More Thoughts on Sexism and #yesallwomen? Splendid!

In light of the recent events in Isla Vista, California, the hashtag #yesallwomen has become a trending topic.  Most of people who use the hashtag are women, and they're sharing stories about the injustice they've faced as a female.  Some of the stories are heartbreaking 140-character tales of violence and sexual abuse.  Some are stories of discrimination and inequality.  All of them share the theme that being female in this country, and the world, comes with a special set of obstacles that we must overcome daily.  This is part of my story.

Back in March, I talked about the first time (and second, actually) that I remember experiencing sexism.  While both of those instances were important events in my childhood, they were not nearly as important as an incident that happened in high school.

All throughout high school I participated in Scholastic Bowl.  If you're unfamiliar with the concept, Scholastic Bowl is an official team activity governed by IHSA rules in Illinois.  Teams of up to 15 students, 5 at a time, compete against different schools to answer the most questions correctly in a match.  Matches consist of 10 toss-up questions in math, science, social studies, literature, fine arts, and miscellaneous (sports, technology, agriculture, consumer economics, etc.)  At the end of each round, a bonus question is presented that has multiple answer parts and is worth more points.  Basically it's high-anxiety bar trivia.  Because everything is high-anxiety when you're in high school.  If, for some reason, you're interested in reading official rules, you can check out the Handbook for Managers. Like with other IHSA activities, there are often JV and Varsity teams.  JV Teams typically receive slightly easier questions.  And while the varsity players were typically juniors and seniors, it wasn't unusual to have sophomores playing varsity - especially in my small school.

The misogyny started pretty much right away.  As a freshman, I mostly played on the JV team, but both JV and Varsity travelled together to all our matches, so I spent a lot of time hanging out with upperclassmen.  One senior boy in particular liked to tell "women jokes".  One of his favorites was to ask a girl why she was wearing a watch and respond to whatever answer she gave with, "But I don't know why you need to wear one.  There's a clock on the stove."  He was a real charmer.  As a freshman I laughed along because I wanted to fit in and not rock the boat.  But those kind of jokes got old really quickly, and it got harder for me to hold my tongue.  Luckily that particular gentleman graduated, and I didn't have to deal with him again.  Honestly, he should be happy he never had to deal with me again.  But that was the culture of our team, and it would only get worse the next year.

We had a new guidance counselor/coach my sophomore year as the chemistry teacher/former coach had retired after the previous school year.  I don't remember if the new coach and I consistently butted heads before this incident, but we certainly did following it.  It was near the end of our season, and we were heading to a tournament - probably the county tournament.  The coach was chronically disorganized and had made a mistake in what time the match was.  We ended up arriving at the host school super late and had to go straight into our first match, which immediately frustrated me and some of my teammates.   As we made our way to the room for our first match, our coach told us who the "starting lineup" would be.  He chose 5 boys.  All the girls on the team looked at each other, confused, because we knew that over the course of the season, many of us had higher percentages of correct answers than at least two of the guys who would be playing.  When we asked the coach if he would reconsider, he told us to "just let the boys handle it".  Utilizing the coach's male dream team, our team lost that match.  I was furious, as were other female members of my team.  As a naturally competitive person, it was excruciating to watch my team lose knowing that I could have contributed, and perhaps helped us win.

Furious at the blatantly sexist behavior and statement from my coach, I arrived at school the next day armed with my teen angst, a heaping dose of indignation, and song lyrics.  I printed the lyrics to No Doubt's song "Just a Girl" in a large font and papered the outside of my locker with them.  That morning I was called out of my second hour class to meet with the assistant principal (or Ass Prince as we so cleverly thought of him) in front of my locker.  When he asked me to explain my new locker decor, I recounted the previous day's events.  I was fired up, but I never raised my voice, nor did I use any foul language. The Ass Prince responded by calling me hysterical and telling me to remove the lyrics from my locker.  I refused based on the principle that other students were allowed to decorate their lockers based on athletic teams or other activities, and this was in relation to one of my extra-curricular activities.  Furthermore, those song lyrics are not obscene or in any way inappropriate.  It was then that my school administrator told me that he thought I had mental problems, and that maybe I should go talk to my guidance counselor.  You know, the person who condescended to me the evening before.  The one whose behavior was the reason I made this statement in the first place.  I politely told the assistant principal that I would not be seeking advice from that guidance counselor any time in the near future, and I excused myself to return to my world history class.  I don't know for sure that my conversation with the administration made any difference, but after that, at least one girl played in the season's remaining matches.  As for our coach, he was replaced the following year with a different guidance counselor who is a wonderful woman that nurtured us as a team rather than creating rifts between genders.  She also regularly told us how smart we all were, which certainly didn't hurt our self-esteem.

