In order to complete the Level 2 Cultural Humanities Tutor Training here at UNE, I listened and participated during a Training meeting with Allison Neeland. There were many other tutors there for the training, from math classes to Portland Graduate classes. The second part of the training was to go to an event on culture, diversity, bias and/or equity and connect it to the presentation as well as our own personal tutoring abilities. The event that I attended was the Women and Activism 2021, A Conversation About Leadership, Courage, Accountability, Equality, and Hope.
This event was focused around the activism of women in today’s society, what is lacking from our current take on situations and how we can be more aware of those around us. I related a lot to some of the women on the panel, as I am not only a tutor but also on the Women’s Lacrosse team here at UNE. The conversations about how women are paid less in sports, as well as that we get less media attention than ale athletes is something that I have known for a while.
However, panelist Alyssa Ehrenfried opened up my eyes to more of the intersectionality that happens in women’s activism. Alyssa is on the women’s rugby team and is also a woman of color. She opened up my eyes to see how race can affect people of color, as she mentioned that sometimes in high school she played softball and she had felt as though people didn’t look at her for her skill on the field, but that she could be used to show diversity. She went on to explain that on the UNE Women’s rugby team it’s a little different, as there are more people of color on the team than any other on campus and she knows that she’s there because she can play rugby well.
This opened up a topic of discussion on intersectionality between women in sports and women of different races, as many of the other women on the panel have been primarily focused on “white women issues” such as abortion. It’s opened up my eyes to see that intersectionality is extremely important, and that as women, we need to look out for all women, not just the issues that benefit ourselves.
I can apply what I have learned to tutoring by being more open to listening to students and knowing that their struggles will not always be the same as mine. I’ve never always had to look at the fact that I am a female athlete, however I have never had to worry about my race or why Coaches wanted me on their teams. It’s good to know and really understand that people have struggles that are not the same as mine, even if we do relate in certain ways.
Another topic that was brought up in discussion was the LGBTQ+ community. This was touched upon in the sense that certain sports, such as softball, have been deemed the “lesbian” sport. It brought up stigmas that women didn’t want to play the sport because they didn’t want to be seen as gay. Having played softball as a young girl, I grew out of it quickly and wasn’t introduced to this idea until high school when I heard some girls using slurs against themselves of looking gay. I now know that this stigma is still around, and am aware that there are stigmas for other things that I need to look out for.
This is a concept I can bring into my tutoring ability to stop negative connotations from forming. I know now that I need to be mindful of not only those who look different from me, but also those who look like me as well as there are students that I work with who will belong to the LGTBQ+ community. I think that overall, this meeting opened my eyes to a lot of different cultural aspects that I otherwise wouldn’t have known if I were to solely go to the meeting without having a specific outlook on what to focus on during the event.
