My grandma tells me that she would have gone to law school, if it had been an option for her. She went to the free city college instead and became a secretary and excellent typist (if you want to see my grandma laugh until she cries, play her this video over and over).

Everyone has favorite stories, and I think about my grandma’s. The year before kindergarten, she would fold her picture books under her arm and walk to the neighborhood school with the older kids; that’s how excited she was to be a student.

Another one: My family took baby-me to Washington D.C. and when we got to the hotel, they told us that, despite the reservation, all the cribs were taken. My parents tried to work it out but there was an impasse at the check-in counter until my grandma leaned in and told the hotelier, “Well, I guess you’ll have to go out and buy her a crib.” After that, they were able to find something for me.

When I want to advocate for something I channel my dad, who once just sat in a person’s office and frowned at him until he started taking the action my dad was looking for, but I know that in fact he channels his mother’s frown. My grandma is in general a wonderfully pleasant person, but she knows how to argue on her family’s behalf. It’s obvious she could have been a great lawyer.

The fact that she didn’t have that opportunity didn’t ruin my grandma’s life - she is awesome anyway - but it means that people missed out on the chance to be represented by her.

A few weeks ago, a colleague came up to me and said, “So, you really don’t like sexism, huh?” He asked me if I was a classical music fan, and when I said no he still told me the story of Robert Schumann, a 19th-century composer who married another composer named Clara. He told her to stop composing once they married, but according to my colleague some of Robert’s best work included pieces of Clara’s compositions. “Just think of the beautiful music we will never get to hear,” he told me.

I care about educational equity out of compassion for the students who are not getting the experiences and chances at success they deserve, but also out of selfishness. When we don’t universally develop critical thinking in children, when we avoid conceptual understanding in favor of quick algorithms, when we stomp out creativity in favor of docility, when we rely on outdated textbooks and overstuffed classrooms and undersupported teachers, we rob ourselves. We lose a doctor who could innovate treatment, an entrepreneur who fills a hole we lack the vision to see, the poet who might give us just the shift in view we were waiting for.

I recently moved to a new neighborhood in which cat-calling is much more prevalent than it was in any of my past neighborhoods. The walk-by comments are generally ‘complimentary’ and not especially vulgar. I’m a little bit surprised by how much I hate it. First off, I should make it clear that I’m a pretty friendly person and generally enjoy talking to strangers:

• The other day, a student from my alma mater called asking for money for the alumni fund, and I ended up chatting for ten minutes about her hopes and worries for her life after graduation.
• I recently had a long conversation with the cashier at my local bagel shop in which we discussed his love and my hatred of football and he reanalyzed my formative experience with the wretched sport (his read: it was all about cooties).
• Soon after I moved in, I was walking down the block and a lady wanted to know my thoughts on a set of rotating lights in the sky. I thought it was a helicopter; she was sure it was a UFO (she had done a lot of research on YouTube).

All of these interactions brought me joy, so why does cat-calling feel so different?

1. I love having interesting conversations with people. With these men, I am being called at. I am not a subject, worthy of co-engagement, I am just an object to be commented on.
2. It reminds me a little of when I am traveling, and I end up at a religious site without planning on it, and with raised eyebrows I am given a schmatteh to throw over my shoulders because my sleeves are too short. Or I find myself in a traditional neighborhood, and I worry about being yelled at. It feels hostile, and I feel like I don’t belong there. The ultra-Orthodox seem to own the Western Wall - it is THEIR place, and I am just an awkward visitor - and the same feels true when these men stand on the corner and call out to me: the street is theirs, and being talked at is my toll for walking to the grocery store.
3. I feel ashamed. Intellectually, I know that walking down the block in a dress is nothing to be ashamed of. But when men yell out to me on the street, my automatic reaction is to hunch down a little, and assume I’m doing something wrong, something to ask for it.

To me, positive stranger engagement is all about expanding our sense of community. However ephemeral, we are forging a connection with the other, welcoming each other into little bits of our worlds. Cat-calling has the opposite effect: even when I’m being called an angel, all I want to do is fly away.

- Sady Doyle

As a teacher, my (traditionally female) profession often seems to demand selflessness, and I have also unreasonably expected it of myself. This take-down is so on target. I would also add that during my most ‘selfless’ summer, my “unhealthy and unhappy life” made me less able to best serve the kids I was trying to be selfless for.

I have never had a problem advocating for the needs of others. During that sadly selfless summer, my dad told me that if I would stand up for someone in my position, then I need to stand up for myself. I have used that idea to guide me toward self-advocacy, but I know it’s ridiculous that I need to think that way at all. Shouldn’t I automatically know that I deserve to be treated right, by others and by myself? This time, Patriarchy has made strange bedfellows with the do-gooder world (in cahoots more often than you would think) to teach me that my needs don’t matter. Thanks buddies!

I’ll give you three guesses for the context of this quote.

1. Nope, it’s not Tucker Max trying to express classy interests.
2. Good try, but it is in fact not a creepy old man on the Home Shopping Network.
3. What’s that you say? A New York Times special section on children’s books? You got it! Such a logical guess, as this is a totally appropriate use of space in a literally four-sentence review of a book connecting bicycles with women’s rights. Thank you so much Patriarchy - I’m not sure what I would do if I could read about a book intended for fifth-grade girls without being reminded how diverting lady-ogling can be! If it weren’t for you reminding me that women on bicycles serve to be attractive, I might have to actually think about the impressive and inspirational actions of the women profiled in the book!

(Disturbing review notwithstanding, WHEELS OF CHANGE: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way) does look like an awesome read.)