Reflections from a Nasty Woman: What's at Risk for Women Who "Come Forward"?
Never let anyone say that this election season hasn't been a remarkable series of teachable moments.
Just one example: the terms "rape culture" and "sexual assault" have become part of the ordinary-American lexicon, reinforced by behaviors of men in the highest realms of political and economic power. Using the theory that a negative cultural norm isn't recognized until it's dragged out into the open and dissected before our eyes, this is a good thing, even though men in both parties have been identified as abusers.
I remember sitting in the lounge at my middle school, January 2001, and having a woman I like and consider a good teacher exclaim--after Dubya was finally declared president-by-chad-- "Doesn't it feel good to have a nice, respectable family in the White House?" It didn't feel all that great to me--and that feeling grew worse and worse, as we rolled through 9/11, Abu Ghraib, the Iraq war and the financial meltdown.
Still--she was right. It is undeniable that character matters greatly in public leadership. Women who recognize and call out sexism and the sometimes-subtle aspects of rape culture are correct. And it isn't until the moral rot is laid bare and understood that we have any chance of living in a better, safer, more equitable world. We're not there yet, as this election illustrates.
Still--she was right. It is undeniable that character matters greatly in public leadership. Women who recognize and call out sexism and the sometimes-subtle aspects of rape culture are correct. And it isn't until the moral rot is laid bare and understood that we have any chance of living in a better, safer, more equitable world. We're not there yet, as this election illustrates.
I did my student teaching in the mid-1970s. I was assigned to a male band director (they were 98% male, back then), who told me at our first meeting that he was accepting me as student teacher because he needed a free assistant (he had a top leadership position in the state organization for instrumental music teachers which took him to many conferences and meetings). He said that he never would have consented to taking a woman as student teacher--the university had merely asked him if he was interested, and he made the assumption that, naturally, I would be a young man, ready and willing to do the things he didn't have time to do for a semester.
He repeated those remarks to the audience at my first concert. By then, it had become a polished story--"I said yes--and then they told me it was a woman!" (Audience hilarity)--and I was making the morning coffee, re-ordering the music files and writing his monthly columns (the man couldn't construct a coherent sentence) for the state organization newsletter.
I was also being sexually harassed, and bribed by the promise of a good evaluation and letters of recommendation, something that I very much needed.
I put up with it for about a month, making up excuses to leave early so we wouldn't be alone together. He grew more aggressive. Finally, I went to the student teaching supervisor from my Reflections from a Nasty Woman: What's at Risk for Women Who "Come Forward"? - Teacher in a Strange Land - Education Week Teacher: