to complain to the school about what rugby coach said?

[olderyetwider]

GS (11) has just started rugby coaching as out of hours activity at school. The coaches are sports students from local university. Gs enjoyed his first session very much. While telling me about it he said that the coach said it was a tough game, and they mustn't 'bitch out' when tackled etc. I explored this a bit and apparently the coach said that it means acting like a girl when faced with bigger players etc. (GS also said coach said not to tell teachers about the language)

I can't stand that word, or the denigration of girls implied by it, and it's not the way we've brought him up to think about girls

Is it me being a humourless old feminist, or should I complain?

[squeakytoy]

and i chose pake because it is a common racially denegrative held view that indians cant play sport. much like jews.

You do realise that "paki" refers to people from pakistan, and "indian" refers to people from India... they are two different countries..

Do you also realise that india and pakistan have a lot of very well known, and very competent sportsmen and women?

I can honestly say I have never read anything so bloody ridiculous on here.

[Whatmeworry]

Are you people seriously saying there are rugby coaches out there who are so over-sensitive they take comments by parents personally and then punish the kids by not picking them for the team? The hypocrisy of telling the kids to be tough on the pitch and then being sulky wusses themselves is astounding

Not just rugby coaches, anybody...given the choice between picking Child A and Child B (whose parents are a PITA), guess what happens....

And Frikonastik - words fail me.

[mollymole]

both men and women when speaking will say that 'they had a bitch about it'
meaning that they had a bit of a moan about it - it may offend some people but it is not really a big deal - the example just above my posting is totally
different to the Op's original posting and is deeply offensive that this poster would even come up with such a comment
it is this reading far more into a situation that causes problems that weren't there in the first place
and, again, as a coach the things one comes across in the myriad of courses that we have to attend are IMO one of the reasons which put people off volunteering, I recently had to repeat a course that I had done 3 years and 1 month previously (Child Protection) as it was over 3 years since I done the course - it was the same course, lead by the same person, and gave out exactly the same paperwork. Ok I may say, I need to keep up to date, and there may have been some changes in legislation (but they were not reflected in the course) BUT the event where I was officiating at I had no contact or interaction with any children!!

[MrSpoc]

frikonastick no squeky is clearly sane where as you substituting the word with pakiing around makes no sense. It is not a word or a word that is used. At least use a real word that fits the context. If you do then i may change my mind but i do not belive you can that is why you made up a false word to try and make it fit.

[mollymole]

mollymole
part of my posting does not make sense - sorry
i wrote my posting regarding 'message above' when i was looking at 'frikonastick' posting which is total madness

[frikonastick]

thats ok squeakytoy, mrspok et al, there is no need to so aggressively defend your right to hold sexist and offensive views (or indeed to express them) all evidence points to the fact that you are in the majority in your belief that using an expression that holds women to be inferior to men is okay.

i just disagree with you.

[MrSpoc]

frikonastick may be that is your problem. I am not being aggressive more lauging at how stupid the post was.

I am not sexist in anyway i am just sane in realising the term bitching is universal and means stop complaining.

In other words stop bitching will you. [hgrin]

[spiderpig8]

'Not just rugby coaches, anybody...given the choice between picking Child A and Child B (whose parents are a PITA), guess what happens....'
..and all the more so if they're volunteers.Who wants to take a lot of flack from ungrateful parents when you're not even getting paid for it!

[valiumredhead]

Ds 10 plays contact rugby at school 3x a week, each session is 2 hours. What happens on the rugby pitch, stays on the rugby pitch as far as I am concerned.

It is a rough game.

[frikonastick]

but that isnt the term that the coach used mrspok

he said 'bitch out'. when presumably, 'wimp' would have been just as useful a term. except, you know, without the sexism.

[valiumredhead]

Ds asked me the other day what 'running around like a big girl's blouse meant' after an away match

[squeakytoy]

I am neither aggressive or sexist, I do however find your post to be utterly ridiculous. You are one of those people that goes looking for offence wherever you can find it though, especially where none actually exists.

[giyadas]

I agree with frikonastik's posts
And I'm having trouble with the idea that just because it's a rough game, that makes sexism acceptable.

[frikonastick]

there isnt actually any need to go looking for offence when it comes to sexism towards women squeakytoy.

rather, people seem to battle to NOT see it, to defend it and to turn a blind eye to it, under the guise of it not being a big deal, people dont have a sense of humour anymore, its not worth upsetting the coach, etc etc etc.

in fact, far more work seems to be involved in denying something is sexist, than simply saying, oh yes, actually, using a word to describe a woman in derogative terms to teach puplis what is not desirable in a game of rugby is actually wrong. not a huge deal, but one that is worth not shrugging off or ignoring.

[MrSpoc]

or you could say that it is infact very hard to see the sexism in this instance.

[ragged]

I wouldn't complain to the school.
It becomes a game of Chinese whispers if you say something to the school: "The receptionist reports that there is a parent who says that her GS says that you said..."

I might say something directly to the coach about why I found what I heard unacceptable.

[ragged]

... although personally I don't have a problem with phrases like Wuss or Bitch or Big Girl's Blouse.

Though I am minded to argue that MNers should cajole each other to "Grow a pair of Ovaries" in future.

[stealthsquiggle]

In a complete aside, if anyone can come up with the politically acceptable equivalent of "girly" then I would be grateful. DS uses "girly" to distinguish between giggly, cliquey girls (who he is not friends with) and "sensible" (in the view of an almost-9yo) girls, who he is friends with. I understand exactly what he means, I just don't like the term .

[ZeroMinusZero]

Christ, you can't say anything these days, can you? What a rediculous overreaction.

[MrSpoc]

what about stop being squigly

[Pagwatch]

Stealthsquiggle

Dh uses Jessie. It is jessie-ist but Billy Connolly quoted his mum using it and it makes me laugh.

[Pagwatch]

Frickonastick

You have slightly missed my point. It isn't that I don't want to upset the coach.
It is that to upset the coach may well negatively impact an 11year old boy.
Now it may still be right to do so. But I try not to assume that my morals will always be more important than my childs happiness.

I could have screamed the place down everytime I heard someone use retard as ds1s school. But I didn't make him go through that. So now he screams the place down. Job done.

[stealthsquiggle]

"jessie" might work, I guess - it is an adjective to describe someone in the third person I need, not a politically sound insult - he doesn't call them girly to their faces, it's more "do you play with X much?" - "no, she's a girly girl, not like Y"

[Pagwatch]

No. I know what you mean.
Jessie is a boys and a girls name so it is not gender specific. It is like the opposite of Tom boy.
Dd calls them rough and tumble girls or quiet play girls. Although not accurate I know what she means.