Blog 4

Some of the courses that I found under the Women's Studies program that interest me are: Body Image Reality, Women in Sports, Women Social Change, Womens Health, Women Law, Women World Politics, and Contemp Fem Thought. I would really love to take Body Image Reality and feel that it would be very useful to me because I have always been interested in body image. Body image is so important in our society today and I feel that this class would be extremely thought-provoking.

Since I plan to become a speech pathologist, gender will probably only play a minor role in my work because most speech pathologists are women. Since most speech pathologists are women, there will probably not be major controversy over pay. However, I could be wrong and male speech pathologists could possibly make more than me. When I graduate I want to either work in a hospital or school just to get as much experience as I can. Then, I eventually want to open my own private practice where I can work with little kids who have speech impediments.

In high school, I worked at a place called Pump It Up, which is a birthday party place for kids full of inflatables for them to play on. Most of the employees were girls and there were only a few guys. The ratio of girls to guys was 5:1. I think that mostly girls worked at Pump It Up because it was more of a babysitting/party planning job which is more of a feminine role. Guys aren't typically known to be babysitters or party planners. During the summers I worked at a christian day camp called Camp Thurman. I was a camp counselor who led a group of twelve girls in outdoor activities. There was an even number of girls and guys at this job because there had to be a certain amount of boy counselors and girl counselors. As far as I know, I believe that girls were paid the same amount as guys. All in all, I think that I was paid the same amount as my male co-workers and I was not discriminated against for being a female.

In the reading about the "third wave", I thought that it was very interesting that this wave focuses more on female empowerment that male oppression. I definitely agree with the text that you can be anyone, like a soccer mom or transgender, and be a feminist. Feminists shouldn't be labeled and any woman that feels like she stands up for being a woman should be allowed to call herself a feminist.