I wanted to start by saying, this class is the most informative class a student can take here at EMU. I have been a student here since I was 15 years-old; and this is the first class, I have actually learned information I can use 50+ years from now. When this class started, I honestly knew absolutely nothing about the topic of Gender and Sexuality. Here we are, near the end of the semester, and I am much more knowledgeable and aware of many gender identities and sexualities, I once never knew about.
Over the course of this class, I have had many realizations about not only myself, but the world we live in. One of the many class discussions I will remember forever is, when we had the opportunity to speak with individuals who identified as transgendered. I especially enjoyed hearing the stories of Christina and Stephanie. Their stories showed the evolution of tolerance when it comes to trans individuals. I understand there are still people who are intolerant to those who identify as trans, but at the time when Christina and Stephanie were growing up, they mentioned anyone who was LGBT was placed in a Psychiatric ward and/ or disowned.
The documentary, The Invisible War sparked a lot of anger in me. In class I recall watching the segment of the video, which discussed sexual violence towards men in the Military. A few days later, In my WGST 200, class we viewed the segment on sexual violence towards women. I find it truly disheartening how the Military overlooks
The documentary outlines some of the hard facts: 20% of service women have been sexually assaulted while serving. Women who have suffered what they call ‘Military Sexual Trauma’ have a higher rate of PTSD than men who’ve served in combat. 1% of service men have been sexually assaulted (and because of the greater number of men in the military, more men are raped/sexually assaulted than women). There’s a 4% conviction rate of the reported assaults. The Department of Defense says that 3,158 incidents of sexual assault were reported in 2010, yet they estimate that 86% of incidents are not reported; that math gets us to 22,548 sexual assaults in one year. Invisible War says that it’s possible half a million women have been sexually assaulted in uniform since 1991.
In 1996, the United States Army investigated and substantiated allegations that uniformed instructors at Aberdeen Proving Ground had sexually assaulted and raped female trainees under their charge. In 2003, the United States Air Force Academy substantiated claims of rape and sexual assault conducted by and against students at the Academy. In 2012, an investigative documentary entitled The Invisible War, chronicled the problem of sexual assault and harassment within the U.S. Military. The documentary sparked rage at the military’s handling of sexual assault cases, victims, and alleged assailants. The film portrayed the military as an environment in which 20% of servicewomen are a victim sexual assault: a culture that protects the alleged assailant and condemns the victim. The investigations mentioned above were not the “one of a kind” event that characterized “Tailhook.”
As a Para, I have to take a class with our ELL students so I can interpret for them in the event they cannot understand something. Although the teacher in this specific class is a great teacher, in my opinion, his communication skills are frightening the kids. Last week the students got the results of the last test and most of the kids did not do well. His speech went on for almost twenty minutes, telling the kids how upsetting it was to have such bad scores when everything is provided to them; that they needed to pay more attention to the class and do their homework, etc.…. during this time his face turned red, and his body language became stiff. He repeated himself over and over again. It was so bad; I wanted to run out of the class
In more than just the examples given in the documentary, reporting a sexual assault seems almost baffling in terms of procedure, both in military life and in civilian. It is a difficult enough prosses for a man or women to endure in civilian life. Just noting what I have witnessed in my time here at Georgia Southern University, it is a long, horrifying, and complex means to achieve justice, and even then, it is certainly not guaranteed. Even at the conclusion of this class, it is still difficult to grasp the blatant disregard for an entire section of the armed forces. The ones who are willing to make the huge personal sacrifices to serve their own country, when that same courtesy would never be reciprocated. As stated multiple times in The
War has always been so merciless, so bloody, and so disastrous. In war there always dead, injuries, and overall is how much the soldier has satisfied. There are war that people can clearly see with bare eyes, that they see soldiers lost a part or more of the whole physical body, but there are war that the soldier fighting with their mental and that is the “invisible war” that nobody can see, but them, soldiers. The “Invisible war” by Kirby Dick 's “brutally shocking documentary argues that rape in the US military” is not an aberration, but a shameful secret epidemic. Victims are expected to suffer in silence and the issue is regarded as an occupational hazard. The US army is known as one of the best army in the world with all the “great” weapons and “strictly” rules that is the place for no mistake and the soldiers are always receive all the best for their satisfy for this country. However, the fact is so many of them were threatening for sex assault, many of them suffer their lives after their join army and in many cases, there are no actions from the government in general. The “ Invisible War” is a fantastic documentary showed the viewer of the other side, the dark invisible war, that the soldiers have to fought for when they are on duty and even after they services are due.
