More egg on face

Post Reply New Topic

Plus, the fact that I'm a female who said it (versus a man) I thought would render it an innocent question, but I was sadly mistaken, as my husband pointed out (as I now fully understand his point and make the connection), because at least one (most likely two) of the teachers in that room was a lesbian. Soooo... so much for my line of logic!! ! Oh, man...

One problem is that the question is more or less unanswerable in that setting: Is she young and pretty?

a) "No, she is old and ugly" Can't say that of a colleague.
b) "Yeah, she is so hot" Can't say that either.

Maybe it was also a bit awkward for your husband since he was the only man there? If it was a room full of men and you said that, they'd probably be laughing.

Schools, in my opinion, are full of self-important PC-obsessed stuffed shirts who take it all waaaaaay to seriously and need to lighten up.
Perhaps predictably, the only place worse than school is teachers' college.

Is the education and socialization of children serious business?? Of course. I remember being a kid-- idiocy like zero-tolerance aside, I can personally vouch that we would have listened a lot better, and taken what they told us a lot more seriously, if they hadn't been so doggone stuffy all the time.

The teachers we all remember were the ones who could laugh at dirty or off-color jokes, use language creatively, have some fun that wasn't as sanitary puffy-white as a freshly bleached spring lamb, and et cetera. I was pretty regularly shocked and disgusted by my classmates' behavior toward some of the other teachers...

...and I too was guilty of sometimes saying (or more likely writing) things just to see the looks on their faces.

Besides, pretty much ALL kids, especially young kids, adore the young, pretty, perky teachers. Also the old, squishy, grandmotherly teachers. My DS adored his kindergarten teacher-- polished apples to bring her for lunch and the whole nine yards. Personally, I am very thankful that, the day I met her for the first time, she said, "I'll be Boy's teacher!" before I got out of my mouth that I thought it was awesomely cool that the school had the high schoolers volunteer to help with kindergarten orientation. I guess 17 and 23 look a lot alike when you're 34, lol.

All that said, I don't think this was an actual gaffe - just, maybe, a conversational glitch. I doubt anyone thinks less of you - I think an NT might have made the same mistake just by speaking thoughtlessly, the major difference is that they wouldn't spend time analyzing the break in conversation.

Having worked in the school system, yeah, this is the equivalent of throwing dog crap in a punch bowl.

It would like saying, Grandpa really loves his young, pretty lady doctor.

*crickets*

Why they (not me) would be upset.

Who cares who your son gets as a teacher? Supposedly all are adequate educators.

Young? Some parents/students love young, inexperienced teachers so they can buffalo the crap out of them.

Pretty? Seriously? ...In an age of teachers getting blamed for looking at someone wrong, no teacher wants to hear their students think they are hot or pretty.

Lady? What year is this? It's always woman/women in business like conversations. I prefer lady but got my ass handed to me when a principal took offense of me using the word "lady".

So yeah, your husband is right, ageist and sexist. Lucky it was you, not your husband.

Do I think they remembered or cared after the fact? Nope. But the reasons above are why there was a whole heap of awkwardness after your statement.

What? I use the word "lady" all the time. A woman is just an adult female. A lady is a respectable woman. Who wouldn't rather be called a lady?

They go out of their way to try and keep me happy, at one time they were going overboard and so I read them the riot act and sent them an email with tons of news articles where the schools was going overboard over deferent issues. after that they changed their tune, just they don't like dealing with me so much after that. they had a lot of complaints last year, this year not a peep.

I think it is an issue b/c people are more apt to say "lady" than "gentleman" and sometimes when people say "lady" it is meant in a condescending way. I do not really understand the nuance but maybe it has to do with women being expected to act like a "lady" and men being allowed more leeway in how they behave.

I have read way too much Miss Manners so I use gentleman and lady probably more frequently and in more contexts than I ought to.

When we were out and about, I told my son maybe 4 or 5 times to act like a gentleman, today. *shrug*

I can understand it being used in a condescending way, as in "listen here, lady", but wouldn't "listen here, woman" be just as or even more offensive?
I don't really use the word gentleman, but that's because it has three syllables and "man" or "guy" is shorter. Also, in my head I think "gentle man", which seems a bizarre label to pin randomly on someone.

Who's Miss Manners?

Etiquette advice column.

hlmgtfy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Martin

http://www.missmanners.com/

Emily Post was the expert in etiquette a while back.

As others have said she is an etiquette columnist. She had a column for a really long time. I think her kids do it, now. It was better back when she did it. I learned a lot from it when I was young.

I don't think traditional etiquette is followed regularly now, but it helped having concrete rules. At least when I break the house etiquette rules where I live now, I know if I am following the "right" ones and it makes me feel better. I liked her because in addition to the usual stuff she would give polite ways to establish boundaries so you could be polite and still not have people walk all over you. She also allowed some very subtle nuanced snark, which was kind of funny.

Nothing wrong with a little etiquette now and then.

When I'm walking on the sidewalk with a lady, I always walk in a place nearest the curb. This is done so the lady isn't splashed by puddles, or hit by a runaway car.

If it's a dangerous area, I might walk on the right side of the street; there could be some pervert lurking in an alley, ready to pounce.

I got a 1950's etiquette book at a garage sale when I was in high school. I thought I had all the answers to life for a while.
Here's a gem: "A lady on the left is not a lady." When a man and woman walk together, the woman is supposed to be on the right. I don't know how that works if the curb is also on the right.
I still get frustrated when people call my house and ask to speak to someone without first identifying themselves. It's supposed to be "Hello, this is X. May I please speak to Y?" Telemarketers never follow this format and I always have to resist the temptation to correct them before hanging up on them.

Tawaki,

I've been ruminating on this since you wrote it, wondering why it bothered me so much, apart from the obvious.

I never posted my experience to get sympathy from you or have people provide me for excuses to why what I did was inappropriate. I never said it was inappropriate. In fact, I came here saying basically, that I screwed up, and shared the experience figuring that other people here might be able to relate with their "oops" moments. When other people came to be supportive it was very sweet but it didn't take away from the fact of what happened and my feelings about it afterward, which I detailed in subsequent posts.

So your angry tone, and "rubbing it in", so to speak, was really unnecessary and hurtful. You chide me like a child, and to what end? Especially when I was already feeling bad about it? Not only did it affect me, but it has the unfortunate effect of possibly precluding others from sharing their experiences, lest they get reprimanded for it too.

What's that called? "Beating a dog when it's down"? That's not very nice.