The Dialogue

At James Madison University, a gender dialogue course is offered in which 6 females and 6 males are asked to participate to promote dialogue between the two sexes. I was able to attend the final presentations for this class, and I thought the premise of the class, the topics of the presentation, and the banter between the men and women in the course were very interesting. It was evident that this class had become very close. The men and women seemed very comfortable around each other, and it was evident that these presentations were reflective of the eye-opening experience they had together. It made me slightly jealous that they were able to experience this opportunity, and by the end of the 3 hours, I had come up with 2 conclusions.

The Discussion

I wondered how different my experience, as a college student would have been if during orientation week all students were required to participate in a gender dialogue. The relationship and the conversation between the students of the course made it apparent that they were so comfortable with not only each other, but with having conversation about topics that may make them uncomfortable, they seemed as though they saw things differently because of the conversation that they had had in class. This class seemed to have such an impact on their point of view about so many topics.

The men and women seemed to be more open minded about topics regarding reversed gender roles, and the conversation about these topics seemed as though the students were already well versed in such discussion. I envied that openness, and I envied the time they had spent together. It made me wonder, if I had this experience, and if all JMU students had this experience, would the conversation between sexes been different? Because although these students would not all agree – they would at least have all had the same experience.

The Topics of Discussion

There were 4 projects presented, each topic was regarding everyday life but through a gender focused lens. The topics revolved around, eating and dining, dating and parenting. Although vastly different, it was interesting that there were so many topics that related back to gender. I had never imagined that something as gender neutral as eating could still produce gender roles. The group showed evidence of this by presenting how they observed that men would eat meals with more protein, would eat quickly, would converse sparingly, and were (interestingly enough) less likely to use straws and lids. They went onto state how when women dined together, they were more likely to sit and converse, they tended to eat healthier meals and there was also more pressure to do so. All this seemed on one hand like common sense, I though to myself ‘oh yeah duh, of course that’s true, I see it all the time’, but the more I thought about it, the more it angered me that this was so evident. Why should a straw be womanly? Why should a burger be manly? They concluded saying that all these gender norms that made no sense were so integrated into our every day lives. They then asked a profound question “do we break away from it?”, they were wondering, should we try to break these norms now that we have become so exposed to it?

And if we wanted to, how would we?? And it’s question I wrestle with everyday – how would we??