Since Eliza was having difficulties posting this last week, she sent it to me to post. Here's her introduction:
My name is Eliza Smith. I am a senior at DU with a major in French and a minor in Gender and Women’s Studies. I love reading and oatmeal cookies. I am from Orinda, a small town near San Francisco in California. I am the middle of five children and have always been the quiet, “sensitive” one. I am very close with my family, but love being in Denver because I get to see what I can do and what I can be on my own. I have always been interested in body image, eating disorders and the role gender plays in society. Up until recently, I struggled with very poor body image and an eating disorder. With the help of a program, my family and my friends, I am doing a lot better and feeling really powerful and positive about being a woman. I have very little experience with politics. The issue of gender and politics is the forefront of our minds lately due to the presidential race. Politics have been almost a scary subject for me because I always fear that I am misinformed or just plain wrong. In terms of politics, I usually avoid the subject mostly because I feel like everyone around me knows more than I do. I wish I did not feel so self conscious about discussing politics and that is in some ways why I chose to take this course. Luckily for me, it is one of the taboo subjects in American society, so I could avoid it pretty well. When I came to college, there was a lot more discussion about politics and even more when I went to France last year to study abroad. In French society, politics are discussed anywhere and everywhere. Frequently at the gym there, the aerobics instructor would discuss politics during the class. It was refreshing but scary too. I wanted to know more before I opened my mouth. The issue of gender in politics is very important and very interesting in terms of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and recently, Sarah Pailin. Sarah Pailin and Hillary Clinton bring a lot to the table in regards to teen pregnancy, motherhood and femininity. When I think of “political”, I usually think government. I know politics cover a very wide scope of issues and I am looking forward to learning about those issues. I hope to learn more about how gender really comes into play in politics throughout history and now. I am also excited to hear from the different speakers and find out how the issues changed from time period to time period. Today, we are dealing with very different issues than the women during the eighteenth century, but at the base are we not all rooting for the same cause?
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3 comments:
You raise a very interesting question at the end of your post, Eliza. I would be curious to hear what others think: Are all women on the same team, so to speak? Are there certain issues that they care more about or tend to support as voters? As we look forward in the course, we can think about answering this question in a few ways. We could think empirically. That is, how do women actually vote? Are there patterns? Or, we could think about it theoretically or persuasively, too. That is, can we imagine compelling reasons why women, based on their gendered positions in our society, should vote on issues? There are other ways to frame this discussion, too. How would the rest of you go about answering this question?
It would be interesting to see if there are trends. On the other hand, I think that, especially in the McCain campaign, there has been a naive sense that all women are the same, will vote the same, and will vote for a woman simply because she's a woman (he also was quoted in Newsweek or Time months back as saying that he thinks most women are 'pro-life'). At any rate, I suspect that gender is only one factor that influences the way people cast their vote.
I also wonder if, should there be any patterns that were to appear, such patterns would change much over time? Or would they be relatively constant? Perhaps that would also be a reflection of how much society has and hasn't changed over time.
I do not think that women are on the same team all the time. There are stll women in this country who believe that the man should rule everything and that their job is to take care of the home. In terms of what women care about, I do believe that women tend to vote for things that could effect their bodies and their family. However, I believe more often then not the baby boomer generation of women will vote the same way as their husbands. As the generations move forward, I think that trend starts to break. But I still think that some women out there vote the same way as their husband.
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