When it comes to the treatment of gender in our culture there is much to be improved upon.
Physical biology and spiritual beliefs can do a lot to determine what roles our genders naturally perform. It is another thing when it goes beyond biology and religious belief to assign limits or categories to one gender or another.
Particularly, I refer to something that has recently come to my attention regarding the BYU Testing Center.
I have learned there are drawers unofficially given gender assignments.
Employees refer to the drawer where tests for math, sciences and engineering are stored as the “boy drawer.”
Tests for subjects such as family life, nutrition and nursing are stored in the “girl drawer.”
As inconsequential as this might seem, we know constant reaffirmation of identity in status, position or gender can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
If a student constantly hears their tests coming from the drawer opposite their gender there will automatically be a feeling the student must fight to stay in their course of study.
BYU should not be an environment where people are forced to have feelings of aggression to assert their gender rights.
As a female graduate student in the Theatre and Media Arts Department, I feel a real push for equality and for the fostering of success in whatever career I choose no matter my gender or the gender stereotype of the field.
I only hope the rest of campus can come to that same yearning for equality.
Andrea Gunoe
Provo
