Intelligence: Turn On or Turn Off?

Here's a confession for you, my few readers and those anonymous lurkers out there: I am a blonde, but I use my brain.

I know! Groundbreaking revelation here. I have totally broken the stereotype of dumb blondes. I love to read, have always adored school, and while I do engage in my indulgence of trashy television, movies, and magazines, I consider myself a pretty intelligent person. To add to that, I was salutatorian of my high school class, graduated summa cum laude from college, and maintained a 4.0 GPA all through grad school. And through my second masters' program.

So, why am I telling you all of this? In the past two weeks, I have received the following responses when I have mentioned something about my career or my academic past:

Response 1 (after telling individual I graduated 2nd in my high school class): Wow, I didn't realize I was in the company of such a smart girl. That's kind of intimidating.

Response 2 (after telling someone about plans I had for my literacy blocks in the next few weeks, and ideas I had for next year): Do you consider yourself a driven person?

For the second response, when I explained that, yes, I do consider myself driven in order to do my job well and best serve my students, there was no positive feedback to that response. Instead, there was just a change of subject.

I cannot believe that I am living in the year 2011 and people, specifically, men, still find intelligence in women intimidating. In addition, it seems like a demonstrated dedication to work is also abhorred. I'm going to make a general statement here, but why is it acceptable to bask in the glorious intelligence of men and their commitment to 293834975 hours a week to their job, but when I try to assert myself and my gifts, I am considered an anomaly?

One of my students' moms came up to me today to tell me about a conversation she was having with her daughter last night. The daughter tells her mom, "You know, when Ms. D looks at me, I feel good because I know she cares about me." She also went on to tell her mom how she doesn't feel so afraid to speak up in class anymore.

I love what I do.