Webb Chap. 3

"'Today women can do anything they want,' Jennifer pointed out. 'If women want to go to college or become writers, there is nothing stopping them,' Nathan said" (p. 35). Believe it or not, but before I read this, I was thinking the same thing as these students. It may, in fact, be very difficult for students, both women and men, to connect to women's struggles for equal rights. These students are entirely correct; women today technically do have every opportunity that men are afforded, so issues such as women not being able to college may not seem as important to students. It is clear that the roles of women are perpetually changing. But as I continued to think about it, the real significance lay within the general perceptions of society about women when they are in these positions. Events such as the Miss America Pageant, to the feminist, perpetuate stereotypes that women are strictly concerned with fame or materialism. Similarly, the idea of a woman president has generally evoked negative thoughts that are very much connected to a perception of women (inferiority) that has deep historical roots.

All students should be examining this to understand that how women are perceived or how they "should" act, a.k.a. gender roles, are of real concern to them. That is why I am so impressed with Webb's instruction. He was able to make the seemingly irrelevant relevant by moving away from equal rights to gender roles with the feminist lens. This is not to say that students should not be examining woman's historical struggles for equal rights, but because students may think women are of equal status today, gender roles or norms will make feminist literary theory more applicable to the modern woman. Students are bombarded daily with messages about how they should act, and closely looking at these attempts will hopefully help students become more autonomous.

Additionally, when students examine other controversial issues like homosexuality using gay and lesbian studies, I feel like there will be some apprehensiveness amongst students. To combat this, I think it could be useful to explicitly ask students why they feel awkward discussing their sexuality. Moreover, I really like how Webb suggests scaffolding feminist literary theory with "queer theory" through the examination of identity and gender roles. By connecting gender roles to the identification of someones sexual preference, sexual orientation issues will not seem so taboo or isolated when spoke about in the classroom. I do not think, however, that there are a lot of texts you could use entirely with gay and lesbian studies other than texts primarily concerned with homosexuality. Otherwise it seems you would be fishing for connections to question characters' tendencies...