15 year old dd being asked "But did you lead him on?"

[DianaMitford]

I mean - WTAF?!?

My brother and his gf are staying with us this weekend (leaving shortly) and last night over dinner I told the story of a waiter flirting with my dd - completely unwanted attention. This happened abroad and it was told as a lighthearted story.

Gf then says to dd "But did you lead him on?" ?!? What a bloody awful thing to think/say! I was outraged at the time and I still am now, really. I pulled her up on it immediately (and politely) but dd can't un-hear what was said. And dd didn't really understand the concept totally (no bf as of yet).

I'm probably letting this get to me too much but - AIBU??

The question is so creepy and inappropriate that I wouldnt leave her alone with them for any amount of money.

Girls and women are in a constant state of "asking for it" just by existing and being female. You can't really blame men for their behaviour.

It was a 'lighthearted' story about unwanted male attention. I'm struggling to follow that tbh.
Either you were making a serious point about unwanted male attention or you were telling a lighthearted story about someone flirting with your DD and her being uninterested. If the latter then maybe the gf thought your DD was interested and you were the one re-framing it for her so the gf was clumsily trying to ask if DD was flirting too.
But 'Leading him on' is a horrible choice of words and I wouldn't be happy about that.

Totally unacceptable - I'm glad you pulled her up on it.

She's been a 15 year old girl so maybe she's thinking about her own behaviour back then.

Person who said that was a dick. But given the prevalence of people with dickish, sexist and victim blaming attitudes it could be a useful opportunity for a (private) discussion with DD about said attitudes.

She shouldn't have asked if she had lead him on.
But every time a man talks to a woman to chat them up, the woman is now a victim ffs get a grip.
It's the 21st Century not the 18th, we aren't all little ladies who need protecting from evil men up to no good.
Victim, ffs.

gillybeanz do you not think it's inappropriate for a waiter (doing his job and representing his restaurant) to flirt with a child in front of her parents. I'd be furious if that happened to me and i have a 14 year old who looks 18. I'd expect a waiter to be equally appropriately friendly to all of us.

I would be cross! It may not be fair on brothers GF but it seems one step away from victim blaming and rape victims having to justify their actions. It may have been meant lightheartedly these kind of comments feed into the serious problems we have with the 'rape culture'.

Nah, I don't turn people into victims who aren't.
I would have informed waiter she was just 15, it isn't his fault if the dd looked older.
My point is if a misunderstanding turns people into victims, what are the real victims.
I have a 13 year old dd who could quite easily be in this position as looks 18, is very mature.
I'd just tell them how old she is, if no apology and assurance they had no idea she was so young, then I'd be bloody mad.

But gillybeanz, in most of Europe 15 is not under the age of consent, so what would you expect the waiter to do with that information?

I'd go along the "she doesn't want it so please leave her alone" lines accompanied by very firm maternal glare.

But I would not expect a waiter (or anybody else) in Greece or Portugal or France or Sweden to know that there was anything magical about the age of 16.

In the circumstances you describe, the question sounds inappropriate, but those of you talking about victim blaming just because of a guy flirting, and being completely outraged by something that is a very reaslistc possibility are being ridiculously naive.

Plenty of 15 year olds are perfectly capable of knowingly leading a boy/man on.

cory

Fair enough, but doesn't that make the woman/ child however deemed by the waiter, less of a victim then?
Surely every time a man tries to "chat up" for want of a better terminology, a woman she isn't a victim.

Sorry for the late response, I was doing an airport run.

To clarify:

Yes it was a family dinner abroad and no, she wasn't flirting.

I don't think she's completely innocent and naive , I meant that she hasn't yet experienced dating so the concept of "leading someone on" is not familiar to her.

I reacted immediately when she said it and she backed down quickly. But she didn't apologise.

You did the right thing at the time. There are some countries where that sort of male behaviour would not be condemned, indeed I know of women who had that sort of attention at that age.

It doesn't matter whether a 15 year old flirts or not. Making the reference to a female (any female) "leading a man on" is a dangerous statement to make because it is perpetuating the myth that a man's actions can't be held against him because the female is to blame.

I am going to disagree here. Perhaps it was not an appropriate way to phrase it, but I think that it's important that anyone understand how their actions invoke reactions. That's not to blame the victim, but no one is completely unconnected to their behavior. No different than if you walk into a store and start swearing at the salesperson you are going to get a different reaction than if you go in and ask for help politely. If you go in swearing, that doesn't give the sales person permission to punch you, but it might explain why the salesperson is being aggressive back to you.

If the waiter was giving your dd unwanted attention, that was inappropriate. However, it's important that a 15 year old (or any age) person understand that it's possible to give off the message that the attention was wanted. And at 15 your dd is old enough to know the difference.
It's disingenuous to pretend that outgoing behavior is completely disconnected from returned behavior. And it's completely relevant whether a woman is flirting back, or for that matter, a man is flirting back.

Hard to justify that comment when you and your DD made it clear that this was unwanted attention. YANBU.

I would not have been happy either Op. I would have pulled her up on it too. She clearly has a warped view of women and it's not about your daughters age. By her logic women only get unwanted attention because the lead those weak willed men on.

Unwanted attention is sexual harassment. Any kind of unwanted 'flirtatious' attention falls into that category imo.
I would be fuming if anyone said that to my dd, or my boyfriend's dd who is 16. Still shocks me how many women have internalised misogynistic ideas.

OP, to be clear, I believe it was wrong for the gf to ask this question. it was out of order.
However, I believe those who are talking about the dd being a victim and sexual harassment need a grip.
Anybody would think it was wrong for a man to flirt with a woman, if it was reversed and it was a woman doing the flirting would we think the man was a victim and it was sexual harassment.