Eric Stoller's Blog

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I had my worst day as an Odyssey instructor today. I was tired and my students were tired. I was not feeling well and several of my students have colds. It was a rough hour and a half. 3 of my students came to class late. They disrupted everything and really messed up my flow. I sent a lot of emails tonight. Overall, it was not my best day as a teacher.

Cat et al. saved the day by facilitating a “Guess the Het” panel. It was entertaining and educational. The premise is fairly simple. The audience tries to guess which student is heterosexual and which student is gay. You can ask as many non-gender specific questions as you like. For example: What traits do you like in a partner? or What did your family say when you came out? It was great watching my students try to guess. I think this experience was mindblowing for some of my students! How many times in a college class do you get to hear an exchange like this (This is paraphrased, the original was hilarious):

Son: I have something to tell you.
Mom: Oh my God, you’re gay or you’re on drugs!
Son: Well…it’s only one of those things…
Mom: Oh my God, you’re on drugs!!!
Son: Mom, I’m gay, I like boys.
Mom: but you’re sure you’re not on drugs?
Son: Yep
Mom: Phew…I was worried about the drugs…

I really owe Cat and her students. They saved the day.

Moral of the story: Get more sleep so you can be a good role model/teacher for your students. If you’re tired, they too will be tired.

I would like to thank everyone who has been reading and commenting on my blog. It’s nice to know that people still like to read about vacuums and rabid bees.

I recently started keeping track of my web site statistics via StatCounter.com. The nice thing about web data is the fact that you can see where your readers are located. I think it’s awesome that people in Japan and the Philippines are reading my material. I also have some regular readers in Mexico and Canada.

I have had a total of 44 unique visitors to my blog. Who wants to be number 45?

The Devaluation of Women in the Workplace: Oppression by occupation or gender?

My mother grew up driving tractors, riding horses, and milking cows on a farm in Iowa. Her two brothers, one older and one younger, were competent in the same skills as my mother. I remember dinner table conversations that would reference the amazing talents of my mother due to the fact that she was a woman who was able to work “like a man.” I never thought about this as being oppressive language until recently when I realized the “compliments” my mother was receiving were in fact devaluing her abilities because she was and is a woman. Her brothers were not told that it was a great feat that they had accomplished tasks because they were “like a woman.”

Thus, the question of, “are women devalued because of the work that they perform or because of the fact that it is women who are performing the work” seems easily answered. I say it is easy because I believe that women are devalued in almost all aspects of society including the workplace. I hope to provide examples of male-based devaluing within several occupational endeavors in which women serve as employees, bombers, teachers, and presidents. Although my experience is framed through the male lens, I believe that what you do is not as meaningful as who you are.

Women pilot space craft in outer space, create corporations that earn billions of dollars, and are responsible for the creation of every person on the entire planet.
The traditional male occupations, law and medicine are no longer a male only domain. Women work as doctors, lawyers, bus drivers, postal service agents, college presidents, and physicists. Men work as nurses, teachers, social workers, and house cleaners. I do not see what you do as being the reason for devaluation. If this was true, men would not work in non-traditional occupations because they would have to give up their patriarchal system. I think that men oppress other men only if they are oppressing them as a way of bringing them back into the traditional fold. This seems to be the collective mechanism that men use to repress women. By separating men into specific job functions, male patriarchy sustains itself. When men try to move into non-traditional roles they are often ostracized. This could be due to a patriarchal need to maintain that devaluing is done due to the work and not because of gender. It has been my experience that men who are nurses and teachers are looked as “less than” by men who are doctors and educational administrators. Although, it does seem that this issue is felt more often in elementary, middle, and high school settings. I feel that higher education is slightly more egalitarian. However, this feeling is based on a perception that is through my aforementioned set of man eyes.

I was reading a news headline about a recent suicide bombing in Iraq. There have been numerous suicide bombings in Iraq since inception of the war. This headline caught my eye because it said in bold letters that a female suicide bomber committed this atrocious act. I have never seen a single news headline that labeled other suicide bombers as male. Suicide bomber is not an occupation in traditional terms, but it is a positional construct that I believe can be looked at as work, albeit short-lived. Why are females labeled? For example, no one says male suicide bomber or male president when describing these roles. Devaluing is occurring because of gender. From bomber to president, women are the targets of patriarchal oppressive devaluation. The jobs or positions are merely veils for men to hide their oppressive tactics.

My first job after college was working for Paula. She owned her own business and ran the companies daily operations. Her position as company president was one of prestige, power, and privilege. However, whenever Paula and I would go to meetings, vendors, mostly male, would oftentimes speak to me as though I was in charge. They would take away Paula’s power in the form of veiled humor. I have worked for women and men who have been presidents or owners of companies and every woman owner was treated as an aberration. Men as presidents are looked at as the societal “norm” while women were exceptions.

Another environment where women are devalued is the classroom. I have several teachers who are women. It has been my experience that women teachers who are strong, capable, and demanding are seen as undesirable and mean. However, male teachers who possess the same qualities are seen as challenging and competent. Female colleagues have actually said that they would have gotten along better with their “difficult” female teachers if they had been male. It would seem that male patriarchies ability to condition women to hate women is a shining example of who we are is more important than what we do. Therefore, women can do anything, but because they are women, they will be devalued.

