Why pick on gender studies?

In another post, my colleague Chris Ferguson made excellent points about the value of higher education that goes beyond very narrow job training while still keeping in mind that education is an investment in the future (but an investment of a particular kind).  In that post, he quoted Governor Pat McCrory’s comments about his desire to use public money to fund education that trains people for jobs:

“If you want to take gender studies that’s fine, go to a private school and take it. But I don’t want to subsidize that if that’s not going to get someone a job.”

Chris pointed to the fact that gender studies is singled out but then left it aside hoping that someone would tackle it.  So, here is my two cents on that issue.

Gender, Names, and Fraud Charges

Today in my Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective class we were discussing a classic article about gender-based naming practices among some segments of Chinese society.  The basic point of the article is that names provide important clues to ideas of personhood which are profoundly gendered.  Men gain and choose for themselves a series of names throughout their life that continue to mark them as individuals, celebrate milestones and accomplishments, and demonstrate their ability to use the nuances of their language in interesting and cleaver ways.  Women, in contrast, are given names that connect them to hopes for the larger family, that mark them as wives or mothers, or that reference something from the time they were born.  Women have a tendency to lose individualized names as they age, being referred to sometimes even simply as “old woman.”  Our class discussion was very interesting and we were able to point out some continuity with practices like taking on a husband’s name at marriage along with the more obvious differences.

Then, one student mentioned a news story that I had somehow missed about a man in Florida who had his driver’s license revoked because, the state said, he had committed fraud in obtaining it.  The fraud? He had changed his last name to his wife’s when they were married.  

Marriage Decreases Gun Violence? (and subtle racial coding)

In last night’s debate the following question was asked: “What will you do to get assault weapons out of the hands of criminals?”

Romney answered: “What I believe is we have to do, as the president mentioned towards the end of his remarks there, which is to make enormous efforts to enforce the gun laws that we have, and to change the culture of violence that we have … And I believe if we do a better job in education, we'll give people the hope and opportunity they deserve and perhaps less violence from that. But let me mention another thing. And that is parents. We need moms and dads, helping to raise kids. Wherever possible the benefit of having two parents in the home, and that's not always possible. A lot of great single moms, single dads. But gosh to tell our kids that before they have babies, they ought to think about getting married to someone, that's a great idea. Because if there's a two parent family, the prospect of living in poverty goes down dramatically. The opportunities that the child will be able to achieve increase dramatically. So we can make changes in the way our culture works to help bring people away from violence and give them opportunity, and bring them in the American system.”

Expanding the discussion on religious freedom and opposition to the ACA

I noted in my presentation about the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that the requirement that insurance plans provide contraception at no extra cost was fiercely opposed by the Catholic Church and others on the grounds of religious freedom.  As a result, the Obama administration exempted “religious employers” from the requirement, but there are still several court challenges in the works.  Dr. Sweat and I noted in our comments that this opposition is interesting given that large percentages of religious women and Catholic women use contraception.  A summary of this data and a link to more detail can be found here: http://www.guttmacher.org/media/nr/2011/04/13/index.html.

I also noted that I find it productive to see the opposition to this aspect of the ACA as going beyond a concern with religious freedom.  Providing contraception is opposed by many on the right and opposition to it is connected to other policy proposals and views: pro-life views, support for more restrictions on abortion, opposition to comprehensive sex education, proposed fetal personhood legislation, and the vote to defund Planned Parenthood.