March // 2018 Cover: Emily Sanders '18
OUR MISSION | Insight is a youth-led and institutionally-backed platform for dialogue that explores cultures, lifts voices, and interrogates injustices. Contributors tell their own
stories,
shedding
light
on
their
experiences, customs, politics, and the social issues of their communities. We hope to expand the cultural lens of our readers, providing a shock to complacency and an antidote to intolerance. We strive to foment empathy and inspire action within our youth, across our schools and in our greater society. Editor-in-Chief: Kelsey Coleman | Cultural Affairs Editors: Isabel Albores, Hunter Chesley, Graham Eisler, Sydney Jackson, Vera Walsh-Alker | Arts Editor: Eleni Retta | Layout Editor / Designer: Alex Mountfield | Faculty Advisors: Sean Felix, Steven Lee | Special Thanks: Damian Jones www.burkeschool.org | 4101 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20008
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o-Ed schools have been an option for students in the U.S. for almost 200 years. They are a great way
for students to learn how to interact with different types of people and get different perspectives. That said, some problems arise because of differences in gender, and the power dynamic that it causes in schools.
GENDER ROLES IN THE CLASSROOM
Often times when different views are shared, there are ELYA BAKER ‘19
differences in opinions. It feels like an attack, because a lot of students’ views come from personal experiences. This can lead to a sort of divide, and people stop sharing their views. I’ve noticed that when I raise my hand and a male classmate does too, I’ll let him talk first because I
potential to show my knowledge. This is why women don’t go into science and math at the rate that men do, instead studying more humanities.
subconsciously see him as a superior. When I raise my
I’ve also noticed that women are treated with less respect,
hand at the same time as a female classmate, I feel like I
no matter what job they have. Female teachers often have
can see her as an equal and it doesn’t matter who speaks
a harder time with classroom control than their male
first. This has to do with how men are represented in our
coworkers, and similar things happen in almost any other
patriarchal society. Women are taught from birth that
profession you can name. Women’s sports, for example,
they aren’t strong like their male peers.
are the punchline of many jokes. The American women’s
The least detrimental effect of how gender roles affect classrooms is the ‘gender divide.’ The girls sit on one side of the room and the guys sit on the other. This isn’t just a reflection of friend groups or cliques. It is the vulnerability of being away from people who are similar to you. Culture shock, if you will. I’ve noticed this in classrooms since I was in preschool, when girls and boys were not forced into gender norms. A preschooler is not worried about being called ‘gay’. A preschooler probably does not even know what that means. The most detrimental effect of gender norms is the sexism and other forms of discrimination that can follow it. In a group project where I am surrounded by male peers, I am expected to do all the typing. I’m not expected to come up with the ideas and plans for the presentation. I shrink down to my secretary tasks instead of sharing my
soccer team is the most successful team in international women’s soccer, while the men’s team has yet to win a World Cup. A woman could be the most prestigious professor in the country, but the media would be more concerned with her looks than her thoughts. Hillary Clinton, for example, was held to a very different standard than her opponents during the election. The media scrutinized her outfits during presidential debates, but wardrobe choice had no impact on the public opinion of her male counterparts. The opposing side would even question Clinton’s ability to be in office because of ‘women’s troubles.’ Sexism is very real in classroom environments and shows itself in lots of ways. We don’t always think about these things in a learning environment. I hope that after reading this, you might reflect on your behaviors, no matter how you identify.
DRESS CODED DEIDRA HOYT ‘18
“Girls, I don’t want to see your cleavage”.
on, and then when a school administrator stopped
Before I knew what cleavage meant, my middle
me in the hallway, I would be surprised. When I
school vice-principal gave all of the girls a talk
actually tried to follow the dress code, it proved
about how our bra straps were not allowed to
difficult. I would go to a store to get shorts for the
show, according to the dress code. He proceeded
summer, and I would not be able to find any that
to pull at one girl’s strap to make his point clear.
met the criteria for the dress code. This puts girls
At the time, I was not aware of how inappropriate
in a difficult and ridiculous position.
that was: An older teacher shouldn’t touch a younger girl, especially not in that context.
Most teachers were indifferent about enforcing the dress code, but some were too strict. My
My large public school had a rigid dress code.
seventh grade science teacher seemingly made it
Skirts and shorts could not be past our fingertips;
a point to dress code someone every day. If you
shirt straps had to be at least two inches wide.
looked hard enough, someone among the 400
Leggings, and of course, visible bra straps were not
students in my grade was breaking the dress code
allowed. A lot of people broke these rules,
by a millimeter. Once, my notorious vice-principal
including myself. At times, I knew I was breaking
traveled across the city to bring a gym shirt for a
the dress code, and I did not mind breaking it.
girl who broke the dress code on a school field trip
However, other times, I completely forgot that I
and had to change. These sort of actions are
wasn’t allowed to wear leggings. I would put them
extreme and unnecessary. Those two teachers and
many more treated wearing a skirt that broke the
shoulder or a bit of someone’s thigh should not
dress code as a crime, when the goal of the girl
distract anyone enough to be significant.
who wore it was probably only to feel more comfortable, stylish or both. Teachers and adults should not treat certain clothing choices as something that suggests a girl is immoral.