My examples showcase the undeniable nature of the heart wrenching way that women are treated in the workplace. To me, this is a relevant problem because patriarchy seems to be losing its collective grip on the institutional idea that ones task determines ones level of devaluing. I feel that once that idea is lost, men will have no choice but to acknowledge the wrong that has been done to women. Patriarchy will have lost its veil of position-based oppression and people will see the true nature of women’s workplace devaluing.

Personal Learning Outcomes:
• General overarching outcome — To continue learning about multicultural perspectives through selected readings and to create meaningful self-reflections and questions that will enhance/promote my multicultural competency.
• To continue exploring my own cultural heritage within the context of multiculturalism in a student affairs paradigm.
• To further my personal journey as a multiculturally competent student affairs practitioner through in-depth readings/reviews of selected texts.

Individual Learning Activity:
I mulled over several different projects before I decided upon a simple yet potentially powerful method of learning. I would like to conduct a reading and reflection project. I have selected two texts: Multicultural Competence in Student Affairs by Pope, Reynolds, and Mueller; and Teaching Community by bell hooks. Multicultural Competence in Student Affairs fits perfectly as a selection for my project because it is a book about organization and process which fits well with this course. bell hooks’ Teaching Community focuses on what I would pose is an academic affairs point of view. One of the basic foundational tenets of my personal philosophy of higher education is that student and academic affairs are joined holistically and therefore I try to encapsulate these historically divergent areas through strategically guided experiences.

Project Specifics:
• Read Multicultural Competence in Student Affairs and Teaching Community. (I am 60 pages into Teaching Community and on page -0- of Multicultural Competence.)
• Synthesize readings
• Craft personal yet professionally applicable/meaningful thoughts and reflections in the form of a chapter-by-chapter critique/review/personal journey.
• Present in the form of a paper/online blog.

I hit the rack (props to Rem Nivens for the jargon!) last night at 1:30 AM. Today’s to-do list: Work for EM, Teach Odyssey, Read hundreds of pages of Student Affairs verbage for my Organization class, create a learning outcomes plan, read some Feminist Philosophies and work on my FP paper.

To use another Nivensism, I’m jammed!

The topic for my Feminist Philosophies class is fascinating: Are women oppressed because of the work they do or are they oppressed simply because they are women? (Work for this paper = traditional roles like teacher, nurse, house keeper, etc.)

Week 3 at OSU starts tomorrow. I am currently teaching my first-year experience course, Odyssey, as well as working with Student Conduct.

Odyssey:
Thus far my thoughts regarding my class are very mixed. My students had considerable amounts of confusion with my syllabus, the classroom is very traditionally oriented, and my guest speakers have been perfect.

The syllabus for this course is the first official syllabus that I have ever constructed. Students earn points via participation/attendance, think cards (reflective journaling), OSU Success.com summaries/reflections, and a professor interview paper. Think cards are written up on paper while OSU Success.com homework is posted on Blackboard. It took almost 2 weeks for everyone in the class to understand the functionality of BB. The first day of class I spent a great deal of time going over the basics of BB. Then the OSU Success.com website had a malfunction and my students became slightly perplexed. I can definitely empathize with my class. They are going through a major life transition and things like homesickness, stress, money, and independence are swirling around their heads.

The class is in Rogers Hall. The classroom is in the shape of a large rectangle. It feels like I have some students sitting right next to me while some are a world away. I end up moving around a lot. The class takes place at 3pm on Mondays. At 3pm on Mondays, I’m tired…I can’t imagine how tired some of my students are after already having 3-4 classes!

My guest speakers include: Moira Dempsey (Academic Success Center), Deb Burke (Community Service Center), Dennis Bennett (Writing Center), Mercedes Benton (Minority Education Office), Theo Sery (Office of Community and Diversity), and Tanya Ulsted (International Education and Outreach). It’s an amazing group that I am very honored to have as presenters. We are also going to Dixon where an as yet unknown recreation employee will be guiding us on a tour of the DRC.

Student Conduct:
Everything about conduct revolves around confidentiality. Please be aware that if I am vague, it is on purpose…

I observed 2 informal hearings this week. The Office of Student Conduct uses a restorative justice model. It’s a pleasant change from the drop the hammer down model of an unnamed Windy City school. Restorative justice is a process of bringing back students who have done something wrong into the collective via involvement or other restorative means. Instead of punishing a student who has engaged in underage drinking with a “cookie cutter” punishment, each student is looked at as an individual who may need a class on responsible drinking or perhaps an introduction into a club through Student Involvement.

One aspect of this practicum that makes it unique is the amount of campus wide interactions that occur. Everyone is connected in some way to conduct. Academic dishonesty runs the gamut of all colleges/schools. Underage drinking happens a lot especially when you mix peer pressure and extreme amounts of transition.

I am very excited to be working in conduct again. Bringing people back from the edge is one of the most fulfilling parts about being in student affairs.

Note: I hope I am able to survive 3 hours a week of Odyssey teaching/preparation and 9 hours a week of Student Conduct work!