Week 3: Turning from Science to Social Science

  After reading some of Sherry Ortner's work, I find the shift from science to social science refreshing. As just a matter of personal preference I am, in general, turned off by the type of thinking that is done in a lot of science I have experienced. I found Mr. Grobstein's explanation of science very enlightening, and most definitely applicable to Roughgarden's exploration of biological diversity. Still I found myself yearning for something less about the behaviors of certain bugs and species of lizards (excuse the oversimplification of Roughgarden's plethora of examples of biodiversity) and more geared to the societal response to Gender and Sexuality questions. I didn't realize it at the beginning of the course, because I never consciously sat down and thought to myself "let me pontificate on gender and sexuality", but I think I have some sort of predisposed interest in the societal aspect of Gender and Sexuality. I guess I'm looking for a different question than what science seems to be asking. Roughgarden came across as explaining and at times, even justifying, the existence of biodiversity in humans in Evolution's Rainbow. Ortner appears to be working from a entirely different starting point, "okay there is this biodiversity and gender and sexuality have a whole spectrum in modern society, so in what ways does this affect human interaction (with special focus on class development)". I'm much more interested in this, what I would call more utilitarian, approach. I find it much more useful to make observations and tell stories (in the words of Mr. Grobstein) regarding what we know exists and its role in our lives rather than explain why its here. I fully acknowledge that I'm making a rather quick judgement considering I haven't spent a considerable amount of time in either science or social science prior to this year, but initially I find social science utterly enlivening. 

Well it looks like my comment is forever lost. I will try to quickly recreate it, though I promise it will not be nearly as long or eloquent.

Basically, all women's colleges might seem outdated. They, however, as we discussed in class, do play an important role. I think the world and America in particular changes very slowly. I think these changes are brought about by "radical" people demanding "irrational" things. So we had slavery, then segregation, then racism, and now we're working towards unity. For gensex stuff, I think we need to find equality in the predetermined categories of "male" and "female," then once we have attained it, try to remove the labels and find complete equality.

So the instutions are still caught up in an out-dated idea, but we are fighting for basic rights for all humans. It's gonna take us who are fighting for equality to demand change and watch it, slowly, happen. So let's be "radical" people in our all-women's college and demand "irrational" amounts of change until we have it.

Anne, I submitted a comment but by the time I had typed it all out Serendip logged me off.  It was entitled "Women's colleges: a step forward or step back?"

I'm pretty sure it's just under "anonymous," but for now its lost :( So if it comes through your comment spam could you post it and I'll repost it under Terrible2s?

Thanks,

Terrible2s

 I’ve been trying to tackle the question of how we choose our gender – something that a lot of people have posted about already – and in thinking about it, I found that I often associate gender with sexual orientation. While I know that being gendered involves many components that are distinct from sexual orientation, I feel that, anatomical attributes aside, the gender one is attracted to helps concretize the conceptual binary. This particular issue reminded me of a documentary that I watched about transgender people in Iran (I don’t remember what it was called…I think “The Birthday” or something). The fascinating part of the movie was that, to most of my classmate’s disbelief, transsexual operations are fairly common in Iran and condoned by the state (the government even finances many of the operations). I don’t know about everyone else, but that shocked me particularly because of the radically conservative nature of the Iranian government; I would never assume that such a controversial operation would have been commonplace and accepted. Interestingly, the documentary conveyed that being a transgender person in Iran was considerably more socially acceptable (and less dangerous) than being homosexual. Though the movie never explicitly stated it, ultimately my class concluded that changing one’s gender in Iran, though expensive and a potentially dangerous operation, was a more acceptable solution to issues of discrimination (religious authorities concluded that the Qur’an does not explicitly condemn changing one’s gender, while it does condemn homosexuality). I just thought it was interesting in light of our conversation that the subjects in the documentary, while they were actively choosing their gender category, their decision was potentially motivated by their sexual orientation and its ramifications. I don’t know if we see similar parallels in the US or if it shines any light upon the question of choosing gender, but I did think it was interesting.

