Recently in What is feminism? Category

Our group: Molly, Corey, Danielle, Ava... and I fogot the other person's name. Sorry.

And I lost the sheet, but the general idea is as follows:

Inspiring curiousity especially in children and young people. Questioning hierarchy and unequal distribution of power in any relationship is important and can help to understand how systematic oppression operates in part.

Allowing people to explore outside narrow boundaries of gender construction without condemnation or ridicule. This is important especially for young people who are developing an identity; the goal being to allow individuals to express whatever come more naturally and less pressure to conform to normative external pressures.

Equality: In the household, is important that each and every member of the family be part of decision making and performing tasks

Marriage: Marriage is institution whereby two people share each other's life, live in harmony, not bounded by society's norm and so forth, regardless of gender, class, status quote, or race.

Child bearing: one has the right to choose whether or not to bear a child whether they are in wedlock or not regardless of gender, class, and race.

Yein, Zahra, Abeer

My group, Mitchell, David, Melissa, and Tara decided on these 3 things as important feminist family values.

1. Community- Support for families which can include things like outreach, support and help with food, shelter, day care and other things that can help women and families become successful. Also de-constructing some of the unnecessary privacy around children and raising children.

2. The choice for women to have and not have children and still be seen as care-givers. De-constructing hetoro-normative roles.

3. Allowing Adults to enter into a binding contract which allows them to understand the seriousness of marriage but also offers these benefits to all people, gay or straight. Then we can have a discussion about how marriage is problematic as a governmental institution.

Group Members: Adam Liter, Tamar Kaplan, Sara McCraken, Daniela Duran

We came up with a couple of feminist family values. The majority of our feminist values are interrelated and correlative. Anyway, here is a list and brief explanation of some of the values are group came up with.

• Acceptance and openness: Various concepts of what constitutes a family exist, and in order to eliminate discrimination and prejudice based upon these differences--without eliminating that form of family from society--it is necessary to promote a more understanding and accepting demeanor when it comes to family. Moreover, this implies an understanding that family is definable in a variety of ways.

• Equality: In order to foster an environment of acceptance, it is necessary to place importance and significane upon the idea of equality within (and without) familial relationships. This implies a sharing of tasks, equally afforded opportunities, et cetera.

• A respect for child development: In order for children to grow up in a society that does not inherently and unconsciously accord a great significance to gender roles, it is necessary to respect a child's wishes and to allow the child to develop, at least to an extent, in the direction that the child prefers to go, barring anything, of course, that would be drastically harmful to the child.

bell hooks talks about how feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression. However, we think that her definition is a little too constraining. Feminism is broad and affects many other social, political, economic, cultural, etc. realms. It engages with many other fields of thought and it's important to think about feminism not just as equality of women, but a complete revolution of cultural norms for everyone and not just women.

Group 9 (Adam Liter, Sarah Mainz, Tamar Kaplan, Sarah Turgeant, Sammy Labraska)

We changed our definition of feminism because it was too broad before. We boiled it down to just issues relating to gender:

Feminism is a political/academic movement to critique, fight, and raise awareness of sexism.

Our Definition of feminism is choosing to be consciously vigilant against any form of oppressive sexism, gender inequality, and class patriarchy. Feminism is inclusive, sportive, and promotes equality!

Feminism is pretty sweet!

Feminism is the act of promoting and practicing transforming a patriarchal society to one in which gender is equal in value and respect, in all races and classes of society.

Stay tuned for Ava's example of our term: accessibility.

Group 11's members include Ava, Daniela and Justin.

Feminism is an empowering movement working to end sexist patriarchy, exploitation, and oppression while promoting equality for all.

We also defined Internalized Sexism as: A learned behavior, engrained over time, where our patriarchal society teaches women to be inferior to men and to compete with other other women for patriarchal approval (p.14 hooks).

Group 5: David Siqueiros, Courtney Erickson, Michelle, Ellen Seltz

Our tentative definition of feminism:

Feminism is both a movement and belief system that seeks to eradicate social inequalities based on gender, class and race.

