I love my minor. I love the way I learn about the world, the people living in it, and the way those people are treated. I love that we get to freely discuss and debate during class. I love that my teachers are real; they tell us the truth, but they understand life happens and are the most understanding professors I have ever met. I love that when I meet new people, I don’t jump to judging them, but instead, I get the opportunity to get to know them. However, when someone asks what my minor is, my gut gets stuck in a knot and I hesitate to tell them the truth.
I am minoring in Gender and Women’s Studies and when people hear that, they may laugh, they may roll their eyes, or they could even ask what’s the point. I don’t usually care what people think of me but hearing their judgmental comments while serving them is obnoxious and invalidating. When someone assumes you’re a feminist, it’s like you’ve been blacklisted and are forever judged. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being a feminist; It’s honestly still hard for me to realize there are people who aren’t feminists. But when someone asks me what my minor is, I respond with a lie or feel I have to quickly explain to them the importance of what I am studying.
Most of my immediate family knows that I take Gender and Women’s Studies classes, but they don’t know I’ve declared it as a minor, and they don’t know how passionate I am about the topic. The first homework I do each week is for my GWST classes and whenever I get to talk enthusiastically about school, I always discuss the new piece of history or the new feminist theory I just learned. My major is Business Technology Administration and while I get eye-rolls for picking an Arts and Humanities major, the backlash isn’t as bad, but I never really speak enthusiastically about the new Access or Excel trick I just learned.
I guess I’m writing this to explain my frustration with the judgment in education. Why does my minor matter to other people? I get to learn about the lives of minorities and oppressed individuals, and I get to relate it to politics, policies, and business plans. As a society, why do we care so much about what other people are doing? We need to give up on judging other’s body weight, clothing choices, where they decide to live, what they decide to eat or drink or smoke, and their education decisions. I am minoring in Gender and Women’s Studies and I’m damn proud of it.
*Side Note* I had to read over 20 memes about how Gender Studies is worthless and stupid to find one about the importance of the classes.
Photo Cited:
Linkhan. (2013). “Women Gender Studies.” MemeCenter. https://www.memecenter.com/fun/1113086/women-gender-studies
Unruly Bodies 
Minoring in Gender and Women’s studies is so difficult to talk about. I completely agree with you! What’s super annoying is the high horse people think it comes with. In the sense of “oh so you’re a feminist?” This phrase can mean so many things, but the way this one is used is as if the person being asked is someone who hates fun and thinks they are always right and intend to prove that the asker is racist or sexist or something in that vein. Society has always come for those who question it, so keep rocking and rolling as a badass GWST minor!!!
Thank you for the support! I completely agree. My definition of feminism is COMPLETELY different than yours or my mom’s, etc. Keep rocking and rolling right back at you 🙂
God, it’s borderline the worst. I feel like I have to immediately follow up by saying “I’m a gender studies major BUT I’M GETTING MY MASTERS IN SOCIAL WORK” as if I’m saying, “don’t worry, I’m not paying $23,000 a semester to talk about how much I hate white supremacy, gender, and capitalism”. It’s whack! I had a coworker tell me, “how do you even study that” and I tried explaining it but whenever I try I either have to “dumb it down” so much or use way too much academic jargon to “sound smart”. I feel the worst because I love what I study, I haven’t had so much fun in school since I started here, I’m truly passionate about this, this is my favorite topic and I get to deepen my knowledge of it but still somehow I feel like OI have to justify it because there is no direct job attached to it in its name like “mechanical engineer” or “nursing”, which I know people judge it because we’re conditioned to believe that if we’re not contributing to the economy/capitalism we aren’t contributing enough. Also annoying, you tell someone you’re a humanities major and suddenly you’re everyone’s go-to for “is this meme I shared on Facebook racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic????” and worse when you tell them “yes” and try explaining it they get mad at you like buddy you asked me!!! If you didn’t want to know why did you ask?
Loving the rant here! It’s nice that people relate (even though I hate that you feel the need to validate it as well). I’ve definitely felt stupid and the need to “sound smart” to STEM majors just so they will shut up. I’m glad you have the courage to tell these people that their memes ARE offensive. The world needs that right now.
Hi,
I loved this post because I can relate. I wanted to major in theatre and minor in GWST but my family was not supportive and I ended up changing completely. I think it becomes a classist thing. “If you’re in school for anything but IT or business you won’t make it in the real world.” The truth is you will because there is endless opportunities everywhere, but it took 4 years of being bullied into taking “practical classes” for me to realize that. I also think it comes from the negative connotation feminism has. I think most people would agree they want gender equality, however of those people a smaller portion would truly call themselves feminists. We as a society have created this stereotype of the “angry feminist” and I think your post really shows how this is still very pervasive today.
Thanks for responding! This is 100% true. Funnily enough, I get crap for majoring in Business Tech because “Business is just the general studies of declared majors.” I don’t understand why people judge so hard because people in arts and humanities will go on to be an artist with work in someone’s house or acting in Hollywood. If everyone became an Engineer, our society wouldn’t thrive. I’m sorry you got bullied into majoring in something that you didn’t want to, but I’m glad you’re incorporating your passions by reading the blogs.
I feel like this blog post is relatable to a lot of college students nowadays. There are so many majors to choose from in 2020 and our society should be encouraging of any and all majors! Regardless of the path that students choose to go down, people should be celebrating the fact that you’re even going to college and getting a degree! I love hearing that you are so passionate about your major too because I can guarantee that there are so many individuals who chose a basic major that they weren’t too thrilled about because it aligned with their parents’ views and opinions. I know that I’m still trying to find what I’m passionate about when it comes to academic topics. But, over the past few years I’ve really zoned in on what I’m interested in and not what society thinks I should be interested in. Be proud of what you’re studying because that’s what makes us all unique and different in our own ways! If everyone studied the same thing, how we would be able to advance and develop as a society? We need individuality in order to thrive!