 After smoking my pipe fully through the ideas we developed in class today, I'm most interested by the difference between the idea that people choose their gender and that society pigeon holes us all into the gender that matches our sex. Also related to our class discussion, and of particular interest to me, as someone between insecure teenager and an insecure woman, is the idea of the objectification that we do to ourselves on a daily basis, in relation to society's influence on how we objectify ourselves.

I think that conception of gender as an adult is quite different from that of a chid's because a person must take an active role in identifying as a person of a particular gender or of no gender. This conscious decision is the very foundation of the change that I would like to see in our society. I know that the "boxes" we have now are utterly inadequate but I also can't imagine a way in which they could be effectively removed. I think that instead of taking old boxes away we can make smaller boxes inside them or aside them until the idea of an archaic gender binary has dissolved like all other old ideas that no longer apply to our society. This relates to my opinion of what I think a women's college does. I think that somehow, by being so forward about the idea of gender, it raises questions just through its existence. What qualifies as a woman? Can it be someone who was sexed as a male, but doesn't feel represented by the gender associated with "his" sex and feels more comfortable being gendered as a woman? Can it be an intersex person who chooses to identify with female pronouns? I think that making this division so frankly, the space is made, if only in our little microcosm, for smaller and more fitting categories to emerge, making our understanding of each human more precise. I see it like addresses for example...I know this sounds odd, but just follow me. Right now, I am 1)On Earth, 2) On the continent of North America 3) In the United States 4) In Pennsylvania 5) In Montgomery County 6) In Lower Merion Township 7) In the Village of Bryn Mawr...and so on... I feel like this multiplicity of levels of categorization could work to express individual gender and sexuality in a more precise way than what is happening now. So please put that in your pipe and take a puff.

I think the comment below me about who belongs at a woman's college is interesting.  I agree; it isn't about the gender, but the type of person who goes here.   A Mawrter is a very unique kind of person that has nothing to do with being a woman.  I am envious of the previous poster because she feels so at home at Bryn Mawr and being a Mawrter.  I don't.  Somewhere between coming here and now I lost the sense of being a Mawrter.  I understand what it is like to attend this college - I know the traditions and what this college means to so many students here.  Yet, somehow I have become detached.  This, of course, is not due to my gender.  I identify as being a woman, but I lurk somewhere on the outskirts of the college.  If someone who identifies as something other than a woman feels that this college is their home, then they absolutely belong here.  A women's college started because it was a safe haven for a group of people who were seen as inferior to learn.  Now, a woman going to college isn't abnormal, but we remain a college for that group of people.  In doing so I think we are inviting other types of people - people floating on the gender binary or the sexuality spectrum or anything else - to come to Bryn Mawr as a safe haven to learn.  It's a secret to the outside world who still sees us as just a women's college.  I think we are also empowering a giant spectrum of people.

On a completely different note, I want to respond to the readings by Sherry Ortner too.  I enjoyed reading "Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture" because it made an idea I had last year more clear.  In my csem I wrote a paper about the natural limitations of being female.  It is actually on this website because I was in Anne's class - it's called Appetite of a Woman.  It was a muddled thought that was based on the fact that men were more free than women because they can impregnate a woman and then run off.  A woman will always be inherently attached to something because she can have a child.  I couldn't quite express the idea, but Ortner put it into words.  Women are closer to nature because of their child bearing ability.  Men, unable to create life, have to turn to something else to create which, according to Ortner, is culture.  It's an interesting though - one that  I am not sure leads to the fact that women are lower in society than men - but definately one that leads to the roles that are inherently taken by men and women.

Who belongs at a women’s college? Who belongs at Bryn Mawr College, specifically?

To answer that, I think it is important to look at what the point of a women’s college is. Why is it a good thing that there be a college (numerous college, in fact, all across the world) exclusively for women? Someone mentioned in class that women and men were segregated educationally because they were taught different things. While that may be true elsewhere, to my knowledge, Bryn Mawr College has always been an institution of higher learning that focused on true education. It was not founded as a finishing school, or a way to catch a husband. Actually, the first degree Bryn Mawr gave out was a Ph.D. in 1888.   

