{"id":3571,"date":"2016-04-25T17:32:58","date_gmt":"2016-04-26T01:32:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernjournal\/?p=3571"},"modified":"2016-04-25T17:32:58","modified_gmt":"2016-04-26T01:32:58","slug":"studying-gender-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/studying-gender-college\/","title":{"rendered":"Studying Gender in College"},"content":{"rendered":"
By: Zoe Strickland\r\nNorthwest Passage Editor<\/pre>\n
In college, one of the most difficult things to do is decide your major. But what about your minor? Western offers an extensive list of minors, some of which you may not even be aware of. Gender Studies is an interdisciplinary minor which includes women\u2019s studies, LGBT studies, men\u2019s studies, and the study of human sexuality. According to Western\u2019s website, \u201cthe goal of gender studies is to better understand and ultimately transform our lives and the world in which we live.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some of the classes you can take as a Gender Studies minor include Psychology of Women, Human Sexuality, and Communication and Gender. I sat down with the current professor teaching Communication and Gender, Dr. Dana Schowalter, and one of the Human Sexuality professors, Amy Hammermeister Jordan to discuss the study of gender and sexuality.<\/p>\n
\u201cGender is one of those things that we encourage people to never question,\u201d said Schowalter. \u201cThat we have boys and girls and that our bodies fit those binaries and that that\u2019s just the way that it is \u2026 when you can introduce people to the reality of what\u2019s happening around gender it can introduce people to new academic fields that are really important \u2026 that\u2019s knowledge that people can take into the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Minoring in Gender Studies is something that can be applied to a myriad of different fields; the differences between how various genders are treated is something that is personified once you begin to study it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see in the media this sort of tension between people who have more progressive ideas about gender identity…and people who are very afraid of those types of discourse and \u2026 once you start to take a look at the research that\u2019s out there and you actually start to look at the facts … there\u2019s no reason to be afraid of it,\u201d said Schowalter. \u201cI think that gender studies programs are just vital for getting rid of that fear of those different types of conversation and instead replacing it with all of this knowledge\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s all about acknowledging I\u2019m a person, you\u2019re a person. I hear you, I see you, I validate you. Person to person. And gender doesn\u2019t have to be a part of that \u2026 I think that would be a beautiful thing. That\u2019s my dream.\u201d said Hammermeister. Minoring in Gender Studies is a way to become more aware of the world around you, and the issues surrounding nearly everybody in society.<\/p>\n
Contact the author at zstrickland14@wou.edu or on Twitter @nwpmagazine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In college, one of the most difficult things to do is decide your major. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":825,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campus-life"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/825"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3571\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}