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Ain't I A Woman? newspapers, June 1970-July 1971

1971-07-02 "Ain't I a Woman?" Page 9

   This year I taught junior high part time in Iowa City. It's my 4th year teaching but it was the only job open in the city and I was happy to get it because the school system has a reputation for being "liberal" in the state, and the last time I taught was in a small town 40 miles away where my politics and life style (at that time a lot more moderate) were threatening to the people and made a situation that was constantly upsetting to me.
   So teaching in Iowa City was going to be fantastic. People, I thought, are used to a lot of different life styles and are more tolerant. That the year was anything but fantastic has made me realize a lot about the reality of public education in this country -- that it's an institution grounded in the middle class (no matter how "liberal") with all the sexism, homo-sexism and middle class moralizing that one could expect built right in.
   One reason that the schools here have this liberal rep is that kids and teachers enjoy a lot of visible privileges. teachers can run their classes pretty much any way they want. There's no dress code for students so they dress comfortably in whatever image they choose. The freedom of dress has helped cut down on the basic sex role stereotyping that was forced on girls having to wear dresses, and therefore sitting primly, not doing strong or uninhibited things, etc. In addition, the superintendent said early in the year that pants were OK for teachers to wear too. I don't think I work a dress more than a half dozen times between October and May, when the hot weather came. Teaching in pants is real freeing -- just knowing you can climb on a desk to reach something or break up a fight without exposing yourself leads to a lot more confidence in relating to kids and feeling equal to any situation. If they want to learn yoga, we get on the floor and do yoga. Simple.
   I guess if teaching meant just relating to kids I wouldn't have much to say that was negative. But schools are much more complex than that for everybody involved: kids have a whole bunch of teachers, there is a lot of diversity among kids themselves, and teachers are expected to get along, "work like a team" -- or at least not make waves.
   The dress issue is a good example of the split between what seems free on the surface and the traditional, rigid sex role values that are applied with pressure by the institution. By now most people are aware that the reading materials and history taught in schools is overwhelmingly male-identified. Teachers with an awareness of the problem can provide a balance in their class, but what the kids get in other classes (and have gotten for years) is pretty hard to overcome. Girls who wear pants to school can still expect to be warned to "act like a lady," and many male teachers assume the right to comment negatively on the way individual kids dress, if what they wear is in some way too far out for the teacher's tolerance. Kids usually aren't cowed by that pressure into changing their style -- their clothes are a pretty handy rejection of straight teachers -- but nevertheless they get the messages about the compromises required to make it in a straight world where people have more power than teachers. 
   Courses and sports are two other obvious institutionalized sex-role channeling devices. There's been some loosening of courses at my school -- a few girls take mechanical drawing, there's a "chef's club" for boys to learn to cook "convenience foods," but the home ec/shop split is pretty absolute. And by the time girls reach junior high they'e been pretty socialized into the values they're spozed to 

