University Student Is Backed Online For Reporting Her Classmates Who Kept Hanging ‘Pretty Privilege’ On Her
Jokes are fun and that’s why we love them. However, not all of them are so fun, since a joke is never just a joke and the intentions behind the joke can vary greatly.
While some jokes are meant to release tension or express one’s feelings, others are only meant to hurt other people, possibly by spreading lies about them. This woman was faced with the latter in her university environment and was asking online if she was right to take the measures she took.
More info: Reddit
The woman’s classmates kept putting her down with “pretty privilege” jokes until she had to do something about it
Image credits: Anastasiya Gepp (not the actual photo)
After she topped two out of four students, her classmates became outright rude to her
Image credits: Maleficent-Day4476
Image credits: Pixabay (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Maleficent-Day4476
The never-ending remarks about “pretty privilege” and the woman’s boyfriend helping her were causing her a lot of anxiety
Image credits: ICSA (not the actual photo)
The student asked her supervisor for advice and was convinced to let her email her classmates’ supervisors
This woman (23) is one of only a few female students in a male-dominated course at a highly prestigious university. She shared that her classmates are very competitive in an unhealthy manner, where everything turns into a “p*****g contest”. In addition to that, she feels they take her less seriously just because she’s a woman. For the reasons just mentioned, the student hasn’t enjoyed her classmates’ company from the very beginning and has chosen to hang out with other people instead.
However, the woman’s relationship with her classmates went from pretty much neutral to somewhat worse. It all started after she did well in her recent exams by topping two out of four and got congratulated by a professor during the class. The woman shares that while they were initially only unfriendly, now her classmates have become outright rude to her and started challenging her aggressively in class discussions.
After one of the woman’s classmates did a presentation about “pretty privilege”, the other guys snickered, while one of them even gave her a wink. Afterward, she heard them joking that “they had experience with that themselves”. In addition to joking about “pretty privilege”, the woman’s classmates started asking her if “her boyfriend” helped her with exams, referring to a Ph.D. student she was seeing for a month and who had nothing to do with their course. Such remarks were made in front of the professor, even bringing up the man’s name.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t a one-time thing. The woman was told this topic was brought up a few more times, implying that she got help from this Ph.D. student, even though she wasn’t even seeing him back then. The woman didn’t confront her classmates about it; however, it was causing her a lot of anxiety. She says she worked hard to get the results she did and did not want to be misleadingly known around the faculty for her “profitable” dating life.
The woman raised this issue with her supervisor. She says, she wanted her advice as a woman in academia and initially it wasn’t her intention to take it any further.
The complaint wasn’t formal, but classmates’ supervisors became very cold towards them and less interested in helping
Image credits: RODNAE Productions (not the actual photo)
The woman’s classmate told her she will be to blame if he loses his scholarship
However, the supervisor convinced her to let her email the classmates’ supervisors “to remind them of proper conduct”, and described their treatment of this student without mentioning her name. The woman’s classmates could, of course, tell who their supervisors were referring to, and confronted the woman about why she reported their “silly joke”.
It wasn’t a formal complaint and only the classmates’ supervisors knew about it. However, as a result, the woman’s classmates’ supervisors became very cold towards them and were less interested in helping. Additionally, one of the classmates told her that his supervisor gets to write reports for him getting his financial aid/ scholarship and he said it would be her fault if he lost it. She shared that after all this, she felt a bit embarrassed, especially after her friend told her she took it too far.
The possible problem with calling someone out for “privilege” is discussed by T. Fortgang. Often the problem lies in assuming that one might know someone’s history simply by looking at that person’s appearance, while in reality, the person’s history might involve a lot of sacrifices and hard work that got them where they are. In this case, undermining the student’s achievements just because one sees her as beautiful is unfair and ignorant.
The post went viral with 29K upvotes, and many people could relate to what this woman went through. The verdict was univocal – the woman was right to act the way she did. Commenters on Reddit brought up several aspects – the tendency of such “jokers” to undermine your accomplishments, question your abilities, and then act shocked when you stand up for yourself.
It was also raised that it wasn’t a “silly joke”, but repeated and intentional harassment implying that the woman was not worthy of her grades and hasn’t earned her current position. People were commenting that the insecure and jealous classmates should have thought about treating her with respect and professionalism before it had to come from a place of authority. People agreed these students earned whatever consequences befall them and people were happy that the woman’s supervisor took the problem seriously.
The verdict by commenters on Reddit was univocal – the woman was right to act the way she did, as it wasn’t a “silly joke”, but repeated and intentional harassment
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Share on FacebookOne shouldn’t receive a scholarship if one lacks moral character.
