I’ve been around long enough to have anticipated the backlash which resulted from the #METOO movement. Its been particularly draconian in the States, what with the gutting of Planned Parenthood and ever shrinking access to safe abortions. These things were to be expected and follow a pattern which has prevailed since modern feminism began in the 1960’s – women push for equality which makes men feel threatened so they push back with even greater force.

There’s a more subtle repercussion to #METOO that’s reared it’s ugly head and which I find especially annoying. As accusations of atrocious behaviour by men in power began to pile up, particularly those in the entertainment industry, I started to hear increasing numbers of male pundits on news programs lamenting that they no longer knew where the “line” of acceptable behaviour towards women was. ( A shockingly puerile and self-serving complaint to lodge at a time when the staggering number of revelations clearly showed that they’d never known where it was.) Could they even hire attractive women, and how should they behave if, heaven forfend, they found themselves alone with one at the office? My favourite response to this query came from Anita Hill who said, and I’m paraphrasing here,

” You treat women in that situation the same way you would treat any human – with consideration and respect. That has always been true and will never change.”

Exactly – just treat us as you would like to be treated, and everything will work out okay.

I really resent the subtle implication by these men that women in one-on-one situations are not to be trusted as they could make up any outrageous story about harassment or abuse, and then what is the hapless man to do?! As though that is what the women who came forward were doing – throwing out accusations for their own amusement, like balls in a game of beer pong. The very question of, “Where is the line?” twists the entire situation around and recasts the men as victims, with the added benefit of making women seem unreliable witnesses to their own lives. How convenient.

There is a silver lining in all of this however. I have noticed this time around that almost all of the ridiculous hand-wringing has come from older men. I sense in young men a real horror at the extent of the problem, and a true understanding that their gender is responsible and therefore must spearhead the solution. Unfortunately their difficulty in moving past the patriarchy to a more equal society is very complicated and not without pitfalls. And while women are hip to most of the obstacles that will be placed in their way, (after all we having been fighting this battle for a long time), men are just now coming to see how thorny their road forward is as well.

For example, I saw a young man on a documentary talking about fraternity life. His perspective is that frats are horribly elitist and misogynistic anachronisms that should be banned as they have only ever served to keep white men on top and everyone else far below. They are at heart breeding grounds for the old-boys’ clubs which abound in the highest and most powerful echelons of society.

The problem with taking action for this young man is twofold: firstly, if he leaves the fraternity now and (worse yet) exposes it for the cancerous institution that it is, he can look forward to four years of ostracism on campus. Secondly, when he graduates he will never garner a place in any institution run by powerful men as they, frat brothers all, will see him as a traitor. He feels terrible for perpetuating the system and wants to do the right thing, but doesn’t know if he’s prepared to pay such a heavy price for doing so.

There are also many men who do not like the way others talk about women – objectifying them and suggesting that every women is there for the taking. I understand from male friends that this sort of demeaning banter is particularly prevalent in organized sports. “Locker room talk” got a lot of attention after Donald Trump’s comments on the bus came to light during his campaign, but not in the way I would have wished. It was framed as a “boys will be boys” kind of thing (an expression I truly hate!). You know, the idea that it’s just a silly game of one- upsmanship that males play with one another and that it really has no import or impact beyond that. These men wouldn’t actually do the things they are saying (although I seriously suspect that Trump did and still does). It’s just a harmless form of showing off – the rooster crowing and displaying his plumage, as it were.

The problem is of course that this sort of talk does have an impact. Repeatedly dehumanizing women, or anyone else for that matter, forms neural pathways that normalize and validate this sort of thinking. Repeatedly doing anything effects the brain in this way – it’s the beauty and the curse of neural plasticity. It’s how habits are formed, skills are mastered, and stupid-ass, self-serving perspectives become the truth.

But I digress.

I have been told by these same men that the difficulty in calling out sexist locker-room talk is that they will be ridiculed and bullied if they do. They may lose friends because of it, and lose standing with those who remain. In other words they will be cast out by their social circle in the same way that the young man in college would be were he to expose and leave his fraternity. And to that I say,

“Oh no! There may be a personal cost to you for standing up for what is patently right?! You poor dear!”

All sarcasm aside however, men, particularly white cis gender men, have to understand that being an agent of change on the path to social justice and equality will involve some personal discomfort. People who speak truth to power always pay a price; suffragettes were incarcerated, assaulted, force-fed and lost custody of their children, Nelson Mandela was jailed for 27 years, and Freedom Riders were beaten after fleeing a burning bus ignited by the KKK. I understand that putting your own privilege on the line for the sake of another is a concept which is very new to these men, but my advice is to take that leap and call out the unfair institutions and individuals around you. You may lose a job opportunity or a couple friends in the process, but aren’t those small potatoes compared to the price others have had to pay? And who knows, speaking out may lead to meeting more like-minded and better friends than you’ve ever had. You’ll never know how many men out there secretly agree with you if you aren’t brave enough to voice your truth.

