"Oh, she's kind of ugly."
In these days of daily Zoom calls (and appropriately also the day that analyst Jeffrey Toobin was suspended from the New Yorker for masturbating while on a video conference), it seems like today is the perfect day for what just happened.
I'm teaching entirely online this semester. (Next semester, barring Covid shutting down the whole campus, I'm teaching 1/2 online and 1/2 in the classroom.) As we've switched to an 8 week block system for at least the duration of the pandemic (and that's whole other story but man I hope this doesn't stick), we've just finished up the first fall block courses and started the second. I'm teaching the same course that I taught in block 1, so I made some changes to better help students based on what I saw happen in block 1. One of the things I implemented was the requirement for every student to come to my virtual office hours this week, just to introduce themselves and so that they're comfortable with office hours later in the semester if/when they need it. (Almost no one used my office hours in block 1, or did only at the course's end, and then commented on how much they wish they'd spoken with me sooner about assignments and things.)
Today a student who has so far been exemplary signed in to Zoom. Apparently he didn't know that his mic was on, even though his video was off. (I assume he thought the two are connected, but they're not.) So he spent the first few minutes of his being in the Zoom room talking on the phone to someone else. That part's fine if something of a waste of my time. The part that isn't fine? Is when he said to the person on the phone "Oh she's kind of ugly" once my camera turned on.
Look, I can mouth the platitudes about beauty not being everything all day long, just like anyone else. But after months of seeing myself on Zoom, and of gaining weight (thanks pandemic and lack of self-restraint when it comes to sweets), my opinion of my attractiveness is at an all time low. (There's something about seeing myself in Zoom rather than a mirror that just highlights all the flaws that I've spent decades overlooking.)
It's not the student's fault. Was it rude? Sure, but the student is probably 18 and certainly didn't mean for me to hear. But it was an unpleasant reminder that the world judges us, especially women, on looks, and mine have always been lacking.
I don't need-- or frankly want-- my students to find me attractive. (That'd be gross.) But I'd like for them to not judge me based on appearance and preferably not remind me that most of the rest of the world agrees with them. (It's awfully hard to say looks don't matter when you're single at 41.)
So, I dunno, let this be a lesson to you to always be sure your mic is muted when you don't want someone on Zoom to hear you disparage her. I have abandoned LJ, alas. Find me, comment to me, on DW, please!
I'm teaching entirely online this semester. (Next semester, barring Covid shutting down the whole campus, I'm teaching 1/2 online and 1/2 in the classroom.) As we've switched to an 8 week block system for at least the duration of the pandemic (and that's whole other story but man I hope this doesn't stick), we've just finished up the first fall block courses and started the second. I'm teaching the same course that I taught in block 1, so I made some changes to better help students based on what I saw happen in block 1. One of the things I implemented was the requirement for every student to come to my virtual office hours this week, just to introduce themselves and so that they're comfortable with office hours later in the semester if/when they need it. (Almost no one used my office hours in block 1, or did only at the course's end, and then commented on how much they wish they'd spoken with me sooner about assignments and things.)
Today a student who has so far been exemplary signed in to Zoom. Apparently he didn't know that his mic was on, even though his video was off. (I assume he thought the two are connected, but they're not.) So he spent the first few minutes of his being in the Zoom room talking on the phone to someone else. That part's fine if something of a waste of my time. The part that isn't fine? Is when he said to the person on the phone "Oh she's kind of ugly" once my camera turned on.
Look, I can mouth the platitudes about beauty not being everything all day long, just like anyone else. But after months of seeing myself on Zoom, and of gaining weight (thanks pandemic and lack of self-restraint when it comes to sweets), my opinion of my attractiveness is at an all time low. (There's something about seeing myself in Zoom rather than a mirror that just highlights all the flaws that I've spent decades overlooking.)
It's not the student's fault. Was it rude? Sure, but the student is probably 18 and certainly didn't mean for me to hear. But it was an unpleasant reminder that the world judges us, especially women, on looks, and mine have always been lacking.
I don't need-- or frankly want-- my students to find me attractive. (That'd be gross.) But I'd like for them to not judge me based on appearance and preferably not remind me that most of the rest of the world agrees with them. (It's awfully hard to say looks don't matter when you're single at 41.)
So, I dunno, let this be a lesson to you to always be sure your mic is muted when you don't want someone on Zoom to hear you disparage her. I have abandoned LJ, alas. Find me, comment to me, on DW, please!