Parents upsetting me with opinions about nude photos

[Hoopa]

I have 3DD, 2 are teens and one is 8. Some parents were chatting at the local playground today after school about the ofstead reporting yesterday about harrasment in schools. One mum started to really rant about how the girls were clearly snowflakes and should never have sent boys nude pictures in first place. She kept saying that they should just say no and that it is simple and it isn’t the boys fault. I tried to explain that teen girls I know have been made to feel frigid and boring when they have said no to these requests. She has 3 teen boys and a 8 year old boy and she just kept saying boys are being made to feel bad and that it was the girls fault . She turned around and asked a dad what he thought and he agreed that girls just should not send a photo. They seemed to think it was so black and white and I couldn’t get a word in despite having 2 teens myself and seeing how nuanced this is and how scary it is to have teens using a phone and doing things you don’t know about. I made my excuses and left but I feel a bit emotional now, my daughters have both struggled with aspects of their phone life and I just feel they were being really judgmental about something they don’t have any experience of yet. Was I being over sensitive?

Sensitive perhaps rather than over sensitive. I have one of each and the issues being discussed are complex and nuanced, and to suggest that simply ‘not sending pictures’ is naive as you suggest.

If you feel it’s something you’d like to return to to get your point across, perhaps plan what you’d like to say and next time you see her say something like “I was thinking about our conversation and…”, but I suspect you may end up frustrated in the end.

Maybe focus on making sure your daughters are confident in their rights so that they can cope and can help their friends do the same, male and female. And work out your argument for the next time it comes up?

As mum of older boys, I don't think you're being oversensitive at all.

The comment about "boys are being made to feel bad" is really shocking. Any boy who shares a picture of a girl without her consent should feel bad. It is harassment.

Mothers of boys should be bringing them up to respect girls, not mimimising sexist behaviour.

Yes, you'd hope you could help your daughters resist pressure to share explicit photos, but to pretend it's all the girls' fault is so wrong.

I'd be ashamed if my sons pressurised a girl into sharing pictures and furious if they then shared them.

Thanks both! My daughters have never shared this kind of photo (to my best knowledge!) but I do know that they find navigating the world with a phone difficult - I am so glad we didn't have them as teens I would have found it so confusing!
I think we can give our teens all sorts of strong messages - don't take drugs, don't drink spirits, don't get in a car with someone who has been drinking, don't mess around near a train line....until we are blue in the face, but they are always going to be trying things and pushing boundaries because they are people, not mini-me's designed to please their parents.
I was just so stumped by a mum calling girls snowflakes, I don't think she realised how upset I was, I hope I covered it well and will just steer clear of this kind of conversation with it. My OP reads wrong as she actually has an 8 year old girl as well as having 3 teen boys, so I suspect in a few years she will find out exactly how complex and scary it is to navigate impressionable young women through a tech world that we hardly know about ourselves.