I’m also a GWST minor and I feel you. I am a STEM major, so it cushions the blow a little when people ask me my minor right after hearing the major. I have neverrrrr understood the hierarchy placed in education. GWST majors/minors are just as important (if not more important) as STEM majors/minors. That goes for any major/minor combo. My gwst classes have been some of my favorite classes at UMBC simply because of the conversations, the relationships, the material I have encountered. My STEM classes are fine, but there’s something to be said about the passion for which people tend to have for gwst as opposed to like proof based math classes (for example). I really hope the apparent hierarchy gets dismantled asap
This post is soo relatable. I’m a GWST minor too and I had computer science friends that would be judgemental or confused why I wanted to study gender studies. But it was really interesting because my freshman year I was at a party with them and they had questions about trans people and policies protecting them and they literally called me in from the other room because I “am the expert on that sort of thing”. For context, I am cis. It was insane because it was like, they almost recognized this subject matter is obviously important and relevant to today’s politics and society and you still can’t see the value in studying it? Smh.
The important thing here is that you chose to do something you are passionate about, and you like what you are studying. I hear about many students who major or minor in something they dont like or care about just because that is what their parents want them to do. From a young age my parents have always taught me to do what I love, but make the most out of it. Choose something you are passionate about but make sure you can succeed from it they said. I can totally understand where you come from about the judgment you get for picking an Arts and Humanities major. I am a public health major, and as “sciencey” it can be, it is technically a BA. At first my family kept asking “are you sure you want to do this?”, “will you get a good job?”, “will a BA look good on your resume?”, and before you know I too was avoiding the questions “What are you studying?” or “what do you want to be?” questions. People’s lack of knowledge (before COVID) about Public Health somehow made them judge my choices. Soon after ensuring to my family how it truly is a good field and I can get many opportunities from it they were on board. Still till this day I find myself avoiding those questions, but it is only in matter of time that I can show that I did make the right decision. So I do know how hard it is to feel like you are getting judged by your own family, but we just have to prove not only to ourselves but to others that we can and will be successful by doing what we love.
I really related to this comment. Although most people don’t say something about me specifically when hearing about GWST, people often have negative things to say about the classes and it being easy or how all arts and humanities are easy. For some reason people believe it is a “put-down” to call something easy and that only “difficult” courses are valuable in the world. STEM course can be challenging and deserve credit for the hard work they require, but hard work takes on many forms and just because something appears easy on the surface or is just easier in general doesn’t mean that it is not valuable. This class teaches communication skills and understand which is difficult for some technical majors to apply in the working world. I believe majoring or minoring in an arts and humanities topic is an advantage not a hinderance.
Hi, thank you so much for writing about this! Reading this reminded me of Christmas day when I was a senior in high school and told my extended family (on my mom’s side) that I finished applying for college and I couldn’t wait to start. All of my mom’s brothers (4) are engineers and work under NASA or Goddard. They all wanted to know what I would be studying so when I responded “I’m going to be double majoring in Theatre and Gender and Women’s!” I got the most hatefully and patronizing comments from my uncles. “You’ll never make any money.” “No one will respect you.” I wish I was joking. I didn’t wanna listen to them because I know I had my parents support but that shit sucked, AND IT WAS CHRISTMAS. After that, I didn’t wanna tell anyone what I was going to be doing at school because I didn’t want anyone to judge my choices. But we shouldn’t have to feel shame for pursuing GWST and any other humanities study! I am so happy you are proud of GWST because you should be!!
When I first realized I wanted a gwst minor, I was also afraid to tell people mostly because I felt like it exposed me as queer (my minor is technically critical sexuality studies which sounds very gay). I felt weird telling my family that especially because when I was deciding what schools to transfer to, that was the most important thing I was looking for. So they’d be like oh why don’t you go to this school or that school and in my mind I’m thinking “because I can’t do queer studies there.” I usually leave out my minor when my family or strangers as what I’m studying. But I also get anxiety about telling people what I want to do when I graduate. At first, I just knew I wanted to be educating people about queer studies, but I didn’t know how to tell that to people without making it seem like my whole career was about spreading the gay agenda (which it is). Now I’ve found out that I can call it diversity and inclusion education, which is more broad and doesn’t out me as much since people can assume I’m talking about race or other non-queer things. I still get nervous about talking about what I study with people who don’t also study it, but now I’ve been intentionally saying “I study psychology and gender and women’s studies” because it’s so important to me that I feel like I need to share it in order for people to have a better understanding of who I am I guess.
I can agree for sure! I am currently taking a bunch of GWST classes, and not sure if I’d like to minor in it yet, (we’ll see how far I get) but my main issue is my major, Media and Communication Studies. The topics we study are cool! Stuff like globalization, lots of history as well. But I have no idea what I want to do with it. I don’t know what kind of jobs this major leads me to. I see alot or Public Relations stuff, alot of Social Media stuff, when I search the internet, but nothing is really hitting. I started this major because I was super into journalism in high school, but the pressure of keeping up with a newspaper in college, and throughout my life didn’t peak my interest. I honestly do not dream of labor at all, and the idea of a “dream job” is kind of dumb to me. Why would I dream about work? However big props to you for sticking it out and genuinely learning about something that you are passionate about.