Women's Studies

Throughout history, there have been many uprisings and revolutions whose sole

purpose was to rectify or change something. It all started with the Women's revolution during the Industrial era of America and from then on, women everywhere have sought to break the chains of division between men and women. Even today, women still seek to compete equally with men, if not, outperform men if possible. Women believe their thinkings are very much different from men, and such an example of that is the Women's Studies program in many institutions of higher education, especially in colleges. But is such a program needed in our already diversified academic curriculum?

I believe such a program is not needed in universities and colleges, firstly because it creates more gender division rather than helping to end it. By having a women's studies program, the participants of the program are taught with a sense of women-can-be-and-are-better-than-men ideology by discussing the roles of women, and how they should be played. What this creates is more tension between the genders, thus many gender discriminations arise from it.

Secondly, using the incident of the University of Washington in the Culture Wars film during the lecture class, one can see what kind of extremists and radicals arise from having such a program. How a male student is treated completely different from the women and the tension between the two surges, and as a result, women everywhere begin to develop fanatical ideas and start riots in the streets. It is this type of ideology that creates the barrier between the two genders which can never be broken unless women openly voice themselves and not have a bunker mentality as Gerald Graff mentions in the later chapters, by having the women's studies program.

Lastly, as Prof. Hausman mentioned in one of the lectures, the program is taught by professors who also teach other subjects such as Biology, History, Math, etc. if so, is the women's studies program a real class? There are no real professors whose background are especially educated in women's studies, and as a result the professors who are almost entirely women, instead voice their teachings entirely on their own opinions instead of facts.

However, my opponent thinks otherwise and the program helps in teaching historical contributions by women. If so, such historical contributions can be taught