Women and Gender Studies in U.S. up 300 Percent Since 1990
“I didn’t think I needed these classes”
What are all these people doing for work, teaching Women’s Studies to the next generation of students?
USA Today reports:
Women’s studies has changed over the years — and it’s more popular than ever
Drew Nelson, a business major at Indiana University, never expected he would pick up a minor in gender studies.
“I wasn’t very interested in the subject, to be honest, but once I started doing a lot of the class readings and having discussions with people in the class, I kind of got interested,” Nelson said.
Although Nelson wasn’t sure if the class content would be helpful to him in the future, he said that since picking up his minor, he already thinks he’s able to understand and relate to his peers and colleagues better, while also finding it easier to accept people that aren’t so similar to him.
“I guess I thought that because I was a guy, that was also part of why I didn’t think I needed these classes,” he said. “But these aren’t women’s help session classes. They’re a chance for us to have a conversation and to be able to understand one another better, no matter who we are.”
Women’s studies programs began popping up at universities around the country in the 1960s, and today, the academic discipline is still on the rise.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the number of women’s and gender studies degrees in the United States has increased by more than 300% since 1990, and in 2015, there were more than 2,000 degrees conferred.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
One wonders about the employment status of these individuals.
An abundance of jobs for those with a gender studies degree? Highly unlikely.
As an adjunct professor of 25+ years, I still do not know the answer to this so could someone please tell me what great benefit does a degree in gender studies confer? It is not like studying English Literature, History, Philosophy or something else akin, for it is such a contrived and shallow area of study that has few roots and goes nowhere. Perhaps if they just named it what it really is and called is Permanent and Unjustifiable Anger and Victimization Justification Studies.
It’s hard to believe that a student would spend many thousands of dollars and likely go into debt pursuing a degree in “gender studies” or any of these other contrived “___ studies” majors. These majors have little, if any, academic content, and the listing of such a major on a CV is likely to decrease the probability of getting a job. After all, what employer wants an employee who feels like a perpetual victim, and who is likely to be litigious? You might as well enter “3 years at Attica for embezzlement” on your CV.