Today's lecture is more interesting than anyone we've had these days. Probably it's because I am a female. This lecture seems to be more concerning about us.
I've heard a lot about feminism in America, about how aggressive these women are, about how the things they've done. But I believe it is no wrong for women to fight for equality since sexual discrimination exists all over the world. We women have to do something about it otherwise we have no way to change it.
The stereotype that women are weak and they need men's protection and being a mother and wife is their inherent job is deeply rooted in some people's mind. Even I myself have been affected by it. I believe many people have the same case, they've been blinded by this idea yet unconsciously. Physically speaking, women may be weaker than men but it is not absolutely right. Like what if the man is disabled. And even women are weaker, they don't necessarily need the so called men's protection which confines them in houses and prevents them from entering society work.
I wish Dr. Fronc had more time to talk about Victorian Time which we have learned in our intensive reading. By the way, let me make a brief introduction of our English classes. We who major in law, and other students major in journalism and international relations have to receive the formal English Major classes in the first 2 years. So it's like we're having double majors then. In the first year, we have intensive reading, extensive reading, writing, listening and oral classes. Intensive and extensive reading is about literature. The only difference is that we read only chapters or simply articles from contemporary English writers and analyze them in class, studying about the themes, the technique of writing and the grammer etc, while in extensive classes, we normally read a novel every other week and talk about what we read in class, sometimes we make presentations. In writing classes, we also have brain storming like we do here and we learn some techniques of writing. Listening is mainly to train us to understand news and oral is mainly encouraging us to discuss in English. But in second year, oral class is little different. It aims at debate. So we have to form groups to debate as part of our final exam.
Wow, it seems that I've written a long article and not that much about today's topic WOMEN. Anyway, woman is not a man's pet. We demand respect and equal treatment but it does not mean that we deny that we are different. It's not like that "separate but equal". There are differences exist between these 2 sexes. And therefore woman may need more care than man like the leave they should take from work when they're going to give birth to a baby and they are not strong enough to be in the army. But they can be as intelligent as man. Woman today at work can even create better ideas than man, they do the management job, they are excellent in public relations and they're supervisors of some men. Women are as good as men in some field. It is a fact and no one can ever deny it.
Democratic as US is, I think the development of feminism should be more developed. However in fact, the most developed country in this area is Sweden(or Swiss, I'm not sure which one it is)where half of its members of congress are made up of women. That is a big move! I guess the reason that America isn't that good in this area is because of the racial issue. It's still the major issue here.