I was around eight years old when I first really knew I was a girl. It was summertime, during one of our endless coed baseball games in our backyard of the small town in which I grew up.
We were a neighborhood gang of kids, our summers our own to spend, our parents otherwise occupied, raising us according to the school of thought that a long leash teaches kids the required independence of future adulthood. We shot arrows from atop the old Peter Pan set my father brought home from his theater; we raced skateboards; we spied on the cocktail sipping tennis campers from Manhattan who overran our town each July. And we played baseball: fierce, competitive, coed games — the teams always shirts and skins, regardless of our gender. In fact, those games took place in a kind of pregendered, presexual bliss: Girls were just as tenacious at bat; boys cried fat tears when they were hit by a wayward pitch.
It was during one of these backyard games, when I, playing outfield on the skins’ team, suddenly, intuitively understood that from then on — for forever on — I would have to play wearing a shirt.
This was as benign and gentle, and perhaps as silly, an awakening as they come — one not triggered by any physical change in me, nor by any derogatory look my way. But, all the same, in that moment, a lot had changed. Suddenly there were limits to my behavior, boundaries to be crossed — boundaries that I had no role in constructing. Maybe some of you have had similar experiences. In the memoirs my seniors write, I read tales of many such coming-of-age moments: unannounced to us, we cross into a new place: one wildly alluring but also frightening in its apparent finality. Once here, we don’t get to return to naiveté.
In that moment, I had no idea that my own female body would so script my future, in some of the most predictable ways. In high school, my developing female body would leave me, at times, terribly uncomfortable and sometimes scared. In college, my female body committed me to activism: I marched with my friends who had been raped; I campaigned for pro-choice politicians. In graduate school, I was sexually harassed by an older, male professor. In my first teaching job, I was cautioned that the combination of my youth and gender might raise concern in students and their parents; my young colleague at the time, now my husband Mr. Chung, was not similarly warned. In adulthood, my female body delivered to us profound joy in the form of three daughters; at the same time, it placed my instincts for childrearing at odds with my career ambition, often leaving me guilt-ridden when I couldn’t give the time I wanted to both. This is a sketch, but as a sketch, not at all unique; likely, many of the women in this room would trace a similar path. It startles me even now to think how these bodies that identify our essential biological differences can so forecast our life trajectories.
But, of course, this fact is not entirely due to biological difference. As you know, the intersection of culture, politics, and biology often decides how we behave. Our bodies, male and female, are the very vehicles through which we perform our genders, and how we perform our genders is so often decided by social forces outside of us. What we choose to wear, how we cross a room, how we dance and sing, how we work out, how we hang out together in the Student Center are all behaviors that express our genders — behaviors that often seem part of a larger social recipe that reads, for example: Girls, in order to look hot, you need to wear this, and stand here not there, and never eat that; boys, in order to be cool, play this, definitely say this, and don’t get caught dead acting like that. Certainly, we don’t all — or all of the time — play these roles. Certainly, too, when we do play these roles, we often receive a lot of satisfaction. But maybe more than we’d like them to, these roles can feel like small betrayals of our true selves — not expressive of the more complex people we know ourselves to be.
Milton Academy (Massachusetts) has for a long time been willing to talk about issues of gender. A forerunner of coeducation, Milton championed gender equity in its very charter for student leadership, requiring male and female coheads within student government. Ahead of other schools, Milton dared to teach a human sexuality and relationships curriculum. In the 12 years that I have taught here, we have worked to address LGBT issues, urging a community of compassion and openness. Our affective education curriculum, unique among our peer schools, addresses issues of gender as part of a longer, sustained conversation about how we interrelate, and we have both student and faculty gender committees.
