Students reflect on strides made toward equality

Jessica Sahely chokes up as she talks about the freedoms she has as a woman living in the United States.

During the Women and Gender Studies spring luncheon, Sahely, a gender studies student of Afghani decent, said she was drawn to feminism and the program because of “dinner conversations about what we have in this country and what [women in Afghanistan] can’t have.”

And while women have made strides toward gender equality in the United States, members of the WGS program said it is a journey that has just begun and that furthering education and raising social awareness is critical to continuing that progress.

Susan Mannon, a professor of sociology at USU, told students and

faculty that education was essential to achieving gender equality.

Mannon explained that the primary objective of the Revolutionary

Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) is simply literacy. But Mannon said education for the sake of education is not enough.

A college education must include more than resume building if those

efforts are to continue, she said.

Mannon, a self-described “incurable overachiever,” said consciousness raising should be the top priority of higher education. She spoke to a group of about 30 students and teachers during the Women and Gender Studies spring luncheon and awards ceremony.

“Education is not simply about getting good grades, putting

credentials and majors on your resume so you can be marketable in the real word,” she said.

Careerism, the pursuit of professional gain at the cost of integrity,

is the wrongly driving undercurrent of undergraduate education, Mannon said.

“Finding one’s path, finding one’s larger purpose in life; being a

student should be about becoming a seeker of that path,” she said.

The Women and Gender Studies program offers students a minor

certificate. This year, eight students will graduate with the minor on

their transcript.

Members of a student panel discussion said some people may have the wrong idea of feminism and said a feminist is not a “man hater.”

Other members of the panel said the WGS program provides a support group for likeminded, people.

-acf@cc.usu.ed