A lot of you have probably heard about Queen of Peace High School, a Catholic school in New Jersey, where specifically female students are being asked to pledge to not use obscenities. The male students are being asked to not use obscenities in the presence of their female classmates.
If you want to read more about the specifics of this ridiculous campaign at this particular school, read this article. People can be terrible.
I hold the door for girls. I also hold the door for guys. Because I am a polite person (not to be confused with a nice person). It’s not chivalry. Most of the people these days who say that they wish that men were still chivalrous also operate under the delusion that the 1950s was a pleasant, somehow superior decade. I will admit that they just don’t make whites-only drinking fountains like they did in the 1950s.
Sorry, weirdos. The world was always awful.
I really, really hate senseless double-standards. Double-standards are rarely good, but, honestly, we all have them. If I see a man punch a man, I think: “Okay, I have nothing but contempt for you.” If I saw a man punch a woman, my response would be murderous hatred. It’s a bias and it’s not fair—I should feel murderous hatred in either situation.
But this? This does not make sense. They want the female students to “act like ladies” and for the male students to “act like gentlemen.” Which is ridiculous. Next, I suppose, Susie will have to walk a few feet behind Johnny* while he carries her books between classes.
I think that the interviews with the students may be more alarming than the fact that this move was implemented. I live in the South, but I went to an excellent magnet school (and it was a public school—I know that some areas have bad public schools but private schools aren’t the answer and they’re not a good idea, though anything’s better than homeschooling). You would have had to really, really try to find a female student who would agree that this campaign was a good idea. The blatant sexism of it—holding male and female students to different standards—is something that would ruffle almost anyone’s feathers. You would think.
Even more pathetic was a male student who finds girls who use the language that he “cannot help” but use to be unattractive. You guys. It’s one thing for a guy to say: “All girls should shave their bodies, duh,” which is rudely phrased but an okay taste to have. It’s another thing for a guy to say: “All girls should shave their bodies, but no I can’t be bothered to shave my face I don’t have time just deal with it.” Because disgusting double-standards are disgusting double-standards.
And the whole “cannot help” thing is ridiculous. Yeah, if you’re seven, your impulse-control won’t be great. If you’re sixteen, you can’t help having hormone levels that give you overactive emotions and really unnecessary erections. But you can, in fact, stop yourself from saying something, no matter what errors you make in sportsball. Have the self-control that you are demanding from your female classmates.
To be clear, I am not a bit supporter of the use of obscenities. I do think that it is silly to arbitrarily classify certain words as “bad words,” with the obvious exception of hurtful slurs. Any references to excrement are gross because of what they refer to—not because of one’s choice in diction. But I am also not a big supporter of ridiculous sexist nonsense.
Please get a grip, Queen Of Peace High School.
*Also no one is named Susie or Johnny anymore, I hope.
