AbstractsWomens Studies

College students have been socialized within a patriarchal, male dominated system and have accumulated many life experiences prior to arriving on campus. These experiences could present challenges in communication, may limit the students' ability to develop intimate and meaningful relationships with others, and create struggles during and after college, personally and professionally, for students, their peers and community. This descriptive, embedded, multiple-case study was conducted to explore the effect a half-semester course titled Gender Justice has on male college students' perceptions, beliefs, and actions regarding gender role assignments and their ability to be social justice allies of women. The course provided students the opportunity to critically analyze what they believe about gender roles, how these beliefs support or limit interpersonal relationships, and how future relationships might be affected. Interviews were conducted with students enrolled in the course and after successfully completing the course. Students' course assignments were analyzed along with information from interviews with course facilitators to determine how the course affected students. Findings indicate that students can develop an awareness of social injustice, an understanding of inequity, and the skills to become social justice allies of women. Barriers remain that discourage these ally actions in covert and overt ways. The cost and consequence of being a social justice ally of women may be personally too great. However, the participants in this study did gain an understanding of the costs and consequences of acknowledging new awareness and responding in ways to support equity and social justice.