Girls beating up boys

Seven - I'm unclear whether you don't think it's a problematic phrase, or whether you think it's just not problematic enough to bother about?

I'm not going to bother a bunch of girls I don't know. But if I'm talking to my cousin or niece or a poster on this thread, I might say 'hey, that's a weird phrase when you think about it' and have a chat about it.

Well yes I'd agree with that post jassy.

I have said throughout that it's a problematical phrase.

Well it needs to be changed elsewhere first.

To try and change it in these sort of circumstances is dangerous.

You take away the ammunition from people, without replacing it with effective alternatives.

Agree with Seven - especially when the responses are accompanied with a sneer.

You're all focussing on the words, when it's so much more than that.

A quiet, timid 'you couldn't afford me' has absolutely no effect.

A sneering, crawl back under your rock attitude 'you couldn't afford me' conveys a wealth of meaning.

Christ, I'm not saying it bloody would! If you'll read my posts you'll see that what makes me uncomfortable is the idea of girls and women talking about their bodies in terms of affordability - including on a thread in FWR which sparked this whole conversation.

Language matters as much because of the underlying assumptions it conveys to the user as well as to the recipient.

I Would use the word predatory, rather than sexist, for these men, personally.

and I Really do have a problem with telling girls that there are wrong ways to deal with them, especially if those ways work.

Oh come off it! I have NEVER heard of an example, either from myself or from my friends when teenagers, where saying 'you couldn't afford me' lead to a 'so how much money would I need' response.

Backing off has always been the response.

Someone that wouldn't back off to that response, wouldn't back off to any other response either.

jassy I Think it would be inappropriate at best to approach girls who have just said this to someone to ask them whether they've thought about what it means.

I'd be more inclined to say what did that man just say to you, and keep a bit of an eye on him if he looked like he was approaching Othery girls.

and if he was, then. um. Not sure what I'd do tbh

Yackity - agree with you there, it's about fitting the situation and some of the suggestions here won't work. But I think there are alternatives here.

Seven, I reckon there's more than one problem. One huge one is sexist men. Another is the the way women's bodies are treated in our culture and how women internalise those norms.

The trouble is, yackity, that 'afford' is most often used to talk about price. How often do you use the word 'afford' in daily speech when it isn't about money?' And in a situation where women's bodies are consistently commodified, including a lot of really insidious stuff, thinking twice about language that suggests you could put a price on a woman's body doesn't seem like a huge leap.

Sorry, was meant to say 'crawl away with their tail between their legs'.

Not a problem Jassy - agree. But the suggested alternatives were incredibly simplistic in some cases, and truly dangerous in others.

Responses are used to belittle the person, especially in front of others, to make them crawl . Get aggressive and you are likely to get an aggressive response back. You have to consider the SAFETY of the person making the response.

But realistically what tools are there? quibbling over whether a 14yo should say " I don't fancy yours much" over " you're not good enough for mine" does nothing whatsoever to address the problem.

Yes language is important but when is language being used by the oppressed to get the oppressor to leave her alone and laugh at him at the same time, then in that moment does it matter?

comparing girls saying this, when the slur as defined by patriarchy is on themselves, with racism and homophobia feels back to front as well, to me.

Can't we be very clear that the men are the complete fucking problem here, and also say 'hey, this sort of phrase might not actually be the most useful in the long run, have you thought it through?'

What an odd thread...

But here goes, my first foray onto this board.

I don't think that sort of a comment 'you can't afford me' has ANYTHING to do with price. It is to do with value. It means 'my value is so much higher than yours, that there is nothing in the world that you can do to afford me'.

It ALSO means that if someone of an equivalent VALUE comes along, then they would be of interest to me. Because they would be a worthy person unlike the scum of the earth that just approached me.....

Bringing it down to 'price' is just daft.

And I'm guess the reason why AsAMan used the stepping on the balls example, is because the OP was talking about being HURT by women, so clearly not in the realm of non-painful/hurting experiences, presumably to get his kicks off, so sexual, and in a very sick manner, so in the realms of SICK behaviour - which WOULDN'T be standard BDSSM so NOT what you participate in Frau.

I'd rather give young women - and all women - language options that didn't demean women, but that's just me.

As I've said, I don't see any particular reason not to be crude when dealing with that sort of attention, whatever your age. But I've said repeatedly why that phrase is problematic as it relates to women and their bodies.

What next? Well, I'll challenge when I see/hear it.

If people mean 'not in a million years, sunshine', that's quite an effective way of saying 'not in million years' that doesn't have the unconscious implication that women's bodies have a price.

yes Seven and I immediately came on to say the obvious thing that is so obvious to me that I didn't think it needed saying was that we educate and rear our sons not to do it.

I find this focus on the girls and "they need to be given some tools then" really uncomfortable.

especially when it's being said at the same time as critiquing one of the tools that they do use (our at least used to).

I Think she made a throw away comment, as a knee jerk thing, of "what you say to creepy men".

I don't think she meant that all men who like to be hit for sex have something wrong with them, or that all women who are dominant in bdsm are prostitutes, or that there is anything wrong with masturbation. Nor do I think she was trying to open negotiations about price with him.

That's what I think. You'd have to ask her though.

And before anyone jumps in, the obvious point I didn't make because to me it's blindingly obvious, is that we need to make sure that the sons we raise are raised not to do that.

Well, then the girls need to be given the tools to deal with it.

And a grown woman saying "I doubt you have that sort of money" and referencing BDSSM on an internet forum isn't exactly going to help those girls much is it?

Why do you keep taking about straw teenagers?

Street harassment is very common and starts at about age 12 / 13. threads on here seem to indicate the worst years for it are secondary school and up to the early twenties.

This isn't a made up thing, it is a very real and very big problem.

And many girls have no fucking idea what to do about it, unsurprisingly. The problem here is the men. Not the language of the girls.

Okay, the straw teenagers aside.

What's your view on AsAMan's use of the phrase, on an Internet forum?

I'm not saying all teenage girls say it and I'm not saying it's a good thing to say.

I am saying that when it is said, in my experience, it is said by teenage girls when approached by men proposition ing them.

And that if the teenage girls have found it works for them, then I'm not going to criticise them for saying it.

They can say whatever they like if they find it gets the men to fuck off, Imo.