I created a syllabus that focuses on women´s rights that are affected by patriarchy and religious beliefs.
Author: Darya Stepanova
Presentations
I decided to present my project in a form of a syllabus because I want my topic to be heard and well known. Therefore, I thought the syllabus is a perfect candidate to make it clear and hold the information that was needed. My project is about the oppression of women, specifically Muslim women. Their lives and actions are controlled by patriarchy and certain religious beliefs. Not every woman falls into that category but a good number of them are affected by it. I was inspired to choose this problem because I was born and raised in a Muslim country- Kazakhstan. Therefore, I did not only hear about it, but I witnessed it with my own eyes. Only when I grew up I realized what a huge problem this is. It is my intention and desire to bring awareness to this concern.
Post 11
I decided to do a Syllabus in order to present my project. I come from Kazakhstan, a Muslim country so my whole life I was surrounded by Muslims. I learned their rules, what they believe in and their norms. Only when I grew up I realized how messed up one thing was. The women in the families did everything: chores such as cooking and cleaning, some of them are not allowed to work, some of their husbands did disgusting things and wives close their eyes because it would put them in shame. Patriarchy and some of the religious norms effect women and control their actions and lives. It became a norm for them and they do not have an idea that getting out of this is circle is a normal thing that will benefit them. I want my project to bring awareness on this problem.
Post 10
Audre Lorde describes her experience at the conference at NYU as something that stood out to her. She realized the majority of women who were there were white and there was a lack of representation and diversity of women of color. She notes that even though the problem feminism tries to fight continues to decrease, it will not happen unless women of color will be given their part. Her overall message was the society tries to silence particular people and in order to have such things under control, we need all kinds of people to be included and given the opportunity to share and speak about the issues we face every day. I agree with her statement “For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house” because I was in a place where I was silenced. Unfortunately in order to stand with this opinion people have to be in this situation in order to understand the importance of this problem. this metaphor brings awareness that women of color have been put aside when it comes to speaking up. Some women get praised for their small actions, while others do tremendous work and get looked upon as if nothing happened. Privileged people need to realize that if oppression was not part of their lives it does not mean it does not exist. Feminism is about women´s rights and somehow even in this movement, some women do not get enough credit.
Annotated Bibliography
McBride, D.E. & Perry, J.A. (2016). Women’s Rights in the USA Policy Debates and
Gender Roles. New York, New York, Routledge, Taylor & Francis.
This source serves to my project as a historical overview on women´s movements and defines key terms that will be used later. This source is helpful to me because I use it in the beginning as introduction to women´s studies overall. It is precise and clear, goes over the points that are initial to understand women´s history.
Lyons, K. (2017). Majority of men in Middle EAST Survey believe a woman’s place is in the home. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/may/02/majority-of-men-in-middle-east-north-africa-survey-believe-a-womans-place-is-in-the-home
This source introduces religion into my project. After going over women´s right, history, movements I needed the source that could support my main point about religion. This article talks about patriarchy and religion effecting women, their actions and rights.
Mayer, A. E. (1984, June 01). Law and women in the Middle East.
https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/law-and-women-middle-east
This article fully explains how massive this problem are. It mentions the rules Muslim women have to follow, why they are forced to do it, who benefits from it and who suffers. The article provides points for why Muslim women are oppressed.
Post 9
I was inspired by Wonder Woman by Ginny Lim. The Bridge Called My Back focuses on women of color and what on their minds regarding the issue of inequality. They include their personal thoughts and opinion including their experiences. All of the intercepts are different and similar at the same time. They are unique stories and however, they all share the same point. The poem of Wonder Woman was so unique because it talks about differences and similarities of women. It connects to other readings and goes deeply into explaining.
The quote: “I look at them and wonder if they are a part of me, I look in their eyes and wonder if they share my dreams” stood out to me because every woman has her own thoughts, experiences, and lives. We think everyone is different and no one may understand your pain and what you go through. However, there are people that have the same problems as you, but we do not let ourselves think that.
It would be so easier if we could share it and find people that just like us dream the same dreams and struggle with the same problems. Women are incredible but somehow we are so divided. If we were to stand together, it would help our community so much. Women have that power and someday we will stand united.
