Deborah Hooker: McCrory, GOP need gender studies
Three years ago in a radio interview, Gov. Pat McCrory declared that, “If you want to take gender studies ... go to a private school. ... But I don’t want to subsidize that if that’s not going to get someone a job.”
Ironically and sadly, the very ignorance that gender studies programs can dispel is affecting jobs in North Carolina given the economic fallout from the “bathroom” portion of House Bill 2.
Aside from the totally ill-informed assumptions about gender and sexuality behind that portion of HB2, nothing testifies to the need for women’s and gender studies programs more than the governor’s own blustery responses to Chris Wallace’s questions on “Fox News Sunday (“McCrory weighs response to federal mandate on HB2,” May 9 news article).
Might I suggest that he and our GOP legislators sit in on some gender studies classes instead of letting their ignorance of and unfounded fears about transsexual human beings shape this state’s law?
Deborah Hooker
Clayton
The writer is a former director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at N.C. State.
This story was originally published May 10, 2016 at 5:20 PM with the headline "Deborah Hooker: McCrory, GOP need gender studies."