Grad School Begins

I'm now in my fourth week of my graduate program here in Boston. I'm here to work toward my Master's degree in Law and Diplomacy, which is an absurd way of saying international affairs.

Being on track to work my way back to Thailand, to my purpose, to living my goals and personal mission is wonderful. Knowing that studying subjects like Corporate Finance and Quantitative Methods will make me more able to contribute to work in my field of choice is incredibly motivating. I'm focused on my goals and a summer internship back in Thailand and I feel very empowered and on track.

I'm also learning a lot outside of the classroom. My biggest lesson so far has been one I certainly didn't anticipate and have been very reluctant to learn. Institutional Sexism is alive and well and I had no idea that it could have an impact on my own life and ability to thrive.

I grew up in a family full of powerful, educated, and working women. My great aunts were all educated up through college during the Great Depression. One of my grandmothers had her Bachelor's degree and the other had a couple more years schooling than her husband. My aunts all completed college and two of them are high-powered business executives. As a CEO, my grandfather hired and promoted amazing women who were fixtures of my childhood. My mother raised us four kids alone and did an awesome job.

My education was, I see now, very skewed in favor of gender equity and God help you if you didn't watch your language around issues of identity and sexuality. An all-girls high school (second best school in the state of Washington) prepared me for an education at one of the most liberal and gay-friendly colleges in the United States, Sarah Lawrence College.

Coming from all of that, I went into the world with an open mind and heart. I saw people as people and understood issues around gender and inequality as difficult and culturally contextual. Gender inequity is ubiquitous and, somehow, while I've lived through some very serious events that never would have happened if it weren't for rampant sexism present in society today, most of MY world was still safe and liberal. I surrounded myself with informed liberals who watched their language and were hyper-aware of inclusivity and political correctness.

Then I started grad school.

Now, I'm in a place that's supposed to be a relatively liberal, globally-minded institution for higher education and the training of the soon-to-be practitioners of international policy, law, and business. This horrifies me. People here often don't watch their language. Most seem to be blissfully unaware of the fact that they're being exclusive when they are. Political correctness...it seems that people here think that they are so evolved that they are beyond a need for it. Women who are in the top fraction of a fraction of education and privilege in the world giggle and defer to the guys because they're "at the time and place in my life to be looking to meet someone."

The Gender Equity Group spent all of last year on a major research project on gender inequity at Fletcher. Now they have this significant piece of research that they don't seem to want to do anything with because they don't want to damage the school's reputation and, by extension, the value of their degrees.

I'm angry and frustrated. I'm tired. I'm sad. I feel overwhelmed and I don't know what to do. This is not at all the community of learning I was looking forward to and if I weren't such a fighter and a believer in acting on principle I would leave this place today.

Too, I have my eyes on the goal of going home to Thailand and the people I love there. In the moments I most want to leave I look at the ring my beautiful staff members gave to me as a going-away present and I remember why I'm here at all.