09 July 2011

SRHR: activism and Academia (Daryo)


"Oh wow, had one of my courses on gender today and was wearing the I ♥ being a girl t-shirt, of which a student at the end asked me what was written on it, resulting in me explaining what it meant to me... both YSAFE/SRHR-wise as well as, whilst being consiered 'male', wearing a shirt like that, focusing on the whole gender and biological essentialism thing.

Anyway, point I want to make here: learned that the teacher, who was participating in the dialogue as well, turned out not to know anything about SRHR [sexual and reproductive health and rights] at all! Felt pretty strange to discover that this teacher, whilst she knows a lot about many scientific relations to gender from a lot of different angles, had never heard of these concepts, not even when fully pronouncing the names.

In other words: she knows a lot about gender history, epistemology, discourses (!), biological essentialism, social constructivism, different forms of sexualitites and identities, paradigms and you name it, but seems to be stuck in this 'scientific field'. Conclusion for today: there is more need for SRHR in universities, or it should at least be mentioned!

Not that any of you can do anything with this kind of information, but did seem like a thing to share; after all, it started with the I ♥ being a girl t-shirt."
Daryo

1 comment:

Marius said...

Firstly, Daryo thanks for wearing the t-shirt.
Second, it's weird that the teacher didn't knew anything about SRHR ... in a way it's a message that there's still a lot of work to be done. It's sad, since a lot of people are working on this for a while now, quite a lot of good years actually. But we must not let our selves be discourage by this. It's good that the t-shirt started a discussion on SRHR, it's good to see that they are working.
"I ♥ being a girl" it's doing its job. Maybe this discussion made some people more curious about this subject, hopefully.

Good job Daryo!!!