Short young female
Last night was the beginning of the end of the semester. Yesterday was the last day of classes, so to celebrate, a bunch of us went to a coffee shop to listen to our colleague from the Music discipline perform with his band... They were really great!!
As DA, DB and I were talking the conversation turned towards which professors are popular and most respected... DB's hubby told us his observation. He was a tutor for 5 different History professors when he was in high school and he said: "The older you are the more respect you get, the taller you are the more respect you get and if you are a male you get more respect in the classroom". Then he looked at me and summed it up: "If you are a short young female you will have to wait :-)". And I was thinking to myself, you didn't add brown to the equation... That's going to be longer!!! For the most part I have had very good experiences with students so far (and obviously wonderful experience with colleagues) and I don't think I have anything to complain about. I mostly consider myself very lucky and would rather not find an excuse for the few problems that exist.
But there was some truth to what he said... and I think this is not just in the South. I was very naive and used to think that at least urban women should stop complaining about equality because we do live in an equal society. But that's not very true. And when I was talking to DB about it I remembered Hillary Clinton's campaign in the '08 elections. On the campaign trail she once became very emotional and choked while saying something. And that was a totally political move!!! The media had been torturing her about her lack of display of any emotions and was calling her cold hearted. I always thought that was weird... If she was going to be the President of the nation, shouldn't she be strong/tough? So women I think are always categorized as either too soft and unable to be tough, hence not fit for higher positions or thought to be too tough and called a b****. Men on the other hand are accepted as they are, no questions asked!!!
As DA, DB and I were talking the conversation turned towards which professors are popular and most respected... DB's hubby told us his observation. He was a tutor for 5 different History professors when he was in high school and he said: "The older you are the more respect you get, the taller you are the more respect you get and if you are a male you get more respect in the classroom". Then he looked at me and summed it up: "If you are a short young female you will have to wait :-)". And I was thinking to myself, you didn't add brown to the equation... That's going to be longer!!! For the most part I have had very good experiences with students so far (and obviously wonderful experience with colleagues) and I don't think I have anything to complain about. I mostly consider myself very lucky and would rather not find an excuse for the few problems that exist.
But there was some truth to what he said... and I think this is not just in the South. I was very naive and used to think that at least urban women should stop complaining about equality because we do live in an equal society. But that's not very true. And when I was talking to DB about it I remembered Hillary Clinton's campaign in the '08 elections. On the campaign trail she once became very emotional and choked while saying something. And that was a totally political move!!! The media had been torturing her about her lack of display of any emotions and was calling her cold hearted. I always thought that was weird... If she was going to be the President of the nation, shouldn't she be strong/tough? So women I think are always categorized as either too soft and unable to be tough, hence not fit for higher positions or thought to be too tough and called a b****. Men on the other hand are accepted as they are, no questions asked!!!
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