The other morning I walked into my introductory International Relations class to see two signs that read: <— Male People / Female People —>

I knew this couldn’t be good.

And yep it was Gender Day! The one day of the term where professors pay lip service to feminism and allow us to read female authors, and perhaps even women of color (if we’re lucky.) And while I never enjoy gender days, finding myself inevitably getting worked up about the sexist, homophobic, transphobic sentiments usually expressed only latently in classrooms, this day was particularly rough. First we were divided into “male people” and “female people” on different sides of the classroom (don’t ask me why he thought this terminology was best) and told our topic was “Does gender matter?” I know I’m preachy to the choir here, but seriously, the fact that we’re asked that question in the first place, and given the chance to say ‘no’ is indicative of the problem. J. Ann Tickner, a feminist we got to read today sums it up quite nicely:

It does indicate, how, all too often, claims of gender neutrality mask deeply embedded masculinist assumptions which can naturalize or hide gender differences and gender inequalities.

But we weren’t able to talk on this larger level. Instead we were stuck into a nature vs nurture conversation. The class came to some wimpy conclusion along the lines of ‘gender is a social construction, except when it’s biological, so it matters, maybe.’ It was a frustrating conversation, having that kind of schoolyard debate over whether girls or boys are better are sports, but now being applied toThe Lord of the Flies and all of global politics. But what infuriated me most, was when our professor ended the conversation with a statement that while gender might matter in discussions of human nature, should we even be talking about human nature in global politics rather than larger structures?

Here, for the first time all term, I piped up. I talked about structural inequalities, systemic sexual violence, gendered experiences of war. I’m not going to say I was eloquent, but I think I kept up with the prof, who structures the class as a series of individual debates with him. I felt like he listened, and maybe even agreed with me. I ended the class by writing a note on my homework assignment about how the male/female divide of the classroom left out all manners of people outside the gender binary and also would force certain groups to either “out” themselves or deny their identities. I felt less frustrated at the end of class. We’d even spoked a bit about classroom dynamics, and one male student acknowledged how men in political science classes tend to be more aggressive about speaking up than women.

But nothing has changed. The same (white) men feel the need to speak for a large majority of class time. The same men are repeatedly asked to share their opinions. I hear about one or two opinions from women every class period, and have not been asked to speak in class since. We’ve read no more female authors, and the notion of gender has not been considered again. To be honest, most days I sit in the back and imagine how satisfying it would be to flick my pen at the guy in the front row who feels sure that his opinion is valuable over all others in the class, every. single. day. It’s annoying, and it’s demoralizing. These classroom dynamics reinforces my feelings that International Relations is an old white man’s field. A field that might not have room for me. I do believe in my intelligence and ability to navigate this field and this classroom as a woman, but I’m not always sure I have the energy.

So my question to you, is how do you deal with gender relations in the classroom? How do you change a so masculine space from the perspective of a student, or even from the perspective of a teacher? It seems to me that having more women in International Relations, particularly women ready to consider gender would be a huge benefit to the field. But how to encourage women to take these classes? How to change the dynamics so that masculinity is not the only thing valued? I’d love to hear what you think.

Original here.