Hey Reddit. We're three juniors (M16, M17, M17) at a small tech charter academy high school in Northern California. I'd prefer not to provide any more details than that as we live in a small town and word could spread fast, we also don't want to break sub rules on doxxing, personal information, or advocating for violence, as that is not our intent with this post.
For our final project in our combined English/History class (which is meant to be a workshop where students in groups of 2-4 host workshops involving the whole class on a specific oppressed group of people, how they are oppressed, and how to be an ally for them.) Our group chose to focus on sexism against men, compiling a list of multiple sources and jotting down ways in which men are systematically oppressed. Here are the links we found:
https://www.military.com/military-fitness/army-fitness-requirements/army-basic-training-pft
https://www.scholarships.com/financial-aid/college-scholarships/scholarships-by-type/scholarships-for-women/
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/03/28/look-how-women-outnumber-men-college-campuses-nationwide/YROqwfCPSlKPtSMAzpWloK/story.html
https://www.scholarships.com/financial-aid/college-scholarships/scholarships-by-type/scholarships-for-women/
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/men-women-prison-sentence-length-gender-gap\_n\_1874742
https://nationalparentsorganization.org/blog/22457-studies-show-judicial-bias-against-dads
https://www.cor-law.com/blog/women-get-child-custody-90-percent-cases-isnt-gender-discrimination.html
https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckdevore/2018/12/19/fatal-employment-men-10-times-more-likely-than-women-to-be-killed-at-work/#7f023c7652e8
https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/08/ironic-misandry-why-feminists-joke-about-drinking-male-tears-and-banning-all-men.html
https://www.esurance.com/info/car/why-women-pay-less-for-car-insurance
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6915387/Drink-driver-spared-jail-female-judge-WOMAN.html
https://qz.com/1598345/microsoft-staff-are-openly-questioning-the-value-of-diversity/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansplaining
https://prostate.org.nz/2014/01/men-die-earlier-womens-health-gets-four-times-funding/
https://www.webmd.com/sexual-conditions/guide/circumcision
However, we quickly ran into problems. For this specific project, the teacher whose class we are doing the workshop in has to approve the project. We also were required to read, annotate, and discuss a reader that was more or less blatant left wing propaganda, along with being several years outdated, discussing how all white people, all straight people, and all men cannot be oppressed in any way, which is obviously false. I can provide text from the reader if it helps but I don't want to link it because it has our school's name on it. (again, don't want to break sub rules) Our English teacher happens to be extremely biased against our idea of focusing on sexism against men, even though the entire project is based around doing a workshop focusing on a subgroup that is the victim of sexism, racism, classism, sizeism, or ableism. Even after explaining our subject to the teacher, explaining the activities we had planned for the workshop, going through all of our sources and explaining how each one was an example of either systematic or societal oppression, and writing multiple pages of research on the issue, along with rewriting most of the plan for the workshop, the teacher still refuses to approve our project because he "doesn't see how men are oppressed systematically" even after we have shown multiple ways in which men are oppressed systematically, such as getting 63% longer criminal sentences then women, losing 87% of all custody cases in court, and being required to sign up for the draft. We also explained to him how his denial of the existence of sexism against men is itself an example of how little publicity mens' rights issues get, especially since there are 2 or 3 'sexism against women' teams that have already been approved. He basically gave us an ultimatum saying that we either have to do our project on 3/4 women's rights issues and 1/4 men's rights issues or we have to find a new subject, either way wasting the 10 pages of research we already did and having to plan out entirely new activities for our workshop. We don't feel that this is reasonable, and it seems very much like discrimination, especially since none of the 'sexism against women' teams have faced these problems or been forced to discuss men's issues.
On Monday we're going to talk to the History teacher since our History and English classes are run collectively. If that doesn't happen and we can't get anywhere, we're thinking about taking it to the school office, and possibly even the school district or the school board. We all agree, along with the other team in a different class that is also attempting to do sexism against men for their workshop, that this is unfair and discriminatory.
Anyway, we decided to make this post because we feel that we are being silenced because of a teacher's opinion and have no way of getting a good grade while drawing attention through our workshop to a legitimate issue. We'd also like some support and possibly some suggestions on how to solve this without bending to the teacher's demands. Thank you for reading this.
TL;DR: We're high school juniors and we're trying to do a project about men's rights issues. The teacher shut our project down even after we provided sources and data by simply saying that men aren't systematically oppressed, and now we're pretty much out of options if we want to get a good grade while also showing a commonly misunderstood or unknown issue.
[–]Lily_Grill 24 points25 points26 points (5 children) | Copy Link
I'm doing sexism against men for my English GCSE speech. Luckily, my teacher took it well, I'm just wondering how my class will take it when I have to speak about it.
[–]Identitymassacre 5 points6 points7 points (0 children) | Copy Link
Can we get a transcript of the speech? It sounds interesting.
[–]Cyb3rd31ic_Citiz3n 3 points4 points5 points (0 children) | Copy Link
Just remember that no matter their response, the grade is all that matters. As someone who's now in their 30s, by the time you finish Highschool, the vast majority of people won't matter or ever matter to your life again. It only feels like they do because you're tapped with them day in and out.
[–]DMadan54 2 points3 points4 points (0 children) | Copy Link
Yeah, can I also get a transcript. I’m doing my GCSEs in 2 years now, and that sounds like a great idea.
[–]ThatGalaxyMemist 0 points1 point2 points (0 children) | Copy Link
I'd like a transcript too
[–]FloofyKittyCat 0 points1 point2 points (0 children) | Copy Link
Transcript it for me also, please!
[–]d_nijmegen 22 points23 points24 points (3 children) | Copy Link
I would write about her sexism then. 10 pages on why she's a bad teacher. Post it online, and take one for the team
[–]cfab28 19 points20 points21 points (2 children) | Copy Link
HIS sexism.
[–]d_nijmegen 15 points16 points17 points (1 child) | Copy Link
Even better! write about a male teacher. Who goes through a false rape accusation at work. Losing his job, and his wife leaves him. Gets destroyed by the family court. Ex won't allow him to see his children. Goes into depression and nobody cares. Getting addicted to alcohol and finally killing himself.
Basically the story on how it all could go wrong. Give the main character his name. He has to read it to grade it. So it will be enlightening on how much privilege he's lacking in life as a man.
Add some statistics on the likelihood of these things. I would be writing with a dark satisfaction making it as graphic as possible
[–]mhandanna[S] 6 points7 points8 points (0 children) | Copy Link
LOL man that is good... I shit you not thats the kind of thing I'd do in school. If they call me a misogynist and get me trouble Im POC im happy to use idenity politics against these idenity politics hypocrites and play their own game and pull out the nahh but your just racist.
[–]GalileosTele 9 points10 points11 points (0 children) | Copy Link
Gender inequality only counts if women are worse off. This is official standard practice around the world:
How gender inequality is "measured"
[–]Pioustarcraft 4 points5 points6 points (0 children) | Copy Link
You know what's the most frustrating in this story ?
In one sentence the teacher demonstrated more efficiently his point than in his 10 pages of research....
[–]Paranormal17 5 points6 points7 points (0 children) | Copy Link
Say fuck them and do both
[–]GalileosTele 4 points5 points6 points (3 children) | Copy Link
Education has become a cesspool of feminist propaganda, and their primary recruiting grounds.
Feminist recruitment in education
[–]mhandanna[S] 1 point2 points3 points (2 children) | Copy Link
Yes its producing thousands of activists.
Have you seen turning point? and turning point UK? They are against identity politics in all its forms - from the left and the right. This is an excellent initiaive and a big problem for illberal left. Turning Point have correctly idenitfied the issue with the illberal left (to be clear there is nothing wrong with the left - or the right, I am talking far left idenitity politics which is feminism) is that they have taken over univerisity - this leads to them becoming activists and then going into media, journalism, TV, hollywood, most news, blogging, law, social work and fucking up society.... and also destroying every single academic discipline they touch... so TP are focusing on the universities and getting rid of this ridicolous bias that everyone is a feminsit and far left (I mean the predominant culture and also massive over rep of these professors who are far leftist or feminsits). They are also fighting how the feminists far left type have automatically taken the gay vote, women, LGBT etc, so by virtue of you being a woman or LGBT you have to said far left... etc.
Anyway they have 1400 chapters in universities, are spreading in UK and are a big problem for the far leftist and feminists. These guys are anti SJW and feminism.
