Teach your children well
Sep. 26th, 2018 10:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
puppetmakerBehind the cut are frank talk and a bit of a rant about behavior both acceptable and not acceptable and how people should be treated and how they are treated.
When I was in elementary school there were a group of boys that taunted and teased me along with some groping that was dismissed under the mantel of that famous phrase “Boys will be Boys” and they only do that because they are interested in you with the implication of ‘take it as a compliment’.
This annoyed me then and still does now.
I am the mother to a teenager who has to run the same gauntlet of boys behaving badly that I did when I was a teen. She has a couple of things in her toolbox that I didn’t have or didn’t think I would have.
The first being that my kid knows Kung Fu and self-defense and can hold her own in a fight if needed. She has on rare occasion used these skills to avoid unwanted touches and the like. Yes, one kid did get flipped but it was onto the grass and she had warned him several times before it happened.
She knows we will believe her and what is going on. She also knows that we will go to the school and report what happened along with sticking up for her.
She knows that the school now has in place in the code of conduct and the rules of the school a no tolerance policy for sexual harassment and assault. In fact, assault will get the police involved and there is no ‘boys will be boys’ excuse used. The administration does take these things seriously.
Conventions are taking the same steps to make sure that people are not harassed at their events.
So baby steps in the right direction.
However this past week has shown that we still have one hell of a mountain to climb.
White boy does something stupid as a teen and it is chalked up to ‘boys with be boys’ and why ruin their lives by calling them to account for their behavior.
“Don’t ruin their lives” is said to young women who have been assault by these young men. In that is discounting how the young women’s lives are ruined by this event that they are supposes to forgive and forget and move on.
And that is something that has always made me very angry. We, as women, are suppose to forgive men for their bad behavior because we are women and the nurturing mother part of our natures should see how hard this is for them.
BULL SHIT!
‘Boys will be boys’ is the excuse for not teaching a child manners. Boys can be taught manners just as easily as girls. Boys have to be called on their behavior just as fast as girls are. They have to be taught basic social morals and conduct just as it is taught to girls.
I have watched a group of children grown up with Caroline. I have been the room mom. I have done arts and crafts with them. And I can tell you by name which of the boys in the room have parents who care about how they treat other people and parents who use the phrase ‘boys will be boys’ to excuse their behavior.
These boys are now teens and I know them and they know me. The ones that parents cared about their behavior towards others, treat other people with kindness and respect. The other set is a mish mosh of kids that figured it out and the seriously clueless who think they can do no wrong and don’t understand why they are in trouble this time. There are probably one or two true sociopaths in the group too.
Now: I am talking about white boys.
I have observed what happens to people who are driving while being a person of color. I watch my friends adjust their attitude when the cops are around so they won’t be looked at. I read statistics of young men of color whose entire lives are ruined because they happen to have a joint in their pocket or a penknife or mouthed off because they couldn’t take the taunting anymore. It is hideous.
There is such a double standard in the United States it really isn’t funny.
What happens to these young men follows them for the rest of their lives.
But we are supposed to forgive the white kid who masturbated over the unconscious young women behind the bar? Because he has such a bright future? What about her future?
We are supposed to ignore an ever-larger body of evidence shown that someone’s behavior towards women has gone from problematic to seriously misogynistic and dangerous. And I don’t give a rip if he was lying and a virgin until he was married, if his yearbook and his words were implying that he was a horn-dog that assaulted women every weekend during high school; then he has verbally assaulted these women and tried to make them feel less than human. In fact I will go so far to say that he doesn’t see women as human considering what he has said through the years.
Right now there are a bunch of--and I use the term very loosely--comic book writers, artists, and fans that are up in arms that comic books are changing to gain a new audience. They blame women for screwing up something that they loved when they were teens. They blame women for ruining their fandom and any man who defends women in the industry is just as much at fault and must be ridiculed off the Internet.
This has come with death threats and promises to fuck the women up at conventions. Along with the usual catcalls and sexual innuendo, which is quickly followed with another phrase that I really hate: “Oh you just can’t take a joke.”
I can take a joke but what they are doing is not a punch-line but turning women into verbal punching bags to make themselves feel better.
This is the sort of garbage I had to deal with when convincing comic book shop owners that I would make a good employee for their shop.
This is the sort of stupidity that I have had to fight for my place in fandoms that were mostly boy’s clubs. To prove I was not a fake geek girl.
Behavior is learned. Both good and bad behavior can be taught by word and deed.
Let’s try to teach our children how to treat each other with kindness and respect. I really don’t expect anything more than that.
And can we lose the phrase ‘boys will be boys’? It just perpetuates behavior that should follow them the rest of their lives.
