Teaching, maleness, race, class, and privilege

First off, go and read Jenell's brief but superb commentary on Christianity and the inner cities. Great stuff.

Yesterday, a very thoughtful reader e-mailed me in regards to the post on dress code and names and asked:

I was wondering if simply being male (unfairly) conveys its own authority so that a male prof who is dressed casually still conveys authority while a female prof who is dressed casually loses some authority. Also, how do issues of race affect this? Does being white also (unfairly) convey its own authority regardless of dress?

Have you thought about addressing your female students in your gender studies class by their last names - Ms. Smith, etc? Would this help create an atmosphere of respect even more than using first names? Also, what's wrong with recognizing hierarchy? You said you have the power of the grade book, so could an overly friendly or casual atmosphere lead to a situation where a student gets upset over a grade and says, but I thought we were friends!

I ask not to be nosy but because I hope to be a professor someday and I am interested in these issues.

Another reader, Blackcoffeeblues, asked in the comments section:

As a prof myself, I really want them to call me by my first name. I always try to change from a suit into comfortable clothing, i.e. jeans, before class for my own comfort, plus the rooms are always really cold! My students seem to be really comfortable with both my dress and using my first name. I'm wondering, however, if that has to do with the fact that I am the youngest prof teaching in this program, I look younger than I am, I'm really small in stature and I'm female? I also wonder if the fact that they know I'm only an adjunct and teach part time after getting off of my "regular" job as opposed to the true "academic" faculty makes me appear more accessible?

Lots to think about.

There's no question that my maleness gives me more latitude in terms of how I dress. What looks "comfortable" on a man might well be called (by some) "sloppy" on a woman. In summers past, I have even taught in shorts and sandals, in complete confidence that my attire would not affect my ability to be heard by my students. I'm not sure many of my female colleagues would have felt equally comfortable.

The race and class issue is also intriguing. Colleges and universities are comfortable places for me. My father taught at the University of California; my mother at another community college. My maternal grandparents and great-grandparents went to college in California. I'll freely admit that I have grown up with a sense of entitlement about higher education: "OF COURSE I belong here, and I am so comfortable here, I feel I can wear anything I want." As a straight, white, Christian male, no one questions my credentials in the classroom. When I bother to dress up (once in a blue moon these days) and cover the tattoos, I look like most folks in authority in this country. I am perfectly aware that this is a colossally unfair advantage, one I have not earned, but one from which I benefit. (Though I am ethnically half-Jewish, I have never run into anti-Semitism directed at me. Most folks are quite surprised to discover my Jewish roots.)

I realize that my "white maleness" allows me to disdain the title "doctor" and to insist on going by my first name. I find that the folks at the community college most insistent on using the title Dr. are those who are the first in their families to earn Ph.D.s. Even more often, I see it used by women or minorities who don't meet the typical profile of those who receive doctorates in this country -- they have had far more to prove. Now that I think about it, I can afford to say "Call me Hugo" instead of "Dr. Schwyzer", because I am so danged confident that no one will question my right to teach! No one has ever told me I don't belong in academia. (Well, except for one very unpleasant Classics professor my first year of graduate school, who said my comprehension of Latin noun declensions was abysmal.) No one has ever mistaken me for a janitor or a faculty wife! (The former has happened many times to a black male colleague of mine; the latter to several of my female colleagues.)

So what do I do about this unmerited privilege? Do I retreat into formality as a way of rejecting it? I've tried it, and it feels awkward. I don't think it serves my students well. In addition to issues of race and class and sex, there are also issues of plain-old human personality at work: Hugo is an informal person, and not just because he's a white guy, but because he's Hugo! Good teachers, whoever they are, bring their authentic selves into the classroom. I'd like to think I'm a good teacher, and I know in my gut I teach best when I am deliberately contemptuous of hierarchy!

