Talking to my 17 year old about difficulties women face

[MerryInthechelseahotel]

Can anyone remember the thread where we all were telling about unwanted sexual advances? Hundreds and hundreds of us were posting about being groped, molested and raped.

It might sound harsh but I want to give it to ds 17 to read as he has just heard there is a cinema showing films for female audiences only and he finds it unbelievable that should happen.

He is a genuinely lovely boy but is naive. He talks about wanting equality not feminism but hasn’t the life experience yet to see we need feminism as we are so far off equality.

If anyone has any advice or thread recommendations for him to help him understand I would be very grateful.

[DJBaggySmalls]

Tell him you have worked hard to give him a safe childhood, and as he enters adulthood he has a responsibility not to be dismissive of people who haven't been so lucky.
You could show him the #MeToo hashtag on Twitter and Facebook,
You could show him Rape Crisis and Refuge websites, and you can show him Govt statistics on crime. Officially there are nearly half a million victims a year in the UK.

''on average, 2.5 per cent of females and 0.4 per cent of males said that they had been a victim of a sexual offence (including attempts) in the previous 12 months. This represents around 473,000 adults being victims of sexual offences (around 404,000 females and 72,000 males) on average per year. ''
www.gov.uk/government/statistics/an-overview-of-sexual-offending-in-england-and-wales

[MerryInthechelseahotel]

Thanks DJ that’s really helpful. I really don’t want him to minimise and not believe things. He is so keen on fairness and is still very young.

[eyebrowsonfleek]

I have teens and they find stories about people who are their age more powerful than stories about older people because they believe that attitudes are different now than then.
My older teen is male and the younger one is female and (because of YouTube?) they’ve said “Feminism does more harm than good” “Feminism is only needed in developing countries” etc.
The first feminism issue that dd has picked up on are schools in the US having outrageous double standards on clothing. Boys would be wearing baggy vest tops but girls would be sent home because a bra strap might be slightly visible on her vest top etc
There was also the outrageous case of a girl in a religious private high school not being able to graduate as she fell pregnant. The religious aspect meant that she was taught that abortions are unacceptable so she didn’t really have a choice. (The boy obviously got to graduate)
There was a Panorama programme called When Kids Abuse Kids. This included a primary school aged girl as well as secondary. As the programme points out, schools have to report racist incidents but not sexual incidents so it’s an issue that is often not dealt with properly.

[eyebrowsonfleek]

This story caught my eye
www.itv.com/news/2017-07-21/new-bollywood-films-highlights-the-dangers-behind-a-lack-of-toilets-in-india/

And this
www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26260978

It never occurred to me that going to the loo could be so hazardous.

[MerryInthechelseahotel]

eyebrow so true about the teens preferring to hear about their own age group. I loved your last article * Muruganantham* what a man!!! Can’t write much at the moment but it’s all good for thought.