If That Is Who You Fall In Love With

Reflection Format


Teaching the Conflicts: (Re)Engaging Students with Feminism in a Postfeminist World by Meredith A. Love and Brenda M. Helmbrecht was a read that did not seem to fit in well with this class. We spent the last two weeks defining feminism and saying feminism is not just for women it is for equality. This article is all about girls, and it seems only white girls at that. I say that because early on Love and Helmbrecht use an example of white women in society and never addresses another ethnicity again.

Love and Helmbrecht's piece is well researched though. I enjoyed learning that 57 percent  of people who go to college are women. However I was "shocked", as the students she talked about were, to find that women 77 % of what men make. That is absolutely ridiculous and should not be the case in the 2000's. The article talks about how women can be more than skimpy models but should be able to be equal. Love and Helmbrecht go on to use the female artist Pink, Dove's campaign for "Real Beauty", and the movie, When the Devil Wears Prada, to show how mass media has a wide array of effect on young girls.

I have not gotten to the reflective piece yet but I will get to that now. On page 49, Love and Helmbrecht discuss different reasons why student enroll in courses similar to this one. Personally I took this course because I had taken another course with Dr. Bogad and found the course very enjoyable. The previous course was in 2010 and was called the Foundations of Education: Schooling in A Democratic Society. In that course there was a woman named Cindy who had a daughter. One day Cindy was watching Ellen DeGeneres with her daughter and her daughter said something like "Mom, doesn't Ellen like other women?" Cindy said yes and then her daughter asked her "Could I like another women?" Cindy said to her daughter "If that's who you fall in love with." I think that is the perfect answer to give a little child. It lets them know they have the freedom to choose who they love and they don't have to fear backlash from their parents. That answer can be applied to different situations too. Girls should be told they can be scholars or doctors, while boys should be told they can be gymnasts or dancers. They can be whatever they want to be "if that is what they love."

Points To Share


As a class we have covered many of the SCWAAMP categories. However we have not really gone in depth on the "A"-Able Bodied and "C"-Christianity portions of SCWAAMP. We have covered "S", "W", "A", "M", and "P" very well. We have had extensive readings and discussions on those letters. After the final reading, I was just curious why the "A" and "C" mentioned above were never really discussed after the SCWAAMP day in class?