[photo - credit/Rising Up Angry]  Sisters

have as far as courses go. But it's a lot harder for many girls to accept the overwhelming bias in favor of boys' sports. Until this year there was no way for a girl to get athletic recognition at school unless she was a cheerleader -- a function to rally the female students to support the heroic male athletes. Of course the cheerleaders were fantastic, since cheering was the only outlet for athletically talented girls. But in gym and through the intramural games held the girls knew they loved basketball. So last year 500 girls in the city signed a petition saying they wanted girls' basketball (it's an enormously popular sport in the state). But the administration said no -- the facilities were booked solid by boys' basketball, there was no money for it, and anyway they doubted there was really enough interest. The message was clear -- girls weren't as important as boys.
   So this year the gym teachers were determined to do something with girls' sports and established a girls' track program. They got the support of other women teachers who read up on track and helped coach, time and measure. The other two junior highs worked with us and set up their own programs, and the participation was overwhelming. A lot of girls went out whether they were "good" or not, because they knew this was the one chance for girls' sports to get anywhere. There were individual school meets and then a citywide junior high meet.
  But it wasn't easy. We had to mark out a track on the playing fields because the boys used the regular track. We couldn't use starting blocks because the boys got them and there was no money for more. High jumpers had to wait to practice until after the boys went to the showers. In addition the women who helped got hassled by lots of the male teachers -- jokes about not knowing what we were doing, the usual. One male told his classes that we couldn't coach because we'd never been trained, and besides it wasn't official unless you got paid. That really messed over some girls -- they got real upset that after all they wouldn't be allowed to have track, because in the men's eyes it wasn't "official." And of course a lot of boys picked up on that line and put down the girls. Dig it: you can wear pants and be strong but try to horn in on male privileges and the heat is on.
   Needless to say there was a pretty sharp split between my educational philosophy and personal life style and that of many other teachers. But most of the friction I met was from the male staff. I refused to joke around with them the way most of the women were forced to do to keep things going smoothly, and I suppose my wearing pants became symbolic of that. I wasn't hassled in any really overt ways, but the subtle pressure of distain and dislike was constant. I chalked it off to just that, but the husband of the woman I shared a classroom with had a perspective that was probably pretty accurate. He said that the men hated me because I refused to relate to them with any sexual presence; because I wouldn't go along with the role of woman-as-sex-object that most women are forced to give in to, they were infuriated, threatened, and had to reject me. 
   It would've been a fruitless task to try to change them. But it was neat how much educating of kids got done about sexism and WL politics. During the year Women's Liberation speakers discussed with Family Living (sex ed) classes, most of the 9th grade English classes, and speech classes. Those of us on the faculty who were into WL were up front about it, and called kids on their sexism. A whole lot of kids learned to be really sensitive to the existence of sex bias -- they experience a lot of examples every day so there's no lack of exposure. It got to the point that a boy would start to say or do something, catch himself, look around guiltily and say "Oops, that's sexist." A girl could call and guy a "male chauvinist" and know it meant something for both her and him.
   It was a lot harder to fight the homo-sexism that is rampant at the junior high level. It's real in to put down anyone who's different with homosexist slurs, and there's no one who's up front about being gay in school so there's no ready situations on a personal level. When minority experience was discussed in civics and English classes some kids would say liberal things about homosexuals having a right to live as they choose, but that had little effect on the routine homosexism that when on outside of class. (And naturally a lot exists among the faculty, especially the males.) But in the Spring a sex ed class invited two men from Gay Liberation to speak, and that really made radical changes in many kids and teachers, and brought out the deep homosexist bias of many other teachers and parents. One of the sex ed teachers nearly lost his job over it (he was removed from the Family Living program as a compromise, but only after he'd been fired and had a hearing that brought about his reinstatement). The GLF visit was the biggest topic of conversation of the year, and the main response among kids was a relief. A lot of their fears and misconceptions were aired, there was specific oppression of gay people for them to relate to, and they saw first hand how much danger there was in even supporting the rights of homosexuals when one of the best and most popular teachers was nearly ruined by such action. Also, and most importantly, kids who have secret fears that they are gay themselves saw some positive support for that life-style, and I think it eased their minds a bit. 
   I have mixed feelings about this article because I am so down on public schools, but I know a lot of people have to work in a lot shittier situations without the privileges I had working in Iowa City. In a way that's part of my point -- it it's this bad here, then public education is really diseased, and trying to change it from within is a real disheartening task.

