The Women's Movement has tried to challenge such ideas. Changes in the law and societal thinking are partially due to the efforts of individual women, but there have always been strong women in history: only by uniting together in a movement have women and men been able to make a collective difference in creating a society with more equitable opportunities for all. The Women's Movement has also had a positive spill-over effect for all marginalized people -- when gender identities are questioned, racial, ethnic, religious, and sexual assumptions are questioned as well. Even now, there is an atmosphere of reactionary fear regarding the progress women have made. True, there are women U.S. Supreme Court justices and U.S. Senators but many people complain that women are beginning to outnumber men...

Interestingly, while women's lack of prominence in fields such as art and medicine was seen as 'proof' of female inferiority, the lack of males on such college campuses today is seen as evidence that things have gone 'too far' and must be reined back in terms of the fight for women's rights.
Although I am male, I have learned a great deal studying feminism about the role of the women in my life in shaping my identity, and how assumptions regarding stereotypically 'male' behavior have affected my self-image. Although gender as a paradigm is unlikely to be discarded any time soon, Women's Studies enables students to become more liberated from narrow ideas of who they are, and to set expectations for their lives that are not based upon preconceived notions.