Practice Democratic Principles

Out of all the Grant and Gillette's ten things to do to become a better teacher I found this one of the most challenging. It is really hard to think of how I am practicing democratic principles in my own life, because I probably do not always recognize when I am. I put this one off till now because I honestly had no idea what I would write about for it! However, this weekend while I was home for Thanksgiving I encountered a situation where I really felt I had to stand up for myself and girls in general. Every year my friends and I play pick-up football on Friday after Thanksgiving. It is always a lot of fun, and we usually have a pretty good turn-out.

This year we happened to have the same number of girls as boys (seven of each). Someone suggested that we play boys vs. girls. After that comment, one of my guy friends laughed, "That's a joke. Girls can't play football as well as boys. They are slow and weak. They can't keep up with us!" I have heard my guy friends make comments similar to this before and have also heard them tell many jokes about women that basically infer that women are dumber, inferior, or simply "belong in the kitchen." It just so happens that many of my girl friends were athletes in high school and/ or college, including me. There comment was completely insulting and uncalled for. Many of the boys actually were not athletes in high school or college. This made me feel even more like they felt that no matter what girls are going to be worse athletes than boys. I told my friend that his comment was completely uncalled for and that he shouldn't make sweeping insulting generalizations about women. He laughed and said, "Ha-ha okay feminist!" It wouldn't bother me to be considered a feminist, even though I had never thought of myself as being one, but the way he used the term was so immature. Was it supposed to be an insult? Was he trying to say that because I was a feminist I was turning into a hippie or a lesbian or something? I just did not understand his comment at all. When I asked him to explain what he meant, he said, "It was a joke." I'm not quite sure I understand how it was a joke. I hate that standing up for women means being called a feminist. I just felt it was more that he insulted me and I wanted to speak up for myself and others. Sometimes it can be hard to stand up for democratic principles, especially against friends. The girls actually ended up losing the game... but only by one touchdown. I think he realized girls can be just as good of competition as boys.