Yesterday, I posted Lauren’s response at Faux Real Tho to Courtney’s Feministing piece on a day in the life of a feminist activist, and Ann’s, also at Feministing response to both. I’d rather that folks read the exchanges, but the best summary that I can offer is that these posts capture the stark reality of economic, geographic, and professional privilege — a reality made all the more stark by the dismal nature of the current global financial crisis. The discussion at Feministing (again, I highly recommend reading all the posts as well as the comment threads) has turned to what feminist life looks like in the current climate, with unemployment and under-employment and collapsing social services all around. It’s a sobering, as well as uplifting discussion.
This is in my head this morning as I read about the projected state budget deal which will strip $8 billion from California schools and community colleges. The bleak summary:
This month, tax refunds were suspended, along with payments to vendors and some welfare and college grants. And now much of state government is shutting down two days a month, furloughing most employees without pay.
Under the new budget agreement, cuts to other state services would be deep and long-lasting.
Schools and community colleges, which account for nearly half of all state spending, would lose nearly $8 billion. Only part of that would be backfilled by Washington. Several state requirements on how schools allocate their money — including on class size reduction — would be suspended for several years.
School officials say the plan could lead to the elimination of after-school activities, elective classes such as art and music, classroom supplies and thousands of teaching jobs.
Kevin Gordon, a lobbyist for school districts, said, “For the first time, people are really going to see tangible negative impacts from cuts.”
State colleges and universities, where tuition has been steadily rising for years, would lose $890 million.
Scheduled cost-of-living increases for public-assistance recipients would be canceled, and mental health and early childhood education programs created by voter-approved ballot initiatives would be cut by over $830 million. The state would cut spending on local public transit by $459 million.
My newborn daughter is, on her father’s mother’s side, a seventh-generation Californian. I am saddened to think that she will not know the California I knew growing up, just as my parents and grandparents were (I have been told many times) sad that I would never see what the Golden State looked like in their eras. The dream that brought my ancestors and my wife’s here — from places as disparate as Croatia and Colombia, Ulster and Illinois, Austria and the Piedmont — is not now what it was, nor is it likely to be so again.
But this is not the place for nostalgia. Frankly, I’m as concerned about my students as I am about my daughter. My classes are more crowded than ever before, as a changing economy sends more and more people desperate for new skills back to the community colleges for retraining. At the same time, middle-class parents who might once have been able to afford to pay for four years at university for their son or daughter now encourage their kids to spend two years at a far more affordable (if obscenely over-crowded) community college like my own PCC. And as always happens in an economic downturn, state services are cut at precisely the same moment that demand for those services increases.
In thinking about what Ann and Lauren and Courtney are blogging about, I think about my role as a gender studies professor and feminist educator. Should how I teach — and what I teach — change, at least in some way, to address the current crisis? I take great pride, and have for years, in the number of my former students who go on to major in Women’s Studies or Gender Studies in part because of what they got out of my classes. I’ve always held that students should major in something they love, rather than something that they think will get them a job. I’ve preached the (at best, optimistic, at worst, criminally misleading) mantra that “If you do what you love, the money will follow.” That was always a questionable proposition, particularly for those students who don’t have access to the kinds of networks which traditionally provide the social and financial capital with which to turn dreams into a sustainable living. Is it even more of a questionable proposition now, as we face what could be a prolonged recession with potentially massive unemployment?
Pursuing Gender Studies as a major is obviously no guarantor of financial security. But neither is a degree in finance; look at the massive layoffs in the banking industry. A career in construction is no more promising, nor a career in real estate. (If I had a dollar for every student I knew who was working on a real estate license during the peak of the housing boom between 2004-06, I’d be able to take an entire class to lunch.) When I was an undergraduate, with the Cold War still the defining global dynamic and with Reagan in office, many people I knew at Cal were studying aerospace engineering. They figured on a never-ending buildup of arms and materiel to confront the Soviet Union; the “smart money” said a career preparing for the defense industry was a sure thing. The Berlin Wall came down five months after I graduated college, and for the next dozen years, aerospace jobs were shed like dog hair. The point is an obvious one: for a student in her late teens, looking ahead to four or five decades in the work force, there is no major at college that will guarantee a steady and reliable income. In times of great instability, a major in something “impractical” like history or women’s studies makes no less sense than anything else. It is not, I insist, irresponsible to point so many undergraduates towards academic gender work.
But I worry that my own privilege may lead me to give poor advice.
As I’ve probably written before, I’m a huge E.M. Forster fan; “Howard’s End” is one of those books I reread every few years. It never ceases to speak to me for many reasons, not least because it is one of the most insightful books ever written about class and money. (I loved the film, by the way — in my inexpert opinion, one of the best adaptations for the screen of a much-loved novel ever.) In the book, the comfortable (if not wildly rich) Schlegel sisters befriend Leonard Bast, an ambitious, striving, bright but naïve young man with a stable, if dull job. The Schlegels take Bast, who has intellectual aspirations but little proper education, under their wing; the younger sister even ends up having an affair with him. But at one key point, Margaret Schlegel suggests that Bast quit his job, which he does. The advice turns out to be horribly wrong; Bast is ruined and, to make a very long and far more interesting story hopelessly short, ends up dead. The Schlegels survive, as do the very wealthy Wilcoxes. But Margaret Schlegel learns a valuable lesson: the affluent can survive impulsive decisions in a way that the poorer and the more marginalized cannot. The famous lines:
You and I and the Wilcoxes stand upon money as upon islands. It is so firm beneath our feet that we forget its very existence … I stand each year upon six hundred pounds, and (my sister) Helen upon the same … and all our thoughts are the thoughts of six-hundred-pounders.
I am a tenured professor, with no experience of working outside of academia. Though i teach at a community college, I never attended one in my youth. My wife and I have, through a variety of sources, a comfortable existence — one which we maintain by hard work, to be sure, but one to which at least in my case I was in no small degree born. I was not raised with great wealth, but with an island of comfort beneath my feet, the sort of foundation that gave me the sense that no matter what, I would be taken care of. (And given my self-destructive behavior for many years with drugs and alcohol, I had ample opportunity to be taken care of.) And though I can do everything imaginable to empathize with my students, most of whom are non-white, most the children of immigrants, most the first in their families to attend college, it’s more or less always true that my “thoughts are the thoughts of six-hundred-pounders.” And I worry that in my enthusiastic encouragement to my students to pursue majors in Gender Studies or Women’s History, I’m acting a bit like Margaret Schlegel when she gives her fatally well-meaning career advice to the vulnerable, impressionable, earnest Leonard Bast. Schlegel has never had a job, what does she know of the risks of quitting one? In the same way, I never took out a loan in all my years of higher education, all the way to the Ph.D; what right do I have to advise with enthusiasm that my students take on tens of thousands of dollars in debt so that they might write long and thoughtful papers on Judith Butler and Inga Muscio?
Of course, teaching feminism is about more than raising up a new generation of Women’s Studies majors. It’s about giving young men and women a different lens through which to see the world. It’s about asking young men and women to consider the possibility that biology is not destiny; that possession of a womb is no obstacle to full and complete participation in every aspect of modern life and that possession of a penis is no barrier to empathy, gentleness, and the capacity to nurture. Young people need to break out of the straitjacket of culturally imposed gender limitations, and they need tools with which to dismantle the ugliest aspects of what more and more feminists are starting to call the kyriarchy. These tools aren’t just for academic use: they are meant for the bedroom and the boardroom, the kitchen and the day care center, the family dinner table and the small rural collective. But those of us who teach and work in feminist-sympathetic communities (like that found on many college campuses), need to remember how many of our students will take what they’ve learned back into their homes and workplaces, spaces that are — to put it mildly — infinitely less “feminist-friendly.” We do well to remember that.
