So I just discovered that there is a university that offers a course called "Male/Female Communication." And no, it's not an online university. It's an actual educational institution that offers actual degrees. To students. Who get into debt to take this sorry excuse of a course.
I understand that numbers rule everything nowadays. Professors go out of their way to come up with cutesy course titles to attract students and dupe them into thinking that the course will be easy. I understand that people feel enormous pressure to raise enrollment numbers. I'm part of the system, so I get all that. Still, there has to be a limit to how far we are willing to go to compromise our academic integrity in the pursuit of high enrollments. Of course, I could try to attract students to take my course on Don Quijote by calling it "Crazy Sex Life of Don Quijote." Of course, Don Quijote doesn't have any crazy sex life in the novel, but who cares, right? There is no "male/female communication" either, but it isn't preventing some quack somewhere from offering the course.
The only actual instance of male/female communication that I'm aware of is a heterosexual sex act. Is that what the course is about? Can gay people take it? What about transsexuals? Do people need to offer any credentials as to their capacity to understand what male/female communication is about? Like proof of the number of male/female communications they have engaged in recently?
And what would be course requirements? Besides watching Dr. Phil and reading John Gray's idiotic Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus
, that is? And what jobs can a person who took such courses in college aspire to? Of course, one can always try for a job on the set of Dr. Phil's show, but there might not be any openings.
, that is? And what jobs can a person who took such courses in college aspire to? Of course, one can always try for a job on the set of Dr. Phil's show, but there might not be any openings. I asked a student who took the course what it was about. "Oh, it's a course on dating," he said.
I'm sure that university courses on online dating sites and on how to create a great Facebook page are not far behind.
14 comments:
Dating? When I saw the title, I assumed it was a Business course on how heterosexual men and women could work together without sexual tension or boundaries being crossed in a professional environment.
I guess I'm too trusting and optimistic.
The course you describe could be taught as a workshop, which would definitely be very useful. But as an actual academic course? For an entire semester? With midterms and a final? I just don't see that at all. Everything to say about this can be said in a couple of hours, and then what?
I can't see it either, but I know the business department, regardless of a university, likes to pad its department.
The real intent of the "course" though, is just embarrassing. College is supposed to shatter stereotypes and paradigms, not reinforce them.
The funniest thing, though, is that this isn't offered by the business department. It's the Humanities program. Which makes the whole thing even more confusing.
How embarrassing for me personally, as someone in the humanities (East Asian Languages and Literature)
That makes those little jabs at my field by the naysayers all the more painful.
I only found out about this because the student came to ask advice on what career path to choose. I looked at the transcript and had trouble finding anything to suggest at this point.
Try looking at the catalog of religious schools. I've seen worse.
Like a whole course on how to create a sexually just university community from a Christian perspective
Oh, religious colleges. . . I have stories to tell about those too. Good times. . . :-)
Oh, I know! "A sexually just university community from a Christian perspective" is one where nobody has any sex. That's true justice!
Sociology? Anthropology?
"Communications." I'm not sure what that is.
You're an academic and have not heard of gender communication? That is surprising to me. I would imagine - as an academic in communication studies (which studies rhetoric/organizational communication/political communication/debate/group dynamics/advertising/persuasion/intercultural communication/conversational analysis/etc.) I would assume the course studies the different ways that men and women use language. One very popular academic in this area is Deborah Tannen. Courses of this type pull from research in linguistics, sociology, communication and psychology (including cognitive neuroscience). In short the female brain handles language differently than the male brain does. Language usage also reflects culture and the values/norms/realities of that culture. Language also affects our ideas about credibility and meaning. You can not only take an undergraduate course in this area but get an advanced graduate degree specializing in this type of study. It is certainly not an area that is puppet of the Christian right or any such nonsense of that nature.
" In short the female brain handles language differently than the male brain does."
-Yes, and the Sun revolves around the earth. Which is flat and is being held by 3 elephants standing on a turtle. This pseudo-scientific bunk has been proven to be completely wrong ages ago.
'You can not only take an undergraduate course in this area but get an advanced graduate degree specializing in this type of study."
-And what a shame that is! Ignorance is bliss, of course.
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