There's also the issue of power. My reader asked "What's wrong with recognizing hierarchy?" In some sense, the reader is right. Using first names and being friendly with my students is a way of creating and maintaining the fiction that we are all equal. But they desperately want good grades, and I have the grade book. In that sense, our "friendship" isn't based on equality, any more than the "fictive friendship" one usually sees between a saleswoman and her client in an upscale boutique. But the fact that there is a power imbalance doesn't render friendship impossible, at least not in my book! Perhaps I am fooling myself when I say that, because in all honesty, I don't have a way of explaining that belief. I need to think more about that.

Teaching is all I've ever known. I've never held a full-time job outside of academia. I worked two summers for the public works department in Carmel by-the-Sea (my hometown). I worked three summers for a federal defense attorney in Century City while in grad school. I taught one summer at a private high school in the San Fernando Valley. I spent two years as a TA for History and Classics courses at UCLA. I edited a journal in medieval studies my last year in grad school. But basically, all I know how to do is teach. I doubt I will ever do anything else. I fully expect to stay in this same job -- quite happily -- for the next quarter century, until I retire sometime around 2030.

As I get older, I may want some more formality. I suspect (though I don't exactly know why) that when I have kids, I will want to be "Mr. Schwyzer." (That's as far as I would ever go -- I don't like "Professor", and the title "doctor" is, for me, still unspeakably affected and pretentious). I change my syllabi every couple of years, I add and remove tattoos and piercings, I develop new courses and drop old ones, I change my churches and my political registration the way some folks change their clothes: I am fairly sure I will undergo many more changes in my beliefs about formality in the classroom!

Comments

[Xrlq]

I suspect that if you were to ignore race and sex, you might find a similar correlation between the likelihood that a given individual insists on being called "doctor," and the field of study in which he got his degree. If I have a real Ph.D., e.g., one in Math or Chemistry, call me Xrlq. But if I got my union card in Oppression Studies, with a concentration on the role of lesbianism in the defeat of American imperalism in Viet Nam, well, that's Dr. X to you.

[Blackkoffeeblues]

I’ve often thought that it must be very pleasant to be personally unaffected by, I don’t know, what would one call it, prejudice…that’s almost too simplistic, isn’t it. I am far from being the first in my family to graduate from college, but I am the first Ph.D. in my family (we’re not teachers). I’m very proud of my accomplishments, all four of my degrees. I put the whole academic bio on my syllabus but always invite my students to refer to me informally. I’m a very formal person at work, a suit everyday, no casual Fridays here, tattoos covered, only one set of tasteful & appropriate earrings. But school has always been like a comfortable second home for me and so I dress accordingly. I’m usually mistaken for a student and an undergrad at that. I will admit that I am often annoyed and still puzzled by the look of shock on people’s faces when they realize what I have accomplished academically, professionally and personally. I often wonder what part of it confuses them the most, the fact that I am female, Mexican, young or very short (it’s silly but I really think that makes a difference). Actually when I was a student, I often got that look from my mostly white, older, male professors. I’d start talking and I could see the look of amazement spread across their faces. What where they expecting, I would wonder, an accent, incoherent babble?! I frequently find myself in the enviable position of having favor bestowed upon me, from the GM, CEO, Program Director at school…I’ve wondered if it’s because of what I know and what I do…or if I am like the cute little monkey pet that can do tricks…hey look at that, she can dance, juggle, spin plates and play an organ grinder all while being a minority and female! Impressive, a round of applause! Sorry, I just made myself mad. But rest assured Hugo, I don’t loathe people like yourself for not having had these kinds of experiences nor do I disdain your “privilege.” Sometimes I do wonder what it would be like if…and I wonder if there will come a day when…wouldn’t it be lovely if it were a non-issue for both of us. (Insert sigh here.)

[John]

I understand that. It is the same for me as a "disabled" person with a bung leg. I have to spout three times the research of anyone else to convince people to stop staring at me and engage with what I am saying. Once I have established my credentials, so to speak, there usually isn't a problem.