Expecting boys to be distracted by shoulders or thighs or a bra strap holds them to a standard where they feel entitled to distraction because of someone else’s clothing choice. It also tells the girl
A dress code in itself is not sexist. It ensures that
that it’s her fault if someone reacts to her body. If
students show up to school so they can learn in an
boys are not held up to a standard of exercising
environment which will prepare them for the
willpower whenever they are distracted, then that
expectations of the workplace. However, extensive
can lead to behavior where men feel entitled to do
and punitive rules as well as the enforcement of
or say something because of the clothes someone
them make it sexist. In my experience, maybe two
is wearing.
boys were dress coded during my time in middle school, and it was for not wearing a shirt. Girls face more punitive rules that are also enforced more than the rules boys face and it is usually for the same reason: girl’s
bodies
will
distract the boys. While this may be true of certain choices,
clothing having
girls
cover everything up from the knees down and clavicle up
is
extreme.
An
exposed
Somehow, class continues when a girl wears a crop top. At schools where there isn’t a strict dress code, it is not as if learning becomes impossible after a boy sees part of someone’s thigh. When boys are held to a standard that expects them to be distracted by every little bit of skin showing, then they will. However, if they are in a school where girls are allowed to wear less restrictive clothing, there will be no choice but to focus on their work. This helps dismantle the belief that it’s a woman’s responsibility to ‘cover up’ if a man is moderately distracted. Taking away overly-punishing dress codes ensures that people don’t leave schools with sexist ideas ingrained in them.
REPRESENTATION
JACK DAVIS ‘19
We are living in a fairly golden, although not perfect, age of media. Films and TV shows are slowly but surely becoming more diverse and addressing more serious topics than ever before. Yet there is an extreme problem lying just under the surface of popular media that is rarely addressed, especially in the field of casting. This is the problem of having cis actors playing trans characters of an opposite gender. To be clear, this is referring to cis men who are cast as trans women, and cis women who are cast as trans men. Photo: Ivy Park
One example that immediately comes to mind is
not only false and extremely hurtful, but it is
Jared Leto in the movie, Dallas Buyers Club, in which
extremely dangerous.
he plays a transgender woman by the name of Rayon. What is the problem with these casting
That same type of reasoning that causes straight
choices? Well, for one thing, it is inaccurate and
men to murder trans women because straight men
unrealistic acting. There is no possible way a cis
think that trans women are secretly gay men who
person, even the most educated and well-meaning
are “tricking� them, or threatening their masculinity
cis person, could begin to understand the average
in some way simply by existing. Murder statistics for
trans person's experience, which means that the cis
trans people are higher than ever, as trans women
portrayal of a trans person is riddled with
of color have a one in twelve chance of being
misinformation and stereotypes. Trans people are
murdered, and the average life expectancy for a
individuals with a range of complex identities,
trans person is about thirty-four. Of course, these
backgrounds, and stories that cannot be fully
statistics vary depending on the person, but in
understood by someone who has not lived them.
general, this is nearly forty years shorter than their cis peers.
On a heavier note, in an age where transgender identities are constantly in danger and scrutinized
It may not seem like the casting or trans women and
by cis people, there does not need to be any more
trans murder rates are connected, but media is how
content invalidating trans people as the gender they
people form their perceptions of people that are
are. When you have a cisgender man playing a
different than them. If that perception is wrong or
transgender woman, you are sending the message
harmful, it enables people to internalize these ideas.
that trans women are actually men who play dress
So, overall there are many more downsides to cis
up as women, and it is vice versa for cisgender
people playing trans characters than there are
women playing transgender men. This is
upsides. All that I request, Hollywood, is that you stop this trend altogether.
hen I was one year old, my mom and dad gave me a baby doll. Seeing as I was a clever child, I named her “Baby”; several years later, after much harassment from my sister for such an uncreative title, I added “Rose”, making her full name “Baby Rose.” I loved and cherished her. When my dad was building my loft bed in our garage, I used the scrap pieces of wood left over and a hand saw to build her a bed. She was so special to me that when my parents told me that they were getting divorced, I forced them to go over all the details again with Baby. Despite not being real, she was one of the most important figures in my childhood, and yet I never revealed that I had a baby doll to anyone outside my family.