I taught drama to a couple primary classes a year during my time as an elementary school teacher/librarian, and inevitably I had them interpret and perform at least one fairy tale as part of my curriculum. Pretty well every kid I taught knew a variety of fairy tales and some nursery rhymes when I took on that role in 2005, but by the time I left the job this past June only a few kids in any class were familiar with fairy tales and pretty well none of them knew any nursery rhymes.

It’s very sad to me that an oral tradition which spanned centuries before being compiled and set down by the Grimm brothers in 1812, and which continued right up through most of my lifetime, has pretty much come to an end in the course of the last decade. I guess these old stories can’t compete with the plethora of children’s entertainment available on tablets and phones. (There were grade 2 students in my school with their own iphones – seems a little young to me, but what do I know?) With new, exciting, and colourful stories coming on-line every day, who has time for old saws like “Rumpelstiltskin” or “The Goose Girl”?

I do lament the loss of these shared cultural touchstones, but what I don’t miss is how women are portrayed in so many of them. What’s amazing and concerning to me is that even if girls nowadays aren’t sure about any other details in “Snow White”, the one thing they do know is that a wicked older woman oppresses and enchants a younger one because she is prettier, and in the end a handsome man vanquishes the former and saves the latter.

Let’s break this trope down a little, shall we? Firstly it perpetuates the idea that older women are evil and jealous, a characterization which simultaneously demonizes and marginalizes them by casting doubt on their motives – a situation which exists to this day and which I spoke to in my first blog. This stereotype is very useful in a patriarchal society because it ensures women remain powerless as they age. It is a common experience amongst most women I know, myself included, that hitting menopause engenders the sloughing off of many pre-existing societal strictures. Without the need to please a man or your children or anyone else for that matter, women of a certain age finally land in the wonderfully freeing position of being able to stick up for themselves – of showing righteous anger and calling out bullshit. I contend that men have always been afraid of this; after all, what could be worse than oppressed people finally having the ability to rise up and avenge themselves or, heaven forfend, take control? Wicked stepmothers have insidiously disempowered women for centuries.

Secondly, and most alarmingly as far as I’m concerned, young women in fairy tales are good for keeping house but otherwise are completely helpless, and by and large miserable, until a man comes and saves them. This is particularly true of princesses. That’s why it drove me crazy that little girls were always looking for princess books in the library. Every time they asked for one I felt like saying,

“You don’t need a man, or anyone else, to save you! You are perfectly competent on your own!”

What exactly are the accomplishments of the most famous fairy tale princesses? Well, one grows her hair really long, another runs away but leaves a clue, and another simply falls asleep. That’s the ticket – lose consciousness until a man comes along and makes your life worth living. Little girls are convinced by these stories that their main function in life is to be pretty and to wear nice clothes and to wait. Also that they need to compete with other women for a rich and handsome, aka good, man (think of the step-sisters).

I’m aware of and appreciate characters like Fiona in “Shrek” who starts out as the hapless and helpless princess in a tower, but ends up turning her back on that story and falling in love with the antithesis of Prince Charming. I was also pleasantly surprised in “Frozen” when Elsa and Anna saved each other through their sisterly love, and that the handsome prince Anna thought was going to save her ends up being a power hungry cad. I applaud animation studios for reimagining and modernizing these female characters, but the number of girls who still want books about traditional princesses, and princes, makes me aware that there is still a ways to go.

So let’s bring back great stories like “The Three little Pigs” and “Jack and the Beanstalk”, along with shorter pieces like “Hey Diddle Diddle” and “Jack Sprat” – stories and rhymes that are engaging to children and harken back to a rich, shared oral history. As far as princess stories are concerned however, I think girls and women are better off without them.

There has been a lot of information in the press over the last year about the precipitous increase in violence and misbehaviour in Ontario’s schools. Reports of classrooms being trashed, students being evacuated, and education workers being injured abound. I was hopeful that the sheer volume of information coming out might force the government to increase funding to deal with these problems, but alas the Conservative government’s insistence on even further cuts to education and the necessary job actions that have followed have completely derailed any serious consideration of this situation, let alone concrete action to address it.

