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I was having a conversation with a friend and they were talking about the idea of “breaking the glass ceiling” and I was immediately inspired to incorporate it into my piece. Ultimately, what I decided to do was incorporate a simple but yet meaningful crack in the glass mirror. This is meant to represent the glass ceiling, and how in society, I feel as though women have cracked the glass ceiling, but have not actually broken through as the common stereotype suggests. This correlates back to my final project since my major theme is that women in society have experienced a lot of progress towards equality, but yet there are still so many more steps to go. The glass ceiling might be broken through for White wealthy women for example, but for low income, or women of color, they are not experiencing that same level of progress. Connecting this back to the quote, we as women need to work together and recognize that progress for some is not enough, and we must build up all women in order to truly break through the glass ceiling. Although the cracked mirror has a simplistic look, I feel as though it is a conceptual and meaningful way to express the core ideas of my final project, which in my opinion is what is most important about art. Throughout this entire project, I have learned just how hard it is schedule time to be creative and actually come up with an interesting concept. This idea presented itself in an organic, natural way and I felt immediately inspired which I hope is communicated to my audience.

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Nameless Pain by Elizabeth Drew Barstow Stoddard

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Nameless Pain by Elizabeth Drew Barstow Stoddard

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When looking through the Poetry Foundation website, this poem really resonated with me. This poem spoke about how so often women feel that their only roles in society are being a wife and a mother, but cannot explore anything other than that. They feel stuck in an ongoing cycle of the same things with no changes in their lives whatsoever. As a woman, she feels like she has no power and no role in society other than caring for her family. This takes a huge toll on someone’s self worth:  living in a society where women are made to feel inferior and powerless, it is difficult to escape these thoughts. This poem resonates with me because, often in society, women feel useless unless they are actively in the “caregiver role”, but yet men have no issue exploring and ultimately finding their role in society without caring for others. The final lines in the poem, “I still should pine if any other lots were mine” connects back to our foundational theme of how no matter how much progress women have made, we can’t be complacent because we still have so much further to go.

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Rupi Kaur, a young poet, received mass popularity from her book Milk and Honey (2014). I personally love her poems because I feel as though they send such powerful messages in so few words, which in my opinion is an amazing talent. This poem specifically stood out to me because she captures female success while noticing how our country still fails women. She expressed how she is truly so grateful be able to do what she wants as a woman today because so many women before her fought with their lives for us to have the life that they only dreamed of. She then discussed how although she is grateful, she wants to do more so that the women to come after her can do things she cannot but wish to do. This captures so perfectly how we have come so far, but yet there is much more to do so that one day being a female will not be seen as being a part of an oppressed group, but as an equal group to their male counterparts.

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Throughout history, one of the ongoing fights has been for women’s rights and equality. Women have shifted so drastically throughout history in their roles in society. They have shifted from solely being housewives to having the opportunity to be the CEO’s of companies and being in charge of thousands of men. Although this is quite an impressive shift in women’s roles and power in society, we still often receive the short end of the stick. Even though we have made a huge shift hundreds of years later, there is still a major pay gap and discrimination in the work place which severely impacts a woman’s ability to do her job, just because men see her as less then because of her gender. Additionally, women do have a much larger say about how they are represented in the media, but they are still often seen as sex objects or a prize as opposed to a capable, intelligent person just like how any man would be shown in the media. These are just a few examples that show how women have progressed, but we are still nowhere near true equality. Throughout this exhibition, the artifacts will represent the various aspects of how we have progressed in some aspects, but how we have almost regressed in others.

