The Horror Of Middle School Girls Acting Like Ladies

From the annals of overreaction, a Houston middle school took down the following quote from its hallway: “The more you act like a lady, the more he’ll act like a gentlemen.”  The hysterical inanity from feminist agitators is beyond ridiculous and pathetic – it’s downright evil.  Instead of seeing the quote for what it is, simple common sense, these pathological “do gooders” see it in the light most absolutely removed from common sense. 

Here’s the tweet from L. Beckman, who was at the school for teacher training (she posted a picture of the offending quote):

“This is the wall at Gregory-Lincoln Middle School in Houston ISD. It's perpetuating horrible gender stereotypes, shaming women, and relinquishing boys of all responsibility. It's sexist, mysogonistic, and discriminatory!”

So let’s tackle each of her claims one at a time.

1.         First, it doesn’t perpetuate any “gender stereotypes.”  Rather it points out the reality that if you want a certain reaction, you should consider your own behavior first.  There is a “golden rule” kind of vibe about this vote.  Treat others as you wish to be treated.  I guess I’m not clear what Ms. Beckman would have preferred.  How about, if you want to be treated like a lady, act like a prostitute?  Of course, in the minds of the Ms. Beckman’s of the world, women should be allowed to act however they want and men are supposed to just . . . do nothing?  It’s like the absurd reaction to school dress codes from Soraya Chemaly – apparently guys are supposed to never react to anything a woman does, including dressing provocatively, even though the very reason women dress provocatively is, well, to provoke a reaction.  See Post Harvey Weinstein: Do Feminists Owe Mike Pence an Apology.  If acting like ladies and gentlemen are “gender stereotypes” then count me in.  Why don’t we want our kids behaving that way?  By the way, I wonder what the middle school kids would tell us about what that quote meant?

2.         Exactly how is it “shaming women” to suggest they act like ladies?  I’m not following the logic at all.  So we want women to act like tramps, harlots (fill in your own word here _______)?

Is there some definitional problem that I don’t understand with the word lady?  The Dictionary.com definition suits me: a woman who is refined, polite and well-spoken.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.  We just can’t have young middle school girls learning such shameful ideas.  What would happen if they all left middle school refined, polite and well-spoken?  Oh, the horrors that would entail.  Oh the human misery and suffering that would immediately occur.  Our whole society would almost certainly die an instantaneous death.

Apparently, though, according to our feminist friends, being a lady is, in fact, a terrible thing.  Women should be unrefined, impolite and poorly spoken, I guess.

3.         Nothing about this quote relinquishes boys from responsibility.  It merely points out to young women that they are likely to get different behavior from young men in light of their own behavior.  Are we suggesting our behavior has no impact on others?  If that is the case, then why does Ms. Beckman care?  Is she that worried that young women will act like ladies, but get no reciprocation?  It’s clear she just reacted and didn’t actually do a whole lot of thinking.  Moreover, it doesn’t absolve young men from acting gentlemanly and nothing about the logic of the quote conditions the actions of young men on the actions of young women.  There is no requirement that young ladies must do something first or take the lead.  It’s just something that makes sense.

4.         I guess sexism is in the eye of the beholder?  Let’s revisit Dictionary.com.  Sexism is:  attitudes or behavior based on traditional stereotypes of gender roles.  I suppose one could argue that behaving like ladies and gentlemen are “traditional stereotypes.”  That said, could our friend Ms. Beckman explain why it would be so horrible if our young men and women aspired to behave in lady-like and gentlemanly fashion?  She breezes past such notions as if there is nothing good about them.  In my simple mind, the idea of being a gentleman means I seek out the lady’s best in my actions and my words.  I consider her ahead of myself.  It doesn’t mean I think less of women; just the opposite.  I know, it’s disgusting of me to think in such an antiquated, vile, inhospitable manner towards women.

5.         The current favorite cliché – it’s similar to calling someone a Nazi – misogynist.  It’s an argument ender, a killer word that negates any possible retort once applied.  Oddly, though, back to my friends at Dictionary.com, I’m having a hard time actually seeing how this quote is misogynist.  Here’s the definition: a person who hates, dislikes, mistrusts, or mistreats women.  Note that a misogynist is a person – the quote in question is a statement – so by definition, it can’t be a misogynist.  More importantly, however, there doesn’t appear to be any hatred, dislike, mistrust or mistreatment of women in the quote.  One rarely makes suggestions to persons one hates or dislikes.  Certainly the quote doesn’t mistrust women; in fact, quite the opposite is true.  The quote presumes an ability on the part of women to engage in reasoned and rational aforethought in order to behave a certain way.  Finally, mistreatment generally suggests something hurtful – Ms. Beckman, of course, just assumes the quote is hurtful because . . . well, I’m not really sure why other than it doesn’t say something bad about males.  How does it actually harm anyone?

6.         The quote is only discriminatory if one can show it is “characterized by or showing prejudicial treatment.” (Thanks again to Dictionary.com).  I suppose since the quote doesn’t specifically say to boys “the more you act like gentlemen, the more she’ll act like a lady”  it is discriminatory?  Somehow, I think, even if that part were added it wouldn’t satisfy the Ms. Beckman’s of the world.  Exactly what prejudicial treatment is being foisted upon young women here?  See the arguments above.

It’s sad that so many people just automatically jumped on board the Twitter feed with agreement to this nonsense.  This appears to be more a matter of feelings than actual rational thinking. 

Fine, take the quote down.  I’m absolutely certain it ruined many a life at Gregory-Lincoln Middle School . . .

NOT.