A Texas school received quite the backlash when photos of a gross, misogynistic quote painted on a wall in the school were shared. The lettering just above the lockers at Gregory-Lincoln Middle School in Houston reads:
“The more you act like a lady, the more he’ll act like a gentleman.”
Yup, the rest of the Internet is just as enraged as you are.
The backlash started when an employee of the school shared a picture of the quote on Twitter.
@lbeckman tweeted:
“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!”
More than 5,000 people retweeted the photo, and there were hundreds of comments. People can’t believe that a school would reinforce such awful and backward ideas.
One Twitter user figured out that the quote was attributed to Sydney Biddle Barrows, the madam that started a New York City escort service and used to tell this to her employees.
Some people thought that the backlash was an overreaction. It’s one of the most disturbing thing’s to read today, because not one girl should be taught that she is responsible for boy’s bad behavior towards her, and boys should NOT be taught that there’s standard in which girls need to adhere to in order for them to be treated with respect.
We would like to add something classic and super basic, but very much to the point in this whole situation:
“Treat people the way you would like to be treated.”
The school released a statement, saying that the quote on the wall of Gregory Lincoln PK-5 Education Center has been removed, as it does not align with HISD values.