What would happen if every student on campus were required to take a course in the department of Gender and Women's Studies? Would students brush the class aside like any other breadth credit or take the valuable information it offers seriously?
It makes sense to incorporate such a class into the general graduation requirements at UW-Madison. Education is a positive step toward combating discrimination, as it builds empathy and understanding. It is an important tool used in exposing how prejudices affect society as a whole, and not just who discrimination is directed at.
So would students benefit from including Gender and Women's Studies along with ethnic studies as a UW-Madison requirement? Yes. It's time the university took another step in reversing discrimination toward women. Educating people about social equality is vital to progressing efforts to close gender gaps.
Although non-discrimination policies protecting women exist across the United States, women and women's issues are still attacked on a regular basis. Government funding for programs that protect or provide vital health care to women are often slashed, much like the recent but failed attempts to cut federal funding to Planned Parenthood.
It's also disappointing that pay inequity between men and women persists today. It is another sign that our culture tolerates treating women as less valuable than men. Even though President Barack Obama vowed to work toward reversing this problem, it will require an entire shift in the way our culture thinks and operates on not only a local, but a national scale.
Comparing international standards of living measurements with equality between men and women ultimately shows gender equality is linked to high living standards. The United Nations publishes two such measurements: the Gender Empowerment Measure calculates inequality between men and women and the Human Development Index measures standards of living. The 2009 GEM and HDI report the countries with highest GEM rankings (most equality between men and women) are also the twenty countries with the highest HDI rankings (highest standards of living). The United States is 12 by HDI and 15 by GEM.
However, the vast majority of countries with low GEM rankings (little equality between men and women) are also countries that have low HDI rankings (low standard of living), linking low education levels with increased gender gaps.
Without a belief in and a realization of equality, a community does not better itself. Yet the fact of the matter is there is still widespread culturally engrained prejudice in American society, which is not only seen through gender biases, but also through sexual orientation discrimination.
The fact that LGBT youth have a higher suicide rate than other teens is evidence of the effects of homophobia.
According to the Trevor Project website, LGBT youth are three times more likely than other teens to commit suicide—often the result of intense bullying or particularly vicious anti-gay attacks. It is disturbing that despite continued expansion of civil rights to LGBT people, suicide rates have gone up.
According to the Center for American Progress, a disproportionate number of homeless teens, up to 40 percent, are LGBT while only about five to 10 percent of the entire youth population is LGBT. Without help, homelessness leaves LGBT youth in serious danger. About 58 percent are vulnerable to drug use, abuse and STDs in comparison to 33 percent of heterosexual homeless children.
Public support and government policy helping LGBT homelessness is sorely lacking, however, should federal and state policy really be the source of change? No. Rather than just spend money to aid homeless youth, the source of the problem—prejudice—should be combated. To provoke real change, empathy and understanding need to be built from the bottom up instead of slowly trickling from the top down.
These are morals and qualities that can be taught and better understood through Gender and Women's Studies courses. Classes that focus on minority issues will highlight problems that are affecting American society today.
So, what would happen if every student were required to take a Gender and Women's Studies class?
Well, the student body would be exposed to new ideas. The men and women at UW-Madison would walk together as equal peers and LGBT students would be able to come out, live openly and feel comfortable with themselves—free from bigoted attacks. Prejudice and discrimination may gradually diminish.
I admit there would be a lot of moaning and groaning by students when adding another requirement to an already hefty courseload. I also realize plenty of students would probably blow the class off and look for the quickest and easiest passing grade possible, leaving without having learned anything. But that's not the point.
Even if only half of the student body learns something new from a Gender and Women's Studies requirement, that's a step in the direction toward gender and minority equality, which is the real point. With this additional requirement, students would walk out of class more open-minded, with an outlook embracing individual differences rather than rejecting them.
Michael Podgers is a freshman majoring in art history and German. Please send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
