Bender: SMC needs openness about sexuality
By MOLLY McVOY
News Writer
Representing Saint Mary's long-term goal of diversity, Margaret Bender spoke Thursday evening as part of the College's identity week.
"In the long run, I believe any college will be unable to keep the progressive young faculty that students look for without an open environment," Bender said.
Bender also addressed how an open forum for discussion of sexuality and sexual orientation is necessary if a college is going to survive and serve its student body effectively.
"When it comes to sexuality, silence is not golden," Bender said. Open discussion on sexuality and varied ideas of its nature are not an inherent part of the Western view of sexuality, Bender said. She offered background of how the Western culture defines sexuality along with other cultures who have defined it much differently.
Bender addressed the issue of linking one's sexual orientationwith one's identity. She explained how the Western binary model of sexuality, man or woman, homosexual or heterosexual, often limits the discussion or incompletely defines behaviors and identities. "It's sort of like the car dealer model of sexuality," she said. "Mixing and matching is not allowed."
Bender explained that the Western culture interlinks biological sexual gender and sexuality without leaving room for too much variation. "The problem is that our culture catagorizes as black and white when our society is full of grey," she said.
She offered examples of Indian cultures in which homosexuality is not only accepted, but deemed necessary. There are also Native American cultures in which there are three — not two — genders which comprise society.
Bender concluded that the issue is not simple and it must be addressed appropriately on college campuses. It indicates that acceptance may be in part understanding that sexuality does not simply come from biology, but primarly from culture, Bender said.
"This all suggests that the negative attitudes toward homosexual persons that we have in our society do not flow directly from human nature," she said. "They come from our culture."
Bender believes that it is necessary for Saint Mary's to adopt a non-discrimination policy. An absence of a policy has dramatic, and possibly, deadly costs. "In the era of AIDS, honesty and communication is a matter of life and death," Bender said.
With Saint Mary's long-term goal of diversity, sexual identity must be included in their goals, Bender said.
An open and welcoming campus with regards to sexuality is also necessary to recruit and retain varied students and professors.
She also stated that gay and lesbian students and professors at Saint Mary's voiced the need for role models. Not only is acceptance a moral obligation, but there are also academic costs to non-inclusion.
"Students are missing out, not only in moral and ethical development, but also academic development [in an atmosphere of non-inclusion]," Bender said.
Bender is a professor of anthropology at the University of Oklahoma. She taught in the anthropology/sociology department at Saint Mary's from 1995-96. She has a degree in anthropology from the University of Chicago.
All News Stories for Friday, February 4, 2000
