Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the teacher mentioned was an IU graduate. The IDS regrets this error.
Anti-feminists are cowards, plain and simple.
For someone who does not believe in the equality of the sexes, it is not because they believe women are the weaker sex but because they are afraid of losing power.
It was obvious when Emma Watson gave her now-famous United Nations speech for the campaign HeforShe and was immediately threatened with a nude photo leak that proved false.
Her speech was meant as an invitation for men and women to see feminism as the advancement of both sexes, as the improvement of the social conditions of both genders.
The fact that she was threatened points not to the fact that anti-feminists simply don’t want women to be equal but that they don’t want to lose power.
This kind of behavior and thought needs to stop.
This weekend I went home, like many students, to visit my family.
When I caught up with my sister, she told me her high school philosophy teacher was so blatantly sexist it was painful and that many of the students in the class felt uncomfortable when he was teaching.
He told the students that equal pay should not be allowed because men have to pay for the dinner on dates.
When my sister raised her hand to contradict him, to tell him that equal pay was absolutely necessary and that, if we were going to run the numbers, women have to pay for menstrual supplies, make-up, rent and children, he told her she was being ?inappropriate.
He took away all her agency and power because he didn’t want to be proven wrong.
In an open forum where he allowed the students to post questions and concerns, he ignored several questions about the equality of the sexes, opting instead to lecture on why it was that women were biologically the weaker sex.
It infuriated me.
This is happening in my old high school, a school in Indiana just an hour and a half away from Bloomington.
It is ludicrous that this man is responsible for teaching students higher thought when he does not believe that half of his class has the mental capabilities to understand him.
Even more so, my sister expressed her amazement that he was a recent graduate of Indiana University.
She’s visited IU’s campus and has seen the diversity of race, philosophy, science and belief.
Apparently it didn’t ?translate.
Luckily I know that my school is smaller and has the ability to closely monitor the performances of its teachers and the comfort of its students. When I was going to school, a teacher with similar beliefs was quickly fired.
But it doesn’t address large schools, where sexism can permeate.
Moreover, it doesn’t take care of the snide comments about the length of girl’s clothing, rude jokes and the idea that boys are somehow smarter and tougher.
We need to change this culture immediately. We need to prevent this kind of belief from permeating our school systems early on, so that we can create young minds that are open, accepting and believe in the ?equality of human beings.
ewenning@indiana.edu