W
I’m not sure why I didn’t share it with anyone. I didn’t think of myself as a very selfconscious child—I was going to a school where being yourself was widely accepted, and my friends were kind and accepting, but I told no one. It was something about society that taught me that boys were “supposed” to have action figures or stuffed dogs, and girls were supposed to play with dolls. Nobody in my life ever directly told me that having a baby doll was strange, but as I grew, gender norms told me more and more that it was “wrong” to have a baby doll.
Rolling Past Gender Roles
Gender norms are heavily prevalent in our society and drastically change the lives of young boys and girls. Almost everyone, I would venture to guess, has heard of calling a young female a “tomboy,” and a young boy a “sissy.” Just having these words in society creates an image of what young boys and girls are supposed to be. Regardless of whether your intentions are good or not, using this language forces young women and men in our society to change who they are to fit in to categories created by society. As people grow up, and begin to develop their identity as teenagers, gender norms continually tell them who they should be. As a seventeen-year-old boy, I feel the pressure to be colder, less emotional, and stronger. It is hard to not feel compelled to suppress your emotions. While this is certainly stifling, from my perspective, the pressure put on young women seems even more oppressive. It seems everywhere you look in today’s society, you see images of females with extremely unrealistic body expectations. Whether it be on Instagram, the metro, or television, women are shown to have long legs, narrow waists, sharp jawlines, and many other unrealistic body proportions. Not only does this give both boys and girls unrealistic expectations, but it also fosters a lack of self-confidence and even depression for women in their teenage years. It is hard to watch your friends and classmates cope with this issue, and, as a male, it is sometimes difficult to know how to help. While helping to overcome these issues can be taking a direct political action, it does not have to be. Maybe the best way to overcome these issues in our society is dialogue and understanding. Although just acknowledging the presence of these gender norms may not feel impactful, I believe understanding that they exist and talking about them has the ability to make people feel more comfortable being themselves and creates a society filled with more openness and tolerance.
—DYLAN ANDRESINO ‘19
ignorance & fear KYRA LAYMAN ‘21
The Main Causes for the Lack of Progress in the Feminist Movement There are forty-eight members in Femco, our school’s feminist affinity group. Of those forty-eight individuals, five are female teachers, thirty-five are female students, and eight are male students. Having boys who are signed up for Femco denotes tremendous progress, although there is still considerable work to be done- I have attended nearly every meeting and have never once seen one of these boys. According to Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, feminism is a theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes. When asked, “Should men and women be social, political, and economic equals?”, 80 percent of Americans answer “Yes.” So why do only twenty percent consider themselves feminists? For some reason, there is a stigma attached to the words “feminism” and “feminist”, and as a result, many people are trying to understand why people support the cause and not the label. John Legend declares, "I’m always suspicious of people who become feminists only when they have a daughter. I feel like you should have enough empathy for other people that you don’t need someone to be in your family to think they’re valuable.” He is correct - social change will not be achieved from only acting when something applies to you. It takes everybody to make change. Although you may not feel like you are affected by the feminist movement now, you will be someday, and you’ll be glad you helped the cause. When my aunt asked my eleven-year-old twin cousins what they knew about feminism, one guessed it had to do with being feminine, and the other did not know and joked that it possibly was related to fennel. When my aunt explained the meaning, they both looked stunned and stated: “Of course men and women are
equal. Why would anyone think they weren't?” Given another couple of years, I guarantee that they will say, “Of course men and women should be treated equally. Why does anyone think they shouldn’t be?” If my eleven-year-old cousins from a liberal family in a liberal state are not sure what feminism really is, how can they help make progress? How can anyone make progress if we live in an ignorant society? Why do some men find it incredibly easy to label themselves as feminists, while others cannot conceive of trying to support equality of the sexes? Some commentators argue that people are simply scared to denounce social standards. But why is it that only some people have that fear? Everyone has something to say, whether it is as trivial as criticizing a rival sports team or as controversial as supporting gun control. So why do people shy away from the feminist label? There is something about the feminist label in particular that drives people away from using it as a compliment. My aunt and uncle had a baby a couple of months ago. During my recent visit, my uncle asked me repeatedly to join him in teaching his daughter to be a feminist. He has always considered himself a feminist and is consistently active in his efforts to promote equality. Why does he find it desirable to have the label of feminist, while others reject the idea that maybe they could be a feminist as well? Perhaps some people are not as concerned with their social position or what others may think of them. But it also has to do with being brave for the things that need brave supporters. In this current day where we are still struggling with simple equality, we need activists that work together to solve this issue, because it cannot be fixed by one person. If you support equality of the sexes, you are a feminist, so do not reject the label. Full Stop.