MSNBC feature promotes gender stereotyping among adolescents
I haven't read Boys Will Put You On a Pedestal So They Can Look Up Your Skirt. Looking at the chapter descriptions leads me to believe that parts of the book will help girls learn assertiveness and authenticity, and may be useful for them to read and discuss with their parents. So I am not here to trash the book, but to complain about an interview I saw with its author, Philip Van Munching.
Van Munching was interviewed this morning by MSNBC's Alex Witt, who chose to talk about sex. She and Van Munching proceeded to have a discussion straight out of 1956, the gist of which was: Boys want sex. Boys will try to get sex. Girls must be taught to protect themselves from boys.
While it is undeniable that the male sexual urge is different from the female urge, and while it is undeniable that adolescent boys often resemble snack-snarfing hormone bundles, the conversation Witt had with Van Munching totally denied the existence of any adolescent female sexual desire. In their discussion, girls were described as victims that need to be protected, and boys were described as predators out to destroy them.
If that is how Van Munching views the sexual part of adolescence, then he is doing nothing more than perpetrating myths that have already wreaked decades of destruction on male-female relationships, made boys feel bad about themselves, and made girls believe that they are passive receptacles.
Van Munching was interviewed this morning by MSNBC's Alex Witt, who chose to talk about sex. She and Van Munching proceeded to have a discussion straight out of 1956, the gist of which was: Boys want sex. Boys will try to get sex. Girls must be taught to protect themselves from boys.
While it is undeniable that the male sexual urge is different from the female urge, and while it is undeniable that adolescent boys often resemble snack-snarfing hormone bundles, the conversation Witt had with Van Munching totally denied the existence of any adolescent female sexual desire. In their discussion, girls were described as victims that need to be protected, and boys were described as predators out to destroy them.
If that is how Van Munching views the sexual part of adolescence, then he is doing nothing more than perpetrating myths that have already wreaked decades of destruction on male-female relationships, made boys feel bad about themselves, and made girls believe that they are passive receptacles.
posted by Diane at 11:25 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Sounds just like the 'boys wlll be boys'crap from the 50's & 60's. Defining boys as predators gives them permission to be predators. We are marching back to the past, and I can't take it anymore!
By
egalia, at
2:47 PM
You're absolutely right. I'd say the march back is about complete.
By
Diane, at
4:09 PM
"I'd say the march back is about complete."
Wait! They haven't implanted those Stepfordwife/Laura Bush nanochips in our brains yet, so not quite!
By
Anonymous, at
6:30 PM
Not only are they moving back to the 50's - they seem to be speeding backwards to the dark ages with this religious fanaticism, which of course, gives even MORE ammo our already over-the-top patriarchical society.
Grrrrrrrrrrr.............
By
Unknown, at
3:52 PM
I think this is just real thinking. Boys do do this and the girls are the object of the attention. I think if we substituted sheep, vacuum cleaners, glory holes or anything else for a female human sex organ, the boys would still be just as aggressive. That testosterone stuff is as powerful as heroin and very blinding.
Ole Hairy Hand
By
Anonymous, at
11:50 AM
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