Most who teach women’s studies don’t work under quite as many blinders of privilege as I do. I’m white, male, heterosexual, married, Christian, from a family that was both educated and quite (famous euphemism) “comfortable.” But even those feminist professors who don’t have quite as large an island on which to stand generally have a degree of privilege that sets them apart from their students — and that is all the more true for those of us who teach at community colleges. To whatever degree it is possible to do so, we’ve got to get beyond “thinking the thoughts of the Professional Feminist Activist/Academic”, remembering that those whom we teach and inspire will, all things being what they are, never make a living off of feminism as we are fortunate enough to do. That’s not a recipe for a guilt trip, but in a time of contracting economic opportunity and growing unemployment we must, must, must be careful that our advice is not cavalier nor unconsciously privileged. Our thoughts may always be those of six-hundred-pounders, but our words need to be relevant and reliable to those whose islands of money are much, much smaller.
Wow, I think we were writing at the same time. Very relevant.
Hugo, while I agree with you on many things, money does NOT follow anyone. I agree that you should major in something that you love, but I have no illusions that my future degree in English literature will be worth much, even if I do end up attending a private, respected college next year. While majoring in, say, engineering does not necessarily guarantee money, I would venture to say that the job prospects for those who major in something like that are far greater than those who major in gender studies.
Forgive me for this thread drift, but since you brought up PCC, budget cuts, and class issues, I wanted to ask you something. I remember you writing, a couple years ago, that you would be disappointed if your children attended a community college before transferring to a university. I have to wonder why. PCC was an excellent school and, contrary to what a lot of my teachers in high school assumed, I was never intellectually bored or unchallenged there. I was a great investment all around.
My disappointment would not be because a community college is beneath my child — indeed, if my child were to move away from home to attend a JC in, say, San Diego, I’d be fine with that. Living away from home, living in communal housing with other students, was such a joy for me — and I think when we’ve had something we loved so much (in my case, four years of living away from home as an undergrad) we want our child to have the same.
If I lived in San Francisco, I’d be much happier with my kid going to PCC!
oye, you better not jinx nursing! while i find it nice to pursue something you’re passionate about and enjoy, there is a great deal of worry about whether or not the passion i choose will allow me lead a lifestyle to allow me to enjoy other things in life or allow me to take of people the way i want to. i also find it rather silly that people think that if you don’t pursue your passion in college, you’ll be so dismally unhappy later. you can pursue it in your off time and still be just as happy as supposedly someone who is making it their life’s work.
Don’t hide behind euphemisms, Hugo. Your family weren’t comfortable. They were rich.
Think about what you’ve said. They could afford to fund you entirely through at least seven years of university. Fees, rent, bills, living money. No loan. That’s not comfort; that’s wealth.
There’s no shame in that - there’s no shame in being born to any family. But calling yourself comfortable would make my family hard-up at best, and my friend who worked through uni to fund herself poor - and then what word do we use for those who live in council housing, for whom cars and degrees are equally impossible? They’re worse than poor, if you were comfortable; or else one of those categories has become so broad as to be meaningless.
All nice comments, but I was hoping we could direct the thread towards the usefulness of academic feminism in an economic crisis, and the ways in which many of us live out our feminism in these times and in our various careers.
(And I accept that I recoil from the term “rich” because it is so alien to the self-concept with which I was raised. We grew up believing we were middle class, just a bit more fortunate than some other folks. The scale of that fortune became clearer over time, but growing up as I did in an affluent area with people far, far wealthier than my family, I had a hard time believing we were “rich.”)
If any non-technical subject is useful in times of economic trouble, it’s feminism. Not because the patriarchy keeps getting us into these messes, because while that’s true I don’t think the patriarchy can directly be blamed, but because freeing people to do and be to the best of their abilities can only be a good thing. You want to find the best people to make things, or organise things, or keep accounts? Doubling the candidate pool for every position, by seriously considering women for men’s jobs and men for women’s jobs, has to be a good start. If you double the candidate pool, and weed out the less employment-suitable people in het couples to be the homemakers instead of essentially randomising that choice, you’re bound to end up with an on averae more capable and more dedicated workforce.
Doing that and making it work is clearly feminism’s remit.
I’ve been following that feministing exchange as well and I understand the feeling of “otherness” some women get from reading feministing. I feel like they do represent non-upper middle-class white backgrounds in the news reports and other things they publish, but the “otherness” I feel really comes in the more personal entries, like Courtney’s report on what her day is like. I feel like their tone often assumes a certain readership (white upper-middle class), but then almost everything I read in mainstream or feminist culture feels that way. The voices and culture of the genuinely poor are not well represented (because they’re often too bone tired to articulate it themselves, or not allowed the education to articulate it objectively). From what I understand, people in positions to be writers or professional activists are more likely to be from economically advantaged families because of what it takes to even get the opportunity to even attempt to be those things in the first place. It is hard to get your mind out of your own background, understand how other people live and integrate that into your public, private and professional interactions instead of just treating those of more disadvantaged people as a subject for research. Like Lauren said in her post, I don’t know how to change this either.
As for teaching, I have to admit that the maxim “If you do what you love, the money will follow” is intensely dangerous and irresponsible if not qualified with supplemental information. There’s been a conversation going on in academic blogosphere this year sparked by an article in The Chronicle telling profs not to EVER encourage grad school in the humanities unless the student is independently wealthy or has a spouse to support them. That is a very offensive suggestion on the level of class. Jobs in the academy are only for those with privilege going in, regardless of what kind of potential you have. Dr. Crazy at Reassigned Time gave a wonderfully balanced response here:
http://reassignedtime.blogspot.com/2009/02/advising-to-students-about-grad-school.html
She points out how wrong it is to discourage kids on the basis of class, but that kids aren’t going to listen to that kind of advice (they’re going to think you’re an asshole) and do it anyway, only uninformed of the realities. I think your mantra is similarly problematic but to the other extreme. The fact is, the privilege you have coming in DOES matter in the context of your opportunities. It’s a lot easier to get a job in “what you love” if you’re able to afford to live in a big city while you’re job searching, if you’re able to go to the best program that accepts you without having to worry about funding or are able to finish your dissertation on time instead of adjuncting all summer to pay the rent. Having less of a safety net from family support means you have to work harder and make more sacrifices (moving all over the country, delaying having a family or settling down) and that you also have more to lose. Profs in the humanities should encourage any student who thinks that grad school is what they want, but it is also their responsibility as a mentor to be clear about the risks and sacrifices even if those are unfair and aren’t congruent with the American Dream narrative.
The truth is, I think that what you say is true to a certain extent, it is very possible to make a life out of what you love. Though, I have come to the conclusion that doing so also comes at a cost and a risk, and those are greater the farther you have to climb and fall. Kids going into women’s studies programs or other humanities need to accept that they might not achieve their specific professional goals and it may not have anything to do with their ability. Not accepting this can lead to bitterness and regret (and the kind of vitriol I’ve seen on some academic blogs by people that regret their decision to go to grad school on a professional level). I think students need to be aware of their values. If this is what they love, what are they willing to risk for it? If there are some other aspects of their life they value more that they aren’t willing to sacrifice (like staying near family, getting married or having a family by a certain time, only accepting a certain type of job at the end of the education) then maybe they should reevaluate what is most important to them. There is a difference between making a life out of what you love and making a career out of it.
I’ve decided to go on to grad school because education means more to me than anything else in my life right now. I’m not doing it for the theoretical job I am hoping to get, I’m doing it because I value the enrichment I know I will get from pursuing my education further. I’m going to attempt the ideal job I want, but if I don’t get that, I know I will land somewhere and that is okay. My parents both make less than $20,000 with no job security, both having been fired from labor jobs they thought would always be there at pivotal points in their (and my) life. With a Ph.D in English and the willingness to move anywhere in the country, I will land on my feet. I don’t believe I will be entitled to whatever job I want when I graduate, but I believe I have the right to try no matter what my background.
And this is the point I think is important to what you are asking.
