Beginning identity through gender and sexuality

“Rape is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear.”

For today I have asked students to respond to this quote. I had some problems with the quote because I felt that it generalizes too much, however I think it really gives the students a good starting ground for forming their ideas and opinions to the book Conquest by Andrea Smith.

Last week, on Wednesday, I showed the students a video about wild rice in Minnesota that had Winona LaDuke as an interviewee. It was interesting to see how the students formed their opinions on the research shown/not shown in the video. Many of them were able to articulate that it's not really fair because the other side isn't shown. One student went so far as to talk about grapefruit and mangoes, as he learned in one of his other classes, largely being genetically engineered. I would have liked to spend more time on this (like everything in this class). But, sometimes I feel like I must be brief because I'm trying to give the students a large scope of what's happening currently and historically to native populations in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.