Ms. R. Hates Men!”
Feb 25·5 min read
Photo by Heather Morse on Unsplash
A few years ago, my husband announced with unwarranted glee that he had just checked my status on a Rate Your Teacher website. It was basically positive, he admitted, but one student had declared with palpable distaste: “Ms. R. Hates Men!”
My first thought was: That little weasel! How dare he say I hate men!
My second thought was: Why did he say (and think) that I hate men? Was it because he failed my course? Did we have some sort of conflict in my class?
I was confused, but at the same time, also a little intrigued. Did I really come across as a man-hater?
So I went to that Bringer-of-bad-news and asked him if I seem/look/act like a man-hater.
In a particularly unhelpful, provoking way, he said: “Well, you certainly seem to hate me at times. You are always telling me off, for absolutely no reason.”
Yep! I can definitely be a man-hater! Or should I say a Guy-hater! At times.
Seeing how unamused I was by his comment, and seeing my eyes start to squint (a tell-tale sign that I’m getting very irritated), he decided to be serious. He told me that I was a feminist.
What? Is he nuts? Since when am I a feminist?
When I vehemently denied that, he explained that I was a feminist in the truest sense of the word. I believed in the strength, intelligence, and value of the female gender and in no way did I consider them to be inferior to men. Furthermore, I was not shy about defending or standing up for them when I deemed it necessary. Which was quite often, he added.
Okay yes, he had a point. That is definitely a big part of my personality, but I don’t see myself as a feminist or a man-hater.
Is it because I see the two as synonymous?
First of all, I don’t really believe in burning my bra. Those things are really expensive, and a good-fitting, flattering bra is very difficult to find. Second, I don’t believe that women are better off without men. Admittedly, they might at times be less stressed or frustrated, but you have to take the good with the bad. And finally, I don’t see serious relationships or marriage as a trap or a sign of weakness. The kind of hardcore feminists that I have read claim that if a woman gives a man “a serious place” in her life, that shows she is not able to live a happy, fulfilled life on her own.
A couple of days later, I went to the closest thing to the source I could find: my current students. I asked one of my groups if they thought that I hated men. They were understandably shocked at this out-of-left-field comment. So, I told them about the Rate Your Teacher site and the disturbing comment there.
There was a lot of laughter and some of the students made a point of writing down the name of the website. However, they assured me that I did not seem or act like a man-hater to them.
One of my cheekier students, Jason, said: “Miss, it’s because you never let us get away with shit!”
Silence.
Then several of the students looked at me with delicious anticipation. They couldn’t wait to see how I would react.
“I mean that we could do whatever we wanted in high school and the teachers didn’t say or do anything to stop us. You don’t accept that from us. It’s rather disconcerting.” Jason continued unperturbed.
“First of all, Jason, thank you for answering my question so clearly. Second of all, I’m impressed with your use of “rather disconcerting”. Perfect placement and very appropriate. Third of all. We do not use the word “shit” in my classroom.”
“Sorry, Miss!” Jason said with a big smile amid laughter from his classmates. “You see what I mean, though.”
Another student told me that she had learned a lot about women’s issues in my class. A few more added that they hadn’t realized that there was such a big difference in the way men and women were treated in the workplace, in politics, etc. They were learning a lot about the abuse and oppression that some women were experiencing in Quebec, North America, and other places.
Seeing as the course I was teaching is called English Language and Culture, I consider that to be a good thing.
But I was still bothered.
Had I inadvertently diminished or demeaned men by trying to raise my students’ awareness of the conditions and realities of both genders in society?
So, I asked them that question directly.
And the surprising but satisfying answer from one of my male students was: “You are teaching us to understand the life of men and women in the world. You haven’t said that when horrible things happen, it’s because men in general are bad or all men do bad things to women. You have emphasized many times that if we don’t know what is really going on in the world, if we don’t know history or sociology, how are we going to make the world a better place?”
When I said that I was surprised, it is because this particular student always sat slumped in his seat, looking indescribably bored, as if the only thing worse than being in my class was to have someone shove hot pokers through his eyes. He never seemed to pay attention to me, or his classmates, and he never participated in group or class discussions. I always assumed he didn’t read the articles or look at the videos that I assigned.
But he had been listening. And learning. And isn’t that what every teacher wants for his or her students? For them to have the keys to open doors to knowledge and critical thinking?
My takeaway?
To the best of my knowledge, even though the student who made the comment might consider me a man-hater, at least the majority of them were learning about gender and social issues from a feminist, who was not a man-hater.
