Ft Fun Hayseed wrote:
It's to perpetuate the PhD/Tenure track model which slowly enriches a select few, who maintain a high quality of life and can hit on coeds for 40 years. Duh!
Agreed. What a farce!
Ft Fun Hayseed wrote:
It's to perpetuate the PhD/Tenure track model which slowly enriches a select few, who maintain a high quality of life and can hit on coeds for 40 years. Duh!
Agreed. What a farce!
fishy fishy fishy fishy wrote:
Your Next Bold Move wrote:First of all, "Women's Studies" in and of itself is seldom a major- rather, it is often a category under either "Women and Gender Studies" or simply "Gender Studies" which in turn is a subcategory of Biology, Psych, Anthro, History, etc., (I hope you're getting the point)
Secondly, as a former Religious Studies major with a concentration on Women and Gender in Religion I could easily spew off at LEAST 10 different things one could do with such a degree- but I won't bother because it tends to be only closed-minded people that question such degrees (aka: the entire liberal arts education to begin with).
And there are no "Men's Studies" because, as already pointed out, that is in fact called "History".
Thanks for the point of clarification. Don't confuse my terseness for a supposed lack of rational thinking or open-mindedness. I asked a few questions, largely to stir up conversation, but also to learn more. Yet after all of your pontificating, condescending rhetoric I still have not learned one thing:
What have you done with your major? Answer honestly now...
I guess one of the points I was attempting to make by explaining how Women's Studies is a subcategory of all those other fields is to show that no one is going to make fun of, let's say, a Psych major. But the second the word "women" is thrown into the mix, there is plenty to make fun of- even though, at least to me, the psychology of women is a valid area in which to study. With that said, the other point is that someone who receives a degree in Women's Studies is receiving a Liberal Arts education- meaning that something in their major may not be the path they ultimately take, but they have been exposed to enough other areas of study that they can confidently choose another path. A prime example of this is the friend I have who majored in Religious Studies during undergrad but is now an anti-trust lawyer for major corporations in Manhattan.
As for what jobs are directly linked to a Women/Gender Studies major- I guess that depends on where the person's focus was (i.e. History, Art, Psych, Sociology, Religion, etc.). For me personally, with the Religion background, some options that have been thrown around include working for Planned Parenthood, the State Department, many non-profit organizations, the U.N. and any of their organizations, the Peacecorps, etc. I however have taken the "Professor" route and am working on my masters while applying to PhD programs in the field.
And the condescending rhetoric stemmed from the ignorant way in which you posed the question, "OK, what kind of major is Womens Studies" followed by your comment on "title IX garbage". Next time, perhaps it might make a difference to think about your tone and the way in which your phrase a question- "What path might a person with a Women's Studies major take?" would have received a significantly more respectful answer
deleuze wrote:
Okay, there are a lot of interesting responses on this thread, and I am willing to admit that I understated the particular value of a major.
A couple of points:
1) I was not referring to an engineering major. Those who go through an engineering program do indeed learn a lot of specific skills that they can immediately apply. Of course, this specialization, like all specializations, comes at a cost of a more general education.
2) Yes, a major is important. More important than the particular major (I would argue) is the entire course of study that a student undertakes. Major courses and non-major courses should narrate the particular set of skills. Undergraduates should work on thinking about how their entire course of study prepares them to enter the working world. It is my belief that motivated and excellent students can connect almost any major course of study to almost any future career--even philosophy and women's studies majors.
3) To the Chem major who talked about how chem students get paid to study at the graduate level. So do philosophy majors. I know this from experience.
4) My advice to any undergraduates reading this thread is to consider carefully how and whether a particular major aligns with your interests and strengths as a student and as a person. It is a competitive market. For this very reason, it is essential that students take subjects that they are interested in and good at. This interest will come through in interviews, in performance, and it will reflect your strengths.
5) All that said, the purpose of a bachelor's degree is to introduce you to two aspects of your education. An education should be both general and specific. There is not enough time in 4 years to gain enough specific knowledge to be of much use as a specialist. There is enough time, however, to be introduced to the specific nature of a field and to determine whether and how you would like to go further in it. The primary effect of an undergraduate education, in my view, is to give you general knowledge and the general skills I mentioned in previous posts. The introduction to a specific field, to my mind, falls under the general category--as an introduction to the idea that particular fields of inquiry have particular methods and criteria of knowledge.