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Jane Sojka - Empowering Women Benefits Everyone

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Jane Sojka - Empowering Women Benefits Everyone

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This TED talk focused on how women are more likely to fear failure, so we need to teach them confidence more than males, but this isn’t the main thing that stood out to me. What stood out to me was how she didn’t blame the reasons on men and didn’t think that we should blame men for problems that women have like fearing failure and being less resilient. Sometimes we will see people who claim to be feminists treat men poorly and blame things on them, just like men sometimes do to women. I feel like it is important to empower women without degrading men because we want to support everyone, it shouldn’t be a society where one group needs to put another down in order to succeed. At the end, she mentions that it shouldn’t be us vs them but should be about working together to build each other up, and I feel like that’s a very important aspect that sometimes people forget because they think we have to choose but in reality we can all work together to help and benefit everyone.

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Why do so few women negotiate their first job when compared to men and more important, what can we do about it? Jane Sojka has found that resiliency and overcoming fear of failure are teachable skills and she discusses how her college students have learned to become confident.

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Rosie the Riviter although well known, should not go unnoticed in the women’s movement in our society. The “We Can Do It!” art by J. Howard Miller was created for propoganda purposes during World War II, but there was no way he could understand the impact it would have on generations to come. This was a symbol for women who were used to working in the home to illustrate that they could go into the workforce and do the same jobs as men. This really allowed for women to do the same jobs that men were and showed them how strong and powerful women are. Although there are still many issues in the workplace when comparing men and women’s experiences, I don’t believe that we as a country would be where we are today without this empowering art to women all across America.

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One of Lizzo’s top hits “Good as Hell” has been featured at award shows, has made it to the top of the Billboard Charts, and so much more. Not only does it have a great beat and melody, but what makes me really love it is the lyrics and the depth of them that empower women. One particular lyric that stood out to me was “if he don’t love you anymore, just walk your fine ass out the door.” This shows women that they don’t need anyone other than themselves, especially if someone doesn’t give them the respect they deserve. It also shows that you can love yourself no matter who tells that you shouldn’t, and I think that is an extremely important message to spread to our youth today. To tell young people that they don’t need to have their lives depend on a significant other, but that they need to focus on themselves is an incredibly important sentiment.

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Lizzo - Good As Hell (Official Music Video)

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This song, although more than 50 years old, is still well known and often played due to the pure empowerment of women that it portrays through the lyrics. It is really saying how she is her own woman and no man is going to tell her what to do just because he is a man. She also talks about how she doesn’t want to be treated like an object or a trophy, and that she is a real person and has the simple demand of being treated like one. Not only is this song so empowering in 2020, but the fact that she wrote it in the 60s shows how even more of a badass she really is.

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“In line at the drugstore it’s finally your turn, and then it’s not as he walks in front of you and puts his things on the counter. The cashier says, Sir, she was next. When he turns to you he is truly surprised. Oh my God, I didn’t see you. You must be in a hurry, you offer. No, no, no, I really didn’t see you.” - Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric, pg 77

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“In line at the drugstore it’s finally your turn, and then it’s not as he walks in front of you and puts his things on the counter. The cashier says, Sir, she was next. When he turns to you he is truly surprised. Oh my God, I didn’t see you. You must be in a hurry, you offer. No, no, no, I really didn’t see you.” - Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric, pg 77

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After reading Citizen, this one quote constantly remained in my memory because I was able to relate with it so much. So often women, unless they are “gorgeous” ( by society’s standard, of course ) will be quite literally overlooked and forgotten about like we are seeing here in the quote. I think it is so important to recognize and respect everyone’s presence, regardless of how they look and dress, but to see them for who they really are. People often forget about what is on the inside and only look at external aspects in order to make judgments of a person. I would hope that sometime in the near future we can get to a place where people won’t just be ignored, and everyone will be seen as a human being with respect and dignity, so that people won’t feel invisible like they do in our society today.

