Your Children Will Participate In My Psychodrama
I as a student did NOT want to know about my teachers’ personal lives.
From the comments following this, in which Mr Jo Brassington, a teacher of small children, considers it “so important” to parade around the classroom, looking “cute,” in painted nails and make-up:
Update, via the comments:
Mr Brassington is, he says – or they says, because pronouns, obviously – that he’s “working to make educational spaces more emotionally honest.” And so, we’re expected to believe that “queer” teachers everywhere are somehow being suppressed and robbed of their energy unless they can start cross-dressing at work and telling small children about how screamingly fabulous they are. Such are the struggles of the modern primary-school educator.
Readers will note that the exhibitionist tendency and self-preoccupation are presented as an identity, something to be affirmed and applauded. But it’s not clear to me how one might differentiate an identity of this kind from a kink, or a mental health issue. And when you’re talking about adults having influence and authority over small children, it’s not an entirely trivial matter.
When not cross-dressing in class, or telling us that “almost all ideas of professionalism are either sexist, homophobic, transphobic, fat-phobic, racist, etc.,” our totally self-effacing educator apparently expects to be “celebrated, not tolerated.” Which strikes me as an odd choice of words – and perhaps somewhat revealing. I mean, imagine going in to work every day and expecting to be celebrated – and not celebrated for anything remarkable that you’ve actually achieved – but simply for your professed identity tags. “Oh, isn’t he being gay so terribly well…?” Or, “See how cleverly brown he is!”
It's like expecting congratulations for having big feet.
Via Julia.
Also, open thread.
The uninsured frigate has cost the Norwegian Navy its entire annual budget, but the country also lost millions of dollars with several oil and gas fields being temporarily shut down due to the accident.
But how were the Norwegian Navy’s feelings?
The Unbearable Lightness of Being….of being just another human in an infinite line of humans…destined to pass into oblivion without fanfare and parades…OH NO, CAN’T HAVE THAT!
That is these people: such boundless self-regard, absolutely enraged that those around them do not seem to appreciate their profound meaningfulness. And really, they live such meaningless lives that parading their deviancies in front of a captive audience is the glory to which they aspire. NOT to make a difference–to relieve another’s suffering (which is, to me, the ultimate act), but to glorify themselves on whatever minute stage they can find.
These people (I use the term provisionally) are pitiful. What is it like, to come to the end of a day and ask oneself: Who has noticed me today?
Instead, why can’t we have a generation of people who come to the end of the day and ask: Who have I noticed today?
Curiously (or significantly) none of the sf fans I knew mentioned this
It’s in Gibbon’s Decline and Fall. Nature decides it’s had enough of human beings despoiling the planet and strikes back, in a kind of The Happening sort of way. Written well past her prime. Her True Game series is excellent, and the Marianne books are well written, but I’ve always had the feeling that she has a really interesting idea and then doesn’t quite know what to do with it for six books.
Is </b> the new </i>?
You can imagine how thrilled I am.
Penny, so traumatized by bad reviews and then JK Rowling takes her to task.
Maintaining her fantasy narrative, with herself the forever put-upon star, must be exhausting for dear Laurie. You can practically hear the grinding noises of each new contrivance.
“And how do we spell ‘narcissism’?”
From Mr Brassington’s Twitter bio, amid the various flags and whatnot:
The idea that our hero, who expects to be celebrated simply for being, is indulging in emotional honesty is almost funny. Likewise, the claim that gay teachers everywhere are somehow being suppressed and robbed of their energy unless they can start cross-dressing at work and telling small children about how screamingly fabulous they are is… somewhat unconvincing.
Likewise, the claim that gay teachers everywhere
So there’s a book called What They Did to Princess Paragon, a roman a clef about the comic book industry centered on the 1986 relaunch of Wonder Woman as a feminist caricature. In the book they go one further; the relaunch makes “Princess Paragon” a lesbian, which DC didn’t quite go as far as.
At the climax of the book, the gay writer of the Paragon relaunch has tracked the artist to the artist’s mother’s house upstate, where the artist has fled due to a creative feud. When the writer arrives no one is home, and the writer enters the unlocked house looking for the artist, wanders into the mother’s bedroom, and proceeds to try on some of her clothing and makeup while admiring himself in her bathroom vanity mirror and reminiscing about doing the same as young boy with his own mother’s clothes.
