blog 7

This week’s reading was all about gender in higher education. The articles covered an array subjects that were strongly correlated with gender, while the chapter reading was more focused on the change in higher education enrollment and completion between the sexes.

I found the reading intriguing this week because they addressed so many issues with identity that I was completely ignorant about.  For example the article about transgendered students opened my eyes to see how transgender  individuals find complications in education. Also the article presents the idea that you could choose to identify with a different gender both of these concepts are foreign to me and would have never crossed my mind. I also enjoyed reading about the hardships of the individuals in this article because they were incredibly vulnerable, and helped me understand why this is such a pressing issue.

The article about the feminist male was also very interesting because it was easy to relate too. I do not consider myself a feminist, because there are things about their position that I do not agree with, but I was raised by a single mother. Watching my mother play both roles of mother and father has helped me understand that women are more than capable of doing what most consider a man’s responsibility. I see myself as an advocate for respect, equal opportunity and treatment of women, and like the author I wonder how many times I have blotched things up with my ignorance, and behavior because I am a male. I loved the humility and desire to grow in respecting and understanding the struggle of women that the author offers as a solution in his article.

The chapter reading was also insightful. I meditated on the information for a while after reading it. I was not aware of the fact that women outnumbered men by such a large number in higher education attendance, and completion, at every level. Considering the fact that minorities attending, and completing higher education is already low, coming to terms with the fact that the majority of those minorities are women is alarming for the male minority. I had to stop reading at that moment consider the implications of this information. I was also able to see how unfair the work force is, given the fact that women are attaining degrees at a higher rate than men, and are still the minority in most of the workforce.

In short I found that the readings for this week were not only interesting, but inconceivably challenging. The challenges were not in the difficulty of text, but in the content of the text. It was difficult to read the painful memoirs in the articles. Also I was challenged to reconsider, and restructure, my position in some of the topics covered. I do not believe in respecting the values or positions that people may have, but I do believe in respecting people with those values. We may never agree on everything, but we must learn to live in peace and work towards mutual edification. Regardless of race or gender (whether assigned, or chosen) we are all people and deserve to be treated equally.