Yeah, I live near a state park named “Bong.” To be fair, it was named after a person. There is also a Wang Town in Minnesota.

I’ve never seen a truer post.

What are bakery gloves? I’ve never heard of that before, and Google was not helpful.

Ditto. Then, when we went back to “normal,” I felt like I had to pretend to hate it because everyone else hated it so much. For me, it felt like freedom and relief.

I agree. They are better looking than they are tasting.

One of the biggest things I learned when I started working in the legal field is that the only justice you’ll get is the justice you can prove. Things like this might be true, but if you can’t prove it, you’ll get no justice for it.

Is that fair? No. But the system we created is based on the assumption that people are going to be wrongfully imprisoned or charged for actions that they didn’t commit simply because the government wants them imprisoned. We designed it that way because that used to happen often in other countries, and we didn’t want that to happen here. So, we created rules to avoid wrongful imprisonment by the government without finding a way to also protect victims who may not have enough evidence to prove their victimization.

I’m not saying that what this woman is asserting happened or didn’t happen. I have no idea what went down. I also don’t know how we fix the system. People are wrongfully imprisoned, victims don’t receive justice, etc., but this is how the system is designed, so whether or not it’s true, she is required to demonstrate it, or she will receive no justice.

Okay, I normally try not to be this guy, but in this particular situation, I believe a little pedantry is called for. You mean that you couldn’t care less. If you could care less, that means you do care at least a little bit, which is not the point you’re trying to make.

Ditto. I feel like I’m the only one who still listens to the radio in my car. The only thing I want my car to have that it doesn’t is cruise control. Otherwise, she’s perfect.

I won’t lie; I cried a little when I read your comment. It’s really validating and rare to truly be seen. I do tread very carefully to be appropriate, fair, and reasonable in my responses, but I never really expected anyone to see that. I appreciate your comment more than I know how to say.

This is a tough topic because, like you said, it affects literally everyone, no matter their gender, and everyone has different experiences and opinions. I just want everyone who is forming an opinion to see as many different sides and experiences as possible to, at the very least, make an informed decision on the state of gender politics. I know that everyone has their personal biases, and no one wants to give up privileges or power, but at the end of the day, again, like you said, the patriarchy hurts all of us.

I appreciate you. <3

Yes! This is the exact approach a good teacher takes with students who struggle with behavioral norms. There is a reason they are doing what they’re doing. They are reacting to adults the way they have been trained to react by other, shittier adults.

Once they trust you as a person who actually cares, they seem to become a whole new person. They are no longer scared to be vulnerable in front of you. It’s a sacred level of respect that teachers and/or mentor adults need to take very seriously.

I used to be the person who specializes in working with students who struggle with behavioral problems, and I can 100% assure you that exposure to violence from or among adults they are around is what led them to my classrom.

Barbaric, weird, and ineffective. It doesn’t actually address what is causing the behavioral issue. It only punishes the kid for reacting normally to whatever stimuli they are experiencing. It’s especially frustrating when the fix would have been something simple like listening to the kid’s concerns or trying to have a conversation with them to address the root problem.

You definitely have a point, and there are definitely women like the one you described in the world. Men 100% deserve to be treated with equality and respect. I’m sorry that you had that experience with your former partner. It’s a garbage, disrespectful move from someone who is supposed to have your back.

But your point does ignore the fact that a majority of women have been raised by parents and by society to be subservient to men. The person who posted this originally wanted to know why women aren’t taught how to treat men, but the fact is that we are. Constantly. Whether we want to be taught or not. Most of us have learned to do this so deeply that it’s second nature. Most of us don’t even remember learning it because that’s just the way that it is.

This is for a wide variety of reasons, but most of it boils down to men having control over the world for thousands of years and women trying to find the best way to survive and occasionally excel in a world made for and by men. Remember that we used to be (and often still are) considered property. It’s taken a really long time to get as far as we (women) have. My sex has only been able to vote in my country for 100 years. That’s not a lot of time to make major changes in public perception and major societal shifts. We’ve grown a lot, but these shifts come with growing pains.

If we lived in a world where women have to be taught how to treat a male partner well, that means that society isn’t doing the teaching anymore, and while yes, women should treat men with equivalent respect, it’s still a huge improvement societally that women don’t develop ingrained subservience. The woman that you previously dated sounds like part of those growing pains. Some people are always going to take things too far because the line had not previously been defined (even though the golden rule should be pretty common sense).

Conversely, men often have to be taught this because society doesn’t do the teaching. Society is cool with men following the status quo.

Does this give a woman a solid reason to treat another human like trash, no matter their gender? No. This is the big reason why I think feminism is so important. People hear that term and think it means pro-women only, but what it really means is equality for all genders. Full equality should be the goal even if it ends up hurting women a little. For example, one of the few privileges women have that men don’t have is in the courtroom. Women tend to have better outcomes because of biases about our weakness and innocence. Feminism would be working to dismantle something like that even if it gives women an advantage.

