Each ninth grader received a piece of paper
with an activity or characteristic written on it, such as “wash dishes” or
“earn money” or “weak.” Three columns on the board denoted MEN, WOMEN, and
BOTH. “First,” I explained with deliberately vague wording, “put your paper in the
corresponding column.” When each of my
nine classes completed Part 1, the charts looked something like this:
|
MEN
|
WOMEN
|
BOTH
|
|
Dig latrine
|
Feed children
|
Education
|
|
Build house
|
Cook
|
Intelligence
|
|
Powerful
|
Delicate
|
Work
|
|
Leadership
|
Beauty
|
Strength
|
The directions were vague because I wanted my
students to complete the activity without thinking, to demonstrate their
initial impulses.
My students repeated the exercise, with
different instructions: “place your paper in the column depending on who is biologically
capable of performing the task or demonstrating the characteristic.” The first
couple classes understood the alteration, and when the students finished, every
paper was filed under BOTH. They’re getting it, I thought proudly.
When they think about it, they realize that everyone is capable of both leadership
and dish-washing.
However, in later classes, several activities
remained in the MEN category, such as “dig a latrine”. And I couldn’t convince
them otherwise.
This was a twist I hadn’t anticipated.
The intention was to open a discussion about
the gender roles that we as a society construct and impose on ourselves. In
Part 1, my students categorized activities according to what happens in their
community. The women prepare meals and take care of the children, while the men
build houses and hold leadership positions. In Part 2, they would complete the
exercise more thoughtfully, realizing that although their father doesn’t serve
the rice every evening, he is perfectly capable of doing so.
But I hadn’t planned for their assertion that
a group was physically incapable of an activity. I tried to direct them by
asking questions. “Can every single boy in this school dig a latrine, just
because he is a boy?” “Not one woman in the world can dig a latrine?” “Don’t
your sisters and mothers demonstrate physical strength by carrying 20-liter buckets
of water on their heads each morning?” Some grudgingly admitted that maybe a
woman could dig a latrine, “but it wouldn’t be as good as if a man had dug it,”
they concluded emphatically.
I was so shocked that my students and I
disagreed on such a basic level that I would have willingly sacrificed my
lesson, borrowed a hoe from a neighbor, and dug a gaping 6-foot deep hole in
the center of the schoolyard to prove them wrong. The problem was that I had wielded
a hoe fewer than five times in my life, and if I collapsed from exhaustion in
my half-dug latrine – a likely outcome – they would emerge victorious. See, we told you! Women can’t dig latrines!
Standing speechless in my classroom, the disaster
was already playing out in my head. “No, no!” I would cry. “I can do it. I
mean, I can’t. But it’s not because I’m a woman! It’s because I’ve never dug a
latrine in my life!” But my words would be muffled due to the pile of dirt that
I would be facedown in, because I had failed to remove it from my miserably
shallow attempt at digging a hole. I would be the laughingstock of the school.
I would be the weak female teacher. I would—
“Well, I believe that with practice, women
can dig latrines.” I interrupted my own thoughts with a feeble attempt at
salvaging the message of the day. I did not have the guts to test my digging
skills in front of fifty teenagers.
In a course I took called Race, Class, and Gender, we discussed
these issues under the agreement that the classroom was a “safe space” – we shared
our opinions and experiences without fear of being ridiculed. During this class
I became aware of biases that I had never previously considered, but once
pointed out to me, they appeared everywhere. I didn’t know that whistling at a
woman on the street is sexual harassment. I had never opened a fashion magazine
and counted how many of the female models are almost naked, or how many male
models display unrealistically bulging muscles.
Internalization is the process by
which a group starts to believe a stereotype about itself and subconsciously
conforms to those guidelines. Maybe I didn’t pick up a hoe that day because I
really thought women aren’t adept latrine diggers. Perhaps if I were a man, I
would have had confidence in myself despite my lack of hoe experience. But once
I took the eye-opening course, I could consciously fight against
internalization and prejudice.
Those
who don’t believe in someone must give her a chance, and those who doubt
themselves need to step up and give it a shot. Increasing awareness
give us the tools to stand up for ourselves against impractical expectations.
It’s not only in a rural town that requires
the arduous task of latrine digging that these ideas shape the how we treat
each other. In every culture I’ve experienced, there are rules dictating our
behavior:
Men
don’t cry.
Women should have
small waists and big breasts.
Men embody strength.
Women are nurturing.
A little boy is told to toughen up and act
like a man. He is taught from a young age to hide his fears and suppress his
emotions. A girl voicing a strong opinion is shushed with “be a good girl.” Women
are expected to be reticent and not express or even have opinions. When people defy
expectations, we call them wimps, bitches, cowards, pussies, faggots, sluts,
dykes.
All-encompassing rules are deceptive. On
average, men can lift more weight than women. Does this mean each man is
stronger than each woman? Absolutely not. Does this mean women are weak? Hell
no. But when we hear declarations beginning with “the average man…” we erroneously
extend the statement to everyone in the group. We become resistant to the
possibility that a woman can be stronger than a man, or in the case of some of
my students, that a woman can be strong at all.
Yesterday on my way to work, I courteously nodded
at someone I passed, and he took this acknowledgment as an opening to flirt.
“Hi sweetie,” he said in a low, sensuous voice as I walked by. When I turned
back to shake my head, he was innocently looking in the other direction,
although he had undeniably addressed me. He knew his greeting was
inappropriate, and said it anyway.
This is a consequence of a power imbalance. Society
perceives men as more powerful, which put me at a lesser position in this man’s
eyes. His comment showed a lack of respect, which is why quick, passing remarks
such as these should be considered as unacceptable as other forms of sexual
harassment. A man calling a woman “sweetie” who is not his daughter or partner
is condescending. When it’s ok to call women sweetie, it opens the door for more
repugnant comments, such as socio! and la de rojo…*
We are not obligated to accept this shit.
I’ve been catcalled hundreds of times, and
not once did it make me feel valued, attractive, or appreciated. Every time, it
made me feel like crap. Women don’t wear short dresses with the intent of
receiving obscene gestures on the street. Sexual harassment is demeaning
someone, man or woman, on the basis of their gender, and it is never warranted.
It’s not always obvious the extent that
messages about gender permeate our culture. Their invisibility makes them
dangerous, because we don’t realize that we’re being fed sexist standards daily.
That’s why it is so important that we continue increasing our awareness by
addressing these problems.
We have made progress. Fewer teenagers become
mothers and more women are studying and working. More men stay home to care for
their children, and some workplaces even offer paternity leave. However, there
are ubiquitous signs that there remains much to improve upon. Years of
prejudice cannot be undone reading one article on gender. If there were a
simple solution, men would nod politely to me on the street rather than roving
their eyes down my body and growling hungrily, “get me that girl.” My friend
wouldn’t turn to me afterwards and say sympathetically, “Boys will be boys.
Don’t let it bother you.” In Part 1 of the exercise my students would place
every single activity in BOTH.
Both men and women will benefit from gender
equality. When we treat each person as a human being and not as their genitals,
we allow seven billion skill sets, thinkers, and workers to contribute to
society, science, politics, and education. Woman with authority and men who sew
are not threats or insults; they are people free to be themselves.
We have come a long way and we can continue.
Instead of putting our heads down and yielding to an outdated norm, we can hold
our heads high and grab the hoe to start digging.
*I wrote this piece to submit for publication in a Mexican magazine, so these are 2 examples of crude ways I've heard people calling out to women in Mexico
