Comments on: Pretend it doesn’t exist

By: Gillian

Gillian — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 04:09:04 +0000

I had at least one other male gym teacher in high school, and this guy was the only problem. It’s horrid that we were forced to deal with him, but he definitely wasn’t representative of the others. It’s not like they had to follow us into the changerooms or anything.

We had female counselors and a female vice-principle in our school, and the gym teacher still kept his job. It wasn’t for lack of women in charge.

Part of the problem with the Pickton murders taking so long to come to life, I think, was the logical fallacy people make when those of “lesser” authority/morals make accusations and statements and their statements are judged on the speaker’s character alone. I.e. a stoned prostitute says X, so X must be false.

By: Garth

Garth — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 01:52:04 +0000

Lynn, I have to disagree with you here and say the problem is not “male-dominated institutions” and “men backing up men.” Those kinds of claims are not accurate and only serve to polarize the debate into a useless men-vs-women argument.

The fact is that the vast majority of men and women are perfectly respectable people who would be disgusted by actions such the ones we are describing. A small percentage of men and women are mentally ill in some way and pursue such experiences.

There are a large number of factors that contribute to things like this happening. In the case of doctors it includes the level of respect given them, and the fact that much of their work is done 1-on-1. For teachers, union protection of deviant teachers is a big factor. For prostitutes in East Vancouver, the fact that so many of them are transient, and sick and dying of other causes makes it difficult to keep track of them. Denial and apathy also plays a role.

And I ask ask you, why is it bizarre that girls can have a male gym teacher? Do you think that men are so fundamentally flawed that they are incapable of teaching gym without succumbing to some horrible urge? If so I am sorry.

By: Lynn Harrington

Lynn Harrington — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 18:23:02 +0000

This blog reminds me of the thousands of boys and girls who were abused by Priests, the kids often reported it but were downplayed or ignored. Some were even slapped by a parent for telling what had happened.
A Doctor in my hometown sexually abused boys for decades, was charged a few times but never went to prison. Denial, denial denial, male-dominated institutions, men backing-up men, and so on.
Girls should not have a male gym teacher anyway, that is bizarre.

By: raincoaster

raincoaster — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 09:18:18 +0000

Thank you for posting this.

Since I made that post yesterday, many people have shared their stories with me via comments, Twitter, in person, and with email. We are born with a great gift, the gift of intuition, and I learned then that it’s something I should listen to more than I did. If only one person were inspired to follow their instincts and protect themselves because of the stories, at least some good will have come of our experiences.