TO THE EDITOR:
Our governor’s recent comments regarding the worth of a liberal arts education has garnered national attention.
As women’s and gender studies students, we are well aware that Gov. McCrory’s remarks reflect common misunderstandings about our field of study.
Our aim, therefore, isn’t to further criticize him; instead, we welcome this as an opportunity for clarification.
Women’s and gender studies classes examine historical and present-day systems of social, economic and political power.
The major encourages students to understand how everyone’s life chances and choices are structured by these systems and by our social identities (race, gender, class, religion, nationality, orientation, etc).
That means yours, mine, your father’s, grandmother’s and boyfriend’s.
In doing so women’s and gender studies equips its students with transferable skills, as Holly Brugger’s letter addressed.
We’ve learned that “clear thinking, active discussion and excellent writing are all necessary for intellectual freedom, and that all of these require hard work.”
