The Show Must Go On

For both classes this week I was so sick. I coughed, blew my nose and in general was a mess but I didn't want to cancel class.

I started class with a review of the first 6 weeks. I could tell it helped a lot. The students responded well to it.

Then instead of quizzing them on the week's readings, I had a review of the week's readings on powerpoint and we discussed them as a class. Doing this before the quizzes brought the overall average of the quiz grades up. A powerful indication that this change is a welcomed one.

The last hour of class I showed the amazing documentary, The Business of Being Born. I've seen it more than 10 times and I learn something/see something new every time. My students all responded very well to the film and were completely surprised to learn how horrible, in fact, last we are among developed countries for maternal health care. In other words, we lose more mothers in childbirth than any other developed country in the world. I love showing this film because it is so eye opening for so many people. So many folks the safest place to deliver your baby is an a hospital, which actually it's the most dangerous for many women and their babies.



I have one pregnant woman in my class and several weeks ago she announced that she had scheduled her baby's birth. I knew that meant only one thing, she had scheduled a cesarean section (c-section). After watching the film she explained to the class that her doctor told her she should plan on having another c-section since she gave birth to her first child that way. With her first pregnancy she had a medical necessity for the surgery--she had preeclampsia. But her current pregnancy is going smoothly and both she and the baby are quite healthy  When I shared her VBAC (vaginal birth after Cesarean) birth option she had never heard of it. When I began to explain that she could in fact have a vaginal birth if that's what she wanted, her disposition changed and she became very animated and interested. She began asking more questions about it and even shared how scary it sounded to her because she had believed what the doctor told her and was know questioning it. She also seemed amused by the idea that she could actually give birth to her child--a thought that intrigued her.

I was horrified (although I didn't show it) that this young woman's doctor had failed to offer her the safest way for her to deliver her baby--vaginally. Instead because she had once delivered via c-section it was assumed she would do the same. Of course, c-sections are easiest for doctors, but we know from centuries of doing births, that vaginal delivery is best for momma and baby.

With any luck, this student will go out, educate herself, talk to her doctor and make an informed decision. Whether or not she decides to move forward with the c-section, I am just happy that she now how more information--what she chooses to do with it, is entirely up to her.

Pivotal Week--Helping My Students Succeed

This past week in teaching has proven to be pivotal for me. Many of my students failed their mid-term while some scored perfect 100’s. It’s clear that some students just are not doing the work but my heart broke a little bit when I saw students crying after getting their tests back. I heard one woman sob, “But I studied so hard and I still failed!” I now understand that there are students who are working hard and still not grasping the key concepts.

I spent the better portion of my week creating a PowerPoint presentation to review all the key terms and ideas we’ve discussed and they’ve read about these past 6 weeks. I’ve put on hold what I was planning for this upcoming class and have decided to make half the class a review day.

It’s easy for me to forget that the knowledge I have around this topic has been building for the last 20 years. I didn’t learn it all in my first Women’s Studies class.

As I move forward in creating my spring course, a transnational feminisms course, I plan on reducing the readings and adding a PowerPoint presentation to really help solidify the material.

I was talking with a teacher this week and she gave me a great piece of advice…pick the one key idea that you want to get across to your kids each week, so that at the end of the term they have 10 key ideas that work together to create your message.

I want to do all I can to help my students succeed.  

Teaching Intro to Women's Studies, Week 5—Pornography

Last week’s classes were the first time I felt myself anxious and nervous about what I had to teach that day. Because really, what teacher really likes to talk about pornography? It’s a tough subject and the images are hard to see because they are graphic. But I do it because it’s important. I do it not to be sensenationalistic, but because students need to know what’s out there in mainstream pornography because we are living in a pornified culture.

After taking their mid-terms and a short break I started off our discussion of pornography by asking folks of their first experiences with it. It was a great way to kick off the conversation because the stories were often funny and light hearted about finding their father or brother’s collection of magazines.

I told them that instead of watching last year’s documentary The Price of Pleasure (which you can rent or stream from Netflix) I had picked instead PowerPoint presentation. I shared that for some the images are often hard to look at and that first and foremost they should take care of themselves in whatever way they need to—whether it means closing their eyes or leaving the room.

