Recently, an anonymous Friend of the Toast who works at a university for humans somewhere on the North American continent informed us that at the end of every gender studies course, she asks her students to (among other things) define lesbians and modern lesbian identity, in light of the already-completed course reading.
These are their stories.
Images by Matt Lubchansky, who makes comics and occasionally leaves his apartment in New York. His work includes Please Listen to Me and New Amsterdam Mystery Company. He’s on Twitter, and doesn’t expect you to get his name right.
Tags: artwork, gender studies, keep trying you’ll get there, lesbians, matt and mallory, matt lubchansky, meaning is fluid, subjectivity
D:
Women who have not had sexual intercourse are lesbians.
GUESS WHAT, GODDAUGHTERS.
I can’t even…but it’s great that Friend of Toast is helping these kids to think more about this???
Also, I’ve read that last paragraph three times and still can’t make sense out of it. I’m using a new comment for this in the hopes that someone can EXPLAIN ME A THING.
“…because that’s an even better way to end childbirth…”. So after you give birth, you become a lesbian?
No, that can’t be right, because lesbians are women who have not had sexual intercourse, which is mostly necessary for babies.
I think that’s the only part of it that I do get – that there will be no childbirth if you are lesbian because there is no sex, and therefore no family (obviously, no family at all without biological kids, none at all).
Lesbianism is a pretty solid method of birth control.
Wait, I gave birth twice. Does that make me extra-lesbian, or is it like a double-negative where I was a lesbian during those 4 years between kids, but now I’m back to being straight?
Hang on, I have a stupid straight gal question? Isn’t ‘straight’ kind of a jerk of a term? Someone PC me up here. Because meaning not-straight means, what? Crooked? Kinky? Curvy? (nb, I am both kinky and curvy, but heterosexual.)
(Don’t ridicule me. I’m not at a young age, but I still fear that if women ridicule me, I might never turn into a lesbian.)
It’s fine. Say straight.
One time, I was in the car with someone and was giving directions and I told him to “go straight at the next light” or something like that and he told me that I was being heterosexist and should, instead, say “go forwards at the next light.”
Did you tell him that “forward” should only be pluralized if you are discussing the official positions of multiple sports players? And also that he appears to be a douche?
I’m fairly certain Matt never leaves his apartment.
only at night
TO FEED
Matt, I particularly love the bowtie & top hat lesbian.
thank you!
It took me several read-throughs (reads-through?) before I realized that the rabbi is NOT doing a rock-on hand/horns hand in the 12th panel. Now that I see that it’s clearly a finger shake, I can’t decide which I like better.
University students at the end of a gender studies course? UNIVERSITY STUDENTS AT THE END OF A GENDER STUDIES COURSE?! Goodbye, I’m going to go lament the state of higher education forever.
SERIOUSLY. What university is this? As a recently graduated university student who took a bunch of gender studies courses, I can honestly say I don’t think I ever saw ANY piece of writing from a classmate as absurd as this. (Except for maybe the time the one baseball player in our class talked about how women had all the power in our society because they were the gatekeepers of sex.)
Kindergarten U.
THE END!?
It’s the university that took all the seniors I student taught, apparently. :/
Oh… oh no.
My brain kind of hurt after reading some of these. I…these are college students??? Aaaaaahhhhhh….
I can report from the front lines of a university for humans somewhere on the North American continent (but probably a different one), that yes, these are the thoughts and answers you might expect. But please don’t be disheartened, these youngs obviously have a great teacher getting them to think about these topics!
…but they just took a GENDER STUDIES course???!?!?
My father was a college professor. Every time he was grading papers, he would mutter under his breath.
These are COLLEGE students?? brb, throwing myself off a cliff.
People who take classes called “____ Arts” and “_____ Studies” are rarely the brightest knives in the harbor. Education majors, I’d guess. Good for a laugh, in a Decline and Fall of the American Empire sorta way.
This is a crap comment.
O_o
These are written by college students? at the END of the gender studies course?
Is English their first language? Are they developmentally disabled students? What is this I can’t even.
I would say these are actually more coherent than average. Except maybe the last one. That is pretty bad.
Science students trying to get their core courses over with?
“Are they developmentally disabled students?” The Implication being developmentally disabled students are inherently homophobic?
What the hell just happened.
I need a drink.
D: D: D: is the face I’m making right now.
“I also have a short haircut and attended a small college in western Massachusetts!”
help i choked on my coffee and now i’m dying
What of all the subaru-driving, asymmetrical-haircut-having, flannel-clad butches of the NW?
Clearly they do not exist.
They are awesome?
“characteristics of a woman such as shopping”
Nailed it.
that’s one of my primary characteristics, isn’t it yours???????
I, too, am attracted to shopping.
It’s true. I do love breast.
