OKAY IM DOING A SCHOOL PROJECT ON GAY MARRIAGE AND I HAVE TO USE STATISTICS SO REBLOG IF YOU SUPPORT GAY MARRIAGE AND LIKE IF YOU DONT
I’d like to cancel my subscription to Menstrual Cycle Monthly
“Where is it written in this one sided society that a man can’t be beautiful?!” -Mr. Turner
The Fairly Odd Parents, the only show with: inflation, m-preg, gender-swap, gender role flips, men dressed like women, and so much more.
If I ever write an essay on gender I am going to use this as my hook sentence. I shit you not.
things girls are made to feel ashamed of-
- having periods
- choosing what they want to wear on their body
- wanting to/not wanting to have sex
- putting boys in the ‘friendzone’
- standing up against misogyny
- ruining a boy’s life by telling the police that he raped her
- abortion
- having hair on their body
- not appreciating catcalls
- not appreciating chivalry
- having control over their own fucking body
woman: okay.
society: you can use sanitary pads, which make you feel like you are wearing a diaper, and have the added fun benefit of being extremely uncomfortable and give you the extreme paranoia that they will not be enough coverage and at any moment with any movement or sudden sneeze you'll bleed over onto your clothes and walk around all day with blood stained trousers while everyone points and laughs at you.
woman: sounds awful. what's my second option.
society: a penis shaped wad of cotton that you shove uncomfortably inside yourself and it catches the blood before it leaves your body.
woman: still seems pretty awful.
society: wait! it gets better! there's the outside chance that using those will kill you!
woman: well, are they at least free? like how men can have access to free condoms? i mean, it's not like i'm choosing for this to happen.
society: HAHAHA! that's funny. no, you have to pay for them. and they're really fucking expensive.
woman:
society: oh, and if you tell anyone that you ARE on your period, your judgement, opinions, and reactions are going to be dismissed as the crazy ramblings of a lunatic.
woman:
society:
woman: i think i'll go with my third option.
society:
woman:
society: what third option?
woman: i think i'll bleed on everything you love.
For months, every morning when my daughter was in preschool, I watched her construct an elaborate castle out of blocks, colorful plastic discs, bits of rope, ribbons and feathers, only to have the same little boy gleefully destroy it within seconds of its completion.
No matter how many times he did it, his parents never swooped in BEFORE the morning’s live 3-D reenactment of “Invasion of AstroMonster.” This is what they’d say repeatedly:
“You know! Boys will be boys!”
“He’s just going through a phase!”
“He’s such a boy! He LOVES destroying things!”
“Oh my god! Girls and boys are SO different!”
“He. Just. Can’t. Help himself!”
I tried to teach my daughter how to stop this from happening. She asked him politely not to do it. We talked about some things she might do. She moved where she built. She stood in his way. She built a stronger foundation to the castle, so that, if he did get to it, she wouldn’t have to rebuild the whole thing. In the meantime, I imagine his parents thinking, “What red-blooded boy wouldn’t knock it down?”
She built a beautiful, glittery castle in a public space.
It was so tempting.
He just couldn’t control himself and, being a boy, had violent inclinations.
She had to keep her building safe.
Her consent didn’t matter. Besides, it’s not like she made a big fuss when he knocked it down. It wasn’t a “legitimate” knocking over if she didn’t throw a tantrum.
His desire — for power, destruction, control, whatever- - was understandable.
Maybe she “shouldn’t have gone to preschool” at all. OR, better if she just kept her building activities to home.
I know it’s a lurid metaphor, but I taught my daughter the preschool block precursor of don’t “get raped” and this child, Boy #1, did not learn the preschool equivalent of “don’t rape.”
Not once did his parents talk to him about invading another person’s space and claiming for his own purposes something that was not his to claim. Respect for her and her work and words was not something he was learning. How much of the boy’s behavior in coming years would be excused in these ways, be calibrated to meet these expectations and enforce the “rules” his parents kept repeating?
There was another boy who, similarly, decided to knock down her castle one day. When he did it his mother took him in hand, explained to him that it was not his to destroy, asked him how he thought my daughter felt after working so hard on her building and walked over with him so he could apologize. That probably wasn’t much fun for him, but he did not do it again.
There was a third child. He was really smart. He asked if he could knock her building down. She, beneficent ruler of all pre-circle-time castle construction, said yes… but only after she was done building it and said it was OK. They worked out a plan together and eventually he started building things with her and they would both knock the thing down with unadulterated joy. You can’t make this stuff up.
Take each of these three boys and consider what he might do when he’s older, say, at college, drunk at a party, mad at an ex-girlfriend who rebuffs him and uses words that she expects will be meaningful and respecte, “No, I don’t want to. Stop. Leave.”
The “overarching attitudinal characteristic” of abusive men is entitlement
This is so brilliant. We learn things from socialization process. What our parents, friends and peers do, media and all. I think perhaps rape is because parents think boys will be boys, they bully, fight and destroy things, it’s their characteristics so they don’t bother to stop them. But it manifests in them, knowing or unknowingly, they will just think, because I’m a boy and boys tend to do these, so it doesn’t matter even if the girl hates it, says no, because I’m a boy.
Just reblog this, this message is really powerful. For parents and future parents.
What’s also interesting, is if you frame this as about spoiling your children, and about spoiled children, people tend to agree and get it. They’ll agree that children whose parents lay down no boundaries for them when they hurt others, who let them have whatever they want at the expense of others, and justify away the harm they do, will probably grow up thinking they can do this to others (usually weaker than them, or they perceive as weaker) as adults. But if you mention the word “privilege”, “entitlement” or anything relating to gender, everybody freaks the f- out and will deny up, down, back, forth, and sideways that how you raise a child, what you allow them to get away with, or training them that their hurtful behaviour will always be justified, can affect them at all.
ALL OF THIS.
Obligatry read FOR EVERYONE
My heart is so heavy.
