(Source: justanothersherlollyfan)
"Teachers are often unaware of the gender distribution of talk in their classrooms. They usually consider that they give equal amounts of attention to girls and boys, and it is only when they make a tape recording that they realize that boys are dominating the interactions.
Dale Spender, an Australian feminist who has been a strong advocate of female rights in this area, noted that teachers who tried to restore the balance by deliberately ‘favouring’ the girls were astounded to find that despite their efforts they continued to devote more time to the boys in their classrooms. Another study reported that a male science teacher who managed to create an atmosphere in which girls and boys contributed more equally to discussion felt that he was devoting 90 per cent of his attention to the girls. And so did his male pupils. They complained vociferously that the girls were getting too much talking time.
In other public contexts, too, such as seminars and debates, when women and men are deliberately given an equal amount of the highly valued talking time, there is often a perception that they are getting more than their fair share. Dale Spender explains this as follows:
The talkativeness of women has been gauged in comparison not with men but with silence. Women have not been judged on the grounds of whether they talk more than men, but of whether they talk more than silent women.
In other words, if women talk at all, this may be perceived as ‘too much’ by men who expect them to provide a silent, decorative background in many social contexts. This may sound outrageous, but think about how you react when precocious children dominate the talk at an adult party. As women begin to make inroads into formerly ‘male’ domains such as business and professional contexts, we should not be surprised to find that their contributions are not always perceived positively or even accurately."
Dale Spender, an Australian feminist who has been a strong advocate of female rights in this area, noted that teachers who tried to restore the balance by deliberately ‘favouring’ the girls were astounded to find that despite their efforts they continued to devote more time to the boys in their classrooms. Another study reported that a male science teacher who managed to create an atmosphere in which girls and boys contributed more equally to discussion felt that he was devoting 90 per cent of his attention to the girls. And so did his male pupils. They complained vociferously that the girls were getting too much talking time.
In other public contexts, too, such as seminars and debates, when women and men are deliberately given an equal amount of the highly valued talking time, there is often a perception that they are getting more than their fair share. Dale Spender explains this as follows:
The talkativeness of women has been gauged in comparison not with men but with silence. Women have not been judged on the grounds of whether they talk more than men, but of whether they talk more than silent women.
In other words, if women talk at all, this may be perceived as ‘too much’ by men who expect them to provide a silent, decorative background in many social contexts. This may sound outrageous, but think about how you react when precocious children dominate the talk at an adult party. As women begin to make inroads into formerly ‘male’ domains such as business and professional contexts, we should not be surprised to find that their contributions are not always perceived positively or even accurately."
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[x] (via neighborly)
As a teacher, I give girls what I hope is a lot of attention. I don’t know if I give girls their fair share, but I aspire to, especially after noticing that boys are willing to use their greater share of teachers’ attention to get girls who they feel aren’t being quiet and docile enough punished. I have therefore acquired a reputation for “caring more about the girls.” This has had two marked results: Some straight boys have gotten more hostile toward me, and most girls have gotten more confident around me. This makes me think I’m doing something right.
Longer thoughts on how this phenomenon relates to sexual harassment in classrooms, if you’re interested: The girls figured out I won’t report them if they hit boys who are sexually harassing them, I’ll only report the boys. This led to an increase in how often girls got the last word and boys got smacked in my classes, and, also, to a DECREASE IN HOW OFTEN GIRLS GOT SEXUALLY HARASSED. The sexual harassers seem to have been depending on the sort of “equal blame” and “retaliation is never warranted” and “don’t hurt others’ feelings” perspectives so many schools try to instill in kids; the sexual harassers were usually the ones bringing me into the situation by saying, “Miss, she hit me! You should write her up!” Once they figured out I was only ever going to respond, “If you don’t treat girls like that, they won’t hit you,” the girls got more confident and the sexual harassers largely shut the fuck up.
In schools, fighting against sexual harassment is often punished exactly the same as, or more severely than, sexual harassment — a lot of discipline codes make no distinction between violence and violence in self-defence, and violence is ALWAYS the highest level of disciplinary infraction, whereas verbal sexual harassment rarely is. Sexual harassers, at least in the schools I’ve been in, rely heavily on GETTING GIRLS IN TROUBLE WITH HIGHER AUTHORITIES as a strategy of harassment — creating an external punishment that penalises girls for and therefore discourages girls from fighting back. Sexual harassers are willing to use their greater share of floorspace to ask to get girls who won’t date them punished. By and large, teachers do punish those girls when they swear or hit. Schools condition girls to ignore sexual harassment by punishing them when they speak up or fight back instead.
Once the sexual harassers in my classes understood that girls wouldn’t be punished for rejecting them, they backed off around me. And there started to be a flip in what conversations I get called into — girls are telling me when boys are being nasty (too loud and dominant), instead of boys telling me when girls are being uncooperative (louder and more dominant than boys think they should be).
(via torrentofbabies)
reblogging again for the wonderful commentary.
(via partysoft)
Holy crud, so glad I read this. Reblogging for other educators.
(via eupheme-butterfly)
As a girl who would not be shut up and would not tolerate teasing or abuse from boys in my class and was several times sent to such higher authorities for it, reading this is extremely, extremely vindicating. I was lucky, though, because being a particularly bright, advanced student for those grades, they generally took my side and I never got into any severe or lasting trouble. Again ,this was luck, and shouldn’t be the rule.
(via eruditechick)
I was going to write that exact last paragraph; WOW.
(via supersandys-space)
(Source: colinfirthhasmoved, via stfuconservatives)
The Walstrom House by one of my favorite architects, John Lautner
s06e08.
That’s a given.
More population = more people = more people in prison.
What you should look at is the percentage of people in jail and compare it with other countries.Well then China would have the world’s largest prision population. But it doesn’t.
The US has 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the world’s incarcerated population. This should be common knowledge by now.
70% of the US prison population is People of Color, that’s as much as all of China’s prisons.
The United States not only has the worlds largest prison population, but we have the worlds largest per capita prison population at well over 700 of ever 100,000 people incarcerated.
China has 1 billion more people than the US, yet still imprisons about 1 million fewer people than the US.
So yeah, really, land of the free, home of the largest prison population by any way you want to measure it. But five-year-olds still have the right to shoot their two-year-old sisters! Freedom!!11
(Source: violentwaters)
12 is the median age at which lesbian, gay and bisexual adults first felt they might be something other than heterosexual or straight. Among those who have “come out” to a family member or close friend, 20 is the median age at which they first did so.
“I really have not had to tell anyone. I am usually asked. My parents still do not understand, and it is something that is never discussed with my family.”
— 52 year old gay man
Our interactive data explorer lets you sort through a variety of personal coming-out experiences.
Recommend checking out the data explorer, which lets you filter by age. One of the respondents was 86.
It’s frightening to think that you have to keep a secret about yourself for so long from friends AND family.
“I encounter millions of bodies in my life; of these millions, I may desire some hundreds; but of these hundreds, I love only one.”— Roland Barthes, A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments
