Too often students hear “gender studies course,” and they run for the hills. Classic college movies have us all assuming it is an elite club for extremists, and we carry a lot of assumptions about the women who take them. Will I be surrounded by exclusively angry young women with hipster glasses and vintage dresses and man hating ideologies? What should I expect, and should I take a class in our current historical and political climate? What will people think of me if I do? Will this class make me hate men? Will it make me less sensitive to parts of the world with harsher conditions for women while topics on less invasive issues here consume our lectures?
These are all legitimate concerns, but these are all false fears from my experience in my current college level course. However, I highly recommend not trusting a young women behind the screen with only half a semester experience. Find out for yourself, but I will offer what I have learned thus far. Taking a women’s studies and gender studies class is an amazing opportunity to learn more about yourself as a woman (and even man) and the way the world constructs our very social culture. It is an opportunity to truly discover where you stand with women’s issues and even some men’s where otherwise you would not have the same opportunity to face these struggles head on. It is worth the semester hours that take up what would be a fun elective or a chance to nap. Imagine the women that inspire you and that you get the chance to learn about these very same world changers every class and how their influence still impacts our lives today. The course also dive into topics such as sociology and anthropology and sometimes controversial issues such as sexual orientation, race and class constructs as well. Courses like these get down to the details and are not afraid to talk about hard issues. Gender studies is not about hating men, and it is not about forgetting the struggles of our fellow sisters in other more impoverished countries.
It is about informing humanity about the history and the anthropology behind how gender functions in our society and how we can influence it to make this world a more equal place for all genders. From healthcare to oppression of women of color, all the topics are dived into enthusiastically despite the politics that carry uncomfortable weight to them at times. Although it is still dominated by women, men also take the course and are just as welcome as any women who sign up because that is what feminism is all about which this course stands for. Gender studies is what true feminism is, and if only the whole world could take this class, maybe we would not be in such a divide on such issues. Feminism is the belief that both men and women deserve the same rights and opportunities and should be treated equally. Anything else is not feminism. Gender studies reveals our oppressed past and present as females and how women can find their way to be at the same equal level as men who still dominate the world at a global scale along with the other sociological aspects of society that is studied. Despite various western countries that have worked hard to catch up to equality, we must come to terms with the fact that it can still be argued women still have a long way to go even in our most established nations.
I think there is also an important comradery in the female community unlike any other because of our history and present struggles with inequality in its various forms. By these binds of our oppressions, it gives us as women this unspoken unity, yet I wish that we did not have to share such a unity in this context. Gender studies opens up the conversation about oppression in its many states, clears the air about equality once and for all, and enlightens a new generation of young people every semester on the history, so the future can be even brighter. I hope that as more women and men take gender courses they discover that despite our differences we do not have to let it divide us any longer, and maybe we can truly live equally. I hope unity for both genders connects us and the binds that hold the fabric of women’s unspoken understanding with one another can derive from pride in the change and equality that continues to grow rather than what is left to fix. Forget the movies, see for yourself what the hype is all about while you have a chance to study it. Take all the opportunities college brings you, you will not forget it!