Pulse of the Class

I have surprisingly enjoyed most of the readings from the class so far, especially those from The Gender and Media Reader. Many of the articles are insightful, profound, and very different from that which I am used to reading, either in media or literature courses. The independent articles were a bit more challenging for me, perhaps because they lacked the amount of context that the reader’s articles had. While it might have taken me longer to fully understand them (and I’m not sure I do, even now), researching the ambiguous or unclear terms, or learning about them in class certainly helped shed light on topics which were previously very unknown to me. I have been pleasantly surprised by most of the screenings in class, too. I usually don’t particularly care for foreign films and I generally dislike watching with subtitles, but I genuinely enjoyed Ma Vie en Rose, and really enjoyed writing and thinking about it, as well. Fight Club has always been a favorite of mine, but I’m pretty sure I can never look at it the same way again – and I’m so grateful for that! Queer theory and especially the homosocial discussions really opened my eyes and I’m happy that I can use these new tools while reading or viewing other texts. The lectures are less riveting, but I’m glad I stay for them because they do sometimes result in new ideas for me, personally. I’m not the biggest Powerpoint slideshow fan, but when the text is too difficult for me to untangle by myself (like the Fausto-Sterling piece), a very clear-cut, direct visual aid can only prove to be helpful. The discussions have been erratic for me; I enjoy discussing the first few thoughts, but I tend to get slightly bored when it becomes repetitive. At first, I did not fully utilize Twitter, especially not in class, but recently I’ve begun to delve into it a lot more – and I love it! When a thought pops into my head during a discussion, or while watching something, I don’t need to wait to share it with the class – I can just post it on Twitter, and, while there, peruse my classmates’ thoughts, which is such a new and great concept to me.

The course material has certainly changed my existing ideas about gender, for better or for worse – but I like to think, for better. I’m much quicker to point out gender theories, inconsistencies, reinforcements and other ideas when watching or reading gender texts on my own, or within a larger group. It helps for me to verbalize these concepts because it elucidates them for myself, as well as for others who are even more sheltered and naïve than I am (if you can believe those people exist…they do!) I hope the material continues to challenge my preconceived notions, although I think I’m at least partially on my way to paving a new path for myself in this area.

I loved reading Kate Bornstein’s Gender Outlaw excerpts. She was entertaining, insightful, informative and very frank. She was unapologetic, which is something I had previously not seen in other “queer” texts, and the accompanying video of her which we screened in class only complemented the wonderful work she has done thus far. She definitely changed the way I view those who identify as “gender outlaws,” and while I may not be able to relate to them all on a sexuality-plane, I still feel like I understand where they are coming from, a lot more clearly.

I had the most difficulty reading Fischer’s Birth Traumas. The abstract language about the maternal versus motherhood versus femininity made my head spin a little bit. I usually enjoy lofty concepts that are thought-provoking, but for some reason, this particular reading (and the others that were very similar in their abstractness) was hard for me to decipher what the authors were trying to convey. I felt like no matter which way I leaned, I was getting the information and their messages wrong. Hopefully by the end of the course, I’ll be much more adept at analyzing and comprehending those types of texts.