Bickleman
Somewhere in my early thirties I was having dinner with a friend I have had since Kindergarten and the topic turned to our evil junior high school Phys. Ed. teacher…
Ms.Bickleman
Oh yes, that was her name. I know it seems like Rohld Dahl or Charles Dickens made up that name, but I promise it was real.
And oh man, was it fitting.
She would play the song “Go You Chicken Fat Go!” and make us run in place. She would point out acne when jr high school girls had it, shaming them for not washing their face. She would say things like “You guys stink!” Which was likely true, but unkind and unhelpful.
She was one of those teachers who was thirsty to be friends with the super athletic girls in gym class, but everyone else inspired nothing but disgust. Pure, intense, demonstrable, disgust.
You know when you have a favorite teacher and when you walk into the room, they light up and fill you with their warmth, and you feel special and loved?
Yeah – this wasn’t that.
She was working through her own baggage, I am sure, but man, was she the worst person to be around young women trying to establish a relationship with physical activity.
Interestingly, she was not a thin or fit woman in any obvious way, but that fact did nothing to diminish her power as a spirit and self-esteem crusher.
She was insulting, dehumanizing, and just really, really bad at her job.
My friend and I were comparing war stories from Jr. High gym class and my friend blurted out a Bickleman story that was obviously super painful for her.
She talked about how Bickleman called her thunder thighs, and how that saddened her, and she confessed that is how she has thought of her thighs ever since.
She said she thinks of it every time she puts on shorts.
She thinks of it in moments of intimacy or vulnerability.
She defines herself in part as Thunder Thighs from that moment when an authority figure told her that is who she was.
She told me this.
Upset. Shaken. Sad. Defeated.
My heart broke at that moment for her and for every smart, strong, kind girl who came to that gym class because they lived in a world where high school gym was mandatory. Unfortunately, from some perspectives, degrading students in front of other students was thought to be effective.
Humiliation was not, at that time, something we really identified or thought of as a bad thing.
Humiliation was a tool used with wild abandon by teachers and employers in the 1980s.
So yeah, some damage was done.
But the shocking part of the story for me was that Ms. Bickleman had also called me Thunder Thighs.
More that once.
But I took it as a compliment.
She was a gym teacher, right?
Thunder is powerful.
I thought she was complimenting me on my huge, powerful thighs. I thought; “She has them too! We are part of the big thigh club! She just said the first nice thing I have ever heard her say to anyone not on the girls basketball team.”
I was thrilled.
I had spent the last 15 years thinking even a gym teacher noticed how strong my thighs were, and my friend had spent the same time span worrying about feeling humiliated every time she showed her bare legs.
What in the spice hell happened? How did we both walk away with such wildly different takes on this? I don’t know how we got there, but as I saw the hurt look on my friend’s face I knew one thing.
I had somehow chosen to write a better (certainly less harmful) story for myself.
We both wrote stories, right? She wrote one where she was shamed and dehumanized; one where she should hide a part of her body from the world to protect the world from the shocking horror of her enormous thighs, and I had written one where even a villain stops and takes the time to compliment size my overpowered goddess thighs.
At the end of the day, I had 20 years of a hero story and she had 20 years of a victim story.
So, sure, I may be delusional. Yes, I may have given Bickleman waaaay too much benefit of the doubt regarding positive intent. I am often quick to dismiss seemingly unfounded criticism heading my way – but this approach makes me pretty happy and I may just be duping myself into a longer, less stressful life.
Honestly, would feeling the meanness that was Bickleman have added anything positive to my life? I don’t think so.
I told my friend that what Bickleman said was obviously about her own insecurities and that my friend is obviously a fucking 10, and a frowny face phys ed teacher can never change that.
Then I told her my interpretation and asked if she thought maybe I was right.
I was not right. We both knew that. Bickleman would never have issued a compliment to the spastic, unathletic version of 13-year-old Karen. But my friend has known me for a long time. She has seen how my method of embracing oblivious confidence works for me. So, she just smiled and said…
“Yeah, you are probably right. My thighs are fucking awesome.”
Damn straight, woman. Damn straight.
