Post Type: Short Excerpt
Wow, it's been so long since I've updated!
Ever since hiding this blog from google search engine (due to professional 'needs'), and having started my new "happy" blog, I haven't written any reflection here.
But actually, that above is just an excuse for me being lazy.
As most of my friends know, I spend hours and hours reading 'useless' garbage on the internet. Notably, newspaper and research articles on psychology and other social science topics that are of my interest. Moreover, searching for 'a definite truth' in this increasingly complex world that I am perceiving.
So, I've been reading again.
The last time I read for 8 hours straight was on the migrant-worker/refugee crisis, and obviously related debates.
This time was that talking to a colleague earlier had inspired me to read and research on the Pygmalion effect - the self-fulling prophecy of higher expectation leading to better outcome. Yet somehow that reading metamorphed to feminist thoughts: are there research showing that girls achieve higher than boys in school? If so, why do women not achieve at the top level in their careers as males? Is it a result of their upbringings of people from that generation? If so, then we should see a major turnaround in my generation right? Women and men in equal power, taking on careers based on interest and ability... In fact, what does it mean to be a woman?
I have always been a "tomboy" growing up, with the word 'tomboy' being the definition of 'a girl who acts like a boy' of course. One such characteristic that makes me more boy-ish is obvious: I value overt rebellion well over discipline. I LOVE showing off and I LOVE competition over collaboration. I enjoy being a lone wolf, and pride myself most when I am BETTER at something than other people. These characteristics, as I read from research papers, are largely attributed to young boys and the competitive nature of male in general. Thus also a reason for boys having much more behavioural problems in school and being disorganized, cramming for tests, and achieving lowly regularly but perform beyond expectation than girls in one-shot tests or exams.
Welp, I was behaved poorly, had a 5 minute attention span, always blurting out answers, near ADHD level walking around the classroom, talking to classmates and interrupting. In grades 9-11 I was drawing manga in every single class that I didn't like and outright rebelled against teacher who told me to listen (put away the sketch book and keep drawing a minute later after the teacher isn't looking). I rarely did a lick of homework, skipped nearly a quarter of total classes, and my grades from grade 9-grade 11 hovered barely above 80 percent overall. Academically achieving was not associated with me - cute and enthusiastic was. Every sheet of handout I got, if didn't go in the garbage, went somewhere tucked between my textbooks or in the depth of my backpack along with rotten bananas. I showered every 3 days or so, and was late to first period 45/87 classes in a year. Planners were brand new from the day school started until the day school finished. I was not interested in love relationships at all.
Nothing outside of school mishaps though. But only because I didn't have exposure.
Then my average in grade 12 was 95. Even my math teachers did not know I was actually aptitude-wise top of the class in mathematics (my marks were at about top 10 in an average academic class - high 80s, low 90s) until I decided to take an interest in math contests in grade 10 and did much better than all classmates who were getting similar if not better grades than me in an average math class.
I LOVED math contests. Because it gave me the bragging right to tell my classmates who were getting 90s that, I'm smarter than you (yes, being good at math is perceived as smart), and yet I don't have to work for it. Rebellious against the system! Aw yea! Point for show off! Aside from that, I hardly did any reading and talked like an uneducated nutbrain and dropped the f-bomb every other word when I am with my "bros", cuz it was cool to talk like that.
So, all the above traits would net me the identity "boy"
Or does the above traits make me really, a girl?
Or is it just me being me?
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Now I am working. I am curious and aggressive - perceived as sharp and ambitious if I was a man (except that I am a small Asian girl), as I did a student. And I am sometimes, an ass.
I teach computing technology, the most tech-savvy subject in the school. Tech is an area commonly associated with men.
Also, I found something that interested me. I looked at many notable international schools and the international education circuit in general (for the best paying job in a best possible teaching environment with room to grow my career of course, as is the defining characteristic of a career-ambitious man), and I noticed that largely across these 'international' schools, leadership team are dominated by men. But women make up much more of the teaching force.
Oh why oh why?
What happened to women who were ambitious and wanted to streamline their career to lead?
At least according to this Harvard Business Review article, for the highly intelligent workforce, women don't deny themselves out of senior leadership because of valuing family over career.
I certainly wouldn't. And I'm not even highly intelligent.
Is it ironic that I am a 23 year old little girl and I happen to be THE computing/IT-tech teacher and the most computing-proficient person (note, this doesn't just refer to basic IT skills where you could look up on the internet, this refers to programming and related computing knowledge) in the school where nearly everyone in IT/technology/design are men?
Well. Let's change the above last sentence "[...] in the school where nearly everyone in IT/technology/design are HUMAN?"
Hmmm, well I'm human too. So now there's no irony to my existence.
So then where is this idea of 'something associated with men' and 'something associated with women' coming from?
In fact, where is this idea of 'men' and 'women' coming from other than our biological features, i.e. genitals?
Suddenly I understand some of my friends in computer science and their single-minded advocacy for feminism in the tech world (alongside with the other hot topic of mental-health awareness).
It is so important!
It is so important because there shouldn't ever even have been such word as 'feminism'. Why is there no word called 'masculinism'? (I got a red underline for bad spelling as I typed the word)
Why aren't massive number of brilliant, perceptive, empathetic, and decisive female teachers that inspires students day in day out in the classroom overtaking the men in leadership positions, who run a top-notch international school and earns respect like a business corporation CEO?!
They can be much better CEOs of this these large corporations under the industry of 'education'!
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I aggressively mess around with technology available to me in the school so it works my way, to my heart's content. Technology doesn't control me, I control it.
I code, I hack, I play video games, I design curriculum, I double up on my extracurricular activities. I aggressively seek increase my influence in this very young school.
And I preach to my students there are no such concept as men and women, especially not when it comes to using the concept to define their career choice.
And I'm exploring life.
If I do stay in the teaching circuit, my appetite is big.
The globe is my job market.
"I'm gonna to go Harvard and I'm gonna be the founder/CEO one day of one of these large teaching corporations," as I'd like to say - as soon as I get myself to the distribution center to grab some beer like a true bro, since I just got my residence permit today :)
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