Then there are the post modernist fighters.... they are good, but I havent seen them as organised as TP yet
What would be good tbh is the far left with its identity politics gone mad started to canabalise itself, which is starting to happen.... you cant put intersectional femnists in the same space, they start out opression olympicing each other, a bit of this is startng to happen now, feminism is radically shifting now as well in response to BLM
https://youtu.be/DaepFi3uVSU
[–][deleted] 0 points1 point2 points (1 child) | Copy Link
I follow turning point usa. Was gonna go to the event but it's a bit too far away.
Btw, "illberal" is a good way of putting it. If it's just a typo it's still hilarious.
[–]mhandanna[S] 1 point2 points3 points (0 children) | Copy Link
Thats why I call them... or the regressive left (which I believe other people use) as a pose to the progressive left... the problem is these whack job leftists have taken over the sane left.... and even though they are the minority they have the loudest vioces and the sensible left are too scred to call them out, or ometimes they dont call them out for their own personal political gain.
[+]Loose_Television1 points [recovered] (1 child) | Copy Link
Sad so many women think men dont face sexism.. i hope more of us will start to open our eyes to this sad reality
[–]BlueCosmog 0 points1 point2 points (0 children) | Copy Link
The teacher's a guy. That makes it subjectively worse. He's a male.
[–]HesperianDragon 1 point2 points3 points (1 child) | Copy Link
Wow, reminds me of this class I took where this guy's research paper was on "The myth of Kennedy's Camelot". It was about dispelling a lot of hype around JFK, but the teacher wouldn't allow it.
Teachers are petty dictators.
[–]Lethn 0 points1 point2 points (0 children) | Copy Link
People are not helping my prejudices against the education system over stuff like this lol.
[–]GalileosTele 1 point2 points3 points (0 children) | Copy Link
It doesn't matter what evidence you have, only fact (or fiction) that proves the Patriarchy is real are permitted.
How to conduct proper feminist research
[–]DanteLivra 1 point2 points3 points (0 children) | Copy Link
That in itself is sexism against men.
[–]Ihavenopurposeinlif3 0 points1 point2 points (1 child) | Copy Link
How did you cross post to the same community
[–]mhandanna[S] 0 points1 point2 points (0 children) | Copy Link
Just crosspost it, I dont think there is any restriction to where you can cross post (as long as the sub allows it which mensrights and most subs do)
[–]tommo4534 0 points1 point2 points (0 children) | Copy Link
I’m going to do mine on it even if they can’t
[–]jp_mra 0 points1 point2 points (0 children) | Copy Link
1) Do the talk/workshop on men anyway.
2) Record all interactions with said teacher.
3) Start a petition in and out of class explaining the situation.
4) You are paying tuition to be brainwashed. Change schools starting next semester.
[+]ThatMuscle71 points [recovered] (1 child) | Copy Link
This is far-right capitalist censorship! The teacher believes only women can be treated as inferior? The teacher really needs to go learn the facts.
[–]mhandanna[S] 1 point2 points3 points (0 children) | Copy Link
I mean there is institutional sexism literally in school:
https://www.reddit.com/r/UnpopularFacts/comments/ght5dj/teachers_mark_girls_higher_for_identical_work_to/
[–]DukeBeekeepersKid 0 points1 point2 points (1 child) | Copy Link
Dude. Show them how to fight the power. You obviously being suppressed for whatever. You know what, I don't even care, don't even want to know and I not even going to pretend to care. So here what you do to fight power in your particular situation.
(1) Blind side the teacher and talk to the principle and explain your case and the sexism involved.
(2) Blind side the principle and talk to the superintendent of the schools, explain your case and the sexism involved.
(3) Blindside the principle and the superintendent and request a meeting with the school board to discuss the issue, and the sexism involved.
(4) After you exposed the obvious hypocrisy of the teacher, explain to the teacher the workings and mechanism of the power struggle a. Then explain that sexism agaisnt men do exist and the teacher was was inveigled.
You can't be afraid to make a scene and raise the issue.
[–][deleted] -1 points0 points1 point (0 children) | Copy Link
And if that doesn't work, document your actions and post them online where the world can see the sexism!
[–]JustJamie- -1 points0 points1 point (0 children) | Copy Link
Get parents involved and go to the principal or higher ups.