Sophia Bridger
Finding Women's Stories Across the Curriculum
A Common Theme
As a little girl, though my all-time favorite TV show was Spongebob, I grew up watching TV shows with female protagonists, reading books written by and about women or girls, and seeing my favorite Disney princesses like Mulan show their strength, humor, wit, and passion in movie theatres. When I was younger, I could find just as many books about girls as I could books about boys. Yes, there were plenty of stereotypes about boys and about girls within some of those sources, but many of them were just stories about women.
When I got to school and we started learning about the history of the world and of the US, I noticed that the stories being told were unbalanced. In History class we were taught about Christopher Colombus, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Franklin Roosevelt, the men who fought in the Civil War, the men who fought in the First World War, the men who fought in World War Two, in the Spanish war, the Revolutionary War, the Cold War, and so many more topics about men. In Art we learned about male painters and artists. In English we read books written by men. Of course we also learned about Sacagawea and in eleventh grade read Emily Dickinson’s poetry, and as I’ve gotten older we’ve even started having conversations and debates about women’s rights and issues. But since starting school I have learned so much more about men’s stories than I have about women’s.
As I looked back on all the projects, presentations, and essays I’ve completed through IB over the last two years, I noticed a common theme: women. In nearly all my assignments for History, English, Spanish, Art, Extended Essay, and TOK I included women’s stories. For many of these assignments, though, I focused on women unintentionally. My goal wasn’t to bring up women’s rights and equality in everything I completed, their stories were simply interesting to me. Even as a young girl I found myself not being bitter that I wasn’t hearing about women in our studies, but just wanting to know what they were doing. When all these men we were learning about were writing laws or fighting battles, what were the women doing?
When I got to my junior year of high school, we were given more freedom with our studies, meaning we had more assignments where we could choose our own focus. In Spanish, I chose to discuss one of the only scenes in a movie which had more than one woman in it because I thought the scene was interesting. In English Zelle and I created a skit about power dynamics through two women talking about sexual harassment. I also wrote most of my in-class essays on female characters from the books we were reading. In History, I focused on the real story of women in the Wild West for my Internal Assessment, and did a presentation on Women in WWI which turned into my Extended Essay topic. In TOK I discussed the rights of biological vs adopted mothers. In Art I compared three pieces with female subject matter, not because that was my intention but because the pieces spoke to me. In Art I also turned an assignment about two men’s definitions of art into a video about Hilma af Klint, a woman who has groundbreaking work that predates the male artist, yet who is not known or celebrated as widely. This time, bringing up her story was intentional.
When asked if I identify as a feminist, I usually say, “sure, I guess,” or “maybe.” I find it interesting that when I express interest in women’s stories I am automatically associated with the word “feminist”. I have never liked defining myself as a feminist because I don’t think I should have to. I haven’t dedicated my life to women’s rights; I don’t often argue or even bring controversy into many topics. I may find myself fighting for our rights in the future, and then maybe I’ll call myself a feminist. But right now, I am simply a woman growing up in a world which doesn’t tell our stories nearly as much as they should. I’m curious what the other half of the population has done; I want to hear their stories. After reflecting on my work throughout the past two years, however, and recognizing how subconsciously I am more drawn to women’s stories, I am going to enter college with the intention to learn about and share these stories. Not because I am mad or trying to prove a point, but because the world should know. Throughout my life I have been surrounded by strong female leaders in my storybooks, at home, and at school. I've had many incredible female teachers, each who inspired me every day, yet they and the curriculum were still directed away from teaching women’s stories. That is why I want to change the narrative. Why would we only get half the story? What hasn’t been told is far more fascinating.
Hilma af Klint
My Experience With IB
I decided to be an IB Diploma Candidate because I wanted to get credit for college, and because I wanted to challenge myself. The Telluride Mountain School already challenges their students, and truthfully I didn’t think IB would be much harder than honors classes at TMS, so the amount of hard work I had to put into IB surprised me. For example, one project that every IB Diploma Candidate has to complete is the Extended Essay, which is a 4,000 word essay on a topic of choice. My topic fell into the “History” category, which I assumed meant I was basically writing a very long (compared to what I’m used to) research essay. I initially researched my topic learning as much as I could about the subject before I started writing, knowing I would likely have to research more along the way. As I began writing, I realized I was merely taking facts from my sources and organizing them on a paper in my own words. This felt like a typical research paper, but then I was redirected. The Extended Essay, even for History, isn’t supposed to just be research. It is supposed to answer a question; to analyze. I spent multiple days, from the moment I finished breakfast, taking short breaks for lunch and dinner, to the moment I was ready to fall asleep working on this essay. I had to figure out how to analyze the history I was recording. Through writing this 4,000 word essay, I learned to write an analytical history essay. The process was incredibly frustrating, as in many ways this was the first time I was completing a project like this. I look back now, and I can see that I learned two distinct things about creating work and about myself that will undoubtedly prepare me well for college. Firstly, I learned how to analyze and answer a central question with regards to history. While I have written countless History essays in class, they were very specific and we had been studying the material for weeks. I now have experience taking a subject I know very little about and finding an answer through my own research. Lastly, I learned how I work best. I had to admit to myself that though I almost never actually miss an assignment, I often procrastinate and therefore I need a hard deadline. I knew this before, though through this process I learned that I do not work well when I have multiple short periods of time spread throughout several weeks or months. I am never productive in those 45 or however many minute periods because I can’t get into the work I’m completing. I work best when I have long days to dedicate to the project. In the future, I will give myself more of these full days to get work done, far before the deadline. The IB Diploma is an incredibly difficult thing to attempt. I learned about myself and my work style, but through digging deep to complete the IB assignments I also discovered what a large amount of determination and willingness it takes to set aside frustration.
