As most of us are just finishing up, or are already out of school, I'm sure the last thing anyone wants to think about is their classes. That being said, this past semester, I learned more from one class than any other -- actual relevant, important knowledge that I need to use in my every day life. It's the kind of class that I do think everyone should take, as it helps us as a generation open up discussions on social issues that are defining our time. That class was Sexuality, Gender, and Power, and it was a Women and Gender Studies class.
For those rolling their eyes (perhaps those of you who don't want to call yourselves feminists because you like men even though we all know that's not what feminism is), Women and Gender Studies classes are about more than just the wage gap between men and women, but about the intersectionality of all social injustices faced by marginalized groups of people. I learned that white privilege is not individual acts of racism that wealthy white people (yes, such as myself) want to separate ourselves from, but rather it is an entire power structure created by white people that -- despite wanting to admit it -- we do in fact benefit from, while people of color are systematically oppressed. I learned that gender is not as simple as separating between those who want to be men and those who want to be women, but instead that gender is a social construct, and that there is a whole spectrum of genders people identify with, both binary and non-binary. I learned that though some women in the Global South live in ways I don't necessarily understand, they are often not oppressed, they don't need our saving, and it is not for us to tell others how to live their lives.
Women and Gender Studies taught me that other people think differently than I do, but rather than calling them out, through this class I was taught to call them in. We shouldn't be singling people out, we should be engaging them in discussion. I was taught to be patient and tolerant of other people's views, and to open myself up to things I didn't know, and how those things are important, and my understanding of the systematic power structures that dominate our society work. It opened up to difficult discussion, which opened the flow of knowledge, which allowed me to become a more socially aware person.
I'm not saying everyone has to take a Women and Gender Studies class; people have other priorities. That's their business, and that's OK. What I am saying, is that we, as young people, need to be able to have productive discussion about gender and race, and privilege and power structures, and cultural relativism -- and I have found that one of the best ways to do that is through taking a Women and Genders Studies class.
"For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us to temporarily beat us at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. Racism and homophobia are real conditions of all our lives in this place and time. I urge each one of us to reach down into that deep place of knowledge inside herself and touch that terror and loathing of any difference that lives here. See whose face it wears. The personal as the political can begin to illuminate all our choices." Audre Lorde.
