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Sexuality Studies under Attack!

Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 04:19:12pm   ►by Christopher White   ►

Conservative lawmakers are up to their old tricks of scapegoating and creating moral panics around sexuality. In response to the current financial crisis, legislators in Florida and Georgia have begun attempting to cut sexuality studies, queer theory, and women's and gender studies courses and research at state universities.

Read and sign our petition to support sexuality studies and the role of scientific research in sexuality policy and interventions right now.

As our nation struggles with the greatest economic meltdown of our time, rather than deal with real issues, these legislators have decided to create the illusion that they are making budget cuts and cutting wasteful spending; in reality, they are trying to eliminate courses and research that does not meet with their moral standards.  It is not unprecedented for disciplines that are seen as unnecessary or unimportant to be the first to get the axe when times get tough - the arts, ethnic studies, women's studies and feminist theory classes have been regular victims of these types of cuts - and are probably not far behind on the chopping block.  (Of course, we should take comfort in knowing that college athletics, especially football, will never even be considered extra fat for the trimming.  It's probably due to their massive scholarly contributions.)

 

We must step up and demand that these self-righteous opportunists cease their moral panic inducing ways and get back to the real work of figuring out what the hell to do about the economy.  All of us are aware that we must tighten our belts during these sparse times and make some sacrifices.  At the same time, we cannot allow academic and intellectual freedom to falter. We cannot allow a few very vocal "leaders" to demonize courses and research that is the work of our friends and colleagues by misrepresenting, misquoting, and flat out lying.  While we could spend hours arguing with them about sexuality studies and related work and its importance, we are better off defending the pursuit of knowledge and scholarly inquiry--the purpose of which is to have a better understanding of humanity and our world in order to work for change for the betterment of humankind.  This minority does not get to decide who or what that work is or to attempt to ban controversial material at colleges and universities.  We must respond that it is these controversies that are at the very heart of academic and philosophical debate that drive the classrooms and laboratories of faculty, staff, and students to finding solutions to society's biggest problems.  

Here is Georgia State Rep Charlice Byrd sharing her moral outrage about queer theory and oral sex research:

Sexuality studies is an easy target.  Any halfwit lawmaker can go on television and use words like oral sex, prostitution, and queer and have a reasonable expectation that there will be a reaction.  For those of us who make a living studying, teaching, and debating these "disgusting" topics, we know what it is like to be under attack and to work our asses off to legitimize our work.  We can handle it.  What we can't handle is any legislator dictating what can and cannot be studied, taught, or debated at our colleges and universities.  This is a call to all you sexuality studies folks and allies to stand in defense of intellectual and academic freedom and demand that these lawmakers get back to their real work.

Here are three things you can do to take action now:

  • Sign our petition to support sexuality studies and the role of scientific research in sexuality policy and interventions.
  • Have you ever taken a class on sexuality, queer studies, women's studies or gender issues? Include a comment when you sign (anonymous or not) about how your class contributed to your academic or personal growth. Taught a class or done research in these areas? Tell us how your work has made the world a better place.
  • Pass this blog and the petition on to a friend--use the 'share this' icon at the top of the page.
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Comments

Why I Teach Sex

This is my second semester as a PhD student in Sociology. I began teaching Social Constructions of Sexuality this semester, and already, I have already seen an incredible effect on my students five weeks in. These are college students who have never questioned what actions they even consider sex, although they are regularly engaging in sexual behaviors without question or communication. In asking them to look at their beliefs and their sources, they have had some wonderful realizations about their own lives and have felt empowered to speak up and out about their own lives, as well as become active in the legal and scientific communities. We are training a new group of critical thinkers, using a subject matter they care about. This is also the first class where students have opened up about their lives, letting me in as a teacher and admitting they don't know it all. These young people come to me and tell me things they are afraid to say to even their partners, because they have been taught to be ashamed of their own sexuality, and to silently "do it-" or risk being sanctioned for asking questions. The research and education I do can change the world, and I am proud to be a part of a group of dedicated and brilliant scholars who are attempting to take the stigma away from sexuality. We are necessary in the academy. Our students need is, the medical community needs us, and in the end, we will save tax dollars by using our work.

Anonymous on Feb 13, 2009 07:27am

Becoming a Sexuality Advocate

In the Spring of 2002, as a senior at Davidson College, I took an amazing anthropology course about sexuality and gender in society. At the time I thought I was on my way to becoming a doctor like my father and grandfather, but the class caught my intellectual curiosity in a way no Bio or Chem class ever had. I was asked to question my own sexual and gendered behavior and the sexual and gendered expectations around me. When I left college I worked on an Ovarian Cancer clinical trial. While the work required my degree in Biology, it was my class on gender and sexuality that helped me understand the emotions these young women at risk for a deadly cancer felt. They were faced with the prospect of removing their ovaries and going into early menopause, cutting short their reproductive years and forever altering their sexual responses. What might seem like an easy decision - remove the tissue that might erupt with cancer and kill you - never was because of sexuality. The experience reminded me that dismissing sexuality as unimportant or inconsequential is a grave mistake. Last year I completed my masters in Sexuality Studies at San Francisco State University. The program was extraordinary. I learned from my professors and my classmates that studying sexuality is about social justice. If Ms. Byrd actually wanted to make an impact on the state budget crisis, she would actually attend one of the “disgusting” classes she is using to make a political name for herself. In those classes, she would learn what state institutions actually create and perpetuate social inequalities that prevent some individuals (racial minorities, gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender people, poor people) from obtaining the same kind education, opportunities, and jobs as white, middle-class, procreative, heterosexuals. Then she could do something to rectify those institutional barriers that prevent some Georgians from contributing in the same ways others do. By the way, Ms. Byrd should probably thank a feminist (who are so often found in those gender and sexuality classrooms) for paving the way for women to hold public office.