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“There are things that can only be understood retrospectively, when many years have passed and the story has ended. In the meantime, while the story continues, the only thing to do is tell it over and over again as it develops, bifurcated, knots around itself. And it must be told, because before anything can be understood, it has to be narrated many times, in many different words and from many different angles, by many different minds.” -Valeria Luiselli, Tell Me How It Ends An Essay In Forty Questions, pg 96-97

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“There are things that can only be understood retrospectively, when many years have passed and the story has ended. In the meantime, while the story continues, the only thing to do is tell it over and over again as it develops, bifurcated, knots around itself. And it must be told, because before anything can be understood, it has to be narrated many times, in many different words and from many different angles, by many different minds.” -Valeria Luiselli, Tell Me How It Ends An Essay In Forty Questions, pg 96-97

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This quote quite honestly perfectly describe the purpose of learning about history. Although often people say “history is so boring and repetitive” and even if that is true the repetitive part is what is important. We hope that if we keep telling stories about the Holocaust, slavery, etc. people will start to see how horrible these things are and how we need to take action to prevent the bad moments in history and encourage the positive moments in history. Clearly since there is still so much hate in this country, I think it is now more important than ever to tell these stories and educate people to prevent tragedies.

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“That’s the problem. We let people say stuff, and they say it so much that it becomes okay to them and normal for us. What’s the point of having a voice if you’re gonna be silent in those moments you shouldn’t be?” - Angie Thomas, the hate u give pg 252

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“That’s the problem. We let people say stuff, and they say it so much that it becomes okay to them and normal for us. What’s the point of having a voice if you’re gonna be silent in those moments you shouldn’t be?” - Angie Thomas, the hate u give pg 252

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This quote really resonates with where we are as a society right now. For some astonishing reason, people consider it acceptable to use extremely derogatory terms just because they hear others use it, and because our society is attempting to normalize some of those horrific terms that have been used for hate throughout centuries. I think that, just like the author said, we should be using our voices for good and not to just hurt others. I think it is important to add that even if it isn’t your group or your people being discriminated against, it is still so important to stand up for others especially if you stand in a position of privilege. Using your privilege for good, and not wasting it by spewing useless, horrific words that can only harm people needs to be the goal.

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Neurosexism: the myth that men and women have different brains 

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Neurosexism: the myth that men and women have different brains 

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This article really stayed with me throughout the semester because I feel like it is a huge myth that we are told that actually benefits males. Often, when men do something like start fights and yell at others, people will make the excuse of “boys will be boys” and contribute it to how they have different brains but in reality, this is extremely false. This just gives men another one up in society by giving them an out for a mistake that a woman can’t use in the same argument. One quote that stood out to me was “the brain is no more gendered than the liver or kidneys or heart.” This really shows how there is no difference, yet people perpetuate this idea in society to once again benefit men and hinder women.

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This article, although it was read earlier in the semester, really stuck with me. I was fascinated with how these men had experienced being physically male and female, so were able to see some huge differences in how they were treated by others when they were male vs when they were female. The section I found most interesting was their experiences in the work place. These men talked about how they felt that their mistakes as a man went unnoticed and their successes were actually amplified. This is just one example that shows how women have to work so much harder to get their ideas in the workplace heard and acknowledged by their male counterparts. One quote I found in the article that really summed it all up for me was “as a man you’re assumed to be competent unless proven otherwise, whereas as a women you’re presumed to be incompetent unless proven otherwise.” This just shows how women already start off in the workplace at a disadvantage in comparison to men.

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Three guys are sitting at a Harlem bartop eating fries, drinking whiskey and talking about love. One of them, Bryce Richardson, is about to propose to his girlfriend.

"I'm putting it together in my head, I'm like: 'He's gonna be one of my groomsmen, he's gonna be one of my groomsmen,'" he points to his two friends and grins. The other men light up when they hear the news and start talking about rings, how much they cost, will it be princess cut or pear shaped? Pictures are Googled, phones are passed around. "That was one of my dreams, to get married, to be somebody's husband, to be somebody's father," says one of the friends, Redd Barrett. "From when I was like 12, I used to think about that all the time."

