Miles to Go

*sigh*

Every morning, I ask my 4th graders a question. Sometimes it’s a question to inspire empathy, sometimes it is silly, and sometimes it is a Would You Rather. I post if on our digital platform (with me in Bitmoji form) and they answer it as they settle in for the day. After the 2nd bell and announcements, I share responses with the class.

Last week I asked the question, “Would you rather only be able to speak in a whisper, or only be able to use your loudest voice? Why?” (You have to ask “why” — that’s where the funny is.) Below are the answers I received; see if you can discern a pattern:

Boy student: Loud voice because otherwise I would have to tell people a bunch of times if I tell them something.

Boy student: Really loud voice because I can speak to the group.

Boy student: Having to yell at a very loud voice, because I can hear my voice and have fun with it.

Girl student: A whisper because I can just use a microphone.

Girl student: A whisper so I don’t hurt ears.

Girl student: I would only be able to whisper because if I always yelled my throat would hurt.

Boy student: Loud voice so my friend can hear me yelling for the ball.

Boy student: Loud voice because then I don’t have to be whispering.

Girl student: Whispering because it won’t be so loud.

Girl student: Whisper voice because I don’t want to hurt my poor grandma’s ears.

Boy student: Loud voice so my friend can hear me.

Boy student: LOUD goodbye everyone’s ear drums!

You’re not imagining things. Every single girl chose a whisper voice while every single boy chose to be loud. To be slightly more nuanced, the girls chose to center others’ needs with their choice, while the boys wanted to make sure their voices were heard. I was taken aback by this blatant evidence of the conditioning that happens with our children, still, in 2024.

Another day, I was looking up questions to ask and found this one: “Would you rather be Iron Man or Captain America?” I decided to switch it up and use two of my favorite superheroes, so the question for the students read as follows: “Would you rather be Black Widow or Wonder Woman? Why?” I didn’t anticipate a gender issue. After all, when I asked this question last year with the original — male — characters, not one girl balked about choosing one to embody.

Imagine my chagrin then, when I pulled up the post to discuss with the class only to find that most of the boys refused to answer it because they wouldn’t consider being a superhero that is gendered female. (One boy said he had to choose Black Widow because he only likes Marvel characters, and I accept his DC snobbery. Though now I’m contemplating ways I can work in the Wonder Woman mythos into a reading lesson!)

I definitely would have bumped on these occurrences before. Even if our country had not just chosen a felonious, bigoted, power-hungry rapist to be our president over a qualified, educated woman — for the second time — I still would have been disturbed that the students in my class appear to be recreating and living out the same gender roles I’ve been fighting since I was their age. (I was never a whisperer.)

The art/media I’ve been consuming of late is feeding my feminist rage. I just finished Lessons in Chemistry, a brilliant book that tells (among other things) of the struggles a chemist (who happens to be a woman) faced in 1952. All she wants is to study and discover and change the world, and nobody will let her. Before that, Dan and I watched Hidden Figures, the true story of the mathematicians (who happen to be women, and black) who helped NASA launch John Glenn into orbit, despite all the forces that tried to stop them. Finally, I read The Women, a book that had me squirming with fury over the constant underestimating, devaluing, and outright erasure of women who served during the Vietnam War.

It was pointed out by a friend of mine last night that these stories actually demonstrate how far we’ve come in the past 60 years, and she’s not wrong. Thanks to the work and struggle of many incredible humans who came before me, I have life much easier than my grandmother — and even my mother — did. I know that I’m lucky in many ways, and privileged in even more. But… how grateful do I have to be?

I’m grateful that I’m allowed to wear pants and own property and have a credit card. I’m pleased as punch that I don’t need Dan’s permission to take summer classes or change our children’s medication or be on birth control. Heck, I’m super happy for people of color that they’re allowed to use the same bathrooms and drinking fountains as I do! (I know, I know, that last one was off-topic. But OMG y’all, the Civil Rights Movement isn’t OVER!)

How long do we have to be grateful for things we should have had from the beginning of time?

I have a sneaking feeling that women actually frighten a sizable chunk of humanity. If you’ve never read the history of women beer brewers — alewives — I encourage you to start here. The tl;dr of it all is that 1) women were awesome brewers, 2) men wanted the money they were making, and 3) men accused the alewives of being witches and that was that. So it has been, so will it ever be. Unless.

A reminder: they didn’t burn witches, they burned women.

Thanks for reading.

Love, Susie