The We Hunted the Mammoth Pledge Drive continues! If you haven’t already, please consider sending some bucks my way. (And don’t worry that the PayPal page says Man Boobz.) Thanks! And thanks again to all who’ve already donated.
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.
Also? One reason I’m choosing to be a (veterinary) nurse rather than a vet is that I know I don’t have the drive and passion to succeed in med school. I have other priorities in my life (my mental health, my personal relationships, my church) that I’m not interested in sacrificing for a medical degree. Add in the fact that vet school admissions are even more competitive than med school and it costs a shitload of money, and yeah, not happening.
None of which has shit to do with my intelligence. Which isn’t the same as education, and which can’t be measured by a single metric anyway. I have a really hard time with numbers, but I’m pretty gifted in language learning (which turns out to be really handy in medicine: learn the root words and you can get a rough idea of what most conditions’ names mean). Am I dumb or smart? Am I allowed to keep my organs?
I had friends in college who were homeschooled, but I have no idea if they had “official” test scores. And they were home schooled in the same state as the university. But this was Vermont, which is both really progressive, and full of farms (where the kids were probably needed to work) rural areas (where it would be hard to get to a school), so support for home schooling could only increase kids’ access to education.
@Stevie
Okay, I found your apology:
and I guess my beef is it doesn’t say what for? I mean maybe I sound like I’m digging, but I’m pretty irritated about your attitude towards homeschooled kids and that weird doctor spiel.
brooked
yeah it was kind of ick. it’s like, the toddler was done.
artic ape
i never tried to get a high school diploma that’s not the GED (which you just test into), so i don’t know, sorry. :/
@seventhguest
yes you were super helpful. XD i get the reading and not posting thing; sometimes i just feel like i don’t have anything to add, or don’t have the time to make thought out comments.:P
Stevie: Top level Universities will continue to be filled with people who have been properly educated, which brings us back to homeschooling again; would anybody give me the stats on the number of homeschooled children who get into something as competitive as medical school? No, I didn’t think they would.
Up to here you were getting the benefit of some doubt, but this tears it.
1: What is the “competitive” aspect of medical school? It’s not talent, it’s exclusion. There are more people who want to be doctors than there are slots; so the schools can pick and choose. How they elect to do that has zip to do with the actual intellectual attainments of the applicants.
2: Medical school requires a BA/BS. A well rounded Home School education can (and does) get one into college. It can (as I have seen) be (when the parents have the time/money) lead to educations which are better; in depth and rounding, than traditional schooling.
3: Here is the resource page I found on what home-schooled persons interested in some of the medical professions need to have to be considered when the apply to institutes which train medical professionals: Home school to med shcool:
Note this is the set of hurdles for people in university. Also note:
What does all that mean? It means a significant portion of Home Schooling parents/students are looking at how to prepare for that level of college work. It also means a significant portion of trad-schooled individuals will be excluded too; on the basis of nothing more than coursework in college.
Here, btw, is a case study of one person who went from Home School to Med School.
While his story isn’t typical; neither is that of pretty much anyone who becomes an MD. Of the people I know who’ve done it they either were driven (which in a Home Schooled student can often be fostered with more ease then a trad schooled student), or had to work like blazes to get admitted when they were older.
Are there concerns and problems with home schooling? Yes. In part because there are people who use it to insulate their kids from, “damaging influences”. But you’ve started to tar all people who do it with the, “ignorant fools” brush, and that’s not true.
One of the things the “competitive” aspect of med-school does is deny a lot of people who have the drive and the interest from becoming doctors, because they can’t afford it. Because the system also prioritises those who are affluent areas (see the list of pre-requisites, many of which [e.g. two levels of calc] aren’t at all relevant to day to day practice of general medicine) being a doctor has a built in class limiter.
As a measure of education/intellect, admission to med school is worthless.
Stevie:
And now your ass is showing.
Competitive med school is how they justify the high price.
The idea that it’s needed to make one a decent doctor is balderdash. The US is the only country which has the sort of intense competition for slots. It’s bullshit to think it makes our doctors some sort of super special lifesavers.
It’s arguable that the sort of thinking you are tossing out contributes to the “god-complex” so many doctors have.
It’s provably true that one can be a competent physician and not have gone to med school at all. I can recall several cases of general practice doctors who were in practice for years (one for decades, actually) without having gone to med school. They studied, and set up shop. Yes, it was illegal. But they managed well enough. Knew when to make referrals and only got caught out (in the case I am thinking of) when they were recommended for some honor, which caused someone to look into their history and find no license/degree.
I have one more thought on the, “save your life” thing. In the places where I have most been concerned about not dying… there weren’t any doctors around. These were high risk areas, where significant trauma to the body was likely.
Because I was in the Army. The people I depended on (and trusted) to save my life had, 18 weeks of specialised training in how to stabilise that sort of trauma (some had follow-on).
