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Over on the Men’s Rights subreddit, the neverending struggle against imaginary feminists continues apace. Today, one brand-new Redditor, a self-described former feminist, won himself several dozen upvotes from the regulars by bringing them a literally unbelievable tale of his adventures with a coven of slap-happy feminists.
I stopped calling myself a feminist a few years ago when I went to a meeting and was told “men are inly allowed in this safe space if they participate in a slap circle.”
The idea was that it would be harder for me to intimidate with my six foot stature if all the women had a chance to slap me in the face. I left.
Another guy actually did it.
It’s all true. I WAS THAT GUY.
BUT WHO WAS PHONE?
Actually, no. If this dude’s story is true, I will literally eat my cats.
While most of the Men’s Rightsers commenting in the thread seem to have swallowed this story whole, “slap circles” aren’t actually a thing in feminism.
They are a thing, though, amongst bored and/or drunk young men (and sometimes women) around the world, as countless videos on YouTube can attest.
As as site called Hungry Teen explains, a “Slap Circle” is
A great way to bond with friends, release aggression and stimulate the face. The Slap Circle is a game made for the more hardcore, daring person and can be used as a test for finding the manliest of the group. Although adopting female fighting techniques, the slap circle appeals far more to men. Nothing is required for this game, other than a hand, a face and a set of balls.
All you do, is stand in a circle and slap the person to your right in the face, while waiting for a slap from the person on your left. If you’ve had enough, you step out of the circle and the last two standing fight it out for the winner.
I eagerly await stories in the Men’s Rights subreddit detailing Andrea Dworkin’s demand that all men and boys be forced to take the Cinnamon Challenge and all those insidious mandatory nut shot seminars being forced upon all college students unfortunate enough to be born with a pair of balls.
Thanks to Cloudiah for the heads up, and the good people of the AgainstMensRights subreddit for the Hungry Teen quote.
As someone who’s been homeschooled all their life, I can say this: Homeschool has its pluses and its downsides. Public school has its pluses and its downsides. There definitely are problems with the public school system, but that doesn’t mean people who went there are “mindless automatons”.
I think Howard Bannister was also *trying* to be a bit cruel, what with saying it was the meanest thing he (?) could say, and that he was only half-serious.
And I think homeschoolers can, admittedly, be a bit defensive sometimes 🙂
@anonymouslazycat
I don’t know if you’ve been here the whole thread, but part of the reason I’m defensive is Stevie’s weird ‘impossible to go to medical school if you’re homeschooled’ shtick. I mean, I had one of the worse (in terms of knowledge gain) homeschool experiences, but it still skeeved me the fuck out.
Actually education in the U.S. is pretty awesome. Those international test scores don’t really mean anything to me. The U.S. system is super flexible, unlike education in the EU. It might sound weird but it’s true. I have studied in two EU countries and the US (quite an international high school experience). I hate the strict rules in the US about absence and the dress codes. Europe is a lot better in that respect – you can wear whatever you want (shorts, tops, heels) and punishments for unexcused absences are not that common. College is def better in the U.S.
As for homeschooling, I don’t know if it’s even allowed in Europe. I know there is no such thing in many European countries, but can’t speak for all. High school equivalent diplomas like the GED don’t exist either (again, in most countries I know)
I’m not saying public schools are perfect, but I actually got a good education at public school and not one that encouraged conformity or anything. That was before No Child Left Behind though. I’m not fond of the greater emphasis on testing either.
It’s my understanding that parental involvement is the biggest factor in how well a child does in school and the type of schooling is less important.
I also think that the horrible state of schools these days is highly exaggerated for the benefit of the corporate funders behind the school reform movement. I don’t think American schools are worse it’s just that the rest of the world surpassed us and we aren’t at the top anymore. I don’t know what to do about that but I think the problem might be more with our culture than the schools themselves.
As Isaac Asimov said:
I think that’s why there’s a high stupid factor in the US. Everything about our culture teaches us that smart isn’t cool. I’m not sure any school can fix that. There’s also the issue of rising poverty and income inequality which is another thing schools are expected to fix and can’t.
Considering my parents pretty stopped being able to help me with homework when I got to high school because I had started advancing beyond what they were taught in the 1960’s I’m just not buying the idea public schools have become terrible. I’m sure a lot of it depends on the district and the state standards though. My state is pretty decent.
I think a lot of problems would be solved if we just changed the way that schools are funded. It shouldn’t be dependent on the local property tax base.