I think there are students who feel the same way I do about education, especially those who have come from profound ignorance as to the context of their world and have found freedom from self-blame in education. However, not all those students will end up as “Professional Feminists.” Period. There just is not enough money going around for everyone to get the dream job, especially in this economy. However, with more people going to grad school, there will be more well-informed women and men with feminist consciousnesses in all kinds of professions that effect the world. They will influence their colleagues, their friends and their job with likely be shaped in some way by their feminist consciousnesses. If they have families, there will be more feminist moms and dads. They will have a feminist life if not an explicitly feminist career.
To quote my statement of purpose, I believe in the transformative power of knowledge. However, kids, especially those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, need to be warned about the way the world is before they start on their journeys. They should be encouraged to honestly assess their values before beginning and soberly consider the reality of their choices. It is not fair that the poor have to work harder, sacrifice more and many may not succeeded on a basis having nothing to do with their ability. Life is not fair. That doesn’t mean, however, that they shouldn’t be allowed to try and that they shouldn’t get support from their mentors, even if those mentors’ narratives are very different from their own.
Finally,
(And I accept that I recoil from the term “rich” because it is so alien to the self-concept with which I was raised. We grew up believing we were middle class, just a bit more fortunate than some other folks. The scale of that fortune became clearer over time, but growing up as I did in an affluent area with people far, far wealthier than my family, I had a hard time believing we were “rich.”)
I’ve heard this before. I go to school with a girl who invited me and my boyfriend out for a weekend of swimming and speed boating at her parents summer house. This house was in the same county I grew up in where hardly anyone in my family could afford to buy one fifty year old regular house (half my extended family lives with other family or in the projects). I felt very country. She told me she didn’t consider herself rich because she went to the best public high school in our state and most of her classmates were much more wealthy than she was. Her SUMMER house cost five times as much as the tiny, old house my parents took out a risky loan to buy when I was 16 because our landlord sold our rented house out from under us. It reminds me how I felt when I was clinically obese as a teenager and girls far within the margin of healthy body weight talked disdainfully about themselves as being fat. Then what am I?
Then again, my family seemed rich to my cousins who grew up in rented trailers and the projects. I had a porch and a yard, got to go to the circus and Disney on Ice most years and went to 4H camp two summers. Perspective is a funny thing.
I’ve always been in the marginal class, Hugo and I can tell you your background and current circumstances are nothing to feel sheepish about. At worst, it reinforces the idea that only people with careers (as distinct from people with jobs)have any real worth. That does make me bristle, but it’s usually easy to get the “be all you can be” set to see that such thinking is yet more of the vanity we’ve been warned about in Ecclesiastics. And no, you didn’t give your students bad advice. Capitalism is winner-take-all. It’s not your job as an educator to point this out; people who don’t know this by the time they reach adulthood are in a coma. You’re doing them a service by providing intellectual enrichment in what will probably the last time in their lives that they can obatin. Keep it up!
Thanks, everyone, especially jennyfields — yours is the sort of first-person response that is so vital to these discussions, and I appreciate the balance between ambition and realism that you embody.
And Douglas, capitalism may be “winner-take-all” — but one of the many uses of feminism is to offer a critique of the way in which capitalism makes so few into winners, and so few women in particular.
Hugo,
From the perspective of a mid-level manager in a technical profession, I consider a degree in Feminism or Gender Studies about as valuable as a degree in Marxism. I’ve done some hiring over the years, and if I saw a resume that claimed a minor in this field, that person doesn’t get called in for an interview unless they have some other, very compelling, advantage. Anthropology, History, Economics, Theatre, Art minors - all fine and good. Feminist and Gender Studies - bottom of the pile.
But having said that, I see no reason at all why you should be hesitant about encouraging graduate work in your field. First you should believe in the enduring value of what you are teaching. I think your effectiveness as a teacher depends on that passion. Second, you’ve said in another post that you don’t believe in the “one mistake can ruin your life” warnings. The way this post reads, you’re afraid that if you if you give “fatally well-meaning” advice to pursue further studies in your field, you might be encouraging such a mistake.
To me, if you really, truly believe that your field of study demands critical thinking and analytical skills, then you ought to believe that mastery of this field will make students more flexible, more resilient, and more able to master new fields as economic circumstances change. Not less so. I think that education isn’t about gathering some knowledge in particular, but rather learning how to learn in general. I remember a professor of mine saying that his PhD really didn’t teach him about his field, but rather it taught him how to do research. He said that if he needed to become an expert, in say, genetics, he knew how to do that with about six months of focused research. “That’s the real value of a PhD,” he told us.
So to me, if someone spends their twenties pursuing graduate work in Gender Studies, and they decide, for money or job satisfaction or any other reason, that they want to do something else, they can spend their thirties mastering another field. What’s the harm?
Yeah, I know exactly what you and your readers are thinking, and the predictable and tired line of analysis that will follow. I’m coming from a privileged position, blah, blah, blah.
I think this post is extremely well written and I appreciate your thoughtfulness. However, I disagree very very strongly with your point of view. I do believe that your advice is wrong and harmful.
There is no guarantee in life. People absolutely need to know this and come to grips with it. There is nothing you can do in college that will guarantee you money. However, you cite the financial crisis and those with finance degrees here. It’s true that those people are currently having a hard time, I know a lot of these people. However, I will bet (a large sum of money even) that they will be fine. In a couple years their finances are still going to be far more stable then those of English or Gender Studies majors. They generally have large savings accounts and enough networking contacts to land on their feet.
From my personal experience of my high school I credit my and my personal friend’s financial success entirely to us having ignored any and all teachers or counselors peddling ‘do what you love!’ ‘don’t worry about money’! We all chose different professions and fields because we have different skills and preferences and we all enjoy what we do. All of us adjusted what we wanted to the realities of what we wanted financially. (The only close friend I had that did buy into that attitude is still in college… I wish her the best and do think she’ll be fine eventually but she’s certainly financially dependent and with loans at the moment and no particular qualifications). If someone really is okay with an inability to pay for their sister’s surgery in case of emergency, then sure they should chose whatever you want. My advice would be that money is damn important and that you can find something that you enjoy that will allow you a comfortable existence.
Further, I think women buy into the idea that a financially secure future does not need to be planned for more often then men. This contributes immensely to women having less power in their relationship with men and the world.
I’m a daughter of immigrants who came to the U.S. with nothing and made us an island to stand on from themselves. I always knew that money doesn’t appear out of thin air, if you want it you need to collect knowledge and make a plan for getting it.
As a last comment I do absolutely believe in following your own passion. My father for example (wow, this comment is all about me) was passionate about chemistry since he was a small boy and when he came to the U.S. was advised by everyone to go into computer science instead because it made better money and was more reliable. He’s had trouble finding jobs in chemistry but we as a family never regretted this choice because for him to leave chemistry would have been a personal tragedy for him. If you have a passion that fills you then you should pursue it but you should start thinking of how you can make a living from it early. My gut feeling is that more majors in English and History and Gender do not have an overwhelming passion.
Sweating,
It’s true that most college majors teach you more about thinking then actual knowledge and that this is valuable. The problem is getting others to believe this and act like they believe it. What I mean is that most employers prefer certain majors without trying to determine who has really mastered critical thinking and who hasn’t.
“Further, I think women buy into the idea that a financially secure future does not need to be planned for more often then men.”
This is true and is the flip side of the point I was trying to make (without much success) in the other thread (”One mistake will not ruin your life”).
Sweating Through Fog,
I’m just curious; how is a minor in Anthropology or History more valuable for a technical profession than Gender Studies? After all, they often deal with many of the same issues.
I am genuinely interested and would love to know the reasoning behind this.
Hugo: I do miss my Marxist-feminist cohorts back in the Bay Area. They don’t seem to exist in Minnesota (one is simply not allowed the least bit of stridency here).
