Last week I went to class excited. As a graduating senior, I was overwhelmed by the bittersweet experience of my “last first day of school.” I sat down in my first seminar, a class I had been waiting for four years to take, and skimmed the syllabus. I felt a familiar discontent creep into my eagerness. I read it again, and the disappointment settled. Among 10 weeks worth of reading, I saw dozens of authors, but not a single female name.
Time and time again, I’ve sat in a mostly female social science class taught by a male professor who assigned almost exclusively male authors. As a female student, this is discouraging because it universalizes male experiences while ignoring the wide-ranging importance of gender. It also defines the image of a scholar in my own field as male, making me question whether I belong.
As this quarter has just begun and there is still time to revise syllabuses, I urge UCLA professors to consider whether their course readings are diverse. This is especially important as our university takes strides to be more inclusive through measures like the diversity course requirement and the recent appointment of a vice chancellor for equity, diversity and inclusion.
Our society is gendered – there’s no getting around that. Male experiences simply are not my experiences. As a woman, I navigate a world with different expectations, rules and limitations than my male peers. Reading only male authors, without acknowledging how their maleness shapes their perspective, presents male perspectives as universal. While I scan the syllabus, actively seeking out the precious few female voices, my male peers find male perspectives in nearly every reading.
As a woman intending to enter the field of international development, I have never had a female development studies professor, and when male authors also dominate my syllabuses, it is all too easy to feel like I chose the wrong field. When confronted with so few women doing the job I plan to do, how can I feel like I belong? I am confident that I will have an effective and meaningful career that counters academia’s focus on men. I am not afraid of that challenge, but I am acutely aware of how much easier my path would be if I felt more welcome in my own field.
I acknowledge that early works in many fields were written before female involvement was common in academia. However, I refuse to accept that, at a time when women outnumber men as students of higher education, there are as few female contributors as my syllabuses suggest. I have spoken with several professors about this concern and have received mixed responses. In the most productive of these conversations, a professor named four female scholars on the spot, expressing his regret for not assigning their work. Clearly, a lack of women in the field was not the problem. The problem was the professor’s choice not to highlight them.
I do not mean to say that professors guilty of this exclusion are malicious. Indeed, they are good scholars, good teachers and good people. Many professors just never think to question whether their syllabus is diverse. It’s simply the status quo, but let’s take the time to question it. Professors of UCLA, this is your chance to improve. I urge you to think critically about the consequences of your syllabuses.
My experience surely differs from those of other female students in other fields, but professors across the board should consider the importance of diversity when designing their classes. It is the responsibility of our educators to think long and hard about whose voices they elevate and whose they exclude, for it is a choice that determines whether all students feel represented, welcome and excited to learn.
Tsacoyeanes is a fourth-year history and international development studies student.