The overprotective Daddy culture. (No ones good enough for my little girl)

[bumpandkind]

Wasn't sure where to post this but it's something that annoys me greatly and I haven't seen it discussed on here before. (Apologies if it has been).

I was just listening to the new Robbie Williams song. For those of you who don't tune into shit FM it's the good Mr Williams singing to his daughter about how the world is a big scary place full of evil men and he as her Dad will protect her from all this forever.

I may be over sensitive but this smacks of subverted mysoginy and possession of women/girls within the family. It is still very socially acceptable that a good Dad is overprotective of 'his little princess' till the day she marries her prince, (fully approved by Daddy of course).

It's something I never experienced as my Dad has always respected mine and all my sisters right to make our own decisions ( poor mans outnumbered!). However my DH was recently relived when we had a Ds not a Dd as in his own words ' I couldn't cope with looking after two girls, I'd be so worried about her'. This comment did not go unpunished!

So opinions please?

Gordon Ramsay's spy camera thing was seriously creepy. He eroded his daughters boundaries giving her the message that they weren't worth anything and taught his son that women's boundaries don't matter.

Abusive behaviour. And not the only abusive behaviour he shows. Tana LTB.

I have three adult sons and daughters ages 11 and 2, when the girls were born I had lots of "oh they won't be able to have boyfriends with all those big brothers"
I just stared at them before pointing out that my boys wouldn't even be remotely I retested in their adult sisters relationships and if they stuck their noses in my girls would put them straight as they will make their own choices!
I was irritated you see.

It all smacks of poacher turned game keeper. I'm a scum bag to women but I won't allow anyone else be a scum bag to my DD.

All summed up neatly by the wedding ceremony - father of bride gives DD away to groom and only the men make speeches about it.

i dunno it mirrors over protective mothers of their sons/the MIL commonly thinking the DIl isn't good enough.

Instead of thinking, "I must put a lot of time and effort into helping my son become a decent human being", it's "I must protect my girl from the sexual dominance and violence of boys". The actions of boys and men is seen as uncontrollable and out of our hands. *

I disagree it's more the other way around "a boy should learn to look after himself, and should be protected/mollycoddled because it will make him weak".

"make him weak"? And you aren't worried about girls being 'weak' because they are being molly-coddled by their fathers?

Who gets to decide what 'weak' is anyway?

I hesitated to respond on this thread, because I agree with any criticism of the culture of ownership over women, even if it seems relatively benign. Such as "giving away" at weddings etc.

However I do not think it is right to paint all who harbour genuine fears as in possession of a mysoginistic mindset. We are after all bombarded with constant reports of rapes, assaults and violence that women endure the world over from those who are supposed to be their partners/husbands. Isn't there some horrifying statistic that so many women a day are killed by their partners or exes?

I do not think you have to have treated women badly yourself to find stuff like that concerning as a man. I also don't think the instinct to protect automatically switches off the moment your daughter becomes an adult. It may not be your responsibility once someone is of legal age (it is now quite rightly their own), but I am sure many struggle with this with adult children of either gender.

I am happy to concede there will doubtless be men out there who HAVE been shits themselves in the past (or in fact still are!), who won't brook their daughters being treated the way they treat women, but it is also not fair to percieve this as some sort of common flaw in all men. As with a great many things motivation is key, and there are a plethora of those on this subject.

But why don't you feel the need to protect your sons in the same way Dervel. We are constantly bombarded with the messages of violence against men, in fact there is more violence against men in the UK, yet it is the violence against women that sticks in your mind and makes you protective?

Also I don't think that this is all about violence. It is about their views of girls/women when they were teenagers. How they viewed them as fuckable objects. And that is misogynistic.

Oh yes I think we do need to make a distinction between understandable fears for safety/ emotional equilibrium vs a kneejerk assumption that no boy is ever going to be decent.

It's like when men argue that women can stop rape, the assumption being that by doing xyz, they're provoking it. It automatically makes me feel suspicious of them because men who aren't rapists don't assume that they might become one when women do xyz aound them.

Actually scallop quite the reverse, but this was a topic on daughters so my point was addressing that. Yes I am well aware that there is more violence directed at other men, both in the UK and worldwide. I am happy to discuss that dimension if required, but I didn't realise assumptions would be made about my stance on the topic of violence towards men, by my not mentioning it. I had merely wished to remain on topic, and avoid being "what about the men?" with it.

I fully expect my son to one day be more at risk of violence on a night out. But expect my daughter to be the one more likely to suffer violence and sexual abuse in a relationship (assuming they were both in heterosexual relationships).

I think Dervel is mixing up the genuine gender biased fear for your kids that make sense and what people are discussing which is men practically feeling usurped by a man in their daughter's life. And threatening any man that comes with in an inch of their daughter because they see them all as sleeze bags (that they were/are) or the even stranger need to "protect" their daughter's virginity like it's some precious fucking jewel.

OK Dervel fair enough. That wasn't how I read it and I don't think it would have been "what about the mens" to have mentioned you had similar fears for your sons (if you have any). It would show that those fears weren't groundless or biased.

But as I said I don't think is about violence really. It's about these men's shitty attitude towards women.

Ok well I am on board with you 100% about "these" men. It's a more than a bit hypocritical of them. I can understand the frustration.