I ask the groom-to-be how he knew his girlfriend was the one. They met at work, he says, and by the time he came out to her, they were already in love. "I said 'I'm trans, and you're not gonna want me anyway," he recalls, unable to keep the smile off his face. "And she said 'I'm in love with you, I don't care about that.'" His friend Tiq nods and says, "That's your wife, right there."

All three men are trans. But if they hadn't said so, you wouldn't have known.

Over the last three years, transgender awareness has exploded. From Orange is the New Black to Transparent, from Janet Mock to Caitlyn Jenner, America has a growing fascination with the lives of transgender people, most recently in light of recent debates over controversial bathroom laws. But the spotlight on trans issues has mostly been focused on transgender women, and transgender men have been largely left out of the narrative. Our cultural obsession with feminine beauty contributes to the imbalance. "Women's appearances get more attention, women's actions are commented on and critiqued more than men, so in that world it just makes sense that people will focus more on trans women than trans men," says Julia Serano, a transgender activist and author of Whipping Girl. (Because most surveys ask people to identify as male or female but not cisgender or transgender, the size of the transgender population in America is unclear, though one study suggests there are about 700,000 trans people in the U.S.; it's nearly impossible to know how many of them are trans men.)

Yet experiences of trans men can provide a unique window into how gender functions in American society. In the last few months, I've interviewed nearly two dozen trans men and activists about work, relationships and family. Over and over again, men who were raised and socialized as female described all the ways they were treated differently as soon as the world perceived them as male. They gained professional respect, but lost intimacy. They exuded authority, but caused fear. From courtrooms to playgrounds to prisons to train stations, at work and at home, with friends and alone, trans men reiterated how fundamentally different it is to experience the world as a man.

"Cultural sexism in the world is very real when you've lived on both sides of the coin," says Tiq Milan, a friend of the future groom.

And that cultural sexism is often more visible to trans men, because most say they find it easier to be low-disclosure than trans women. They're often not recognized as trans, which means they can be less vulnerable to obvious transphobia. Some call it "passing" or "going stealth"; others say those terms suggest secrecy or deception, preferring the term "low or no disclosure." In practice, this means that a 6'2" woman is often more conspicuous than a 5'4" man. James Ward, a lawyer in San Francisco who transitioned about six years ago, put it this way: "We have the ability to just walk through the world and not have anybody look at you twice."

One day in court, Ward and his opposing counsel were making a big request to a judge. Ward knew their question would not go over well, so he wasn't surprised when she reprimanded both him and his opposing counsel for asking. What he didn't expect was for the opposing counsel lean over to him and call the judge the c-word. "We weren't out the courtroom door when he said that to me under his breath," Ward says. "He never would have said that when I was female."

Many trans men I spoke with said they had no idea how rough women at work had it until they transitioned. As soon as they came out as men, they found their missteps minimized and their successes amplified. Often, they say, their words carried more weight: They seemed to gain authority and professional respect overnight. They also saw confirmation of the sexist attitudes they had long suspected: They recalled hearing female colleagues belittled by male bosses, or female job applicants called names.

"If I'm going off-the cuff, no-one really questions it," Ward says. "It's taken as, 'He's saying it, so it must be true.' Whereas while I was practicing as female, it was 'Show me your authority, you don't know any better yet.'"

Mitch Davis is now a director of organizational development at Planned Parenthood Federation of America in New York City, but he's worked in HR for many different companies since coming out eight years ago. In one previous job, he heard his boss call female colleagues "old cows" and refer to a middle-aged job applicant as "Dame Edna" after she'd left an interview. "Evidently men say things like that to each other all the time," he says.

Other trans men say they've heard male co-workers sexualize female colleagues when no women are present. "There's some crude humor, some crass humor," says Cameron Combs, an IT consultant in Olympia, Washington. He says he's heard male colleagues do "appraisals" of women in the office or observe how female co-workers used their "womanly wiles" to rise up the ladder, conversations he says he never would have heard when he was a woman. "When they saw me as female, it was kind of an automatic stop," he says. "It's a little less censored, the jokes I hear, the comments."