Our term, reformist vs. radical/revolutionary feminists, is summed up very succinctly by bell hooks on page 4 of Feminism is For Everybody:

"From its earliest inception feminist movement was polarized. Reformist thinkers chose to emphasize gender equality. Revolutionary thinkers did not want simply to alter the existing system so that women would have more rights. We wanted to transform that system, to bring an end to patriarchy and sexism."

Hooks suggests that reformist feminists wanted to operate within the existing system, to make small gains within that very system. Revolutionary feminists sought to deconstruct the system itself in order to truly overturn sexist, classist, and racist power structures.

Group 2 is Anna Olson, Kathryn Holahan, and Mary Anderson

-Group Members: Caitlin Cardinal, Will Menzel, Zahra Hassan, Rija Caldis

-Feminism: a movement that works towards eliminating sexist systems, rules and mentalities that exist within all sectors of society, be them implicit or explicit.

-Our term (as it relates to feminism): political solidarity: the formation of an organized union that opposes all forms of sexism, and protects the interest of women
Example: Lobbying to your local representatives as a united front/single entity in support of a specific sexist issue, as opposed to addressing representatives as a collection of individuals.

Striving to end sexism, oppression, and sexual exploitation, feminism is a philosophy for the promotion of equality of the sexes and is framed around social justice.

Consciousness-raising refers to spreading awareness to the alternatives sexism, sexual exploitation, and oppression, and recruiting for and dispelling misconceptions pertaining to the feminist movement. Examples of consciousness-raising include: feminist/women's rights groups, such as NOW, AWID, and MADRE; feminist/women's rights: propaganda, ads, literature, blogs, rallies; and women's studies courses.

Group 4 Members: Molly G., Mitchel J., Corey O., & Heather M.

Members: Sara McCracken, Abby Wulfing, Carlyn Knickelbein, and Yein Kim

Feminism is an all-encompassing movement to end sexism and establish equality.

Term: 'Feminism as mass-based educational movement'

Definition of Term: the emphasis on educating the public about the true definition of feminism and raising awareness about the positive impact feminism has brought to society in order to broaden the accessibility of feminism

Example: Feminism presented in children's books seems to be a priority for the educational movement since it's extremely important for feminist education to be instilled in children early on, while their beliefs and identities are still in the process of being formed.

1. Group members: Sarah Turgeant, Sarah Mainz, Sammy Labrasca, and Adam Liter

2. Feminism: a political movement that seeks to achieve equality between genders, while erradicating all other forms of in equality within society.

3. Group 9: Racism in feminism: it is a barrier to the ultimate goal of feminism; unacknowleged inequalities within the female gender that impede the abiltiy of feminists to acheive their ultimate goal of equality between sexes.

Feminism is standing up for for the rights of women while working towards equality for all people.

White privilege are the amenities of everyday life that white people often overlook and/or take for granted.
Some examples of white privilege:
-the color of band aids match the skin of white people
-most TV shows, magazine covers, movies and even toys for children (dolls) feature white people.
-in some communities and states, police officers randomly pull over minorities (racial profiling)
-most CEO's and managers of businesses are white

With Love for All,
Matt Deates, Jessica Malone, Ye Zawhtun and Alyssa Smith

Our definition of feminism:
*anti-sexism
*equality
*conflicted (within own sex)
*competition
*sisterhood
*needed communication
*needed to be integrated into everyday life
*exists to promote awareness
*not anti-men
*Justice
*Equal opportunity

Definition of anti-feminist backlash:
Criticism of feminism which consists of having the belief that traditional, old fashioned views don't need altering. A significant part of the backlash is the bashing and trashing of feminism done by opportunistic, conservative women. One example of this anti-feminist backlash would be the vocalized opinion that women should stay at home to cook clean and raise kids, and that this is their only role and don't accept the idea of other opportunities beside this traditional belief.

group members: Alyx Campbell, Monique Campbell, Zahra Hassan, McKensie Fauksee