The email I wrote to Adia's middle school teacher

bullshit.txt

Ms Williams, Mr Michowski:

Instead of responding to your last email right away, I took some
time to think about this and discuss it with family and friends.
Nearly every person I described this situation to had the same
reaction I did.

Adia said, "Someone ran up, pulled on it and ran away." Not hard,
but it definitely felt like a pull (and it hurt). As soon as she
told me on Thursday, I thought, "Of course. Those ears were just
begging to be pulled." If you're wondering why I thought this, it's
because I've done a great deal  of role playing in my life, and
I've known people who went out in public with prop elf ears, only
to suffer a yank from some random stranger with poor impulse control.
Of the dozen or so people I spoke to, several brought up my exact
concern without prompting, which is "How do you 'accidentally' touch
someone's ear?" One of those people was my mother in law, who taught
in the Chicago public schools for over 30 years.

I believe something quite grave has happened here, and that at this
very moment, I am the only person of the three of us who sees it.
Similar things happened to me. Other parents I spoke to told me
their female children have also experienced the same phenomenon.
What has happened here is that a female child was made to feel
uncomfortable by a male child, and when she gave voice to her
discomfort, she was reprimanded.

This does two things.

First, it teaches girls that if they protest or stand up for
themselves when they are uncomfortable, they will be labeled as
'sensitive' and sent for counseling to learn to not be disruptive.
Which is just another way of telling a girl that she should internalize
her discomfort and feel ashamed of herself.

Second, it teaches boys that they can harass girls and get away
with it. The cumulative effect of these small experiences is that
they grow up to be men who never learn that it is not okay to make
women uncomfortable with unwelcome physical contact.

I'm going to talk to Mr Michowski next. I will call him on Monday.
Everything I wanted to say in person, more or less, I just typed
out. We've had two kids at Brooks, and things have happened over
the years that we've been unhappy about. In response to those things,
we chose to be patient and allow them to blow over. But this incident
is too big to let slide.

Sincerely,

Erin Ptacek