Bad Teacher – Chapter One: The Plan

“And that,” said Ms. Archer with the slightest smirk, “is why boys are falling behind girls in every category. The older generation of white-haired males may still be in power, but girls are more intelligent, less governed by primitive instinct, better at communication, and have longer attention spans; it’s just a matter of time before this generation overtakes both the good old boys and the weak, subservient old women who enable them. Final papers are due on Monday, and I expect each of you to provide solid arguments supporting your vision of a future society based on this premise.”
I muttered to myself a bit and rolled my eyes, but made sure to do so without being seen; I didn’t want to get drawn into an argument that the bitch would win by trumping in with some attack on my “obvious chauvinism” or, her favorite, veiled threats referencing the fact that grading in a politics class is based mostly on essays, and essay-grading is completely subjective.
Besides, I knew that come Monday, grading papers would be the least of her worries. I nodded to my accomplices as the bell rang and we filed out, careful not to let my irritation show.
We had been developing the plan for months now. At first, the guys in the class (and even some of the girls) had been annoyed by her incessant, strident preaching about the patriarchy, the male gaze, and other feminazi go-tos, but there wasn’t much we could do about it. We bitched a bit, whined about having to sit through a whole semester of this, but by now most of us were pretty used to hearing and seeing this general type of thing in the media, the movies, and so forth. So we figured we’d just grit our teeth and power through.
Then the results of the first test came back: I had written an essay suggesting that equality was already here, and continuing to harp on quotas and averages was not only futile, but counter-productive. I used what seemed like well-reasoned arguments, and just to be safe, I had had a female friend of mine read through the paper before turning it in to make sure I didn’t come across as sexist. She said that although she didn’t completely agree with what I was saying, it was certainly nothing outrageous and my arguments were well-supported.
A week after turning it in, my grade came back: D. I was shocked! I had written papers before that went against the professor’s apparent position on an issue, and for sure, I knew it meant they’d be a little stricter with their grading, but never had it resulted in anything more than a couple points off of what I thought it should be. I was used to getting A’s, and I had put as much effort and thought into this paper as I had any other.
The paper was full of red marks pointing out my “privileged male thinking”, my “lack of understanding of the female experience”, and so forth. At no point was there a single word about my logic or facts; what it boiled down to was that she disagreed with me and was going to punish me for it. I was, of course, furious, but I had never really been one to fight authority, and so I planned to just let it go and make sure the next paper was airtight, when I overhead a few other guys talking about their grades.
They all had similar sentiments to me; a couple of them weren’t the brightest bulbs, but still felt they had done better than F’s, and the rest were in the same boat as me. One of the bolder guys walked over to a group of girls who were all chattering excitedly, and asked them how they’d done.