A Woman?   July 2, 1971     Page 9

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This year I taught junior high part time in Iowa City. It's my 4th year teaching but it was the only job open in the city and I was happy to get it because the school system has a reputation for being "liberal" in the state, and the last time I taught was in a small town 40 miles away where my politics and life style (at that time a lot more moderate) were threatening to the people and made a situation that was constantly upsetting to me. So teaching in Iowa City was going to be fantastic. People, I thought, are used to a lot of different life styles and are more tolerant. That the year was anything but fantastic has made me realize a lot about the reality of public education in this country -- that it's an institution grounded in the middle class (no matter how "liberal") with all the sexism, homo-sexism and middle class moralizing that one could expect built right in. One reason that the schools here have this liberal rep is that kids and teachers enjoy a lot of visible privileges. teachers can run their classes pretty much any way they want. There's no dress code for students so they dress comfortably in whatever image they choose. The freedom of dress has helped cut down on the basic sex role stereotyping that was forced on girls having to wear dresses, and therefore sitting primly, not doing strong or uninhibited things, etc. In addition, the superintendent said early in the year that pants were OK for teachers to wear too. I don't think I work a dress more than a half dozen times between October and May, when the hot weather came. Teaching in pants is real freeing -- just knowing you can climb on a desk to reach something or break up a fight without exposing yourself leads to a lot more confidence in relating to kids and feeling equal to any situation. If they want to learn yoga, we get on the floor and do yoga. Simple. I guess if teaching meant just relating to kids I wouldn't have much to say that was negative. But schools are much more complex than that for everybody involved: kids have a whole bunch of teachers, there is a lot of diversity among kids themselves, and teachers are expected to get along, "work like a team" -- or at least not make waves. The dress issue is a good example of the split between what seems free on the surface and the traditional, rigid sex role values that are applied with pressure by the institution. By now most people are aware that the reading materials and history taught in schools is overwhelmingly male-identified. Teachers with an awareness of the problem can provide a balance in their class, but what the kids get in other classes (and have gotten for years) is pretty hard to overcome. Girls who wear pants to school can still expect to be warned to "act like a lady," and many male teachers assume the right to comment negatively on the way individual kids dress, if what they wear is in some way too far out for the teacher's tolerance. Kids usually aren't cowed by that pressure into changing their style -- their clothes are a pretty handy rejection of straight teachers -- but nevertheless they get the messages about the compromises required to make it in a straight world where people have more power than teachers. Courses and sports are two other obvious institutionalized sex-role channeling devices. There's been some loosening of courses at my school -- a few girls take mechanical drawing, there's a "chef's club" for boys to learn to cook "convenience foods," but the home ec/shop split is pretty absolute. And by the time girls reach junior high they'e been pretty socialized into the values they're spozed to [photo - credit/Rising Up Angry] Sisters have as far as courses go. But it's a lot harder for many girls to accept the overwhelming bias in favor of boys' sports. Until this year there was no way for a girl to get athletic recognition at school unless she was a cheerleader -- a function to rally the female students to support the heroic male athletes. Of course the cheerleaders were fantastic, since cheering was the only outlet for athletically talented girls. But in gym and through the intramural games held the girls knew they loved basketball. So last year 500 girls in the city signed a petition saying they wanted girls' basketball (it's an enormously popular sport in the state). But the administration said no -- the facilities were booked solid by boys' basketball, there was no money for it, and anyway they doubted there was really enough interest. The message was clear -- girls weren't as important as boys. So this year the gym teachers were determined to do something with girls' sports and established a girls' track program. They got the support of other women teachers who read up on track and helped coach, time and measure. The other two junior highs worked with us and set up their own programs, and the participation was overwhelming. A lot of girls went out whether they were "good" or not, because they knew this was the one chance for girls' sports to get anywhere. There were individual school meets and then a citywide junior high meet. But it wasn't easy. We had to mark out a track on the playing fields because the boys used the regular track. We couldn't use starting blocks because the boys got them and there was no money for more. High jumpers had to wait to practice until after the boys went to the showers. In addition the women who helped got hassled by lots of the male teachers -- jokes about not knowing what we were doing, the usual. One male told his classes that we couldn't coach because we'd never been trained, and besides it wasn't official unless you got paid. That really messed over some girls -- they got real upset that after all they wouldn't be allowed to have track, because in the men's eyes it wasn't "official." And of course a lot of boys picked up on that line and put down the girls. Dig it: you can wear pants and be strong but try to horn in on male privileges and the heat is on. Needless to say there was a pretty sharp split between my educational philosophy and personal life style and that of many other teachers. But most of the friction I met was from the male staff. I refused to joke around with them the way most of the women were forced to do to keep things going smoothly, and I suppose my wearing pants became symbolic of that. I wasn't hassled in any really overt ways, but the subtle pressure of distain and dislike was constant. I chalked it off to just that, but the husband of the woman I shared a classroom with had a perspective that was probably pretty accurate. He said that the men hated me because I refused to relate to them with any sexual presence; because I wouldn't go along with the role of woman-as-sex-object that most women are forced to give in to, they were infuriated, threatened, and had to reject me. It would've been a fruitless task to try to change them. But it was neat how much educating of kids got done about sexism and WL politics. During the year Women's Liberation speakers discussed with Family Living (sex ed) classes, most of the 9th grade English classes, and speech classes. Those of us on the faculty who were into WL were up front about it, and called kids on their sexism. A whole lot of kids learned to be really sensitive to the existence of sex bias -- they experience a lot of examples every day so there's no lack of exposure. It got to the point that a boy would start to say or do something, catch himself, look around guiltily and say "Oops, that's sexist." A girl could call and guy a "male chauvinist" and know it meant something for both her and him. It was a lot harder to fight the homo-sexism that is rampant at the junior high level. It's real in to put down anyone who's different with homosexist slurs, and there's no one who's up front about being gay in school so there's no ready situations on a personal level. When minority experience was discussed in civics and English classes some kids would say liberal things about homosexuals having a right to live as they choose, but that had little effect on the routine homosexism that when on outside of class. (And naturally a lot exists among the faculty, especially the males.) But in the Spring a sex ed class invited two men from Gay Liberation to speak, and that really made radical changes in many kids and teachers, and brought out the deep homosexist bias of many other teachers and parents. One of the sex ed teachers nearly lost his job over it (he was removed from the Family Living program as a compromise, but only after he'd been fired and had a hearing that brought about his reinstatement). The GLF visit was the biggest topic of conversation of the year, and the main response among kids was a relief. A lot of their fears and misconceptions were aired, there was specific oppression of gay people for them to relate to, and they saw first hand how much danger there was in even supporting the rights of homosexuals when one of the best and most popular teachers was nearly ruined by such action. Also, and most importantly, kids who have secret fears that they are gay themselves saw some positive support for that life-style, and I think it eased their minds a bit. I have mixed feelings about this article because I am so down on public schools, but I know a lot of people have to work in a lot shittier situations without the privileges I had working in Iowa City. In a way that's part of my point -- it it's this bad here, then public education is really diseased, and trying to change it from within is a real disheartening task. A Woman? July 2, 1971 Page 9