The Scoff

Hey all, I thought I'd share an experience I just had the other night! There I was, sitting in front of my laptop, trying to figure out what to write as my blog entry for Women Studies. So, naturally, I decided to head upstairs to the boy's floor for some inspiration! I walked into a friend's room, introduced myself to some new faces, and joined the conversation. As freshman, about the only universal subject we can talk about comfortably is our course load. When asked by the circle of young men what my semester looked like, I began to list off my classes, "Well I'm an English major, (cue the exchange of looks) so besides my English courses, I'm in History, (cue the next exchange) Philosophy (at this point, one of the boys snorted, and then disinterestedly turned back to his Madden video game) and Women's Stud..." (I didn't actually finish saying this one, as I was interrupted by a unanimous scoff). The boys I was in the room with began to throw out some of the most common stereotypes about women who take Women's Studies. "Is the class full of lesbians?" or "Is your professor a total liberal hippie?" or "What do you even do besides talk about your feelings in that class?" I was pretty shocked that even on a campus that prides itself on its tolerance for diversity, there was still this much ignorance surrounding more than half of its student body. THIS is why I'm taking Women's Studies. To fight these kind of comments, to educate those who don't think they need to be educated, and to establish equal ground for women not only in the SLU community, but in our society. I'm taking Women's Studies to silence what I call "The Scoff"; the not-so-subtle disdain that is prevalent in our society for an important and modern discipline. So thank you, boys from floor 9G, you've been a great help with my Women's Studies homework! In fact, for me, I think you've cleared a lot of things up.