Black Feminist
The movie ¨Black Feminist”and Kimberle Crenshaw´s TED talk are similar to each other because both of them act as a source of knowledge about black women´s intersectionality and how they face in today´s society.
The movie ¨Black Feminist¨ reveals what black women face and how their racial background affects the way society treats them. It deeply focuses and male and female appearance. Feminism is often joked about and not understood while men seem to be powerful, authoritative, and taken seriously. Something, that women try to achieve.
The TED talk focuses on a lawsuit of Emma DeGraffenreid´s and her employer who hired multiple secretaries who are women and men were hired only for higher positions. Another problem was that these from- desk jobs were offered mainly to white women. Emma faced intersectionality which was an affect of her racial background and female. However, it all ended with court overlooking a case because even though it was shown that black people were hired it was still a small number compared to white people.
Both film and TED talk reveal an idea of feminism and focusing on black feminism and how feminism mostly covers what white women struggle with. The lesson of these two is that we need to notice there problems and realize that black women face an oppression based on their facial background and gender every day.
These two articles are reliable because both of them have an author, one of them is a scholarly article while the other is a book. The authors are Sanja Kelly and Vrinda Narain.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/12/03/kazakhstan-words-little-action-domestic-violence
This source is from a Humans Rights Watch” written by an author Viktoriya Kim.
This article is from New York Times, the author is Vivian Yee.
https://www.dw.com/en/womens-rights-in-the-islamic-world/a-40714427
The websites name is DW, the author of the article is Carla Bleiker.
Post 5
What do you need to know about your topic in order to understand it? What do you need to know about in order to contextualize and discuss your subject? Meaning, what academic subjects does your project relate to? Through research at the library and on the web, identify the different facets of your project, including whether it concerns contemporary news/events, race, gender, sexuality, history, important countries (the US, India, China, etc.), social status/class, media (which media? film, broadcast tv, streaming shows, social media) and any other salient factors. How does each factor relate to your project and what will you need to know in order to discuss it successfully?
I need to know the culture and motivation of people I will write about. Some of the academic subjects my project relates to is this class, anthropology and history. My project will concern gender, history, race and social class. Gender relates to my project because the main focus are women, history relates because my topic has been a part of history for a very long time, race relates because only certain countries have this problem, religion because for the most part the source of this problem is religion.
Intersectional Analysis
Choose a person (real or fictional, from pop culture, TV, movies, or literature–but not you or someone you know) and write up an intersectional analysis of them. What are their intersecting identities? How do they relate to power and privilege? How does the person navigate the world through their multiple identities? When are they an asset, and when might they hinder (against what kind of oppression or suppression)?
The person I chose is Steve Rogers AKA Captain America. He is one of the main heroes in Marvel Universe. He was born in 1918 and when American entered World War 2 in 1942 Steve had multiple tries to join the army but was rejected every time. At some point he joins the army and was infused with Super-Soldier serum. Steve is a humble person who lost both of his parents, the only person who he had was Bucky Barnes- his best friend. They have been through everything and supported each other no matter what. When Bucky died Steve was left with nothing or no one. Even though he was one of the strongest and most popular people in America, everyone praised him and looked up to him he still had a huge hole in his life. He was a wonderful friend, noble son, a great soldier who was willing to sacrifice himself to save other people. Even when everyone knew he is one of the most powerful people in the world he did not see himself that way. He still considered himself to be a shy and weak guy who was rejected from the army multiple times. Eventually, he became a leader of Avengers and even then his ego did not appear, he still considered himself to be equal and did everything to save others. When he woke up in 2011 he was completely lost. How can a person be okay with a 70-year time shift? Through multiple Marvel movies, it is shown that Steve cannot settle because in his mind he always goes through the war and cannot get it out of his head. He feels obligated to be always prepared for a fight, at the same time when he finds out Bucky is alive his goal becomes to make sure Bucky is safe. At the end of his history we can see that Steve decided to spend the rest of his days with his love interest-Peggy that he thought he lost(when he came back in 2011 Peggy was 90 and he saw her die)
