Introduction

Hi. My name is Samantha Hark, but I prefer being called Sam (the only person who calls me Samantha is my mother when she's furious). I'm a music education major with a concentration in voice. I also play the piano and the ukulele sometimes. I consider myself a feminist, but above all a humanist. I'm not really that interesting.

The reason I took this class was to fulfill my Western Civ CCC requirement, and the topic seemed interesting to me. However, this was a bit different than I was expecting. That's not a bad thing, but I'm a tiny bit wary and a little nervous as to how the subject of women in writing will be dealt with in terms of gender vs. sex. (IE: do trans* women still count as "women" writers, or are they immediately pegged as male because of the sex they were born into?). I hope I'll have nothing to worry about, though. I'm going to be optimistic.

The imposition of silence, she concludes, is a "terrorism that breaks spirits, that makes creativity impossible."

The above was the quote that particularly stuck out to me--I found it to be very powerful, and also very true. When you are forced to be silent and to stifle your opinions, thoughts, words, anything of that nature, your creativity recedes, resigned. After we have been pushed aside, we are afraid to be creative, and our ability to think imaginatively diminishes. [One of my favorite, albeit a bit creepy, videos on this matter is here, if anyone is so inclined to watch it.]

I'm not so sure how to finish up this intro, so I guess I'll just say I look forward to future discussions.