Introduction Letter

My name is Seabury Stoneburner and I am from Jacksonville, FL. I will admit that huge influence on me attending UCF was the fact that Disney World is just around the corner. I am a senior, majoring in Interdisciplinary Studies, in hopes to proceed to the culinary arts. With in my major, I am focusing on Humanities and Health with a minor in Biology. I hope to pursue my culinary career in New York City. My main focus within the culinary arts is the pastry department. I throughly enjoy baking and decorating cakes and cupcakes.

I am the youngest of four girls in my family so feminism has always been present in my life. I was interested in taking this course because I thought it would be interesting. I have had a few people express to me their experience in this class and I was intrigued. I have never had any personal experience with a feminism class and I felt that being a woman, it is about time I took a class in this subject.

My current idea of feminism is that women should have the same rights as men. This, to me, is common sense. I personally believe that there should be no differences between genders. If I really needed to reach out and pick one difference, I would have to say women can handle pain better than men (if you catch my drift). I do not believe gender is that important in life because every person should be treated equally no matter what gender, race, or religion they are.

The greatest influences to me on my understanding of how men and women behave would probably be my parents. Their behavior is what I grew up with and has been a very large influence in my life. The perfect family picture of husband, wife, and kids is pretty much the image I have in my mind, to an extent. I believe that the wife does not need to be a house wife and has the freedom to pursue any career she wishes to pursue.

I personally would not change a single thing about my gender. Not to be blunt, but quite frankly, I enjoy having polite gentlemen holding the door open for me or carrying heavy packages. When you come across the right man who treats you respectively, it is pleasant. Unfortunately, I feel as though as the years go by, the charm in this act is fading.

I am rather excited to be in this class this semester. I am honestly not too aware of any sort of feminism acts from the past and am eager to learn. It was never brought to my attention, till yesterday, that a holiday dedicated to a woman still does not exist. I do find that rather shocking because there have been many great women in the past with wonderful accomplishments. I hope that by the end of this semester, I have been enlightened by the idea and the events of feminism.

I have read the syllabus and agree to the terms of the course.