Coming soon to a school near you?
This news is from Britain, and it’s still an outlier. But perhaps not for long:
Teachers should not refer to pupils as “girls” or “ladies” because it means they are “constantly reminded of their gender”, the Government’s former mental health tsar [for schools] has said.
Natasha Devon told headteachers of the country’s leading girls’ schools that they should be using gender-neutral language when they address their students, and added that the same applied for boys.
Speaking at the Girls’ School Association’s annual conference in Manchester, she said that she would “never walk into a room in an-all girls’ school and say girls or ladies” because it was “patronising”…
Ms Devon said that rather than addressing children as “boys” or “girls”, teachers should use gender-neutral terms such as “pupils”, “students” or “people”.
“I think actually in some ways boys are more constrained by the expectation of their gender,” she said. “And whilst that is being challenged and changed I don’t think it’s helpful to keep saying ”˜girls, girls, girls, boys, boys, boys’, because there is so much implication that potentially goes with that.”
Ms Devon said that using the term “girls” can evoke a sense that they have to do everything perfectly which can “create a lot of anxiety” in children and teenagers.
Meanwhile, the term “boys” carries connotations of “being macho, not talking about your feelings, being told to man up”.
It goes on in that vein.
Devon—the “former mental health tsar” (what a phrase!) looks from the photo in the article to be about twenty years old. She certainly sounds like it. However, she’s 36, and from her background she appears to have been a pop self-help celebrity before being appointed tsar.
This woman may sound like a one-off wacko, but so did the promotors of a lot of other ideas that later gained wide currency.
Not that far removed from what Jordan Peterson was fighting in Canada where it’s now a hate crime to use the wrong gender or non-gender term. God what are we heading towards??
But but but… If the girls are in GIRL’S SCHOOLS, are that not reminded of their gender every damn day?
Reminds me of a mechanic I met in New Mexico, who called his kids #1 and #2.
Two or more genders are inherently different. Any difference interferes with achieving equality, which, after all, means ‘the same.’
There is final solution to cure this injustice, society needs to pick one gender…
We’ll see what happens when the Muslims are in charge.
I don’t think Natasha Devon looks 21 in the least. She’s an unattractive, not particularly intelligent looking female in her 30s, self-righteous and at the same time personally insecure.
Both the London Underground and the NY Transit Authority have announced similar changes over the past few months.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-40591750
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nyc-transport-ladies-and-gentlemen-gender-neutral_us_5a09b95ce4b00a6eece30251
We’re doomed.
miklos…through my chuckles at your post re Tash Devon…I was reminded of the old playground insult: “You’re ugly & your mother dresses you funny.”
Europe used to be a nice place…SJWs & Muslims are going to have a blast really messing it up when the tipping point is reached.
Hopefully I’ll be in demand when I become a school social worker since I’ll be the one with the most sanity. Or I’ll just be fired.
Humans are among the few species in which generally females, rather than males, “display.” It may be that with the destruction of sexual identities and mores, males are starting to display more frequently. This phenomenon may also be reflected in the increased popularity of tattoos, piercings, and exaggerated facial and head hair among certain groups of males — athletes and hot rodders, for example.
The left always tries to over turn hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. They never learn. The pendulum swings.
What are you talking one of wacko?? This is feminism… Like where I work… And how the whole point is to stop gender.. It’s all feminism and dominant… Are you that our of touch? The law about using proper pronouns passed in ca… And all this harassment, anti manspreading, and tons more is the core modern program…duh
I’m with you and the rest of the commentariat in thinking this woman’s view-point is bizarre and stupid.
However, I’m not as pessimistic as some. I have my doubts that doing away with the expression “ladies” will catch on.
The reason I feel this way is because of a phenomenon I observed in my several, (accidental), viewings of the tv show “Sex and the City”.
It was quite striking that no matter how vulgar, vapid, gross and unladylike the behaviour of the 4 main female characters they never failed to address and refer to each-other as “ladies”.
In fact, it was really grating how often they used that word when it did not apply:
“Ladies, there’s a class on masturbating our men to orgasm that we really must attend”;
“Ladies, here’s a marvellous book on what to feed your man so as to change the taste of his ejaculate”.
These are real lines from the show. I was so appalled that I have never forgotten them.
In fact I noticed a distinct correlation between the grossness of their speech and behaviour in a scene and the number of times they would describe themselves as “ladies”. A sort of Sex and the City Index.
I can only speculate why the term was so beloved of these awful, proudly unladylike characters.They revered the term even as they rejected the reality behind it.
Then again, this apparent attachment to the term may not be a genuinely female thing – since, notoriously, the writers of the show were almost all gay men.
Is feminism dead?
http://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/reports/a20865/daily-FAIL-is-feminism-dead/
Natasha has been named Cosmopolitan’s ‘Ultimate Woman of the Year’ 2012…
She poses as an anti feminist wanting to bridge the gap between the mens movement, but allher ideas are right out of the ladies courses and speeches and conferences..
here she discusses it.. if it was a police officer, its sgt stedenko, warning of the drug of the gym.. if a musical, i spect there be trouble with a capital T but not in pool halls but masculine gyms
No wonder young men have a problem with self-esteem
Overstimulated by technology, warped by porn, lacking male role models, bombarded by perfect body images, it’s no surprise that teenage boys struggle as much as girls when it comes to self-image
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/active/mens-health/10825083/No-wonder-young-men-have-a-problem-with-self-esteem.html
These people obviously need a dictionary. Sex is a term from biology and refers to a classification of people as male or female based on chromosomes. Gender is a term from linguistics and refers to a classification of nouns as masculine, feminine or neuter based on the language. People don’t have gender.
“Comrades!”
“God what are we headed towards?” physicsguy
The West is well into the process of societal dissolution. The paramount paradigm on the Left is that western civilization does not deserve to survive. I suspect that at the subconscious level, that is the primary motivation for the Left’s defense of Islam. The antidote to nihilism is fantical certainty.
There is an obvious solution, Comrades.
Something similar in Lincoln, Nebraska 3-4 years ago. Kids were to be called “purple penguins” or something similar. Big uproar. Lincoln is full of liberal loons.
rather than addressing children as “boys” or “girls”, teachers should use gender-neutral terms such as “pupils”, “students” or “people”
Or colorful clump of cells. Surely, a progressive slope.
Male and female sex.
Masculine and feminine gender.
Equal and complementary, for the diversity minded who refuse to get it.
society needs to pick one gender…
No!!! We can reconcile the seemingly intractable concept of “equal and complementary”. We have the knowledge. We have the skill. We need the will.
“Or colorful clump of cells. Surely, a progressive slope.” there’s a better one from the original Star Trek series: “ugly bags of water.” 🙂
So referring to girls or ladies is patronizing? Low opinion of females there.
The only folks at my place of work that refer to women as ‘girls’ are the girls. My non-scientific, and male, observation is that it is often a term of endearment or respect, except when it is spoken in an obviously exaggerated and sarcastic way.
parker Says:
November 21st, 2017 at 6:37 pm
The left always tries to over turn hundreds of thousands of years of evolution.
The Leftist alliance is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, proponent of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution.