A Million Dollars for 2nd degree Rape? – Polecat Cast 122

Kids, let me tell you a story about a woman named Heidi Gansen. Heidi is a doctoral student at the University of Michigan. Her research interests include gender, sexuality, and childhood. At what point did including those three things, side-by-side, in the same sentence, become a non-issue? 

            Last month, Heidi had one of her research papers published in a journal called “Sociology of Education.” Before you ask, allow me to confirm that, yes, the title of the paper is a bunch of buzzwords strung together. The title is: “Reproducing (and Disrupting) Heteronormativity: Gendered Sexual Socialization in Preschool Classrooms.” 

            While reading the abstract, you can see the sorrowful downfall of the social sciences reflecting back on you. Here are a couple of quotes: 

            “Using ethnographic data from ten months of observations in nine preschool classrooms, I examine gendered sexual socialization children receive from teachers’ practices and reproduce through peer interactions.”

            “… my data suggest young children are learning in preschool that boys have gendered power over girls’ bodies.”

             Heidi determined that teachers are, quote, “actively promoting or encouraging heterosexual discourses and practices…”. The example she cites includes a teacher actively encouraging two-year-old children to have crushes. However, if two children of the same sex were holding hands or engaging in the same behaviors, the teachers wouldn’t actively encourage them to be in a relationship… insisting they were “friends”.

            Apparently, Gansen received an “outstanding graduate student” award from the American Sociological Association for her paper. A woman who thinks we should be teaching two year old kids about gay relationships… received an academic award. 

            Allow me to bring those of you back from the precipice of madness with a light joke: Microsoft Word does not recognize the word “heteronormativity.”

Source: http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/35339/

Judge Awards $1 Million to Boy Who was Raped by Teacher
By Andrew G.

In 2015, an Oklahoma teacher, Jennifer Caswell, pleaded guilty to second degree rape and other related charges. She is currently serving 15 years in prison, 5 of them suspended. The boy, who was not named, and his family sued Caswell for causing emotional distress and spreading information about the rape, as well as the school district for failing to address the issue. After news of the sexual encounter between Caswell and the boy spread throughout the school, the boy experienced mockery to such a level that he was forced to change schools to avoid encounters with anyone that knew who he was. According to therapists, the boy will experience issues in the future trusting women, especially women in authority.

Despite the one-million-dollar award, it is very unlikely that the family will see any of that money, considering that Caswell will be in prison for at least few more years. However, the more shocking part of this story is how Caswell attempted to rationalize her way out of responsibility. Caswell tried to blame her husband and the boy, stating that “I felt very unwanted by my husband. I was with him for ten years and I was never complimented. We never held hands or were physical,” and adding that “He (the boy) was very flirty and I should have put a stop to it and I didn’t. I wasn’t used to the attention.” Describing the encounter, Caswell said that “He came in, I was working on things, he kept coming closer to me and I would kind of walk away to the other part, you know another room, another area of the classroom and he just walked up to me and then he kissed me. And then it just kind of went from there.” If Caswell was a responsible adult, she could have easily not had sex with her student. By her own admission “He wasn’t forcing me, I mean, I could’ve easily just walked out of my classroom, but I didn’t.”

Sources:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4789242/Judge-awards-1million-boy-sex-teacher.html
http://newsok.com/article/5560022

Still Number One
By Mike J.

Stefan Karl Stefansson, an Icelandic actor better known as Robbie Rotten from the popular children’s show LazyTown has had a rough year after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer back in October of 2016. After becoming too ill to work, the head writer of LazyTown Mark Valenti set up a GoFundMe caimpaign to help Stefansson pay for his cost of living. The internet has since rallied around Stefansson helping him to raise over $162,000 and also immortalizing him and his performance as Robbie Rotten into a popular internet meme.

But after a successful liver surgery in June, Stefansson is currently free of all cancer metastases. This comes as a surprise, albeit a welcome one, seeing as the type of cancer Stefansson had comes with a survival rate of one-percent. Stefansson remains optimistic, though cautious, stating that although he is free of the metastases at the moment he is not totally free of the cancer. Currently Stefansson is working on a cancer-focused stand-up comedy routine with comedian Ari Eldjarn. He also plans on making a return to the theater later this year and has a secret project in the works which he plans to make known soon.

Sources:

http://heavy.com/entertainment/2017/08/stefan-karl-cancer-robbie-rotten-stefansson-not-dead/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefán_Karl_Stefánsson