Theme Of Public Concern In Much Ado About Nothing

For my Collaborate LLC, the theme is civic engagement which is defined as actions designed to identify and address issues of public concern. In both my Sociology course and Shakespeare course we examined multiple issues that should be of public concern. In my Shakespeare course, we read multiple Shakespeare plays which depicted a variety of injustices and inequalities people were faced with hundreds of years ago, and we would continue to discuss how those same injustices and inequalities could be seen now. One such example of this relates to the injustices women faced and still face in society. In Shakespeare’s play “Much Ado About Nothing” the character Hero is portrayed as the perfect Renaissance woman: silent, chaste, and obedient. She has
We read a piece called “Working at Bazooms: The Intersection of Power, Gender, and Sexuality” and this piece also reveals the systematic silencing of women in society as well, specifically in the workplace. Bazooms is a restaurant chain which sexualizes women. These women are the waitresses for Bazooms and they are managed by an all male management. The waitresses were constantly silenced by the management because they would ignore the women’s complaints on various issues and if any of them complained about the management their jobs would be put on the line. After reading this piece my Sociology class went on to discuss how these waitresses went on to resist this injustice alongside many other injustices. One way they resisted was through gossiping and sharing grievances about the management which partially gave them their voices back. We also talked about how these gender inequalities we see in society today can be attributed to the institutionalized ideals of patriarchy which are deeply ingrained in our society, and so the only way to remedy these inequalities and injustices is to uproot patriarchal ideas from the systems and institutions in
In my Shakespeare course we spoke about how theatre could be used to expose the injustices and inequalities to a broader audience. Since Shakespeare’s plays have societal issues intertwined within them, by performing his plays these inequalities could be broadcasted to many people. Also, by reading and teaching Shakespeare in high school as part of the English curriculum many young Americans can be exposed to these injustices and inequalities early on in there life. This exposure of issues that are of public concern to this day would make people at least aware of the problems that plague our society and possibly cause them to- at minimum- change their own behaviors. On the other hand, my Sociology course addresses issues of civic engagement in a completely different manner. My Sociology course brings awareness to a multitude of issues in society through our readings from journalists who record the social dynamics they observe to sociologists who study scientifically these same dynamics. After bringing awareness to different injustices and inequalities, my Sociology course suggests a very clear way to fix these issues: to dismantle and uproot the systems and institutions that create these injustices and inequalities. This class describes a course of action where we as a society look into what is embedded in our societal systems and remove what causes injustices and inequalities. Whether it is