Why we’ve divided the world the way we have, into these gender roles and into
the idea of male and female or feminine and masculine… so why did that happen, why
does it have such power? Why does it continue to define so many differences between us?
And then how might we think about changing that? We teach
courses that speak to their lives and their passions, not just to their brains...
though we also speak to their brains. We give students tools in our program
to make changes in the world, but also to understand how power for example works
in the world. So we give them tools to analyze what exists as it is, and then
tools to make changes. The major element that fascinates me the most about
feminist and gender studies is the general approach the program takes in
terms of introducing you to the various theories and really highlighting why
those theories are applicable to various domains and disciplines within the
university but also the larger context, so how feminist theories can be applied
to government or how they can be applied to social justice or how they can be
applied to the news. With regards to the job market and students from the program
obtaining employment during or after their degrees. I think the
potential is really high and I think that it just takes perhaps thinking
outside the box. Je suis rentrée en étude féministe et on parlait de tout,
toutes les sciences sociales. C’est l’Université d’Ottawa qui m'a permis de me spécialiser
dans les femmes criminelles, donc la Criminologie et l’étude des femmes.
C’est vraiment juste ici que je pouvais avoir ce que je voulais.
And certainly again I think that gender is so central to everything, you know,
when we talk about any social issue, housing, or poverty, or crime, you can make
the argument that gender is central to studying those things. But I think
that there is this misconception that if you’re interested in woman studies all you’re
going to be doing is studying woman, and you’re going to be studying about
radical feminism, and a feminism that dislikes men.
That’s wholeheartedly untrue. Persistent myths about feminism are that feminists
hate men. We do not; not individually and not collectively. In fact we have many
men in our program. Well of course, we all know sort of the angry feminist, sort of
"Bra Burning" radical feminists who hate men and we have no sense of humour.
Which is kind of funny because we do a lot of laughing here at the Institute, we try to
really bring humour into the conversation. It’s hard to talk about such serious
topics without having some kind of a sense of humour to lighten things up. We
really care about our students and care about their learning experience more
than just "they’re a number and they come through our classes". We’re all very
passionate and committed teachers. I think one of the main advantages for
students studying at the institute, is that they really get exposed to a wonderful interdisciplinary perspective.
For example, myself and my colleagues all
come from very different backgrounds, we have sociologists, political scientists,
historians, people in literature, people in development. All of these frameworks
and ways of doing things and methods, provide this really rich context for
students to learn in. No matter what field of interest, whether you’re interested in politics, you’re interested in science,
you’re interested in nursing, there is something that we are speaking to, at the Institute. This is
what interdisciplinary studies means. So many different people I think would be
interested in the topics; and then also because it affects our personal lives. We all
look at woman and men and Trans folks in our lives, and we think these
are issues that directly affect them, it makes them happy, it makes them sad,
it negatively affects their life. So these are changes that live at home with us I think.