Elizabeth Shafer McClelland on Feb 13, 2009 10:39am

Enraged!

I'm enraged! But, as requested, I will focus my comment here on the ways in which academic work on sexuality and gender have contributed to my academic, social, and personal growth. I like sociology - enough to continue to pursue a PhD in it - but, I have had to turn to gender studies, women's studies, and other programs to expand my training in and understandings of gender and sexuality. Taking classes like feminist theory, gender inequality in the US, queer representations in television and film, and lesbian and gay studies have been important for me to better understand the history and continued persistence of gender and sexual inequality in this country. As a queer person, these classes have helped me to feel more human that the experiences of homophobia in school would ever allow for. I'm very concerned about this explicit effort to end academic programs that are considered immoral and unnecessary. If it begins with classes on sexuality, it can then move to gender, and then to race and class. Before you know it, the only programs considered safe are natural and life sciences, engineering, mathematics, and other disciplines considered important. The social sciences and arts and humanities have always had tenuous support because they are considered frivolous. It should not be left to those in politics to decide what goes on in the academy - politicians already have too much of their hand in regulating higher education through their funding. (My department will go a third year with a hiring freeze, which, once added up, stunts the growth of the entire discipline of sociology.) I truly hope they gain no traction in their disgusting efforts.

Eric Anthony Grollman on Feb 14, 2009 11:34am

In Florida and Feeling the Budget Cuts!

As a junior at the University of South Florida I am a sex and gender FREAK and I am sooo feeling the budget cuts! I love women's studies, I am minoring in it. I have taken many courses such as Human Sexual Behavior, Issues in Feminism, Women and Science, Queer Theory and now I am taking Women and Social Action. I am majoring in Psychology, minoring in Women's Studies. My plans are to become a Sex Educator/Therapist for adolescents because they are our future. The classes that I have named have changed my life and has made me realize what a social construction gender really is. To realize that there is a difference between sex and gender and to realize that there is an oppression that exists in the LGBTQ community is fascinating - not in a good way. To realize that you wake up in the morning "doing gender" (West and Zimmerman) and you go to sleep "doing gender" and that it's real...but it does not exist! (Sara Crawley). To realize that men STILL get paid more then women in almost all fields, to realize that the foundations of science are based upon patriarchal standards. It's utterly disgusting that at the University of South Florida they basically want to obliterate the Women's Studies department. They were literally walking teachers out Fall 2008! My teacher, Dr. Sara Crawley (Human Sexual Behavior, Issues in Fem, Queer Theory) here at USF, has changed my life forever. She is the reason I want to focus on sex and gender. It is a type of social action you take when you take a women's studies course if you have not realized. Once you become knowledgable in the subject you just feel like passing it on. Women's studies is what teaches you to fight inequalities. Women's studies helps you better understand the human race and lets you know that you may be deviant however WE (as feminists) will not look at you any different. Women's studies makes you realize you are not alone.

Alessandra Perez on Feb 15, 2009 02:10pm

Moral Panics

Having lectured in hundreds of human sexuality classes over the past 20 years, and discussed the transformative nature of their work with scores of college and university instructors and professors, I can attest to the value of the impact of these courses on the lives of students and their families. Real learning takes place here; learning that is vital to our society. Students learn about how to have honest dialog in relationships, how to protect themselves from unwanted sexual contact and STDs, how to understand their bodies: and their bodies are real and are where they live. Cheap shots at creating a moral panic about >>gasp!<< sexuality education may unfortunately go far in a time of economic retraction, when politicians will seek any safe place to cut expenses -- cuts that won't end up in lost votes in the next election. But moral panics have always had the same result historically: innocent people are emotionally and psychologically subsumed, physically harmed, and sometimes even killed in the name of one insular vision of correctness. And some people have the nerve to call acceptance of human diversity "politically correct"! I had the privilege of teaching a course on moral panics at SFSU's Summer Institute on Sexuality, Society and Health in 2005, and having surveyed the history of such events I know that they are all about power and control, not about saving money, not about purity in academics. This kind of fearmongering is nothing more than an attempt to create a war on academic freedom at the expense of real education and a real hope of an informed future for our university students and for the even younger children who will follow, suffering in silent ignorance while smug politicians and other collaborating power brokers and power seekers hide behind their masks of implied decency. I urge the administrations of the Universities in Florida and Georgia (and anywhere else that programs of this nature fall under attack) to step up in defense of adademic freedom, of honest scientific research, and of the state's responsibility to provide public education that meets real life needs, and put a swift end to this blatant political ploy.

Jamison Green on Feb 18, 2009 03:41pm

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