One parent has been sharing her disbelief and outrage online after her daughter’s teacher demanded that her daughter “hold in” her period instead of allowing her to go to the bathroom.
Teaching can be an incredibly stressful job.
What with demanding targets that are required to be met, the high expectations of parents, as well as having to maintain the attention and focus of high numbers of children at a time, teaching can be a very demanding job for a variety of reasons.
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However, one teacher has recently come under severe scrutiny.
One mother took to the internet to share her concern over the treatment that her daughter received at the hands of a male teacher. The mother posted her concern on an Am I Being Unreasonable Thread on Mumsnet , in order to garner advice from fellow parents.
The controversy arose after the teacher told one female student to “hold in” in her period.
The mother’s concerned post began by explaining that she understands how disruptive kids constantly asking to go to the bathroom can be:
“DD is 15 and her school have a no going to the toilet during lesson time rule, which I completely agree with on the whole as I know how disruptive it can be if people are constantly in and out, and how everyone just uses it as an excuse to bunk off (I am a teacher too – very different environment though)”.
Apparently, students can only be excused with a medical note.
The mother explained that her daughter’s teacher will excuse people to go to the doctor’s with a medical note. The mother continued:
“The only exception is if you have a medical note from a doctor. Today in one of her lessons DD says she could feel that she really needed to change her pad, she was getting quite worried about it leaking. She eventually asked the (male) teacher if she could go to the loo.”
The young girl tried to explain that it was “a girl problem”.
The troubled mother roughly provided a transcript for the conversation from her daughter, which read as such:
“Teacher: No, you know the rules
“DD: I really need it.
“Teacher: What did I just say?
“DD: It’s a girl problem…
“Teacher: What do you mean?
“DD: Umm… I’m on my period
“Teacher: Break is only in half an hour, hold it in til then.”
Thankfully, the mother wrote that her daughter wasn’t too disturbed by the incident.
However, the mother ended her post by asking the rest of the parents if she was justified in being very concerned about the confrontation.
The mother was specifically concerned about how men can have so little knowledge about female biology.
The mother expressed her concern as such, “Surely even men have some basic idea that it doesn’t work like that?”
That is a perfectly reasonable question. Men in positions of authority, such as teachers, should at the very least have a basic understanding of the female body.
Most of the parents on the thread agreed that she was right to be concerned.
The majority of the parents on the thread were irate at the ignorance on behalf of the teacher, with some writing the likes of:
“Hold it in???!!! How the f*ck is she meant to do that? Does the moron not realize that we don’t piss out blood voluntarily? If we could do that there would be no need for sanitary products surely? God, I am actually raging on your behalf. The Dickhead needs telling.”
“I would complain. Just because some girls may use it as an excuse is no reason to humiliate the many girls who may randomly flood or generally have very heavy periods.”
A few parents tried to see this as a moment to educate the teacher on the subject of women’s bodies.
There were those who more calmly explained that this could be a teachable moment for the teacher — gotta love a bit of irony — writing:
“I wouldn’t go in all guns blazing to the school, but I would definitely speak to ahead of year or head of pastoral about the possible inappropriate application of rules.”
There were also a few concerned parents who were concerned as to what subject this man was supposed to be teaching:
“Tell me it wasn’t a Biology teacher”.
Hopefully, someone will politely point out the errors in his ways and prevent this sort of thing happening again!
Sadly, men thinking that women can simply hold in their period is a much more widespread belief than you may want to believe. It is also unnerving that so many men who push for legislation that influences the decisions women make about their bodies don’t have a basic understanding of how their bodies work in the first place.
h/t: Upworthy
