Many white male colleagues really like to inculcate this. Faculty should not complain about their personal lives to their students because forced intimacy is a violation of institutional trust. They invite you to violate so that they can reciprocate.
https://twitter.com/bendreyfuss/status/1402117535051485186
You see, if you breach the student-teacher norms first — even if by invitation — then you because the initiator. Then when the teacher-professor violates a norm, they are just following your lead.
White men are especially attracted to this because, frankly, this is in keeping with much of how they interact with the world. An unrequited service to their students is abnormal because they do not serve anyone else in any other capacity.
And this is just as prevalent among progressive faculty as conservative or libertarian or whatever internet trolls are. Progressive faculty, often also white and male, pretend there are status differences because they want to behave as if there aren’t. They call it good politics.
It is also a very convenient way to absolve those “progressive” men of the bad politics of preying on younger students and looking creepy for it.
Another word for “cannot do” is “responsible for”. It is the responsibility that these faculty don’t want - to something other than themselves at even minor inconvenience. Just because this profession has for so long institutionalized that, doesn’t make it less true
You don’t treat your students like friends because they cannot be your friend. Not structurally, not meaningfully and not in any way that truly benefits them. It is manipulative to deny or confuse that social fact.
Friendship cannot happen across those kind of power dynamics. You can be a mentor, a mentee (of theirs!), a guidance counselor, a spiritual advisor. You cannot be friends.
And finally, if no one has told you, your divorce is boring, no one cares about your sex life, your kids are cute and all but not that engaging to hear about. See, I can tell you that because we are equals. I could be a friend. Your student cannot.
*aren’t
Tl;dr is “professoring is servant leadership and not Tinder for bored, boring middle-aged people who like for their friends to be coerced”.
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