<...> Women’s Studies is not a class about women. It is a class about our culture and our society and the structure of our relationships. The lens is not for women only, although about 95% of my class was female. In Women’s Studies at UCLA, we learned about sexual relationships, hormones, psychology, development and politics. We explored our prejudice and our intolerance, and we confronted things about our perceptions and assumptions that transformed the way I view the world.

The most powerfully life-changing thing that Women’s Studies did for me was to make me concretely and acutely aware of the race and class injustice in the world. I bet you think that the feminist movement is only about empowering women. That is a part of it, of course. But the true movement of feminism seeks to use the lens of the women’s movement to empower all people regardless of race, class and gender. Men, women, however you identify. Rich, poor, black, white, brown, whatever you are. Women’s Studies taught me to see the world as that struggle for equality and it changed me forever.

One of our assignments one week was to start observing workers in the world. I started watching and I have never stopped. From literally that day forward, I became the person who says hi to service workers. I wave at garbage men. I say hello to janitors and custodians. When I see city workers doing construction I wave and say thank you. When construction was being performed in our neighborhood for a long enough time that the workers set up a tent, my sons and I baked cookies and took them over. I am that lady who makes eye contact with people in service positions in hospitals, schools, parks and at the mall.

You know why? Because in women’s studies we learned that if you want the world to be better and more equal, it starts with respect. Many people I say hi to are shocked or look behind them to see who I must be talking to, because people so rarely say hi to service workers and construction people and garbage men. That makes me so sad. Imagine if your job was to collect garbage and drive around in a huge old truck all morning and it’s noisy and you rarely get breaks and you don’t make as much money as you should and you have to wake up early and it’s just exhausting. Imagine that you go through your life without anyone saying hi. Or thanking you. Everyone should thank the garbage man and say hi. That’s my feeling. Because human beings are social, and we need to feel like we matter, because we do. Everyone matters. <...>