Do you have a feminist perspective on smacking children?

[LRDTheFeministDragon]

I was just wondering about this one. For me, part of feminism has to do with thinking about the vulnerability of other groups, and perhaps especially about bodily vulnerability. And I hate the idea of smacking children, which I could justify on that basis, but which I must admit I hated long before I had any coherent feminist position.

So I was wondering, if you see yourself as a feminist, how do you feel about smacking children? And do you feel that your position is related to the fact you're a feminist, or do you think the two aren't related?

What HerBeBolloX has said.

We don't smack our children because we want them to know that nobody has the right to do that to them.

I have, on odd occasions, physically removed a tantruming child but I did feel uncomfortable with me using my physical advantage over my child in that way - it did feel disrespectful of their bodily integrity so I stopped doing it. I decided to just ignore them and leave them as they are. I sort of figure that young children need a right good tantrum once in a while to get things out of their system.

I find with my eldest (7) the best thing to do with her when she is behaving badly is ask her if she is alright/what she is cross about/does she want a cuddle?

That makes me sound like a right smug modern parent but I do also lose patience and snap and shout.

My kids just aren't very naughty though and tend to stop nonsense when sternly told to - I guess we are lucky.

Interesting thread

I was thinking about starting a thread in the Feminism section to ask whether feminists tend to be anti-smacking - and here there is one already!

I'm with SGB on this one.

Oops, this had dropped off my Threads I'm On and I didn't notice ... thanks everyone. PeanutGallery - guess you and I have been reading the same threads before then!

Both not smacking and feminism come out of human rights, for me.

I also think the pattern is that smacking tends to be more common amongst people with more conservative and traditional ideas about life in general.

There is something else about the approaches that include smacking e.g. as advocated by James Dobson, they involve an adversarial approach to childcare. Which would not be something that appeals to me.

Himalaya - yes, I wondered if that were true too.