Victoria: I’m loathe to ventriloquize for Hugo, but it strikes me that he’s interested not only in a society where women don’t get the short of the stick, but in a society where people don’t have to sweat paying for a relative’s medical care. I’m with him on that. If he tell his students they don’t have to buy into the rat race, I say more power to him. In fact, it’s brought my opinion of him up several notches. There was a time when I wondered whether he was one those folks who thinks progress simply means more women at the top of a very sordid heap. Now, I’m convinced he isn’t. Bully for him. Also, I wouldn’t be too sure that you or your friends are immune from being bitch-slapped by the invisible hand of the profit motive. This is a true systemic crisis. The Western world’s pre-eminence as consumer of last resort is fading, a problem compounded by decades of productive capacity being sent away from the West. Faith in the non-Western world to consume enough of current, much less future output, to keep the ball rolling will be shown to be sadly misplaced, you mark my words. Technology will simply compound the problem; ten years from now, people will wish bus conductor jobs still existed. This could resemble not the 1930s, but the late 19th century. I wish you and your friends a lot of luck, because you’ll need it.
Hugo,
Your post inspired mine of today (http://theatricalmilestones.blogspot.com/2009/02/big-no-no.html). I doubt you’re going to like what I have to say, though.
There is one thing I am wondering right now, that I was thinking about when I considered what I would do if my funding fell through. What are this year’s graduates supposed to do, particularly in the humanities? I would be scared as hell if I was going on the BA job market next fall. There aren’t even cashier jobs available. Every single job is frozen here. Although I decided to go for good reasons, I am grateful to be looking at a guaranteed job in the fall, even if it is as a TA. Sorry to hijack your blog, Hugo.
farnorth,
My reasoning is that Anthropology minor may indicate an interest in the study of social science and cultural dynamics. The latter can be useful since large technical projects today often involve diverse people scattered throughout the world. An engineering project is just a large scale human endeavor, and human factors are often the difference between success and failure.
I think a History minor shows an ability to communicate in writing, and the ability to research facts and primary sources to advance an individual argument. Written communication skill is essential for success even in the more technical professions.
Theatre or Art? Perhaps the sign of a creative person, and creativity is, to me, the fundamental driving force behind a successful engineer.
Now a Gender Studies minor might have all the same skills, but I’m more doubtful. My outsiders view is that you take Gender Studies not primarily because you like to study people, or because you love to write, or you want an arena for your creativity. You take it because you want to participate in a community with a shared set of similar grievances. To give GS students the benefit of the doubt, they may be skilled individuals, but ones that look to use their talent to alleviate injustice. An engineering project is not about alleviating justice, but rather the satisfaction gained by building something with others.
That’s why I don’t think it is like other fields of study.
But even those feminist professors who don’t have quite as large an island on which to stand generally have a degree of privilege that sets them apart from their students — and that is all the more true for those of us who teach at community colleges.
FWIW, I graduated from a community college in Illinois, and practically all my professors were from the working class (and in fact, since it was an economically depressed area, their pay kept them in the “working class” in terms of finances!). I thought that because of that, they were better able to bridge certain gaps—the few professors that didn’t have that background seemed to have a harder time relating to their students, and presenting the material in a relevant way. The struggle you are describing is something I saw my professors dealing with over twenty years ago (the economic crisis isn’t anything new in the Rust Belt). It became a topic of class discussion at times—no matter which class I was in. The instructors lamented the fact that the avenues they used to gain an education were no longer available to my generation—-and they feared the love of/joy of learning would be lost to the generation coming up.
All of the instructors I had are either retired or dead. I haven’t forgotten any of them, even though it’s been over twenty years since I’ve seen most of them. Sometimes, I see or hear or read something somewhere that reminds me of a lecture or class discussion, and I smile. I haven’t “used” that education in a so-called “practical” way, as I entered an apprenticeship instead of going on to school. But those years of schooling are still with me. I still read like a fiend. I haven’t forgotten how to think critically. I can still hear Dr. Yolanda Evans-Connolly’s crisp British accent haranguing me (and eveyone else in class) to “define your terms!!”
Point being, Hugo, is that you don’t need to worry about being responsible for telling your students to think about being financially practical. That lesson has been drilled into our heads since time out of mind. Those of us who never had that cushion to stand on know all too well about being practical. We know all too well that merely “doing what you love” means you just could end up ass-out-in-the-breeze broke. But formal education is temporary—learning is lifelong. Many of your students aren’t going to pursue a career in Women’s Studies, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to apply what they’ve learned in their lives.
Capitalism has some major downsides and feminism operating within a capitalist system is bound by capitalism’s operating tolerances. Capitalism demands an underclass in order to work. One great irony is that much of the workforce freedom that white women have today is provided by an underclass that toils away in daycare centers for barely above minimum wage. If these (mostly) minority women were paid a fair wage, daycare would be so expensive that it would make little sense to have a job and put the kid in daycare. What if one spouse just stayed home to take care of the kids? What if couples eschewed daycare and each worked halftime in order to take care of the kids??? In both cases production would drop . . . and massive drops in production cause drops in consumer spending and . . . recessions.
Is that the only minor that makes you suspicious? It sounds as though you are less concerned about academic rigor and applicable skills than about “do I agree with this candidate?” (Of course, I have one of the world’s least useful undergraduate degrees, which doesn’t matter because I went to law school; at that point your undergraduate studies only matter if you want to be an intellectual property lawyer, and then you’d better have a B.S.)
If Gender Studies were a real discipline, instead of an agenda, it would probably carry more weight on a resume.
Mythago,
I think I largely answered your question in my answer to farnorth above. Note that the scenario I’m considering is for an entry level job, where I’m doing the initial resume screening. In general all the students have the same major, so I’m distinguishing them by school, GPA and minor, and I’m using the minor as a proxy for some skills that may make them more effective in the job. Gender Studies just doesn’t offer much, in my view.
Arright, I haven’t taken Gender Studies (would probably explode from pure rage even if I could afford to go to school.) But it seems to me that it is a discipline, not just an agenda. And whether it offers much depends on 1] the teacher, 2] the student. I don’t think all people take it for the same reason either–some want their feelings confirmed, some are curious, some are really ready to learn.
If employers think it looks unimpressive on a resume, the problem is with them, with the whole system/society. I don’t have a quick fix for that one.
As for the systemic crisis–what would you do if your teacher could no longer teach? Would you find a way for the class to get together somehow, still? Even online?
I have long thought it is the resourceful who will survive. But now I start to understand that it is the persistent also, and the ones who know how to help each other.
I say Gender Studies is not a discipline because (the way I understand it) a discipline is subject matter. Math is the study of numbers, psychology the study of the mind, economics the study of wealth. Within those disciplines you can have schools of thought, which rise or fall depending on how the data comes in. You can be a Freudian, a Maslow-style humanist, a behaviorist — all of these are psychologists. You can be a Marxist, a Friedmanian, a Keynesian — all of these are economists.
Now if, within the tent of Gender Studies, you could find non-feminist viewpoints, it would be a discipline. I could imagine a world where this can be true — if, by “Gender Studies”, you mean a study of how gender influences cultures, etc., or how genders are treated, etc., the similarities or differences in genders, nature vs. nurture, etc., then you would have different of schools of thought because there are all kinds of ideas on this subject matter. John Paul II, James Dobson or Christina Hoff Summers would be Gender Theorists as surely as Hugo, or Mary Jane Sherfey, or Mary Daly are. But that does not seem to be the current definition of Gender Studies.
captcrisis-
Would you consider theology to be a discipline?
Now if, within the tent of Gender Studies, you could find non-feminist viewpoints, it would be a discipline. I could imagine a world where this can be true — if, by “Gender Studies”, you mean a study of how gender influences cultures, etc., or how genders are treated, etc., the similarities or differences in genders, nature vs. nurture, etc., then you would have different of schools of thought because there are all kinds of ideas on this subject matter. John Paul II, James Dobson or Christina Hoff Summers would be Gender Theorists as surely as Hugo, or Mary Jane Sherfey, or Mary Daly are. But that does not seem to be the current definition of Gender Studies.
Having James Dobson teach Gender Studies is a bit like having a creationist teach evolutionary biology. What other discipline is forced to accept into its ranks those who question — and actively undermine — the rational premises on which that discipline ie based? Gender Studies taught from a perspective hostile to feminism is biology taught from a perspective hostile to evolution. It can certainly be done, but it is invariably not done well.
daveve–
Yes, I think theology is a discipline, just as philosophy is. My understanding is, it’s the study of God or God-like entities and how they are perceived. Various viewpoints are explored and systems of casuistry or theonomy are built up based on the initial premises. Christians, polytheists, animists, panists — these are all theologians.
Even atheists. There are psychologists who say that psychology cannot be a coherent science. But they are talking about the life of the mind so they’re still psychologists.
Hugo–
By saying that Gender Studies is “based” on a “premise”, you are admitting that it is not a discipline but an agenda. No discipline — not math, not economics, not psychology — is based on a “premise”. A “premise” is something that a school of thought is based on. Freud had his “premises”, as did Maslow, B.F. Skinner, etc. Feminism has its “premises”. Gender Studies, as a true discipline, would not have any.
Two curious questions:
1) What do you see as the “premise” of Gender Studies?
2) What do you do with students who reject that premise?
As for biology being taught from a perspective hostile to evolution, it probably can’t be done because the data wouldn’t support it. Theories and schools of thought have died away due to changing or new data. (The theory of phlogiston, for example.) The same would be true in Gender Studies as to certain ideas — for example, the idea that men have less native intelligence than women. Where would you get the data for that? As it is, the data support many ideas about gender, often depending on how the data is viewed (or some would say manipulated). I don’t think you can seriously say that available data support *only* your idea of the “premise” of Gender Studies.
(Sorry for using the word “data” so much. I’m trying to be exact without regard to sounding elegant.)
Understandable, but when “Gender Studies” is the only liberal-arts degree that you believe lacks any useful skills, that sounds like more of an agenda than a hiring decision.
captcrisis, Richard Dawkins and P.Z. Meyers are also ‘religion theorists,’ but I don’t think you’d invite them to teach your Theology students, would you?
I’m not a professional educator, so I won’t take a position on whether Gender Studies is a discipline or not. Ive stated that Gender Studies courses seem to offer little as an indicator of ability in my job, but then again I think it does offer sound qualifications for lots of other jobs. If I headed a leftist activist or advocacy group I would surely want a Gender Studies major on my staff. In general, from what I can tell from the course work, any job that that requires articulate and focused complaining seems to me like a good fit.
Mythago - my agenda is getting things built for my employer, and I do not want anyone that may, just may, arrive with a different agenda. As Tony Soprano said to a new crew member he was unhappy with: “This is a place of business, not a sewing circle.”
Douglas,
It’s not that I disagree with you exactly, it’s that when you have a sick relative what you say is not particularly useful .
I am skeptical of your claim that there will be a huge shift in all of society very soon. Even during the Great Depression the people socioeconomically on top pretty much stayed on top, etc. Is it likely there will be changes that we have not predicted? Absolutely. I’m a flexible person so when the changes happen I’ll adjust. I’ll go to Plan B or Plan C or make up a Plan D if appropriate. There are no guarantees. However, to pretend that life and finances are literally just a roll of the dice is simply not true.
Sweating Through Fog,
I can certainly come up with skills indicated by a Gender Studies major similar to the ones you identified from Art and History above from the top of my head. For one a GS major will be more likely capable of thinking outside the box, be more comfortable deviating from tradition and less likely to reject a solution because it doesn’t seem obvious. (New approaches to engineering do get created and are often famous). From a different direction, if this is a woman with that minor and she’s working in an all male or almost all male (not hard to imagine in engineering) environment she’s more likely to be prepared for the difficulties and be able to deal with them in a successful way. A good working environment is a plus in any business. If it’s a man you can be fairly certain that he won’t insult (often even unintentionally) a client that’s a woman or a gay man. Etc. Etc. Or they might simply be an interesting person with broad eclectic interests, which is always nice to have, as long as they’re good at what they do.
“Richard Dawkins and P.Z. Meyers are also ‘religion theorists,’ but I don’t think you’d invite them to teach your Theology students, would you?”
Of course I would — though if they can’t teach other areas of theology, their usefulness on the faculty would be limited.
Theology is a special case because departments of theology tend to be in church-run colleges, where only certain schools of thought would be allowed to be espoused (though presumably all schools of thought would be studied or at least briefly skimmed over).
Gender Studies, Women’s Studies, Black Studies — these really do seem to be churches, where opposing viewpoints can scarcely be imagined within the “discipline”. But look at the example of psychology. Thomas Szasz made his career out of maintaining that mental illness was a myth. Yet he was a professor of psychiatry for decades.
I am left without words. Anthropology, history, economics (this one is hilarious), these are worthy subjects of study. But gender studies, that is just a community of people with a shared set of grievances.
Projection. It’s a word.
One great irony is that much of the workforce freedom that white women have today is provided by an underclass that toils away in daycare centers for barely above minimum wage. If these (mostly) minority women were paid a fair wage, daycare would be so expensive that it would make little sense to have a job and put the kid in daycare.
Not really wanting to derail the thread, but do I need to remind you that working class and poor women of all races have always worked outside the home, with or without decent child care arrangements?
Think on this: if you had to hire your own police protection, detectives, and prosecutors in the event a crime were committed against you, would you be able to afford it? If you had to hire your own firefighters, could you? Luckily, you don’t have to—public sector employees do it for you. That’s what child care ought to be—a public entity, like the police and fire departments. And why don’t school hours match daytime working hours? that would solve a lot of problems right there—for parents and children.
We need to admit that our society is no longer a majority agrarian society, with both parents and all children working on a farm. We still structure our school systems along the farming calendar, and we still structure school hours on the assumption there will be someone home at 3:00 or 3:30PM, even though that is seldom true. Time to wake up and create conditions that work for the lives of the majority of people, no?
It is true that childcare wages suck. I used to work in childcare, and it was a minimum wage, no benefit job (including no sick days, one of the hazards of employment). It’s more feasible to publically subsidize child care than it is to cut back on working hours. I’m a single parent; I can’t afford part-time work, and I work in a field that doesn’t allow for flex time. If the school extended its hours a la the KIPP program or such, it would instantly solve both the problem of affordable child care and poverty wages for child care workers (for school age children). It would also provide more time for learning for kids who are struggling, and extracurricular and/or extended learning opportunity for those who aren’t. Win, win, win all the way around.
Really? Why? Because you believe that the best way to teach students a subject is to have lecturers who believe their entire field of study is at best foolisness but more likely a kind of mental evil? Do you also think that classes in Economics should be taught by anarchists who think that all property is theft, or classes in Evolutionary Anthropology taught by flat-earth creationists?
By the way, captcrisis, for a guy who bemoans the lack of freedom for men to be at-home fathers, you seem to be eager to contribute to that attitude. Is it really that you want men to have more options, or that you find it useful to complain without actually wanting the problem solved?
Victoria,
A broad-minded, curious, and creative individual is indeed what I’m looking for, and, to me, there are lots of minors that indicate those qualities more directly than Gender Studies. As far as whether a female employee is more likely to deal with difficulties by being armed with some knowledge they’ve acquired in Gender Studies - I’m doubtful. I’ve had difficulties with female Indian engineers, and the way they resolved those difficulties was by patient, careful explanation and persuasion, showing me why I was wrong. They don’t bother studying Gender Theory so they can discern the Patriarchal foundation of all my male biases. They study engineering, English and Western business culture, and they use that knowledge to design systems and persuade others about the merits of their design.
And as far as whether Gender Studies would make an employee less likely to insult someone? Perhaps. But it is also possible that Gender Studies will make them more sensitive to perceived insults from others. So I think its a wash on that score.
