justice and rebellion

I don't know much about tennis. I have no idea what constitutes coaching during a match and what doesn't. But, this year I watched the U.S. Open to see Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka play tennis in what I had heard would be an amazing game.

However, watching the match and the aftermath left me with that prickly feeling I get when I see women treated unjustly. 

It made me start thinking about anger and our bias toward what is an acceptable form of anger from women. Anger is both an understandable and justifiable emotion. When you feel as though you are being treated unjustly, it is natural to become angry. But when the story becomes about your anger rather than the injustice... which happens quite often to women... something has gone wrong. Women should be able to deal with their anger by being angry.

So these were the thoughts going through my head the week after the U.S. Open. (and knowing that it was not just thoughts about the U.S. Open, but thoughts about generations of injustice and bias against women ... especially women of color)

The week following the U.S. Open, with my "social justice warrior" senses on high alert, my daughter came home from high school visibly upset about an interaction with a male teacher. He had called her opinions "sassy". The same opinions expressed by a male student. Yet my daughter was asked to apologize to the teacher for her anger. The interaction felt sexist and unjust. "Oh, hell no!" was my initial reaction. But, my daughter told me not to worry, "I've got this. I was frustrated," she said, "but arguing with him will do no good."

I think the thing that has bothered me the most, was my daughter had been advocating for student choice in reading. She had told the teacher that she didn't like the book and that she believed student choice creates life-long readers and thinkers. The book they were required to read was The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. The book was a life changing, favorite book of the teacher. But the idea of a Personal Legend or an ideal destiny did not resonate with my teenage daughter. 

I get it. It's like telling teenagers that Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is revolutionary. It was ... in the 1950s. But few students today are shocked by a teenager dropping out of school, cursing, and roaming the streets. 

I don't really know where I'm going with this, but I know it has something to do with social justice, our ability to express our opinions without bias, and student voice. It's small steps in the right direction ... to set your jaw squarely into a strong wind, and keep moving forward. And, at the same time, I realize that my daughter and I sit in a place of privilege when our injustice is being called "sassy" and being forced to apologize to the man in charge. I get it.

And yet...

And yet, I encourage women and students everywhere to continue to put voice to your truth. 

I'll leave you with Sydney Chaffee's TEDx talk that I like to call "welcoming rebellion" ...

"... sometimes we are the ones our students rebel against. Sometimes they are going to point out ways in which systems that we have created or in which we are complicit contribute to inequity. It is going to be uncomfortable and it's going to be painful as they push us to question our own assumptions and beliefs. But what if we change the way we think about rebellion in our kids? When our kids rebel; when they thoughtfully push back against our ideas or the way that we do things...  what if we chose to see that as a sign that we are doing something right?"