Creation of the Course
The Rationale
Symbolic annihilation is the absence or underrepresentation of a group of people based on gender, race, identity, orientation and class.​ In a national study done by the National Women’s History Museum, of the 737 named historical figures, only 178 were women - 1 woman for every 3 men. The 10 most frequently taught books in high school include only 1 text by a woman and 0 texts by authors of color.
The most challenged and banned books in recent years are centered around authors and stories representing marginalized groups.
In 2024, 526 anti-lgbtqia+ bills have been proposed across the country.
This absence leads to a lack of self-efficacy, the belief that your voice matters. Young girls lose their self-efficacy as early as 9 years old, and it has become harder and harder for them to reclaim their voice. Unfortunately the current state of education is part of the problem. As Gloria Steinem states in My Life on the Road:
No wonder studies show that women's intellectual self-esteem
tends to go down as years of education go up.
We have been studying our own absence.
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The Creation
In the fall of 2016 I began my sixth year teaching, founded a group, Ms. Phoenix, to empower young women, and my first daughter was about to turn 1. After getting my feet under me as a teacher, teaching the texts from the canon I had been taught and using the lessons passed onto me from other teachers, I began to expand and incorporate texts by women, by authors of color, by authors from the LGBTQIA+ community. The only problem was, this was hard to do.
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In Loudoun County, Virginia, where I teach, in 2016 there were 210 texts reserved and suggested for the high school English curriculum. Of these 210 novels and plays, only 60, across all four years, are written by women—less than 30 percent of the entire high school curriculum, and far fewer by people of color and members of the LGBTQIA+ community. When I did the actual math, seeing what I always knew to be true, I started to think about ways to counteract this problem, this factor that contributes to symbolic annihilation, this problem extends far beyond the literary canon, this problem that leaves young men believing over half the population does not merit representation; a voice.
Then came the presidential election of 2016. Many in the country, including my students, were left reeling, especially the young women. I had answers to these questions they asked but not the time to go through the long sordid history and give a sufficient answer in passing moments between classes or the bi-weekly meetings of Ms. Phoenix. This is when the idea for a Women and Gender Studies course for high school came to fruition. An idea that was the only obvious answer to some very complicated questions.
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I didn’t start from scratch, per se, but there was not existing road map for me to navigate. There were college level courses and syllabi for me to look at, classes similar to those I took in college, but that framework and teaching style doesn’t necessarily translate to a high school classroom. Once I figured out how to actually structure the course, what to cover, how to cover it, create lessons, gather readings, and frame it as a curriculum, I had to get it approved. This turned out to be harder, not because of outright resistance to a course like this (although that was to come) but because no one really knew the procedure for getting a completely new course approved and added to the county’s course registration system.
Eventually I got the right signature on the right form and my Women and Gender Studies course for high school was given a number in the course registrar. Now, I just needed the students. Was there gong to be enough student interest to fill a class allowing me to actually teach the curriculum I wrote?
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Flashforward to 2025, and the answer has been a resounding: YES. I have been teaching the course for six years and it has expanded to half a dozen other schools in the county. The interest continues to grow as teachers, parents, and students learn that there is a course like this that exists. Teachers want to teach it and students want to take it. So whatever brought you to this sight, I hope you fall into one of those categories, a teacher, a student, or a parent who now knows this course and curriculum exist and it can be taught in your school district. All you need to do is have the passion and connect with me and together we can give our students and the world a more equitable future.
