I was really intrigued by the Gaga Manifesto reading. It really forced me to re-evaluate my own thinking. How extreme and radical should our ideas of feminism be? How much of the system really needs to be replaced? I think that these are important questions to continue to ask ourselves. Putting women in power may not solve structural problems that our society faces. When we look at issues of class or race they may not be addressed by putting more women in leadership. We might not see women addressing larger issues of gender either. How can we start to insure that we are able to address all of these issues? Is our system salvageable or should it be completely re-written? I’m still not totally sure how this would even really be done and it is definitely something that I have been thinking about a lot lately.
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SGST/ WOMS 200-011 
The same thoughts that entered your head entered mine as well while reading this piece. How much of a broken society can we salvage while trying to create an environment of love out of hatred? I think that is the age old question whenever any sort of reform is in question and I honestly do not think that there ever will be a truly right or wrong answer. The biggest thing that matters in my opinion is that no matter what the course of actions is, we do not forget what has happened in the past and allow it to shape of future. We do not the same mistakes of the past to ocur again, nor do we we want past problems to continue to occur. /sure there are some piece of our civilization that are salvageable, especially if looking at recent evenets and seeing how much love has come out of all the hate that has been spewed out. We just need to make sure that only the good is salvaged and the bad is used as an example on to how not to act.
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I think you make a really good point. Where do we go from here? Is where we are heading in the right direction. Looking back in history, do we really learn from our mistakes? When it comes to the formation of leadership how can every person be pleased. Even in a perfect world where “love trumps hate” and everyone is “happy” and “equal” what if there will always be someone who doesn’t want that and wants more than equal? I think its human nature to be greedy and a hoarder, its a survival tactic. Even when we think things are balanced there will always be something to push against it.
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I don’t think the whole system needs to be replaced. That seems a little too extreme. I think we just need to keep fighting for our rights and have more women in power speak up like Gaga about feminism and all the rights that women should have as a result. Even if it does sound like a good idea to replace the whole system and start over that’ll just never happen, unfortunately. Mainly cause it sounds like it would take too long to reboot and figure out and a lot of people would be against it. There’s always going to be problems for women and people of different intersectionalties that have to fight their way through to get the rights that should automatically be given to them such as equal pay. Slowly but surely we will get to the point we need to be at.
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I agree with you, I was intrigued by the Gaga Manifesto. It was interesting to see a different take on feminism in a way that does not encourage reversing the roles of people in power and putting women in power. After we discussed it in class, I realized that putting women in power truly would not change anything. Could you imagine a world where the majority of women would be in power? Yes, it would be amazing but you could imagine all the ‘meninist’ movement that would follow. I think Gaga Manifesto is change the social construct, disturb the environment and our social norms, and make people uncomfortable in order for the uncomfortablities to become norms.
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Your questions really made me think about the structure of our system today, and the truth is, I don’t really know if there’s a “good” or “right” answer to any of them. The idea of putting more women in power might seem appealing, but there’s no free lunch. There could possibly be a meninist backlash, and there is even a possibility of tying any kind of lack of efficiency in office to gender; ineffective woman leaders in power could have their inefficiency linked to their gender. Although I agree that there needs to be some type of change, I honestly don’t know what the right answer could be. I think that dismantling the entire system is a little dramatic, considering the US is one of the most prosperous countries in the world, despite social issues.
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I see your point and I agree. In class we discussed manifesto and how it is ppl reacting to a political system, and the idea of an ideal society and how to get there. We do try to recreate a broken society but how do we salvage it at the same time? The answer is to look forward, but never back. We must forgive but, must not forget so that we can progress and not repeat history. We must work together for equality.
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I think Halberstam’s claim about women being put into power isn’t as progressive as we think it is really stuck with me. I’d like to think having women in power does make a difference but as Professor Howard pointed out from the Audre Lorde reading: “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” We’re still feeding into the system. Sometimes it seems like all we’re doing to frantically trying to fix a leak in the Titanic. We hit that iceberg, man. It’s done for. You can’t seal up a few cracks and expect the ship to be fine. (Okay, so the metaphor doesn’t entirely fit if you consider our society to be created to serve certain people and that it was ALWAYS inherently broken whereas the Titanic was made to be indestructible, but, you know). Can we keep trying to fix a system that never served everyone in the first place? Change is a scary concept especially if we’re considering upheaving an entire way of life. It’s definitely something to think about.
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Although I see where you are coming from, I do not think that just because women are in power that nothing would get done.. or the right thing would not be addressed. I think that women are not given the respect and chance that they deserve to prove to people that they can get the same job as men done just as well. Even though it may take some time for society to realize women are just as proficient in the work force as men, the more people that are in support, the more the “norm” of men being in power will subside. By not giving women the chance they deserve, us women are literally making it worse for ourselves later in life. I believe that the less negative we are about women in power that faster people with end up supporting us and our decisions to be involved with great power.
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