To be a bit sick of constantlyse reading about how awful teenage boys are?

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Recently it seems to be a constant theme that girls need to effectively be protected from teenage boys.....and the comments are sweeping. The suggestion seems to be that boys are constantly being terribly sexually aggressive to girls. I teach in Spain. Now I teach primary but before I was teaching secondary.....and this really wasn't a theme.....barely happened at all...the kids just got on with life and did all the normal boyfriend/girlfriend type stuff in an age appropriate way....talk of groups of 15 year old boys holding down girls and touching them, "hounding " girls for sex, grabbing their breasts and vulva in the school corridors?????? Never saw it.....and if it had happened it would have been seriously shocking. I do not know....it seems as if boys are being painted as monsters. I have a son and another son in the way.....it makes me sad to hear the constant vilification of male CHILDREN.

If there's one thing we as a nation seem to be learning is that we each occupy a rather strong bubble and rarely do those bubbles intersect. I don't know any teens who behave like this, I don't know any kids whose parents don't teach manners, I don't know any parents who feed their kids blended-up KFC in a bottle, I don't know anyone with an excluded child or child who roams the streets gathering ASBOs. However, I am not going to pretend that world doesn't exist, which is very easy to do when your parenthood revolves around attending middle-class playgroups and NCT sessions or you're part of another culture entirely (one where family and respect probably play a much bigger part than they do here).

Exactly op. It's the sweeping statements that are irritating.

CozyAutumn .....if only you had written the post! You said exactly what I am trying to say in a much better way!

I'll probably get flamed for it OP but hey ho. Sweeping statements should be challenged when they appear.

I've got a son and a daughter. I worry about them both. But as DD reaches the end of primary school, my worries are becoming more and more depressingly concrete. I don't think that every boy she meets is going to sexually assault or harass her. But I have to accept that it's extremely likely that one of them will. It doesn't have to be all boys, or even most boys, in order for the behaviour to affect most girls.

I just think it's SO, so sus to post this when there's currently a massive thread about the sexual aggressiveness women experience. Yes they are children yes those children did assault me repeatedly when I was also a child. And they did hold me down. No not all teenage boys are like that blah blah. Who has actually said that they all are though? Who? Come on, at least save it for another time.

And by the way teachers WERE seemingly oblivious to the sexual harassment and assault that was taking place. And it WAS taking place, your posts make it sound like you don't believe us on Mumsnet who say it was happening.

I don't think that every boy she meets is going to sexually assault or harass her. But I have to accept that it's extremely likely that one of them will.

I really don't think it's extremely likely one of them will sexually assault her. What a depressing view to have

I've a teenage boy. He's kind and thoughtful and has friendships with girls. His friends are equally as considerate and kind. That's not to say they couldn't be as described but I would like to hope that they've been brought up to understand how to behave appropriately and nothing I've seen of them suggests otherwise.

Wasn't the most recent stat that 25% of girls leave school having (at best) received unwanted sexual attention (it may be more like actual sexual assault, I'll need to look it up). So a girl has a 1 in 4 chance of it happening. That is depressing.

I can't say that 75% of the women I know made it to adulthood without unwanted sexual attention. I went to a single sex school, so school itself was harassment free, but most of us had at least one unpleasant or scary moment of intimidation during our school years.

Where are you seeing these sweeping statements?

Jasper indeed, which suggests that it's underreported. Possibly many girls don't count wolf whistling and catcalling as sexual harassment, a recent thread here showed a depressing number of women didn't see it as such.

There have been several threads...onestoy about single sex schools for example where several posters seemed to imply that they thought single sex was better for girls so they wouldn't be at risk from boys.

Teenage boys have always been seen as sex-mad predators on MN

Really?, I've been here about 6 years and I've never seen this attitude.

I got horribly sexually bullied at secondary school and it messed me up for a long time. I know not all boys are like that and it's made me determined to raise my son to respect women and try and help him avoid pressure to be 'macho'- sexism, prescribed gender roles, over-sexualised culture and misogyny hurt boys as well as girls (obviously in different ways)

My teenage boys always do a credit to themselves. Never been in trouble, do amazingly in school and are all-round great kids. Yes, they have strops like most teens but they certainly aren't as bad as people would make you believe teenage lads are.

DS1 has had one girlfriend (two weeks ago) and broke it off after a week because she was "doing my head in"

We've clearly raised them right!

Nobody is saying all boys. But as a girl I was raped by a teenage boy and groped by another boy I had never seen before. I also had various horrible sexual verbal abuse.
I am glad if you have never had that happen to you OP. But denying that it happens is not good.

I'm with you OP. I have a son and DH and neither are in habit of sexually assaulting women, just as my DD isn't in the habit of being bitchy or bullying other girls. I know it happens - although as a woman I have been on the receiving end of far more bitchiness and power trips from other females than sexual assaults from me - but sweeping generakisations in order to address an issue don't help, imo

Sweeping generalisations? Or legitimate concern over a worrying cultural trend?

DH would no more treat a woman like a piece of meat than fly in the air. He's also not a knobber who does no housework, no childcare etc. So men like that can't exist, in numbers, can they? Oh wait...

Legitimate concerns do not warrant sweeping generalisations about sections of society - again imo.

So we should just ignore that teenage boys do rape and sexually abuse girls because not all of them do?

Yes - that's absolutely what we should do.

Sheesh.

So we should just ignore that teenage boys do rape and sexually abuse girls because not all of them do?

What a fucking stupid statement.

Who would ignore a minority who commit such crimes and I do believe [without figures to base an opinion on] that it is a minority.

I am a Mum of 3 ds's , all young adults now and lucky me , they all went through adolescence without an urge to assault or abuse anyone else.

I do fear for the sons of many MN posters. Hopefully they'll grow up normally rather than walking around believing they are patriarchal rapists with invisible privileges