When I initially decided to take a Women’s and Gender Studies class, I knew that the course readings would be liberal-leaning and overtly feminist. I did not know how open the professors and administrators would be about this leftward bias, however.
As I glanced through my syllabus for “Introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies” on the first day of class, one line in particular stood out:
“Because women’s and gender studies aims to transform knowledge and bring about social change, we will continuously ask ourselves how the ideas we learn about in our readings and class discussions can be translated into intellectual practice and social activism.”
Right from the very beginning, Women’s and Gender Studies was presented not just as an academic discipline, but as preparation for activism. Many college classes discuss current events and modern day social issues, but none take sides so obviously as Women’s Studies classes.
Our assigned readings for a class discussion on abortion were both written by pro-choice authors, and the professor made no attempt in class to provide an alternative perspective. The theme of class that day was “Health and Reproductive Justice,” because radical feminists love to reframe abortion-on-demand as “healthcare.”
My professor saw no problem in emailing the schedule for “Choice Week,” a week of programming put on by the pro-choice club. When I asked if she would send out the schedule for “Life Week,” a week of programming put on by the pro-life club, she waited until all the speaker events were over before finally sending it to the class.
She even wrote a disclaimer in her email, “I strongly believe that a woman’s right to choose is a cornerstone of feminism, but in light of the greater conversation about reproductive justice happening on this campus and in the interest of free speech, I am forwarding the information as requested.”
My professor’s syllabus and actions are not unusual for the Women’s and Gender Studies program.
When I attended a portion of the program’s 30th anniversary conference, every professor on the panel seemed to hold the same political and ideological beliefs. When one professor spoke about her initial difficulties in convincing her students that anti-capitalism was a tenet of feminism, her co-panelists and the professors in attendance nodded sympathetically. Not only did they accept that their job was to persuade students to change their beliefs about economic and political systems, but they appeared to be in full agreement about what exactly those beliefs should be.
The Women’s and Gender Studies Facebook page further encapsulates their bias. The program frequently shares posts from MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the American Civil Liberties Union, and Democracy Now! as well as seemingly random articles criticizing the Trump administration.
In this year alone, the program hosted an event on queerness and disability, a teach-in on “the violence of language,” a screening of a pro-Equal Rights Amendment documentary, a poetry performance from a queer/trans activist, and an open mic night on “breaking binaries.”
Universities should stop bankrolling activism in the classroom and should ask women’s studies programs to give up their propagandizing. No academic subject should be off limits in the university, and professors should be allowed to think and say whatever they like. But entire departments should not be intellectually homogenous, and professors should make a good-faith effort to provide students with the means to form their own opinions, rather than convincing every student to hold the same opinion.
Conservative students should be unafraid to enroll in a Women’s Studies course, and they should be vocal in class about their opinions. A conservative voice may be the only voice of dissent, but it does provide the intellectual diversity that these courses lack.
Though class readings were often sorely lacking in fact and evidence, these readings allowed me to understand why the Left believes that sex is “assigned” at birth, why so many feminists abhor femininity, and why communism and feminism are connected.
Taking a Women’s Studies course will allow conservatives to fully understand why the radical Left believes in the “cisgender heterosexual capitalist patriarchy,” and thus will allow them to critique leftist beliefs on their own terms. It will also allow conservative students to present examples of bias to the university administration so that these programs can be modified.
Women’s Studies has the potential to provide an interdisciplinary and unique lens with which to examine the world. But in its present form, Women’s Studies is nothing but leftist propaganda masquerading as academic coursework.