Which was more than enough. I got a fair bit of pretty detailed first aid, and first aid for trauma.
EMTs, and other emergency aid providers are in the same sort of class. Doctors see you, by and large, after someone else has done a lot of the heavy lifting.
I can only speak from my knowledge of medical training in the UK which is completely unlike medical training in the US, as I noted above.
People are expected to go directly to medical school after their A levels which are taken in the final school year, around the age of 18. In order to enter medical school here you need at a bare minimum, 3 A levels at grade A, including chemistry and biology, but it helps if you add physics and/or maths. Those A grades have to be achieved the first time the student has taken the exams; re-sitting exams to improve the grade is not acceptable.
There are 10 applicants for every place at medical schools; most of the applicants have the potential, at least, to acquire the necessary A grades at A levels, which is why there are further filters in place.
Each applicant must make a personal statement on their application, which is supposed to show not only the academic qualifications they have already achieved but also their ability to function in the future; this is where it helps if you have taken part in organised activities and demonstrated a commitment over many years to helping others. Examples include being a founder member of a choir and becoming the head chorister, learning a martial art, training to teach that martial art to children, and then doing so. If an applicant does not have those sorts of social qualifications then their application will be rejected at that stage.
Very, very occasionally a medical school will make an offer without calling the applicant for an interview, but the vast majority of decisions will be made having interviewed that person. If an offer is made then it is contingent on the student getting the grades; if a medical school really wants someone then they might lower the offer to, say, 2 As and a B. This helps if the student has offers from 2 medical schools and unexpectedly drops a grade.
It is an immensely competitive process, and the medical schools deliberately make it as hard as possible; their rationale is that practicing medicine is incredibly tough and it’s a good idea to weed out the people who cannot withstand the pressure before rather than after spending very large sums of money training them.
@stevie
but seriously, why are you still on about the medical schools? What does that have to do with this? Because, really, I’m much more annoyed about your attitude towards homeschooled kids and your weird organ harvesting remarks than the medical school thing.
Hey Stevie, remember when you told Lea that using her kids to pick a fight wasn’t on? Well, you going on about med school and using your daughter’s experience–not yours– to make a point is pretty fucking awful.
You are not a doctor. Kindly shut up and stop digging this hole.
Stevie: As I said, the “competition” is a weeding out process. It’s like getting to be a pilot; so many applicants that one has to make artificial reasons to exclude them.
And the core problem is you said people who are homeschooled are stupid. That they aren’t capable of becoming doctors; not because the system precludes them, but because the aren’t up to it. That they will kill people.
Which is bullshit, on so many levels.
I do have pictures of the kittens suckling on my pup!
She’s making the most pathetic face too.
(So would I in her place. Ouch!)
Arctic Ape,
The school has no authority over me. I’m not their employee. My child is not enrolled in their school. They are not in a position to grant me anything. Should one of my kids ever graduate from homeschool they will receive a diploma from my homeschool. Technically it is considered a private school. That varies by state. Some colleges recognize a homeschool diploma, some insist on a GED. Fewer and fewer ask for a GED. If I like, I can pay for a mail order diploma from a company by sending in our transcripts and paying $300. I keep a portfolio, records of attendance and all that jazz. Ultimately, if you have good ACT scores and $$$, no one cares about where you graduated.
Some homeschoolers begin community colleges part time while they are still homeschooling, just like some high school students do. Once you have college transcripts, they trump your diploma.
I know kids who have gone straight to culinary school, Tom Savini’s make up effects school, local colleges etc. When a friend of mine graduated with his teaching degree a couple years ago he ( a mechanic of umpteen years) and a homeschooler raised on a llama farm were the only 4.0s in his graduating class.
I’ve not had a student graduate from here though. The first child I homeschooled decided to give high school a shot this year and has no plans of leaving. Once a teen hears the call of his or her people, they must answer that call.
She showed up on the first day of school, enrolled and went to class. If a student keeps a C average or above in the first 12 wks of school, there is no testing required. After all, there are kids reading at 4th grade levels in the same high school. (Again, people often think public school is very different than it is in reality. In TN there are schools that hand out certificates of attendance rather than actual diplomas.) It wasn’t a problem. She had the skills, she just had to adapt to the new pace. She loves it, mostly.
In the fall, should her brother go back to school he will need testing. A different situation means different way of doing it right.
As to it being difficult, it is and it isn’t. Consistency, patience and going with the flow rather than trying to force the student to fit the mold the parent has in mind are challenges. I have no janitorial or kitchen staff. I’m the driver, the nurse and the gym coach too. I’m also still Mom.
