Pulse of the Class

This class is very interesting to me. I particularly like it because Professor Fuqua is very passionate about the subject and that translates well through the class. My experience of the readings, screenings etc have been informative, engaging, mind-opening and keeping me aware. For example, when the Professor said to pay attention to how men and women are supposed to take up space; I do that now all the time and I have come to realize how men expect women to take up such little space when sitting on the bus and train. They always sit with their legs wide open leaving us women with no room to be comfortable. I even had an instance where my boyfriend pointed out to me that I shouldn't sit a certain way because I take up too much space when we are sitting together on the couch. So this class makes me more aware about gender and the relations between both genders.

I have always been an open-minded person so nothing about this course makes me feel uncomfortable at all. In fact, the subject of this course is what had drawn me to it in the first place. If anything, the ideas and theories that I have read through the readings have actually helped me kind of have a real stance on certain things. I have always had an opinion on certain things, but these ideas have helped me relate it to my life more and have helped me realize different things about my life. For example, Kate Bornstein's "gender is a cult"idea was something that stood out to me and it helped me out with my artifact assignment. I liked that I was forced to relate these ideas to my life; especially with the artifact assignment. That would have to be one of my favorite assignments to date. I like that I am forced to look at things that wouldn't even seem like there would be any underlying meanings within them when there are plenty; like Fight Club.

I would have to say that the most engaging reading topic was Kate Bornstein's piece. Because as stated before, I used her as a part of my artifact assignment. I enjoyed her ideas and her writing style. I also enjoyed watching her read her work when we watched it in class. I think she is interesting and very funny. Her "gender is a cult"idea was just really interesting to me and I feel that it is translated in media today. In films and television shows about teenagers, gender is ALWAYS seen as a cult. I just really liked her play on words with that topic.

I guess I would say that the Judith Butler was the most difficult because it was a lot to take in. Although we did have the piece before it, the ideas in Judith Butler's piece was a lot to unpack. No wonder we had to have the cats explain it to us but even after that it was still a little iffy for me. It is just a lot of stuff. It's a lot of ideas that intertwine with one another. Even the cats explaining it was a bit confusing. So, Judith Butler would have to be the most difficult in my opinion.