Tabling the Discussion

My three-year-old daughter is a shrewd negotiator.

One of her many schemes is to convince us to let her reserve something for later if we won’t let her have it in the moment. She’ll come to us and ask for a piece of candy. The answer is usually no. She’ll nod respectfully but then ask for the same thing in a different way:

“Can I put a piece of candy on the table?”

When we inquire why she wants to do this, she explains that perhaps later, maybe after dinner, it would be all right for her to have the piece. And if it is, the candy will be ready for her.

This is surprisingly effective.

At any given time in our house, the dinning room table is littered with objects or treats over which my child is in current negotiations. And yet, by bedtime, the table is always magically cleared of clutter.

In my beginning years of teaching at the college level, I unknowingly developed a bad habit: I favored the male students. While this was completely unintentional, I came to the realization a few years in that I was constantly deferring to the men in my classes.

Now, in my flimsy defense, there were many reasons why this was the case. For starters, during the first five years of teaching I was an adjunct and taught undergrads at night in a different town. Often, I was the only person in the entire building late at night with my 20 or so students. To some degree, both conscious and unconscious, I felt a tiny bit of fear as a young female with so many male students. One night in class, during a particularly heated debate about gun control in which two male students became verbally threatening, I actually had justification.

Aside from that, I’ve always gotten along really well with men. In the romantic comedy of life, I am continually type-cast as the protagonist's funny best friend. I was a friend to boys growing up. I was a friend to boys in college. And I worked better with men than women in my first few jobs out of college. So, as an instructor, I naturally gave them the attention I’d always given them.

All of that is on me.

But, the other side is that the men naturally behaved differently in class. They talked louder. Interjected without fear. Effortlessly criticized my thoughts or the thoughts of their classmates. Blurted out without thought. And never struggled to speak their minds. This is an intimidating and powerful thing to watch from the perspective of the instructor. No wonder I favored them; they gave me something to favor.

And yet, the women in my class were consistently better writers, more effective public speakers, more thoughtful debaters and kinder classmates.

So when it finally occurred to me, on the long drive home one night after class, that I was more likely to pay attention to the men—because of fear, intimidation, interest and awe—I knew I had to change my ways.

The next class period I publicly apologized to the students. I spoke to everyone but only made eye contact with the women. I said that while I knew I had been fair in grading, perhaps I’d been too quick to defer to the louder, deeper voices in the class. And, from that day forward, I pledged to be the biggest advocate the women in the class ever had. I offered them private meetings, reference letters, job counseling, or to buy them a copy of Lean In. And then I challenged them to speak up. Sit on the front row. Interject more. And not be overrun by the men in the class as I had been.

Everyone stared at me blankly.

After class that night I felt foolish. How arrogant of me to assume any of the female students needed my advice, let alone wanted it. Maybe my favoritism of the men had been invisible to them. Did I just draw their attention to something they’d never even noticed? Did I offend the women? Alienate the men?

Yet the next day I received two emails, both from female students asking for letters of recommendation. A third asked for career advice. And a handful of others added me as a friend on Facebook.

Currently—having moved on from long commutes and late night classes, to a full time position with office hours—I find myself in very different terrain. And my relationship with my female students is quite different.

Teaching at the graduate level provides a very different student dynamic than the undergraduates to which I’d grown accustomed.  For one thing, women don’t struggle in class to compete with the men. They contribute equally. I don’t find myself deferring to the male voices, as they never overpower a woman’s. Happily, my female and male students are equal in the classroom. Both genders interject without fear. Challenge each other. Both are strong writers, good speakers and kind to each other.

While there isn’t much difference between my male and female students academically at the graduate level, there absolutely is at the personal level. My female students are struggling with a host of concerns that my male students either don’t feel or don’t express.

Emails from my female students pour in about missing class because they are stuck at home with a sick baby and no childcare. Or crying after class about a bad grade; the result of a lack of time to study between work and mothering. I see my female students tackle more behind the scenes. Struggling to juggle more. Attempting to excel in more. And feeling deeply passionate about it all.

The biggest mistake I see my young female students make is in thinking they can’t get everything they want out of life. They tend to stop themselves just short of going after it all. I see them settle for a mediocre relationship because they have a great job. Or become mothers and abandon their professional ambition. Give up on the idea of having kids because their future job will require so much travel.

When I was just starting off as a commuting adjunct, I was married but had no children. And it’s clear to me now that my perception of women at that time was born out of my lack of knowledge about them. What I knew of women was that they were kinda mean in junior high, desperately trying to fit in during high school, fun as hell in college and competitive as coworkers. It was the gender to which I belonged. The gender of my best friend. My mother. My sister. But in many ways, I didn’t necessarily feel a kinship.

So it wasn’t just the powerful voices of the men or the fact that I was friends with boys that was driving my favoritism in the classroom. It was that my own relationship with women lacked depth and strength.

Luckily, that’s what motherhood has provided for me. I instantly saw the differences in how my husband and I were treated as parents by outsiders. I saw the ways in which women struggled to achieve balance. Felt their selfishness conflict with their maternal instincts. Worked not to resent the men who didn’t feel the same, or as much, pressure. Or to hate the women who seemed to be handling everything better. I had my own, often insurmountable, struggles with balance, body image, depression and discrimination. I've earned the ability to relate now to others.

While some women understood the need to support and love each other from a very young age, it really took the birth of my children to gain insight into the extremely dynamic and complicated role of being a woman. Any woman. Children or not. Married or not. Undergraduate or graduate. Team Tina or Team Amy.

Now, I spend many of my student interactions advising young women who are struggling to balance school and motherhood. Or trying to maintain a healthy marriage while coping with stress. Or worried about how having children will affect their careers. Or wondering what exactly to think about Lena Dunham.

So when I hear a knock on my office door, and turn around to see one of my bright female students standing in the doorway, I’m ready for her. If she’s coming to me about a class assignment, I talk her through it. If she’s coming to me for help selecting next semester's courses, I give my feedback. But, if I’m lucky enough, she’s there just to talk about life.

And if that’s the case, I rely on the wisdom of my demanding, opinionated, negotiating three-year-old daughter at home—begging for a cookie to put on the kitchen table until after dinner—because she has taught me the most valuable lessons I’ve ever learned as a woman:

Ask for everything you want. Never take no for an answer. Find a way to have it all.

And leave nothing on the table.