I think that women’s colleges are also not merely about biological females being together at a educational institution. While some people argue that males and females have inherently different brains and thus learn differently, that’s a rather controversial topic. Given that Bryn Mawr students can major at Haverford, and Haverford students can major at Bryn Mawr, I assume that it is not Bryn Mawr’s position that BMC is a women’s college because females cannot learn by being taught in the same way that males are taught.

I think that what is useful and bright and wonderful about Bryn Mawr being a women’s college goes beyond its students’ sexes or genders.  Therefore, I do not believe that every student at Bryn Mawr must identify as a woman in order to belong at Bryn Mawr. I love Bryn Mawr. I am a senior and a very proud Mawrtyr. I love Bryn Mawr, and I love the Traditions, and I love that Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sisters. I would not want Bryn Mawr to go “co-ed.” That said, I do not necessarily identify as a woman, and I firmly believe that I belong here at Bryn Mawr as much as anyone else. I say this to let you know where I’m coming from and to make it clear that this is personal. To me, this is not merely a theoretical argument about the abstract concept of women’s colleges. This affects actual people and whether they feel welcome at their own college, on their own campus.

To me, the importance of Bryn Mawr’s being a women’s college has to do with a commitment to educating women/females/people who have been discriminated against based on their sex/gender or perceived sex/gender. It’s not just to give women as a special category a college all their own, like a college for blonde people, or eldest children, or left-handed people, or short people. It’s about lifting up people who face sexism and who originally did not have other opportunities for this kind of education (back in the day when many other institutions of higher education excluded women). It’s about the experiences that people have had, being socialized as girls, or treated as women, or experiencing life as women. There needs not be one experience that Bryn Mawr students have had, in my opinion, to belong at Bryn Mawr, even as a women’s college.   

I was socialized to be a girl, just like everyone else at Bryn Mawr probably was. I’ve internalized a lot of society’s messages about how girls/females are supposed to act, dress, think, behave. Society views me as a woman, and, no matter how I view myself, it will continue to view me as a woman and treat me accordingly. My personal gender identity, or lack thereof, will have little affect on how the world treats me. I will face sexism. As far as I am concerned, that is a fact. Bryn Mawr attempts to prepare its graduates to deal with living in a sexist world, or at least to help its students become strong enough to deal with sexism (depending on whether you believe that living in the “Bryn Mawr bubble” prepares people to deal with sexism--if it doesn’t, I believe that the hope is that at least Bryn Mawr grads will be confident and strong enough to deal with sexism, even if they don’t have much experience with it). I need that, too.

Like I said before, I love Bryn Mawr. Bryn Mawr is my college. I am a Mawrtyr. I fully recognize that Bryn Mawr is a women’s college, and I do not want to change that. My question is, what do we mean by “women’s college”? I was in favor of the Plenary resolution requiring gender-neutral terms and pronouns in the Constitution and the Honor Code. I am in favor of the “everyone welcome” signs on the bathrooms, instead of signs saying “women and men.” I am in full support of the trans men and genderqueer people and trans folk and other nontraditionally gendered people who are current Bryn Mawr students and/or alums. And I believe that none of this threatens Bryn Mawr as a women’s institution. Things may change, but the spirit is the same.

Bryn Mawr has dealt with many changes in the student body, from integrating Jewish students into the dorms to allowing students of color into the college as full members of the community, and all of these changes have only made Bryn Mawr stronger. Who qualifies as a Bryn Mawr student now has changed greatly since Bryn Mawr was founded, yet some things remain the same. “An intense intellectual commitment, a self-directed and purposeful vision of [one’s] life, and a desire to make a meaningful contribution to the world”--these characteristics are not gendered. This is what makes a Bryn Mawr student, not some narrow definition of the word “woman.”    

Bryn Mawr is a women’s college. What does that mean to you?