Much has been said about Ailee Slater's article in the Oregon Daily Emerald, including thoughtful comments on Dennis Jerz's weblog and Kairosnews. A generous, sympathetic reading of the column might emphasize Slater's obvious alienation from the university and interpret her virulence in that context. She is clearly troubled by the grading system, which exacerbates an already stressful environment that ranks and disciplines minds rather than nurturing them. She writes, for example:
perhaps a decrease of focus on grades will actually lead to more fair admission policies. Time not spent calculating grades could be used by teachers to write recommendations for the students who have truly shown the ability to work hard and be motivated to educate themselves.
That being said, she foregrounds the university-as-corporation, student-as-customer model ("If I'm paying someone to do my housekeeping, I'll be the one to tell the receiver of my hard-earned money exactly how well they did. Shouldn't it be the same with education?"), which hurts her ethos, and even worse, she comes across as being oblivious to and dismissive of considerable issues of privilege and access that affect student performance (my emphasis):
Students who work hardest would be surrounded by similarly ambitious and intelligent peers; as for teachers, their time could be spent concentrating on exceptional students who want to learn, rather than wasting resources grading the sub-par work of students who didn't care enough to do a good job in the first place.
I realize I'm preaching to the choir here, but: Some students are much more well-prepared for college than others. Students whose parents can afford, for example, music lessons, summer enrichment day camps, tutors, book-of-the-month clubs, private schools, computers, the internet, etc. and who have the leisure time necessary to take children to museums, to read to them, and to help with homework (which implies that the parents would need the necessary education to provide such help, which implies that they would likely have had access to similar resources) are better prepared for college, and their performance is more likely to be interpreted as "exceptional." I object to Slater's argument for those two reasons.
Now, I've been looking at the comment forum at the Oregon Daily Emerald, and one poster mentioned that Slater was getting ripped apart at Fark. I've only occasionally visited over there, and the times I have, I've enjoyed all the PhotoShopping fun. However, this time, I was troubled by some of the comments I read. I don't mean to single out Drew Curtis by any means; these comments could have been left in any forum, unfortunately. I've seen this before; one example that comes to mind is the comments at the ESPN.com forums when Linda Bensel-Meyers openly criticized the University of Tennessee's athletic program and the tutoring the athletes were receiving, claiming they weren't getting a proper education and that, basically, they were being treated like pieces of meat, a means to an end (revenue from ticket sales). "I bet she weighs at least two hundred and fifty pounds," one poster at ESPN.com said about Bensel-Meyers. These are only some of the comments about Slater:
"She was not accepted at the University of I'd Hit It.
/admissions officer"
"I was really hoping it would be one of the much cuter girls I met... I'll ask if they know this one. The creature that wrote this is pretty scary, not to mention inept."
"Please, this was my excuse in high school. College is the big leagues, biatch, come up with something better.
Also, we regret to inform this biatch that she was not accepted into U of I'd Hit It West, as well."
"I thought unattractive female college newspaper columnists only wrote about their sex lives. What gives?"
"That's OK, there's dozens of boobie bars that will be waiting for her after she drops out."
"From her pic, can we guess that she is not sleeping for her "A"s?"
"This chick redefines the meaning of fugly."
"Look at her face right now
What's that in her mouth?
Is it a big wad of gizz?
Yeah, i think so too."
Would comments about Slater's appearance and speculation about her sexual practices have been made had she been a man? Maybe, but I've seen them repeatedly over the years in reference to women (and yeah, I know I've only provided one other example, but perhaps others will point to more). Am I being a strident, knee-jerk feminist? It certainly wouldn't be the first time, probably not the last either. Should I just lighten up? Seriously, I really want to know.
