While women may no longer be getting chased out of classrooms or booed out of college, we still have a lot to deal with in sexism in academia.

The other day, my professor decided to sit down and lecture on this, saying that the girls in the class can’t have it all. There isn’t a way to have both a career and a family at the same time. This lecture was delivered in a predominantly female class. The professor then followed up with how it’s just different for guys. She is a teacher, a graduate student and a mother.

Honestly, there may be some truth to those statements. You can’t have the stay-at-home mother career while also having a full-time job. It’s just not logistically possible with only 24 hours in a day and being human, but that’s where the truth ends.

I was raised by a single mother with my three siblings while she was a full-time teacher. There were rough times, but none that stopped my mother from being both a mother and a career woman. Many other women I know have successful careers and families while still having time to enjoy their lives. The only reason why it’s different for men is that there is no pressure to be anywhere near a full-time father.

This conversation reminded me of the viral graduation speech by Harrison Butker, Kansas City Chiefs kicker, where he said society was lying to women by telling them they can have careers outside the home. Butker argues that the majority of female graduates present were excited about having husbands and families after graduation, not about careers and advancement. He argues that his wife is embracing her godly role as a homemaker, saying “her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother.”

The point of empowering women is to have the choice of what they want to do and to support those decisions, but it’s hard when everyone else seems to have an opinion on what they can or can’t do; what choices you can and can’t make with your life, your body and your future.

There isn’t constant support, and you will face backlash for just being a woman, but there is no place for it in higher education, especially from professors.

Sarah Bandhauer is a sophomore food science major from Brevard, North Carolina. Sarah can be reached at [email protected].