Fifteen-time Emmy Award nominee and acclaimed improvisational theater troupe founder Amy Poehler was the only woman interviewed for an MTV.com article about improv comedy, titled “Steve Carell, Will Ferrell, Seth Rogen, Others Reveal Magic Behind Improv Comedy”.
Poehler is currently starring in “Parks and Recreation”, a heartwarming, female-led comedy about bureaucracy, love and everything in between. Seth Rogen is in the heat of controversy due to a movie making fun of North Korea. So why is she one of the “others”?
Advanced Placement European History, one of the highest-level and most challenging courses at the high school, has six female students out of 20. Down the hall, honors European Literature has 12 out of 14.
While the two are not of the same discipline, they do bear much in common: nightly reading, historical texts, papers and projects. So how come there is such a difference in gender ratio between the two?
My guess is representation. While AP Euro has covered several centuries already, they have not encountered nearly as many women as men in their studies. Perhaps this is because women were not allowed the same rights and opportunities as men until frighteningly recently.
In contrast, the novels studied in Euro Lit so far have featured at least two female characters per book. The books themselves are all male-written, as is the AP Euro textbook. So while female representation in Euro Lit is not exactly staggering, it is still a considerable jump from the bleak picture painted by history.
Obviously, the teachers are limited by the nature of the courses. Much of European history has been dominated by men, and this is not their fault, although both instructors happen to be male. I have not heard complaints from friends who are in AP Euro, either male or female. In fact, my friends rave about the course, and find ways to research and present issues that they are passionate about in their work for the class, including feminism.
The biggest problem I have heard about AP Euro is the amount of work given. An overwhelming amount of notes is the back-alley class description.
But why should that scare girls more than boys? Are we incapable of reading as much, as quickly or as comprehensively as our male counterparts? I highly doubt that. Euro Lit is essentially a course dedicated to reading. The difference is, as I see it, not so much the AP sticker as it is what lies within the books.
While the gender divide is a prevalent issue that I think should be discussed and solved, there are other pressing issues of representation that have not been touched on.
European history almost exclusively touches on issues concerning white males, so African-American and Asian-American students, for example, will rarely find themselves represented. Non-binary students’ genders are not discussed in almost any of their classes. Those issues are as prevalent and pressing as the gender divide, if not more.
Amy Poehler, while influential and inspiring, is perhaps not the most important woman of our time. She is, after all, an entertainer. While she does encourage and support women and girls avidly and with great success, through her acting work as well as her foundation, Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls, there are women who devote their lives to changing policy so no girl feels discouraged from taking a class.
Women such as Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren, women who are making it into our history books. Women who are exceptional in their intelligence, drive and perseverance; women who are, sadly, exceptional because they are of a minority.
Poehler’s field is not the only male-dominated one. In order to change that, girls need to feel encouraged to take challenging courses. Brookline rightfully prides itself on the opportunities offered in its schools. But no one should be discouraged from taking advantage of them.
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