Given the hundreds of women running for Congress in the midterm elections and the Dems' recent upsets in recent special elections, a “blue wave” is expected to wash away the Republican majority. But maybe not. First-time candidate Amy McGrath of Kentucky, a retired Marine fighter pilot and mother of three, told The Guardian that she's getting push-backs from voters and they're not men.
A woman's place is in the home
McGrath told of a female voter warning her that she couldn't vote for a mother of three. That her job is at home, not in Congress. Odd, isn't it: you don't hear that same concern when women work as teachers, and there are a lot of them.
The Association of American Educators notes a clear female majority in the profession, and its been that way for a very long time. Does anyone think that working in Congress is more demanding than teaching? One is hard work and the other isn't. Guess which is which?
Another distorted view
And speaking of a jaundiced eye, what's up with the illiberality toward those who teach art? Have you ever noticed that while headlines about sex offenders abound in all lines of work, the screamers about teachers who abuse their students get very specific when it comes to the subject they teach? Here's a typical caption that ran on Yahoo news just this month: “High School Art Teacher, 31, Accused of Sexually Assaulting a Student.” Or this from the Washington Post: “Police say Art Teacher had sex with four students.” In the interest of transparency, I used to be an art teacher so I may be overly sensitive here, but when faculty in other subjects – say, math or social studies -- are accused of a sex crime, their area of specialization doesn't necessarily show up in the headlines.
Why is that, do you think?
Playing to the crowd
My guess? Headlines about sexually aggressive art teachers pack the bigger wallop than those, say, about home-economics teachers. It's as if the media plays off the popular notion that artists are wanton. That said, I rush to say that none of my objections to what I see as slanted media coverage are to say that art teachers who violate students shouldn't be pilloried, hung in the public square.
More twists of the truth
Probably the most famous art teacher who sexually abused a student was Agostino Tassi in 17th century Rome when he raped his teenage pupil Artemesia Gentileschi. Her father pursued a legal case against him and Tassi was kicked out of the city. Inexplicably, though, his crime was whitewashed in the 1997 biopic film of the artist's life, “Artemsia,” which portrayed the rape as consensual sex between lovers. And to add to the weirdness, the movie was made by a woman. Cleaning up a dirty story is no better than trying to make it dirtier than it already is.
