Week Two

September 10, 2010; 12:12 pm

Reflecting back on our second week of class, the one thing that sticks out most in my mind is Anthony's story about being the "token male". My experience in the field of communication has always been that it is female dominated. As an undergrad, there were always far more females in the class than males and even thinking about ethnography, Chris was the only male. It is interesting because Chris did not become the "token male" the way Anthony has. This fact is somewhat obvious to be truth because this is a class about gender. I find that men join gender or women's studies classes for one of two reasons: to meet women or to start a ruckus. There is a difference in gender classes from women's studies in the fact that there are TWO genders: both male and female. Oftentimes, I feel that gender studies is perceived to be an all women's field full of man hating lesbians, which is something that Anthony brought up in his writing. I think that if the male gender was more equally represented in gender study classes, it would become less "man bashing" and provide more understanding and meaning. I think part of the problem is the perception men have of the topic of gender. It is sort of like a "which came first the chicken or the egg" type of problem, but I think until men feel comfortable in gender study courses, they will not be as rich as they could be if men were part of the discussion rather than just another topic to discuss.