There seems to be a misconception of Gender Studies that sees the people who engage in this work as argumentative and judgemental. That if someone engages in conversation with us, we’ll cancel them or shout at them, condemning them for not being as woke or progressive as we are. I can’t put into words how wrong this is. I love talking to people who disagree with me. I love trying to explain my work to someone and show them what it really is and how it benefits not just me, or other people, but them too. In fact, being a gender studies student turns you into some kind of Jehovah’s Witness feminist where you are constantly wanting to talk to people who don’t yet to believe, so that you can explain to them that they actually do believe, they just don’t know it yet. It also turns you into a bit of an ambassador of your work, because people have so many questions about it.
When a boy who attended an all-boys school comes up to me at a party and asks me why I do Gender, it gets me so excited! I want to chat to him and show him that I’m not scary, I’m not angry and that I don’t hate him. I love having discussions with these guys and letting them say things like “I don’t think there’s a difference between sex and gender,” because it gives me the opportunity to explain that there is. If they don’t get what I’m saying, that’s okay, if they don’t agree with me, it’s not ideal but hey, you can’t convert the whole world to feminism at one predrinks.
What we want in gender studies is for people to ask us what they believe are their stupid questions, because they never are. They’re insights into what we need to do more of to make our work accessible. We really really want to listen to you and hear about what you struggle to come to terms with and why. This is obviously within reason though, we can’t spend our whole lives defending what we do, and if someone begins a conversation that we don’t have the emotional energy to be involved in, we know how to respectfully ask that the topic is changed, and hope that this wish is heard.
I think often people see us as confrontational instead of themselves as aggressive in their questioning or conservativism. People see us as angry in conversations about our work when in reality, someone like me is very calm. I have these conversations everyday, if I let them rile me up every time, I’d be a hot mess. I know I can’t expect you to stand for everything that’s wrong in the world and me to stand for everything that’s right. Sometimes we do have to defend ourselves against other people when they invalidate what we do, but mostly we are trying to implement what we learn in this discipline, which is to approach other people with respect and listen with compassion. Maybe it’s not me who’s angry with the whole world and everyone in it, maybe whoever I’m speaking to is angry with me…