Today I practiced the piano! Yea! I just asked a R.A where I could practice the piano. It was only four floors down, two blocks down, and one block to the right from my bed. I hope to put going to the gym to exercise in my schedule next.
Before the lunch session, I talked to my teacher about the social boxes we put on people depending on their gender. To understand my point of view on this people need to understand that I believe my religion to be the truth. I know that the Lord made every one of us. He made me a woman so I am a woman. He made my bother a boy so he is a boy. No question. I have a divine role as a woman. I believe my brother has a divine role as well as a future young man. Therefore, I believe that we do have different roles to a degree. I understand that this is not always possible in certain situations. Such as in a single parent home in regards to family matters.I also believe that we all have characteristics that are not just formed by what had happened around us.
The wording in some of the reading material is sometimes chosen, I feel, to only side with one point of view that social boxes limit women. If my sister likes pink, was she influenced to like pink by the social box of what girls should like? No. She just likes pink. I do however see that some act a certain way by stereotypes afraid about what others think or confused about who they are or should be. Women themselves sometimes bring such stereotypes by the way they act in response of these stereotypes, in particular of objectivity. I see it as a vicious spiral. If we taught women self worth I think that we could stop this spiral. With self worth they would not feel the need to dress a certain way, look a certain way, or act a certain way to be attractive/ to be accepted that create the idea that woman are like objects.
Another point is that females face very similar problems that males do in different ways.
Robin came to our class during the afternoon session and talked about listening and feedback.
I look forward to another day.
Lydia,
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you were able to find a piano. And to think it was almost right next door to your room! After all the trouble we went through to find you a piano and all you had to do was ask your RA.
We send students to a lot of different classes, Lydia, with some of them being hard and unerring in what's being taught. In a science class they may teach that the Earth is round and circles around the Sun and there's no discussion about this because it's a fact.
In other classes, though, with yours being one of them, you're being taught disciplines that other people think. You're being taught opinions and ideas and there's rarely any hard truth to it.
You're allowed, Lydia, and we even demand, that you question every idea that's being taught to you. Never ever, Lydia, accept that the ideas that you're being taught were written by the hand of Gad and have come down from on high as the Gospel according to Professor XXX.
Ask questions, Lydia. Think about what's being taught to you and when it makes sense to you, then you can accept that it's an acceptable idea.
We had students in classes last year where they were taught that autism was a blessing and that the Black Panthers were never a violent organization. It didn't bother me so much that our students were being taught things that I disagreed with as much as that our students were accepting these things as facts simply because they were coming from someone standing before them at a prestigious university. I even had one of them call me a liar when I challenged that what he was being taught didn't match up with the reality we saw on the streets right here in the Bay Area.
You're allowed to question the viewpoints of your instructors, Lydia. The openness of your mind is one of the reasons the ILC selected you for this program.