¶ … Latin American woman who is interested in a cultural studies program. This has not changed, and in fact, this course has helped me to deepen my understanding of diversity and helped me to understand more about gender roles and norms from a cross-cultural perspective. I have learned that there are no universal constants, and that even within cultures there can be a great diversity of experience as we saw with Monday's Girls and the difference between Florence and Azikiye. Likewise, the differences between the rich and poor gay men in Manila shows how even within the same culture, there can be a great variety of experiences and points-of-view. The most difficult concept for me as I continue my studies will be cultural relativism or ethical relativism. It is difficult to withhold judgments, especially when we believe that a way of life or worldview is harmful. On the one hand, there is an ideal of equality and freedom and yet on the other hand, we need to respect diversity and tradition. Even after encountering the different case studies in this course, I do not know exactly how I feel about issues like creating universal norms for gender equality. Is it better to promote gender equality, or is it better to preserve traditional cultures even when they oppress women? This difficulty between tradition and modernity regarding gender roles was felt most when learning about the Waikiriki people in the film Monday's Girls. In this film, I saw that two people from the same cultural group can develop vastly different identities even if they grow up in the same community. Florence and Azikiye represent the different points-of-view related to customs and traditions. I have known many people who are more traditional in their outlook, and others who are more progressive. Ironically, though, Azikiye's point-of-view is based on Christian values and norms, which are technically more conservative than the more traditional ways of lfie of Florence and the village people. In some ways, Christianity and other proselytizing religions have imposed patriarchal norms on societies that might otherwise be more egalitarian in nature. It has been disappointingly difficult to find cultures that are truly egalitarian, in the sense that men and women can choose their own destinies. Instead, we see that most cultures in the world have gender roles that are strict and rigid. It is hard to break out of those gender roles, particularly in conservative or traditional cultures.

When I started the course, I wanted to learn more about cultural relativism, or the ways that we as scholars need to be objective when we study different cultures. I believe that I have realized how difficult it is to be objective. We all have biases based on our culture of origin or our opinions. For instance, in Under Bright Lights, author Bobby Benedicto acknowledges that it is hard for Philippine people to move away from their class-based social hierarchies. Whereas in the United States, class is something that people do not talk about or believe is a thing of the past, class is important in most other societies. I believe that many cultures are traditional, in the sense that social hierarchies are entrenched and taken so much for granted that people forget that those are simply arbitrary schemas that evolved over time and not immutable realities or truths. A poor person is not stupid or unworthy; they simply have had fewer opportunities versus wealthy persons. The same could be said of gender, such as when women are brought up to believe that they are better at helping others than they are at being in a position of power. I had not expected a course on gender to address the wide gamut of experiences and especially did not expect to learn about gender and sexuality in different cultural perspectives like those in Under Bright Lights and in Monday's Girls. Gender is a deep topic, and my learning objectives when I started the course seem simple now that I see how many areas of our lives are impacted by gender.

One of the topics I expected to study in depth, and which I did learn a lot more about, was the ways gender and power are related. We have learned that in some societies, being born a male child automatically bestows power on the person in the same way that being born into a wealthy family can bestow an automatic power in the person. In the future, I would like to read more about the Scandinavian societies, which seem to have moved away from the gender and social class hierarchies. Those hierarchies still...

In Under Bright Lights, Benedicto portrays the intersection of race, class, gender, power, and sexuality. Of all the readings, this book had a profound impact on me personally because these are all issues I had yet to explore in any depth. When I first started on the course readings, I understood that gender was socially constructed but did not see the extent to which social construction of gender impacts every level of personal and collective identity. I had also given insufficient consideration between the differences between sexual orientation and gender. This reading helped me to see that sexual orientation and gender have a complex relationship. On the one hand, heterosexuality is considered normative and therefore any expression of intimacy that does not conform to heterosexuality is labeled as deviant. On the other hand, Benedicto seems to show that being male and wealthy means having a privilege that is independent from one's sexual orientation. In other words, being a gay man in the Philippines does not injure one's social status but being from a disadvantaged background does.
I would like to learn more about the ways different cultures perceive of gender. Until this course, I imagined that the binary male/female was fairly consistent across different cultures. Now I see that there are many different concepts of gender, and our biases sometimes prevent us from recognizing the differences. I am also seeing how gender is something that we all "do" as in the performativity theory. We learn from a very early age that we are supposed to conform to our gender, and this can create serious problems psychologically for some people. I believe that my future learning goals will include more about the psychological experiences of gender and sexuality as well as the sociological experiences. I could understand why both Florence and Azikiye felt the ways they did, for example. Florence feels that the "fattening" is a source of personal pride, whereas Azikiye identifies more with the Western Christian mentality. These differences can create social conflicts in traditional communities and potentially threaten social harmony, which is something that I wanted to consider when I first started this course. I also started this course believing that I would be armed with more tools that could help me promote social harmony.

Another way that my learning goals have changed is by expanding them to be more sociological in nature and less about simply learning about other cultures without applying the theories of sociology. For instance, Benedicto shows how gay men sometimes neglect to realize their class privileges. This is a sociological issue that illustrates the ways gender, class, and power are all related but in different ways depending on the culture. I have come to realize that gender is another social category that is used as a way to create social hierarchies and therefore enable one group to have power over another. In some societies, such as Western societies like the United States, it is easy to move up or down a social ladder. In cultures like the Waikiriki, it is difficult if not impossible to do so. People from Western cultures believe that egalitarianism is the goal, but in Waikiriki society, harmony is much more important than equality. As someone who still wants to study about geography and different cultures, I need to remember that not all societies value equality as much as our culture does.

One of my earliest learning objectives was to discover ways to promote social harmony and eliminate oppression. I think that the goal I had seems naive now, and yet I do not want to give up on this valuable objective. People who work for the United Nations, for example, work with gender issues to promote awareness around the world. Half the human population has been systematically disempowered through restrictions on access to economic and political power. Without judging customs and traditions, it is nevertheless possible to establish gender equity as a basic human right. Culture is not an excuse for oppression. Because one of the things I spoke about in the first Module was cultural relativism, I do believe I have achieved the objective of thinking more critically about this issue. It is important to raise awareness about gender issues without imposing our own values and beliefs on others. For example, it is possible to promote gender equality in Muslim societies without being…