I had one professor he was brilliant, soft-spoken, and knew how to challenge his students. It was with crippling fear not to have done your reading and be faced with the consequences because he loved to debate everything.

He would ask the question, “What did you think of Popper’s method? How did it change the way the social sciences are viewed?”

He would look at the victim scuffing their feet and looking to the floor avoiding any form of eye contact.

“Mike, how do you feel about this?”

Mike would wait a minute, look around, “Oh! Are you talking to me? Well, I guess in science it’s not always important to look at the ethical outcome when you are observing how humans make certain choices.”

It was at this moment everyone would hold their breath and knew Mike had been cornered like a lost sheep against wall with no escape from the wolf lurking in the bushes. You could hear the sound of the pen drop and Dr. M would reply, “So you don’t think a person’s choice value is not influenced by his ethical choices in life?”

He would then give Mike the look the look that would make him shrink into the chair and want to cease to exist. Dr. M would then carry on with his lesson.

It was just the other day I was talking with an acquaintance about her daughter’s grade one class. She was complaining about the school fees, the teacher, and then she made a comment about the loser girls.

My ears piqued up “Loser girls?”

“Well! Yeah! You know the girls! Never have their homework done, never pay attention in class, their parents always forget to send in the forms.”

I felt a slight anger under my belly and repeated slowly, “Loser Girls in grade 1?”

“Yes. They are they don’t do anything. And I don’t want to be paying extra fee when their parents don’t send in the money.”

I bit my tongue, and stayed rational as listened to the ridiculousness of it all, “Loser Girls? Really?”

And then I stared at her I gave her the look that Dr. M once had given Mike.

I raised my eyebrow and gave her a stink eye that said more than any words would ever say to challenge her frame of mind. Her eyes looked away from me as I watched her attempt to blend in with the walls.

Sometimes words don’t always have enough meaning to make a person stop and think what they are saying before they open their mouths. I would like to thank Dr. M for teaching me how maintain rationality when faced with obvious stupidity.

In life there is one commonality that most of us can agree on and that is no girl should ever be called a loser. We talk about the mean girls, the implications it causes in school, and how they can be hurtful to other children. It is parental attitudes such as this Mother which make these mean girls exist and it’s time to give these women a taste of their own medicine.
Do you believe some words aim to hurt? And are just not funny?