I have had this post partially written for awhile, and I have not had the energy to complete it because it has not been a priority in my life. I know I have not updated in a long bit, I have been back in California and in Santa Barbara a good chunk of this time, I was not in town for the recent big news story, but as I had this mostly already written (back in March, it is a hard post to write) and with the recent events making me think on it more I do want to finish and share it.
There are many differences between being a female math teacher and a male math teacher, that I have realized many people do not see or understand. And I do know it is not just in this one subject but as this is my field, it is where I have the most experience and friends that I have discussed their experiences with.
Women will get comments about their appearance from students, when student evaluations happen. The male instructors I have talked to usually get none at all. I have gotten many different comments over the years from being told to lose weight, to cut my hair, to grow my hair, to wear makeup, to wear more stylish clothing, to lose the glasses and many other variations. These comments can usually be found in the section that is for how do you think your instructor can improve this class.
I realize that in society today, both men and women are judged on their appearances. But to me it looks much easier for the man, he showers, maybe puts some product in his hair and puts on a nice suit and looks good. For a women, she has to shower, shave, put on a name brand dress, makeup, do her hair, try to smush everthing she might need for the evening into a name brand hand bag designed to hold a tube of lipstick because we can not put pockets into women clothing and even if we did you wouldn't want to put anything into them because that would make her look heavier. And don't forget the name brand shoes that are not comfortable, require serious coordination to not fall on your face in but she wears them because they do make the calves look good (and on me they make my three littlest toes fall asleep and then not wake up for two or three weeks). Now suppose these people plan to go out again, he puts on the same suit with a different tie and is good, she needs to have a different dress with it's own matching shoes and handbag.
I get this same thing in the classroom. As a women I am expected to look good, I need to show some skin but not too much because that would be inappropriate. A male math teacher shows up to class regularly wearing shorts, t-shirt and sandals and no one notices or would ever comment on it, whereas if I showed up in the same outfit, I would get told that I ought to dress more professionally (yes, I have been told this by my department head back when I was a graduate student teaching associate and my usual outfit was jeans and nice shirt, and one of the male grad TA's wore the previously described outfit and didn't get any comment.) I'm tired of it, I'm tired of living in a culture that is so image obsessed that I get judged on my ability based on the way I look.
I work in the math tutoring lab and I listen to the comments that students make and when talking to fellow students about who to take as a math teacher the following year. When discussing a female math teacher about half the comments were about her appearance. Whereas for a male math teacher, it was a lot less and there was only one male instructor that I ever heard comments about his appearance.
The recent event here in Santa Barbara, and reading some of what the perpetrator said, really got me thinking. While I was out on the road the comment I got the most was, "Aren't you afraid?" and I would jokenly reply with something along the lines of, "I feel safer locked in the back of my truck asleep than I ever felt in the classroom." And every joke does have a grain of truth to it. I didn't feel safe in the classroom, I had too many students that felt the world owed them something and that I was to blaim for all their problems. Every time I had to assign a student the F that they had earned in my class I would wonder is this the student that will come back and be physically violent toward me because of it. I luckily didn't have any physical violence against me. Although, I did get verbal abuse in email, in person and with the online professor evaluation tools (which is when I stopped reading them.) And this crime does show that I did have something to be afraid of, the perpetrator was a (fake, in that he registered for classes and rarely finished them) student at the school I taught at, he was the angry, world owes me something young adult that made me afraid to go to work. He might have lashed out at the sorority, but it is not that much of a leap to lash out at other aspects of life, like the teachers that have failed you. As a single women traveling alone I was much less afraid. And truthfully, on the road, I was not afraid, and one of the reasons for that, is that I am not what Hollywood says is beautiful. I am not the kind of women that gets hit on in a bar because of the way I look. I wear jeans and a t-shirt, so I am not the kind of women people look at and think that I'm asking for it. Why wasn't I afraid, because I am not a beautiful women. I am not the type of women the young perpetrator of these crimes wanted for a girlfriend. And for that there is a part of me that does feel safer, and unfortunately there is a part of me that does not fully understand the full extent of what is being referred to as rape culture, because I have not experienced it, as much.
But wait one minute, let's get back to the question itself, "Aren't you afraid?" A man would not have gotten this question. Why have we as a society taught women to be afraid and men to be fearless? Why should I be afraid, as this question implies? I have lived too much of my life being afraid, scared to show the real me. I refuse to continue living in fear, and that was one of the things the road trip was for to help me show myself that I am not afraid, I can do anything I want. Women should not need to be afraid. Every person that asked this question is unfortunately buying into rape culture. By asking this question people are saying that I as a single female ought to be afraid and I am not ok with that. I will admit that at first I didn't realize this, it was the first time someone asked me, "Aren't you afraid being a single women on the road?" that I finally figured out why I was suppose to be afraid. I refuse to be afraid.
So here is the newest double edged sword for women, don't worry as much about your appearance and get treated like shit because you don't buy into the society norms of beauty or worry about your appearance and get treated like nothing more than an object for a man to posses? Personally I have chosen the first, mostly because the other is just too much work.
Anyway thank you for reading my little rant. Hopefully soon I will get the post about why I came back to Santa Barbara and what I have been doing since coming back written.
