The Problem with 'Boys Will Be Boys'

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.

(Source: lastlifeinuniverse)

kankrivantas:

do you ever think really awful thoughts and suddenly become aware that you are not a good person

doctorwhodoctorstu:

pleatedjeans:

jelly vampire

Pretty much.

i don’t even remember like 85% of 2012

(Source: bullsseye)

We are told “no,” we’re unimportant, we’re peripheral. “Get a degree, get a job, get a this, get a that.” And then you’re a player, you don’t want to even play in that game. You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that’s being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world.

Terence McKenna (via perfect)

(Source: fluctuatin)

dersekingdom:

thathipsterlady69:

taggianto:

a-study-in-pinkman:

I don’t reblog porn usually but this was really great and my followers can just deal with it okay

I hope I don’t get hate lol ;D 

You call that porn?

Now this is some hot, NSFW action.

THERE ARE CHILDREN HERE

TAG YOUR NSFW POSTS!

(Source: canitbeawesome)

I always find it comical that supporting something that others have intentionally or accidentally ignored, somehow makes YOU wrong. I can sit here on name all of the games with Black lead characters on two hands and still have a finger or two left over. Naming ones which featured a Black female as the main character? I only need one hand.. and i’ll have one finger left over. Right or wrong, video games feature mostly white male characters saving the universe, cept for those games which offer you the ability to create the look and feel of your own character to control. The belief is that since mostly white male buy games, they are the ones games should be catered to. Or is it that games are mostly designed BY white males? OR is that, and I have heard this a lot by my white friends whom are authors, that you intentionally stay away from doing Black characters because anything you get ‘wrong’ is always misconstrued as you being a racist.

Wanting to support a video game with a ‘Black’ female lead makes me a racist apparently.

This is like such a scarily accurate summary of so many of my fandom experiences that it’s unreal.

tabit:

I’m not in the mood to exist

(Source: hitmonchan)

thedisneytruth:

endless list of animated husbands → Dimitri (Anastasia)

ammarmali:

That half-hearted struggle to stop your relatives from giving you money.

“No no, really no, I won’t take it, please no…okay thanks.”

midorieyes:

538rqaeb98gh434398jvgi:

people who do math homework in pen are fearless

people who do anything in pen are testing god

(Source: rosy-ruby)

Uploaded with permission.