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You Special Snowflake, You

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Byrne it Down

You’d think that those Diversity Arches of 2005 would have vaporized the last scraps of intolerance blotting our otherwise morally superior campus. After I walked through them, all I could think about were puppies and giggles and a giant interfaith prayer circle made of men and women of every color of the flesh-toned rainbow.

But maybe that’s the problem. There is one issue that the political correctness proponents didn’t incorporate into the Diversity Arch voodoo, despite its mention in the University’s “Diversity Goals.” That is the issue of social class.

One day, early in the fall semester, I had the good fortune to be walking within earshot of a Cornell Pontificator. The Pontificator, using the most pronounced of diction and choicest of words, was ruminating on the plight of the working class — the working class being the poor bastards who never go to college and so become patsies for the wilier bourgeoisie. Yes, Pontificator continued, children without college-educated parents will be seduced by the bright colors and false claims of consumer society and sucked into the quagmire of materialism and daytime television.

Two sentences into this bombast, I began to think of my fireman father and stay-at-home mother who, though both college-educated, fit into Pontificator’s portrait of the non-professional, victimized masses whose only defense lies in the benevolent scholarship of the Ivy elite.

A more sophisticated person might have managed a, “Pardon me, but I couldn’t help overhearing,” and argued eloquently for the existence of intellect independent of education and blah, blah, blah.

True to my brutish upbringing, I opted instead for a “punch first, write columns later” M.O. I edited out the first part because I was wearing flip flops and would not have made a clean getaway, and so here we are.

Now, I hear these sorts of comments all the time — snobby little put-downs of Middle America, pompous little assumptions of class superiority. But where are the P.C.-proponents when it comes time to parlay my outrage into political taboo?

Since I came to Cornell, I’ve had three or four professors take issue with my use of the following words: man, mankind, chairman, fireman. In other words, any time I use “man” in a context not referring to a single being of the male gender. I had always assumed that in these cases “man” was gender neutral, and felt smug when author Robert Hughes, bless his heart, confirmed my suspicion with his analysis of the Old English: “The suffix —man was gender-neutral,” he writes. “To denote gender, it had to be qualified: a male was called a waepman, a female a wifman.” So what gives? Why do professors insist on making me skittish of innocuous words and force awkward constructions like, “The chairperson worked diligently for the benefit of humankind?”

I never knew how oppressed I was until I went to college — a porcelain ballerina set to shatter under the force of male dominance, the very language I speak fraught with danger to my psyche. But at the same time, this alleged victimization gives me status. I have an entire Resource Center to hold my hand and tell me I’m a special snowflake based solely on my gender. I can shame people into altering their vocabularies and blame all sorts of things on gender bias. Cushy.

This is not to say that institutionalized sexism does not exist — that is where the distinction between theorizing and observing comes in. The “glass ceiling,” the hundreds of years of second-class status for women in the United States — these are things that are observed, reported, and ideally, remedied. It is the theorizing that gets sticky.

In addition to the old standbys of eating disorders and sexual assault, the Cornell Women’s Resource Center Handbook — which could also be titled, “How To Live: For Women” — includes discussions of academic and campus life. In one chapter, the guide cautions that “Despite the University’s claims of gender equity, Cornell women may encounter subtle barriers attributable to sexism.” “Attributable” leaves a lot of room for interpretation. The overwhelming majority of men in the School of Engineering could be attributed to the way the cookie crumbles. It also could be attributed to sexism. Maybe Happy Dave at Okenshields didn’t tap my card because he forgot to. Or maybe it’s a manifestation of the male chauvinism of the entire Cornell Dining patriarchy.

This is the dilemma. There is value in theory, but limited value. I could theorize all day about implicit signs of oppression, but I’d rather address the explicit ones. If there are real inequalities to be addressed, why do universities spend so much time parsing the language of oppression and so little time actually doing something about it?

Back to observable facts. Observable fact 1: Cornell students can be pretty classist. Observable fact 2: The higher-ups don’t care very much. No sensitivity training, no pamphlets, no prescribed euphemisms.

As it should be. We need to deal with differences in a direct way, not bury them in buffer zones and circumlocution. If the Cornell administrators really cared about class, they would implement a housing program for students interested in acknowledging and valuing “socioeconomic difference” and build a library to foster a socioeconomically varied community. The Working Class Resource Center would sponsor Bruce Springsteen cover bands and stage touching renditions of The Outsiders. “Stay gold, Ponyboy. Stay gold.” Awful, isn’t it?

I’m glad for the double-standard if it means there will be any less political correctness in the world. I just hope that no one with any kind of influence reads this column. The last thing Cornell needs is another Resource Center.

Carolyn Byrne is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be contacted at cbyrne@cornellsun.com. Byrne it Down will appear alternate Tuesdays this semester.

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