Assignment Takeaway

ATA5:For Assignment five I chose to study gender inequality in India. I learned about how gender inequality affects much of how India functions to the point where females have a higher chance of being aborted compared to males. Academically it puts into perspective of the privilege’s I have as a female presenting person especially compared to other countries where I may not even get the chance to attend school. It puts life into perspective and although there are gender issues to address in the United States, it could always be worse.

ATA4:For Assignment four I chose not to do the assignment as I got overwhelmed by not being able to find ads that I felt were portraying different genders that I could cite from other countries. I felt lose on how to do the assignment. I believe if this were to happen again for another class, I would go ahead and contact the professor but do to the nature of being able to not do one assignment for this class, I did not.

ATA3: For Assignment three I had to analyze a blog of someone studying abroad. I chose Tiffany Buturla as she studied in Tokyo, Japan. From this assignment I learned how much living in a different culture, even just for two months, can change someone’s worldview. She began to understood where you can be apart of a collectivist society while still being able to have alone time. I believe this helps with my academic life as it makes me more ambitious in going forward into a studying abroad experience for myself.

ATA2: For Assignment two I had to identify a value from what Robert Kohls believed to be United States values in his article, The Values Americans Live by. From this assignment I learned how much it was important to me that people be direct, open, and honest with me and how much my personal trauma persuaded that need for me. The personal trauma from being lied to about who my parents are and how much distrust in people it gave me genuinely has caused me to need those close to me to not lie to me, to the point of needing brutal honesty to feel safe in relationships and friendships. Because of this it hasn’t been until recently that I have put down my walls enough to trust again and not question if every thing a person near to me says. 

ATA1: For Assignment one I had to identify where I felt I laid in a stage of Intercultural Sensitivity. I read through Milton J. Bennett’s A Developmental Model Of Intercultural Sensitivity. From this assignment I learned I am at a stage that I am accepting of differences, but not necessarily ready to be multicultural and I am not sure I will ever be at that level of understanding and adopting of certain ways. What I mean is I am not sure I am able to identify when I am crossing a line of appreciating a culture versus appropriating it (e.g. dreadlocks) and I never want to offend someone of another culture. I mention dreadlocks as it is a popular point of discussion in  on whether or not dreadlocks are appropriate for white folk to wear. I believe this falls into the fact that people of color have been discriminated on the basis of their hair, dreadlocks being a common practice, and that it comes off as disrespectful of different cultures with primarily people of color as it is not usually seen as a point of contention when white folk had dreads, but it is when people of color do. Until that prejudice is erased, I believe that being accepting of differences is more important than being multicultural with respect. 

Assignment #1_Bennett