Some trans men have noticed the professional benefits of maleness. James Gardner is a newscaster in Victoria, Canada, who had been reading the news as Sheila Gardner for almost three decades before he transitioned at 54. As soon as he began hosting as a man, he stopped getting as many calls from men pointing out tiny errors. "It was always male callers to Sheila saying I had screwed up my grammar, correcting me," he says. "I don't get as many calls to James correcting me. I'm the same person, but the men are less critical of James."

Dana Delgardo is a family nurse practitioner and Air Force captain who transitioned three years ago. Since his transition, he's noticed that his female patients are less open with him about their sexual behavior, but his bosses give him more responsibility. "All of a sudden, I'm the golden child," he says. "I have been with this company for 6 years, no ever recommended me for management. Now I'm put into a managerial position where I could possibly be a regional director."

Trans women have long observed the flip side of this reality. Joan Roughgarden, a professor emerita of biology at Stanford and a transgender woman, says it became much more difficult to publish her work when she was writing under a female name. "When I would write a paper and submit it to a journal it would be almost automatically accepted," she said of the time when she had a man's name. "But after I transitioned, all of a sudden papers were running into more trouble, grant proposals were running into more trouble, the whole thing was getting more difficult."

"As a man, you're assumed to be competent unless proven otherwise," she says. "Whereas as a woman you're presumed to be incompetent unless proven otherwise."

HOW MEN THINK

Every transgender man interviewed for this story said he wasn't just treated differently after he transitioned-he felt different, too. Those who had taken testosterone treatments said they noticed psychological changes that came with the medical transition. Most trans men said that after they took hormone treatments they felt more sure of themselves and slightly more aggressive than they had been before the treatment.

"After transitioning I was able to think more clearly, I was more decisive," says the radio newscaster Gardner. He says the shift has affected his daily routine, even for something as ordinary as a trip to the grocery store. Before he transitioned, he says, he used to spend 45 minutes debating which pasta sauce to buy, which vegetables were the freshest. "I would stand there and look at the different varieties of yogurt," he recalls. "Now I just grab one. I'm looking for utility, I don't second-guess myself."

"As a female there was black and white and everything in between. When I started taking the hormones, it was more black and white," he explains, adding: "If I get into a disagreement with someone at work, I don't have that feeling afterwards of, 'I hope I didn't hurt his or her feelings.' I'm not a worrier as much as I was in the female body."

Of course, Gardner's story is unique to his own experience, and not all trans men who take testosterone have noticed quite so dramatic a shift. But men's testosterone levels do have a significant influence on some traits and behaviors that are associated with masculinity. A small recent study on trans men taking T therapy showed changes in the brain structure of those undergoing medical transition-though whether those changes lead to the effects trans men described to me is not yet proven.

The changes in patients taking testosterone are strikingly consistent, says Dr. Joshua Safer, director of the Endocrinology Fellowship Training Program at Boston University. Dr. Safer has treated hundreds of people with testosterone for more than a decade, and says he observes his patients becoming more decisive and more aggressive under testosterone treatment, though he laments the lack of data to back up this observation.

"I feel a sense of urgency, like I just want to kind of do it and get it done," Tiq Milan says, adding that he was surprised at the personality change when he transitioned at 25. "I wasn't expecting testosterone to have such an effect on how I think."

WALK LIKE A MAN

Most trans men I spoke to also identified another commonality: Once they transitioned, walking became easier, but talking became harder. To be more specific: walking home after dark felt easier, casually talking to babies, strangers and friends felt harder.

"I have to be very careful to not be staring at kids," says Gardner. "I can look at a mom and her baby, but I can't look for too long. I miss being seen as not a threat." Ditto for kids on the playground and puppies, multiple guys said.

