Being an educator

I really do love my job. I am surrounded by passionate people, I am inspired by young people just starting to make lives for themselves, I learn new things every day, and I am constantly challenged to evaluate what it is I believe and why. I am also never completely off of the clock. I could always be reading, revising, learning, evaluating, tweaking, updating, changing, or trying something else. And my job is a critical lens in which I view everything around me. In addition to teaching communication, I am the director of a violence prevention peer education troupe. I am surrounded by inspiring people trying to change societal norms that foster a culture in which gender violence happens every day. Most days the inspiring people are enough to keep me from feeling like Sisyphus. Some days (or weeks) however, I am overwhelmed and the fight feels impossible. Is it worth the effort or am I just burning myself out? Can I really make a difference or do I just let the outside forces win and go back to a life of ignorance? How do I protect my son from outside forces without shielding him from the lessons he must learn for himself? Can I continue to inspire and work with young adults, when I sometimes have a nagging feeling that my life would be easier with a less complex job?


Last weekend I attended a college football game with my husband. We were seated next to the student section and instead of being able to focus on the field (I acknowledge there are cultural issues with football itself but that's for another day) I couldn't tear my eyes away from a situation unfolding in front of me. A young woman (a 20 year old sophomore I found out through overheard conversation) was drunk and being objectified by much older men seated in the section I was in. It started with them comments to each other before becoming comments directly to her. They eventually invited her to sit with them and in conjunction she began flirting with these men who where giving her attention. About this time one of her friends came over to ask if she was okay sitting with these men (good friend), and the young woman insisted she was. The longer the woman sat with these men, the more negative attention they started to receive from others in the section. Not at their blatant disregard of this woman as an actual person, but because her drunk behavior was annoying to them. The men's positive attention to her face continued but unbeknownst to her, a second line of comments was being directed to their section-mates. The double standard of what was expected of this woman infuriated me. She was "hot" when she wasn't acknowledging them, but the second she bought into engaging she became a "slut." To her face she was appealing but behind her back she was demeaned. Eventually her friend came back to get her and she left "safely" with people her own age. It was not my place as an outsider to say anything, but I looked at the silent supporters engaging in this interaction and wondered why no one else did. These people know each other. They sit together at every home game (we had acquired these season ticket seats for the week from an acquaintance), why was the rhetoric about the young woman's actions and not at the men and to the men? By just sitting there was I engaging in these destructive societal norms too?


I have been deemed a killjoy by even some of my closest friends, when I am unable to just sit back, relax and turn it off. I used to enjoy going out for drinks at a local bar with my friends. They misinterpret my lack of desire for this past life as a byproduct of becoming boring when my son was born. While my new veneration of sleep may be a byproduct of being a parent, my discomfort in these social situations is an undesired consequence of my job. When I was a student doing gender violence prevention work, I was much better at compartmentalizing my life. Now I see my every action as engaging in (even inadvertently) or agitating against destructive societal norms. Can anything just be fun? Can/should a cultural lens be muted for the benefit of (much needed) relaxation?


On a related note, I will not be attending a Halloween party this year because of scheduling problems. If I were, I would be going as Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Engaging in or agitating against. It's the best I can do.