Equality, women’s studies, and why they are both important

       In many different places, circumstances, and social atmospheres it has been said, thought, and held as a belief by some people that women’s studies is not a true category of academia. By this, they say that it is not needed. It is not as important as say, engineering or computer science. In the grand scheme of life, man can go on and exist without it. This belief, in some aspects is true; man can go on and survive without it. A world without women’s studies will not be the cataclysmic itinerary that will bring about the downfall of civilization or the end of the world as we know it. We will live on; however, in this same sense, looking back at this traditional view point that things are fine just the way they are, in another view point, is just as equally wrong as it is right. By this I mean, that in the world of today, we are perpetually moving ourselves in the way of progress, and the traditional stance to stand in front of progress and push it back or keep it from moving forward is wrong in the sense that it deprives the future of all the different possibilities which could have come about. Whether those possibilities would be considered good or bad for the future, to assume one already knows the answer is arrogant.

       By this, progress, in essence, is our trying to attain equality—equality by the means that everyone is equal no matter what their ethnic, racial, sexual preference or gender basis is. Whatever your background or political stance is, we can all agree that equality for all people is good—not only is that it is “good” but that it is “right”—both morally and ethically. What we may not all be in agreement over is whether we as a people are already equal, and truthfully, the answer to that question is no. To believe otherwise, is a lack of knowledge—a lack of knowledge not to be considered a mark against a person’s character, but just a typical response to something beyond one’s means to grasp. It’s not that some people are dumb, it’s only that unless one has actually gone out to understand the world from other peoples’ view points it is almost impossible to just somehow come to understand it. If a person is not black and has never gone out to understand what it is like to be black, they can not possibly, all of a sudden, understand and qualify themselves to make decisions for the well-being of the black community.  To say that we are all equal, without actually going out and asking everyone or trying to find out to better understand, is presumptive and close upon the grounds of being hypocritical.

       So, in order for us to come together as a society of people with a common goal to move in the way of equality, we must all hold five basic forms of understanding: Math, science, philosophy, language, and social-behavioral. To lack any one of these aspects, we would not be considered as a fully-functioning individual. We would need all five to achieve self propulsion as well as to navigate the complex seas generated every day by the churning of individual motivations leading in and out of every direction.            

       Let’s say that a person had all, except math, then, they would never be able to be financially dependent and live on their own without help; or let’s say that a person lacked a philosophy—philosophy being separate from social-behavioral because philosophy is in terms of how one should live their life, as social-behavioral is the different view points and concepts that make up society, never intended as a guide to live. A person without a built in philosophy would be considered to be amoral, heartless, evil, insincere, cold, lacking a conscience, and any other aspect which would make them seem or appear inhuman. Likewise, a person without an understanding of language would never be able to communicate; a person lacking an understanding of science would never be able to make sense out of the world or understand how certain things like disease, poisoning, drowning, falling from great heights, or getting sucked up by a tornado could affect their day. It is in this same sense that women’s studies would fall under the category of social-behavioral. A person lacking it would not be able to relate with the different types of people they would encounter on a normal basis, and were they to somehow find themselves in some sort of control over those they don’t understand, they may wind up making decisions that are totally against the ideals of or detrimental to those whom are being decided for. This is why we, as a people, sometimes find the world to be unfair, unjust, or unequal. Although, this socio-behavioral aspect is just an equal part of how we should be, as say language is, it is also the most over looked and unconsidered.

     Women’s studies looked at in such a way is just as an important a field of academia as say the field of civil engineering. For they are both laying the foundations of which will become the roads that will one day connect us all to each other. To go without a concept of the female view point for any person would be like to go your whole life without an understanding of half the world, and if you were to then cut yourself off from the different aspects of race, then usually followed by sexual preferences, ethnicities, and so on, you could very well find yourself totally alone in a world full of people.

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