Equality is important, but understanding women’s historical growth and struggles is important, too. Women have been taught ad nauseum how to treat men well, but some women are going to make different choices. At the end of the day, I agree with you. I just want people to remember how hard the struggle was for women to get here, understand how far we still have to go to gain real equality, and respect the societal pressures that we deal with every day.

Ah, the same way I deal with issues in my life. Good to know that the tendency goes all the way to the bone.

I definitely agree that there aren’t enough resources given to teachers, but the expectation of using common decency to reach the goal of educating our students is not too high of an expectation. Focus on the end goal. How you get there can vary (assuming it’s appropriate), but you are still trying to reach the goal of educating the students. If your teaching style is prohibiting people from reaching that goal, why wouldn’t you change it?

It’s nice to think that as an English teacher, I only have to worry about how well they can interpret the modern applications of the lessons in Macbeth, or whatever literature we’re studying, but in reality, teachers are teaching a whole heck of a lot more than their specific subject area. We’re simultaneously modeling how to behave appropriately, teaching how to navigate complex social situations, and mentoring students on how to achieve their goals and deal with set backs. Teachers have always worn more than one hat. It’s not only an expectation for the job; it’s an absolute requirement for success.

Should they earn more money for having to do all of that? YES! That’s why we’ve been complaining about the low pay and lack of resources for at least 40 years. The effort and skills are non-negotiable. Kids shouldn’t get a crappy education just because some politicians are using their teachers’ wages as political leverage. People go into education knowing that the pay sucks, but they actually care about other people and future generations. They don’t go into just for the paycheck, and I don’t know a single educator who wouldn’t put in some extra effort to help a student succeed.

You’re basing a lot of your opinion on the assumption that kids come to school ready to learn and healthy. The reality is that parents and home lives come in a wide variety of flavors. Some parents do exactly what you said: dump on teachers with their own expectations on how students should be handled. But others don’t get involved at all. Some don’t care about their child’s life beyond how it affects them. Some are so busy working to make ends meet that they don’t have time to be much more than an absent parent. No matter what life the student has, it’s still my job to give them a quality education, so of that means giving them a granola bar or calling Joe Suzie, then that’s what it takes.

We’re basically fighting for the same thing here: better pay, better resources, and support for teachers so that students can get a better education. The difference is that I don’t think students should get the short end of the stick for something they can’t change (i.e. low pay), whereas you’d rather a teacher not do extra because they aren’t getting paid to do extra. But my method reaches the end goal of educating students well, and yours instead basically says, “Reach the goal or don’t. I don’t really care since I did my part.”

A good chunk of a teacher’s job is to build appropriate relationships with your students. Students don’t want to learn from someone they dislike, and you have significantly better learning outcomes when the students feel safe, accepted, and cared about. Appropriate nicknames, like Tim for Timothy, help in that relationship building. I don’t know what your position is at that school, but Wisconsin teachers are literally taught stuff like this in college so that we know how to manage a classroom with the best learning outcomes and the fewest number of behavioral disruptions. We are taught how to keep those relationships appropriate and healthy, although much of that is just common sense.

Yes, you should separate work and home life for both your own sanity and for modeling good boundaries and work-life balance. But that doesn’t mean you have to drop your decency at the door. At the end of the day, the goal is learning, and not being a douche is one of the easiest ways to get to that goal.

Extracurricular activities are an extension of these same principles, not an exception or something with a different set of standards. I think you might be mixing up appropriate relationship building with inappropriate fraternizing, and I’m concerned that you are having difficulty finding that line.

Whelp, Walker neutered our teachers’ unions, and the conservatives pushed for being a right to work state, so here are some unexpected consequences of that. They do not have to tell him why his contract wasn’t renewed, and now he doesn’t have a union backing his position. Plus, he wasn’t even “fired,” just not renewed.

F this teacher for creating an environment of hate.

Dude, I hear that loud and f-ing clear. I’m also someone who left a marriage without any real hate toward my ex. We were chill during the marriage and afterward. No cheating; no drama.

So when I re-entered the dating world a decade after I had previously been in it, I did not expect the amount of bitter dudes I’ve since come across. If your profile starts with you saying you won’t tolerate a woman who does ______., I’m more concerned about how damaged you are from your previous relationship than I am about whether or not we would be a good match.

I’m with you. It’s a massive faux pas for women to shit in a public bathroom. You only do it when absolutely necessary. Not sure how it goes in the men’s room though. I’m also not saying that it’s healthy, but society be like that sometimes.

I’ve had this book sitting on my shelf for years, but I think your comment might be what makes me read it. I always thought of it as only applicable to wars or competitions of some sort, but you’re right. I live in the rat race every day, and it definitely is a battlefield, and I would like to know my enemy and myself better.

Specific, but somehow also universal? I feel like I’ve seen this scene play out at least a half dozen times in my life.