The Bell Jar

Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar remains one of my favorite novels – to read and to teach.  Published in 1963, just months before Plath’s suicide, the work is an autobiographically-based, witty account of female angst, depression and self-discovery.  Narrator Esther Greenwood is talented and smart, but feels pigeon-holed within the era’s gender roles and expectations.  Encouraged to succeed in college, yet given covert messages about the appropriateness of female ambition, Esther, understandably feels starved as she gazes upon the feast of her future potentiality.  Her dilemma?  If she chooses to have a career, it seems it will be at the expense of some future husband and/or children.  If she chooses to plan to be a wife and/or mother, she ultimately forfeits important career opportunities. 

This book always generates bountiful classroom discussion.  My students tell me that, in their eyes, things haven’t really changed!  Women are still “expected” to plan their careers around future children, families and husbands.  Men are still “expected” to shoulder the majority of the financial responsibilities.  Worse?  Women have a limited time frame to have children and that knowledge is like a time bomb that ticks ticks ticks.  Never mind that the young women haven’t even met someone they’d consider making a life with.  Never mind that they haven’t decided whether or not to have children – the awful social pressure is still there . . . and, like Esther, still threatens to smother their other career-based callings to affect humanity.

Perhaps this is one reason that women still make up only 3 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs and still account for only 16 percent of our elected political representatives.  Because of ancient gender expectations that women must be more responsible for the doings of all things connected to the home, even if they have a career, it is still harder for women than it is for men to pursue certain career paths – those that offer a lot of responsibility, not to mention a lot more money.

What are your thoughts?  Do women still feel this unspoken dilemma?  Do men? 

National Punctuation Day

I’m a bit behind, apparently, in wishing everyone Happy National Punctuation Day (which was Saturday).  What’s that?  Good question.  It’s only been on the books for six years, hasn’t become a Hallmark holiday yet, but might be worth exploring.  Punctuation Day creator Jeff Rubin, from California, said he started the day to instruct about the good manners of proper punctuation and to allow for venting of punctuation pet peeves.  His website is full of funny examples of wrongly punctuated statements, like a sign for a day care center called “Diane’s Play Pen for Little Genius’s.”  <Shudder> 

I remember one of my teachers asking our class, “Doesn’t anyone know anything about commas?  It looks like you grab a handful of them and throw them at your finished essays and where they land is where they land.”  Yes, I’m still traumatized!  J  (Which makes me wonder if perhaps I overuse exclamation marks, parenthesis, and/or emoticons and slash marks.)  Perhaps I should utilize a semi-colon or two instead of allowing fragments to “pepper” my work.  ;)  Ha!  (Sorry.)

What are your irritants?  Using quotations marks to connote irony?  Misplaced apostrophes?  Colons?  Dashes?  Hyphens used as dashes?  This is your moment to vent, my friends.  And, don’t worry if you use incorrect punctuation – I’m sure someone will be happy to correct you.

Up Up with Teachers

Me and Jan Williams, my high school homeroom teacher

In this day and age, when it’s fashionable to bash teachers as lazy, pampered over-paid drains on humanity, I’d like to offer a different perspective. Not because I’m a teacher myself. Not because I happen to be friends with or related to dozens of teachers (who also happen to be fine human beings). But, because I have been taught, mentored, guided and inspired . . . by teachers. And I’m sure you have, too.  

Let me tell you a story about one of those teachers – my high school homeroom teacher, Jan Williams. I entered high school with the usual fears and doubts of the young. My first contact was, of course, with Jan, who very soon put her young charges at ease. Her voice was soothing. She gave us information. And she seemed to care. After checking in every morning and afternoon with her for a year or so, I grew accustomed to her anchoring presence. I even decided to take a class from her. Listening to her talk about British Literature fanned the little embers of love for all things literature that were sparking in me. When I heard she was teaching a Psychology course (which at the time, was new stuff for high schoolers), I jumped at the chance to enroll. In the course, we read progressive books like The Feminist Mystique; I’m Okay, You’re Okay; and Transcendental Meditation. This grounded teacher conducted weekly group therapy sessions with her students which set me on the path to self-awareness and improvement.  

Not only did Jan teach well, she inspired and motivated me personally. I remember being at a conference with her and my mother. Jan asked me about my post-high school plans and I vaguely mentioned something about putting my newly-acquired typing skills to use as a secretary. Jan, gently, kindly, suggested that I think more broadly. She said something to the effect that someone with my abilities should go to college. It’s the first time I’d ever thought about college, but the idea, thankfully, took hold.  

Last semester, while teaching a chapter of The Feminine Mystique to my college students, I started telling them about when I had first read the book. I told them about my wonderful high school teacher and how she had such an impact on my life. Somewhere in that soliloquy, I realized I had never told Jan Williams those things, that I’d gone on and graduated from high school and hadn’t looked back. I ended up finding her, newly-retired from the same school district. I pumped up my courage and wrote an email to her, hoping she’d remember me, but happy just to let her know the impact she had had on my life as a teenager and for years to come.  

Happily, Jan read my email. And she was the same supportive, intelligent star. She answered me back and we began to correspond. She even came to my Shame the Devil book release event. She was happy to know that she’d made a difference, as any teacher is. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t told her earlier. It was so easy to do. And so right. 

So, now, as school starts, and with so many people looking for ways to judge and harass teachers, think about the teachers in your life who have helped you become who you are. And if you can, take the time to let them know just that.