Given this effort and history, I was caught off guard when a number of you raised concerns last spring about sexism on campus. In response, some of my colleagues and I video-interviewed some of you, including a number of last year’s graduates, on your experiences of being a boy or girl here. And what we heard, from boys and girls, of different ages, and with very different lives here, is that gender strongly influences — and not necessarily positively — your experience. Students talked about sexual relationships in which boys and particularly girls often feel pressured to behave against their own instincts about what is both right and satisfying, in a quest for social popularity. Students talked about the double standards of the classroom, where boys sometimes feel stereotyped as class clowns, where “tough” male teachers gain student respect and “easy” male teachers are “cool,” and where “tough” female teachers and “easy” female teachers lose student respect. Students talked about the hierarchical physical structure of the Student Center as an intimidating place to navigate, where girls, in particular, often feel self-conscious in the open space of the ground floor, and yet often perform, through dress and behavior, for boys watching in groups from the balcony above. Again and again, students said we need to pay more attention. Certainly, their perceptions paint broad strokes — and perhaps with strokes that don’t illustrate your life day to day — but no doubt we heard a lot of consensus over many conversations: real cause to pay attention.
Before I go any further, let me acknowledge how hard it is to talk about gender inequality, for all sorts of reasons. Almost always, when we hear charged words like “feminism” and “sexism,” we start to recoil. Aren’t feminists a small group of raving, bitter, humorless women? Aren’t accusations of sexism only about blaming boys and men? What’s more, even when we do spend time thinking about this subject, don’t we struggle with how to approach it? I’m a bundle of contradictions. I want my daughters to grow up self-confident, analytical young women, yet I let them sing at the top of their lungs Top-40 lyrics that make me wince. I watched the movie Brave this summer, loving the fiery independence of the heroine, Merida, but I’m just as much a sucker for the “chick-flick” with the fairy-tale ending. And I catch myself all the time pinning back my daughters’ hair from their faces so they might look more “lady-like.” We all say things we don’t mean, act in ways we cringe about later, blame others for behaviors that we mimic. Do I speak to my female student about self-respect when she wears a too-low-cut shirt, or caution my male student against insensitivity when he checks her out, when nearly every single piece of popular culture teaches us that interactions should be sexualized? And then again, aren’t we all wired as sexual beings, just hoping to be attractive to anyone else? Perhaps the only thing I am certain about these days is that pointing fingers at each other, assigning blame, is not the way to go.
And yet, despite our uncertainties about how to move forward, we must move forward. Gender inequality is an undeniable reality that punctuates the gender conversation. Surely, you have heard some of these numbers from the world out there that will soon be yours. Women are now outpacing men in this country for college, masters, and doctorate degrees — and are half of this country’s workforce — but still run into professional roadblocks. One year after graduating from college, women are paid on average only 80 percent of their male counterparts’ wages, and 10 years after college, women’s wages fall even farther behind, dropping to only 69 percent. Still, only 3 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women, and only 19 percent of the 535 seats in the United States Congress are held by women. These are numbers that have barely budged since my graduation from college, now 20 years ago. Worse, snapshots from the current political climate indicate real regression, from state laws that prohibit women from suing for pay discrimination and obstruct women from exercising their reproductive rights to enflamed rhetoric. You likely read the headlines last summer when Missouri Representative Todd Akin argued that victims of “legitimate rape” cannot get pregnant because their bodies will automatically shut out the rapist’s sperm. But you might not have heard that, also this past summer, Topeka, Kansas, repealed its domestic violence law to ease its budgetary crunch, freeing 30 people charged with abuse, at a time when sexual assault in this country is a major public health issue: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in five women in this country is a victim of rape — 80 percent first raped before the age of 25.
At graduates’ weekend last summer, I stood with a group of alumnae five years out — former students of mine, who, one after another, unsolicited, spoke about their chosen workplaces. One, a star student-athlete here, now a Wall Street floor trader, explained that she was leaving finance because, every day on the job, she experienced “egregious sexual harassment.” Another is in Silicon Valley at a prestigious tech firm, an industry that sustains a huge gender gap — women hold only 24 percent of jobs in science, technology, engineering, and math. Every day, she claimed, she felt she had to work harder than her male colleagues in order to prove herself. “When I was at Milton,” another now in medical school said, “I had no idea that the world out there looked like this.”
