This past few weeks, we have been extremely productive and prolific in the collecting of footage. This is in part because we are forming a cohesive unit, and partly because we have been willing to donate much of our free time to What”s The Story.

We have interviewed several students, including Greta Hardy Mittell, Anna Browdy, Hannah Roque, and Mark Jewell. These students all related how gender bias had affected them, and there were definitely varying degrees, There were accounts of teacher gender bias, where teachers were unfair toward somebody based on their gender in class. There were also accounts of  student gender bias, which can be even less polite. However, the most common answer we got was that people saw gender bias everywhere, manifesting itself in the form of small details of interaction or forgone conclusions that people had  about each other. Everybody also thought that there was definitely a lot of work to be done in the area of gender bias. One student in particular gave interesting remarks about the dress code, saying that asking someone to change is valuing their education less than those that might be “distracted.” This person also made remarks about President Trump, saying that the election of a massively underqualified man over a qualifies woman is blatant gender bias.

Similar answers were given by teachers whom we interviewed, such as Ms. Arenson and Mme. Steele, as well as Mr. Lawson , the Principle of MUHS.  Although all of these people said that they saw gender bias in the school, extremely specific examples were few and far between, as in the case of what is being done to help eliminate it. There are, apparently, movements do help with the latter issue, but they are not very prominent in the school. All of them were in agreement, however, that they themselves were making an effort to improve their teaching by opening their minds to LGBTQ ideas not as an example of the extraordinary but as a matter of course.

Lastly, we have interviewed several experts, who have given very interesting and full answers to a variety of questions. These experts have included Laurie Essig, Barbara McCall, and Ruth Hardy. Laurie Essig put forth several interesting ideas including  one about federal vs local change to resolve gender issues. She said that today, as important as legislation is, it will be hard to pass under the new regime, so local activism is more important than ever, to foster the spread of positive change. Barbara McCall related how she had seen gender bias and differing expectations affect college students both academically and emotionally in negative ways. She also has seen varying attitudes toward gender bias itself, and at times a cognitive yet impersonal understanding of it. Ruth Hardy has seen massive  amounts if gender bias in electors in the course of her work directing women into governmental jobs, and encourages women everywhere to run for office.

Throughout the project, we have not only been prolific but enjoyed it as well, and have formed a close bond as a group. We hope this will only become stronger moving forward, in the long and short term as we move forward.

This blog was made possible by: Petite Deborah’s Synonym Rolls.

Petite Deborah’s Synonym Rolls

Work Cited:

Piture From

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cinnamon_rolls_on_tray,_April_2009.jpg

By Whitney (originally posted to Flickr as Cinnamon Rolls) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons