Women in Leadership Nov. 16th 2011

We had a break last week for Thanksgiving, so our last class was two weeks ago. Fortunately it was such an interesting class, that I have little trouble remembering what we learned.

Truthfully, I can't remember the speaker much, but the movie we watched at the end of class was equal parts inspiring and horrifying. The film was called Miss Representation, and it was about how women are portrayed in the media, how they are sexualized and socialized from a young age to believe that their self worth comes from their bodies and looks as opposed to their intelligence, strength, or aspirations.

Now I can't stop seeing it in every aspect of the media, wether its magazines, TV, music, music videos, advertisements, or film. It seems like an uphill battle sometimes, I notice my friends don't seem to notice or care.

What Being A Leader Means To Me

This week we were asked to create blog posts about what being a leader means to us, individually. This was a hard question to answer for me, as I believe that there are many kinds of leaders that are effective and important depending on the situation.

Nonetheless, the most important quality a leader can have (in all situations) is to be inspiring or to lead by example. Even a manager at a boring factory job can be a good leader if he works hard and appears to enjoy his work. As a student I strive to work harder if I can see that my teacher has spent time and energy on the lesson plan and is passionate about teaching or the subject material. Other important qualities are trustworthiness, firmness, and decisiveness (I could go on but I think these are the most vital).

Being a leader means making the choice to care about your job, or whatever you're doing, and making a commitment to it until you've achieved your goals.

Common Book Convocation

Yesterday was the common book convocation, and Tom Piazza, author of City of Refuge, was at Otterbein to address the freshman class. I didn't particularly enjoy the book, I thought the characters were two dimensional, and it was too easy to tell which characters he prefered over the other. At certain points during the book, I felt that he was telling us too blatantly how to feel about events or people. The only character that had real, believable inner dialogue was Craig, whom he clearly identified with the most.  Needless to say, I was not expecting to enjoy the convocation, but I found Tom Piazza to be interesting, comical and clever. I was pleasantly surprised when he became emotional while talking about Katrina and all the destruction it caused. I had never heard someone speak about the disaster the way he did-- enough time had passed that he could speak eloquently and concisely about it, but he still had close personal attachments to New Orleans in many ways. It was clear that he really loved New Orleans the way that Craig did, and I appreciated that.

Women In Leadership October, 26 2011

This week in class we focused on women in politics: the challenges, the rewards, and what women contribute as politicians and to the political community. Class was certainly more riveting this week, and we were in the company of some very important women serving on our panel. Their advice was useful, and I could see how I might use it if I were considering entering politics.

While I appreciated their valuable experience and insight, I couldn't help but notice the lack of diversity in their political beliefs. In short, they were all Republicans. Of course the root of the lesson was about women in politics, which is an issue for all women in any political party, so on the whole, their affiliations were not an important matter during the panel discussion. There were moments though, when I felt like they were too vocal about their affiliation, and too assumptive in the way they presented their beliefs, as though they were something we all agreed for, or an inside joke we were all partial to. I would have appreciated another view among them, to add some balance, and some perspective.

There were other moments during which I felt uncomfortable, one panel member told us to "think like a man, act like a lady, and look like a girl", this to me, is not a statement that empowers women, rather it perpetuates masogyny because it implies that women do not have valid thoughts or opinions to contribute, or at least not as important as their male counterparts.

In another part of the discussion, a panel member warned us against dressing like a "slut", a word that is, among other things, inherently demeaning to women. Of course every politician, business person, or anyone who holds a job, should dress professionally and appropriately for that job. Her statement made me wonder which of her coworkers, friends, or fellow women she had called this word. If I've learned anything in this course, I've learned that we must support and help our fellow women, not bring them down.