CMCstudent, 5/2

When Dr. Rog explained how class was going to work on Tuesday, I thought he had to be joking. Surprisingly, I learned a lot, and heard from people, whose voices I didn’t know existed. I believe that is much like the silence of voices most women experience. I don’t know if the female species is taught to be pessimistic or to look pretty rather than speak our mind. It is true though whenever we learn something in class, I always have thoughts on it. However, unless I know what I am trying to say, I don’t open my mouth in fear of looking stupid. I don’t think it is fear of looking stupid in front of guys necessarily; guys already think girls are dumber than them. I think men think they are smarter because they are always learning to “be a man.” Being a man is ultimately the struggle to be #1, the survivor, the best of the best. Men think there is just one peak on the mountain, one chair for the King. This is not true though because many people can be equal in talents, for example both men and women. Women can even exceed men in things such as sports, although men hate to admit it. Women realize there is more than one seat at the top of the mountain peak and do not see a reason to push everyone down the mountain to run to the top.

It felt very powerful having the authority to tell someone they could go ahead and speak and I imagine men feel this power when women are silenced. I am aware that in the past women did not have rights to publicly speak, and were meant to look pretty rather than hold a conversation with their husband. What I was unaware of was that to a degree this was still going on and women were falling into silent roles. Finding out in class that women were still feeling silenced made me question how many others felt like this.