A Reflection on Gender Expectations at Riverdale
Riverdale became a fully coeducational institution in 1972. Ever since, students, regardless of gender, have continued to learn together and receive the same education. However, in classrooms, students often feel pressure to conform to gender expectations based on how they present themselves or identify. Of course, these expectations are not the same in all classrooms and often change depending on the course, the teacher, and how many people of different genders are in the classroom. However, there are certain patterns that can be picked out by teachers and even student experiences that are consistent across departments.
Middle and Upper School science teacher Dr. Lindsey DeCarlo discussed how, particularly in chemistry classes, confidence tends to be lower in students who identify as girls. She says that this appears “much less so in psychology [class] and seventh grade science,” which are the other two courses that she has taught in her time at Riverdale. She says that in psychology, which is sometimes referred to as a “softer science,” “the roles switched,” meaning that the girls were more confident than the boys. She contrasts this with chemistry, which is considered a “harder science” and “mathy,” where she notices girls are more likely to add a qualifier to the end of their questions, such as “this is probably a stupid question.” While she says this doesn’t occur with all female students, it is more likely something that a student who identifies as a girl would say. She has also noticed that students are sometimes “intimidated by girls who have shown they are strong in a chem classroom, whereas if it's a boy showing they’re strong, it’s less intimidating.” Dr. DeCarlo, as a female STEM teacher, hopes to encourage confidence among her female students, and for them to not be afraid of being intimidating.
While many people notice the gender divide in STEM classes in particular, senior Kishi, a nonbinary student at Riverdale, says that they notice, particularly in humanities classrooms, that “a lot of questions are tailored to the ideas of people’s personal experiences with femininity or masculinity,” and because of this, “people are expected to exaggerate those experiences for the sake of the discussion.” They say that while they explicitly don’t identify as a girl, since they still present fem, which makes them feel like people expect them “to follow the kind, nurturing, helpful ideals commonly associated with femininity.” They’ve also noticed that despite using they/them pronouns, there is an “unspoken vibe” of “girl-solidarity” expected from people that comes from presenting fem. While, for Kishi, “it's nice to be included in things,” they aren’t a girl. According to Kishi, these expectations, most of which are perpetuated by students, are byproducts of the way people are socialized to perceive gender.
Middle and Upper School English teacher Ms. Bronwen Durocher runs an English elective titled “Gender, Sexuality, and the Novel,” which examines the way that gender and sexuality have historically been written about, and how this contributes to people’s perception of and understanding of them today. Ms. Durocher believes that “language and literature are a function of reality,” and the way that people talk about gender affects the way it is perceived. She hopes that the course gives “students as much language as possible to investigate their own position in cultural discourse and maybe even challenge the rules about how we identify and articulate ourselves.” According to Ms. Durocher, sometimes students come in “who are not thinking critically about” what it means to identify as a certain gender and have assumed those identities without thinking about what they mean.
Gender norms are prevalent in every classroom and affect everyone in those classrooms, even students who don’t identify within the categories of girl and boy. By deconstructing what gender means and why people presenting in certain ways are expected to act in accordance to that presentation, these gender norms could become less ingrained in the culture of classroom life.
