ABSTRACT
During a recent commencement ceremony at the university where I teach, an award was presented to “the outstanding man and the outstanding woman” in the graduating class. This award, which is given annually, struck me as rather odd. There is nothing odd, of course, about recognizing outstanding students-indeed, the award, as well as the exuberant speeches given by the respective recipients, reminded me of the familiar high school tradition of selecting a class valedictorian. But unless the recipients were expected to make a baby after the ceremony, I could not fathom why it was important to select one man and one woman. We would not think to grant an award to the outstanding white student and outstanding non-white student in the class-even though, given current social conditions where I teach, race is likely to affect the educational experience at least as much as gender. Nor would we consider granting an award to the outstanding student over 5’8” and the outstanding student under 5’8”, or the outstanding student who had suffered through Corvino’s Intro to Philosophy class and the outstanding student who had not. Yet the audience-a majority of whom were college graduates, at least by the end of the ceremonyshowed no signs of puzzlement at the gender division.
