For my entire life, I've struggled with what peers think of me in the classroom. Obviously, I also care about what teachers think, but teachers see the work that I do, so my participation in the classroom is less indicative of who I am as a student for them. My peers, however, have no idea how well I actually do in the class and have no perception of my intelligence other than my participation in the class. I realize that this makes me a nerd to care so much about how peers perceive my intelligence, but being smart has always been “my thing."
In elementary school, it was easy, because you were in class all day long with the same people you had grown up with. Your status of being smart was determined early and carried with you throughout your elementary and middle school career. In high school, this concept got a little trickier.
In high school, unlike middle school, I became very self-conscious of being a “teacher’s pet” or a “know-it-all," so my participation in class waned somewhat. However, in high school, it was still fairly easy to maintain some status of being smart based solely on the classes you take: honors and college credit classes.
Enter College. Where nobody knows anybody from Adam and everyone is in the same slew of classes, none of which determine how smart any other person is. The only way you know anything about another person’s intelligence is from the comments they make in class (or what they say in conversations outside of class). It was here that I really began to question how others perceived me: did they think I was smart? The answer I always came up with was no. They probably didn’t. Why did I think that, though? Obviously, it sounds like a low self-esteem, which I won’t completely deny, but I can’t help but feel it goes much deeper than that. Why do I feel so strongly that I prove my intelligence to others?
I propose that it is because I am a woman. I realize so many will stop reading here, thinking I am using my woman-ness as an excuse for something I feel I fail in, or just out of fear of feminism. But, honestly, I would bet most, if not all, women my age (and throughout their entire lives) struggle with having to prove their intelligence—their self-worth—to others.
As a woman, I live with the fact that, every measure of my worth (such as, my intelligence) must be proven. My intelligence is not inherent or assumed the way it is with men. I must prove to others that I have intelligence by citing my education, my ACT scores, my GPA. And even then, I must prove it further through my words, my writings, and my thoughts.
To illustrate what I am saying, I’m going to provide a few interactions I had during an internship I did at a hospital the year before I started college. I had just decided to attend Saint Louis University instead of Washington University and found myself in another conversation with someone, explaining why I would choose SLU over the much higher ranked WashU. This particular conversation, which was with a male supervisor, began a little differently, though, then the one I had just had with my female supervisor. Before asking why I chose SLU, he questioned my acceptance into WashU.
“You got into WashU?” he asked. I nodded shyly.
“What did you get on your ACT?”
I told him and he responded with a surprised but impressed compliment which, at the time, I was immensely flattered by. Now, however, I imagine how the same conversation would’ve gone differently had I been a man. I also remember how he bragged to me about his son going to WashU, yet my own acceptance seemed rare and momentous.
I had several other conversations with men in this atmosphere where my aspirations (at the time, I wanted to study medicine) were always met with a condescending smile and nod. An expression that always left me irked with the way it disguised a sarcastic “Good luck” in what should’ve been a sincere “Good for you”. I knew even at the time that those remarks were unique to me because I was a woman. I just thought, however, that such sentiments were things I would face in the future when I entered the work field.
As a woman, this is something you learn to accept, and you prepare yourself to be strong and fight against them when you come. I didn’t realize, though, that these sentiments towards women started much earlier than when you enter the workforce. They start earlier than college, too. They have been ingrained in me since I started school with little boys and felt the need to prove myself—to prove to my teachers and peers that I am smart. As a woman, I am not born to be perceived with inherent intelligence. And I cannot pretend that being born without assumed intelligence means I am born neutral, neither intelligent nor not intelligent. I know very well that what is assumed for men, the opposite is assumed for women. That’s why when I ask myself the question: Do people think I am smart? I always answer with no.