You know. As one does.
Now, I do not run with the fabulous set, as a rule, but being a former con critter I know more than the statistically average number of gay men and I remember thinking that none of my gay friends would find this sort of thing usual, in the way the book portrayed it. That stealing into a stranger’s home, entering their bedroom and helping oneself to their intimate apparel would be the sort of thing that gay men just do would, I think, appall and insult them.
It’s the sort of thing that says more about the writer of the book and the real-life comic book writer he’s fictionalizing than gay men in general.
And in other, entirely unrelated news:
From “outstanding” to “requires improvement” is progress, obviously.
That stealing into a stranger’s home, entering their bedroom and helping oneself to their intimate apparel would be the sort of thing that gay men just do would, I think, appall and insult them.
Well, indeed. It’s not unlike the number of times I’ve had to explain that the endless parade of bedlamites, narcissists, and howling Nancies with Pride flags does not leave me feeling represented or affirmed.
[ Added: ]
For an earlier generation, homosexuality often conjured images of, say, John Inman, Larry Grayson, and Dick Emery – farcical, effeminate creatures who were there to be laughed at. The modern spectacle of cross-dressing teachers and fat, grotesque drag queens reading to children doesn’t exactly strike me as a massive improvement.
For an earlier generation, homosexuality often conjured images of, say, John Inman, Larry Grayson, and Dick Emery – farcical, effeminate creatures who were there to be laughed at. The modern spectacle of cross-dressing teachers and fat, grotesque drag queens reading to children doesn’t exactly strike me as a massive improvement.
That.
That.
Well, the conceit that one should identify with, and feel validated by, such sad, fatuous creatures might be insulting if it weren’t so ludicrous.
Penny, so traumatized by bad reviews and then JK Rowling takes her to task.
And speaking of dear, tearful Laurie.
You can imagine how thrilled I am.
No refunds; credit note only.
[slides jar of pickled eggs back down the bar to David]
[slides jar of pickled eggs back down the bar to David]
html advice
Always remember to put the lid back on the jar. Or, when leaving, to lock the door.
I have taken enough to know that you always end up walking many many blocks because train/bus does not go everywhere. I have spent an hour trying to flag down a taxi (before phone apps, obviously). If you buy something large, are you supposed to haul it around on the bus/train? So everyone as soon as they can afford it buys a car. Perhaps NYC is different but that is not most US cities. I have taken the Atlanta train many times across the city to/from airport and it is nice BUT there are scary looking people on it.
Agree. For PT to work you do need a significant degree of population density equivalent to that of NYC, Tokyo, etc. London’s seems to be the most functional for the least density but I only spent a couple of days using it. But again to my point, the requisite density will not be there without the proper social and safety factors. Also, one technological improvement that would address some concerns, especially here in humid FL, is these battery run scooters and such. Yes, they’re goofy and not a good idea for older people but they’re early in development. Also, Atlanta’s is near as stupid as Orlando’s. Vety one-dimensional such that it really only works if you’re moving along that specific rail line. It’s good for getting out of the airport. To some degree. But Orlando’s doesn’t even do that.
I’d know more about a cab driver after 20 minutes of chitchat than I did about teachers I spent my formative years with. We accepted the premise that teachers had lives outside school in the same way that we accepted the premise that our parents might have had sex. The distance was enforced as much or more by students than by teachers. We thought that oversharing teachers were creepy or weak. Many of our teachers having been formed in the 60’s had ideas about being more of a friend than an authority figure, but their attempts to establish intimacy were rebuffed as coldly or exploited as cynically as teenagers are capable of.
Implicitly shared, information that leaked out about the private lives of teachers: wedding rings; female teachers called Miss or Mrs; passing references to family members but only as generic types (“I get less whining from my two year old”); teachers with children in the same school, rules of engagement forbidding advantage to be taken; accidental crossing of paths in the mall at the weekend which we thought best not to mention, as if we’d discovered the teacher’s secret second family and not just their ordinary first family.
Did my school have an explicit policy that teachers should have stable, respectable private lives, not be a source of gossip or distraction, and not overshare? Or did it just happen by a consensus of people’s moral intuitions – this is a school for goodness sake, we can’t have that sort of thing bandied about here.
