There is freedom in rejecting a social belief in which we share no social purpose for believing; the exposure of how a particular belief is constructed by society and not by science is equally freeing – until you attempt to break away from that mold in a overly zealous crowd.

The rules for gender (and race) were established for clear purposes, to serve a particular society with a particular goal. And there’s no greater demonstration of these roles (rules) than in the classroom that is dominated primarily by white males. For a brief second, I thought perhaps my classrooms (the ones where I’m the teacher) were an exception to Rickly’s assertions. And then I remembered (Because I so often forget) that I’m a woman of color. Of course the women in my classroom and the male/female students of color feel comfortable speaking up orally and in online discussions. While the non-others remain silent. Is that a power trip? Who knows. Admittedly, I’m cautious when it comes to playing the race/gender card. Aren’t we as a society beyond that? Are 18 year olds really capable of race and gender discrimination? They’re kids. Their brains still have another growth spurt to manage. I then go home, frustrated, sad, disheartened, and discouraged as I remember the sly remarks, the refusals to participate, the need to find an area in which I’m not knowledgeable in to aggravate, the drastic differences in interactions and perceptions of credibility between an African American woman using spoken word to talk about being trilingual in English and a White British Male validating world Englishes. And I think I’ crazy until someone observing my class empathetically brings it up to me: do you notice the race and gender tensions in your class? And then I look in the mirror and imagine what it’d be like to teach as a white male.

And for shiggles, it turns out I’m masculine. According to the BSRI, I scored 84.167 out of 100 masculine points, 60.526 out of 100 feminine points, and 60 out of 100 androgynous (neutral) points.

Is there a race version of this?