Huge teal dear here. I know Howard isn’t a troll and I have never been offended by anything he’s said before. So I’m sure he didn’t mean that way. But whatever the intent, the comment did read to me as a judgment that one couldn’t possibly have received a good education at public school. IME people who are relatively intelligent, want to learn and have halfway decent parents manage to get plenty out of their educations.
@Suzy
Lol we so went to different schools.
Okay, I may be weird on this thread, since I was homeschooled the last years of high school and in public or private earlier. but
Okay, so you actually have a comparison point. That explains it. But I hated school in the US. Hate the dress codes, too.
I don’t see how it’s flexible, unless schools in EU are even less flexibe. But even when I was trying to go back to school after two years of being out and (by law) in homeschool with super bad depression, we found an online school to go to.
It was public, so it was free, but they were 0% understanding about mental health. I wanted just a couple classes to get back in the hang of it, they refused. Then they tried to pile on as many classes as possibe to make me graduate quicker when I didn’t want to just take the GED asap. They pressured me to sign up for many classes I didn’t want, and I had to take a heavier course load than even is average, because the best thing to do when someone comes back to school is to do that :/
I ended up dropping out again, to nobody’s surprise, and just took the GED. Maybe you had a better experience with US? But my experience with it was terrible
Sorry if this seems like an attack on you. It’s not. I just had bad experience and this brought up bad feelings and I had to vent. Sorry again.
Sometimes one has to follow a model of schooling out of necessity, even if one would have preferred another model. If my husband and me weren’t both working full-time, I’d totally consider homeschooling. (Actually, the phrase I’ve heard but haven’t researched yet was “unschooling”?)
On this topic, saw an incredible TED video the other day on the possibilities of learning in an innovative way:
I want that for my kids! Damn, I want that for *me*.
I’m 100% with you on that, weirwoodtreehugger. If you want to learn, nothing’s going to stop you. But if you don’t…then nothing’s going to make you. You can lead a kid to knowledge, but you can’t make them think.
If you wouldn’t mind my asking, why do you think changing the way schools are funded would help?
WWTH
I agree with everything you said. I have observed the same as well.
The way American schools are funded is absolutely ridiculous. It’s like this: more funding for the rich and less for the poor. Chicago is a perfect example of that.
@weirdwoodtreehugger
MIne could still help me, but they both had PHDs, so I can’t judge on the ‘highschool then to highschool now’ comparison.
I don’t think they’ve suddenly become terrible either. I think they either work for you or they don’t, and some kids they really don’t work for.
State standards: I actually haven’t seen many state standards stuff besides for sex ed, so I’m super uneducated on that part.
uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
yeah no.
cuz my parents helped me as much as they could
and I can’t say for sure if I’m ‘relatively intelligent’
but you are just ignoring a large part of this.
ABLED PEOPLE maybe can get a shit out of their educations. But public schools in the US are set up towards the able bodied and the neurotypical.
try it with depression, or with a physical disability, and it gets a FUCKLOT harder.
Sorry for yelling. But you’re just ignoring a large amount of people here.
“It shouldn’t be dependent on the local property tax base.”
So much THIS.
The BF and I went to HS one town apart and our HS experiences…not that his was diamonds and mine was shit or anything, but some of the shit that I put up with had him going HUH?!
Like, I spent 4th and 9th grade math sitting in the hallway for being disruptive (stupidly, 9th grade that included quietly reading a novel under my desk). Finished the material and bored? Let’s punish you via social ostracism! I guess with better funding there would’ve been better ways to deal with that, which makes sense (at the least, let me read my damned novel IN the classroom, not in the HS hallway! That was just a shitty teacher though)
WWTH — I hear you about parents not being able to help with homework! At least my mother figured out that she could still help by providing snack food 🙂 (and ignoring me while I screamed about Cicero)
@anonymouslazycat
Fuck you :3
YOu want to know what will stop you.
FUCKING MESSED UP CHEMICALS IN YOUR BRAIN THAT TELL YOU THAT YOU’RE FUCKING WORTHLESS.*
but sure, lets do that ‘nothing going to stop you if you want to’ abled + neurotypical BS.
*and many, many other things, but that’s the one that’s my personal experience.
@argenti aertheri
that sucks 🙁 My public highschool actually let kids read after they finished.
Other things that ‘will stop you from learning’.
Is that just it’s a lot easier to learn about something you want to than something you have to.
Ex: I love learning about history, and evolution, but hate math and most other science. I didn’t flunk out of chemistry cuz I didn’t want to learn, I flunked out of chemistry because I didn’t want to learn about chemistry.
