After completing a course on gender issues in adult education, I am left asking how the course content related to adult education.  I understand the difference between equality and equity and the subsequent strive to achieve a true equality for all in the workplace and in higher education (well in society as a whole).  However, I have been left contemplating how gender plays a role in higher education.  I didn’t get that from the course, and it frustrates me, as I have no use for discussions on nude art in my own professional practice as an adult educator.

Did I leave the course with more understanding of gender in general?  Not really.

Did I leave the course with a new feminist outlook on adult education? God, I hope not.

I can accept that feminism had a hand at shaping our existence as equals under the law; that the feminist movement won us women the rights to vote, and the rights to exist as persons under the law, but I feel that in our modern society, the role of feminism has changed from empowering to oppressing, and that is dangerous.  We are now teaching that female is good and male is bad, and that heteronormative behaviour is questionable and biased.  As a female, I take extreme offence to the ideology of males as lesser individuals.

How does turning the tables on history make our modern society better that it was?  It doesn’t! Plain and simple; our laws (our Charter) ensures us equality under the law.  Marginalizing males in the name of gender studies is equally as harmful as marginalizing individuals through racist dogma.  It just has no place in society; no place in higher education; and really should be questioned when it finds its way into the mainstream curriculum.

So, why then did I take a course on gender issues in adult education?  Well, it was a half credit elective that I hoped would shape my outlook on practices of equality (and possibly equity) in the classroom.  Instead, I feel almost dirty, and feel a need to defend male colleagues for the sheer fact they are male.  How wrong is this? I guess what I am trying to say is this:  I am disappointed!