Academic Building
PLAY AUDIOWelcome to the Gender at Texas A&M University guided walking tour. In the 2016-2017 academic year, students enrolled in Introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies (WGST 200) courses were given the assignment to write a brief paper identifying a potential stop on a gendered walking tour of Texas A&M. The assignment drew from Judith Lorber’s understanding of gender as multifaceted that students read and discussed in class. Gender can be understood as “gender roles”--the types of feminine and/or masculine behaviors that women and men perform, and gender can also be understood as a social institution, “one of the major ways that human beings organize their lives.”[1] Students were offered this prompt for their four-page papers: “Choose any aspect of gender at Texas A&M University, historical or contemporary. The possibilities are limitless. You may focus on a moment of achievement, protest, suppression, bravery…you may examine a space, policy, tradition…The most important determinant: you must be able to see and articulate how gender is at play.” Students were also asked to identify a location on campus to represent the aspect of gender on campus that they had chosen to write about.All stops on this tour represent the locations and issues identified by students. This tour is not a comprehensive tour of Texas A&M’s history, traditions, or important landmarks. We encourage visitors who are interested in a more general tour of Texas A&M to contact the Texas A&M Visitors Center.We hope you enjoy the Gender at Texas A&M walking tour![1] Judith Lorber, “‘Night to His Day’: The Social Construction of Gender,” in Feminist Frontiers, 9th edition, edited by Verta Taylor, Nancy Whittier, and Leila J. Rupp, 33-49. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012.
Century Tree
PLAY AUDIOThe Century Tree is a live oak over 100 years old, one of the first trees planted on the A&M campus.[1] The Aggie Traditions website explains that the Century Tree is also home to one of A&M’s most treasured traditions. The site of numerous marriage proposals, tradition suggests that a couple who walks under the tree together will eventually marry.[2] Like some other Aggie traditions (kissing—or “mugging down”—after touchdowns at football games), the tradition of romance associated with the Century Tree is heteronormative. Heteronormative discourses construct a masculine/feminine binary in which men and women are understood to be complementary and position heterosexuality as the norm rather than one sexual choice among many. University campuses—like all public spaces--are geographies of sexual space where sexual norms are produced and maintained; under the Century Tree, heterosexual romance blossoms but other romantic scripts remain outside of Aggie tradition.[3][1] “Century Tree.” http://www.tamu.edu/traditions/aggie-culture/century-tree/[2] Ibid.[3] Phil Hubbard, “Here, There, Everywhere: The Ubiquitous Geographies of Heteronormativity.” Geography Compass, 2/3, 2008: 640-658.