Thinking outside the box? I think that GS has the conceit that that is what they do. To me, all it means is the repeated, tired, and done-to-death deconstruction of gender narratives. To the extent that I’m looking for outside-the-box thinking in an engineer, I’m looking for new, creative ways to build things. Engineers take pride in what they build, not in what they deconstruct.
Captcrisis,
To be fair, economics faculties in the United States are hardly immune from politics or ideology. The belief that individuals are naturally selfish, and in the value-free operation of the free market, untrammeled by what we might think to be right, is itself an ideology, and a fairly pervasive one. In the United States at least, heterodox economists are not exactly welcomed in most university faculties. (I suspect that this might be different in universities in, say, Venezuela).
Gender studies, I think, is a sad excuse for a discipline, but it’s hardly alone in that regard- it’s no more intellectually and morally absurd than laissez-faire economics, “cornucopian” theories of demography, Freudian psychology or literalist interpretations of the book of Genesis.*
*I’m for the most part a literalist when it comes to the New Testament, but certainly not when it comes to the Old Testament, and particularly Genesis.
Hector,
Of course politics and ideology determine whether the faculty of this or that college tend to lean one way or the other. To take the economics example, the University of Chicago, for example, was founded to serve the interests of big money and certainly did so with its “University of Chicago school” of economics (and other disciplines). Other colleges might have departments where almost everyone is a Marxist or a Keynesian. This is not a good situation because a student should be exposed to proponents of diverse viewpoints.
But nobody at the University of Chicago would dispute that the Marxists or Keynesians are *economists*. They might say they’re bad economists, misguided economists, the data don’t support their position, I-dont-want-those-guys-on-my-faculty, I hate them, etc. But they agree they are in the same field of study. During their training they all majored in Economics and they are familiar with the same foundational work, the same history of competing ideas. They walk into a classroom and find students who disagree with them. You can say to the average person on the street, “I’m an economist”, and there is no assumption that you hold one viewpoint as opposed to another.
But Gender Studies has *premises*. It’s an agenda. If you don’t agree with those premises, you’re just not a Gender Theorist. This not good. From what I gather this makes Gender Studies an echo chamber, a “dissent free zone”, where a professor can assume that because the students signed up for a Gender Studies course, they’re coming from pretty much the same place and he won’t have to do a whole lot of explaining (or self-examination).
If Gender Studies were a true discipline, a true field of study, in the sense I described above, it would make for better scholarship, better teaching, and it would reach the general student population. This would be good for non-feminist students too. Otherwise there is no place for them (and no reason for them) to be exposed to feminist theory, and there is no place in the academy to discuss gender issues without having to dip your fingers into the Feminist Holy Water at the door.
Sweating Through Fog,
Your reply seems to strongly support the idea that you don’t approve of the discipline and that is the reason you would prefer not to hire someone with that major/minor. It seems similar to the belief that ‘English majors are focused on grammar and obscure and difficult classics and do not write well and are often stuck up and disengaged from the real world.’ - it’s not a position without any support but it’s a particularly negative take on the major and likely caused more by your own experiences and prejudices then the major itself. This isn’t the right place to argue the benefits of the GS major though so I won’t.
I have to say, knowing why someone is being an asshole to me and knowing they aren’t even aware of it makes it easier for me to refrain from swearing at them, crying, or taking it personally.
Why, it’s almost as though we don’t value childcare and don’t consider it to require any special skills or competence.
Hugo, you are the teacher, what are the premises [if any] of gender studies? Is it just that gender is something that can be studied?
Is it that oppression based on gender exists and study can find a way to dismantle it–or is it that study can find out whether oppression is real or not (I think it is, but I majored in electronics.)
“Perceived insults”–I could smell those long before I was of an age to take gender studies classes, had they existed then. Such classes might have helped me understand why I felt insulted, but lately blogs such as this are filling that gap.
“Thinking outside the box”–that is what the earlier femininsts, gay activists, etc. had to do to make a place for themselves. Now, some academics have made it bigtime by stacking up unreadable jargon, etc. and in a way making a whole new box that I prefer to think outside of, because for me thought is not possible inside it. But not everyone in the field is like that, fortunately.
“Shared grievances”–well, maybe finding out whether there’s a real basis for said grievances and what can be done about it are indicated, and a gender studies class could be helpful for this.
“Sewing circle”–thanks a lot for trivializing an important craft and the practicioners thereof.
As a [sort of] engineer [spare time] I take pride in what I build, and would never deconstruct something except to build something better. The mere presence of contending or just disparate viewpoints doth not a discipline make–I think; has anyone here bothered to define exactly what a discipline [count-noun] is, and what is an agenda? Seems the latter has become a bit of a dirty word lately.
Oh, and where do I get some of that feminist holy water? Sounds like it might be useful for banishing certain evil forces…
Hugo is busy taking care of his new little girl. So I appreciate the work of Mythago, La Lubu, NBarnes, Jennyfields and the rest in helping me understand why I feel the way I do.
High-falutin’ BS isn’t exactly limited to Gender Studies academics, either - you see it in English, art, economics, history and pretty much anywhere else that publishing ‘new ideas’ is the key to promotion.
Oh, and I concur with what was said about economics - it really isn’t a mere study of how money flows, it IS an ideology, as least as it’s taught in the US.
Mythago,
No doubt there is plenty of jargon, high-falutin’ BS, and ideology in economics. But there is a kernel of analysis, logic, and modeling there that has proved useful not just in economics but in other fields of study.
Consider, for example Game Theory. I challenge you to find a “discovery” or analytical approach in Gender Studies that has equivalent simplicity, elegance, and applicability within other disciplines.
If your standard for all applicants is “does your field of study stack up favorably when compared to Game Theory?” then that’d be one thing, but singling out Gender Studies as some kind of special, prone-to-mushiness discipline suggests that it’s less concern with academic rigor and more concern with not having any of those goddamn feminists cluttering up your workplace.
Mythago,
I thought I made it clear in the examples of fields of study that impress me as markers for good ancillary skills that I’m not looking for skills at mathematical modeling. I assume those skills in an engineer. My standard was quite different from your characterization. I just used Game Theory as an example to counter the assertion that Gender Studies and Economics are somehow equally built on a foundation of BS and ideology.
My standard is to look for qualities and supplementary learning that offer advantages in my workplace, and I do not claim those standards should apply to all workplaces.
So far the only claim I’ve heard for Gender Studies as a sign of useful skills for my workplace is that it provides some enhanced ability to deal with insults. I have to admit I’d be caught off guard if an applicant told me that they anticipated so much grief, and so much toxicity on the job that they felt that any native coping skills they had required buttressing with a few years of specialized college level preparation. I suppose I’d feel like a post office supervisor being told by an applicant that years of specialized weapons and tactics training has given them the confidence to handle themselves in a notoriously contentious workplace.
Sweating Through Fog,
I’m sorry that you have read through all these posts and have not found anything worth considering regarding your stance on the disciplines discussed. I’ve worked 10+ years in an academic discipline that regards itself as the foundation of academia and which is, still, very disdainful of other disciplines and the discourses they might bring to the table. For this reason, I am thankful for disciplines (yes, disciplines!) such as gender studies, as they sometimes feel like the only places where new thoughts and theories are being welcomed. I’m sorry you don’t see that kind of dedication, inquisitiveness and energy as valuable to your workplace.
“So far the only claim I’ve heard for Gender Studies as a sign of useful skills for my workplace is that it provides some enhanced ability to deal with insults. I have to admit I’d be caught off guard if an applicant told me that they anticipated so much grief, and so much toxicity on the job that they felt that any native coping skills they had required buttressing with a few years of specialized college level preparation. I suppose I’d feel like a post office supervisor being told by an applicant that years of specialized weapons and tactics training has given them the confidence to handle themselves in a notoriously contentious workplace.”
