Final Post

For my final post I decided to go over everything that I have learned through the course of this class and the research I have done through my blog. I have thoroughly enjoyed this course and the many discussions we have had but beyond that I have learned a lot by keeping this blog. This was a new experience for me, I have never been a blogger before this but I have taken a liking to it and I have found it a very useful place to get information about many different topics particularly different opinions.
Through my blog I learned so much about women and the different struggles they have to go through in the workforce. I enjoyed taking a look at the different aspects of the workplace and not just focusing on the typical office setting. I was able to expand my research to areas that I had never thought of before this assignment. I did research on the WNBA, NASCAR, the Olympics, the military, and many different women icons/ role models. Some of the most shocking information I found had to do with the military because I view that as a government run agency that should be free of corruption and crime although it seems to be laced with it. The many different stories I read of different kinds of abuse against women that happen frequently and just the unfairness that goes on was appalling. The particular story about PVC Brown was incredibly disheartening and leads me to believe there are many more cases just like hers out there. I hope that the media will catch on to this problem and somehow the military will be cracked open and the corruption will cease.
Overall, I have really enjoyed my time in the class and my time researching and writing my blog. This has heightened my awareness of women’s issues in the workforce and I will keep my eye out for more research and news in the media.

Women in the Olympics

I chose to focus this blog on women in the Olympics. This history of women becoming involved in the Olympic Games is very interesting and I found a very informative website giving a timeline of important dates leading up to women in the Olympics. Through my research I found that women were not allowed to participate in the Olympic Games until 1900 in Paris. 19 women participated in these games and are marked as the first women Olympic competitors. These women were only given the option to compete in two categories, tennis and golf. The very first American woman Olympic medalist is Margaret Abbot in golf, this was the only year golf was played at the Olympics. Margaret’s award for winning was a bowl of Old Saxon porcelain mounted in chiseled gold. In 1904 archery had been added to the list that women could participate in so Lida Scott Howell took part in the games and won two gold medals taking the title of the first American woman Olympic gold medalist. Carrying on to more firsts for women in the Olympics takes us to 1924 Paris games where Helen Willis won a gold medal for singles and doubles in tennis and was the first woman to do so.
I find all of these women completely extraordinary and remarkable leaders of their time. They are the pioneers of women sport and competition and they were the first women to take leisure sport to the competitive level. It was these women that set the path for all other women athletes to come, particularly Olympic women athletes. I do find it amazing that women continually have to overcome obstacles in every line of work they do whether it is sports or in the office. The one thing that shocked me the most about this post was that women were participating in 1900, considering how long it took to a professional women’s basketball league to be created I would have assumed Olympics were out of the question until much more recently but I was pleased to find these dates. I loved reading about this topic and I learned a lot.

Women's Rights Blog

http://www.womensrightsblog.net/

I decided to focus once again on a blog surrounding women’s rights but this time focusing on the military aspect. This particular blog I found very interesting because it speaks to many different issues women face today. One of the most recent postings discusses the story of PFC. Monica Brown who is 18 years old. Monica is a medic and while serving her country over in Afghanistan she ran through a hail of gunfire to help her fellow soldiers in a disabled and burning vehicle. These wounded soldiers happened to also be male, when she returned from Afghanistan she was praised for her duties. Vice President Dick Cheney pinned Monica with the Silver Star (which is the third highest award in our country for combat) for her bravery. Soon after this happened Monica was told she probably shouldn’t have been there to begin with, yet she gets to keep the Silver Star. Monica is only the second woman to receive this award since WWII. Just a few days after her heroic mission the Army pulled Brown out of her cavalry unit and said because she was a woman she was barred from these missions. I find it very interesting that right after she saves countless male lives, while risking her own several times, she is sent home because she can’t handle these missions due to the fact she is a woman. What happens if there is another incident like before and those men need saving? I wonder if they thought through this or if they were just too concerned with their egos and made a quick decision. They said the reasoning for her being on the last mission in which she saved so many lives was because they had to because they didn’t have any other medics. I find this ridiculous and clearly such rules as these need to be further looked at and changed because clearly women are more than capable of fighting and saving lives.