blog 3

I really enjoyed the movie and felt an extreme sense of gratitude to the woman who fought for my right to vote. I had no idea that there was so much opposition to womens suffrage in the early 1900's. Why were men so threatened by the idea of women voting and having a voice? I sometimes wonder why African American men were granted the right to vote over women. I have to say that I was suprised to see that so many men frobid their wives to participate in the movement and get involved. It disturbed me to see women being spit at and things being thrown at them during the parade. I got a little emotional when I watched the parade scene as well and when the women were standing outside the white house. I cannot believe the treatment they recieved from fellow citizens during their protests. People shouted at them and called them names simply because they were protesting in a time of war. Many women had tensions between eachother because they felt captive to their husbands wishes; yet, also wanted to be a part of the suffrage. The only way they could overcome that tension was to go against their husbands and join the movement. I felt so much sympathy and compassion when I saw how the women were treated in jail. How is protesting illegal? It angered me to see them thrown into such harsh conditions for excercising their right to free speech. I thought the force feeding scene was so gruesome. They finally achieved their goals through all of the publicity and hard work from so many women across the country.
I agreed with most of the reading from Feminism is for Everybody. The book discussed what the orgin of the feminist movement was all about. Basically it said that women should no longer see themselves as property of men. The book stated that the only way to end discrimination was to ban together and form a sisterhood which fought for womens rights. Women need to stand up against patriarchial injustice and stop sexism. I agreed when Hooks talked about the movement as not being anti-male, it's goal is to just stop the opression of women on all levels.
I disagreed however, when she said the blanket statement, " one cannot be anti-choice and be a feminist" (p 6). I am a Christain women and do not believe in abortion yet I do however believe that women should be provided with more reproductive care and measures to prevent pregnancy such as birth control pills. I was a little offended that she wrote that statement because abortion, gay marriage, political parties, etc. have nothing to do with whether somebody is a femininst or not. I am still a feminist and proud to say that I am. Just because I am against abortion does not mean I do not think women should have equality in the workplace, should be protected against domestic violence, should be protected against human trafficking, etc. She is being a hypocratic by saying a person cannot be a feminist if they do not believe in abortion because she is placing judgement on people. I think that I can be a feminist and be against abortion because for me (and me personally) I do not think that the baby is a part of the women's body anymore and is a separate life. I'm not going to get into a big full blown arguement I just wanted to say that the statement Hooks wrote bothered me. I felt that her writing style was a little biased and needed to reach out to people from all backgrounds and not point fingers. She pointed some blame for women's studies programs being at risk because of the conservative party who wants to "undo the changes created by struggles for gender justice" (p 23). The only way to get her point across is the unite parties, not create more boundaries by placing blame.
I do agree when she says that the movement has lost a clear definition. The movement needs to make a real definition for what it stands for; otherwise, people are confused about what being a femininst means... does is mean they stand up for all human rights (including gay marriage, etc). Everyone has a personal definition for what a feminist means to them, but there is not a blank one that everyone agrees on.