This course is an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of Women’s Studies through global and multicultural perspectives. It provides an overview of women’s experiences and their activism to achieve equality over time and across the world, with attention to differences of gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and nation.
During this course we conducted two significant projects. The first project was a supply drive. All of the proceeds form the supply drive were going to be given to the women's resource center. The class was split up into several different groups and were assigned to a location. Some groups were in charge of getting food donations and other groups were in charge of getting toiletry and clothing donations. My group was stationed at Meyer, We individually purchased some of the Items such as paper towels, dish soap, cleaning supplies etc. We set up everything and asked shoppers for donations.
Dr. Ren warned us that most of the time it is very hard to get donations for the Women's Resource Center because there is a social stigma that a woman should never leave her spouse. I did see proof of this in some of the shoppers that would stop by our table and ask what we were doing. As soon as the Women's Resource Center was mentioned, some people would shut down and claim to be busy or that they had to take care of themselves first. We were able to receive a generous amount of donations and some people even gave money so we could buy the things necessary to donate. I am really glad this course incorporates community service as part of the criteria. It is one thing to learn about a subject, actually putting into practice what we learned and seeing how society views women was extremely valuable.
The other assignment given at the end of the course was to interview a woman from a different generation. We were to record ourselves asking questions and later write a paper tying the woman's experiences to everything we learned in the class. As I mentioned previously, Dr. Tanya Corbin agreed to be my subject of interview. I loved every minute of listening to her talk about her experiences and how she feels like things have changed today. Please click below to see my paper.