Subtitled: The Cookie Maker

In the 1970’s the Australian singer /songwriter Helen Reddy wrote and sang “I Am Woman.” There were a vast number of record producers and radio stations who would have nothing to do with this song. They claimed it would be perceived as “angry,” or “anti-male.” When it was finally released after all the resistance, it turned out to be a huge hit, and one that is still iconic in certain circles.

To the educational point, girls and boys behave much differently in classroom settings. It used to be a much more profound and conspicuous difference than it is now, thankfully. When I was in high school, I was truly one of the least shy girls in my class. I was always raising my hand to give an answer or adding something I thought would be funny to any class discussion. Most of the other girls sat with their mouths zipped up. I never got why. In some ways, I suppose I was clueless…

As a teacher, this trend was continued into my classes with no interruption at all. For many years, I tried to encourage girls to provide answers that I KNEW they were capable of, but mostly it was to no avail. Slowly, I began to realize the underlying reason for this: if a girl appears to be smarter than some or many (or Lord Forbid all) of the boys in the class, she would be possibly a lonely girl without a prom date. Nobody loves the smartest girl.

Boys, on the other hand, have the kind of confidence that everyone should want. Don’t misunderstand, I have had as many brilliant boys as I have had brilliant girls, but the difference is that the boys know it. On top of that, the very unbrilliant boys have even more confidence. There was a kid named Josh in one of my ninth grade classes who raised his hand to give answers to every single question, and each time the answer was wrong. We are talking about questions that actually DO have right or wrong answers, like meanings of words or grammatical concepts, not interpretive answers.

Me : Who knows what “ubiquitous” means?

Josh (raising his hand as high as possible, immediately): It means happy.

Me: well…no. Could you try again?

Josh: Scared.

Me: well….no.

Josh: Wait, wait…it means funny!

Me: Sorry buddy. Quit guessing. Can anyone else take a try? Kerren, I think I saw you use that word once in your journal. Do you remember what it means?

Kerren: umm… I don’t remember.

Me: You don’t? Are you sure?

Kerren: (sotto voce) I’m sure.

She did know. But the epidemic amongst girls was highly contagious for a long time. Nobody, except a teacher maybe, likes or trusts the smartest girl in the room. Our society, and many other cultures around the planet, does not encourage girls to be as outgoing, assertive, or smart as boys. We all know this double standard: the assertive boy is a leader and the assertive girl is a bitch.

This seemed to be quite evident also in the case of Hillary Clinton, albeit a controversial figure in history. When Clinton (Bill) first ran for office, his “handlers” and hers decided to “soften her rep” by having her become a master chocolate chip cookie maker. I think this was Hillary’s most popular moment, not when she contradicted every single lie that her opponent stated in the 2015 Presidential Debate. Her opponent only had to stalk her around the stage, standing menacingly behind her , unbeknownst to her, and he appeared convincingly dominant to many citizens. I suspect that most women felt their skin crawl seeing that, but then she lost. The smartest girl in the room; the smartest woman in the Congress–of course–lost. Eight years later, the same thing happened with less stalking on the stage and a different woman. Even if her opponent claimed that immigrants were “eating the cats and dogs,” she still lost.

I was teaching adults English for the past several years, and most of my students were Brazilian. I would not have thought that the same phenomena occurred with most of the women being ultra-reticent to give answers, and the men loudly and proudly blurting our a mix of wrong or right answers.

Now I will share with you an exception to this seeming rule in classrooms: African American girls and women do NOT fall into this shy bullshit. They raise their hand with the most actively hand-raising boys almost all the time, with no fears of being seen as too smart or aggressive. I really am not sure why! It’s just something I have noticed after many years. And I say: More power to the assertive , smart girls in the room. Don’t hide your brains…don’t hide your abilities. Fly your Helen Reddy flag, and be proud to say “I Am Woman…hear me roar.”