Okay, so there's patriarchy. But WHY?

    I couldn't agree with Julia more in thinking that this reading would have benefitted us had it been assigned the very first week of class. It really made me think. All semester, we've been identifying these systems of patriarchy and oppression, yet I never really stopped to ask myself why they exist in the first place. To identify them is not enough. You must be curious. You must wonder what systems allowed for the oppression to come about in the first place.
    Whether or not we read these chapters in the first week or the last week, I'm glad we did eventually get to them. It seems to be a perfect capstone to the class. I will leave it with a new curiosity, a desire to know the "why's" rather than the "what's" of patriarchy and oppression. I leave wondering how I myself contribute to these systems, in both subtle and overt ways. I leave being curious as to why certain systems get overlooked completely, even when they are destructive to so many people.
    The theme of my anthropology class first semester was, "make the strange familiar and familiar strange". That is the curiosity of which I speak. It is important to take what is normal and ingrained to us and turn it on its head, much like the way suggested by gaga feminism, but with a less radical approach. It is important to question where our normalcies came from, and why they are normalcies in the first place.
    At the end of the day, as I said in one of my posts earlier, this class has changed the way in which I view the world. I no longer feel passive and complacent, but rather vigilant and active. All I can say is, I'm glad that I took this class as a freshman, with three more exciting years ahead of me to apply what I have learned, and to make the familiar as strange as it can be.