Important distiction.
argenti
both my parents took the same level math, the same amount of years ago, but my dad kind of didnn’t want to admit he’d forgotten stuff when i asked him for help so he attempted as best as he could. Frustration + hilarity ensued. (after we attempted a problem “So…. we’ve got 0=6. Okay, that may be wrong”)
Fortunately, i have a genius younger brother who wound up in higher math than me (after my school break for depression) and he can now help if i have any questions
Marie — oh yeah, telling a suicidal 14 year old to go sit in the hall instead of reading quietly is TOTALLY HELPFUL.
And THIS is part of why the rash of ableist trolls bothers me so much — the only way the US school system knows how to deal with mentally ill students is to push us off on someone else as their problem.
Well, mostly, I know of a private school nearby for such students that is, according to the person I know who went there, actually pretty good about the mental health side of things. But it’s private and not exactly cheap, so again, more for the kids with wealthier parents.
@augzillary
yeah, they do have weird rules.
One we had was there was a lobby that went to bathrooms and a cafeteria. Kids could hang out in the lobby in one year. But when they made *more* kids sit in the cafeteria, they didn’t let *anyone* out into the lobby. I had dropped out by this time, but IIRC the noise + people issue really hurt my sister. It sounded very inaccessible.
@argenti aertheri
Blah that sucks. Belated internet hugs from me to past you, if wanted.
I wish I remembered more about private schools. I only went there for 2 years, and it was two different private schools. Probably varies greatly between school, but my parents tried to send me there when I wasn’t feeling well in public, but we didn’t have the money to continue.
“My public highschool actually let kids read after they finished.”
That is awesome and a good easy and free policy to implement. I am so adding that to my “if I ever rule the world” school policies!
As for math, your father sounds like a hilarious one to fail with. Mine just insisted he was right and I was doing it wrong (even when the problem was way more advanced than the subtraction I’d asked him to punch into a calculator) My mother otoh? “I can’t help you, but I did buy ice cream”
@auggziliary
ouch. Like, was it a “you obviously aren’t feeling up to school today so you can go home?” (which i imagine *could* be decent) or a “we don’t know how to deal with this and we’re punishing you?” (which would be shitty)
Marie — past me thanks you, and goes BAH on the whole thing where money = education options.
@fade
Also, it pushed the camel straw analogy on why I finally dropped out. I couldnt’ cope with so many people + so much noise.
@auggz
Bwuh? So if you miss some classes because of your health, the solution is to not let you do the other classes? yeah that makes sense…not.
@ Marie
The simple fact that you can sign up for classes and are not automatically told which ones you should take is an example of flexibility.
When I was in the 10th grade I was told that I had to choose to study either Social Sciences and/or Humanities or Science and/or Technology. I chose Humanities and was not allowed to take ANY science classes, not even math. My classes were: Philosophy (ew), Latin, Ancient Greek, History, Psychology, Modern languages. Boooringg (for me) I was fifteen then. I wouldn’t be able to go to university and study anything related to science and technology, only SocSc and humanities I didn’t realize that then, though. Even if I went to uni there, I wouldn’t be allowed to change majors ( I would have to drop out and take entrance exams all over again and re-apply). Science majors would not be an option because of that choice I made when I was 15.
Back to high school…
If you fail a subject, you can’t retake it, you have to take an exam. If you fail the exam, you repeat the whole year. You can’t choose which subjects to take. Electives both in hs and college are rare. Your whole schedule is planned for you. You have no say.
In university, you can’t take any subjects other than those listed for your chosen major. As I said, changing majors is extremely difficult and often impossible. By the way, the list of majors is very limited. The U.S. offers so many interesting majors and classes, Hell, you can even design your own major! Not in Europe, though.
If you fail to graduate, you can’t take something similar to the GED, you have to go to school for adults.
I hated the fact that I had no options in Europe, so I decided to transfer to an on-line high school in the U.S and eventually took the GED. We have some things in common haha.
@auggz
That is pretty weird and icky :/ I mean shouldn’t they have people they’re actually paying do that, instead of just using the kids for it?
@Suzy
Got it, so the EU schools just had even less options.
I’m glad you were able to move over and do what you wanted. I just know it didn’t work for me so hot.
In my pubic school in person I could chose the classes decently, though they still had lots of are you sure but when I went to the online one they were so pushy and you had to take the ones they wanted, or fight them tooth and nail. It was a pain in teh ass.
::GED-takers high five:: 😀