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I was surprised to learn that the image presentedon the first day of class was from The Dinner Party. I’d read about the exhibitpreviously in the New York Times and found it fascinating. Somehow, I stillwouldn’t have placed this image in that exhibit, even after being told it was aplate. I find it shocking that Judy Chicago made Sojourner Truth’s plate sodifferent from the others (no female anatomy reference in the shape orpicture). It makes me understand why some people (particularly African Americanwomen) don’t want to identify with the feminism movement, and would ratherchose the womanism (womynism for some, perhaps?) movement.

I wonder how Virginia Woolf would feel about thatmovement. I’d need to learn more about it to really answer that question, buther desire to get rid of the word feminism certainly indicates towards “yes”.Woolf was ahead of Judy Chicago in the trend towards including minorities into feminism,as she talked of a school that included people regardless of religion. I neverthought about it this way before, but I am starting to question if feminism ismore than a focus on gender equality, but equality in general. Right now, Idefine it as concerning gender issues exclusively; perhaps I will change mymind later in the course.

So much of the Three Guineas unexpectedly stillapplied today, despite the publishing date of 1938. Woolf’s writing about theneed to remove biases from sources you read (particularly news sources) ringsespecially true today with the anonymity available on the internet. I oftenthink it’s better to read a source with a known bias than one that pretends tobe completely unbiased. By simple selection of information, a source hasinherent bias (here I am particularly thinking of news sources).