On Equality
By KAYLA MATHIEU ‘21
As I sat in my biology class, I listened to the girl sitting next to me stressing over her upcoming engineering quiz. Stunned to hear that Milton even offered engineering courses, I asked her what the male-to-female ratio was in the class, thinking that women in STEM at Milton had come a little bit further than women in STEM in the “real” world. She responded that there were two girls in the class and at least ten boys. At that point, I realized that I have mistakenly idolized Milton as an ideal bubble in which inequality is not a severe problem.
Upon thinking more about my classmate's experience in her engineering class, I began to think about other fields in which girls are at a great disadvantage at Milton. I realized that this inequality was much more prevalent than I had initially noticed. I recall girls being scared away from investment club or debate team meetings, intimidated by the male dominated environment. But I realized that this epidemic of female intimidation wasn’t confined to a club or classroom setting; the epidemic courses through Milton as part of its everyday culture. It’s in the upperclassmen section of the STU, where a girl is afraid to walk through the group of massive boys; it’s in the gym, where a female athlete is afraid to workout because of the tradition of boys yelling at one another to get weights up. Now, I would like to be extremely clear about something. The purpose of this article is not to blame one sex or the other; it is simply to emphasize that every single person in the Milton community has become too comfortable with our current culture. This comfort is not merely limited to the culture of female intimidation, but also to the way we have become accustomed to certain norms within the Milton community, such as what it means to be a part of the conservative club, what kinds of people participate in school musicals, who sits in the “back corner” of the sophomore section, and many others. These communal understandings of our microcosms that contribute to building a divisive culture that has become part of our everyday lives at Milton.
As a community, we must hold each other accountable for these toxic normalities. Taking action in a school setting is an important way to start nipping toxic habits in the bud. Milton is more than just a place where we learn megablunders and geometry; it is a place where we develop habits and establish social norms that we will carry for the rest of our lives. As such, it is vital that we demand each other not to be content with our current social norms, but to improve the way we interact with each other, starting by acknowledging this toxic culture.