Day Twenty: April 4

Announcements?

This is a feminist issue because...men and feminist education:

• The misunderstandings between feminists and uneducated men is a feminist issue because...
• Teaching boys feminism

I've read many horror stories about women's studies professors being heckled by male students who are just there to make a sexist scene. In the high school setting where I teach, I have never had that experience. Instead, the boys in my classes are curious about how feminism might connect to their lives. They want to know if feminism can help them become better versions of themselves in a world that tells them only one version is acceptable.

The boys in my feminism course have taught me that it is essential that we teach them about the various global feminisms so that we can finally reach gender, racial, and economic justice together as fully realized men and women. They have taught me that it is crucial that we bring a feminist lens to not only high school classrooms but middle and elementary schools as well.

My dream as a result? That whole generations of young women and men will never experience and/or perpetuate everything from street harassment to rape; frat boy misogyny to workplace discrimination; bullying of queer kids to the banning of LGBT soldiers in the military. All of these issues connect along lines of gender and sexuality, power and politics. If we teach gender justice to all young people, we might just make lasting institutional change.