[40] in peace2
Sexism at MIT discussion
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Karen Sachs)
Sat Jan 22 15:20:04 2000
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Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2000 15:19:56 -0500
From: Karen Sachs <karens@MIT.EDU>
warning: this turned out to be a continuation of thurday's discussion. if you
have no patience of such things, don't read!
I was at the discussion on thursday and i was very interested, particullary to
hear about the experiences and advice of the two professors, tenured and not
(yet).
i just wanted to clarify something, because i feel that i gave the wrong
impression (my words were unprepared, and i guess i was distracted by the
roomfull of people).
i talked about how it is possible for girls in our society to grow up feeling
confident, but i fear, and i have found it to be so in my experience, that
this is only because they feel specifically extraordianry. my point in saying
this was: the overall feeling is that women are generally incompetant. this
is what we are taught to believe. this is what i was taught to believe. not
by my physics/mathematics instructor mother, not by my two older sisters who
are engineers. but some *mysterious* force taught me that women are generally
inadequate. what my supportive background allowed me to believe was that i
could be one of the way-above-average women who can succeed because i am
particullary talented. i was able to feel this way because i did have role
models, so i was able to believe that some women are capable, and i could be
one of them.
there arises the point at which i started to doubt myself, and at this point
the situation was greatly intensified, i think, by this general belief that i
was not really meant to be competant, only if i was of the trully elite. this
is all on a subconsious level, but i belive it influenced me.
i told how my undergrad school did have female profs, and how this did not do
much for me. aimee asked me how it would have been had there been none; in
retrospect, i realize that this question indicates that i got the completly
wrong point across (and it bothers me, so i had to write all this now):
my point was not that female profs and other role models are not important. i
believe they are extremely important. my point is that they are not enough,
certainly not when they are,say, 8% (which would be a great improvement over
the current situation in most departments here).
i believe that seeing female profs allowed me to believe that some women are
extraordinary and smart and generally competant. this is wonderful, but in my
mind at least, they were the exception to the rule.
it is not good enough to teach girls that some women can be an exception to
the general rule (that rule being that women are just not quite as good).
that's why role models are just not enough.
extremely important. but insufficient.
how horrible for a girl to grow up feeling that she is a member of this
generally inferior group of people. if i had a strong and supportive
background and was therefore able to feel that this can't touch me, that's
great for me (to a point), but it points to a horrible situation, one in which
an entire group of people are raised with this feeling of incompetance.
( i think this problem is a larger one in our society that has nothing to do
with men and women and everything to do with how we value people and how we
teach children that their worth is measured in units of intelligence, or units
of athletic ability, or units of popularity, or some mixture of all of these.
we have so litte emphasis on the inherent value of the human being, and his or
her ability to do wonderful things with his or her life)
its high time we started teaching our children (i have none, i just mean in
general) all about their intrinsic value as good people and less about the
importance of being all these "important" things that we are all supposed to
be.
and if we are raising little girls, yes, i do believe it is very important to
show them wonderful, extraordinary women who do wonderful things, so that they
can know that women can be this way. but it is also (i strongly believe),
absolutely vital to teach them that competant, strong, smart, able women are
the NORM, not the exception. (yes, this means eliminating fairy tales with
such important themes as: little gilrs should grow up to be very beautiful so
men can and will want to rescue them. it also means much more)
i hope we have more discussions, sorry for venting so much.
:)
karen