6) Enough! or Too Much!
It seems we have come to an understanding and I will agree with all of this. And we did it without calling each other names. This might be a first for letsrun.
Just one note, Engineering majors don't completely ignore the more general education you refer to. We spend much of our first year or so on campus taking the basic history, english, poly-sci, and fine arts courses that any other major is required to take. So we don't completely miss out.
womens studies should be renamed gender studies. one cannot study the role of women without studying the role of men. if you study only women without studying men then you are studying gynecology.
When I was in college there was a class called "women in japan" that included a 3 week subsidized trip to japan. Some male students complained that they wanted to go but felt wierd applying for a womens course. the next time it was offered a few years later they changed it to "gender in japan". that trip was 10 women and me, a dude. it was fun and i learned a ton. we talked about sex a ton and there was very little "man hating".
deleuze wrote:
sold2u wrote:The genesis of women's studies and all of the other slice and dice demographic studies began in the 70s, when colleges were told they needed more women and minorities.
The point of women's studies was to create a department chock full of women which allowed them to check the box and get the diversity police out of their hair. Same thing with queer / african / native american, etc etc. The point is it allowed the university to hire a bunch of non-white guys pronto.
The point of studying it as a student? Well, if you want to write for the Nation, or knock on doors for NOW, or teach it, it is probably okay. But don't expect anyone in the real world with a real degree to take it seriously.
This comment just lacks imagination. How could anyone believe that studying women is useless? Half of humanity is female. If you know what women are like, what they want, what political battles they are fighting, what sort of world they want to live in, then you are cash money to any potential employer.
The issue is not the value of studying women, but the institutional structure of gender studies at universities, and in particular the appropriation of the study of gender by an academic discipline that has not even begun to outgrow its politicized origins.
marginal commentator wrote:The issue is not the value of studying women, but the institutional structure of gender studies at universities, and in particular the appropriation of the study of gender by an academic discipline that has not even begun to outgrow its politicized origins.
This thread is a great example of why women's studies does not "outgrow" its politicized origins. From the get-go the whole discipline is under attack as useless, as a great way to meet girls, as a discipline not as worthy as other disciplines. These posters--and their need to grow--are the ones that are "politicizing" the discipline.
Further, the fact that an issue is politicized is all the more reason to study it. Politicized issues are issues that affect how we live together. They bring forward strong emotions and sometimes because of that lead to poor analysis. But that's all the more reason for the academy to devote attention to it.
The academy has a political role to play. The value of the knowledge it produces should not be reduced to its political function, but the political effects of having an educated populace should not be undervalued. The academy was a leader in the civil rights movement for example. We just celebrated the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. That's right--he had a Ph.D. in religious studies (another "useless" major, I suppose.)
Studying women's issues--their history, their development, their current situation--is a great way to develop analytical skills. It is certainly not everyone's cup of tea, but hey what is?
Yes, but many people are starting to think that, in North America at least, the feminist movement is going too far.
Why should there be women's studies at academic institutions and not men's studies?
Why are there women's help centers at just about every campus but nothing similar for men?
How is it fair that women can decide that they are not ready for motherhood and have an abortion or give the baby up for adoption, but the father can't chose to opt out (before say 4 months pregnancy, or whenever he's first notified) if he's not ready to be a father? Instead, he's legally obligated to support the child, even if he didn't want one.
I know a guy whose wife was PMSing and was making a lot of noise and throwing stuff at him. A neighbor came over and told HIM to cut it out. My friend told the neighbor to mind his own business, so the neighbor went back home and called the cops on the guy and said that he was beating his wife. Of course his wife explained things when they arrived, but this type of crap happens to men a lot more often than many people seem to think. Also, the wife of course wasn't charged with assault. If it had been a man throwing stuff at his wife, he very well may have been.
Why are there many times more female-only academic scholarships than there are male-only?
Why are institutions forced to offer the same number of athletic scholarships for women as men? There are obviously more men who are interested in pursuing sports than there are women. Go to the playing fields of any grade school and see whether there are more boys playing sports or girls. Similarly a higher proportion of Asian kids study hard in high school and get entrance into good universities. If we were to follow Title IX's logic, we should restrict the proportion of Asians at each post-secondary institution to match their relative proportion of the population. This would be wrong! If you study hard, you rightly deserve to get in.
Why are there many more women-only road races that offer prize money than there are men-only races?
For that matter, why should prize money be as deep on the men's side of the field in racing events as it is on the women's? Why not have prize money 6 or 10 deep and let the top athletes (men or women) as determined by the percentage of their time from the WR ie. a women's 34 min 10k would beat a men's 31 min 10k, but a men's 31 min 10k would beat a women's 37 min 10k. Let the money be won by the best runners regardless of gender.
The irony here is that I'm actually the one who wants women treated equally, yet I've been called a misogynist. I believe that women are equal to men, that's why I don't think that they need to be given so many advantages anymore. They've already caught up to and surpassed men in the 20-29 year old age group. Single women, without children in this age-group are out-earning men by 8%. I'm sick and tired of people from the older generations "apologizing" for the fact that they made more than women, and "atoning" for it by giving the women of the younger generation more opportunities than men. Men might still make more than women in the future for a variety of reasons, but why should we end up getting stuck in the trades or resource extraction jobs like the oil sands, mining, forestry, working long overtime hours, while women are disproportionately getting the comfy office jobs in my generation.
Rant over.
Dr. Cooper wrote:
The irony here is that I'm actually the one who wants women treated equally, yet I've been called a misogynist. I believe that women are equal to men, that's why I don't think that they need to be given so many advantages anymore. They've already caught up to and surpassed men in the 20-29 year old age group. Single women, without children in this age-group are out-earning men by 8%. I'm sick and tired of people from the older generations "apologizing" for the fact that they made more than women, and "atoning" for it by giving the women of the younger generation more opportunities than men. Men might still make more than women in the future for a variety of reasons, but why should we end up getting stuck in the trades or resource extraction jobs like the oil sands, mining, forestry, working long overtime hours, while women are disproportionately getting the comfy office jobs in my generation.
Rant over.
There's nothing quite like sitting in your 60% female college classroom, listening to the daughters of doctors, lawyers and business executives tell your female professor how tough it is for a woman in this man's world.
Good points!! Excellent ones to bring up in a women's studies class!
Actually I read an article a couple weeks ago about the emergence of men's studies programs. I think you make a lot of good points.
My sense is that your portrayal of the type of feminism that goes on in these academic departments is a far cry from your description. Most of what goes on in these departments is criticism of the sorts of bad feminism that you describe there and search for better feminisms, ones that for example don't paint the relationship between women and men in antagonistic terms.
Cheers!
For the record, I recognize that the above post is barely comprehensible.
deleuze wrote:
Actually I read an article a couple weeks ago about the emergence of men's studies programs.
Say it ain't so. At least tell me they won't be a bunch of Iron John crap.
Dr. Cooper wrote:
Yes, but many people are starting to think that, in North America at least, the feminist movement is going too far.
Why should there be women's studies at academic institutions and not men's studies?
Why are there women's help centers at just about every campus but nothing similar for men?
How is it fair that women can decide that they are not ready for motherhood and have an abortion or give the baby up for adoption, but the father can't chose to opt out (before say 4 months pregnancy, or whenever he's first notified) if he's not ready to be a father? Instead, he's legally obligated to support the child, even if he didn't want one.
I know a guy whose wife was PMSing and was making a lot of noise and throwing stuff at him. A neighbor came over and told HIM to cut it out. My friend told the neighbor to mind his own business, so the neighbor went back home and called the cops on the guy and said that he was beating his wife. Of course his wife explained things when they arrived, but this type of crap happens to men a lot more often than many people seem to think. Also, the wife of course wasn't charged with assault. If it had been a man throwing stuff at his wife, he very well may have been.
Why are there many times more female-only academic scholarships than there are male-only?
Why are institutions forced to offer the same number of athletic scholarships for women as men? There are obviously more men who are interested in pursuing sports than there are women. Go to the playing fields of any grade school and see whether there are more boys playing sports or girls. Similarly a higher proportion of Asian kids study hard in high school and get entrance into good universities. If we were to follow Title IX's logic, we should restrict the proportion of Asians at each post-secondary institution to match their relative proportion of the population. This would be wrong! If you study hard, you rightly deserve to get in.
Why are there many more women-only road races that offer prize money than there are men-only races?