“The most shocking cover up in the United States Military is not what you would expect (The Invisible War),” reports of sexual assaults over all branches of the military have tremendously increase every since women have been allow to take part of the military. According to the Secretary of Defense, over 500,000 male and female soldiers have suffered of sexual abuse from senior peers and commanders. During the past years, many women reported a variety of cases of sexual abuse. Sadly, the victims were only ignored, blamed and punished for the events. Sexual assaults are considered a scandalous subject which our military has decided to avoid, but by doing so, the number of rapes has increase even faster. Rape is a repetitive criminal;
The United States military continues to be one of the most powerful forces in the world. Although the characteristics of the United States military has changed throughout the course of time. Traditionally the military was dominated by men until women were given the opportunity to serve their country. However, there is an ongoing problem with sexual assault against women in the United States military. Sexual assault in the military has skyrocketed throughout the years and many of these cases are never reported.
Previous to this article, sexual assault in the military was a topic that was not well-known nor discussed. The article was titled “Speaking out on sexual assault in the military”, authored by Jane O’Hara (1998) and told the stories of 13 women who came forward about their sexual assaults in the 1990’s. This article was monumental because it shed a significant amount of light on the situation and sparked military supervisors to respond to the allegations. This article not only exposed the scandal of sexual assault, it also exposed the institutional sexism within the military and the systematic mishandling of cases involving sexual assault (O’Hara,
The video “A class divided” shows a teacher teaching 3rd graders about empathy. Empathy according to the book is described as the ability to re-create another person’s perspective. Sympathy is your view of another person’s situation. The saying, “Walking in someone else’s shoes” is commonly used to describe empathy. It’s not how you feel about the person’s situation; it’s how you would feel if you were put in their situation.
Everyone is likely to experience some form of discrimination or prejudice; as is anyone capable of acting prejudiced towards others. On April 5th, 1968, a teacher in Riceville, Iowa named Jane Elliot conducted an experiment with her third grade class that dealt with the concept of discrimination; and was documented in Peters’ 1985 ‘A Class Divided’. The exercise originally took place the day after Martin Luther King was assassinated. The documentary is an eye opener to the world of racism and discrimination. Bucher (2010) describes racism as “discrimination based on the belief that one race is superior to another” (97). According to Bucher (2010) “discrimination is defined as the
in 2016 compared to 6,082 last year, an annual military report showed. This was a sharp jump from 2012 when 3,604 cases were reported. Few bills have been presented in Congress against the institution for fear of disrespecting those who are fighting for our country. By attacking one section of the military for injustice and abuse, there is fear that this could possibly only be scratching the surface of the issue. Protections for women in the military seem to have a bleak outcome due to the fact that more recently similar ideas surrounding sexual abuse of females within militaries have become more prevalent.
On the other hand, the last two years of school have changed my attitude toward gender and sexuality, gave me a profound understanding of feminism and sex, and prepared me to be a responsible woman. Since I had been going through a hard time when I was embracing ambiguous forms of deportment to be attractive but not too sexual, I decided to find answers in the books. I took many classes related to gender, such as Feminist Studies: Sex, Love, Romance. I learned how women were described as a weak group in terms of body, intelligence, and psychology, how these weaknesses became the excuses to legitimately exclude women from political life and made them be erroneously and slanderously classified as disabled people, and how gender was the excuse for
I have a very vivid memory of discussing my classes to my mother before this first semester began, and whenever I listed off my Women and Gender Studies class I remember my mother asking me, “What do you think you are going to learn about in there?” I recall opening my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. I stopped, and looked at her and said, “You know, I’m not really sure. I guess we will find out!” I knew going in to this class I was excited, but for what I had no clue. However, looking back on my experiences, discussions, and the knowledge I have gained from this course, I know exactly why I was excited. There is an entire world out there that the media and politics had hidden from me, but now my eyes are opened. I can
The Trans gender lecture was of great interest today. I am thankful that Chris could share her story with the group. Although I can empathize with the troubles and turmoil in which growing up were difficult moving to a new country and not fully understanding what was happening. I cannot image what she was going through personally knowing that somehow she was different and did not quite fit in with society. I have great inspiration for her to take the steps to find happiness and well being in her life.*
My identity relating to sexual identity was pretty set before coming into this course. I knew even from a kid I was straight, because I was constantly looking at guys as well as talking about how cute they were. Nonetheless, I followed the pretty stereotypical roles of a girl growing up. I played with dolls and loved pink and anything with glitter really. When I was younger, my knowledge about sexual