. Not eating cows because of reincarnation, and eskimos limiting the number of infants because of their hard and somewhat dangerous lifestyle all make a lot more sense when the reason why is understood.
This article reminded me a lot of Things fall Apart and just American history in general. The white man comes in, believing that every other belief system is primitive and stupid, and he brutally attempts to wipe out an entire culture without even trying to understand the other side. And now, having recently seen the new movie Avatar, I can easily relate this article to that movie. The blue people were very spiritual on their planet, much like the indians. However, in hopes of financial gain, our people came and destroyed many of the important spiritual focal points.
Basically, the main point of this article is to keep and open mind, and to not reject something just because it is different. Different cultural societies put more weight on different aspects of society, with due reason. Personally, I think more people should be like King Darius who "thought that a sophisticated understanding of the world must include an appreciation of differences between cultures." Don't make judgements and don't assume...because when you A-S-S-U-M-E you make an A-S-S- of -U- and -M-E.