When I was in college, I was always in awe of my professors, and I have to say I was more in awe of my male professors.  When I looked at them, I saw these men with vast knowledge, vast training, vast skill, and they held the key to a world I wanted to step into.  This wasn't any kind of attraction, either, because all of my male professors looked like professors.  I never had a Brad Pitt amongst the Mr. Chips, not once.

When I looked at my female professors, I saw someone I could talk to.  Maybe not easily, but I knew I could go into an office hour and have a nice little chat about Milton or macaroni and cheese.  My awe was tempered by a knowing, and I assumed that this reaction was based on our shared gender and sex.

But what I know now is that my reaction was based on an inherent sexism.  I didn't take their position as a position of esteem or power.  I thought they'd done great, but so what, really?  I could be myself, act freely, and because I'm relatively sane, I didn't do anything any female professor complained about.  We all seemed to have a good time.

With male professors, I was a little more reticent, not wanting to look like the idiot who had ridiculous thoughts about literary interpretation.  With the professor who became my thesis adviser, I managed to pull out a few quips.

"Wallace Stevens was manic depressive," he said.  "I don't like all of his work."

"You like half," I said.

But it was really all business, and I never discussed macaroni and cheese.

As a female professor now, I realize that my students treat me differently because of this inherent sexism, because I am a woman.  My students ask me about my hair, my clothes, my life.  My male students certainly act differently with me than they do with my male colleagues; the deference I noted in myself, I see in them as well.

Last week, a student and I started up a slightly heated conversation, which led to him putting his hand on me.

Can you imagine?

We have a student code of conduct on our campus, and we have the right to maintain an orderly classroom, one where students do not disturb the flow of instruction.  When students do, we can ask them to leave, following a suspension process that involves the dean of student life.

But how do we monitor this more subtle behavior, the disregard that students give us based on gender and sex?

The student who touched me ended up in the system, the process of which is not quite complete.  I've had to enact this process before.  Eight years ago, one student was really angry with my criticism of a short story (I told him one line was clichéd), and lambasted me in an email in an ugly way.  He'd come to my class after having rolled over one of my female colleagues, and just a year ago, I saw his space on a myspace page (in it, he criticized the work I've done.  Clearly, he is not over the incident yet!) .  He talked about how he'd owned the professor before me, owing her class.  I hadn't let him do that, and he'd fought back in a way I don't think he would have with a man.  But he didn't take a male professor.  No, he stuck with us girls.

I don't know what the answer is, but I do think that many of us ignore sexism as we have so many more isms to deal with these days.  Sexism almost seems like a thing of the past until a student stands up in the middle of class.  Until a student asks if you got your hair cut.  Until a student puts his full hand on your shoulder.

Jessica