I’m sorry, but this paragraph says everything there is to say about your personal bias against gender studies.
Anyone who studies Gender Studies must, by definition, be a feminist.
This is the message I’m getting, unless someone contradicts me here.
Anyone who studies Economics must, by definition, be a Marxist.
Anyone who studies Psychology must, by definition, be a behaviorist.
If you see how ridiculous these two statements are — and, if true, how comparatively useless and off-putting they would make a degree in Economics or Psychology on a resume — hopefully you see the basis for my assertion that Gender Studies is not a discipline.
I’m still waiting for an answer from Hugo on what the “premises” of Gender Studies are, but I understand he’s busy with his baby. Maybe another post and another time.
Farnorth,
The reason for the paragraph you find so disdainful was to point out how counterproductive it is to proffer the alleviation of workplace insults as the supposed benefit for a field of study in the workplace.
Did I miss some claim about the substantive value of Gender Studies to my project, other than the alleviation of insults at my workplace? If I missed one in the discourse above I’ll be happy to reread and consider it carefully.
I did hear lots of sweeping assertions about new ways of thinking and creativity, and your post just reiterates those using some new words. I’ve been more specific about what I look for and why I think it offers value towards the success of an engineering project. And also to a great extent why the personal satisfactions gained from those fields of study are congruent with the type of work I do. I’m still waiting for a specific argument that GS students bring motivation or accomplishment of equivalent usefulness.
So far all I’m hearing is that my failure to recognize the value of Gender Studies in my endeavor must be motivated by bias. I’d hoped for a more stimulating argument, and feel saddened that students of such an insightful and original field of study seek the easy refuge of a blunt instrument.
I’m glancing at this thread and realizing I helped kick off some major drift. The point of this post was not to question the legitimacy of Gender Studies — as I’ve said many, many times this is a feminist blog written for feminists and those sympathetic to feminism. This is not the place to review why feminism matters. This is about teaching and studying women’s studies in this economy, not whether it ought to be seen as a legitimate discipline at all.
Please, folks, come back on topic or I will close the thread down.
I can imagine a scenario in which one person decides to major in economics for the purpose of finding ways to redistribute wealth and alleviate poverty, and another person chooses the same major just to learn how to become filthy rich and damn the rest. Likewise, one person may take gender studies to learn how to redress this or that inequity, and another might take it in order to learn new ways to profit off said inequities. I would hope that the would-be exploiters in each case would learn something new before they were done. I would also hope that the instructors would help them learn to find just-er, less destructive ways to improve their own lots.
As for the increased ability to deal with insults, some of us grew up not properly trained in that, and needed all the help we could get. No schooling could actually give me the courage to say “Stop that right now”, but maybe it could have helped me better understand why (as I had suspected) it needed to be said, and more effective ways to say it than just hitting the offender with a dead tanner crab (although I must admit that that one was pretty effective, and the party in question should just be glad I didn’t butcher them like I did the crabs.) We can’t all learn everything from our parents. Perhaps such skills as I allude to are more in the province of a coping or tactics class, but the theory of how oppressions of various sorts work and how they can be unworked is key–and specialized classes or programs dealing with gender, race, disability, what have you, can be useful. As to how specialized something can be and still be a major, that’s one I won’t get into. Nor will I attempt to see how game theory could affect gender studies, nor get involved in the exact definition of a feminist, but I am sure that when Hugo gets back he will have something to enlighten us all.
Oops, sorry, Hugo, you sent yours while I was working on mine. I hear and obey. Now, how to teach these things you want to teach in this very problematic economy…Well, how many of your readers live in your region, and could come over and help take care of the baby–that would help some, I’m sure; I’d volunteer to help with the chinchillas but I live in Pugetopolis and am too broke to travel right now. It seems that people can with a bit of thought find ways to help each other out. I don’t know how formal education will sustain itself, nor how some majors will fare in a changing world that needs to change a lot more. I do suspect that sticking together somehow is key, and the Net will be helpful here.
Thanks for encouraging thought.
Sweating Through Fog,
I feel that some of your arguments and comments are in bad faith. None of us have said that the only virtue of a gender studies minor is to alert people to insults in the workplace, and you know that. I realize that Hugo is doing more important things right now than moderating this thread, and so I will make this my last post for now.
I don’t know what kind of ’stimulating argument’ you are looking for, and I am probably not the person to provide it. I will say that you seem to have made your mind up already, which is rarely a good thing. We have not, in your eyes, provided adequate arguments for why gender studies might be a valuable field of study:
“I think a History minor shows an ability to communicate in writing, and the ability to research facts and primary sources to advance an individual argument. Written communication skill is essential for success even in the more technical professions.
Theatre or Art? Perhaps the sign of a creative person, and creativity is, to me, the fundamental driving force behind a successful engineer.
Now a Gender Studies minor might have all the same skills, but I’m more doubtful. My outsiders view is that you take Gender Studies not primarily because you like to study people, or because you love to write, or you want an arena for your creativity. You take it because you want to participate in a community with a shared set of similar grievances. To give GS students the benefit of the doubt, they may be skilled individuals, but ones that look to use their talent to alleviate injustice.”
Do you ever ask yourself why you think these things? Why would you suppose that a student takes gender studies because of ‘grievances’, rather than through genuine curiosity about how history, or art, or economics, or history, or philosophy, or theatre or literature would look if the history of civilization were different? I realize that you want this discussion to ‘prove’ to you by way of a ’stimulating argument’ why you should care, but I am sorry to say that you are both uninformed and misguided when it comes to modern academia, and I hope you will want to learn more, independent of whether this thread pleases you or not. I’m bowing out.
Sorry Hugo, I see that I was writing the above while you were posting. Feel free to erase.
It might be a dangerous advice to give to a student, but the fact is like you said that there is no guarantee of making a comfortable living going to school for any particular job. It’s really important to do what you love and it’s even more important to have someone that cares for you genuinely encourage you to do it. One doesn’t necessarily have to do it for money. Most of the time when we are truly passionate about something we find a way to do it anyway. So if whatever it is one wishes to do doesn’t seem like a very good idea for making money, he/she can study something else but find a way to fit their passion in different aspects of their lives. And since we are talking about feminism and women studies; there is plenty of ways we can practice and fit it in our lives outside of our “jobs/career” and since that’s not giving up on our passion we won’t be completely miserable.
Entirely, Rarec. Now, how much does academically specializing in this to the level of a major program actually help in practicing/fitting it into our lives? If it helps a lot, how can poor people afford it, or be helped to reap the benefits somehow [besides reading blogs like this?] In other words, how can programs like Hugo’s be sustained in bad economic times, and how can their fruits be shared best with all?
“The point of this post was not to question the legitimacy of Gender Studies — as I’ve said many, many times this is a feminist blog written for feminists and those sympathetic to feminism. This is not the place to review why feminism matters.”
O.K. I respect you greatly Hugo — especially for your refusal to sling mud or “pathologize the other side”. This is your blog.
Just *please* tell me that you don’t enforce these discussion restrictions in your classes.
This is similar to the central theme of Dead Poets’ Society: Williams’ character deliberates his actions in encouraging a passion, and dedication to, the arts. A student attempts suicide (can’t remeber if he was successful or not) when his wealthy father threatens to dis-own him if he pursues a career in the arts.
I suppose the only thing to do is to let the students know they have it in them to pursue their passions further, do what they can to assist with funding possibilities, and let them make their own decisions. Educators don’t, and shouldn’t, have control over their students lives. 600 pounders really do have no idea of the reality of a poor life, and I think the individual student is the best judge of their own ability to navigate financial hardship and a dedication to the arts.
Dead Poet’s Society:
I remember that excellent film.
The Ethan Hawke (?) character’s father was not wealthy. This was mentioned in passing. He’s spending all kinds of money to send his son to this expensive school and doesn’t want it pissed away learning an unprofitable craft.
