As the semester draws to a close and our class met for the last time, there was a lot of reflecting back on what we had accomplished over the past few months. We began the class by watching Born In Flames, a film by Lizzie Borden that explores racism, classism, sexism, and heterosexism in an alternative United States socialist democracy. The film was very engaging and touched on a lot of the conflict that we had been discussing throughout the semester. After finishing the movie we began to discuss our thoughts of the film and how it connected to our previous classes. As we went around the table, each giving our own response to how we felt about the film, we began to see a divide in whether we believed the film to be optimistic or pessimistic. While neither side was necessarily correct, it was interesting to hear the reasoning behind why each person believed it to be optimistic as opposed to pessimistic and vice versa. I swayed more toward the optimistic end because I believed that the three different feminists groups, who had similar beliefs but different approaches and did not ban together for those reasons, were first in conflict at the beginning but after the death of Adelaide rejoiced together to fight against oppression together. This showed that they put aside their conflicts for bigger issues.
After discussing the film, we began to reflect on our time spent in each week throughout the semester and talked about what we learned and all that we had accomplished. It was satisfying in my opinion, to look back at all of the weeks and see just how much we have covered and how much knowledge we have gained throughout the semester. I am sad to be leaving this class, and even more upset to be graduating like most of my other classmates, however, I can confidently say that this class has improved my understanding of feminist conflict and everything I have learned I will take with me in my future endeavors.