For the Wimps and the Bitches

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