Is this acceptable in a school?

[noblegiraffe]

A friend of mine is a teacher in an all boys school. He was showing a group of pupils some of the football and was fast-forwarding to get to the action. The camera lingered on some pretty girls in the crowd (you know the ones they normally pick!) and the pupils demanded that he go back so they could get a proper look. He obliged, but commented that if there had been a single girl in the classroom, he wouldn't have.

Obviously this was a pretty minor incident, but do you think it was fine (and if so, would it have also been fine if there had been girls present?), or is it encouraging the sexual objectification of women? Or anything else?

What are your thoughts?

Gosh, just got back and realised that the teacher himself joined us!

Wow, is my main reaction to this thread. I can think of male teachers in my (almost all-boy) school (in the nineties) who would have taught this man a thing or two about feminism.

Here's the thing, Imp: You say yourself that you wouldn't have done it if there had been a female pupil in the room, because of courtesy (you implicitly acknowledge that they would have been made uncomfortable). They would: they would have been uncomfortable to see their peers assessing young women for their attractiveness, because it would have made THEM feel like they are assessed for their attractiveness - reduced to how they look, and yes, the word is 'objectified'. You would not have done this in front of female pupils, because it would have made them feel bad. You insist they would have been WRONG to feel bad, but you still wouldn't have liked it to happen. . Okay.
So this kind of behaviour makes women feel bad, but you were willing to encourage this kind of behaviour in your male pupils. Why?

that's very true sethstarkadder - it is encouraging that he was so roundly challenged

DP has just finished his NQT year and works in a boys' school and he would never have done that

i would think the teacher didn't in a million years think his reaction would be dissecrted by a load of women on the internet.

And it's very interesting that his reaction to his behaviour being dissected, was to tell us what a lot of shrill bleating we were doing.

It shows utter contempt for women. This is the feminist board of what is acknowledged to be the "intelligent" parenting site in the UK. Almost universally, his behaviour was condemned but instead of having a bit of humility and questioning himself, he simply dug in and told us all loftily that our arguments were weak, he knew more feminist theory than we did, didn't properly engage and then pissed off when it was obvious that we weren't convinced.

It's just glorified trolling really.

seth this is in the feminism topic though - i don't know what the reaction would be in chat or AIBU or somewhere where women who don't wear dungarees hang out ----

Imperator makes some very good points.

It's madness to suggest that appreciating attractive people is offensive.
We'll all be in bloody burkhas next.

And I had to give a wry smile when he said that the first time he'd heard the term shrill used, was by a woman.

So er, that makes it OK then? ... and he knows much more about feminism than we do!

Nobody's suggested that finding people attractive is offensive Moondog and you are too intelligent to get away with pretending that you think that's what this thread's about.

Nonsense HB.
I see a lot of women who are full of an ill advised sense of importance who think they are dissecting the issue intelligently but are just talking shite.

'Go and read some feminism' from Seth.

Jesus.

So is it always fine for "boys to be boys" if there are no women there to observe what they are doing?

And you seriously beieve that this is appropriate behaviour for the classroom?

Jesus right back at you.

belgianbun - I think he saw the quicksand as social, not moral.

blackcurrants summed it up, I think:

'Here's the thing, Imp: You say yourself that you wouldn't have done it if there had been a female pupil in the room, because of courtesy (you implicitly acknowledge that they would have been made uncomfortable). They would: they would have been uncomfortable to see their peers assessing young women for their attractiveness, because it would have made THEM feel like they are assessed for their attractiveness - reduced to how they look, and yes, the word is 'objectified'. You would not have done this in front of female pupils, because it would have made them feel bad. You insist they would have been WRONG to feel bad, but you still wouldn't have liked it to happen. . Okay.
So this kind of behaviour makes women feel bad, but you were willing to encourage this kind of behaviour in your male pupils. Why?'

So what's your argument moondog?

god what an odiously pompous little man

sounds like the kind of teacher who really wanted to BE somebody but had no concrete aptitudes or plans, "ended up" in teaching despite having a low opinion of teachers, and carved out a comfortable if cramped niche for himself as a vicious bastard who assuages his disappointment day after day by bullying people smaller than himself

and I bet his head of department is a woman

I can't bear the way sinister intentions are attributed to normal human behaviour.

People like looking at each other and thinking (however fleetingly) about fucking them. They have done since the dawn of time and will continue to do so despite the efforts of people like you lot.

The only issue is keeping this behaviour in its appropriate context.

Get over it.

have nothing to say on the "ogling" incident, sorry. Just don't like the cut of his jib.

So you see the classroom as an appropriate context do you?

Really?

but moondog, the issue is that it wasn't in an appropriate context - he's the teacher, an authority figure, a male role model for those boys. How is that appropriate?

And why do you think "us lot" want to stop people looking at each other and thinking about fucking each other?

I see.
They have to park their testosterone at the door do they?

Conversations differ according to who is present.
I had 6 women for dinner last night. We discussed things we wouldn't have dreamt of had our husbands been present.

I've no idea HB.
You tell me.