Nowadays, the school isn’t allowed to say what a stable, respectable private life is. There can be a managerial regime enforced by HR about oversharing personal information, but the threshold for which allows anyone to share as much implicitly as a respectable married teacher with a wedding ring and a family living in the same community, and as much explicitly as any trendy teacher since the 60’s.
We thought that oversharing teachers were creepy or weak.
That.
There is a great meme: it is a picture of a bent spoon. It says “Just because you are unique, does not mean you are useful”
Everyone wants to be special and praised. Did their parents not praise them enough as kids? Or maybe praised too much. We are part of a mass of 7 billion people. The quest for “specialness” leads you to look and act absurd. Like full body tatoos and piercings. Like clown makeup and clothing. Like spouting nonsense “philosophy”. True adulthood is recognizing that we are not so special, that praise (if any) follows deeds, that cause and effect matter (for health, for society, for economics), that one can better oneself by efforts, and that we are all muddling through life. A little humility is helpful too. I find that my friends do not understand or care much about the clever things I’ve done professionally, but care much more that I can make them laugh and don’t back-stab them, that I ask how they are doing.
Did my school have an explicit policy that teachers should have stable, respectable private lives
I know here in Ontario, the separate (Catholic) school board does, although it’s indifferently enforced.
But it’s not clear to me how one might differentiate an identity of this kind from a kink, or a mental health issue.
Up until very recently, it was a mental health issue. Then the trans mafia activists got it removed from the mental disorders manual and not only that, demand affirming treatment or else. I feel bad for the anorexics, who also have very strong body dysphoria. No gastric bypass, liposuction, appetite suppressants, and cosmetic surgery for them! They’re stuck with having a mental illness, and worse, being told that they aren’t fat, no matter what they feel, poor sods.
going to work expressing myself is so important
That’s not what you’re paid to do, sweetheart.
That’s not what you’re paid to do, sweetheart.
Well, you might think that workplace self-expression via the medium of cross-dressing and elaborately painted nails wouldn’t be a high priority for a primary-school teacher. However, if you poke through the retweets, you’ll find plenty of fellow educators gushing with ostentatious approval. As if wearing women’s clothes, and general self-indulgence, were some kind of heroic feat.
The words inspiration and legend are used.
Possibly relevant:
“ ‘I’m a National Socialist,’ he said. ‘You can’t understand, because you have talent. But I, who haven’t any, need national socialism.’…’The age belongs to us, we the men of no talent.’ “
—quoted by Theodore Dalrymple in “Men of No Talent” in the collection Second Opinion
Sent from my iPhone
I do note that these are always primary school teachers. In high school, any teacher who let slip any personal information whatsoever would have been eaten alive by the students; around here teachers are actually taught not to reveal anything about their private lives.
I’m not sure how this works in an age where the slightest deviation from the trans orthodoxy is a social death sentence, but my recollection is that teenage boys are largely immune to shame, so.
In high school, our history teacher would not reveal anything about her political views. She didn’t want the students to simply copy her. Ah, the good old days.
We had a french teacher who dressed like a french prostitute (of the 60s, not today) and probably pushed the boundaries with her clothing. I always wondered why no one among the students ever said anything, but this was the South where people still had manners. She never acted out either.
There is another case similar to the trans case where people demand that everyone else adjust their behavior: noise. Some people are bothered by loud noises and in some universities it has become the norm to not clap but instead use jazz hands to show approval. Nothing like a silent audience to give an actor or musician a boost. If 1% of people are “uncomfortable” then all of us much bow and scrape to atone.
it has become the norm to not clap but instead use jazz hands to show approval.
Sure, ignore the blind. Caecophobes!
I know here in Ontario, the separate (Catholic) school board does, although it’s indifferently enforced.
The latest thing in Halton is non-Catholics want representation on the Catholic School advisory boards. Next thing radical Islam will want representation at the Rabbinical Synods.
Boom.
The latest thing in Halton is non-Catholics want representation on the Catholic School advisory boards.
Ahh, Halton. Where we pay taxes for progressives to give us rainbow crosswalks but they can’t be arsed to fill the #&^%$ potholes.
Next stop will be shitting on the sidewalks.
In summer, course.
Related, perhaps, and as a follow up to a previous incident in which Laurie Penny gets her own pronouns confused, please enjoy this piece by Suzanne Moore, and, as a special Envoi, this exchange between Julie Bindel, J K Rowling, and the inevitable Penny.
