Reflecting on Voices of Discovery

I was in the Women’s Intragroup for Voices of Discovery, which unfortunately gave me a very non-diverse group.  We discussed objectification of women in the media almost every week and watched different ads that showcase women in different ways.  We also discussed how women are treated in the military, in employment, and by men.  What we didn’t talk about was how women treat each other, and I put this on my evaluation form every week hoping we would talk about it.  I think that women can be just as bad to each other as men are to them and in a group about women’s issues, I hoped we would discuss this. 

What I didn’t like about Voices of Discovery was how “black and white” our facilitators made the issues.  When we discussed the wage gap between genders, they showed biased data that painted the situation very darkly for women in these positions.  These issues are a lot more complex than they made them seem, for example the sources we were shown did not point out that there are other reasons than discrimination that explain why women make less than men (e.g., they work fewer hours, they tend to go into fields where pay is less). 

I think the problem with the “intragroup” nature of my group was that there was no other side.  In many of the Voices of Discovery groups, there are two sides, each coming at issues with different cultures and perspectives.  While all of the women in my group come from different life experiences, we all seemed to have the same opinion on many of the topics, which made the discussions repetitive.  For me, Voices of Discovery was interesting, but I didn’t feel like I discovered anything new, rather I had discussions about familiar topics, which isn’t a bad thing either.