What makes you want to be a CRIS major or minor?

I’m born and raised in Hong Kong and went to high school in England, so coming to Beloit’s been a big cultural shock for me. I chose Beloit because I was interested in the Women and Gender Studies program, which is now CRIS, as it is something unheard of and is not something my previous schools have focused on discussing. This results in me not being exposed to the different social identities and I’d like to know more about it. I think that through conversations in Sustained Dialogue/ with my peers do educate me, but I do want to learn about social identities and how it affects our society in a more academic way.

If you’ve already taken CRIS courses, what has been your favorite reading orassignment? Why? OR, what CRIS course do you look forward to taking? Why?

 

“My Mother Liked to Fuck” by Joan Nestle has been one of my favorite articles in CRIS 165 (Sex & Power). First of all, the title itself captures my attention: it is not something I’m used to reading. Nestles shares her experience of being raised by her single mother, and described her mother as a “working woman who liked to fuck” (470), as well as someone that believed she had the right to do whatever that pleased her. Nestle’s mother live an extremely sexual life– a life that our society looks down upon. However, this allows me to reflect on why this is the case– why can women not openly express their sexual desires when it is often praised as ‘masculine’ for men to brag about their sex lives. As a woman myself, I believe that women do not deserve to be oppressed in what they are passionate about, and this article most definitely echoes my thoughts.

What are your CRIS learning goals?

I have a couple of CRIS learning goals. First, I’d like to be able to write better to get my ideas across. A lot of the concepts I’ve studied in Sex & Power last semester were, and still are very foreign to me, so it is difficult for me to write about/ present them. Hopefully being more exposed to even more theories and through the writing assignments in class, I’ll be able to meet this goal.

Second of all, I’d like to have the ability to raise awareness and educate people about the many social identities that are unheard of. As mentioned above, I’ve grown up in environments where everything’s very binary/ traditional. I’d like to be able to stand in front of people that are/ will be in the same position as I was before, and share with them what I have learnt in all of my CRIS classes.

I think that the Sex & Power course that I took last semester has already helped me in initiating my second goal. I’ve been able to share what I’ve learnt in class along with my own ideas to my peers and my parents. Even though after a long conversation, my mother still cannot grasp the idea of gender fluidity, I believe that taking more CRIS classes will only enable me to become a better debater.

What do you want to do with your CRIS knowledge/skills in your post-Beloit life?

I think that the analytical and writing skills I will be practicing through CRIS classes will benefit me immensely in whatever I decide to do in my post-Beloit life. Careerwise, I am thinking about working for non-profit organizations that promote woman’s rights. However, I am not totally sure if this is definitely the path I’m going to take by the end of senior year.

What would you tell other students thinking about majoring or minoring in CRIS?

Everyone has multiple, if not hundreds, of idenitites. In our society nowadays, a lot of these social identities are being surpressed, mostly because they are unheard of and/ or do not fit into the binary system that we tend to categorize everything into. Majoring/ minoring in CRIS would allow you to get a deeper insight of what these various identities are, and how they are affecting people around us/ ourselves.