I consider myself lucky because my experiences with sexism and misogyny have been verbal or intellectual, unlike some of my friends who have experienced sexual assault and violence.  It is an incredibly sad thought to me, though, that I get to consider myself lucky because my experiences thus far haven't involved physical violation of my person.  Because of this I can confidently say that #yesallwomen experience sexism.  I can also say that as a feminist, I think it's time we do something about that.

Fighting Sexism? Splendid!

At the beginning of the month, the American History Teachers' Collaborative held a focus workshop on the history of feminism in America.  It was an amazing day, and we had phenomenal speakers.  Amy Richards and Jennifer Baumgardner gave a joint keynote address in the morning followed by historian Barbara Berg giving an afternoon keynote address.

Via my Instagram

I had the honor of going to dinner with Amy, Jennifer, and some teachers from the AHTC the night before the workshop, and they were just such lovely women.  Their presentation the next day was wonderful and inspiring.  They met while working for Gloria Steinem at Ms. Magazine.  At the end of the day, Amy hugged me.  This person who is amazing and important (and has undoubtedly hugged Gloria Steinem) hugged me!  That basically means I've practically hugged Gloria Steinem.

Via my Instagram

Barbara Berg's keynote posed a couple of really interesting questions that got me thinking about my own life in terms of sexism and feminism.  I have lived a relatively privileged life, but I've encountered sexism since I was a small child.

The first question that got me thinking was "When was the first time you encountered sexism or gender inequality?"

The first time I remember being on the receiving end of sexism was when I was probably 6 years old.  My parents signed me up for instructional league baseball.  In my hometown, there was no softball option for girls that young at the time, so those of us interested in playing either sport had to play baseball.  There were probably 6 or 8 teams in my league.  The league didn't have tryouts, but the coaches all got together to draft their teams.  They tried to split the girls evenly among all the teams, but my team was "stuck" with two girls.

One of the main differences between instructional league and regular little league is that the parent coaches pitch to the batters.  Otherwise, everyone would get walked, and games would take for-ev-er.  As I stepped into the batter's box at my first game, my parents immediately noticed something different about how the coaches behaved.  With my helmet on my head and my hands choked up probably too far on my 14oz aluminum bat, I waited for my first pitch.  My coach took the baseball in his hand, rocked back and lobbed me an underhand pitch.  After I made contact with the ball and ran to first base, one of my male teammates took his place at the plate.  This time the coach sent an overhand pitch toward the batter.  In fact, as we cycled through the next few batters in the lineup, they all hit overhand pitches.  Then Karla, the other girl on my team came to the plate.  Once again the coach lobbed an underhand pitch toward the plate.  It was obvious at that point that she and I were being treated differently from the rest of the team.

After the game, my parents approached the coaches to discuss what they had just witnessed.  The coaches tried to justify their behavior by saying that as girls we would eventually be playing softball and should get used to underhand pitching.  While it's true that both Karla and I would go on to play softball in summer leagues and high school, that wasn't the point.  We were being treated differently based solely on our sex.  At 6 years old, there's not much of a difference in the strength, speed, or agility between the sexes.  Hell, with our hair in ponytails and hidden under ball caps, you couldn't even tell that there were girls on the field!  There was no need to treat the girls on the team any differently than the boys on the team.  My parents assured the coaches that I was prepared to play the same game in the same way as my male teammates.  After that my coaches pitched overhand to both of us for the remainder of the season.

Would I have been any less of a ballplayer if the coaches had continued to pitch underhand to me?  Probably not.  At 6 years old, in a league where everyone bats every inning, and no one is ever considered "out", it's not like I was destined to become the next great baseball player.  The situation did illustrate that even at age 6, boys and girls are treated differently in athletics.

I'm grateful my parents saw the inequality and put an immediate stop to it.  I was never raised to believe I couldn't do anything based solely on my sex, and I think this incident illustrated that for me.  It made a mark on me at a very early age that my sex was not an excuse for anything.

Of course now that I've written about this event from when I was 6, I'm remembering that the real first time I remember encountering sexism was when I was 3 years old and in preschool.  While playing outside on a particularly hot day, I remember the boys in my preschool class were allowed to take off their shirts.  Since I was also hot and sweaty, I tried to take my shirt off as well.  I was admonished by the teachers and told that it was only okay if the boys took off their shirts and not the girls.

Now, I developed early, but I can promise that I certainly did not have boobs at age 3.  Had I taken my shirt off, there would have been no difference between my body and that of my male classmates.  The teacher really should have adopted an all-or-nothing approach to the subject.  Either everyone gets to remove their shirts or no one does.

So I guess that's really where it started for me.  The more I think about it, the more stories from my own history I remember.  I've got a great one from high school that involves Scholastic Bowl, the Assistant Principal, and No Doubt.  Stay tuned for that.

What about you?  Do you remember the first time you encountered sexism?