On sex and Navy SEALs
January 13, 2012emily No Comments »Or maybe sex with Navy SEALs, I’m not sure. I’m teaching a Women’s Studies class this semester and so far, it’s been… interesting. It’s still the first week, so I’m trying hard not to make any judgments about the class overall and, at the same time, embrace the differences between History and Women’s Studies. But, wow, have our discussions been… interesting. Wednesday wound up being a lot of sitting around and talking about feelings, so I tried to take today’s discussion in a more concrete direction, getting the students to think about definitions within the field of Women’s Studies and such. And somehow, I’m still sort of fuzzy on how, we wound up talking about how women aren’t allowed to be Navy SEALs and are also not allowed to be in submarines because (as one student put it), a woman’s presence would be distracting to them men on board. THAT then led down the rabbit hole of ‘men need to learn to control themselves’ and ‘biology, schmiology’ and oh, wow, did we get off topic. Thankfully, Monday is a holiday, so I can take the day to regroup and figure out how to guide the class in a more academically-grounded direction while at the same time not completely squelching discussion. In the meantime, in case you’re curious, women are going to be allowed on submarines as early as this year, once new submarines come off the line with (as I understand it) women’s restrooms and separate sleeping areas.
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