Since the dawn of humankind, men and women have desperately struggled to understand each other. Countless books, fights and dating Web sites have emerged thanks to the different mental wiring of both sexes.
Now, with women running for president and stay-at-home dads becoming more common, men are beginning to realize that there are perks to studying women. From the University of Washington — which has appointed a man, David Allen, as the department chair of Women’s Studies — to here at Ohio State, men everywhere are pursuing women’s studies.
There are 13 men in the Department of Women’s Studies at OSU: six undergraduate students, five students pursuing minors in the subject, one master’s student and one doctoral student.
Approximately 20 percent of students in the lower level courses are male.
Jill Bystydzienski, chairwoman of the department, said the number of male students in the department has slightly increased in the last few years, aligning with a national trend.
“As women’s studies becomes increasingly institutionalized in higher education, I expect that more men will be taking the classes and majoring in the field,” Bystydzienski said. She said that when she began in the field 30 years ago, there were no male majors and very few male students.
“Women’s Studies has only been in existence for about 40 years and has had to overcome a lot of unfounded misconceptions and stereotyping,” she said. “As more people realize that it’s a legitimate academic field based on research and scholarship, I expect that more men as well as women will be interested in the field.”
J. Brendan Shaw is the only male student in the department pursuing a master’s degree.
“I chose to pursue the master’s in women’s studies because all of my work as an English undergrad ended up exploring questions of gender and sexuality,” he said. “I wanted to continue looking at these issues, which I think are always important.”
Shaw says he feels accepted within the department, despite being one of two non-undergrad males.
“I think people outside of the discipline think it’s a much bigger deal than anyone inside has ever made it,” he said.
Brent Hawk, a fourth-year political science student pursuing a minor in women’s studies, agrees with Shaw’s observation.
“As someone who is a male in my women’s studies classes, one would probably visualize me as a human piñata for a bunch of feminists to freely smash,” Hawk said. “Outside of the women’s studies classroom, I feel a bit of stigma attached when I tell others — especially men and politically conservative students — that my minor is women’s studies.”
Hawk says he is often met with jokes when he explains that he taking women’s studies courses.
“I guess it doesn’t hurt to have a sense of humor, but people telling the same one-liner joke about women’s studies is like a person at a house party who is awkward and fails at telling jokes,” he said.
James Casale, a fourth-year year women’s study major, calls his involvement in the department “an experience in self-awareness, in which you suddenly become aware of not only your sex, but also your gender, class, and race in the process.”
“This awareness does make you a little self-conscious,” he said, “but at the same time challenges you in a way that is only possible in a female-dominated field — which at the end of the day is satisfying.”
All of the men agree that being involved with women’s studies has been beneficial. From learning to think outside of traditional stereotypes to understanding the importance of diverse viewpoints, they say that women’s studies offers something that other majors don’t.
Bystydzienski encourages both men and women to take classes in the department. “The classes give them an opportunity to learn about how our world shapes who we are as females and males, how gender and other inequalities — racial, class, sexual, age-based — are re-perpetuated in visible as well as subtle ways,” she said.
For men, however, this path to enlightenment may take time, some say.
“We are a long ways from being in a society where men can have an interest in gender equality and women’s issues without being considered weird, gay or whipped,” Shaw said. “I think advancements have been made towards breaking down gender roles, but even the discussions during the last election about Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin show the ways in which we remain caught up in sexist notions of gender.”
