Mount Holyoke College only accepts women, but professors teaching there have been cautioned not to assume anyone’s gender when speaking to students.
Campus Reform reports that Mount Holyoke professors and administrators, who teach only female students, were recently given an advisory pamphlet suggesting that they refrain from using the word “woman” or “women,” and referencing “the two genders,” in order to keep a gender-neutral classroom environment in the single-gender school.
“When discussing the student body, say ‘Mount Holyoke students’ rather than ‘Mount Holyoke women,’” the guide says, according to a copy reviewed by Campus Reform. “Avoid making statements like ‘We’re all women here…’, or referring to ‘…the two genders…’”
Instead, the guide suggests, professors should get to know students before defining them. “[M]any students spend the first day of class braced against various types of disrespect … professors who mispronounce their names, call them by the wrong name entirely, misgender them, and so on.”
Those students, so worried about being triggered by an incorrect pronoun, are unable to focus on classroom learning, the pamphlet says, so in order to demand the most concentration from the most students, professors should check their “privilege” and consider the myriad ways in which they might offend, “oppress,” or otherwise micro-aggress their pupils.
Companion material, also obtained by Campus Review, cautions professors to think critically even when it comes to characteristics beyond gender, after all, “two transgender students from different class or racial backgrounds are going to have different perspectives and life experiences, even though they have one identity in common.”