Load More Replies...They played a stupid game, they won a stupid prize. The OP is NTA in anyway. Maybe the boys just need to be prettier! ;)
C**p like that needs to be stopped right away. If you think someone was graded unfairly, take it up with the professor or faculty chair. You're literally claiming that the professor is not consistent in his grading policies and grades based on attractiveness level. And who cares if she got help. Is no one allowed to help anyone else? What is it with guys and these kind of competition? Do you really care that much that someone has a higher grade/makes more money than you? Suck it up and deal with it. Be an adult and stop acting like a 5 year old claiming your the best. No one cares anymore. [/rant]
I went over a couple of friend's uni work so many times back in the day. I didn't go to uni, but I do formal writing well, so helped with the wording, paragraph order, things that could be expanded on, or were repeated, etc. Basically helping them to get their knowledge on the page effectively. I was a resource. So long as someone is not doing the work for the student, help is fair game. People ask for help IRL anyway, so I think having help from someone else is often a sign of a good student.
Load More Replies...It's not a joke if the other person doesn't think it's funny. The males are a-holes who could make their future workplaces toxic for female employees. Better to address this ASAP and hope they realize there is a consequence for their actions.
More specifically, it's not a joke if what was done/said results in negative consequences for the butt of the joke. It's not a joke to imply that someone is committing academic misconduct, nor is it a joke to imply a professor is acting unethically.
Load More Replies...If you mistreat someone, then are held accountable for your poor behavior, the consequences are not your victim's fault.
Scumbags deserved it. I wonder if the students meant this swedish study? It did find that attractive women did get higher grades, that sunk when Covid made classes online. Sad for those attractive and smart, but it is a reality that looks affect much more then we care to admit. I have been both cute and slim and overweight . The difference in how I was treated was horrible. https://www.forskning.se/2022/10/25/studenters-utseende-kan-paverka-betygen/#:~:text=%E2%80%93%20N%C3%A4r%20undervisningen%20senare%20bedrevs%20p%C3%A5,Detta%20resulterade%20i%20l%C3%A4gre%20betyg.
Yes although this has been alleviated by professors who use grade distancing - basically the professor either doesn't know who the work belongs to, or has TAs grade who can't identify students via their work.
Load More Replies...Well, mow they need to convince their supervisors that it was just "a silly joke" and see how that goes for them. You are not only gaining academic knowledge at uni, you are also learning to build relationship with peers, colleagues, potential partners, etc. And if they thought that nagging their classmates and creating hostile environment was a good idea, they clearly don't deserve any scholarship.
People being a d**k and suffered the consequences. File that under "Ain't my problem", Op. Tell that to your "friend" who defended C too.
Also, the, "joker," certainly didn't care about consequences for OP. Why should she care about his?
Load More Replies...I can so understand her anxiety, however she's a bomb for standing up for herself. Kudo's to her and I hope she gets far in life!
NTA. Welcome to the real world and its real world consequences, a-holes.
While it is true that the more attractive tend to be treated better than the less attractive, that goes for men as well as women. It is for people to point out when someone is treated less than, don't tolerate someone being discriminated against. But remember, while being attractive might smooth the road a bit, it isn't enough to succeed in most fields. Work, knowledge, skill, luck, etc all play their part.
We could do without the extensive (and lousy) rewrite of every section of the poster’s text. It does nothing but restate the original post, but with quadruple the number of words.
Yeah I once sent aa BP post to a friend and he was so frustrated by the text. He won't read them anymore XD I can't blame him, honestly, it's awful formatting
Load More Replies...Unless they were graded on a curve, those boys (too immature to be men) need to shut up and study harder to get better grades because its only their own effort that matters. If it is was graded on a curve, they need to study twice as hard. Life isn't fair and someone else is beating them. Once you leave academia you can't go complaining that your boss likes someone else more when the other person is kicking your a*s head to head. OP earned their grade and her detractors are in for a rude awakening on their first job.
Definitely, NTA. It's not just "pretty privilege" either, but any kind of "pattern" kids pick up on. I remember in school, I was always a good student overall, but not in every single instance. It got so bad, by the time I was in high school, our teachers would have a "curve". If no one hit 100% on a test, our extra credit questions would go to bump up the test grade. If someone did hit 100%, the extra credit questions wouldn't count for the test. I remember once in geometry, a classmate shouted out, "Thanks [my name]!" all sarcastic, because someone hit the 100. I yelled back, "It wasn't me this time, I got a D! Blame her!" And I thumbed over my shoulder to my friend, who was the one to hit 100. Pretty privilege, teachers pet, etc. I hate all that c**p. For info, 100% all correct was the "perfect A", then it went down from there. B, C, D, (no E), and right to F which was failed.