But the world out there for boys and men isn’t looking so good either. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, boys are 30 percent more likely than girls to flunk or drop out of school; are underperforming girls on grades and homework in elementary and secondary school, college, and even graduate school; are five times more likely than girls to be diagnosed with ADHD; and make up two-thirds of the students in special education. What is happening? It is no wonder that self-esteem among boys and men has statistically plummeted in recent years. According to a recent New York Times article, boys and men who veer away from an athletic, tough-guy standard are often victims of bullying and harassment, men who request family leave from work face a greater risk of being fired, and men who leave work for family reasons end up earning significantly less than other male employees.
We need to pay attention to gender, even when the conversation asks us to risk feeling uncomfortable in front of each other, and even when we’re not sure about how to proceed. I wonder, in fact, if the conversation about gender isn’t the conversation to have. Isn’t gender something we all have, something we all wrestle with in our ultimate quest for self-definition? And here’s the thing: when we talk about how we men and women might differently experience life, we discover all that we have in common. We all feel vulnerable and self-conscious at times; we all feel powerful and privileged at others. We love our tough moms and opinionated female friends, our thoughtful male friends and attentive fathers. Last spring, I was lucky enough to dorm parent in Norris House, and I loved nothing more than sitting with the boys in their common room playing cards, talking about beating Nobles [Noble and Greenough School (Massachusetts)], singing “Payphone” with piano accompaniment, and deciding which tie to wear to boat dance. I remember nearly identical nights with the girls when I lived in Hathaway House. We are so alike, amidst all of our diversity. And most likely, if I asked each of you whether or not you believed in a world where men and women were equal, you’d want it — probably even expect it. If I reminded you that the word “feminism” defined is simply this: “the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men,” you might even believe it true to call yourself a feminist.
When we talk openly, when we see the limitations of blaming, when we admit the gender conversation is about girls and boys, women and men, finding success and happiness, as these terms are defined by you, not culture, we are all healthier. When we don’t talk seriously about gender issues, when we don’t really listen to each other, we don’t lead effectively; we don’t inspire change. No wonder we see this country so stuck on gender. Gender is a health issue. It is a professional issue. It is a political issue. It is a domestic and international human rights issue. It is your issue. You build the world you want to live in.
Girls and women, we must be responsible for our performances of our gender. Think about what you wear. Think about your reaction to sexist lyrics that demean you. Think about what you say to and about each other. Resist the strong media messaging that says you are only how you look; and, worse, you are nothing if you are not thin and sexy. Take your big brains, your morals, your self-confidence, your physical strength and engage them all when you make choices in sexual relationships. Require of your educational communities, Milton first, that you have as many examples of female leadership as you do male; though female leaders do not guarantee excellent leadership, when we see people who look like us in positions of power, we are more convinced of our own access to that power.
Boys and men, we need you more than ever to help make this conversation also about you — to question assumptions and stereotypes about masculinity and manhood that limit your ability to express all of who you are to other boys and to girls. Investigate the numbers I cited about boys: At Milton, do we, or do we not, buck the trends? Wear your integrity in public and in private, and walk through the world around you with the same respect you hope would be offered to you, your sisters, and your mothers.
Together we need to sustain the gender conversation, bravely and honestly.
My middle daughter is nine years old and a fierce, exhausting, wonderful tomboy, who wore a mohawk to her first day of third grade, and spent our last camping trip shooting rocks out of her homemade slingshot. Her favorite people have always been boys: football players and presidents and the kids at recess who choose to wrestle instead of compare bracelets. But somewhere this summer, she crossed over to the shirts team, and she will start fourth grade aware that boys might think twice about coming over to her house for a play date or passing her the ball. I wouldn’t wish for any of us a return to a preadolescent past. It is far too meaningful and rich to be thinking, autonomous, maturing beings. But I hope for her — for all of you — that maturity is a place of vast, equitably accessed possibility, where the models for all of our dreams are imaged in women as well as men, and where our cultural expressions of gender encourage us to be our whole, essential selves every day, everywhere, in every part of our lives.
