Mission and Values
Engender was founded in the fall of 2016 to advocate for the principles of equity and inclusion within Yale's community. Our first initiative has been to work toward gender integration of Yale’s Greek organizations given their sex-discriminatory nature and disproportionate control over campus social life. In the springs of 2017 and 2018, we requested access to the rush processes of Yale’s all-male fraternities on behalf of women and non-binary students and successfully coordinated a gender-integrated rush process at one of Yale's fraternity chapters.
Why Gender Integration?
Segregating people by gender at any stage of their lives teaches them in-group biases and out-group stereotypes based on antiquated, sexist notions of men's versus women's roles in society. These biases then play out in the classroom, workplace, and other social spaces to reinforce an already existing, harmful dynamic that advantages men and disadvantages women and LGBTQ+ students in terms of their educational, social and economic opportunities.
Gender segregationist policies fail trans and gender-nonconforming people by refusing the legitimacy of their gender identities and often excluding them entirely. Furthermore, while gender segregationist policies might not explicitly exclude queer people, they do foster environments where heterosexual behavior is prized and encouraged. In a gender-segregated organization, it is inevitable that queer people will be relegated to lower social stature than straight people and they will often experience harassment oriented at their gender presentation and/or sexuality.