Kind of a girl thing.

So I'm pretty strict about letting my students leave class. Mostly it's to cut down on the chaos: I teach ninth grade and once one kid has left class there's a dozen kids in line waiting to go, suddenly no one's keeping quiet or paying attention, and every time someone comes back in there's a giant ordeal. When kids ask I try to gauge the urgency: urgency of tone, wiggliness, I usually ask some very invasive question like "do you have to?" or "are you going to die?" The kind of thing that I would slap someone for asking me.

Every once in a while, though, some adorable ninth grade girl will come up to my desk. "You should've gone at break. No."
"It's kind of a girl thing."
And I break. Of course I let her go. Because there are few things more potentially horrifying than some kind of menstrual-related accident at school. I remember. It happened to a couple girls when I was ninth grade and I was terrified, terrified, that something like that might happen to me. So terrified, in fact, that I never approached my teacher with "It's kind of a girl thing."

But it has set me to wondering. First off, if you had a cute young teacher who seemed to be getting off on not letting kids leave class, wouldn't that be the first tool in your toolbelt? "It's kind of a girl thing, how could she say no?" (I'm definitely thinking of Alicia Silverstone in Clueless.) Second, it's such a female thing. What excuse could boys use? I mean I guess they could, but I don't think they do. Or would....I'm trying to decide how to say this best and am just thinking myself into deeper hole. But right? We let girls go with hardly a blink. Third: is it more socially acceptable to discuss female bodily functions than male? Like women breastfeeding in public...or is it just me?

Happy weekend eve at any rate. :)