Final Week

What I found most shocking in this class was the fact that women are in prisons that are designed for violent men.  Then learning about the effects that this environment has on the women inmates.  Also how women have trauma coming into prison and the system only adds onto to their trauma.

I think the most interesting interactivities were the ones when personal experiences were brought into class.  I really enjoyed reading the book even though certain parts were hard to read or made me very upset with what some of the women had to face within the system or in their lives.  I also really enjoyed hearing from the guest speakers and their research.  Some of their research was covering topics I have never heard of or thought of in depth, so that was very interesting to relate back to women in the correctional system.  Especially when introduced with the "Incel" research.  I was very shocked and interested in her findings and opinions on these types of men.

Below is my infographic I made for the final assignment of this class.  I chose the topic Human Trafficking because this was one of the few topic I felt I was most passionate about and had a lot of variety of information within the interactivities and online.  Having an infographic as a final was different than most classes.  I really enjoyed this project because I was able to research something I chose and was interested in.  I also was able to be as creative with this project as I wanted to be.  I love to express of creative side this gave me a really nice outlet to do so.  

This class changed my perspective on gender majorly.  I knew that males and females were not equal in society but this class highlighted numerous examples beyond just the wage gap, like how women commit crime and are easily vulnerable to trauma, etc.  Before I wouldn't call myself a feminist because I hated how "extreme" the viewpoints of these women were and how they really didn't want equality.  I thought feminist wanted women to be better than men.  I am now able to say I am a proud feminist because women deserve to be equal to men and that's want feminist fight for.  I am able to back up my claims with facts and knowledge rather than just personal beliefs.  I also don't like to look at the world as gendered and didn't quite understand the patriarchy like I do now.  Society needs to get rid of many of it's toxic beliefs about genders and embrace various forms of expression; not constraining people into two boxes.