The Atlantic has a long article with a title I feel like I've seen a hundred times:
"Why Women Still Can’t Have It All." It's very putting-the-duh-in-dull. I'm not saying you should read it. I just want to talk about the penultimate paragraph:
I continually push the young women in my classes to speak more.
The author, Anne-Marie Slaughter, is a Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. Somebody please tell me why Princeton University — Princeton University! — is admitting women who need to be
continually pushed to speak more. In the 21st century. They don't deserve the seats they fill. They shouldn't be coddled. They should be flunked out. You get into Princeton and you sit there too timid — or too withholding — to speak? Unacceptable. The teacher shouldn't be prodding you.
They must gain the confidence to value their own insights and questions, and to present them readily.
Is this kindergarten? This is
Princeton! How many applications for admission did Princeton turn down in the process of matriculating these ladies?
Yesterday, I saw
the old bumper sticker: "Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History," and we had a conversation about whether the sentiment had any relevance today. I took the position that it did, because women still succumb to the cultural expectation that they should be pleasing and well-liked. It's a problem. Get over it or don't, but why are you occupying classroom space that could be used to good effect by someone who doesn't need a university professor to nurture her to the point where she can "present" her "insights" "readily"? If you'd confessed your limitation on your application form, the university could — and should — have rejected you.
My husband agrees...
A classic feminist line!
... but he actually tries to get the young men in his classes to act more like the women—to speak less and listen more. If women are ever to achieve real equality as leaders, then we have to stop accepting male behavior and male choices as the default and the ideal.
Yes, men. You need to back off and behave more like the women who need the professor to continually push them to value their insights so that they may present them readily. The future depends on your going beta.
We must insist on changing social policies and bending career tracks to accommodate our choices, too. We have the power to do it if we decide to, and we have many men standing beside us.
Insist. Try a petite stamping of the foot while you insist. Yes, you can, little lady. And little men: Behave yourselves!
Absurd!
Mga Post
