Teacher sez: Get Your Pap Smears, Ladies!

I started my new biology class yesterday and thus far I’m on the fence about my instructor.
I liked him pretty well at first, he seemed nice and approachable. Then he got started on the lecture and said a couple things that really irked me.
We started talking about what constitutes life and that led to a discussion of viruses. He asked us to name a few common ones. HIV, Rhinovirus, Influenza…and then someone brought up HPV.
Instructor launches into a whole thing about how HPV can lead to cervical cancer and 60-80% of women under 25 are infected with it and men are unaffected by it, so,
“Get tested and get your pap smears, ladies!”


First of all, this is not a health class. It’s not a human anatomy class. It’s not a sex education class. It’s a general biology course. It’s not his place to tell me I need to go get speculum stuck in my vag and have my cervix swabbed. Secondly, just because there’s no test for men they should go on their merry way without a care in the world when it comes to HPV? I don’t think so.
After complaining to my male friend after class and him agreeing with me, I was ready to let it go. I figured maybe the guy is just a little socially awkward and doesn’t realize how his speech might have made some of us uncomfortable.
Then came the biology lab, that same day, with the same guy. He started off by going over safety regulations with us and did a good job of it. Until he started talking about the proper procedure for if someone gets a chemical spilled on them: If you spill a dangerous chemical on yourself, take off your clothes and hose down.
Makes sense to me, no issue here. But then he started talking about how ‘college aged women’ probably won’t want to just yank their clothes off in front of everyone, so if someone gets a chemical spilled on them and needs to remove their clothes, hold your coat up for them to give them some privacy. Then he made this crack: Well, there DO seem to be a lot of college-aged women on the internet who want to take their clothes off in front of everyone, but, he he he, I doubt any of you do.
Is ‘coeds gone wild’ humor really necessary in the biology lab?
Maybe I’ll go through the rest of the semester and never hear him say anything like this again and end up liking him. Then again, maybe I’ll spend the semester getting irritated with him. Time will tell.

Disclaimer: This post was written by a Feministing Community user and does not necessarily reflect the views of any Feministing columnist, editor, or executive director.

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