Written by Ariana Kalumenos
January 20, 2020
Spending my childhood between Turkey and Canada meant that I never really felt the need to concentrate on world affairs, because I felt that my parents would work everything out for me as their responsibility. It wasn’t until my sophomore year in high school that I realised I truly didn’t know much about the current political climate, and since I was planning on specialising in economic affairs in high school (aka ES as I went to a french high school in Istanbul), I quickly discovered that this wasn’t a good thing.
I suddenly found myself spending my free time on news apps such as CNN and BBC, and even more in reading articles in finance magazines that I would ask my dad to give me. Despite my growing knowledge in the area, I never felt comfortable participating in dialogue about world affairs during my classes – I simply felt I would have nothing more to add that hadn’t already been said. I was aware even then that it mostly seemed to be my classmates of the opposite gender that dominated the conversation, but thought nothing of it and explained it simply by the fact that they had more knowledge on the subject because of their upbringings. It was only in university that I recognized it wasn’t simply that, and the problem was in fact a much larger one than my shyness.
Selecting political science as my major concentration at university, although confused about what else I would study, gave me hope that I would finally feel comfortable talking about politics in front of other people because I would be just as entitled as them to speak about them. The first sign that I was wrong about this assumption appeared during Frosh Week. Despite the fact that I had educated myself on the political climate of the world to make me feel comfortable in my major, the person I was seeing at the time (as well as my male friends even if they weren’t studying political science) disregarded my opinions during those types of discussions. The person I had been seeing was from a rural province of Canada and seemed to believe he understood Turkish politics better than I did. This notion spread to male students in my class conferences, who would talk over me when the subject arose, or even simply just ignored what I would say.
My mention of these classmates does not mean to solidify the “arrogant white men in political science” stereotype that I’ve found in a lot of cases to be a wide, untruthful generalization. This is rather a comment on how I, as an 18 year-old woman, didn’t see my male peers’ ignorance as some form of misogyny, and just believed that it was because I wasn’t as smart or as educated as them despite all my efforts. I spent my entire first year working harder than I ever had before to justify my place at McGill, and to prove that I was ‘worthy’ of my major which included keeping on top of political science readings, talking to TAs at office hours, and doing external research just to make sure I properly understood the material. By the end of it, I realized that despite my hard work I still felt belittled by my male friends and classmates, and thus thought that I was just too stupid for both my major and McGill. Regardless of grades that I haven’t been able to reproduce since, I seriously considered dropping out of university when I returned home, or at least dropping my political science major. I spent two weeks talking it out with my friends, and trying to discover the root of my problem to fix it. I realized along the way that it wasn’t that I wasn’t working hard enough, or that I wasn’t as smart as people around me; no matter how hard I worked they wouldn’t see me as somebody whose opinion was worth as much as their own.
Having become conscious of this, I returned to Montreal and broke up with my boyfriend at the time and cut out a large group of my male friends who had depreciated me to focus on my studies and build positive and supportive relationships in my life instead. I ended up joining a sorority that continues to give me immense support, found a new boyfriend in my field who considers me an equal and genuinely listens to what I say, as well as made new friends that make sure I express myself and feel comfortable doing it.
Beginning my second year at McGill, I couldn’t have imagined a better result of the work I put into my studies and friendships, because it’s exactly what I wanted from university. This isn’t to say that I don’t at times feel intimidated talking about politics with people – especially male classmates in political science classes – or that I have finally worked up the courage to talk during conferences, but I’ve finally gotten to a point where I know I deserve to be at McGill, and even more in my field.
With plans to blend international relations and feminist framework together – much to the dismay of many male classmates I’m sure – I’m hopeful for my future in political science and ready to face any problems head on.