In sixth grade, I had a sexist history teacher that forced me to stay with nothing to eat

This is going to be short, but I still have quite the story to tell.

When I was going to middle school, I was excited at what the new school looked like. Like many others, I was a newcoming junior high student. My hopes would unfortunately fall apart when I got a history teacher who was openly misogynistic and talked garbage about women and girls all the time, especially his wife (she was also a history teacher and I had her in seventh grade).

One day, he decided to make a competition regarding history knowledge. As you would expect, he pitted us girls against the boys. While the boys were thriving, the girls on the other hand were struggling to keep up. What made matters worse was our teacher kept making sexist comments over how stupid girls are and how we suck at history.

That man was obsessed with taking the HIS in history into overdrive, and some of the girls made no hesitation to tell him how pissed we are, myself included. Personally I was struggling with my history knowledge because I was starving and couldn’t stop thinking about food.

In the end, the boys won, and the teacher rubbed it all over our faces by forcing all of us girls to tell the boys that they’re better than us. The only girl who didn’t say it was me.

When the lunch bell rang, we got up and went to our lockers, except me. Just as I was about to leave the room, my teacher stopped me and asked “why didn’t you say it?”.

My first thought was “are you fucking kidding me?! You made all the other girls say it, so why are you upset that only one of us didn’t?!”.

I told him I refused to say it because boys are NOT better than girls and saying it does a disservice to womanhood and only deteriorates girls’ confidence. He replied that I need to get over it and “learn how to take a joke”. Then he added “you’re not leaving this classroom until you admit it”.

I screamed no and tried to run out of there. But the teacher blocked the doorway in front of me and said “no, you’re staying right here. And if you say it, then I’ll let you have lunch”.

I was furious! The nerve of that man for forcing me to give into sexism, deny my right to eat, and get away with ruining women’s mental health! Ten minutes after the lunch bell rang, I could no longer stand the hunger pangs, so I finally gave in and muttered it under my breath. He made me say it again but louder, so I did. Finally, he let me out the door to have lunch.

As I was getting my lunch bag out of my locker, tears began to flow my cheeks. My face was red with anger and embarrassment. On one hand, I hated myself for saying something so sexist and hurtful. On the other hand, if I didn’t say it, I’d be stuck in his fucking classroom forever and starve to death.

I’m a slow eater, but I was especially slow at that time, since I was overwhelmed and crushed. When I got finished eating, I was ten minutes late for sixth period. When I finally got there, I got lectured and sent to the principal’s office.

The principal demanded me to tell him why I was late for class. I told him everything what happened. His reply? “He’s a man. Men can’t help but make jokes like that. You just need to learn to have a sense of humor”

Eventually there was no point with arguing with asshats so I just gave up and accepted my punishment. When it comes to men, they’d like to think that they “won the argument” in situations like these. Why are they so obsessed with bragging how they “win arguments” while they refuse to listen to a woman’s side?

It took me a decade after the incident to finally realize that I was right to feel upset. Upon listening to the many other experiences that women have regarding discrimination, I was relieved to learn that I wasn’t alone.

Today, I still wonder if my history teacher has either quit his job, or better yet, got fired. If so, I’d be more than happy knowing that there wouldn’t be anymore assholes like him plaguing the minds of today’s generation of girls.