Letter 107: Changing Times
When we find our voice
Welcome! This weekly email newsletter is a place where women spanning all ages share their sense of identity and their awareness of our world through personal narrative. Stories shared here come from writers across many generations, cultures, locations, and ethnicities.
Happiest of Wednesdays!
Now that we’ve all settled into school starting and feeling fall in the air, it’s been nice to reflect back on summer and the memories we built. Summers hold bright escapades, warm evening joys, and new beginnings. Beth shares how this summer wave swept her up and is pushing her into her new school year—her eighteenth! Incredible!
Her message is powerful and spot-on, and I believe many of us will identify with her thoughts. Here’s to holding onto this energy! —Molly
On July 31, 2023, MarketWatch.com published an article entitled, “There’s a New Star of the U.S. Economy This Summer: Women. Is This How Men Have Always Felt?” Between Beyonce’s Renaissance tour, Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, and Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie, women have been front and center of the cultural stage. I’m certain men have never felt this; how can you feel the joy of increased voice when you’ve always had it? Fortunately, many men are celebrating these cultural events as much as women, whether or not they understand all the nuanced elements of the female experience.
I’ve loved it. I’ve watched concert clips with a bubbling sense of FOMO and I laughed and cried my way through Barbie with my friends. The women involved in these projects have inspired me in my own creativity and joy.
And yet, I also saw this telling headline from the National Bureau of Economic Research: The Summer Drop in Female Employment. This, along with known statistics regarding paid leave, childcare opportunities (or lack thereof), pay gap, and even the length of time it took Spanish FA president Luis Ribiales to resign, makes me wonder if the publicity around the summer of girl power is performative.
It’s a pat on the back, a gentle shove into our seats as we continue to experience the status quo of a culture that often blames women for their own systemic hardships. The spaces where women’s voices are denied are all too apparent.
The idea of women’s voice is resonating in my professional life as well. This September, I begin my 18th year as a middle school teacher. I majored in History, and always wanted to teach Social Studies. I was strongly encouraged to complete required testing to be dual licensed in both Language Arts and Social Studies. I did, completing tests with exceptionally high marks that no one would ever look at. But it got me the coveted dual certification.
Every year of my career, I have needed my dual licensing. I have taught both subjects, or I have taught only Language Arts, which was never my original desire. Despite my oft-communicated desire to teach in my area of passion and expertise, I’ve repeatedly watched as male professionals were hired into available jobs. In what ways was I deficient, I wondered?
My voice felt unimportant.
My experience is not unique; every woman with whom I have ever taught on a team has been dual licensed. By comparison, in my 18 years of teaching, I have only encountered one man who is dual licensed.
It has taken hard work to master instruction in both subjects. I am undoubtedly a better professional because of my two-subject knowledge.
But why the disparity in licensing? In experience? In expectations? Were men not encouraged to make themselves marketable?
The male professionals around me are good people: kind, caring, passionate teachers. They care about students. They care about me. And yet, I can’t help feeling like I’m competing against them.
I’m fighting in a way that they don’t have to. They don’t have to wonder if they’ll be teaching another subject, willingly or not, because they don’t have the license to do so. The women can be moved around at any time, and they have been.
At the end of last year, I requested, for the eighteenth time, to teach Social Studies. But this time, I’d been in a leadership position for two years and, in that time, I found my voice. I fished it out of the depths, dragging up a piece of who I used to be, before I’d been disparaged as outspoken and opinionated as a teenager, before I’d consistently put pleasantry ahead of passion.
I cast off the timeworn adage of “be grateful you have a job at all” and said what I wanted, several times. It felt like yelling, or begging. It felt ugly, perhaps because our society says a woman can either be passionate or likable, but never both.
It also felt justified. It felt powerful. Did I not have that voice before, or was it simply unheard?
Maybe both.
This year, I’m working for a woman in the principal position. I’ve never worked under a female principal. I may have categorized this woman as quiet and reserved based on her previous role as our vice principal. On our launch day, I was amazed to see the passion, the strength, and the empathy flowing from her on our first day back. She’s been given a voice that she didn’t previously have. She didn’t ask to lead, and some would say she was pushed into it, but she is making waves.
Watching her voice fill the room was inspiring.
Women around the world are using their powerful voices to rise up in injustice. Women in Iran are risking their lives for using their voices. I think of Palestinian women, Ukrainian women, Uighur women. Using my voice should be easy in comparison, but wasn’t for me. I feel ashamed of how I often weigh perception against passion.
Perhaps the media hype around “girl power summer” is performative, a casual nod from those who want to harness economic strength and nothing more. However, the women involved in these phenomenal summer moments are like the women around me and around the world; their voices are important. When they speak passionately, their power will not be dimmed. They’re here to make real change for all women, for the world.
A storm is brewing, ladies. Change is coming.
Beth’s 5 Favorite Things
Orange Shirt Day is September 30. This day is intended to recognize the harm of Indigenous Boarding Schools. While officially recognized by Canada, hundreds of thousands of Indigenous people in the USA were affected by the schools. Educate yourself and consider buying a shirt from an Indigenous company to bring awareness and real change to Indigenous policy in the United States.
Good for A Girl: A Woman Running in a Man’s World, by Lauren Fleshman. Required for anyone who is an athlete or loves someone who is an athlete, male or female. Part memoir, part research, it deals with the problem of treating male and female athletes with equality instead of equity.
Battle at Garden’s Gate, Greta Van Fleet: This is my ultimate power-up rock and roll album. It gives all the good vibes of the ballad era of Rock and Roll.
Trader Joe’s Crunchy Chili Onion: I can’t get enough. Add to tacos, eggs, grilled cheese sandwiches, burgers, etc. It’ll match energy with your spicy vibe.
Dr. Tung’s Dental Floss: Truly revolutionary. This dental floss expands as you floss and my gums have never felt better. Its cardamom flavor and plastic-free packaging are an added bonus.
With gratitude,
Beth Rasmussen
P.S. Beth’s earlier letter on teaching and when she wrote about making space for change.
