Swimming

While I was swimming yesterday evening a children's swimming lesson was also taking place. The man running it was a perfect example of why all sports instructors should undergo compulsory personality transplants, although he did at least distract me from my usual thoughts of "I'm SO bored I might just drown myself for the novelty factor".

He stood on the side of the pool bellowing at the 6 girls, finishing each command with "If you don't understand, put up your hand". If their hand went up, he just repeated exactly what he'd already said, in a slightly louder and more annoyed tone of voice, despite the fact that they didn't understand it the first time. For one particular manoevre, he must have done this at least 5 times, until eventually the girls lost the will to live and stopped putting up their hands. When it became apparent that they still hadn't understood, he got them out of the pool and gave them a pep talk (at the top of his voice) about how they should say they didn't understand if they didn't. His words said, "it's fine to say you don't understand, it doesn't make you stupid", but his tone of voice said "but you are unbelievably stupid for not understanding this". Which reminded me of our old school PE teacher who would tell motivational stories about enormously fat girls who got fantastic grades because they tried very hard, while at the same time totally ignoring any effort put in by those of who were athletically challenged.

When the girls had finally grasped what they needed to do, Mr Swimming Instructor then demonstrated a novel way of praising them. He started shouting out "good boy, well done, see girls, it took a boy to show you how to do it." When they protested that they were girls, he said "oh really? That was so good I thought it must have been a boy doing it." Argh... from bullying to casual sexism in one easy step.