There has been a general dislike of teachers ever since the days of Mike Harris – a feeling he largely instigated and shamelessly stoked. It was therefore no surprise to me that it took so many reports of injuries to education workers before anyone really noticed, but what is being overlooked in this situation, and what makes it much more pressing than anyone in power has chosen to acknowledge, is the effect it is having on children. I have yet to see any coverage in the mainstream media in which children who have witnessed violence are interviewed, nor have I heard any mention of how being a helpless bystander to repeated assaults and aggression might effect their mental health. I would therefore like to share some instances where I have seen first hand the heavy toll this situation is taking on students.

Let’s start with a student I’ll call Dan. My first encounter with Dan came when he was in JK and therefore an unknown quantity. He came with his class to the library and the bulk of the visit ran smoothly – I read to the kids, helped them choose books, checked them out and then lined them up to go back to their room. There was an EA with them who was assigned to another child in the class.

I don’t know what prompted his outburst, but suddenly another EA was in the library (I assume the one with the class had called for help on her walkie), and Dan was in the corner screaming and throwing chairs around. The kids were pushing to get out the door, so the EA and I got them into some kind of order and she led them out. Then I went over to try and calm Dan down (standing at a safe distance with the new EA), when he turned on me and said,

“Ms. Monis, I am going to kill you and cut you up into little pieces and put the pieces in boxes and bury them in different places so your family can never find them.”

I barely even knew this boy, certainly had never done anything to him, and he was 5 at most!

It took years of tracking and massive amounts of paperwork before Dan was assigned an EA. In grade two he was still without support, but his teacher tried to create some normalcy and order in her class by assigning seats. One day when I brought the class back from the library a lovely little guy named Riley sidled up to me. Riley tried his best at school and was eager to please – a little quieter than most but otherwise a normal 7 year old. I bent down towards him when I noticed him standing there, and he said,

“Dan is in my seat.”

I took Riley’s hand and we walked over to Dan where I asked him if he was in his proper seat.

“No.”, he replied. “I just feel like sitting here.”

So I then politely asked him to go to his assigned desk as Riley wanted to sit down, and truly you had to be there to appreciate how foul and personally offensive his response was. I don’t know where he learned his vocabulary, but he strung expletives together in a way that would make a sailor blush.

And all the while quiet little Riley (not to mention the rest of the class) stood frozen while this cascade of obscenities and personal insults rained down on me. I was about to respond calmly to Dan’s verbal assault (as all adults in this situation are expected to do) when I felt a small tug on my hand. I looked down at Riley and he had tears streaming down his face. He gave a small shake of his head, asking me silently to please let it go, withdrew his hand and walked away.

Imagine you are 7 and see your teacher, someone you like, respect, and mostly need to be in charge, standing silently as a fellow student verbally eviscerates her. How safe would you feel? How traumatic would that situation be, particularly if it was a regular occurrence? Now extrapolate that to all of Dan’s classmates from K-8 who experienced this same thing, recognize that he is just one child out of thousands in the province with similar behaviours, and you’ll start to get a sense of the scope of the problem.

I was deeply upset by Riley’s distress and went to the office immediately after leaving his class. I explained the situation to the vice principal and said I was tired of seeing students traumatized by Dan’s outrageous and abusive behaviour. Wasn’t there some way we could protect the other children from his outbursts? The vice principal calmly replied that there were “mitigating circumstances” where Dan was concerned and therefore nothing could be done. “Mitigating circumstances” means that the child in question has a known mental or behavioural issue and therefore isn’t punished or chastised for their actions. But I wasn’t asking about Dan, I was asking about the welfare of the other nineteen children in the class.

Here is the unspoken but tacitly understood policy in regards to that: “The rights of the troubled child supersede the rights of all others – adults and children alike”. Let me give a little more extreme example of how this really is the prevailing ethos in education right now. We had a boy in our school who I’ll call Nat. Nat was clearly mentally ill – he would periodically fly into rages, often with no provocation at all, and lash out verbally and physically at anyone nearby. Eight adults that I know of had to seek professional medical care in response to injuries he inflicted including a broken cheek bone, a cracked scapula, two major concussions, and deep cuts to the hand and ear when an EA was hit by a large piece of glass Nat obtained by throwing a chair through a window. 

It was nothing short of miraculous that no child was harmed by him. Let me take that back – it was because of extremely brave and caring adults that no child was harmed by him, but my whole staff sensed that it was only a matter of time before one was. With this in mind we got a meeting with the Special Education principal from the board office in hopes of finding out what could be done to protect children from Nat’s rage. The meeting ran for almost an hour during which time our questions became progressively more pointed, but we never got a straight answer or solution out of our guest.

