Dba123, 4/28

Yesterday’s class a much different exercise than any of my previous teacher’s has ever proposed. By not allowing the males in the class to talk, you could definitely tell there was a different dynamic in the classroom. I think that it was interesting that Dr. Casey volunteered himself to sit in the back of the room. Not that Dr. Casey is a threatening person, but the presence of a man itself might deter female students from opening up about some of their own encounters with men putting them down. When females were the only ones conversing on the feminist theorists, it seemed easier to talk about personal experiences that some people might not of felt comfortable to talk about if there was a male figure in the front of the room. I believe that if Dr. Casey had led the class, some personal stories would not of been shared in fear putting down our teachers gender and then offending him.

There were a lot of people commenting at the end of class how they had heard students talk yesterday that they had not heard all year. Almost every female has experienced some form of gender stereotype, so it was understandable that more people participated in the discussion. I thought it was interesting that only one male is the classroom stood up for men as a whole saying how men don’t purposefully mean to put women down when they gender directed comments. I would of thought with some of the comments made that more of the males in the room would have been defensive. Overall I thought this class was an interesting experience, especially for the men in the room, and a lot of in sight on the female psyche was gained.