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Straight privilege.

You know, I was sitting in class last week listening to one of my teacher relay a funny story to us about her husband. And I thought about how often all of my other teachers will talk about their husbands or say “My husband did this, I went there with my husband” and so forth. Hell, in my Lang class my teacher regularly relates experiences of her and her husband’s to whatever piece we’re studying to help us analyze. And today I listened to a sub talk about how excited she was for her wedding, how great her fiance is, and the house they have. 

It’s just a small example of straight privilege to be able to talk about those things. Not just in the classroom, but in other professional settings too. If a queer teacher one day said “My partner and I….”; or a male teacher “My husband and I…” there would be obvious discomfort and that teacher would be accussed of “shoving their lifestyle down the students’ throats”. But because straight teachers do it all the time no one thinks of it.

Don’t get me wrong. I like it when teachers open up about their personal lives because I think that it’s possible to learn better and be more involved in class when you have a more personal connection with your teacher. But now I can’t help but think what an incredible privilege it is to be able to casually say to your students/co-workers/etc “My wife and I had the most hectic weekend” and have no one think twice about it.