 We all left the meeting feeling somewhat frustrated, but mostly just saddened and baffled by the board’s seeming lack of concern for the welfare and rights of the majority in the face of one troubled child whose problems were not being addressed. On reflection I think it’s probably the case that they simply didn’t, and still don’t, have the funding or expertise to manage such children. In my experience most students with severe behavioural problems have mental health issues far beyond the training or purview of individuals in the education system. (In this regard therefore, surely the Ministry of Health needs to step up. Maybe they could expend less energy talking about ending the stigma around mental illness, and spend more time and money actually treating it.)

We had regular lockdowns in the school when Nat “blew” in the hall. On one occasion I had just returned a grade one class to their room when one of these was called, and it so happened that moments later Nat and his entourage (the several adults who were trying to corral him into his “quiet room”, aka cell, at the end of the hall) were directly in front of my door. When Nat is in this state he will curse and often scream that people are hurting him and should stop touching him. This is obviously not the case because everyone around him is desperately trying to stay out of his arm’s reach while they talk him down, but it is either something Nat perceives to be happening or something he says for effect. Either way the 6-year-olds in the room with me had no way of knowing that he wasn’t being physically harmed, and I had been forbidden from explaining this to them because that would compromise Nat’s privacy, a clear example of his rights being paramount to those of other students. 

On this particular occasion a little girl was in front of me doing the pee-pee dance, her eyes wide as she heard the screeching in the hall. I had no choice but to tell her that she could not leave the room at that moment, but I was sure she could soon. Again, I want you to imagine this from the child’s perspective when as far as she knows, here is what’s happening – there is a wild kid screaming bad words just outside the door while being brutalized by adults she thought she could trust, and not only is the adult in the room letting this happen, but she also won’t let her use the washroom and she really has to go! How safe does that child feel? Would it be fair to use the word “trauma” to describe that child’s experience? Now imagine how I felt standing in front of her – impotent, worried about the effect this would have on her, and concerned that I was letting her down. These feelings of helplessness are commonplace in the teaching profession, and in my case reared their head again last May, only this time they were so overwhelming that I chose to retire.

There was a grade two class in my school last year which had not one, not two, but three extremely troubled boys. In the past the behaviour of these boys would have been severe enough to merit support, but no more. Their room was directly across the hall from the library and I saw first hand that at least one of them was disruptive to his class every single day. You can imagine that as the school year progressed the other kids in the class became totally fed up with having grade two ruined by these three boys.

This class came in for their regular library period in early May and no sooner had they arrived than all three of the boys went off; yelling, running, and hitting. One of them, a boy with a good heart but serious mental issues caused by a brutal home life, began swearing and punching himself in the face sufficiently hard that his nose bled. I called for support and the boys were escorted out of the room. I was reading to the class ten minutes later when the second of the three boys was sent back from the office and immediately sat next to the one who’d proceeded him. I asked him to move but he complained about always being the one who has to move, and as I had no more patience with him I said he could stay but to keep his hands to himself and his lips zipped. 

I continued reading to the class but before long could see in my peripheral vision that the two boys were taking turns punching each other in the arm. I put the book down, turned and asked them yet again to move away from each other. (Keep in mind that I cannot physically move them as adults are forbidden from touching students.) The one whined again about always having to move, and the other just silently and defiantly stared at me. Seeing that they had at least stopped hitting each other, I again lifted up the book and began reading. Moments later when they were punching each other sufficiently hard that they were crying out in pain, I put the book down and lowered my head in exasperation. That’s when I heard a small voice from the class quietly say,

“Miss Monis.”

I looked up into the tearful eyes of a lovely little boy who proceeded to say,

“Could we please just read the book?”

I looked around and saw fifteen other pairs of eyes, all equally teary and hopeful, silently pleading with me to continue. They were just looking for a little scrap of normalcy in a year which had been marked by chaos, noise, violence and dissension. I simply did not have the heart to deny them, so I did something I thought I would never do and which makes me ashamed to this day – I literally turned my back on the two boys who were fighting and proceeded to finish the book with the rest of the class.

I thought a lot about that situation when I got home that night. I reflected on the myriad similar and sometimes worse ones I had experienced over the course my career. On paper my job was to foster a love of, and an appreciation for, the written word in children, but in practice my daily duties more closely mirrored those of a social worker or correctional officer.  

Chronic underfunding by the Ministry of Education has left students like these three boys adrift, and their unchecked misbehaviour, whatever its cause, precludes dedicated professionals like myself from running effective educational programs. Lack of resources has also allowed similar situations to mushroom throughout the province. My frustration with the bureaucracy and feelings of impotence in the face of a system which prevented me from fully caring for the children in my charge had already pushed me to write my letter of retirement, and this incident was the last straw. Far too many students in Ontario’s elementary schools are being overlooked and under served, and I simply could not be a party to this outrageous situation any longer.

