Why This Class?-Test

I chose to take this class because of the previous courses I took with Professor Copple-Smith. She helped open up to me the topic of media and its impact on the social structures we are involved with every day. At first, I thought gender and sexuality would be too touchy of a subject to take in school compared to the general social media topics I had learned about previously with her. However, I still felt that this semester would be a good time to address a topic that I would not normally want to learn about since I am about to enter the real world. With knowing that I am about to leave the Denison bubble and enter the cold dark world, I realized that I should have a strong background on what is important when discussing or interpreting problems and issues with gender and sexuality because they are common and relevant topics that I will soon encounter more and more as I grow up.

During our first class period, I was thinking of why I actually took this course. I realized that there was one instance over the summer where a topic of gender and sexuality caught my interest. On 60 minutes, former NBA player, John Amaechi spoke out about his career and what it was like for him and his teammates once he came out and announced he was gay. This large man who was once a dominant defensive player used to scare his opponents with his tenacious defending and on the court grit mentality. It shocked me that this man was gay, mainly because I never pictured a gay man as someone like him. I guess my paradigm about gender and sexuality was much different to this situation. This experience of recognizing that gender and sexuality is much more of a factor is every aspect of the world really wanted me to engage in this class and learn more about it.