Schools are places where we teach kids to be the best they can possibly be.
But that’s hard to do when the walls of our schools are plastered with archaic garbage that condones the poor behavior of men while blaming women for it.
But unfortunately, that’s exactly what one Houston, Texas school did. They decided it would be a good idea to shove misogyny down the throats of their pre-k through middle schoolers students poisoning the district’s youngest minds with old school garbage.
And in 2018 none the less!
Above the lockers at the Houston Independent School District’s Gregory Education Center, which teaches pre-K through eighth grade, read a ridiculous quote.
“The more you act like a lady, the more he’ll act like a gentleman.”
According to Houston Public Media, the quote is attributed to the founder of an escort service, Sydney Biddle Barrows who is known as the Mayflower Madam and is now a consultant and writer.
Yeah, so the school district thought it was a good idea to brainwash its female students with the words of someone who plead guilty to promoting prostitution.
That’s until Lisa Beckman called the district out for it in a Twitter post.
“This is the wall at Gregory-Lincoln Middle School in Houston ISD. It’s perpetuating horrible gender stereotypes, shaming women, and relinquishing boys of all responsibility. It’s sexist, misogynistic, and discriminatory!” she wrote in her Tweet which included a photo of the quote. “I’m horrified.”
The Tweet ended up going viral and the quote sparked quite a stir in the community who reached out to the school district to complain.
Thankfully, the district responded quickly and removed the quote.
“The input of our community is invaluable, and we appreciate that this was brought to our attention,” the school district said in a statement.
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The district also claimed the quote didn’t “align with HISD values.”
News reports didn’t mention how long the quote was up there or how it came to be displayed in a middle school.
The quote was replaced with a new one by Nobel Prize laureate and women’s rights advocate Malala Yousafzai.
The new quote reads: “Do not wait for someone else to come and speak for you. It’s you who can change the world.”
The quote coincides with the district’s curriculum where third graders will read Yousafzi’s book “Malala’s Magic Pencil. “
The community expressed their appreciation for the new quote on social media.
“Excellent change! I hope this led to a lot of dialogue about the paradigm of teaching females they are responsible for how males behave,” wrote one commenter.
It’s nice to a see a school district actually own up to their mistake and make the effort to change it.
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