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Gender in the Future of Higher Education Becky Ropers-Huilman Monday, February 5, 2001. Again, the Chronicle of Higher Education’s news briefs are waiting for me on my e-mail. I am not encouraged. From following related links, I learn that at the University of Cambridge,“66 percent of women said they had felt undervalued or excluded at some point. Only 6 percent of Cambridge’s full professors are female . . . [and] males recorded the highest levels of satisfaction with the university ” (Walker, 2001). Another article details that A federal district court judge has decided that a woman can sue her former professor for sexual harassment for calling her “Monica Lewinsky.” In his ruling, Judge Hurd noted that Professor Young “observed that the plaintiff wore the same color lipstick as Monica Lewinsky, and made comments such as, ‘How was your weekend with Bill?’ and ‘Shut up, Monica. I’ll give you a cigar later,’” in front of the entire class in the fall of 1998. . . . Professor Young, who has since retired, admits to making the references because he thought Ms. Hayut looked like Monica Lewinsky, but denies that his comments were anything other than making fun.“He feels bad that it may have been tasteless or politically incorrect, but he certainly had no intention of making it a sexual thing,” said Kenneth Kelly, his lawyer. “It was joking and teasing.” (Kellogg, 2001) From one day’s news briefs, I am reminded that gender is still very much a part of higher education. As readers begin to engage with the dialogues and debates included in this volume , they might ask themselves: Have we moved beyond the need for gendered discussions? Are conversations such as those included in this book really relevant to higher education in current times? As the authors illustrate, the roles that participants at all levels of higher education play are crafted and performed 1 within an environment that is indeed gendered, and conversations related to this gendering process are both relevant and urgently needed. The purpose of this volume is twofold. First, by focusing on historical knowledge, contemporary experience, and future visions, this book identifies and describes several key gender issues currently taking shape in higher education environments. Second, each contributor applies critical perspectives to suggest needed change. Despite evidence that often paints a dark picture of current realities, the authors both draw on the accomplishments of the past and suggest clear ways to improve in the future. Underlying this volume is the feminist belief that gender takes shape in, and is shaped by, teaching, learning, and leadership practices, and in relations between students, faculty, administrators, and communities. At the same time, neither gender nor feminism is construed as a static concept uninfluenced by context. For example, as the authors collectively point out, the concept of “gender” is interpreted in many different ways depending on social dynamics related to race, sexual orientation, and other cultural markers. I envision this volume as being widely useful for students, scholars, and practitioners who are interested in learning about, and perhaps becoming a part of, the gender-related conversations that promise to continue influencing higher education environments. WHY GENDER? Girls and boys, men and women, are reminded of their proper sex roles through both formal and informal education.Through the interactions in many contexts, gender is constructed. Although we are each born with a biological sex that is more or less determined, the ways in which our sex is expressed through social practices is known as gender. For example, the ways in which one female chooses to be a woman can vary greatly from how others choose to construct themselves and interact with their environments. It is also important to remember in this volume that gender is constructed through interactions with others. From the beginning, when boys are encouraged to be active and told not to cry, when girls are praised for their appearance and their quiet and polite behavior, when both boys and girls are given gender-specific toys that implicitly teach them what each gender is “supposed” to find pleasurable, gender is formed. However, gender is not formed only during the early years of our lives. Instead, in our interactions throughout our lives, we subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) let others know what we expect from them as gendered beings. The chapters in this volume illustrate that gender is a social construction. This has two important implications. First, gender is an expression of social context. Thus, depending on various...

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