To think if a boy hits my daughter then yes it is different to if a girl does

[ouchthathurtsabit]

Preparing to be flamed as this is a controversial issue.

I'm a mum of a girl and 2 boys. My daughter came home with a red mark on her face saying that a boy- known for hurting others- had punched her in the face because she had gone in front of him in the queue. The boy was spoken to and it was dealt with. The children are 8 and in year 3.

So I spoke to the teacher and said I was glad it was dealt with and that I was sure my daughter would be fine but it would probably be helpful for this boy to know that it's unacceptable to hurt or hit anyone but that hitting a girl in the face is really not acceptable.

The teacher then had a massive rant at me saying that there is absolutely no difference and that's a very dangerous thing to be teaching children and it would not be an appropriate thing to say in school.

Whist I do understand what she was tryouts g to say, I do try and explain to my boys that In our society, no matter what age you are, if you hit a female then it is completely unacceptable and that no matter what a girl does or says to you then if you respond with physical violence then it's not acceptable. Males are generally bigger and stronger. Am I completely wrong in thinking at 8 years old this could be mentioned? Because I don't know! I know if one of my boys hit a girl in the face I would be a tiny bit more mortified than if it was a girl

For example, race hate or homophobic violence. I have yet to hear anyone say this is problematic because it amounts to justifying attacking a straight white person.

The justification is that these laws are used when this is the reason the person was attacked. If a man is attacked and he happens to be gay - not a homophobic crime. Same man attacked because he is gay - hate crime.

If the OPs DD had been hit because she was a girl then it would be different, but she wasn't. She was hit because of some perceived wrongdoing.

You don't know that slash, many boys will know that a girl is less likely to hit back that another boy. He could easily have lashed out for this reason.

And thank you street I never would have thought of myself as the least hit articulate so that's a surprise. And kind of you.

I doubt there are boys hitting girls for the sole reason that they are girls.

There are PLENTY of men who hit, abuse, rape and assault women precisely because they are female. It is the some of us believe male pattern violence needs to be addressed early and as a separate issue from peer violence.

That meant to say 'is the reason'

Unfortunately though, women are weaker than men!
Testosterone and muscle mass sees to that.
That is why they have separate catagories for sport.
I am a feminist and am passionate about women's equality, but when it comes to strength and ability to cause injury without a weapon, they will win hands down.

I think there is a lot of emotional stuff flying around here that is clouding the issues. Let's just be clear about some of the things people are being emotional about.

• Yes, your son is precious. Yes, it is wrong for anyone to hit him.
• Yes, all your male relations are precious. It is wrong for anyone to hit them. It would be better if people in abusive relationships felt able to tell someone and not suffer in silence.

Does that help at all?

One of the things I am really struggling with here is something that I doubt I would see on a male-dominated forum and that is the idea that violence can actually be completely eradicated.

One of the things that I have noticed about my male friends is that they negotiate life on the basis that male violence exists and it can happen.

(Women do this too, we all know this, but we tend to talk a lot about wishing and hoping it would stop; men just seem to accept male violence and its place in setting a pecking order in any given situation)

There was a thread on mn a few years ago, something like "what do you wish women knew about being a man"? - I think? something like that? - and the prevalence and immediacy of managing the potential for violence was a huge part of the answers. I had noticed that in my male friends before and having it spelled out like that was interesting.

There is no justice. No sense that "it wasn't fair he got that seat at the bar just because he is bigger". It's just how life is for men.

Should it be? No. Is it? Yes.
Do we want our girls to grow up into women who have to deal with all this, just as men do, with a whole raft of physical and systemic disadvantages that are not going away?

Most of you people are incredibly simplistic about violence. As if you can stop males living like this by just telling them not to hit when they are 8. There are strong powerful factors that put violence at the heart of masculinity and boys and men are growing up in this world, not your imaginary world how you would like it to be if you are primary school teacher. Can we change that? I would love to, but I see no signs of it happening. In the meantime PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE can we leave girls and women out of it?

I agree, Rhoda. I don't want a man not to hit me because I'm a weak female. I want him not to hit me because I'm a person.

However feminist you might be, it doesn't prevent a random man from treating you differently because you are a woman. Men do do things to women
because they are women all the time so there absolutely does need to be a specific message to boys about how they treat girls, and how they treat women when they are older.

Masculinity should not be predicated upon violence, but it is. I find that sad and depressing but I am not a man and it is not in my power to redefine masculinity.

