My feminist theory professor is seventy-three years of age. She has edited, published, and written extensively since at least (as far as I can trace back) the mid-1950s. She is the only female full-professor within the political science department at Purdue. She is a quick-witted feminist theorist and historian who advocates peace. And she can theorize the pants off of anyone.
While scheduling classes for this semester, I was told by an adviser that she was “a little old and maybe some-what outdated now†and given a “good luck with that†look when I left the office. On our first class meeting, a few of my classmates talked about how they had had a previous class (or this class, but had dropped it) with this professor. They were not looking forward to spending the semester with her. Her age was mentioned only once, as nobody really wants to show any signs of ageism in a feminist classroom.
There are days when I can feel the tension in the classroom. There are times when I can follow gazes watching her move slowly across the room. I see the frustrated expressions and the bitting of lips when she talks to us about the women’s movement of her experience. One of these days, I may get the courage to scream “Enough already! We need to talk about our age differences!†But I haven’t yet reached that point.
Today, the professor brought up her age, but not in the way I have often envisioned. I have been waiting for this topic to come up, for her to say, “Look, you all are in your early- to mid-twenties. I am… older. Let’s talk about this.â€
But reality never plays out the way you dream it. My classmates, the six or seven who show up on a regular basis, hardly talk and I can only imagine the deafening silence that would follow such a request. Nobody talks about old age.
We were discussing feminist theory’s influence on present-day Amerikan society and she asked us to share how we viewed things, what our thoughts were. Then she added, “I know what my thoughts are, but I’m older and from a different generation… so perhaps I don’t see things the same way you all do.†There was more that she said but I couldn’t pay attention because I kept thinking about our age differences and how she felt the need to excuse (or validate?) her thoughts and opinions because of her age.
What I took as an invitation to discuss age was avoided by my classmates like it was the RNC and we quickly moved to a new topic.
I could not bring myself to talk about our age differences.
For me, this class is an opportunity to get to know a person who was active within the women’s movements of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, and who is still active today in 2005. Someone who has seen the evolution and progression of a movement, the development of a theoretical perspective that is still struggling to gain recognition and validity within the major academic fields of study. I value the experience she brings with her and that she shares with us on a daily basis. I get to hear about early women’s forums and symposiums, about how she met bell hooks or so-and-so back when they were just beginning to gain attention.
Most of all, I get to discourse with someone who has deep knowledge and wisdom and is willing to share. She’s been theorizing over this material that we are just now being introduced to for years – decades. Damn if every day she doesn’t make a point that makes my mind boggle.
Ageism isn’t one of the -isms we talk about on a daily basis, although it is present daily.
Somewhere along its path, our society got all fucked up. We don’t talk about elders much. We push them off into spaces that have been especially created just for them, the old folks. They are so segregated that we send our young college kids off to live with them for a few years, to study them and their lives.
When they seek us out, in places such as classrooms or within our own families, we shy away from getting into too deep of discussions or cast off what they say because they’re not hip to our postmodern, postfeminist lives. Times have changed, Grandma, and your oppression isn’t the same as my oppression that I face today.
And it’s not: my professor is both a woman and a “senior citizenâ€. But we don’t talk about that in our feminist classroom because even though it’s a feminist classroom, society-at-large doesn’t talk about things like old age, and feminism still has a long way to go.
I am often the oldest student in a class and it’s obvious that my experiences don’t mean shit to the youngins in classes. And I’m 33. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to be 73.
She should be commended for not disappearing into oblivious. Bring up this issue, fill the pregnant pauses with your voice.
On a side note, at my school we never ever ever talk about (economic) class. I bring it up constantly and even my professors blow it off making small statements about the poor but always steering the converstaion back to the middle class because that’s what their students will be.
I hear you on the class issue. Being a soc major, I at least get to discuss it when we talk about inequalities in society or social ills in general. However, the focus of my profs is decidedly middle class, as that makes up the largest group of the student body.
Here is a sample from my (“Big Ten”) university:
For my statistics class this semester the instructor had us all fill out a survey on the first day (politics, opinions, “Who is your daddy, and what does he do?” sort of stuff) and one question asked:
“Do you consider your family’s socio-economic background to be:
1) lower class
2) working class
3) middle class
4) upper middle class
5) upper class”
From two classes with a total of 61 students:
0 lower class (I would think there would be at least one or two, but who wants to admit it?)
5 working class (myself)
29 middle class
24 upper middle class
3 upper class
Give or take (we’re talking statistics here), I would say this is an accurate distribution of my campus.
I would love to get my hands on the distribution of the entire student body.
I would imagine that a snapshot of one of my classes would look much the same as yours.
The thing about poverty is there’s always someone poorer than you. If you haven’t read Without a Net by Michelle Tea, please go do so right now (that’s where I got the phrase at the begining of this paragraph).
Whenever I bring up class my fellow student replies with “their lazy, they deserve it…”
Like yourself, I’m from, and still am, working class.
I hear those arguments, too, and I get so flustered and mad because I can’t believe people think like that. I have to remember that sometimes it is hard to step outside of the box you’re in (and I’m certainly not exempt!).
Interesting how quickly this discussion moved away from age. Seems to me people can’t relate so the topic shifts to what they can relate to. And 33 isn’t old.
You don’t get the experience of being old until your body starts to fail and you confront your own mortality, your memory and quick wits aren’t there and must be replaced by wisdom or you have nothing to say, and you start emphasizing relationships and family because the other priorities of the world stop making sense and something must take their place. I find the impatience of youth one of the most annoying things about being older (57).
I suspect that your 73 yo professor could make her knowledge more relevant in the classroom but is perhaps uninterested in catering to students who ought to be taking her contribution seriously. Many of us who are academics talk to communities of academic peers and don’t care whether the students are interested in lectures or not, as long as they do the work. I’ve seen the same reactions you describe to eminent researchers who are tops in their field, largely because the undergrads are too ignorant to know they are being taught by top scholars. Pearls before swine.
Well, it’s all us old ladies’ fault, anyway. At age 63 I’ve been in the techie industries for more than 40 years now, mentoring younger women all through their classroom days and early careers. We played the innovator and leader and explorer and discoverer roles successfully, and now there are thousands of young women taking for granted what we had to struggle for, a place for themselves in the universities and corporations. So we succeeded, and now it’s time for a new paradigm. Only problem is all the techie jobs are going to passive little boys in India and China, and what self-respecting woman in her 20′s wants to compete with that? You should be asking your feminist professors how to create a new paradigm, not how you should relate to hers.
(I followed a link from Feministe)
Nancy’s comment about professors doing their time teaching, between getting back to more rewarding conversation with their peers rings true. In engineering many of the professors didn’t even bother to pretend like we were anything but a distraction from their research…
Ageism is tough. Both sides feel they are unique cases– largely because society treats them as special cases. The norm is the grind between 22 and 50, our solid productivity years.
Have you figured out how to discuss this? I suspect that briefly mentioning it during office hours might get her to lead the topic during class hours.
Good luck.