Women Across Culture

One of classes I chose in this semester in the Divine Word College is all about women. We use three books in this class: Women Across Culture by Shawn Meghan Burn, A World Full of Women by Martha Ward and Monica Edelstein and The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World. Why did I choose this course led by Jackson T. Zimmerman? The answer is: because I wanted to know more about them. Usually people say that women are mysterious, diverse and nobody can understand what they really think. There is even a joke that when woman says YES in the same time she thinks NO. But is it really true? I don't think so. I also don't like generalizations. So I am in that class trying to understand why Global Women's Studies takes a multicultural, intersectional, contextualized approach. Teacher speaks very interesting about feminism, ethnocentrism and persuades that women's rights are human's rights. It makes sense, but when I remind myself active feminists from my country - from Poland, I remember only aggresive women in the mass-media struggling with tradition, religion and demanding for the legalization of abortion. So I am concerned by feminism. Maybe my bad experience is the reason of that confusion. However, I had also met many wonderful and strong women in my life. And they had had an important and good influence on me. Therefore, I look towards the future with hope that there is a chance for wise feminism and intelligent feminists who will not fight with the reliable values but will build the bridges between men and women, between tradition and modernism, between the strong and the weak ones. I am certain it is necessary and such women would help us understand each other despite the fact that sometimes we have different points of view.