Gender Equity

The boys in my study hall think I hate them.

Because I am constantly demanding silence, because I am constantly reminding them to be courteous of those who are trying to work, because I don’t let them leave the room at will, the boys say I hate them.

I can honestly say I have never hated any student. But this combination of boys is so disruptive and thoughtless in the way they behave, that they do drive me crazier than I’d like. 

As my 10th-grade students came back from lunch, it was clear that a few of my more squirrely young men needed time to readjust to the ways of a classroom after being away all summer. 

“It’s just a joke between us, Mr. Greenslate,” said Aaron. “We all know Jason from outside of school, and so that’s just how we mess around. Once you know us better you’ll understand.”

“I have been watching to see how you stood, but have not noticed anything yet. Don't forget to be a good boy… .”

Tennessee state lawmaker Harry Burn received that note from his mom in August 1920. And like a good son, he subsequently changed his vote from “nay” to “yea,” breaking a 48-48 deadlock in the state’s general assembly. “I knew that a mother’s advice is always safest for her boy to follow,” Burn commented afterward, while noting it wasn’t often that a man had a chance “to free 17 million women from political slavery.”

The trouble with Women’s History Month—with all these special months—is that they encourage people to think that problems have been solved. The female heroes of yesterday are acknowledged, the debt paid and the slate cleaned. 

A couple of years ago, my wife casually mentioned that our son’s school in Chattanooga, Tennessee, would be introducing some single-sex classes. I was surprised because I thought any type of segregation was illegal. But after a little research, I found that a sexual revolution has been brewing in our public schools.

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” These few words, spoken casually by Sonia Sotomayor at the annual Mario G. Olmos Law and Cultural Diversity Lecture at UC-Berkeley in 2001, came back to haunt President Barack Obama’s nominee for the United States Supreme Court during the spring and summer of 2009. Hard to believe that this brief statement could cause such anguish, particularly among the conservative white senators who form part of the Senate Judiciary Committee, yet they led to days of arrogant grilling by the Senators and weeks of newspaper articles and commentary by television pundits speculating on what Sotomayor meant, whether it would hurt her confirmation, and what it would signal for the new court.