Thoughts

Honestly, I've never understood why everyone always rags on the General Ed classes.

I loved SWMS 210.

I registered for this class primarily because it fit in my schedule and only secondarily because it sounded interesting. Like many of you posted, I never really thought about gender much; I knew that women often got the short end of the equality stick and were all too frequently abused and objectified, and I hated that, but that was pretty much the extent of my knowledge. This class forced me to explore this more deeply: the societal problems stemming from our understanding of gender affect issues of sexuality, ethnicity, national origin, socioeconomic status, employment, your understanding of others, others' understanding of you, the list goes on. Really, this "Social Issues In Gender" class was about far more than gender; it was about social issues, period. All of them, but understood through a lens of gender.

I'm thrilled to have taken this class. As I was raving about it to a friend, I half-joked that I was considering adding a gender studies minor. The issues that we attacked are so relevant, so real, so important to so many people. I want to end discrimination, I want to end the objectification of women, I want to help all of society realize the intrinsic worth of people regardless of superficial things like appearance or gender.