Talking Points "Anita Hill is a Boy"

• Author: Peggy Orenstein

• Title: “Anita Hill is a Boy”

• Argument: Orenstein argues that to teach about male privilege and empower women so that one day our society may have equality, you have to open the dialogue about females being underprivileged, and this can be achieved in a variety of simple or complex ways. The way described by the author in this piece is to have a classroom that is dominated with media from the female gender, honoring female heroes, leaders, authors, and projects. This interesting point is that though the class media is dominantly the female gender, the curriculum is not, but rather focuses equal time on male and female genders, opening the dialogue to have an open discussion about both. This incites oddities in the minds of the students and serves to open the dialogue because it makes them realize the extent to which all their other classes focus on the male gender.

• Quote #1: “(both boys and girls) perceive equality as a loss.” This is in the context that the teacher “should” be focusing dominantly on the male gender and that girls have already “learned their place is to take up less space, feel less worthy of attention, etc.” By having projects that focus equally on men and women, it seems like they are focusing a lot on females, and “unjustly” so. This is the justification many use to try to keep things the way they are, especially against movements like feminism. By having equality on active display in the classroom they are breaking no rule nor affording either group with “too much time”, but rather performing a radical act to open people’s minds to how unequal things are now, in order to promote discussion and change (a charity example would be to fill the room with media of the female gender, change is to continue to use that as a tool to open conversation and incorporate it into the curriculum).

• Quote #2: “I have to dress like this. As a girl, you can’t be accepted unless you wear big clothes. Then it’s like, ‘oh, a girl’ not like ‘oh a body’.” Even in 8th grade you can see how deeply, whether they are aware of it, like this girl, or not, like others, they have already been taught the rules of society. She already realizes that she will be seen for body parts if she dresses in a “popular” way that teaches tight fitting clothes, but if she dressed baggy “like a boy” then people are forced to see her not as parts but as a person. She will also not be seen as ‘desirable’ to many men, and will probably be characterized as either a ‘jock’ or a ‘lesbian’ both of which are viewed as being socially deviant for a female gendered persona and hence “bad”.

• Quote #3: “If I told them I was interested in women’s history, they’d call me a fag. So I just take it and don’t talk about it.” This shows how male gendered people that take the course can find it just as interesting and want to take it, proving that they want to be part of that dialogue. Males, females, and other gendered people all need to be part of the dialogue if equality will ever occurs, but especially the dominant male gendered group. In this school, when the possibility is opened to have the discussion, this male is egger to join, and can still do so and look cool by lying about why he’s there, but the fact that he still has to lie to his friends at all is a sign of how far we still have to go. As far as being called a fag for doing so, that’s so heterosexist I want to puke, but that’s a debate for another time.

• My Response: This reading was a bit of a surprise for me because based on the title I was totally expecting a transgender reading, and frankly bracing myself for a “whole lotta ugly from a never-ending parade of stupid” (thank you Hairspray). But I was happily surprised to find this is reading on “gender” was about overcoming the gender norms that are blatantly in our face everyday. I used to have the debate with my dad (and gave up finally) over the fact that females are still oppressed, and this is one method where that is put blatantly in your face and you are forced to deal with it. Every part of the experience is reflected upon by the teacher and she uses it to relate to her students. What I’m trying to say is that this is dialogue that needs to happen, and not every teacher could tackle it the head-on way she does, but having a mixture of media from male and female genders in the room is a good place to start, and being open to allow that dialogue to occur, and further promoting it, is a great way to tackle the subject as a teacher.