Back in the early stages of m
y wife’s pregnancy, before we knew we would be having a son, people often asked me whether I wanted a boy or a girl. My response usually went something like this: “Well, I’d be happy either way, I think, and I don’t have a preference, really. I don’t want one more than the other. Honestly, though, the idea of having a daughter kind of terrifies me.” That’s the thought that occurred to me again Monday morning when I ran across this article in fellow Life As A Human author Schmutzie’s Twitter feed.
For those who haven’t heard, NY Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote a column last week exposing what’s coming to be called the “slampigs scandal.” A group of incoming freshman boys at the Landon School — a prestigious DC-area prep school — had formed a fantasy league, except instead of drafting athletes, they drafted girls. The boys would earn points by performing different sex acts with their draftees, with a cash prize being awarded to the top scorer.
That this kind of behavior is appalling goes without saying. That these boys could so casually and methodically dehumanize a bunch of unsuspecting girls is simply horrifying. The fact that they’re getting off with a slap on the wrist (three days of in-school suspension, according to Laura Stepp of the Huffington Post), while deplorable, hardly seems surprising. That the school may have tried to “keep the ‘league’ quiet” is more troubling.
As I mentioned, my first reaction upon hearing of this story was to remember the anxiety I’d felt about the possibility of having a daughter, which had nothing to do with worrying about protecting my potential daughter’s “purity” and everything to do with the fact that I had no idea how to raise a girl in this misogynistic world so that she could grow up to become a confident, empowered, and sexually healthy woman. There’s just so much that I don’t know and have never experienced about what girls and women go through, and the idea that there are people out there like these Landon boys makes the outlook seem bleak.
But the real question here — and one much more applicable to my life right now seeing as how I have have a son and not a daughter–is how did these boys come to be the way they are, and how can I raise my son so that he won’t be like them?
We can take it as a given that teenagers are going to be interested in sex. And, yes, most, if not all, teenage boys are going to have a high sex drive. Does this mean that they are incapable of controlling themselves, or that they shouldn’t be held accountable if they don’t? Of course not.
The problem is, how to teach it? Some parts seem easy enough — it’s not hard to explain things like inappropriate touching, for example. But even I have trouble pinpointing the exact line between healthy appreciation for beauty and sex appeal and unhealthy objectification and harassment.
My feeling, and my hope, is that the key to raising good sons is being good fathers and good men. That means treating the women in our lives — our wives, mothers, sisters, friends, co-workers, and acquaintances — with respect and kindness. It means rejecting the kind of movies, music, television, and especially pornography that don’t recognize the humanity and dignity of the women they portray. It means not seeing stereotypes and inequality and refusing to perpetuate them. And it means rejecting the kind of men (and women) who won’t do these things.
I don’t know if merely setting a good example is enough; in fact, I’m pretty sure that given the world we live in now, there will be times that more explicit instruction is necessary. But I like to think that this is something we can do, because if I ever do have a daughter, I want her to live in the kind of world where I don’t have to worry about her.
Photo Credit
“Woman” dtcchc @ Flickr.com Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.
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I have two sons, and one daughter. So far, raising my boys to be gentlemen who think about and treat women with respect has been my main focus. But, that might be because my daughter is only two months old, and my boys are now eight and nine. I do agree that boys left unchecked, and untaught, can be downright awful in their thinking and actions toward girls. But, there is something not really being covered here.
The girls played a part as well.
Sure, they might not have known that they were a conquest for points. But, were they strung along in months long relationships before giving it up? Or were these one night stands? After party hook-ups?
Should these boys be punished? Sure. But I have to say that if the girls are not also going to be punished for their part, then three days suspension doesn’t sound so off the mark to me.
Thank you for such a sensitive article. I don’t understand the behavior of the boys, but the startling thing is that the girls played along, probably believing they were loved. I am really against a lot of gender-specific teaching but especially anything that teaches girls they must try to please people, and to compromise. It is this doormat behavior that gets wives and mothers taken for granted and disrespected in the home, and helps girls be vulnerable to predators. Respect is the one thing missing in the equation when you see children throwing out the teachings of their parents. In my youth, it was parents who said one thing and did another (practice what you preach). Sometimes the urge to be cool is too strong, and the question of the decade is how to you make a young person see how much they lose when they do not live by a code. I remember well when the bad boys always looked like a little more fun, even when the girls who dated bad boys got nothing but trouble. Real communication, and being able to discuss the hard stuff without getting angry is the key. A kid who can ask parents ANYTHING is a kid who will come to them with the really hard stuff.
Here is a funny story about my husband and his son.
http://www.chakrasyoga.com/journal/2009/12/22/the-subtle-indignities-of-silly-daddy.html
I don’t discount the influence of peer pressure, not at all. And I certainly agree that “blame the parents” is usually short-sighted and, at best, incomplete. On the other hand, I also think that behavior like that has to be learned. Yes, kids pick up a lot of their attitudes from their friends, but then where do those friends get it from? I have to believe that if we each, as individuals, made the choice to treat others with respect, then eventually there wouldn’t be any examples to teach that it’s OK to do things like what the boys in that article did.
To some extent, of course, there will always be bad examples around. But I think that there’s also room for societal norms to shift, and that individual choices play into that.
You are right about example not being enough to suffice. I’ve been slowly exposing my son to more questionable material as he gets older, but being there with him to express my own feelings about the subject matter. He’s going to come across it anyway sooner or later, and I’d rather give him a negative impression on things like that. The alternative might be for him to find answers from scratch, with no guidence, and getting some pretty messed-up ideas.
But as far as the parents go of the boys described above, they may have made similar choices, and been just as responsible. There’s peer pressure to consider, and it’s hard to be there for everything. There’s no easy answers here.