Most students come to school every day with the best of intentions, but their attempts to learn are constantly undermined by other children who desperately need support but get none, as well as by students who should not be in a regular classroom at all, such as those with autism and Down syndrome. These children learn much better in classrooms with smaller child-to-adult ratios and targeted programming, and many more of these specialized classes should be made available.

A great many students are also being subjected to traumatic situations far beyond their coping  and processing abilities. Education workers are restricted from discussing these situations with students and parents, and are forbidden from letting the general public know how difficult things have become for children in the current school system. This essay is my celebration that I no longer have to be silent.

So the next time you hear yet another report of a lockdown or evacuation or someone being brutalized in a classroom, please spare a thought for the many children who are witnessing these things on a daily basis. It may be your paperboy, or the kid you see on her skateboard at the park every Saturday, but I can almost guarantee that unless steps are taken by the Ministry of Education and school boards to incisively curtail the burgeoning violence in our schools, one day it will be your child.

I am a 58 year old woman, and while I was warned in years past by female friends senior to me that the world views older women much differently than young ones, I did not realize until recently how overlooked older women truly are. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that the world (of men) doesn’t really see or acknowledge older women at all.

I had noticed as I moved through middle age that I was beginning to be marginalized; getting progressively less attention when I spoke or stood in line or was out in public in any way. It wasn’t a precipitous or overly obviously change, just a slow diminishment of acknowledgement and influence over time. It had always been the case that I was talked down to and infantilized by men in traditionally male habitats such as hardware stores and garages, a situation I never appreciated but at least my concerns were noted and dealt with albeit in a condescending manner. Even this scrap of recognition has dwindled over the past ten years however, and now it’s as if I’m a non-person.

Let me give you an example. A few weeks ago I gave blood, and while my local clinic is usually really fast and efficient, on this particular day it was an hour and fifteen minutes before I could leave the place. The TV was tuned to CBC Newsworld which was airing live coverage of the U.S. Senate impeachment trial the entire time I was there.

When I was finished donating and sitting at the treat table, opening the bag of Oreos I consider my due after such a selfless act, I noticed a man across from me. He looked to be in his late 60’s or so, and although he was facing me, he had his head turned to watch the TV. I made a comment as to my bafflement that our national broadcaster was airing hours of proceedings which had nothing to do with Canada, and the man half turned his head toward me and made a noise which sounded like agreement.

A few moments later the clinic volunteer brought over my orange juice and sat next to me. He had heard my comment and launched into the conversation, saying he was working hard on making his face as neutral as possible when considering American politics as he and his wife were shortly heading down for a month in Florida and it was best to stay out of any discussions on that subject. And this prompted the other gentleman to turn around.

We then launched into a three-way discussion about Trump which segued into talk of Ontario politics which led us to something else. In other words, it was your standard conversation. Except… the man across from me did not look at me once as we were speaking. He was so intent on not acknowledging me that he looked at the man beside me even when responding to a comment I had made! At one point I actually leaned further into his field of vision, hoping to ignite the part of his brain responsible for mediating conversations, reminding it of how civil, face-to-face discourse is supposed to unfold. But that didn’t help either.

A friend of mine who’s about my age says that this is how her boss treats her all the time. He refuses to acknowledge her if they pass in the hall, and will not make eye contact with her in meetings, looking at others even when what he is saying concerns only her. And given the power dynamic, what can she do about it? She could say something to him or someone superior to him, but that would almost certainly lead to resentment on his part which could very well make her situation worse. So she just has to put up with feeling like a non-person every time she deals with him.

I, on the other hand, could have done something about the way that man treated me without fear of repercussions. I was truly upset when I left the clinic that day, but there were two sides to the argument raging in my head concerning what to do about it. On the one hand, I owed it to my gender to make this man aware of how incredibly rude and sexist he was being by not acknowledging me. After all, how can the feminist cause move forward if we don’t speak truth to power? On the other hand this was a fairly old guy, and chances that anything I said would change his way of being with women were slim to none, so why bother?

In the end I made a quiet exit and later stewed and bitched about this incident to friends instead. And isn’t that exactly how almost all females would handle that situation? That is exactly how we are taught to handle things. Be understanding, be conciliatory and, above all else, don’t upset or embarrass the man in the room! I admit I gave in to my conditioning on that occasion, but I have vowed to myself that it will not happen again. I may be disappearing, but I’m not going down without a fight!