Last week I went to my ceramics class for self-care and instead got taught, for the millionth time, that there is no escaping the reach of misogyny. It was even in my hippie-dippie, adult ed., just for fun, ceramics class. I wrote about it in my last post, it sucked.
I realized that I had three choices: 1) Don't say anything, keep my feelings of defeat to myself, and have the class forever be somewhat ruined by my teacher. 2) Quit the class (it's the only affordable ceramics program in the area so that would mean quitting ceramics all together, which I love, not a good option). 3) Put myself out there, stand up, speak out, and reclaim that space.
I'm the type of person that will almost always choose the 'stand up, speak out' option. It is NOT because I am some super strong, brave person. My voice shakes, my stomach hurts for hours beforehand and after, I replay what I said and am self-critical about every word choice, it is not at all easy for me. But it is the choice that aligns with my values and with my self integrity, so that's what I end up doing. And I have gotten absolutely crucified for it numerous times throughout my life. I'd rather deal with that though than the emotional fallout of losing my self-respect.
So I made a plan to write a response that I would read aloud before the next class. I spent two days carefully crafting it so that it held my teacher and class accountable while hopefully avoiding setting off the male fragility that would make it impossible for the teacher and men in the class to hear any words coming out of my mouth. I suffered through my nervous tummy for a full 24hrs before the class, I got myself all psyched up, my girlfriends were sending me good energy and...the teacher didn't show up!!! I couldn't fucking believe it.
What do I do now? Email him? Oh wait, he doesn't even have an email. Write a letter? Drag it out for another week and put myself through that whole thing again? It's the last class of the quarter next week, which means people will be frantically trying to finish pieces. It doesn't meet my need for consideration of others to take up their time. On the other hand, I just heard another woman saying the teacher had also gone off on her, so it doesn't feel considerate to women in general to stay quiet about it.
I don't know what to do yet honestly, but here is what I wrote:
"I want to start by being transparent and share that I am feeling nervous and afraid about the judgment I imagine I may receive for doing this. Taking up space and time from others is one of the absolute hardest things for me to do. I want to recognize that I am taking up my classmate’s time and feel really torn about that. I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t think it was necessary and important and I will only take a few minutes.
I signed up for this class because I knew I needed to do something to combat the vitriol and bigotry in our country right now. This is pretty much the only self-care I have in my life, this is the only time during the week that I don’t need to be caring for my two young children, this is where I come to relax and unwind, this is my safe space. George, last week you took that away from me.
You attacked me in a public space so I want to publicly call out what that was, because it was bigger than you and me. When you, George, barked at me as if I wasn’t a full human being deserving of respect, that was misogyny. I’m not calling you a misogynist George, I don’t know you well enough to do that. But that was an act of male-supremacy, an act of completely unwarranted aggression towards a woman, and an act that is next to impossible to imagine a man in this classroom experiencing. My own inner voice of misogyny had me standing here, tears running down my face, doing mental gymnastics trying to excuse or understand your behavior. It wasn’t until I heard that you have spoken this way to another woman in the class that I was able to honor what I knew deep down to be true: that you speaking to me that way had nothing to do with my actions and everything to do with the fact that I am a woman and you are a man.
You made a decision about my body when you commanded me to stay in the room. Unless a woman is directly in harm’s way, it is NEVER ok for a man to tell a woman what she should or shouldn’t do with her body. My body, my choice. ALWAYS. Even about something as seemingly simple as staying in a room.
It’s important to give this some context. We have a president that openly bragged about sexually assaulting women. Sixty two million people were ok with our president being openly hateful and violent towards women. Statistically 1 in 3 women have been sexually assaulted. I myself am a rape survivor, I talk about this openly because I have nothing to be ashamed of, and I’m sharing it with you to illustrate that you never know what the women around you are carrying with them. There are almost certainly other survivors in this class, there are also most likely men here that have crossed a line with a woman at some point in their lives. Violence against women, whether verbal or physical or emotional, is everywhere, it is the world that women move in daily.
What does any of this have to do with you yelling at me in class last week? When you talk to a woman like she is less-than, especially in a public space, especially while in a position of power as a teacher, you are actively supporting the misogynistic culture that has permitted the oppression of women and violence against women. When not one man in this class stepped up to say, ‘hey George, that wasn’t cool,’ they were also implicitly supporting that culture. There is a war on women in this country, a war that is alive and well; and that war was brought into the classroom last week.
George, when you yelled at me as if I didn’t deserve the slightest amount of common
decency, you took away my safe space and you took a little piece of my dignity in this class. Well I am taking it back and I am pledging to you and every woman in this class that if you talk to me or another woman like that again I will call you out on that bullshit on the spot. It was absolutely unacceptable. Every person in this classroom deserves to be spoken to with respect.
To the rest of the class, we have all seen the dramatic increase of hate crimes and bigotry in our country since November. Hopefully we have all become familiar with the idea that if we see something, we need to say something. We need to become more aware and quicker to respond to these acts of aggression or micro-aggressions as we see them, including acts against women. Under our current president, each time we let these incidents slide we are complying with the bigotry that is sweeping our nation.
I will not be thinking of George as an evil man from here on out, I will not be stewing over this or holding a grudge, but I am also not going to let this, or any other large or small act of aggression towards a woman go by unanswered. This is the time we are living in and I will hold that line.
Thank you to my classmates for letting me speak my peace on this. I needed to say this for myself, for the women that will take this class next quarter, and for my daughter."
So yeah...what do I do now? I want to move on but I also really don't want anything like this to ever happen again. I believe it will, unless he is clear that it won't be permitted. I guess I have to have the tummy-ache again next week too...
I'll keep you posted.
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