Belgrade political weekly Vreme has, on 19 November 2009, asked their readers to describe their memories and impressions of their primary school teachers. Now, Serbian language distinguishes grammatical genders, and the call was worded implying only male teachers. Still, despite having a female primary school teacher, I decided to give my 2p worth. In the 26 November 2009 edition my contribution, despite hardly rosy, was published amongst a good few others. The editors gave it a rather good title "Cured Of Feminism". In case you missed it, or can't read Serbian, I am now publishing a translation here. If there are any differences between what you read here and what was published in Vreme, you should know that here is what I originally sent in. The differences I am aware of are: the formatting has been lost in the published version (a bad thing), and the real name of my teacher has been removed (a good thing - I was careless).

Cured Of feminism

I can't really remember my (male) primary school teacher, as he was a she.

I do, however, remember her, and seemingly quite clearly, despite the passage of more than three decades. The school was "Žarko Zrenjanin", in New Belgrade (Novi Beograd). It has a new name now, a post-communist one, too, but I couldn't care less. I remember the teacher's name, too. It is (was? I didn't check) Ljiljana Ćosić-Dragan. She had a full, round, figure, as far as I remember. But I remember her, really, much more as a "feeling". And the feeling is crystal clear: the feeling of boys being severely discriminated against, in favour of the girls. Proto-feminist in the early seventies? I don't think so. I'd rather say she should have chosen a different career. Luckily, but no thanks to her, I have avoided becoming a misogynist. Quite to the contrary, in fact. Unless you count the fact that I do not think women are as discriminated against these days as some (of them) would like us to think.

In conclusion, this is the major influence of my primary school teacher on me as a person: age eleven I have been cured of feminism (and succumbing to it) for life. But, if you still have doubts about my views towards equality of women, see the very first sentence above...