Penny for you to be quiet plz (coming to terms with being a… bad boy? EW EW EW EW EW)

            Although we have discussed a great variety of approaches and pedagogical strategies this semester, I cannot help but notice that recent discussions of the “good girl” archetype may have elicited the most personal responses in our classroom. I begin this journal entry with an acknowledgement that my position as a man may complicate the appropriateness with which I can address this topic, a genuine desire to understand the extent of my privileges, and a preemptive apology for when I inevitably stoop to patriarchal voyeurism and convince myself that I’ve learned things about my own life through the discussions we’ve had. Please consider this blog post as an exploration of and reflection on how Karen’s penny activity expanded my understanding of my privilege in the classroom and made me more aware than ever of how little reflexivity I have applied in the past to my feminine peers and students.

            I have never considered myself someone who “dominates” classrooms (if this makes you roll your eyes please tell me), but I certainly do not have any apprehensions about speaking up when the discussion peaks my interest or something I wish to contest has been said. I am certainly guilty of operating under the mindset that Bell and Golombisky challenge: “voice is commonly equated with agency” (295). I must admit that I have certainly caught myself wishing that my students who occupy bodies of minority groups would be more willing to speak up in class. Of course this is true of my students who represent racial and ethnic minority groups, but, on a more related note, I notice that there is usually one or two men who are more assertive and willing to answer questions in my classrooms. I make a genuine attempt to encourage diverse perspectives in my classroom, and I don’t think I’ve made it past a week in any of my classes without admitting to prodding students that I strive to be an ally to the feminist movement, but such attempts to establish a climate of equity seem to fall flat. The grossest result of these circumstances makes itself evident when I think to myself: “I wish these young women whose papers and speeches are so insightful would take the opportunity to share their perspectives in class discussion”. It seems I have constructed a mental utopia in the classrooms wherein my remarkably progressive and admirably inclusive approach to pedagogy (kill me) makes it easier for individuals to find their agency and put it to work. Of course, I was neglecting to account for the decades of indoctrination into the good-girl archetype that so many young women work to overcome.

            Instead, Bell and Golombisky say, “voice and silence are better understood as performative strategies announcing cultural expectations for the feminine, for race, for ethnicity, for labor, and for hegemonic masculinity” (295). Indeed, my actions, however convinced I am that they come from a place of consideration for others, are mandated by the hegemonic masculinity I perform on a day-to-day basis. This brings me to the penny activity, an exercise in which I still managed to cope with the stress of being silenced for the first time by occupying a position of affirmation and silent communication. At the risk of sounding gross, I noticed during the activity a tendency for the young women in the class to make contributions to the discussion and neglect to put a penny in the jar. The anxiety about what constituted a valuable contribution caused almost all of us to doubt that our contributions were worthy of a penny. It wasn’t long until I caught myself making gestures of appraisal and acknowledgement, going so far as to move the penny jar from one side of the table to the other so that my peers could place pennies in the jar after speaking. I was thinking things like, “the jar is all the way on the other side of the table, I’ll move it closer so they don’t have to throw their penny or get up” and “that was a great point, they must have just forgotten to put a penny in because they were so engaged in the conversation”. These were likely lies I told myself to mask the fact that my actual thought process was, “these are great contributions that my peers don’t think are great contributions so I will move the penny jar and make it easier for them to see that others recognize that they were great contributions”. Even in my silence I found a way to exercise hegemonic masculinity, consciously or not. And this notion of consciousness, I believe, is a key element in understanding this phenomenon. I have been sociologically conditioned to value my own voice and contributions, and to subconsciously judge the contributions of my peers in order to give out praise and acknowledgement that is not mine to distribute.

            I did not consider this possibility until the closing ritual, Bell and Golombisky’s “most successful strategy for solicity Good Girls’ voices” (300). The honest and moving contributions of my peers really shook me, and forced me to acknowledge to a new level the extent to which I let my position as a masculine figure dictate the way I behaved in the classroom. Bell and Golombisky say of the closing ritual, “Good Girls often use this opportunity to say the smartest thing we hear that day” (300), and although I must work to resist the instinct that such praise is for me to hand out, I certainly feel that the narratives and anecdotes shared by my peers during the closing ritual were the most insightful and revelatory things I heard all night. Indeed, it was a significant learning experience for me and I am grateful to all my peers who chose to share stories about their backgrounds and lives. I have no doubt that these dialogues will help many of us adjust our pedagogy and general approaches to interaction in ways that create more respectful and equitable discussions.