Last year I penned an article — originally a Cavalier Daily Opinion section application piece intended for my editors only — entitled “Examining Women’s Studies.” It was deservedly met with a deluge of criticism and controversy. Just hours after the article was published, I received a flood of Facebook messages from strangers either praising my “courage” or ridiculing me for stupidity, misogyny and just generally being an all-around degenerate. The article’s comments ranged from logical deconstructions of my argument to the obscene. In one of my discussion sections, a student expressed her take on the article by saying to me, “It’s a real shame because you seemed like a nice guy.”
Even if the circumstances of the article’s genesis seem extenuating, I am still acutely aware that I have to take ownership of what I wrote. I regret the article not just because it caused offense, but also because it was poorly constructed and inadequately researched.
With this in mind, last semester I enrolled in the Women, Gender & Sexuality survey course “Introduction to Gender Studies” with Professor Corinne Field. After introducing myself and expecting a deserved rebuke for what I wrote, Professor Field surprised me by instead warmly and excitedly welcoming me and my perspective into her class. Over the next few weeks and months we engaged with rigorous source material, written from a range of academic disciplines, that examined how gender and perceptions of gender shape the world around us. One week we would examine the intersectionality of oppression, in another the problems with the gender binary and in one particularly poignant week, we discussed the sexual assault epidemic occurring not only on Grounds but across the nation.
Not only was WGS not what I wrote it was, but it also proved to be a wellspring of expansive and insightful critical debate. Thanks to the class, I am now far better equipped to understand and deconstruct both forms of explicit patriarchal oppression and the subtler implicit biases that continually erode at the possibility of equal opportunity for women and minorities in all spheres of personal, work and civic life.
Though it would be possible to continue at length to illustrate both the class and the discipline’s wider resonance and importance, it is necessary to address why WGS fails to attract some of the students who could benefit most from its teachings. First, there is unfortunately a stigma attached to any class with “women” or “gender” in its title. This isn’t a failure of WGS but rather a demonstration of how, as a culture, we are far behind where need to be: an inclusive community that has the courage to unchain ourselves from the shackles of delineating modes of thought and inquiry into those that are more serious (male-dominated fields like engineering, hard sciences and economics) and those that aren’t (female-heavy subjects like fine art, gender studies and art history).
The second reason for WGS’ lack of appeal among male students is this time self-inflicted. Students might be averse to taking a WGS class out of a fear that certain beliefs might be pushed through as fact while anything said to the contrary would be cast as offensive, and they’re not entirely wrong. At times it seemed as though the structure of the class was formed in order to present certain conclusions (that sex is a social construct or that obesity is usually an involuntary condition, for example) and then explain the reasons and evidence that get us to them. When my teaching assistant started discussion with a summary of a certain conclusion and then asked us if we understood how to get there, there was a definitive academic aura in the air that felt less like open debate and more like agenda-pushing. However, these less-than-critical junctures in class were few and far between and can perhaps be explained away by pointing to the simple fact that the “WGS” sides of the debate have been historically ignored or ridiculed and therefore deserve a greater share of our attention.
In short, I feel lucky to now know the extent of my past column’s inaccuracy. I would encourage students of all backgrounds and interests to enroll in a WGS class before they graduate because it will undoubtedly challenge assumptions, bend — and meld — orthodoxies and illuminate many of society’s most tragic, and overlooked, shortcomings.
Ben Rudgley is a Viewpoint columnist.
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