Heroic: First Year Student & Feminist Icon Daniel Taking WGSS Freshman Seminar

When Daniel Wells enrolled in a Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies freshman seminar in early December, he had no idea he would grow into a feminist trailblazer.  But today, add/drop/swap a not-so-distant memory, he cannot imagine a world in which he is not the outspoken male feminist that the post-third wave feminist movement never asked for, but got anyway.

“OUE kept emailing me to enroll in a freshman seminar because I didn’t take one last semester, and I got a crappy enrollment time so I couldn’t get a spot in ‘50 Shades of Grey Areas’ where I think you watch all the 50 Shades of Grey movies and then talk about why they picked a protagonist who wasn’t even that hot.” Wells also explained that he made his choice in part to the lack of other strong options, “It sounded better than ‘Mad Russian literature.’  I’m pretty sure they didn’t even have books in the USSR, so I don’t understand how that class even exists,” the self-proclaimed “humanist” told the Spoke.

“It’s actually kind of cool.  I never really thought about how the constant hypersexualization and dehumanization of women in the media could actually lead to the dehumanization of real women.  But once you read some Simone de Beauvoir, it really puts things into perspective.  Also she slept with like, a lot of people,” he added, laughing. “She a FREEEEAK.”

Regarding his burgeoning role as an on-campus activist, Wells recalls an instance in which he shotgunned a FourLoko to join some female friends at a frat party so that he could “keep an eye on them – but not like in an eyes-up-here way because [he] really respect[s] women” and “fight the systemic misogyny of fraternity culture from the inside.”

Wells’ Instagram bio confirms that he later joined the same fraternity for which he performed this deed.

“Like I said, crushing the patriarchy from inside enemy lines.  Also, it’s really nice that I don’t have to try to get into parties anymore,” he said while cracking open a Natty Light.

According to Daniel, he has become the “woke-bae” of every girl in the class’s dreams.  WGS T.A. Emily Grossman even told the Spoke that Wells is “doing good work” and “participating on a satisfactory basis” in class.

Daniel – whose prior knowledge of feminist theory was once limited to the curriculum of his A.P. United States History course – now feels better equipped to speak over women about the issues that directly concern them not only in his classes, but also in his social life.  This is a skill he demonstrated to our female reporter by both ignoring and yelling over her various questions about the importance of male participation in fourth-wave feminism.

“I guess I’ve always sort of been a women’s rights activist.  Emma Watson is hot. Beyoncé is also hot. But more importantly, both Beyoncé and Emma Watson are powerful individuals with their own agency, whether or not I find them attractive.  But just to clarify, I still think they’re hot.”

At press time, when asked if he plans to take more classes in the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality department, Wells told our reporters “Maybe, if it fits into my schedule, but I’m pre-med so I probably don’t have time for it.  Women are cool and whatever, but I also want to go to medical school and be really rich when I’m older, so the feminist movement will just have to wait for my help.”