The reason I'm so angry is because I'm disappointed and saddened that in our society these attitudes are still so present. Before I jump into that, here is a screenshot of a blog post recently shared to my timeline by a friend, and the ensuing conversation. I'd like to draw particular attention to the bottom comment, and preface that this was posted along with a very detailed rant by my friend, who I can only assume finds this as saddening and troubling as I did:
The blog post is from a mother concerned with the kinds of photos being posted by girls her sons are friends with on Facebook. If her sons are under 18, I have no issues with her wishing to monitor what her sons view as far as the internet and social media is concerned. While I am not a personal advocate for this sort of monitoring of children, I am not a parent and will not put anyone down for wishing to raise their children this way.
What troubles me about this blog post is not that she want's to monitor her sons Facebook, or that she is concerned with who and what they are viewing. Those things are something that is left to any parents discretion. What does trouble me.... Actually, there are a few things about this that really trouble me.
The first is the tone that she uses throughout the post. Sentences such as " Wow – you sure took a bunch of selfies in your pajamas this summer!" and "Will you trust me?" with such a tone of condescension and judgement, for young women that she may not even personally know. And trust you? Trust you to tell me that I am purposefully trying to lure your sons into impure thoughts? That I have some pictures on Facebook that you don't agree with I need to "run", of all things, to take them down in order to have value in your eyes? And then, at the very end of this public humiliation of this poor girl who is thankfully never named, the gall to add "I'm glad we're friends". Again, like you're doing this girl a favor, not shaming her for pictures that may give your sons "impure thoughts".
This brings us to the second reason this bothers me so deeply, and that is that it is reinforcing this societal mentality that it isn't the fault of the man should he have impure thoughts, but that it is the fault instead, of the woman. This is illustrated so clearly in the final comment on my friend's post. If you can't read it too clearly from my picture, let me re-quote it for you:
"Um. Lawl.
If you pose provocatively and dress provocatively, you are expecting people to think of you in a provocative manner. Its horribly naieve to think you can dress however you want and not be at least a bit responsible for how someone else thinks. Turning this into a man vs woman appropriateness problem.... double lawl"
I've heard this logic before. Its the same thing that happened in Steubenville, Ohio. No one stopped to say that these boys were responsible for raping and abusing this girl. All I heard anyone say, on almost any news network, was how terrible it was that these boys lives were ruined by it. Yes, those boys lives are ruined, and that girl who was raped, videoed, and put on Youtube will walk away as if nothing has happened having wrongly ended the promising careers of two high school athletes.
And that isn't the only instance. Everyday there are Facebook posts and tweets calling girls who dress less conservatively "sluts" and "whores". Our culture is full of people who are willing to look at a situation and decide "well, look how she was dressed. Clearly she was asking for it." That's convenient for all the guys out there. You don't have to take any responsibility for your actions because you weren't the one at fault. You saw a woman who was dressed in a way you deemed provocative, which you view as a neon sign saying that she's up for anything. If you should do something like make a sexual advance or force something on her that she doesn't want, it's not your fault or responsibility because she was tempting you. It's her fault. And I'm not trying to stereotype all men into this category, but there are a significant number in our society who think this way.
I urge you, whoever is reading this, to do what you can to stop this kind of thinking. Just because a women dresses or acts a certain way NEVER makes her an object, and NEVER makes it okay to blame her. If men can't keep their thoughts "pure", that's on them. It's things like this that poison our society, that make people disregard serious topics like harassment and rape. It tells young girls to always be cautious of everything they do, and that when something terrible does happen to them that they only have themselves to blame. It's disgusting, and it's wrong.
Finally here's the blog post for those of you are interested in reading it:
http://givenbreath.com/2013/09/03/fyi-if-youre-a-teenage-girl/
Try now, to imagine someone writing a blog post criticizing the photo she used of her sons, saying that it is too provocative or that they need to cover up. No one thinks twice, and that is a disturbing double standard in our society.
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