The actual schooling is easy for a typical student. The answers are in the back of the books. There are videos, websites, libraries etc. Getting the child to want to learn certain things or follow through on a project is the tricky part. It’s like getting my Rottie in the bath. You can get behind him and push all day long and he’s not going anywhere. The better bet is to get in front of him and coax him in. I’m a fan of Sandra Dodd, Guilt Free Homeschooling and books like The Teenage Liberation Handbook.
My oldest daughter is dyslexic, so I had to have her tested on my own and then get trained specifically to teach a dyslexic student. As there are no programs in our school system for dealing with dyslexia (nor do they test for it and certain principals locally have said they don’t think dyslexia even exists) and there are no longer private schools that specialize in teaching dyslexics, that was my only choice. It was expensive and put so many miles on my car, but it was worth it.
On my block there are 3 homeschools. Each one is completely different from the others. Our kids still play together, along with the publicly schooled kids on the block. People tend to think being homeschooled = isolation and it can. It can also mean greater exposure to the whole community. I find that a kid’s individual personality has more to do with whether or not they are socially active or shy. If you saw the kids all playing together, you would not know who is schooled where.
That said, I love this:
https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/6612002048/h86300B7E/
Yeah, I just want to butt in and say that I met some cool ladies at university who had been homeschooled in an insular, fundamentalist way, and were actually really far ahead of the curve. They were my age (I was doing my bachelor’s), and were doing doctoral work. Their parents encouraged them to study hard for the glory of God, and expected them to get advanced degrees so that when they talked about God with a Ph.D. behind their name, they’d be taken extra-seriously. They viewed learning as their escape from the restrictions of the fundamentalist culture they were raised in, and had, at that point, been disowned by their families.
(I met them through our Freethinkers club – basically VT’s club for secularism – it’s mostly atheists, but anyone is welcome, and there’s a large focus on social justice of all stripes. Someone in the group will almost assuredly kick your ass if you’re being misogynistic, or racist, or ableist, or anything bigoted, really. I give them an A+ for not being atheist douchebags.)
But anyways, what I was trying to say is that Stevie’s assertions are huge bullshit, even when it comes to religious fundamentalist-homeschooled kids. As with any schooling scheme, there’re kids who aren’t learning anything, but there are also kids who excel.
Socialization is the other reason I would not have homeschooled – I am not good enough at the social stuff to have provided the kids with much in the way of social opportunities if they weren’t at school, since they are also on the autism spectrum and not naturals at the friend thing. But that is me and my children, not anybody else’s and theirs.
The local Audubon nature area has educational programs that are aimed at homeschoolers as well as those whose kids attend public/private schools (is there a general term that is seen as polite? I don’t want to say “normal schools” because, well, seems rude).
There is something my step-dad once said to me that I think is relevant to some of the comments on this thread.
Dad: What do you call a medical student that graduates at the bottom of his class?
Me: What?
Dad: Doctor.
Med school isn’t a cake walk (neither is pre-grad level vet school, Emilygoddess. Mad props for you!) Everyone in it is not a super genius either. Doctors work hard. So do other people. They do important work, just like other people. They get drunk at Christmas parties and sing “Why Don’t You Call Me Darlin” along with the rest of the staff. They’re just people and without the techs, nurses, transporters, administrators etc, they can’t do their jobs. While they certainly deserve respect, I don’t get why people want to put them on pedestals. They save lives, but so does the electrician who wires the hospital so that it doesn’t burn down with the patients and staff in it. There is more than one way to save lives. Some of them don’t require degrees at all. I find it very telling about our society that we have certain assumptions about class, wealth and authority. What makes a person “important” is often based on some very silly assumptions.
@Argenti Aertheri (sorry if I misspelled your name):
But… but… how else am I supposed to make my Magikarp evolve into Gyarados?
http://thepunchlineismachismo.com/archives/comic/04262010
Ledasmom,
You got it right. Public/private schools is best. You’re right about “normal” being considered rude.
Lea, I think we might have gotten our wires crossed. I have chosen not to go to vet school. But as a future nurse and current person-who-cleans-up-the-dog-poo, I appreciate and wholly endorse your point about how we all make the hospital work. If no one cleans up the poo, we all end up working in it.
Anarchonist, That’s one of my favorite gags from one of my favorite comics. I don’t even get half the video game references, but she’s got some interesting stuff to say about manliness.
Oops. Sorry Emilygoddess. I misread that.
Yeppers to the poo cleaning being important. Some of the advances Florence Nightingale was know for merely involved keeping the hospitals clean. I can’t remember how many more soldiers ended up surviving once she she implemented those changes, but I remember that it was significant. It’s so cool that you can be a nurse. I wanted to, but I couldn’t do it. I can take the tests and make good grades, but put me on the floor and I fall to pieces. The last thing anyone wants is for me to be their nurse. I know several nurses, aids and CMTs. They are made of stronger stuff than I. There is a light they get in their eyes when things get hairy that I will never have in mine. You can tell they are thinking, “THIS is what I trained to do! Bring it on!”. The look on my face is more like, “Eep”.