My father had a similiar reaction when I switched from Math/Physics to Music. “I’ll cut him off without a cent!” He didn’t really do that, but then again, we were not from the economic class where parents paid for their children’s education. We all got through on scholarships and loans. He really had no leverage over me.
But I can understand where he was coming from. After all, he was a Depression baby.
Sweating Through Fog had a similar post a while back about his feelings about his daughters’ educational choices.
To my mind, an degree MUST be marketable to some extent. At least the major. The minor is where you can explore your curiosities and your passions.
Yeah, I think I remember that now. Again, I think this could be a case of wealth being comparative! to many people, if your father can afford to send you to a fee paying school, no matter how much he scrimps and saves - he is wealthy!!
Also, I’m not sure that the Schlegel sisters advised Leonard Bast to quit work and pursue the arts, wasn’t it just that they warned him the company he works for ‘Porphyria’ was going to go bust. Leonard hence jumped ship and the new company went bust - hendce the all night walk through the forest and subsequent near starvation of he and Mrs. Bast. I’m sure that’s how it is in the film. The Schlegels weren’t naive at all, they were pretty switched on, I’m sure.
Yes, I blog and teach very differently, captcrisis.
And Matey, of course you’re right about the Schlegel warning — I didn’t suggest otherwise above. The point was that what is “well-intentioned advice” for the wealthy can be catastrophic for those who don’t stand on islands of money. But they are in a very real sense naïve, which is one of Forster’s points — Schlegels and Wilcoxes must not only unite, they must “connect” with the world around them.
Hugo, although you don’t explicitly say it in your original words, you are using advice given by the Schlegel sisters as a case study in your deliberations about wether ot not to encourage students into a less obviously finacially secure career path. So, hence, I had the idea you thought the Schlegels had advised Leonard to take such a risk.
I actually think the Schlegels just made a mistake! They passed on a tip, which anyone would - and Forster’s novel illustrates the fragility of some people’s live and the disparity between theirs and others, such as the Schlegels. I think Forster is addressing a time of immense change in British history, and is looking at how the Schlegels manage that. To me the greatest change and point of learning is in Maragaret and Mr. Wilcox. In marrying a Wilcox, Margaret flies in the face of her liberal upbringing and family - and he must ultimately bend to more liberal and feminist ways of life.
While Margaret goes into the Marraige with her eyes open, Mr. Wilcox seems the most naive of the bunch - not recognising Margaret and the strength of her relationship with Helen, and not realising the consequences of his advice about Porphyria to Margaret and Helen. And thinking he can continue to get away with gendered double standards around Margaret.
The Schlegels seemed to me to be always aware of the gravity of Leonard’s financial fragility, hence the advice to leave Porphyria. They don’t seem naive about poverty - least of all in the instance of their advice to Leonard.
Good post though and a very relevant discussion to anyone involved in humanities education.
I don’t think experiencing a need to adapt and connect with the world around them
To my mind, an degree MUST be marketable to some extent.
To some extent, any degree is marketable. But you have to either: a) be willing to take the sort of job where the prerequisite is any sort of bachelor’s degree, and they don’t actually care what your major is, or b) be really, really good. A guy I was friends with at college, not coming from any kind of wealth, passed on an engineering degree to follow his passion for acting, and he is now pretty darn marketable. But he’s also really, really good.
A lot of other people I knew at school were able to make a living afterwards, regardless of the practicality of their majors, by getting jobs that didn’t have much to do with their majors. There were lots of people recruiting for sales jobs on my campus, for instance, who would take anyone from my school, regardless of major, who could interview well. (Mileage may vary some here depending on the school; this was Stanford, and I suppose if there’s any place having your degree be from a prestige school matters, it would probably be getting that first job, with no experience, and a not particularly practical major. Which I guess goes back to my other point, that though you can still market yourself with an unmarketable major, the less marketable your major, the more it helps to stand out in other ways.)
Yes, I know people like that, who have pulled themselves up through risky career paths. They are always very, very good and extremely hard working.
“The point was that what is “well-intentioned advice” for the wealthy can be catastrophic for those who don’t stand on islands of money.”
Putting myself in your shoes, and imagining that I’m teaching students of limited means, I’m struck by what you seem to be missing. They are choosing what many might view as an unmarketable field of study because they are drawn to it. It interests them. It excites them. They are putting aside, perhaps temporarily, anxieties for the future. Where you see naivete, I see people familiar with struggle who’ve cleared away enough space for themselves to gain some breathing room. I seem to see strength where you see weakness.
So here’s my advice: When considering the question of whether to advise such students to pursue further studies - trust their judgment. Because if there is anything that your course of study teaches it is that one redeeming benefit of dealing with unfairness and struggles is a clearer and more accurate view of the true terrain of the world. I may be a WS and GS skeptic, but I know there is much truth in that teaching.
Consider this as advice from one six-hundred-pounder to another. I often see my six hundred pounds as six hundred pounds of fat, when other, leaner people may be better prepared for the future.
STF, the naivety isn’t so much in your students, but in those giving high-handed advice whose consequences they won’t have to bear. And yes, sometimes those students are naive or misinformed. Back when I was in college, our professors were exhorting us to get into grad school because a whole wave of professors were retiring and we’d all have jobs! Well, if you based your career on that advice and didn’t have a financial back-up plan, you’re likely hurting right now.
As for six-hundred-pounders, in a famine, you’ll be much happier to have six hundred pounds of fat than to be lean. I too admire those who can walk a tightrope higher than I could ever manage, but I have no illusions about who’s going to be hurt more by a misstep.
Yes, Mythago, you are right. Exhortations can, of course, be misguided. I don’t have an easy answer for Hugo’s dilemma.
While you can probably assume that a degree in Medieval Russian Studies is probably not as marketable as one in Engineering, guessing what is and isn’t “marketable” can be a crapshoot. I know of a few lawyers who, when they were in college, took Asian Studies (becoming fluent in Mandarin) and business classes, with the idea of a profitable career as corporate attorneys for companies doing business with China. Unfortunately, what they didn’t and probably couldn’t foresee was that the Chinese rapidly trained their own attorneys, and frankly, preferred to deal with Chinese rather than Americans, fluency aside.
I also went to college with people whose parents refused to pay for a degree that wasn’t “marketable”. Sometimes this was parental concern about money. Other times it was about control, or about pushing a child into a career path the parents wanted. It was far more the parents concerned about their children’s security who were likely to talk about a middle path; taking poetry writing as electives or a minor, or pursuing it as a sideline, rather than majoring in something “unmarketable”. The ones with control issues were not so flexible.
My experience:
I worked hard in high school and got accepted to the Ivy League. But the loans I would have had to take out to go there would have been so expensive to pay back that it seemed I would have to take a high-yielding major, like Business or Science. Yuk! I came from a conservative town and my high school was basically a glorified vo-tech center, with only a small percentage of graduates going on to college. I wanted to get out and finally find myself around other liberals. To tie myself to a Business major was the last thing I wanted to do. My dad, a Depression baby, absolutely could not understand this attitude.
So I went the State University route. In my state the big private colleges suck up a lot of state money and the state u., which was relatively new, was decidedly second-rate. The college I went to graduated a lot of people who couldn’t write a sentence. And the teaching I got was, usually, not very good. The college was like a French Foreign Legion for professors, with such a poor name that attempts at an Alumni Association never got off the ground.
BUT I felt the freedom to pursue human services, majored in Psychology, took all kinds of electives, and ended up with job that I liked. It was very low paying but I also had an $80-a-month loan that didn’t crimp my choices.
I would recommend the same route to any teenager who had the same desires I did.
Hugo, I would expect that the median student that majored in Women’s Studies or Gender Studies is $20,000 in debt and lost four years of potential wages. I also feel for the students that were encouraged to go law school by their instuctors and now are $150,000 in debt and lost seven years of potential wages. Since student debt is not forgiven in bankruptcy, things are going to be very tough for recent grads.