If you live in New York state, you may have seen the poster above plastered on a bus shelter; or you may have seen it posted somewhere on the internet. The message is pretty simple, and it’s sad that it has to be said: kids are pretty impressionable, so teach your sons to treat women with basic respect.
The purpose of the ad campaign, sponsored by the New York state Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence, is pretty clear as well: teaching boys respect for women lessens the chances that they will abuse women as adults.
Numerous studies have found that men with sexist attitudes towards women are more likely to try to control their wives or girlfriends with physical abuse. Indeed, one recent study even found that brief exposure to sexist jokes made men more inclined to brush off violence against women, at least amongst men with sexist attitudes to begin with.
Speaking of which, the sexist jokes over at A Voice for Men have unveiled a hilarious new “meme,” which just happens to be inspired by the “awaiting instructions” PSAs we’ve been discussing. And here it is:
The logic here is airtight: because some women get drunk and urinate in public, women don’t deserve respect.
I guess men never get drunk and urinate in public, or ever do anything vaguely embarrassing that gets caught on camera?
Is it really asking too much to respect people as people, foibles and all?
Teaching boys that sexual harassment and violence to women is wrong, is a bad idea and demonises them. You heard it here, folks, from Travis, who respects women even less than he respects the English language.
Protip, Travis: mangling your writing isn’t going to gain you any of that precious respect. Not that you’d get any anyway, since you’re just another willfully stupid misogynist troll.
Commas…apostrophes…what are they for?
Also, it’s quite a stretch to go from “awaiting instructions” to “basically claiming that they [boys]…don’t have humanity”. You know, it IS possible to be entirely human AND in need of instruction. Do you even LOGIC?
Travis, I’ll operate under the assumption you aren’t a troll, so I will try to actually answer your points. I still those points are stupid, though.
The fact is that in our societies there often *is* a large level of disrespect displayed against women. This is displayed by the amount of sexual assaults that happen, and as an even greater telling sign, how often such sexual violence is excused and dismissed, even in public media. For example that one rape case where at the sentencing the CNN reporter felt more sorry for the sentenced perpetrators than the victim? (I forgot which case it was, I’m sure others can provide the name…) Things like that. ‘Rape culture’ as the phenomena is called among feminists. And this phenomena shows that there is a lot of disrespect against women in our societies.
Usually, what we do about it is telling girls to be careful about those threats. Which isn’t bad… but ideally, shouldn’t we rather tell the boys to, well, respect women? Even if they may be drunk, or even if they may show a bit of skin? Which is nobody’s business but theirs anyway. And education on those matters simply works best when started early.
There is nothing “wrong” with boys. But there is a societal problem, which really exists, which the campaign seeks to address.
We have multiple people here who’re still in high school or just recently completed it, right? If they can manage to construct sentences that don’t give the reader a migraine then so can you, Travis.
Presumably Travis thinks he’s being demonised if someone tells him he needs to learn English.
I don’t have any problem with a anti domestic violence message as long as it is based In reality and not a sexist stereotype. The truth is marital abuse is a issue of both genders its a human issue and it is innately wrong when you start demonizing one gender for something both do and particularly young boys. This is entirely different then parenting for those of you that mentioned parenting or teaching children. Teaching or parenting is raising a kid on a set of values to be a certain way. What this whole campaign is saying is that boys need this extra treatment or else they won’t learn human decency thru the natural process of growing up being parented and taught. How is that not sexist ” we have to specifically teach you to be a decent human being because if we won’t your doomed to end up with no humanity”.
It happens both ways but is overwhelmingly a male on female matter, as is all violence against women (and guess what, the majority of violence against men is committed by other men). So there is a point to aiming this at boys.
I don’t know why I’m bothering with this troll. He’s remarkably stupid.
Ok I get it I fucking type bad I know that I really don’t care. Now how am I sexist or a misogynist have I said anything about hating women??
Obviously we can give Travis a bit of a pass if he’s still in elementary school. If he’s past the 7th grade there’s no excuse for writing that badly, though.
I’m particularly fond of the idea that teaching your son to respect women doesn’t count as parenting.
Travis, if you really care at all, really, please go read “The Macho Paradox” by Jackson Katz, and educate yourself.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Macho-Paradox-Some-Women/dp/1402204019
No domestic violence is a equal issue with both genders being targeted equally. Every major study favors this fact as well that the numbers are near identical.
travis, people are mocking your typing because it takes a really fucking long time to point out everything wrong with your basic assumptions. (like, men actually DO get treated with more respect than women, and men normally DO disrespect women so YES they need to have it hammered home in their heads).
but i’m guessing you don’t get that, and if i provided citations (like this dickhead insinuating women are all prostitutes) you’d probably say it’s an isolated incident.
when people are so wrong they can’t even comprehend the beginning wrongness of their statement, it’s really hard to refute. Like it’s really hard to mathematically prove 2+2=4. at least according to my geek brother. he may be off on that, and one of the boobzers may point that out.
anyway, i use terrible spelling all the time (but today is a decent spelling day) and people don’t get on me about it, because my ideas aren’t shit.
No, and you don’t have to. Your disingenuousness and willful misrepresentation of facts, along with your willful ignorance of the statistics surrounding domestic violence, and your eagerness to construe an educational anti-violence campaign as “dehumanizing” to boys, will do just fine for that.
plz provide us with a link to one of these major studies.
Oh yes, Travis, most of the prematures deaths among my country among men are caused by intimate partner violence.
Except they’re not. It’s young women whose main cause of injury, illness and death is male violence.
cassandra – huh, I wrote better than Travis by the time I’d hit year seven.
“In my country”.
I know the “studies” Travis is talking about. Basically, to get what he’s referring to as equal levels of domestic violence, they decided that yelling at someone should be considered equivalent to punching them in the face. So yeah, super credible, those studies are.
@ Travis
“No domestic violence is a equal issue with both genders being targeted equally. Every major study favors this fact as well that the numbers are near identical.”
Orly?
http://www.ncadv.org/files/DomesticViolenceFactSheet(National).pdf
Now seriously, go read that book I linked to. For your sake and the sake of every human you will ever interact with.
Oh yes, that study.
See, this is what I mean by ignorance. You’re spouting this bullshit with no citations whatsoever to back it up.
Meanwhile, the actual facts contrdict you.
We also better not teach boys to brush their teeth. How dare you assume boys are hotbeds of gingivitis!
1) http://www.dewar4research.org/DOCS/DVPOsFullPeriodCover.pdf
2) http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/365561/0124301.pdf
3) http://www.mankind.org.uk/pdfs/CPS%20Prosecutions.pdf
4) http://www.dewar4research.org/
5) https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/homicides-firearm-offences-and-intimate-violence-2010-to-2011-supplementary-volume-2-to-crime-in-england-and-wales-2010-to-2011
6) http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-224-x/2010000/t002-eng.htm
7) http://www.law.fsu.edu/journals/lawreview/downloads/304/kelly.pdf
@travis
Label your links or I’m not looking at them. because just a bunch of numbers tells us nothing.
kthnxbye
Or use condoms! How dare we insinuate that they can get women pregnant and spread STDs?