The Gaga Wave

Although I do mention and describe Alison Coil’s, “Why Men Don’t Believe the Data on Gender Bias in Science”, and Daniel Heath Justice’s, “Demanding Kinder Classrooms Doesn’t Make You a Snowflake”, I went into greater depth for Adrienne Rich’s speech, “Claiming an Education” because it was the reading I felt I could relate to and was the most zealous about. In Coil’s informative article, she focuses on gender and sex discrimination within STEM programs. Even though there is data proving gender bias within STEM, male researches refuse to acknowledge this and instead use false data to get their desired results: that there is no gender bias in STEM. In Justice’s article, he explains how “Right-wing pundits and conservatives” treat students as “enemies or defectives” are only able to see the world through one lens and categorize these students because of their differences. In Rich’s passionate speech, she emphasizes the importance of claiming responsibility for yourself.

As a child, I knew what responsibility was about and how one could be responsible for others, however, until reading this, I never considered how responsibility pertained to taking care of oneself. I could relate to Rich’s description that women as nurturers are often told that “taking responsibility toward yourself…comes second to our relationships and responsibilities to other people”. I too was brought up this way and was taught to be selfless and put others first. This made me realize that in doing so, however, I neglect my own needs. Still, I struggle with the idea of taking care of myself first because it is hard for me not to associate it as a selfish act. The adjectives for responsibility are: authority, control, power, and leadership. One of Rich’s main arguments is that women cannot expect to be treated with respect, they have to demand it from society. If we go through life with passivity and forgo the ability to be responsible for ourselves, we give up the power to control how society views us, thus allowing them to think we are not capable, authoritative leaders. Furthermore, I realized that it is my responsibility and duty as a woman to be an active participant in this society so that others will not do my “thinking, talking, and naming” (Rich).

Collectively, these three readings challenged me to think back to my childhood and consider how I have changed. While reflecting on my characteristics as a child, I realized that I was more confident and willing to voice my opinion in the classroom. Ironically, as I’ve become an adult, I have transgressed into somebody who feels more timid, somebody who “sits in passive silence” (Rich) in the classroom. Why is this? Perhaps it is because of the ideas Johnson discussed in “Patriarchy, The System”; The natural, biological characteristics of men are more highly valued and respected than the characteristics of women. Maybe these characteristics which Johnson described are the reason why both males and females “Don’t believe that women are as good at doing science” (Coil). As women, we cannot let these biological characteristics devalue, stereotype, and misrepresent us. Similarly, Indigenous and racialized students struggle with “the historical and current effects of an education that misrepresents them…as subhuman, uncivilized, and uneducable” (Justice, pg 2). Coil, Rich and Justice all agree that academia, textbooks, and lectures are not an accurate portrayal of our history because they exclude a large amount of the population. Rich points out that there are still, “very few women in the upper levels of faculty and administration”. This statistic peaked my curiosity, so I decided to look up Colgate’s percentage of female to male faculty ratio. On Colgate’s demographics page, 2016-2017, I found that out of the Full-Time Faculty, 56.2% were male and 43.8% were female. As you can see, Colgate is not exempt from this category of schools in which women are underrepresented.

All of these readings focus on the importance of what Rich would say, “a fresh vision”. These readings instill hope that as a generation we can change and dismantle these systematic social systems which stereotype, devalue, and dehumanize women. Thus, I believe that in order to disassemble these cyclical social structures such as oppression and patriarchy, we as women, and especially as scholars, have to demand that society gives us the respect we so rightly deserve.

- Jane B