This was upsetting to read. It's very clear they're trying to bully her out of the program due to jealousy. And it sounds like they're still harassing her. Not only is she NOT the AH, I think she needs to take her complaint further up the academic chain, since clearly a formal warning isn't enough for these jerks.
The word "univocal" (having only one possible meaning; unambiguous) does not exactly correspond to "unequivocal" (leaving no doubt; unambiguous), does it?
I"m in a male dominanted field. OP didn't do herself any favors by keeping to herself. Engage with your classmates and debate with them. If you keep to yourself, no one is going to know your level of knowledge, critical thinking skills, etc. So, when they find out that you've bested them on an assignment, it looks suspicious -especially if you're a girl. As far as interaction with the guys, I always started with "that's a good point or I can understand how you would come to that conclusion but ...you might want to look at blah, blah, blah. Always acknowledge the things that someone got right first, then give your analysis. You're going to get push back at first but keep going. After awhile, your consistent and respectful debating skills make a jerk reform. Trust me, a sense of shame comes over them when you refuse to break down or resort to their level. Get yourself a mentor who's working IRL. I didn't magically know how to handle insecure guys, I got coached by a successful woman.
You asked your supervisor for advice, she saw it for what it is and reported it... you are NTA your supervisor saw it as a problem, it is a problem, harassment is the problem, the boys are the problem. All the trouble they are now suffering are caused by them, not you. You did the right thing when you spoke to someone you trusted and that's what you are meant to do. Your supervisor is great for forwarding your concerns
I also guarantee that's not why homie lost out on his scholarship. I'd bet that there were other reasons that had nothing to do with that this issue that he didn't get that scholarship extended. Or at least, not just that. It could be connected if he needed a recommendation from his supervisor and didn't get it as a result of his harassing female students over their gender, but he likely could have gotten other recommendations or tried to redeem himself by being accountable and learning from his errors, but chose not to. Either way, they didn't lose the respect of their supervisors because this woman reported them, they lost the respect because they were behaving poorly.
Did your mother make you feel inadequate when you were a child?
Load More Replies...One shouldn’t receive a scholarship if one lacks moral character.
Load More Replies...They played a stupid game, they won a stupid prize. The OP is NTA in anyway. Maybe the boys just need to be prettier! ;)
C**p like that needs to be stopped right away. If you think someone was graded unfairly, take it up with the professor or faculty chair. You're literally claiming that the professor is not consistent in his grading policies and grades based on attractiveness level. And who cares if she got help. Is no one allowed to help anyone else? What is it with guys and these kind of competition? Do you really care that much that someone has a higher grade/makes more money than you? Suck it up and deal with it. Be an adult and stop acting like a 5 year old claiming your the best. No one cares anymore. [/rant]
I went over a couple of friend's uni work so many times back in the day. I didn't go to uni, but I do formal writing well, so helped with the wording, paragraph order, things that could be expanded on, or were repeated, etc. Basically helping them to get their knowledge on the page effectively. I was a resource. So long as someone is not doing the work for the student, help is fair game. People ask for help IRL anyway, so I think having help from someone else is often a sign of a good student.
Load More Replies...It's not a joke if the other person doesn't think it's funny. The males are a-holes who could make their future workplaces toxic for female employees. Better to address this ASAP and hope they realize there is a consequence for their actions.
More specifically, it's not a joke if what was done/said results in negative consequences for the butt of the joke. It's not a joke to imply that someone is committing academic misconduct, nor is it a joke to imply a professor is acting unethically.
Load More Replies...If you mistreat someone, then are held accountable for your poor behavior, the consequences are not your victim's fault.
Scumbags deserved it. I wonder if the students meant this swedish study? It did find that attractive women did get higher grades, that sunk when Covid made classes online. Sad for those attractive and smart, but it is a reality that looks affect much more then we care to admit. I have been both cute and slim and overweight . The difference in how I was treated was horrible. https://www.forskning.se/2022/10/25/studenters-utseende-kan-paverka-betygen/#:~:text=%E2%80%93%20N%C3%A4r%20undervisningen%20senare%20bedrevs%20p%C3%A5,Detta%20resulterade%20i%20l%C3%A4gre%20betyg.
Yes although this has been alleviated by professors who use grade distancing - basically the professor either doesn't know who the work belongs to, or has TAs grade who can't identify students via their work.