And so we began and I found that as I went through the presentation, Who wants to be a porn star? Sex and violence in today’s pornography industry (you can Google it if you’d like to find it/see it) I found that it was a very effective way to share with my students how many of the images we now see in mainstream culture have come directly from Porn. For more info on this check out the book by Pamela Paul, Pornified: How Pornographyis Transforming our Lives, our Relationships, and our Families.

It also very clearly spells out how pornography teaches men (the main consumers of it) how to treat women—which is poorly, like objects and as women who deserve to be raped. The presentation examines and highlights 6 key rape ideologies found in pornography.  

The 6 Rape Ideologies:

1. Women don’t really know their own minds. Men know better what women really want and need sexually.
2. A woman might not want it at first, but once she gets a taste of hot sex, she can’t get enough.
3. Women are sexually manipulative.
4. Women are sluts who get what they deserve.
5. Getting her drunk is a way to get her in the mood.
6. All women are whores at heart and want to be fucked by any available man.

While discussing number 5 I asked is anyone had ever been given the date rape drug (commonly called roofies) and a number of women raised their hands (including me). Two of my students shared that after they blacked out and came to, they found themselves being sexually assaulted. For more information on date rape drugs, click here. 

Yes it was a tough topic but one I felt really important to discuss and bring to light. The fact that it is surrounding a topic that makes so many of us feel uncomfortable is yet another reason to push through that feeling to talk about it…because being silent about it isn’t going to make it go away. 

Week 4: Students Overwhelming Overwhelmed

Well I knew it would happen at some point during the term, I would go from being the cool, hip Women’s Studies instructor to “that teacher who gives us too much work!!”

I handed out the mid-term study guide and they freaked out. I thought I was doing them a favor, laying out, in detail how to study. Then I handed out the outline for their rough draft research paper and they freaked out. Again, I thought I was doing them a favor, laying out, in detail how to do their paper outline. Silly me.

Before class was over I had 2 students tell me they had to leave early and wanted to know if they were going to miss anything. “Yes, you’ll miss 3 hours of class.” Duh. As a student, I never, NEVER asked that question to my teacher. One student left to attend a baby shower and another left because her boyfriend kept texting her. I encouraged her to put her phone away and then she wouldn’t see the text. Makes sense right?

I also had them watch the fantastic documentary by Jackson Katz called Tough Guise. It is a movie devoted to deconstructing how the media at large presents masculinity as violent, emotionally shut down, and in direct opposition of femininity and therefore needing to dominate women. It’s a great film because it’s written by a man and all the examples are taken from movies, television and news broadcast. Up until this point in the class I have spoken mostly about the patriarchal system and its impact on woman but now the students learn how damaging a system it is to our boys and men.

Here’s the film’s trailer . And if you want to watch the film online you can view it here.

Both classes enjoyed watching the film and many of them felt that they could relate to it because they had tough guys in their families as models (brothers and dads). One student said that as a result of watching this film, she's rethinking how to raise her sons because she didn't realize that by raising them to be tough, she's raising them into this culture of violence and now she wants something different for her boys.

Week 3 Teaching Intro to Women’s Studies

I had both my classes watch the 2011 documentary film, Miss Representation. I first saw the film last fall and it is a powerful film about the media’s depiction of young women, older women and women in power (specifically looking at Clinton and Palin.) Miss Representation looks at television and movies and is an unflinchingly honest report on the sad state of affairs we call entertainment and news in this country.

It was interesting to listen to the sharp intakes of breath and shock of the students as they watched the film. Many of them shook their head throughout and looked in disbelief at me.

Afterwards we moved into fishbowl discussions in which I asked them to answer two questions, What do you think? And how do you feel? The conversations were personal, insightful and full of questioning what they’ve always thought to be true. After twenty minutes one young woman asked the group what they thought about the 1 in 4 women have been raped statistics the movie talked about. In seconds, 4 women had identified that there were survivors of rape or incest. The truth about their lives were a testament to the facts stated in the documentary—a very powerful moment for us as a class to share.

You can see the trailer here and check local listings on OWN network.


Miss Representation 8 min. Trailer 8/23/11 from Miss Representation on Vimeo.

Here is their Facebook page which is currently talking about the Super Bowl Sunday ads and the new Sarah Palin movie, Game Changer.

I highly recommend this film for the home and classrooms…it will change the way you see television and films forever and hopefully inspire you to take action to help the girls and women of the world. For more information, visit the Miss Representation's website. Have you seen the film? What did you think of it?