“Man, don’t touch people like that”

[Adam Ross]

TW: I use the nouns “female and male” throughout this blog post. My intention is never to offend anyone. I only use these nouns because “men and women” sounded patronizing, “girls and boys” sounded infantilizing, and “female identifying student” is long and also not necessarily correct because I’ve never been told anyone in the ASC’s gender identity. All genders are genders which I perceive and it’s totally possible I’ve misgendered people, although I hope I haven’t.

I observe that a lot of the male students put off work for longer than the female students, the female students are self-motivated and start their work right when they come in. Male and female students seem to put off work in different ways. Whereas males have been lazier and around half of them typically go on their phones right when they come in, not even opening their homework, all of the females I observe open up their homework and start to do it when they come in, although some of them get distracted and take out their phones. Females who are distracted in my experience seem more likely to hide their phones when I come around, or move their work around to pretend like they are busy, whereas males are more assertive in their right to not work on homework. The male attitude towards distraction is much more like “Yeah, this is how I’m choosing to spend my time, you can talk to me or leave me alone, I’m not doing homework this period” whereas the female attitude is much more respectful of the expectations of the space. I see this as a parallel to Gilligan’s discussion of female morality. On page 7 of In a Different Voice Gilligan writes, “The essence of the moral decision is the exercise of choice and the willingness to accept responsibility for that choice. To the extent that women perceive themselves as having no choice, they correspondingly excuse themselves from the responsibility that decision entails” which I see going on compared with the male students (Gilligan, Pg 7). Whereas males see the choice to do work or go on their phones in the ASC and are willing to deal with the negative and positive consequences of each, females seem to feel that they have no choice but to try to do work while they are in the ASC.

In situations where students have asked me for help, things seem gender-balanced. There are equal numbers of male and female students, they ask me for help at around the same frequencies and in the same frequencies of different subjects. So far, I haven’t seen any differences in academic preferences between males and females, everyone who comes to me tells me they like English or history better than science or math. There is a calm space in the Academic Support Center that I have only ever seen one or two females use, but never a male.

My own education experience has probably been influenced by the same factors as the males in the ASC, I would say my attitude would have been similar to the more distracted of them in high school. I think in college, especially being at Carleton where to attend is an enormous privilege, my attitude has shifted to be like the female students at the ASC. Whereas in high school I put off too much work in favor of goofing off, putting off work at Carleton feels like I am breaking a social contract that I made when I enrolled, that I would fill my time completely with worthwhile things and be the most diligent student I could be.
One thing I am proud of the way I handled this past week, was when I saw a student act unusually hyper, and then bully another student. There’s one student I’ve worked with a fair amount that I have seen has a really active sense of humor, let’s call him Mitch. Mitch is always trying to make other students laugh by “doing a bit” or acting in some strange way. People generally seem to find Mitch benign and funny, so I had never seen an incident turn bad with Mitch. This past Tuesday, Mitch was much more hyper than usual. He was with a friend and the two of them seemed to be reinforcing each other and being disruptive, but when I was near them they were a bit more respectful. Mitch told me he had a test the next day on the Periodic Table, so I worked with him to study for it. This distracted him from being funny and I could tell he was appreciative that I sat with him.

After the bell rang and as people were shuffling around to leave, Mitch got up and headed towards another friend to talk. This other friend was standing next to a boy who was quietly reading in a chair. Like I said, Mitch was acting a little different this day, so I went over to make sure everything was okay. Mitch was bouncing around as he was talking to the two other boys, and repeating the boy in the chair’s name. “A-LEX, A-LEX, A-LEX”, he kept on saying. I asked, “ahh. Okay so your name is Alex?” to try and intervene by drawing attention away from Mitch. I felt that Mitch would have stopped if people were not looking at him, and putting myself in Alex’s shoes I would have wanted Mitch to stop saying my name. Mitch grabbed Alex’s arm and said, “Alex you have to tell me about that book, what book are you reading?” and Alex cowered in. I faced Mitch and said firmly, “Man, don’t touch people like that.” I think there’s a time and a place for conversation about how there are multiple ways to touch people, but it’s a slippery slope and just because you don’t see anything wrong with something doesn’t mean the other person consents, and you should think assess whether they’ve shown you consent before you do something, but I felt that something quick and that gets the point across would do best in this situation. Mitch took his hand off Alex, and said goodbye, walked over to other people. He didn’t learn to assess whether different cases of touching are appropriate, but he did seem to recognize that he shouldn’t have done what he did, and he was a little embarrassed by it. Not all bullying comes from a place of hatred, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be met with quick and public discipline.

[Sophia Maag]

Adam, your response really brings me back to my high school days! I think your observation about how males were more assertive in using their phones than females was interesting. It’s as if the females know they shouldn’t be on their phones and want to hide their disobedience in the pretense that they’re doing their work, whereas the males just don’t care. It seems like this fits the general stereotype that females care more about school than males. Although I noticed this difference in phone usage/distractions in high school, too, I never thought why it could be. I also found your intervention into the Alex situation quite interesting. Your response “Man..” seems very “male” to me, but I appreciated your explanation of why you chose to intervene like that instead of taking time to explain why he should touch the other student without asking. I wonder if Mitch would have responded differently (perhaps worse?) if you had said something else or if a female had said something instead of you.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by Sophia Maag.

[Izzy Charlton]

Adam, I have noticed extremely similar patterns in the high school students I observe as well. The male students tend to be very blatant about the fact that they are not going to do any work, while female students tend to act busy and avoid attention. I like that you made this distinction, because every single student does put off work in some ways. It can be too easy to generalize statements like “male students do less work” or are “lazier,” when in fact it is just a matter of how they present themselves. Students that are more blatant about their refusal to do work will get more attention, but that doesn’t mean that they are the only ones off task. It can be hard to determine when quieter students need help or need to refocus. I also really liked the way you handled the Mitch/Alex situation. Your casual language still had a firm tone to it. Sometimes, a lecture about consent and touch is not going to be your best option. I think your choice was a good one, as you let Mitch know that what he did was not acceptable in one simple, yet effective sentence: “Man, don’t touch people like that.” You got the message across and I hope that message sticks with him for the future.

[Adam Ross]

LOL this all reminds me of the Drake and Josh episode where Drake and Josh are actors in a burglary reenactment, and everyone is so amazed by Drake’s one line  

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