One of the main questions males ask is what are woman thinking? Now I’m a female and I still have no idea the wide variety of thoughts and emotions that dance around in my head any given moment of the day. Let alone make that stride outside of just one individual to a community, an entire society, and the entire Earth of woman. There is no science or tell all book that expands to that idea. There is no amount of Woman Literature’s classes that could even begin to tap into the true uncontested identity of a female. What defines us as females? What importance’s do we carry in every sector of our lives?
Something that is important to a woman is learning to understand our fears. If we are unaware of what frightens us, we are unaware of knowing what to conquer and how we are suppose to handle events in our lives that frighten us. Women are bearers of life, an amazing and horribly frightening role. But through society through our knowledge of self, females understand and accept theses horrors. Even in the beginning of our semester when we examined The Vagina Monologue’s that ever-present fear of childbirth was accepted in a group’s workshop when they were asked to draw a picture of what they thought their vagina looked like " One woman who was pregnant drew a big red mouth screaming with coins spilling out." (Page 44). This quote goes inside with another thing that is important to women, that we are unique. This is displayed in every book that was selected in this course. Every women’s’ story was unique, from their races, emotional ties, cultural bonds and everything in between. That is what striked me the most about the selection of stories, that everyone was vastly different but everyone illumined almost the same truths.
Through this class I learned what the difference was between a fact and a personal truth. A personal truth is how “I” feel about how “I” think. A truth is sexuality because in some cases that may not always be a fact. In Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, no one told her she was a lesbian, it was her truth, no one told her how a lesbian has to act, she did it on her own accord. “I bought myself a present. (Swiss Army knife) A symbol of self-reliance? At any rate, it seemed like something a lesbian would have.” (Page 78) There is no fact out there that all lesbians have to carry around Swiss Army knifes but it is something Alison felt that she personally must do.
Another importance women carry is their own personal goals. Take the story of Precious, one of which everything was against her in which she wanted to achieve. She wanted a better life for her and her child, but having no education and money makes that nearly impossible. But in Precious’s case in which she knew what her goals were and knew the strength that she now processed “I don’t know what “realism” mean but I do know what REALITY is and it’s a mutherfu____, lemme tell you.” (Page 83) She valued the knowledge in which she studied and in which she encountered. But Precious’s story was not the only inspiring one.
I was the one who was inspired; I was the one who learned the ugly beauty that arises when a woman spills her story for others to learn from. In this course I learned history in which I never heard of. Something that I’m now fascinated by is the story of the Comfort Woman that we learned about in The Vagina Monologues. How could reading “What we weren’t allowed to do: Wash ourselves, move around, go to the doctor, use a condom, run away, keep my baby, and ask him to stop.” (Page 162) not inspire someone for further knowledge of history. I’m a proclaimed non-reader and I read ten books simply in this semester, that inspires me that I can read more, learn more.
Things that are important to women, their minds, their bodies, their goals, their strengths, their independence and all these things embodied every single one of our books. So what is Women’s Literature? It’s stories of what’s important to women, differently by how very unique and connected we all are.
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