Why everyone should take a Women Gender and Sexuality course

I entered my freshman year as a naive English and Theater major who thought she already knew everything about the world. Raised by liberal parents, I thought I had a pretty good grasp on my views regarding social justice.

I still remember telling my second grade class, after reading the “Big Book of Presidents,” that I was going to be the first woman president. Despite my political aspirations coming to an end before coming to fruition, I thought I had a slight advantage entering into Western Mass – I was ready to go into the trenches.

Well, boy, was I wrong.

In effort to fulfill one of my gen-eds, I decided to enroll in English 132: Gender, Sexuality, Lit and Culture. What a mouthful, right? But we covered it all, and soon my eyes were opened up to whole world of issues my ignorant brain hadn’t even thought of. There was so much more to learn which is why I began my track on being a Women Gender and Sexuality Studies student.

I was never afraid to identify myself as a feminist. However, until I took a Women Studies course I never fully understood the concept.

Being a feminist is beyond believing in the equality among sexes. A feminist understands the importance of intersectionality – the idea that all forms of oppression have their points of interconnection. These institutions cannot be analyzed without looking at all forms of oppression wholelistically.

As a white, straight, woman, I face some forms of oppression for my gender, but also have my status in privilege as well.

Proud to be a feminist

Intersectionality is usually the forgotten perception within feminism.  You may be familiar with the critique of “white-feminism.” In popular culture this controversy often surrounds  wealthy, white women speaking on behalf of their struggles, but forgetting to address or provide their voices to those in variating and often increasingly adverse situations.

For example, white actresses speaking on behalf of the wage gap. Though making less than the men in Hollywood, they remain the wealthiest and most influential people in the world. Whereas in the middle class there are larger wage gaps and furthermore steeper gaps are prevalent in third-world countries who also struggle to be point of focus in advocacies eyes.

Audre Lorde

Clearly this is a crash course in Women Studies at best, but the discussion needs to be relayed to the general public. It is so imperative to be well versed in these subjects at such a pivotal time in history.

It’s concerning that some people have no knowledge that there are sexualities beyond the hetero-homosexual binary, nor even acknowledge the marginalization of transgender men and women.

It’s not acceptable that women are still shamed for their sex life, despite often being inappropriately labeled as mere sexual objects. It’s problematic that we live in a society where seeing Beyonce create awareness for black liberation with one of her performances is labeled as “anti-cop” and “tarnishing” our wholesome Super Bowl.

Everyone should take a Women Studies lecture because there are problems beyond all of us in the world that we will otherwise never be introduced to, despite their incredible importance. Receiving education in this field should be required, because becoming socially aware of these issues allows an individual to partition their particular lifestyle and recognize that there are people who face larger disadvantages for their identities, whether it be gender, race, class or sexuality.

There are no definitive answers in these classes and there is always room for productive discussion. You don’t need to be an expert, but everyone could use a little refinement in social justice. If you are lucky enough to have the opportunity, do yourself a favor and take one of the many WGSS classes UMass has to offer.