#cnb67

My favorite plenary by far was the third one with Bobbie Ridgely. I enjoyed hearing about her life and how she got to where she is today. I was so pleased to hear her talk about how you don’t have to have a degree that perfectly aligns with a certain field in order to get a job in it. Overall, I found her a prime example of how if you keep true to yourself and work hard you will undoubtably end up doing something you love and for me thats what made this one so great. 

To be completely honest this class made me feel rather powerless. I have always liked the idea of helping others and really though that for this topic we would be able to discuss what can be done to globalize feminism and enhance woman empowerment. However, that did not end up being the case. Instead the class ended up revolving more around the differences between cultures and how one thing viewed as oppressive by one culture may be considered empowering to another. This caused me to leave the class feeing like no mater what we do there is no way to please everyone without oppressing or ignoring some small minority. I found this extremely disheartening but hope we will still find a way to settle our differences and find a way to please everyone moving forward.

I know we read this article a while ago but ever since then I have been trying to make a point of not apologizing as much and I must say that the difference it has made is surprising. Now, I have to admit that the difference is more personal then how others react to it. To be honest I don’t really think that guys care whether we apologize or not 99% of the time. But for me not apologizing has been really empowering and I really appreciate how this article helped me to realize that we don’t need to apologize for every little thing.

For the past few years I have fasted in honor of lent. Coming from a religious family and being raised in a predominantly Christian community I had always considered this rather normal behavior. However after announcing this to my college friends I was rather surprised by some of the reactions I got. I had never really discussed religion to them prior to this point and many were shocked to discover that I was even Catholic. However, after this discovery a few of them started to assume that I was in complete support of all the churches beliefs, going so far as to accuse me of being apposed gay marriage and abortion simply based off their knowledge that I am a practicing Roman Catholic. I think that it is so sad that so many individuals only view religion as something which you are either for or agents and don’t understand how a persons personal beliefs and opinions can affect ones faith. I am so thankful that the plenary was able to touch up on these issues a bit!