at the beginning of the school year my male social studies teacher said to our class (7th graders) “I need 4 strong guys to carry books down” I would have offered but i was hurting and didn’t want to move. when he came back with the four boys i asked why he said only boys to help and he responded “i didn’t want u girls to get sweaty”
Hi, I am a 18-year-old-French-high school student. My economics teacher is a white sexist patriarchal man. When a girl in my class asks a question or comments on the topic that we’re working on, he says “a woman who is silent is a gift of the Lord” (in French “une femme qui se tait est un don du Ciel”) and whenever a female students says something he doesn’t agree with he says for those who know French “c’est de la mauvaise fois typiquement feminine” which basically means “she has bad faith / she is lying like women do”. Finally, he calls one of my female classmates “la nulle” (which means in French “you suck”) I tried to speak up, both in class and to the principle, who is also a man, but every time he is excused and I am told to stop being “so sensitive” and to lighten up and learn to take his jokes… I can’t take it anymore. Those sexist jokes give legitimacy to this patriarchal society, send the message to the boys in my class that it’s ok to mistreat women while we girls are invited to remain silent and accept the discrimination. Those comments repeat the stereotypes that continue to harm us today. I just wish the school would speak up and sanction this teacher….
When I started secondary school at age 11, there was this one woodwork teacher all the girls would avoid. We had all heard his inappropriate comments, hands brushing our legs as he walked past, his unsolicited ‘hands on’ offers of help using the equipment, overly touchy-feely, we all dreaded these lessons. But in my whole time at school it never occurred to me there was anything really wrong. Even at the age of 11 I had learnt to recognise this behaviour as something I was just going to have to put up with, experiences like this were just an intrinsic part of the female experience. It was a secret all us girls kept together, we would put up any defences and deflective shields we had already acquired, then later huddled together over our packed lunches swapping war stories, tutting and giggling at the absurdity. Even if we had considered speaking up, we instinctively understood we would have been ignored. Of course everybody already ‘knew’, he was just one of ‘those’ types, he was ‘old’, he is a ‘character’, you’re just going to have to learn to put up with that sort of behaviour. But nobody was sad to see him go. Towards the end of my time at school, another teacher was removed all of a sudden. Rumours began floating about his sexual misconduct, harassment of young students, in appropriate behaviour. This shocked us to the core. How could a teacher, somebody entrusted with the safety and well-being of minors, who we all admired and respected, and trusted, abuse his power in such a way? Somehow, this terrified us, yet my peers and I never equated this with our own prior experiences. Not this teacher, “he couldn’t have”, “but he’s so nice!”. It disturbs and sickens me that only in the wake of the “me too” campaign have I really started to question my school experiences. How could I have allowed myself and others to be abused in this way, why haven’t I questioned it before, and why did the terms ‘predator’ and ‘paedophile’ never occur to me until now? Perhaps surrounded by my peers, the group experience gave us the illusion of safety. Or maybe because it wasn’t the worst behaviour or this kind I had encountered, even at the age of 11, I considered it a training ground for future experience. It doesn’t make it ok.
I came into school a few minutes late one day, and as I walked in a male student happened to be standing there, waiting to check in late too. The assistant principal, a man that delighted in being cruel to me, stopped us both, looked me in the eye, and accused me or having sex with the other student in the parking lot. He did not accuse the male student, and when we both denied anything like that happening, he ignored the other student and told me that I shouldn’t be “doing anything” that would get me in trouble.
So, while I was applying for University towards the end of school (UK), I completed my application and went to the teacher responsible for looking over University applications. I decided to apply for an initial teacher education course because I love early and development psychology as well as working with children. For the last two years, I had walked miles once a week to volunteer at a nearby special needs school, then walked miles back to be back in school by the end of break (I started the day on a double free period), I had been elected as a house captain and worked hard for my school community, also having a regular column in the school newsletter. I also worked very hard in my studies and was predicted excellent grades. The teacher read over my application, and said it was fine, and should get me accepted by my University. I left happy enough. A boy in my year, we’ll call him Kane, was applying for the same University at the same course, but because, he said it would be an ‘easy’ job. He was a regular truant, and when I saw him go to show the teacher his application, I asked what feedback he had and if I could have a look at his application. We exchanged and read one another’s. He had no extra curricular activities, poor attendance and no work experience. He said ‘Wow, yours is really good. The teacher said mine was great and that I would probably be head teacher in five years.’ He wasn’t joking.
Last year at school we were doing class projects, the project was to create a speech about an issue we cared deeply about and had a strong opinion on, my mind first went to sexism of corse as i know that at my school not enough students understand what feminism and sexism is really about, before we started writing we had to have our topic approved by the teacher, after some brainstorming time the teacher (who is a young male) got the whole class to stand up and share our topics, when in got to me i shared my idea and my teacher proceeded to tell me that i could not speak about feminism because equality is not a problem anymore, im not one to be silenced so i stood up in front of the class and told him that sexism is not just about equal rights its about all other types of issues like :abuse, body shaming, slut shaming, cat calling and much more onto of just equal rights. i was then sent to the principles office for being disruptive in class. 🙁 and still not being able to deliver the speech now i know that not many people are well educated on feminism and sexisim so if it was his true belief that equality was 100% equal and thats all that feminism was then i could possibly understand but the bit that really got me about the situation is that he is a teacher and that day he taught an entire class of year 7 students who did not know much about feminisim that it was irrelevant and all the issues are “solved”
At the workshop of my school we had to build a modell of a truss and the electric screwdriver we used ran out of battery so our teacher got us another. It was a little one for people who don’t have enough storage room and he just said: “This one is for women” When I said the comment is sexist and explained that men also use this screwdriver he just answered that I schouldn’t complain and not tell him he is sexist.
When I was in Year 8 at secondary school, I was sexually assaulted. We were in art class, our art teacher was demonstrating so we were stood gathered round her. I was wearing a skirt with ankle socks as it was hot weather, suddenly I felt a boys hand go up my skirt and touch my bum. I froze. I pushed his hand away. After my teacher had finished we returned to our seats. The girl next to me could see something was wrong, I told her what had happened. She told me the same boy had groped her and 3 other girls and the school were already aware. She asked me to tell a teacher, she went and fetched one, we went into another room. The teacher was quite genuine and understanding, what I didn’t know at the time was that she would be the only one who would be. They contacted my parents, whom went on to contact the police. After a few days they came round, took my statement and said it wasn’t in my best interest to press charges as it would ruin his life and he would probably learn from this with just a telling off. Bare in mind I was his 5th victim by now. The school agreed to move him out of my classes and he was suspended for a week. After a year he was let back into my classes and the school completely forgot about it. He told everyone I was a liar, eventually I moved schools.
My high school runs an extracurricular robotics club where we build and program robots for competitions. During one of our sessions a teacher saw me carrying a toolbox to the lab and said, sounding very surprised, “there are GIRLS in robotics?” The club has been running successfully for almost 10 years, there were four girls in the group at the time, and girls in all of our technology classes, but apparently it shocked him to learn that a team with female members could compete at a national level.
During lectures, my Comparative Political Systems professor talks at length about male leaders of different countries, going so far as to list unnecessary personal details about their upbringing and hobbies. The first time he mentioned a woman was last week, more than halfway through the semester. He talked about the wife of one of the political leaders… well, more specifically, he showed a bunch of pictures of her, saying that her clothing demonstrated how that country’s culture is changing. To make matters worse, he kept making comments about how “pretty” she was. I am incredibly frustrated and saddened by this because I generally think that my professor is intelligent and knowledgeable about the material he teaches; however, I’m having trouble reconciling that with this disgusting behavior.