I am grateful for everyone who teaches their children to think about the others around them and help where they can.
When I was in elementary school there were a group of boys that taunted and teased me along with some groping that was dismissed under the mantel of that famous phrase “Boys will be Boys” and they only do that because they are interested in you with the implication of ‘take it as a compliment’.
This annoyed me then and still does now.
I am the mother to a teenager who has to run the same gauntlet of boys behaving badly that I did when I was a teen. She has a couple of things in her toolbox that I didn’t have or didn’t think I would have.
The first being that my kid knows Kung Fu and self-defense and can hold her own in a fight if needed. She has on rare occasion used these skills to avoid unwanted touches and the like. Yes, one kid did get flipped but it was onto the grass and she had warned him several times before it happened.
She knows we will believe her and what is going on. She also knows that we will go to the school and report what happened along with sticking up for her.
She knows that the school now has in place in the code of conduct and the rules of the school a no tolerance policy for sexual harassment and assault. In fact, assault will get the police involved and there is no ‘boys will be boys’ excuse used. The administration does take these things seriously.
Conventions are taking the same steps to make sure that people are not harassed at their events.
So baby steps in the right direction.
However this past week has shown that we still have one hell of a mountain to climb.
White boy does something stupid as a teen and it is chalked up to ‘boys with be boys’ and why ruin their lives by calling them to account for their behavior.
“Don’t ruin their lives” is said to young women who have been assault by these young men. In that is discounting how the young women’s lives are ruined by this event that they are supposes to forgive and forget and move on.
And that is something that has always made me very angry. We, as women, are suppose to forgive men for their bad behavior because we are women and the nurturing mother part of our natures should see how hard this is for them.
BULL SHIT!
‘Boys will be boys’ is the excuse for not teaching a child manners. Boys can be taught manners just as easily as girls. Boys have to be called on their behavior just as fast as girls are. They have to be taught basic social morals and conduct just as it is taught to girls.
I have watched a group of children grown up with Caroline. I have been the room mom. I have done arts and crafts with them. And I can tell you by name which of the boys in the room have parents who care about how they treat other people and parents who use the phrase ‘boys will be boys’ to excuse their behavior.
These boys are now teens and I know them and they know me. The ones that parents cared about their behavior towards others, treat other people with kindness and respect. The other set is a mish mosh of kids that figured it out and the seriously clueless who think they can do no wrong and don’t understand why they are in trouble this time. There are probably one or two true sociopaths in the group too.
Now: I am talking about white boys.
I have observed what happens to people who are driving while being a person of color. I watch my friends adjust their attitude when the cops are around so they won’t be looked at. I read statistics of young men of color whose entire lives are ruined because they happen to have a joint in their pocket or a penknife or mouthed off because they couldn’t take the taunting anymore. It is hideous.
There is such a double standard in the United States it really isn’t funny.
What happens to these young men follows them for the rest of their lives.
But we are supposed to forgive the white kid who masturbated over the unconscious young women behind the bar? Because he has such a bright future? What about her future?
We are supposed to ignore an ever-larger body of evidence shown that someone’s behavior towards women has gone from problematic to seriously misogynistic and dangerous. And I don’t give a rip if he was lying and a virgin until he was married, if his yearbook and his words were implying that he was a horn-dog that assaulted women every weekend during high school; then he has verbally assaulted these women and tried to make them feel less than human. In fact I will go so far to say that he doesn’t see women as human considering what he has said through the years.
Right now there are a bunch of--and I use the term very loosely--comic book writers, artists, and fans that are up in arms that comic books are changing to gain a new audience. They blame women for screwing up something that they loved when they were teens. They blame women for ruining their fandom and any man who defends women in the industry is just as much at fault and must be ridiculed off the Internet.
This has come with death threats and promises to fuck the women up at conventions. Along with the usual catcalls and sexual innuendo, which is quickly followed with another phrase that I really hate: “Oh you just can’t take a joke.”
I can take a joke but what they are doing is not a punch-line but turning women into verbal punching bags to make themselves feel better.
This is the sort of garbage I had to deal with when convincing comic book shop owners that I would make a good employee for their shop.
This is the sort of stupidity that I have had to fight for my place in fandoms that were mostly boy’s clubs. To prove I was not a fake geek girl.
Behavior is learned. Both good and bad behavior can be taught by word and deed.
Let’s try to teach our children how to treat each other with kindness and respect. I really don’t expect anything more than that.
And can we lose the phrase ‘boys will be boys’? It just perpetuates behavior that should follow them the rest of their lives.
I am grateful for everyone who teaches their children to think about the others around them and help where they can.