Load More Replies...Well, mow they need to convince their supervisors that it was just "a silly joke" and see how that goes for them. You are not only gaining academic knowledge at uni, you are also learning to build relationship with peers, colleagues, potential partners, etc. And if they thought that nagging their classmates and creating hostile environment was a good idea, they clearly don't deserve any scholarship.
People being a d**k and suffered the consequences. File that under "Ain't my problem", Op. Tell that to your "friend" who defended C too.
Also, the, "joker," certainly didn't care about consequences for OP. Why should she care about his?
Load More Replies...I can so understand her anxiety, however she's a bomb for standing up for herself. Kudo's to her and I hope she gets far in life!
NTA. Welcome to the real world and its real world consequences, a-holes.
While it is true that the more attractive tend to be treated better than the less attractive, that goes for men as well as women. It is for people to point out when someone is treated less than, don't tolerate someone being discriminated against. But remember, while being attractive might smooth the road a bit, it isn't enough to succeed in most fields. Work, knowledge, skill, luck, etc all play their part.
We could do without the extensive (and lousy) rewrite of every section of the poster’s text. It does nothing but restate the original post, but with quadruple the number of words.
Yeah I once sent aa BP post to a friend and he was so frustrated by the text. He won't read them anymore XD I can't blame him, honestly, it's awful formatting
Load More Replies...Unless they were graded on a curve, those boys (too immature to be men) need to shut up and study harder to get better grades because its only their own effort that matters. If it is was graded on a curve, they need to study twice as hard. Life isn't fair and someone else is beating them. Once you leave academia you can't go complaining that your boss likes someone else more when the other person is kicking your a*s head to head. OP earned their grade and her detractors are in for a rude awakening on their first job.
Definitely, NTA. It's not just "pretty privilege" either, but any kind of "pattern" kids pick up on. I remember in school, I was always a good student overall, but not in every single instance. It got so bad, by the time I was in high school, our teachers would have a "curve". If no one hit 100% on a test, our extra credit questions would go to bump up the test grade. If someone did hit 100%, the extra credit questions wouldn't count for the test. I remember once in geometry, a classmate shouted out, "Thanks [my name]!" all sarcastic, because someone hit the 100. I yelled back, "It wasn't me this time, I got a D! Blame her!" And I thumbed over my shoulder to my friend, who was the one to hit 100. Pretty privilege, teachers pet, etc. I hate all that c**p. For info, 100% all correct was the "perfect A", then it went down from there. B, C, D, (no E), and right to F which was failed.
This was upsetting to read. It's very clear they're trying to bully her out of the program due to jealousy. And it sounds like they're still harassing her. Not only is she NOT the AH, I think she needs to take her complaint further up the academic chain, since clearly a formal warning isn't enough for these jerks.
The word "univocal" (having only one possible meaning; unambiguous) does not exactly correspond to "unequivocal" (leaving no doubt; unambiguous), does it?
I"m in a male dominanted field. OP didn't do herself any favors by keeping to herself. Engage with your classmates and debate with them. If you keep to yourself, no one is going to know your level of knowledge, critical thinking skills, etc. So, when they find out that you've bested them on an assignment, it looks suspicious -especially if you're a girl. As far as interaction with the guys, I always started with "that's a good point or I can understand how you would come to that conclusion but ...you might want to look at blah, blah, blah. Always acknowledge the things that someone got right first, then give your analysis. You're going to get push back at first but keep going. After awhile, your consistent and respectful debating skills make a jerk reform. Trust me, a sense of shame comes over them when you refuse to break down or resort to their level. Get yourself a mentor who's working IRL. I didn't magically know how to handle insecure guys, I got coached by a successful woman.
You asked your supervisor for advice, she saw it for what it is and reported it... you are NTA your supervisor saw it as a problem, it is a problem, harassment is the problem, the boys are the problem. All the trouble they are now suffering are caused by them, not you. You did the right thing when you spoke to someone you trusted and that's what you are meant to do. Your supervisor is great for forwarding your concerns
I also guarantee that's not why homie lost out on his scholarship. I'd bet that there were other reasons that had nothing to do with that this issue that he didn't get that scholarship extended. Or at least, not just that. It could be connected if he needed a recommendation from his supervisor and didn't get it as a result of his harassing female students over their gender, but he likely could have gotten other recommendations or tried to redeem himself by being accountable and learning from his errors, but chose not to. Either way, they didn't lose the respect of their supervisors because this woman reported them, they lost the respect because they were behaving poorly.
Did your mother make you feel inadequate when you were a child?
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