"The Teacher Would Call Me 'Piggy', 'Smelley', 'Dirty', Names like That": Prying Open a Discussion of Domestic Violence for Educators

Authors

Lois M. Weis, State University of New York at Buffalo
Michelle Fine, CUNY Graduate CenterFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1997

Abstract

(The Teacher) would call me "piggy", "smelly", "dirty", names like that, and the kids started following along with it. And I'd say, by the fourth grade, I started cleaning myself out. I didn't care anymore, but my father had this thing that you were allowed to take a bath once a week. He would measure the shampoo, he would measure the soap, and if he thought somebody was using the shampoo when he said you shouldn't, you'd get a beating. But I got sick of it, and the beatings almost became to be painless when hit with a belt or punched, it just...it almost didn't phase me anymore, and I figured I'd rather be clean and go to school and have friends, because it hurt more to not have friends than to be hit by my father. –Anna, a twenty six year old white female

Comments

This article was originally published in The High School Journal, available at https://www.jstor.org/stable/40364696