For that matter, why should prize money be as deep on the men's side of the field in racing events as it is on the women's? Why not have prize money 6 or 10 deep and let the top athletes (men or women) as determined by the percentage of their time from the WR ie. a women's 34 min 10k would beat a men's 31 min 10k, but a men's 31 min 10k would beat a women's 37 min 10k. Let the money be won by the best runners regardless of gender.
The irony here is that I'm actually the one who wants women treated equally, yet I've been called a misogynist. I believe that women are equal to men, that's why I don't think that they need to be given so many advantages anymore. They've already caught up to and surpassed men in the 20-29 year old age group. Single women, without children in this age-group are out-earning men by 8%. I'm sick and tired of people from the older generations "apologizing" for the fact that they made more than women, and "atoning" for it by giving the women of the younger generation more opportunities than men. Men might still make more than women in the future for a variety of reasons, but why should we end up getting stuck in the trades or resource extraction jobs like the oil sands, mining, forestry, working long overtime hours, while women are disproportionately getting the comfy office jobs in my generation.
Rant over.
Excellent post.
An Historian wrote:
Most of the curriculum - hell, the whole institution of higher learning - is BS. Universities are a medieval institution. They were formed to train priests.
The whole institution is radically outdated and should be drastically overhauled. Why the hell does a mechanical engineer need to know anything about Shakespeare, or Betty Friedan, or biology, or the Civil War . . . or anything but bloody mechanical engineering? Why do doctors and lawyers need an undergraduate degree?
Specialization is for insects. I aspire to humanity. You?
Robert Heinlein wrote:
An Historian wrote:Most of the curriculum - hell, the whole institution of higher learning - is BS. Universities are a medieval institution. They were formed to train priests.
The whole institution is radically outdated and should be drastically overhauled. Why the hell does a mechanical engineer need to know anything about Shakespeare, or Betty Friedan, or biology, or the Civil War . . . or anything but bloody mechanical engineering? Why do doctors and lawyers need an undergraduate degree?
Specialization is for insects. I aspire to humanity. You?
I agree wholeheartedly! To pursue my interests, I acquired a library card.
ha, good point.
kartelite wrote:
Maurys Pub wrote:A woman majoring in womens studies reminds me of those 2 Venezuelan runners in the 80's from Western State majoring in Spanish.
Or all those native English speakers majoring in English. Seriously, what's up with that?
An Historian wrote:I agree wholeheartedly! To pursue my interests, I acquired a library card.
This has been said a couple times already, as if it were obvious that there is no value in actually living in a university environment--not just reading books, but talking with other interested folk, attending lectures, late night bull sessions, office hours with experts in their field of inquiry. That's where the learning happens.
It's true that some of the great men and women in history were autodidacts, but these really were the exceptions, not the rule.
I am proud of you for attending the library, though.
deleuze wrote:
An Historian wrote:I agree wholeheartedly! To pursue my interests, I acquired a library card.This has been said a couple times already, as if it were obvious that there is no value in actually living in a university environment--not just reading books, but talking with other interested folk, attending lectures, late night bull sessions, office hours with experts in their field of inquiry. That's where the learning happens.
It's true that some of the great men and women in history were autodidacts, but these really were the exceptions, not the rule.
I am proud of you for attending the library, though.
I agree that sort of thing is nice. I just don't think it should be a requirement as an admission ticket to the upper levels of the work force/grad school, especially not at the prices currently being charged.
you're the fishy one wrote:
[Turns out that I'm completely funded in a similar subject matter by the private sector!
People thought that Abolition was a threat to American civilization. Really, it's people like you.
Great, Valerie Solanas is working on another manifesto and someone is paying for it. Just keep all your hatred of men confined to me on the message board and try not to shoot anyone.
Women are only able to have jobs because we would have 1/2 the tax money without them. Americans. Like. Money.
People in government, who wanted money, realized this before the second world war. Ask that rockefeller guy. Not rockerfeller girl, i ain't never heard of them doing anything... I believe you know why.
Sorry ladies. Your history sucks. You've been nothing but used and mothers (aka: used to give birth to us dudes, haha), that's about it. If you give birth to a girl, you're just giving birth to another dude who's not a dude so we can use it to create some more dudes. Dudes Rule!
Make me some sh!t for brekfast and fvcking clean the house, b!thch!
If you would like more women's studies, heard from the mouth of the womb, go here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMwPq-a-8W4
thank you thank you btchs pleez