Blog Post #1

I personally loved reading "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens" by Alice Walker. I think this piece is one of my favorites. I love the optimism infused throughout and the support she gives to women. I loved what Walker wrote on page 326. She said, "How was the creativity of the black women kept alive, year after year and century after century, when for most of the years black people have been in America, it was a punishable crime for a black person to read or write? And the freedom to paint, to sculpt, to expand the mind with action did not exist." This is a brillant point she raises. I feel as though it would have been so easy to be beaten down and give up on trying to keep a creative spirit alive, that some of these women didn't even know they had. If you are always working and having other peoples' ideas pushed upon you, how do you even know you have a talent and voice you want to express? I also loved how Alice Walker critiqued Virginia Woolf's main point in "A Room of One's Own." She said, "... in order for a woman to write fiction she must have two things, certainly: a room of her own (with key and lock) and enough money to support herself. What then are we to make of Phillis Wheatley, a slave, who owned not even herself?" Phillis Wheatley was a young black girl, who was enslaved. Virginia Woolf was clearly only looking at the freedom for women to write, from a wealthy, white woman's perspective. It is remarkable to think that with all Phillis had to endure, she still wrote. The part I find most amazing is that even though she wrote pieces that did not reflect what most black people thought, the black community, or at least Alice Walker, was proud of her. Ideas were forced upon Wheatly, to make her believe she was inferior, so even though her ideas were not correct, it is not what she wrote, it is that she wrote at all. It is an inspiration for others to see that she perservered through a situation so unimaginable, yet was able to keep a creative drive alive. Alice Walker's pride in Phillis's writing is very different from George Eliot's view of other women writers. George Eliot found most women writers embarassing and harmful to the process of women getting educated and writing because of the things they wrote. There is quite a contrast between Walker and Eliot. Lastly, I love the meaning behind the title of this piece. Alice Walker's mother grew beautiful gardens as her way to express her creativity. In turn, this inspired Alice to become a writer. It is as though her mother planted a seed of creative spirit in her daughter. Every woman deserves to get an education and have a way to get their creativity out and be able to express themselves. I think that even to this day, most girls have some other woman they look up to that inspires them to be there best. I know my mother loves making art. It makes me happy to see her have something that makes her smile, even during rough times. I love music, and my mom's influence is part of what inspired me. The positivity conveyed in this piece is what makes me love it so much. Something that is sad to me though, is that there are still so many girls in the world, even our own country, that don't have an outlet to express their creative spirits, or a women for them to look up to. Some girls still do not have access to education. There is an organization called "Girl Up," that has a mission to help all girls around the world become educated, healthy, and leaders of the world. It is a really awesome organization to get involved with, and it really helps all girls get a chance to release their creative spirits. You can be an inspiration to these girls who don't have a mother's garden to inspire them. Here is the website to the organization: http://www.girlup.org/