Monthly Archives: March 2016

Weekly Reflection 7

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This weekend I chose to read the New York Times article, “Donald Trump’s Trail of Comments About Women.” I chose to look at this article with hesitation, but I was genuinely interested in what would be included. The commentary was really just a collection of direct quotes from presidential candidate Donald Trump from as far back as 1991 up till 2015. To summarize, select quotes from Mr. Trump imply that a woman’s value may depend on her appearance, flat-chested women will never be a “10”, and that women should have all of the responsibility in raising the children a couple may have together.

I am a passionate feminist and reading all of this hateful speech coming from the next potential leader of the free world really made me take a step back. I am not writing this to discuss my beliefs; however, this article really made me reflect on certain things in my life. Many of my family members share many of the same thoughts regarding women and have always made it very clear to me through out my life what they thought my role ought to be. Their thoughts pushed me to be the best version of myself and I always set out to prove my worth as a student and community member instead of my worth based on my appearance. However, many other women will continue to believe what their family members/friends may tell them or what they hear coming from a presidential candidate for example. I used to want to prove my worth, but now I realize my actual goal is just to encourage other women to follow what they actually want to do with their lives. Therefore, I find this speech extremely hurtful towards that goal and I have a hard time believing so many people are okay with Mr. Trump’s words.

Daily Reflection 3/23

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Today’s class help me develop ideas about my essay.  I thought about how I can avoid using a certain tone simply because I have a former inherited opinion about people who may disagree with my argument. In addition, it helped me to recognize areas that may be a source of bias and where that bias may stem from. This discussion also helped me think about how I might better address the opinions of my opposing audience to clearly explain why my stance is correct. I will focus on trying to dissolve any ideas or bias their opinions may originate from in order to effectively persuade the audience.

Weekly Reflection 6

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This weekend I chose to read The New York Times article, “The Man the Founders Feared.” This article was in reference to presidential candidate Donald Trump. While I normally try not to involve myself in arguments and discussions of politics, I still have been following along closely since the first GOP debate when there were 17 candidates because I like to stay informed so that I can be a knowledgeable voter. I tend to avoid certain articles that are obviously strictly one-sided but this one struck my attention because I was interested in knowing the author’s interpretation of what the founding fathers may have thought of Donald Trump. To summarize, the article stated the nation, including all Republicans, should fear his popularity and his (supposed) encouragement of political violence, passion, and love for the country. He spoke of the founding fathers concerns of a political strongman and what Aristotle described as, “the insolence of demagogues.”

While this article/topic may not directly impact my life right now, I still feel it influences my life a good amount. The presidential election is coming up this November and I have to decide which candidate to stand with. I generally see myself as a peacekeeper, so seeing this issue (violence as a result of politics) spur from a presidential candidate is very upsetting to me.  The author’s argument gave me an interesting point of view of this concern. In addition, this issue helps me identify who I am as a person and as a voter and represents what kind of issues I will support or disagree with.

 

Weekly Reflection 5

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This week I chose to read the New York Times article, “She Wanted to Do Her Research. He Wanted to Talk ‘Feelings.’” I was drawn to this article because I thought the title was very unusual and I was interested in finding out what it was about. Professor of geobiology, Hope Jahren, wrote the article discussing reasons she believes behind why many women leave science and STEM fields. The article goes on to address specific examples of one of her students who was emailed by her advisor professing his admiration for her and stating basically she is just going to have to deal with it until one of them leaves. The author highlights other specific examples of similar emails and confrontations made.

As a female going into a STEM field, I found this article very enlightening. While I personally have not experienced any sort of discrimination and/or any uncomfortable confrontations, I realize how this could become such a serious issue. Behavior that may be deemed harmless and romantic in reality just becomes a form of harassment and becomes dreadful for the women who have to deal with it. Reading this article actually made me angry thinking about how much these inappropriate dealings are looked over until far too many women have left their once-beloved fields because they feel so uncomfortable they cannot even do their work. While this may not affect me at the moment, I plan on doing my own undergraduate and graduate research as well as in my professional career and do not think it is fair to have to worry about being harassed.

Unit Reflection-Visual Analysis-03/04/16

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The visual analysis was a challenging paper for me.  I struggled with “seeing through the picture” and I had a hard time differentiating between what was obvious and what was analysis.  I enjoyed this unit because it gave me a different perspective as to why specific images are included with certain articles and text.  While writing this paper, I learned that I actually enjoy analyzing images and having time to think about what symbolism might be underlying in them. I have not done a paper like this before, so I had to commit a lot of time and effort to make sure I was staying on topic in my essay and had given a thorough analysis.  This was challenging, but the in-class activities and group work we did as part of this unit helped me to understand what exactly I was looking for in pictures and different ideas to discuss.  Re-learning pathos, ethos, logos, and kairos was also very helpful for analyzing the image and thinking about why certain elements were included.  After this unit, when I see an image I will be able to analyze it and understand the significance of why it was chosen.