Just the one, though.
Not both; that would be greedy.
It’s leaner than thigh!
This is at the END of the gender studies course!? I’m really saddened by this.
I mean, I look back at my undergraduate courses and I think, surely there were some people that didn’t really absorb anything they learned in those classes, but they can’t have been the norm. Right? RIGHT?
I didn’t realize that those people also didn’t have basic writing skills though, like are they paying for this education that they are not absorbing
People don’t write in the content areas in high school anymore (testing! ugh…) and so college writing is a tough haul for most students.
I’m a little bummed that people don’t have more patience and compassion for these kids, actually! Being unable to write well does not disqualify you from being a thoughtful, curious, learning-oriented person. This teacher is fighting the good fight.
I agree that the teacher is fighting the good fight, but do you really think these particular students are showing thoughtfulness? Sure they are capable of it, but I’m not sure it’s on display here.
I used to teach SAT classes (after the switch to include the writing section) and I definitely understand that there are some serious struggles in the writing department. But “There definitely needs to be an age limit for minors like there is.” is really concerning.
I am going to go ahead and make a guess that these responses represent progress for some of these students. Thinking and learning as a process, a slow slow process.
The mind often reels at the amount of blind hatred and ignorance that can come out of the mouths of college freshman. Is it depressing? Yep. I can’t talk about gender issues with my students because I will lose my shit on the regular, so I am handing it to this teacher and others like her.
Hunh. Now think about the attrition rate for gender studies classes – the last one I took, we lost 1/3 of the class in the first two weeks because it was just too “upsetting” for some of the students.
“I believe some girls may prefer girls because they may have been ridiculed by men at a young age” = my mother’s opinion about why/how women become lesbians.
My mother also used to espouse this belief, until she decided it wasn’t socially acceptable to do so. But she still believes it.
My mom has said that she has many friends who “became lesbians” after “disappointing marriages to men” and so she thinks that sometimes women just “turn gay” because of men. I have gently suggested that maybe their marriages to men were disappointing because they were gay all along, but she’s 63, there’s no changing her mind now.
…so I should tell my neighbors they’re not lesbians because they’re married and have kids? They’re going to be so surprised!
Cripes.
I am sure I should have something more intelligent to say about this, but I just keep coming back to Cripes. The illustrations are indeed absolultely brilliant though!
I’m a TA at a large state university but I teach a relatively innocuous humanities subject. There’s nothing too terribly offensive anyone can say about the Mona Lisa (although people sure have tried.) I never thought about how horrific it would be to teach a relatively controversial subject like gender studies. I honestly salute you, anonymous friend of the toast! That’s some dedication right there.
Were there like…at least a few good answers? There were a few good ones, right? RIGHT!?
These sadden, horrify, disgust, anger, and disturb me.
oh no no, ow, no. These are still young people. They are still growing, and leaving behind parental and community influences to think for themselves –it’s a process. (Also they are all around you if you’re in the US, and you don’t want to be disgusted by that many people in your community!). No disgust.
“There definitely needs to be an age limit for minors like there is.” OK I guessed the college, it’s Harvard.
But without that, humanity might have been forever deprived of the amazing sentence, “You must be this old to lesbian.”
Y’know, reflecting on it more, that could be really helpful. All the 15-year-olds who are all torn up about their sexual orientation? “Sorry, you can’t have a sexual orientation yet, you’re too young,” could be an easy and even maybe reassuring response!
lol what no we hear that all the time already “how do you even know you’re gay if you haven’t had a ___friend yet”
Oh I can see how that could be true. Note to self: be gay teen in next life so as to better be aware of these things.
I too teach gender studies at a university for humans on the North American continent. My first read-through of students’ work usually takes place in a bar, because whiskey is the only vaccine I know against the otherwise inevitable descent into profound hatred of humanity and certainty that the universe will be better for our total demise. If I develop alcohol-induced ailments, I assume medical treatment will therefore be covered by worker’s comp.
This is why I didn’t end up as a professor after grad school. If I’d had to go on teaching freshman composition, I would have flung myself off a bridge and/or developed a whiskey habit.
Seconded.
Characteristics of a woman such as shopping
*sighs* There’s just too much upsetting about this piece, so I’m focusing on this one detail.
wait is behavior not a characteristic oh shit
I remember how terrified I was, back in high school, of not getting into any college at all because clearly those overachieving valedictorians would take all the spots.
And then someone transcribes honest-to-god papers from people who got into college and I laugh and laugh and laugh until the tears come and they take me away to the asylum.
FUN FACT: almost everyone everywhere is a fucking moron. This includes Ivy League universities, the top your chosen profession, etc. etc.
