My students had some reading to do for class this week. Key to understanding the reading was understanding the definition of the word suffragette. I asked them to write down the meaning of suffragette, in the context of U.S. history.
Here, for your amusement, are their answers:
• Bias against homosexuality.
• Person who came from a different country to work.
• A woman who suffered. (A very popular answer and one clearly written with their teacher in mind.)
• A female slave.
• A period of depression. (You know, a little period of depression...hence the suffix.)
• A person who has been going through hard times.
• People held in unbearable conditions.
• Someone who struggled as a writer to have individuality.
• An Indian tribe.
• It’s a small log cabin. (I swear I didn’t make this up.)
• The difference between boys and girls. (Should I suggest an anatomy class?)
• A poor person.
• 9/11
• A poet.
• Suffering with regret or a loss.
• It’s a term of endearment. (Again with the suffix.)
• Suffragette City.
Only one person in the entire class of 30 answered the question correctly. One. She’s my new favorite student.
Aw.
Wham, bam, thank you.
Ma’am.
I bet all your students also freely admit that they're "not a feminist" (but ...). Since the rights to vote, get a job, keep the money you earn even if you're married, have control over your own body (kinda) and not be beaten to death by your husband (usually) always belonged to all women everywhere; it's not as if anyone worked and suffered for every single one of those rights.
ReplyDeleteYou'd think that with how tech savvy today's students are, they'd think to use a fucking search engine. Or one of their useless Facebook friends would know, if they could pull themselves away from Farmville (sorry Floyd). At least you'll only have to grade one final.
ReplyDeleteI never did care for the dancing styles of the Suffragettes at Radio City Music Hall.
ReplyDeleteMathsquatch *dances* out.
Oh, I thought he was singing about safron jets. NOW Ziggy Stardust makes sense! How come he and David Bowie never worked together? They have similar voices and even kinda look alike.
ReplyDeleteSufferin' succotash. I have to go lie down with the smelling salts again.
ReplyDeleteI guess that they never saw Mary Poppins.
ReplyDeleteSigh.
ReplyDeleteI try to tell myself that young people, young women in particular are not acquainted with the history of feminism--the feminism that allows us to enjoy the various things that Merely Academic points out--because we have come ever closer to achieving equality and they don't know how bad it was. Like episode of South Park, where the town flag depicted a black stick figure hanging from a pole surrounded by a bunch of white stick figures, and the kids didn't think it was a problem because they didn't know the racial problems from the past to understand what the problem with the flag even was (nevermind that the only black kid on South Park is called "Token.")
That's just what I try to tell myself. I have had this conversation often with my own teen daughter...the only reason she and I have ANY quality of life is because of feminism and minority rights. I had the opportunity to earn a PhD, own my home, divorce my a-hole ex-husband, raise my child alone and without fear (and without child support...double-edged sword this feminism), vote, dismiss any churchy bullshit, etc, etc, the list goes on. Girls just don't see that, and equality is still a long way off.
I agree that younger generations are not as familiar with the history of feminism or even the broader history of civil rights in the USA. I'm including myself, although I'm approaching middle age. Much of the hard work was done by previous generations. I can't imagine a world in which a girl cannot wear pants to school even in the dead of winter, in which married 19-year-old cannot legally buy birth control, or one in which African-Americans had to drink out of in separate water fountains and sit in the back of the bus, but that is a world my parents remember well.
ReplyDeleteBut that's no excuse for not knowing a simple vocabulary word that should be familiar to middle schoolers, if not older elementary school kids. Didn't they have to study Susan B. Anthony in grade school? How do you even get admitted to college without knowing the meaning of the word "suffragette"?
"I can't imagine a world in which a girl cannot wear pants to school even in the dead of winter,"
ReplyDeleteNow they have the right to wear pants but choose to dress like prostitutes instead. Stupd feminism.
LMAO @ BeakerBen
ReplyDeleteI once read (though it was on the Interwebs, so it may have been apocryphal) about a petition that students circulated to "end women's sufferage," just to see how many signatures they'd get.
ReplyDeleteApparently they got a lot of signatures.
@Ruby
ReplyDeleteThat was actually on an episode of "The Man Show".
Thanks, everyone, who chimed in--especially those of you suitably enraged by the (many) young women who have know clue on whose shoulders they stand (even when clad as hookers).
ReplyDeleteThat, of course, miffed me, too, but what got me even more was the lack of brain cell use. The definition of suffragette was right there in the reading. First paragraph.
So, my commiserates, it's not just the ignorance of history against which I rage. No, I rage against the sheer laziness of the students in question. Never mind that several of them are not of the right-out-of-high-school variety and should have known better on every level.
(And I'm actually not raging, because it's Friday afternoon and rage requires effort that I don't want to expend...especially with vodka so close...so close... .)