From: mckenney@cims.nyu.edu (Alan McKenney)
Newsgroups: soc.women
Subject: Re: Thoughts on Sexual Harassment
Date: 11 Jan 93 20:14:57 GMT
Followup-To: soc.women
Distribution: usa
Organization: Courant Institute, NYU, NY, NY, USA
Originator: mckenney@gauss.cims.nyu.edu

In article <1993Jan9.000909.28592@news.eng.convex.com> ramon@convex.com (Ramon Dominguez) writes:
>In article <3408@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> pjself@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Beverly Crusher) writes:
>=>But what I think a lot of this comes down to...at school, at home, at
>=>work....is that some boys are not taught (and so as men don't have) to
>=>have  *RESPECT*  for girls/women.
>
>But boys don't have any respect for *each other* at that age, either.  I agree
>that people of all ages should respect people in general.  Certainly boys
>shouldn't subject each other to the kind of abuse that they do, but given
>that they do, this line of reasoning seems sexist to me.  My stepdaughter was
>abused, not-quite-beaten-up, by a group of three older *girls*.  I don't
>think that at that age, sexual harassment is really different from all the
>other kinds of harassment:  you're fat, you're ugly, you smell, what-are-you
>chicken?
>
>Sorry, but I think this is an unsolvable problem.  If you can stop boys from
>beating each other up (ask some male colleagues how many fights got into in
>K-12 that they didn't start), then you might have a prayer of getting them
>to treat girls with respect.  Face it, children are little savages and until
>they get civilized they will act accordingly.

    This is "unsolvable" only if you assume that the disrespect and
    violence is due to nature (as opposed to "nurture".)  My memories
    of growing up suggest to me that a large part of the violence that
    children show to one another is due to *training*, at least as far
    as boys are concerned.

    First, I think that training boys in particular to be tough,
    violent, and contemptuous to women and feminine things is pervasive
    (in the USA.)  If you haven't noticed it, I can only wonder where
    you grew up.

    *	I have seen fathers (and mothers, and others) of small
	(as young as 6 years, or even younger) boys telling them
	to "be tough", "don't be a crybaby", and humiliating them
	when they behaved like children instead of little
	toughs.

    *	My mother's standard response when I complained about
	being beaten up -- whether by my brother or by kids at
	school -- was a Pavlovian "well, hit him/them back."

    *	At school, the teachers (and the phys. ed. teachers
	especially) would routinely humiliate boys who weren't
	tough enough by contemptuously calling them "girls."
	(Cf. reports of Marine basic training.)  Note that the
	humiliation is in the contemtuous tone, and the use of
	the word "girl" teaches contempt for girls.

    So boys learn not to respect themselves (since who they naturally
    are causes them to be humiliated or worse) *and* to have even
    less respect for girls, who are the embodiment of all those
    things in the boys that they are humiliated for.


    Second, there is a widespread acceptance in this country of hitting
    children -- boys *and* girls -- and otherwise using violence and
    humiliation (the latter being verbal violence) against them, not
    only as a way of controlling them, but also as an outlet for any
    anger or frustration that the grown-up may feel.

    This fills children with anger that they can only express against
    other kids (try hitting your father back, when you're a kid!), as
    well as teaching them that violence, verbal abuse, etc., are o.k.,
    as long as you don't do it against someone who can get you into
    trouble (or is bigger than you.)


    So, if you believe that it is possible to change *grown-ups* (and
    I grant you, this sometimes seems pretty impossible), then I think
    that this problem is not so unsolvable as you believe.


    Finally, I agree that children will always show *some* "violent"
    tendencies, i.e., hitting, biting, grabbing.  I have a 2-year-old boy,
    who tends to rather, er, direct ways of getting what he wants.

    The question is, what do we teach them to do about their
    tendencies, and the feelings that they express?  Right now, many or
    most adults deal with children in a way that is (as if) calculated
    to make them truly violent (no quotes) and abusive.  On the other
    hand, I believe if we treat children with respect (so they will
    have less *need* to abuse others) and teach them better ways to
    deal with their anger, frustration, etc., then they will actually
    become *less* "violent" as they grow older.

-- 
Alan McKenney        E-mail:  mckenney@cims.nyu.edu         (INTERNET)
Courant Institute,NYU,USA     ...!cmcl2!cims.nyu.edu!mckenney   (UUCP)