I remember the exact moment when I started to consider the notions of feminism seriously. Having looked at women as terrible, frightening, amazing, wonderful and deeply, deeply interesting, by my teenage years I had settled into a sort of complacent attitude, of thinking of women as equals. If asked, I would nonchalantly describe myself as a feminist, in much the same way I would describe the sky as being blue, of that day would follow night. This attitude continued through to university, where one day I found myself having a debate with a fellow student, an older, wiser man who I looked up to greatly. He said that he was not a feminist, and I was shocked, amazed that such an otherwise rational, thoughtful person would not consider the tenets of feminism logical. “No, Andrew, you misunderstand me,” he said. “It’s not that I do not believe in feminism, it’s just that I myself would never call myself a feminist. I am a man, and thus have no true understanding of what it is like to be a female, and therefore, a feminist. I consider myself a pro-feminist. But not a feminist.” I was shocked, and amazed. I had been so comfortable in the words I had been using that I never really thought about their meanings. I had never really considered CAREFULLY what I was saying, or implying.
I suppose that what I am trying to do in this rather long introduction is consider how words effect our lives. If a simple prefix like “pro” can vastly change the connotation of a word, giving it a history, a context, and a great deal of rationale, than what effect can four years worth of societal development have? That female respondent’s increase their use of the phrase “I don’t know” by a great factor is only one indication of the self-silencing brought on by society. This is readily apparent almost every day in the halls of most schools.
In many classrooms, one can see the same patterns developing:
•Almost all of the female students speak in what can only be called a whisper. Frequently I had to ask female students to speak up, or repeat themselves (my attempt to alleviate this by moving closer only resulted in the student getting nervous and whispering more quietly.
•Without fail, the male students spoke at a much louder volume, it was never necessary to get them to repeat themselves.
•When a student assisted the teacher in getting the classes attention, the students would respond to another male student with more respect (quieting down quickly), if a female attempted to do the same thing, she would be denigrated (often told to be quiet herself, or called a bully or bossy).
•Students showed more respect for male presenters than female, usually chatting or fidgeting while their female peers were presenting.
That this overt silencing is damaging to females self esteem and notions of self worth is obvious, and I cannot help but think serious intervention is in order to rectify this situation. In a democratic classroom, we cannot allow silencing to go unchecked, and we must strive to stamp out the epidemic of “I don’t knows.”
