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Original poster

Having a hard time reconciling something...

53 replies

Tee2072 · 10/06/2013 14:07

I am not sure this is the right part of the FWR area but I can ask it to be moved!

So today my son four year old punched two people at school. He has been disciplined at school (thinking chair and had to go inside from playtime) and at home (major lecture and loss of TV privileges) for this behaviour.

The issue is that one of the people he punched is a girl.

My first instinct was to be more angry with him for hitting a girl.

I literally stopped in my tracks on the walk home as it occurred to me that my feminist tendencies were Hmm at thinking hitting a girl was worse than hitting a boy.

My husband is furious he hit a girl. He's mad our son is punching anyone, but the fact that one of the anyones is a girl has him really riled up. I asked him why it was worse because it was a girl and he answered 'old fashion values'.

So where do I go from here? Do I emphasize that hitting a girl is worse? Why is it worse?

What's the feminist answer?

OP posts:
LRDtheFeministDragon · 10/06/2013 14:23

But if he's four, surely there aren't differences? I mean, some girls will be smaller than some boys but there can't be a gendered difference in size and strength at that age.

msrisotto · 10/06/2013 14:21

Isn't it because women are generally smaller in stature than men? It is seen to be worse to pick on someone smaller than yourself so maybe this follows on from that?

ChunkyPickle · 10/06/2013 14:19

Hitting anyone is bad.

I think that by emphasising that hitting the girl is wrong you're minimising the fact that hitting a boy is wrong too, and it seems to me that that's got to be part of the reason that male on male violence is so high.