I solved this problem in my Jurassic university years by using my profs’ bias against him. I started to sit in the front row and embroider during the lectures. I became the target of his questions as he tried to prove that I couldn’t be paying attention to him. Soon a friend came down and started knitting beside me. The prof would invariably aim his questions at us and we would invariably answer correctly or add on to his arguments. He seemed to think that we couldn’t work with our hands and listen at the same time, boy was he wrong. Eventually he gave up but by then the men had taken to leaving tape recorders and leaving, so he had to choice but to include the women.
I still embroider during meetings but those who know me don’t question it.

Research concerning the academic achievement of girls suggests that in coeducational classrooms they often defer to boys, are called on less frequently than boys

When I was in college, back in the era when dinosaurs roamed the earth, a professor in one of my classes stated, without citing evidence, that women spoke up in class less often because they were “inately” less assertive. Being a good little academic nerd, I decided to test his underlying hypothesis (ie that women were less likely to speak up in class). So I observed the interactions in my classes for the next week. The results? When a professor asked a question of the class at large, men and women were equally likely to respond. When he or she asked a question of a specific person, however, that person was 3X more likely to be a man than a woman.

So, I told the prof my results the next time he gave the lecture (in this course, three profs lectured a large group which then separated into 3 smaller discussion groups twice a week.) He could have responded in a number of ways. He could have told me that this sort of uncontrolled study was only slightly better than anecdote. He could have pointed out numerous potential confounders, from the content of the classes I was taking to the nature of the students that this particular college attracted. He could have, in the best case scenario, said “interesting observation…let’s talk about how to do a formal study.” But he didn’t do any of these things. He simply said, condescendingly, “that’s unusual”, again offering no evidence for his statement, and went on to answer, in much greater detail, a question from a boy in the class.

Fortunately for my academic career, the prof who ran my small group section hated this prof and was very amused that I contradicted him, so my grade didn’t suffer and may even have improved as a result of that episode. But I’ve always felt that I missed an opportunity by not studying the issue formally. And when people start to talk about how women are intimidated by the presence of male classmates and therefore don’t speak up, I rarely believe them.

The bigger problem is HOW to overcome poverty- and I’m at a loss how that is done, other than on an individual basis. But it needs to be addressed, without judgement or shame. Poverty can happen to ANYONE for a variety of reasons.

Poverty is a conundrum because we as a society choose to make it a conundrum. It is systemic, it is individual, it is societal, it is cultural. It is all of those things. But none of them seperately.

In around 1999, I heard that it takes about $13.50 to care for a family of four, at poverty level. That was in 1999, I’m sure the numbers have increased.

And yet middle class and lower middle class people will constantly assume the positions of the ‘rich’ man by defending tax cuts, defending the abolition of the estate tax and other actions that benefit only the wealthy. It is ingrained in our culture to side with the millionaire, to sympathize with his/her cause and ignore the loss that such incurrs for us. Argue with a working guy about why the Republicans have no interest in his welfare and certainly you’ll get a lot of defense of the wealthy coming at you.

No one wants to be poor.

We don’t see poor people like the images we think of, homeless people on the streets, the unwashed and the unkept. Poverty runs deeper and can easily hide behind dollar store dresses and shiny used cars bought on installments (which do nothing to build credit by the way), or furniture from Rent-A-Center.

When people move down the economic ladder to the depths of poverty, they disappear, ignored, scuttled along and dehumanized. Ashamed they stay there, in the poor neighborhood, rebuffed at what many middle class people consider regular social events (such as events for the kids), they stay home instead.

Poverty leads to hopeless, despair and increased stress and anxiety. Imagine having to work all day at a bone numbing dead-end job (factor work, service work), where you have no ability to make even the most rudimentary decisions. Every week you receive a check that you know won’t cover all the bills, what to do? You need an education to get better pay, how long will that take? Two years? Four years? Out of the question, you need a solution now, the landlord wants the rent by Friday and the lights are getting shut off tomorrow. What to do? Hope for that nickel raise? If you are a single mother with kids, you have no rest, no time to play, no time for friends, work and sleep.

Take the kids to the park? Only if you can walk and only if you have the time. Need a sitter? Only if you have the cash. Brakes bad in the car? Now you got a ticket for non-inspection and you can’t get to work tomorrow. Fired, start all over again, move, beg a landlord to let you in..

Drug use and alcohol consumption are the poor person’s elixer against the constant hopeless grind of dead-end jobs, substandard housing, social rejection and alienation. Alcoholism and drug addiction lead to and thrive in poverty. And these people are the least able to afford a habit that can lead to poor judgment and even greater economic loss or crisis.

As long as poor people remain invisible, then everyone can pretend to understand or look the other way, generalizing that poverty exists because of people’s inability or unwillingness to just ‘get up and change’ one day. It isn’t that simple

Also, you get into culture, where those who have grown up in a certain class adopt their own ways of coping and living in the world they know and understand. They cope in the ways they learned; not valuing education, not trusting police or other civic authorities who could actually help them which also leads to a distrust of any established institutions, whether the local social services organization or the public school system. Alienation breeds ignorance and assumptions. Poor people have as many wrong assumptions about middle class folks and about how the world around them works as the other way around. They adopt a perception based on their own experience, based on what they know.

To blame these people entirely for not trusting established institutions denies the real rejection, alienation and downright hatred poor people have to face everyday in ‘regular’ society. School teachers looking down on them, patronizing or not caring about their children (or them), police who are quick to judge, however unfairly, based on prejudices or stereotypes – a year in jail as opposed to probation or even a not guilty verdict; social workers who want to preach at or take the kids away, but not offer real understanding or help; teachers quick to blame the parents for the child who is sleepy in class (didn’t get to bed soon enough) or can’t read up to speed (who has time to read to her?), or is distracted because the other kids are teasing her for the fortieth time about her dollar store shoes or her patched or cheap jeans.

I could go on, but I”ll stop.

What was the post? Oh, segregated schools. I used to be for it, but I’ve changed my mind over the years, for the reasons stated above. It only puts our society backward to the days when girls and boys barely knew eachother and mythology about one or the other (usually the females) persist, into adulthood. I don’t want us making those kind of adults.

I actually tend to forget that all the kids I’m working with are girls. I even call them “guys” most of the time. One of my two co-volunteers never forgets. She tells me we should introduce more art because “girls like colouring.” She also thinks girls like pink and purple. Sigh.

But at least we’ve got a range of role-models for these kids. The pretty-girl ultra-femme physiotherapist, the very-conventional some-makeup biologist, and me, the engineer in jeans and no makeup.