Answer:
Gender Studies
Why Study Gender
Why Study Gender
From the Director’s Desk
One reason why most people refuse to participate in discussions on gender studies is because they understand gender as something that concerns women only. Therefore, as a student and teacher, I feel that the first step is to clarify that gender studies involves the study of both men and women. Gender, it has to be understood, is about a certain performance of identity, and gendered roles and norms are intrinsically woven into and practiced in our daily lives. Society has fixed standards and rules to validate both masculine and feminine identities. We are expected to perform these individual roles and reproduce the very conditions that perpetuate it. Starting with the clothes we wear, the spaces we occupy, the jobs we do, and the languages we speak, everything is gendered. This encoding of our daily life and habits directly impacts our sociocultural and economic status in society. Gender studies, therefore, is a study of production, reproduction, and resistance to norms that produce inequality between men and women. Only after this definition of gender studies is established proper dialogue is possible. Ironically, however, even though people practice gender in their everyday lives they feel awkward talking about it. This mindset poses unprecedented problems in the classroom. Therefore, in class discussions I strive to initiate students into thinking about gender as performative practices encoded since the moment of birth, or even prior to birth, through social, religious, and cultural institutions and texts.
Explanation:
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