Miss G____
Jennifer Wells goes on in the July 23rd Star about Miss G. Long and short of the first page of her article is about a woman in 1873 who dies of whatever diseases, or is "killed" slowly by this male doctor, Edward Clarke, who feels that women cannot possibly make anything of a brain, and simultaneously maintain their feminine role, or feminine reproductive system. Okay. So the guy is brain-dead. I could rant and rave about him, but that's not the point.
With this theme to unite them, four young university women from the University of Western, Ontario are on a mission. Not to promote science or medicine in the classroom, but to promote women's studies. Bare with me while I play devil's advocate. Why women's studies? I wouldn't be interested in women's studies. Kack! Bo-oring. What I would be much more interested in is things like a Girl's Club (this taken from the Girl's Club that my Mom ran out of her elementary school for years. This was a chance for these girls to meet role models who are currently alive and at work in their communities, a place for girls to talk about business, science, sexuality, religion, abortion (one girl had one ... ) anything.
I am all for promoting girl's groups, clubs, education, and especially role models. But I am not sure that I would want to do it in the form of women's studies. I hope those girl's don't think it will be some wonderful thing that rocks the school world. The girls will be sitting there dutifully in the classroom, listening to some teacher who's only interested in the paycheck dictate from some textbook about some Emily Stowe. Great.
What about bringing the girls to the ice rink, and teaching them hockey? Get Z, AJ (Angela James) or Cassie Campbell out on the ice with them? Those are the women we got to interact with. They were kick-ass role models, and they've won gold in the Olympics for years! What about inviting the girls to an Aeros game, and letting them interview the players, or organize a dinner with those hockey players if teaching the students to play is too much? They'll learn interviewing skills, and be able to find out that these role models are real, not some diseased Dr. Chick from 1867 who died. I don't think most highschool girls can really understand the concept of Martyr.
If the point of women's studies is to inspire and educate MORE young women, and get them more interested in what women should be like, and not the media stereotype, then don't just "blow into the newsroom"; get out on a community level and get groups of girls going!
1 comment:
I disagree with you. Women's studies is important. If you look at all of the biology related sciences, the study of humans is usually the study of men -- men first, women later, maybe, or simply an extrapolation of the study of men to apply to women. Women are 50% of the population, and represent a biological/physiological difference from men -- yet, medicine for instance is developed using men as the targets, then applied to women, where it may not be effective. Example: because some guys can't get it up, medicine invented viagara -- nevermind that most women have never had an orgasm or know what one is. Medicine never cared to understand the female orgasm -- if a guy can get off, that's all that matters. Women's studies go beyond the sciences -- think of history. HIStory. Not HERstory. Most of history is told from the male perspective. Yes, we have a lot to learn from history. But how much have we not learned from herstory? Women's role in the propogation of the species, civilization, etc., is just as important as men's -- even more so many may argue, especially if viewed from an anthropological perspective. Who knew that a thousand years ago, in what is now the fucked up society of Iran/Iraq, that women warriors fought beside men? that women warriors had tombs and monuments built to their glory? How many people know that the first computer programmer was a woman? How many people know that the first science fiction novel published was by a woman, but she couldn't be identified as a woman initially, because she was a woman? I can go on, but you get my point -- I hope.
I'm not saying your finding value in promoting positive role models for girls is wrong -- it's absolutely needed. But it shouldn't be one or the other. It needs to be both. Where else are you going to find the stories to inspire if you don't study women?
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