Discovered this on a related thread. In honor of international women’s day, one should riot.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Teacherglitter/status/1501085981520416769/photo/1
one should riot
I notice R. Adm. Grace Hopper never shows up in these things.
Teacherglitter
Mother of dragons? There’s kinky and then there’s “how did she do that?”
Shouldn’t the Ask me about my pronouns buttons in Ms Moore’s article read
where * = flavour of the day?
The persuasive power of black lipstick.
one should riot
That meme is referencing Marsha P Johnson, apparently conscripting him from beyond the grave as a woman. Talk about assuming someone’s gender! Even the Wiki bio only goes so far as fastidiously avoiding uses of pronouns and/or coyly referring to Johnson by his name.
[ Fixes overflow of italics, taps sign. ]
Teacherglitter
Sure they are, keep telling yourself that.
In honor of international women’s day…
Also in honor.
The persuasive power of black lipstick.
What, doubt the credentials of this lass to run a Sexy Summer Camp for kids?
…and, as a special Envoi, this exchange between Julie Bindel, J K Rowling, and the inevitable Penny.
Broken link. Go Here is the article.
What, doubt the credentials of this lass to run a Sexy Summer Camp for kids?
That sounds so bizarre that I wonder if it’s a hoax. (Although in these deranged days, who knows?)
HONK!
The article about Penny illustrates exactly why “they/them” is a terrible pronoun choice: you cannot tell if a sentence is about her or about her and her husband. It makes communication difficult.
Oh, and a “lesbian” married to a man? Do these people even know what words mean?
The vagina museum celebrating trans “women” is so brave that they turned off comments on their tweet. Brave.
Oh, and a “lesbian” married to a man? Do these people even know what words mean?
It’s Calvinball, and its purpose is to harass and bully normal people.
However, I did personally know two such married couples: The marriages were for legal/economic convenience, of course–no erotic component–although they did like each other as friends.
I remember a Ben Elton routine about how if men had periods, they’d brag about their severity as a measure of virility, compared to the dignified and coping women silenced (this being 1989 or so) by the patriarchy. The other tack at the time, which was closer to the truth, was that women being more tuned into biological rhythms and childbirth and childcare than men were less squeamish about discussing such things. Women talking about their bodily functions, just like women not talking about their bodily functions, was also proof of how dignified and coping women were compared to men, who are disgusting when they talk about it and priggish when they don’t talk about it. The vagina museum comes from such an ideological atmosphere.
The “trans woman” thing comes from a completely different ideology. Womanhood not as a biological given but as an idea or an ideal. Women have always been a gender of immigrants, our constitutional republic of womanhood being constantly renewed by women of all genital configurations, and the Vagina Museum has always had penises.
Womanhood not as a biological given but as an idea or an ideal.
Woman is biological. Womanhood is a discussion to be had among women. Not the other way around
our constitutional republic of womanhood being constantly renewed by women of all genital configurations,
The attempt at some sort of dorm-room poetics is just sad. More than that, that attitude leaves women open to abuse and exploitation (e.g. Lia Thomas). The sexes are not fungible.
Darleen: I believe pat was being sarcastic.
The belief that “woman” is just an idea or ideal leads the trans to the absurd. Since the mere declaration “I am a woman” is not believed (even by themselves), and the trans don’t really know what “woman” is, they go the clownshow route of extreme strange makeup and blue hair. Sure, you are a woman for real now.
All views my own
Two possible interpretations for this:
“I don’t speak for anyone else.”
or
“I am a not a programmed idiot just repeating things.”
I wonder which one is most likely to be true.
Darleen: I believe pat was being sarcastic.
It has become almost impossible to separate out the sarcastic from the woke without “/sarc” tags. Yikes.
“make educational spaces more emotionally honest”
By persecuting anyone who feels uncomfortable with blokes prancing around in women’s clothes.
“HONK!“
Scraping the barrel to find more than half a dozen notable transsexuals throughout the entirety of human history, but not a word about Deirdre McCloskey. I can’t imagine why.
Also, I’d just like to insert the annual reminder that “International Women’s Day” was originally established by the Communist Party of the USSR as a response to the Women’s World Day of Prayer, which has been held on the first Friday in March since 1927. (Although at some point in the last 20 years or so the “Women’s” bit has been dropped. Yay feminism!)