Friedman once said ‘when a frog is put straight into boiling water it will jump out. But if you put them in a room temperature pot and let it boil. They will boil to death.’*
That right there is what we are doing to our girls – we are letting them be boiled to death.
It starts with that old adage “boys will be boys.” It excuses their behaviour and it internalises rape culture because as Friedman explains, we teach girls to tolerate “low level” boundary violations and so they learn to stay silent when it comes to the actions of males. By telling girls, that if a boy hits you, he likes you, by telling boys that their behaviour is natural and it’s healthy to be ‘rough’, we teach children that assault and rape is ok. And it’s not ok.
I mean think about this carefully. The media of pop culture is saturated with sexualised images. We erotise these girls and we blame them for mimicking what they see all the time. We then tell boys that being violent is what masculinity is about.
So we make excuses for boys, we start blaming the victim instead of the rapist for being a mother fuckin’ rapist. We need to change the way we educate our children, we need to start teaching boys to respect girls, and for girls to respect their bodies and that they have power to set their boundaries.
Before all the girls are boiled to death.
*Quoted from Jaclyn Friedman from her work “The (non-existent) terrible, horrible, no good, very bad consequences of enthusiastic consent”.
That right there is what we are doing to our girls – we are letting them be boiled to death.
It starts with that old adage “boys will be boys.” It excuses their behaviour and it internalises rape culture because as Friedman explains, we teach girls to tolerate “low level” boundary violations and so they learn to stay silent when it comes to the actions of males. By telling girls, that if a boy hits you, he likes you, by telling boys that their behaviour is natural and it’s healthy to be ‘rough’, we teach children that assault and rape is ok. And it’s not ok.
I mean think about this carefully. The media of pop culture is saturated with sexualised images. We erotise these girls and we blame them for mimicking what they see all the time. We then tell boys that being violent is what masculinity is about.
So we make excuses for boys, we start blaming the victim instead of the rapist for being a mother fuckin’ rapist. We need to change the way we educate our children, we need to start teaching boys to respect girls, and for girls to respect their bodies and that they have power to set their boundaries.
Before all the girls are boiled to death.
*Quoted from Jaclyn Friedman from her work “The (non-existent) terrible, horrible, no good, very bad consequences of enthusiastic consent”.
By Ol Andy
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