That’s what I’ve been marveling at. Like, God, I used to spend a Hermione Granger-esque amount of time poring over my college papers, proofreading them until there was not even a comma out of place, and assumed that everyone else did the same (to be fair, my friends were mostly also all perfectionists). Now I’m looking back at all those extra hours spent freaking out over schoolwork and wondering how much more sleep I could’ve been getting. Yeesh.
guys I feel like they’re getting real close
“a lesbian likes a girl way more than she likes a man” I mean ALMOST
I’m just picturing you cheering them on, like, “C’mon little buddy, you’re allllllmost there! C’mon! You can do it!”
… I may also be confusing college students with wee puppies.
…
…
… *blink* …
Yeah, it’s still saying the same thing, no matter how many times I read it. That the world is doomed, and not even in a fun, Buffy-the-Vampire-Slayer kind of way, with Giles adorably cleaning his glasses.
“Oh dear”
“which defeats the purpose of being a lesbian” — NO REALLY, TELL ME MORE ABOUT YOUR THOUGHTS ON THIS.
I’m assuming he thinks the purpose being a lesbian is to give straight dudes something over which to drool. Like, why be a lesbian if it doesn’t appeal to straight dude boners? That’s the whole point!!
To be fair, I think that person is trying to say that lesbians are women attracted to women, so why dress like a dude? Admittedly, it’s a pretty narrow view of gender (especially coming at the end of a gender studies course), but I don’t think it’s quite as bad as you’re suggesting.
“What is your sexual orientation and how would you describe its purpose? Please explain in less than 500 words.”
I want this to become a regular feature, you know, “Politics Students Explain Marxism”, “Philosophy Students Explain ‘Shadows In The Cave'”, “Anthropology Students Explain Moral Relativism”
and maybe even “Frat Boy Students Explain Robin Thicke”
Only if they’re all charmingly illustrated, to soften the blow.
It’s already been asked elsewhere in the comments, but these are ADULT-aged humans, correct? Disregarding all the philosophical (philo-sapphical??? SEE WHAT I DID THERE???) idiocy, I couldn’t even get past the fact that it sounds like these are essays written by third-graders. This is all an elaborate prank, right?
Having attended gender studies classes at a Small College in Western Massachusetts, I find this mystifying.
Please say you went to Mount Holyoke too 🙂 🙂
Mohos are everywhere ;D
“being a lesbian, I don’t know if you are born with it,”
ladies and gentlemen, the perils of the dangling modifier.
“I also have a short haircut and attended a small college in western Massachusetts!”
God, I’m such a stereotype.
Yeah… me too… but I find I’m strangely comfortable with it. 😉
I want to really thank the authors of this post. Often, people ask me (or at least ponder in my presence) whether they should go to grad school. Now, I have a handy response: “Read this post and then consider whether you want to spend your life teaching undergrads!”
BINGO!
I helped my grad student friends grade history papers once. I still remember the one on Vietnam which kept referring to the actions and policies of “so-called France.”
A Corsican separatist, perhaps?
Oh wow, I like that a lot.
Henceforth, “France” shall always be referred to with “air quotes.”
Every time I read something like this it gives me another reason to purchase parts for my entirely legal rainbow flamethrower.
is it weird that i actually find the bodybuilders chasing the balloon kind of sweet?
I’m surprised that so many people are surprised by this. Have you been on or near a college campus in the past ten years? This is STANDARD ISSUE. People don’t learn what they don’t want to learn.
Awesome illustrations, by the way!
I’m actually more appalled by the quality of writing than the content.
Just a comment thanking Anonymous Friend of The Toast- these kids sound like freshman comp students and it’s so, so hard to get 18-year-olds (who, like lots of 18-year-olds, are stubbornly confident they won’t choose a field where they’ll have to write logically on a regular basis) to care about a basic composition class, and Friend, thanks for trying to engage the in thinking critically on a subject that 98% of them wouldn’t have engaged with if it wasn’t for a grade.
I have been making a face of utter disgust and revulsion for ten minues and my cheek muscles are starting to cramp up.
I have been making a face of utter disgust and revulsion for ten minues and my cheek muscles are starting to cramp up.
Can we please have a follow-up post with the delightfully sweet/generous answers I assume were also in the Anonymous Friend’s grading pile?
Yes please! There’s gotta be some actual lesbians and actual non-morons who gave responses that don’t make me want to eliminate the human race.
My mom is the same age and gay, she's probably not gonna change her mind either, LOL. 🙂
So, as this was an atrociously horrifying experience. Want to try to begin to make up for it by posting one of the best ones? Now that, to me as a lesbian, would be interesting to read.
hey now. let's not be ableist in expressing consternation over mind-blowing ignorance.
> 'I believe some females nowadays just turn into a lesbian because it's what they see going on around them.'
Where is this person, how are they surrounded by lesbians, and how can I do the same?