And to a man, everyone said they'd experienced a moment when they were walking at night behind a woman, and suddenly realized that she was walking faster or clutching her purse because she was scared.

"If I start to get too close, I can feel her fear, I can feel that she's getting upset," says Milan. "And it's really just an indication of how dangerous this world is for women."

As a trans man of color, Milan says he feels that the world perceives him as a menace, and his interactions with police officers have gotten much more fraught. "I've had people make assumptions that I was dangerous or I was a criminal. I've been followed around stores. I've seen white women who look physically scared, visibly shaken if there's just the two of us in a elevator," he says. "You can't even ask a cop for directions as a black man."

He says that before he transitioned he was catcalled on the street, but he didn't feel like people assumed he was a criminal. "When I walk down the street no one knows that I'm a trans black man, people just see me as a black man," he says. "So when we're looking at all of this horrible police violence, it's scary."

Dana Delgardo also says that being a man of color comes with new problems. "I bought a Porsche convertible and I'm afraid to be out late at night after having one cocktail driving that car," he says. "It deters me from doing things that I think a Caucasian male could probably do without fear of being pulled over by the police."

Many white trans men said they felt it was easier to walk through the world, freed from the myriad expectations placed on women.

"As a female I felt I had to smile all the time, just to be accepted," James Gardner said. "As a male I don't feel a sense of having to be pleasant to look at."

Many also noticed a shift in their friendships after they transitioned, with some struggling to make friends with cisgender men, unsure of the social cues of male friendship.

"I'm still trying to figure out all of the different secret codes that guys use to talk to each other and to make friendships," says Mitchell Davis. "But I still I don't know what the language is. I don't know what that punch on the arm meant." He says he doesn't know what a close male friendship looks like, only that it probably looks different than a close female friendship.

For Milan, male friendship has been mostly positive, but occasionally alarming. While he says most cisgender men he meets are fairly respectful of women even behind closed doors, he's also noticed what he describes as a culture of toxic masculinity. "I've heard men say things about slapping a woman or cheating on women in the most brutal ways and think it's okay," Milan says.

"Being privy to the conversations that men have amongst themselves really does give me an indication of how they think about women," he says. "And sometimes it can be really scary."

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Trans Men Confirm All Your Worst Fears About Sexism

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Three guys are sitting at a Harlem bartop eating fries, drinking whiskey and talking about love. One of them, Bryce Richardson, is about to propose to his girlfriend. "I'm putting it together in my head, I'm like: 'He's gonna be one of my groomsmen, he's gonna be one of my groomsmen,'" he points to his two friends and grins.

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This photograph taken by Mickalene Thomas does a beautiful job at capturing the realistic female body. A huge issue in our society today, especially with social media taking over like never before, is this unrealistic standard of beauty. Society sets this very narrow range that is considered beautiful and if you are too dark, too light, too skinny, too big, etc., society does not view you as beautiful. This picture does a great job at showing that beauty does come in all shapes and sizes, and you don’t need to fit into society’s mold of beauty to show off and model your body and feel confident in who you are.

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This poem from 1971 perfectly depicts the feelings of women of all ages in society today. Once you hit the age where your body starts changing, girls will often feel pressured by society’s beauty standards to find something about their physical appearance they want to change. This poem talks about how the author has all of these amazing qualities:  being strong, healthy, and intelligent, but yet none of that matters to her because her nose and legs were too big for her (in reality, for society’s beauty standards). I think it is also interesting to note that her discomfort with her nose could very well play into her Jewish identity since Jewish people are often stereotyped as having bigger noses. Later in the poem, she wrote about how she cut off her nose and legs, referring to how society’s standards of beauty are physically impossible to meet, but yet women will do anything to try and reach these standards. The last few lines, “Doesn’t she look pretty? everyone asked... To every woman a happy ending,” perfectly illustrates how aspiring for beauty is the ultimate goal for women because society demonstrates time and time again that that is a woman’s ultimate purpose:  to be beautiful.