Funny story:
My hubby used to work as a surgical transporter. One day he was pushing a bed with the patient in it down the hall when a surgeon stopped him and told him that he was going to be late and could my husband tell everyone to wait on him. My husband said, “Don’t worry. I’ll just take my time getting there. They can’t start without me.” The doctor, surprised, said, “And who exactly are you?” Hubby replied, spinning the bed around and taking off down the hall, “I’m the man with your patient, hahahahaha!”. The doc and the patient thought it was hilarious. I do too.
He was right, though. The surgeons may be the quarterbacks, but it’s still a team. From the person who makes sure there is hot running water to the folks in charge of terminally cleaning the rooms, everyone matters. A surgeon can be very skilled, but unless the anesthesia team is there, that surgery won’t go well.
Pecunium
In England the vast majority of people who home school their kids do so to prevent them studying the National Curriculum. The reason the parents dislike the National Curriculum is that it requires the study of biology as evolution, and it requires students to have some sexual education.
It is impossible to pass A level biology if you are convinced that God created Man 6000 years ago, and that children had lots of fun playing with dinosaurs. It is also impossible to understand genetics, which is an indispensable component of modern medicine, if you believe that God created Man 6000 years ago.
Medical schools here in England, unsurprisingly, don’t want students who think that evolution doesn’t exist. The only person responsible for a child being unable to pass A level biology is the person who home schooled that child to believe that evolution doesn’t exist. The medical schools are behaving entirely reasonably in this situation.
There was a political candidate, I can’t remember his name who is an ob/gyn and his justification for being anti-choice was that he claimed to have seen a fetus masturbating in an ultrasound photo. He also thought that only male fetuses masturbated.
The senate candidate who said rape victims can’t get pregnant because their bodies “shut that whole thing down” is also an ob/gyn.
I’m not inclined to assume doctors are automatically the smartest people in all the world and deserve god-like deference. Sometimes people without a lick of sense manage to get good grades.
Seriously, Stevie, why are you still going on about medical schools as opposed to, I don’t know, the random lol homeschool kids are stupid or organ harvesting shit you did earlier? Cuz I’m not inclinced to act like it didn’t happen just because you may.
Stevie: I guess you must enjoy digging at this point.
WWTH:
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I’ve heard of a trans woman who got into a car accident and was denied medical attention for being a trans woman with “male” anatomy. Result: she died due to lack of care. So yeah, count me as another person who is suspicious of doctors.
Stevie, please knock it off!
Homeschooling and religion have nothing to do with a person’s ability to be a doctor. You can pass a course in evolution without believing it. Most homeschoolers aren’t even religious fanatics.
Religious fanatics also exist in public school and private schools.
Medical school is not the pinnacle of human achievement, either.
Please, please, please drop it!
Then, could you please apologize for sniping at Lea with the “I’m sure you are a good homeschooler, but I could be wrong” and to Marie for the “If you think homeschoolers should go to med school, get a DNR (Do Not Resussitate)”
Both of those were just way out of line.
I know you were tired, but still saying nasty things like that, then ignoring them and compounding on why you think homeschool/religious fanatics are bad instead of apologizing for telling someone to get a DNR because they don’t think the way you do is still way overboard.
I think you’ve had good things to share before, and I’m not to the point of wanting you to go away forever, but you really do need to apologize, in earnest, for those things.
Please.
Citation, Stevie?
You know, Stevie, for someone who doesn’t want to fight, you keep hammering away at homeschoolers an awful lot.
I notice you have not mentioned the private religious schools that also teach creationism and offer no comprehensive sex ed. Those do exist in the UK. They are quite popular here in the Bible Belt.
You also seem to assume that all public schools teach evolution and comprehensive sex ed. They don’t. No schools in my state teach anything other than abstinence only sex ed. Biology teachers often teach around evolution or apologize for mentioning it at all. I’m in a different part of the world and not familiar with standardized public education in the UK. I am familiar with what is taught in Kentucky schools. I’m also aware that the majority of our students are not considered prepared for higher learning or the workforce upon graduation and that our drop out rate is quite high. I know the rankings of all my local schools. Some are not ranked very high. There are armed guards in some of our local high schools now too. I don’t like that. I have friends who are survivors of a local school shooting. My eldest’s school was evacuated for bomb threats 3 times this year. She saw a girl beaten so badly in the cafeteria that she went into convulsions. Public school is not as enlightened a scene of fine social skills and excellence as you might think.
I don’t know what your fixation on med school or homeschooling is about. You said some shitty things and got called out. No one is going to make you homeschool or like homeschooling. Why can’t you just drop it? That’s all I ever asked you to do. Stop digging.