wwyd? dds detention

[ilikeyourface]

Today in school dd was in history, andc they were learing about how Women helped in the war. A boy in her class ( who she has known since primary and are actually prety good friends) sarted saying how women shouln't have been helping in the war, they should have been at home baking, and we could have won the war alot quicker if they have staying where they belonged. Dd chalanged this which turned into a argument with him about sexism (quite lightheartedly she says as like I said they are friends) before dd got angry and sqirted some water at him. She got a detention for this.
In dds school you can ring up and say that your child doesnt have to do the detention if you give a valid reason. Part of me says 'make her do the detention, she shouldnt have squirted the water and should be punished
However another part of me says she was standing up for herself and other women so I should ring up
They are 14 btw .... wwyd

Send her to detention wearing a green white and purple sash.

HTH

I'm convinced that this is a joke. Feminism/standing up for women does not = squirting water at someone. Of course she should have a detention. Did they have to work on a wet desk?

The boy's comments won't hold water (lol). Next time, she should get him to expand on how exactly the farming, food production, artillery, ammunition and other manufacturing jobs would have got done, as the able-bodied men were all abroad getting their arses shot off. Who was going to carry out the work - cows?

It's usually best to gently cajole idiots and their opinions into explaining exactly what they mean. Give 'em enough rope...

Well, she does deserve the detention b/c she needs to learn to deal with sexist arseholes without resorting to physical retribution. However richly deserved.

However, it also sounds like the boy was inciting the water squirting. If he'd been spouting racist rubbish and winding up a black child, I reckon the boy would be doing detention, too.

Be sure you also give her lots of positive feedback for standing up to him, too!

But yes, detention it is. The only thing I'd challenge the school on is whether the boy needs some quality time in detention to start reading up on feminism.

Am quite embaressed now
Re reading my op I realise I was over reacting
You lot have given me a kick up the bum and ive now come to my senses!

He was taken to task, by an empowered 14 year old girl.
Even if he was just doing it to be aggravating and isn't a dyed-in-the-wool-sexist KinderKircheKüche male. At 14.
DD has had many a heated discussion on similar topics with her peers.

I don't think the girls should have their time in school wasted trying to educate sexist little boys. They are there to concentrate on their own education. The boy should have been dealt with by the teacher (or taken to task, if you will).

So what happened to the boy OP and what was the teacher doing whilst this exchange was going on?

Speaking of KinderKircheKüche, it would be an interesting addition to the lesson to tell the class that where British women went into the factories, German women stayed home while the industrial work was done by slaves from the countries Germany invaded. No doubt young sir would have hated to see them lose.

Now let's hear whether a dyed-in-the-wool-sexist's colours run when he gets a little wet.

I've been on the sidelines of numrous debates like this, between DD and DS and combinations of their friends. Sometimes it's real and meant and harmful.
Sometimes it's more in the nature of friendly sparring, enabling each participant to hone their argument and be called to account.
Lively debate, fast mocking and sometimes leading to one staggering backwards and crying 'A hit, a palpable hit' or something along those lines.

"In dds school you can ring up and say that your child doesnt have to do the detention if you give a valid reason.". What would count as a valid reason?

Obviously she should do the detention.

But I agree that the school needs to be challenged on its equality policy.

I would be so tempted to ring them up and ask them what they would have done if a white boy had declared that black men should have been used as slave labour for the war effort and a black boy in the class had l squirted him with water.

I agree he would have got the detention alongside the squirter. But I would like the school to tell me what they would have done and then asked them why they hadn't taken an incidence of sexism as seriously as they would of racism.

I was also going to ask where was the teacher in this. If it was in a lesson I don't think that "debate" where one person is basically just winding up another person by spouting hateful stereotypes at them (and about them) is quite right really.

If it was me, I would expect DD to do the detention, but I would ask the school for an explanation as to why the teacher did not intervene over the boy making those comments.

DS has covered these WW2 topics at school, and a lot of it was done by the pupils researching family members' roles in the war, which is very important as many people who were young people at the time are still alive and can be interviewed. It is much harder for pupils to make remarks which are a. prejudiced and b. completely contrary to experiences of the people involved if they are working from people's own experiences. DS was able to cover some very sensitive testimony about a woman who was raped during the occupation of Berlin because he had her account that she was prepared to share.

He has also been in an RE class where a pupil made prejudiced remarks and was immediately removed from the lesson. It allowed DS to reach some conclusions of his own about what feminists would describe as the Overton window. I would say this is a good opportunity to discuss the Overton window with your DD, because if nothing else positive comes from this, it is at least an opportunity to explore what is and is not considered an acceptable and credible perspective to raise in a discussion, and who it is who gets to decide that (in this case the teacher). She will perhaps conclude that the process of education and imparting of knowledge has an agenda and is not a neutral activity (particularly in subjects like History). This in itself leads into topics like how the Nazis used and discussed history in order to create and promote their ideology.

Sorry, that was a bit long!

That sounds like an excellent lesson to me. A are platform for everyone to state and debate their views. To say the boy should be taken to task is ridiculous

Um bollocks. Being allowed to make sexist slurs is not debate. NO different to saying racist or homophobic comments. Why is that hard for people to see?

I'd call and complain that a teacher allowed your daughter to be on the receiveing end of blatant sexism? Maybe if your daughter hadn't become so frustrated nothing would have happened.

If the horrid little boy had told a black student black people shouldn't be allowed jobs.. Would the teacher have ignored until the black student became so upset? I am sick of girls being told you can get angry...but don't get too angry.

Fuck that

I feel bad for your DD.

It's hard debating with men over these things they have the upper hand simply being born with dicks so she probably got frustrated and squirted quite rightly.

Ready has it right too.

I am sick of girls being told you can get angry...but don't get too angry

YES

It was water, not fucking acid.

Men get angry with women and throw ACID at them.

Chuh.

OP states that the boy and her daughter are pretty good friends and have known each other since primary.
But yes, let's equate this situation with acid throwing and the rest. Because of course he wasn't being a provocative arse, seeing if he could wind up his friend, he is evil incarnate and a tool in the arsenal of the patriarchy,
Well done to your DD for challenging her friend OP.

this is why I keep off the feminism section

Even when not compared to acid, it was only water

dd does deserve the detention. The guff about acid and 'men' is just that. The analogy with white/black just doesn't wash (pun re water a bit intended) though it can be an opportunity for the boy to understand his poorly conceived argument.

DS has had a detention for squirting water at somebody in a lesson. Regardless of what anyone thinks about the seriousness or not of squirting water, the fact that the DD did squirt water doesn't suddenly make what happened up until that point no longer an issue. I think that gets away from the main point of why the boy thought this was the kind of remark it was okay to make in a classroom, and why the teacher did not immediately do something about it. Him making the remark had three consequences - 1. subjecting others to sexism, 2. making the DD waste her energy on dealing with such a comment when there are so many other arguments she is going to need her energy (and anger for) and 3. disrupting a class where pupils were could have been learning about and discussing women's history in an interesting and useful manner by making an ill informed, disrespectful and idiotic remark.

The school should have policy on gender equality and make sure staff and pupils follow it. The DD should never have been put in that position in the first place, and I think the school should have to ensure they do something about that.

KITTENS KITTENS KITTENS KITTENS KITTENS KITTENS

TBH if that had happened to me many years ago the boy would have been lucky to escape without a punch on his nose.

Excuse me Grimble violence is not the answer