Similarly, masculinity seems to be predicated on pissing all around, as well as into the toilet. I find that depressing too but as I can't change it, I would rather have and use women's toilets, and have nothing to do with the problem.

The things being said here are the equivalent of thinking that men will stop pissing all around public toilets if we make women use the same ones. THEY WONT. It will just make women have to use pissy toilets, when by and large they are perfectly capable of keeping women's toilets nice and shouldn't have to.

That's a very defeatist attitude, Grinch.

Ah well, men are violent, boys will be boys, life isn't fair.

Perhaps you would find more of an acceptance of that on men's forums because men are less familar with the effect of toxic masculinity.

It isn't that I don't want to work against toxic masculinity. It's just that I don't want to throw the next generation of girls under the bus while we work on it. It isn't either / or.

AntiGrinch you are right. There are two types of posts here really. People who wish to address the issue in ideal terms and people who think it should be addressed in realistic terms.

Ignoring the sort of shit women suffer from men on a daily basis and lumping it in with male on male violence is very much throwing the next generation of women and girls under the bus.

I agree totally that primary school teachers and all others who work with young people should be actively promoting equality between the sexes. I would rather see them start somewhere else first: how about having actively managed classroom discussions where girls get equal time? How about managing playground use so that girls and boys get to swap over in using the big space / the fringes (rather than having a big game of football mostly boys, always taking up most of the space; and mostly girls doing more confined activities around the edges). There's a lot they could do which would actively increase girls' sense of agency before they need to start saying "girls are equal for hitting"

"Ignoring the sort of shit women suffer from men on a daily basis and lumping it in with male on male violence is very much throwing the next generation of women and girls under the bus."

could you explain this a bit more?

Genuine question - if you think a man hitting a 20 year old woman is worse than a man hitting a 20 year old man. What about a man hitting a 12 year old girl/boy? What about a man hitting a 5 year old girl/boy?

If you said it was worse at 20 then the same when younger, what made the difference?

I think that a lot of what adults say to children sort of lies dormant inside them for years, often til adulthood. I am often surprised by little pearls of wisdom that I received as a child, that I felt had little impact on me at the time, but that my memory retained.

So - I agree that hitting anyone is bad. But I also think the "at age 8, size difference is irrelevant" argument is of limited value. Because the fact is, that child will grow up to be larger than his female contemporaries, and it is useful to know that society views hitting women as even more unacceptable than hitting other men.

antigrinch great post

*Unfortunately though, women are weaker than men!
Testosterone and muscle mass sees to that.
That is why they have separate catagories for sport. *
And all that is probably relevant when a 16 year old boy hits a 16 year old girl at school, but an 8 year old (either sex) need to be told not to hit ANYONE.
If an 8 year old child hit another child of different ethnicity to their own, you wouldn't tell them it was extra bad, because of the potential racial aspect, you'd tell them it's wrong to hit anyone, ever.

Children need clear rules, and for the incident to be handled for what it is, not overloaded with interpretations based on what it could mean when they're adults.

Whole other thread I know but how do we deal with toxic masculinity? It can't be simply about biology can it, because not all boys/men are aggressive. Why is more not being done to address these issues of male violence?

" If an 8 year old child hit another child of different ethnicity to their own, you wouldn't tell them it was extra bad, because of the potential racial aspect, you'd tell them it's wrong to hit anyone, ever. "

Actually it would be treated differently, it would be treated as a hate crime. This protects ethnic minoritites, those with disabilities, homosexual people.......but not women....they get no protection at present and this is the issue.

Actually it would be treated differently, it would be treated as a hate crime. This protects ethnic minoritites, those with disabilities, homosexual people.......but not women....they get no protection at present and this is the issue.

No, it would depend if the child was hit because of his/her ethnicity.

You see it in the news all the time 'Police are investigating whether it was a hate crime'. Simply committing a crime against a minority isn't automatically a hate crime.

I wonder if the people on here who refuse to acknowledge the difference between male to female violence have any experience of it?
Genuine question.
As I've said, I am a survivor. Now volunteer for rape crisis as well as work as a child social worker. Dh is a copper in DA unit.
It is worse, it is more damaging and it is prevalent.

So I spoke to the teacher and said I was glad it was dealt with and that I was sure my daughter would be fine but it would probably be helpful for this boy to know that it's unacceptable to hurt or hit anyone but that hitting a girl in the face is really not acceptable. Did you really say this?