Some people say that high school is the most crucial part of a student’s life but others they say that it is the happiest chapter of a student’s life. There are a lot of things that a teenager wants to explore and it starts when one reaches high school; curiosity starts in this part of a person’s life. But did it ever occur to your minds what happens in a typical and an atypical high school class? Have you ever pictured in your minds what is it like being in a high school class? Have you ever wondered how the students’ relationship with their teachers is? What do the students do often?
In this section “demented kindergarten”, of the book “High School Confidential” Iversen tackles about the relationship of an atypical high school students with their teacher. This chapter shows how the students get along in class and how they treat each other. It also talks about what goes on between the students. Through Charity and Vic’s relationship as classmates, as shown in the section demented kindergarten, Iversen shows that respect was lacking among the students. There is no good relationship between the two students; it employs that there was no respect for women.
In this section, Iversen also shows the domineering nature of man over women. In Charity and Vic’s relationship it was shown that Vic does not have respect over Charity as a woman. Although Vic and Charity were classmates and charity was a girl Vic did not bother to talk to her in a disrespectful manner; it is not lawful to talk to women in an odd way because it degrades women’s confidence and dignity. When Vic said that he had a hung over, Charity was kind enough to tell him to take Advil for his headache, but instead of saying thank you to Charity Vic yelled at her and called her a slut.
It was not proper for him to call Charity a slut because he is not in the position to scrutinize someone, most especially women. Disrespect and power over women was also portrayed through Vic and Sara. As Iversen had written in his book, Vic spun Sara’s chair until she can no longer take it and tumbled. Sara did not oppose Vic while he was spinning her chair; she just let him do what he wanted to do because Vic was more powerful than Sara; because Sara might have felt that she can not do anything to stop Vic because she was helpless.
Although Vic knows that Sara would be helpless and might tumble if he would spin the chair faster he still managed to spin Sara’s chair without hesitation. In the social context of the book “High School Confidential, Iversen’s observation about how men disrespect women and the domineering nature of man is very common. Vic is powerful in the social structure of their school he was a bully. And because he is a man he is over empowering women, like Charity and Sara, around him. He is fund of dominating because he is a man; he wanted to show that he is more powerful than women.
Men are domineering in nature and they seek superiority over women; they raise their manliness by doing things to make women look and feel helpless and less powerful. This nature of men is actually very visible in the society and in some cultures. Just like in Japan, men of Japan do typical things that a man does; earning money for the family and being the head of the family, they are not suppose to be seen in kitchen because it would be a disgrace for their manliness. While women of Japan are suppose to do only household chores, they are not entitled to do manly things.
Some men show their manliness in other ways such as sadism, they tend to beat their wives because they wanted to show that they are the more powerful kind and that no one can oppose them most especially women, but some men do the beating habitually that’s why many government agencies help battered women. That is also why there are republic acts which tend to help women against violence. A single insult to women can be treated as violence against them; telling them that they are slut, whore and the likes. Cursing women and saying various words that might degrade them can be called violence against women.
In the section “demented kindergarten” Iversen tells the domineering nature of men is a problem of our society. Everybody is not aware of this problem that is why Iversen made a way on how to communicate with the society through his book “High School Confidential”. Iversen wants others to know that in simple ways such as bullying a classmate can employ male domination. Iversen also exploited the disrespectfulness of men to women. Although the theme of the section is not that clear and visible unless understood, Iversen had still managed to write the book in the most convenient way he knows (Iversen)