Girls beating up boys

[Plymouthsupporter]

Has any girl on here ever beat up a boy?

I am boggled at the fact that anyone would even consider "challenging" teenage girls for using whatever tools they have in their armoury against creepy men!

I think that Seven and Jassy are both right. Girls say it without meaning it because it's a standard thing to say. It's taught language.

But it definitely shows the underlying attitudes that our society still holds towards women and their sexuality, and the crying shame is that the commodification of one's own body (linguistically or otherwise) is still offered to girls as one of the major ways for them to gain any status or power today.

The lie is of course that such power is not real power at all.

Who's challenging teenage girls? Surely, it's their mother's who are being challenged here, to give them better tools?

Sorry, rogue apostrophe.

I mean observers thinking that the girls meant anything other than go away and leave me alone , in thread before last.

I suppose it's a bit like when adults look at girls and call them " little tarts" out whatever.

I'm not sure the behaviour of the girls or what they say to get people to leave them alone is what we should be focusing on really.

What better tools?

The suggestion on here has been to say "fuck off" instead.

Great.

If the tools to stop all this were available, women and girls the world over would be using them.

Sure, that's the immediate meaning. Where it comes from and the language it uses to convey that meaning is a whole different issue. You could just as easily say that when people say 'I'm such a spazz' they mean 'I'm so clumsy' but the language used to convey it comes from a place of discrimination and has ugly connotations.

You keep saying 'these girls' as if the only people using the phrase are teenage girls, and as if the sentiment wasn't used on this thread.

messy, thanks for being more articulate than me!

"Surely, it's their mothers who are being challenged here, to give them better tools?"

Seriously, were you being ironic?

The "teenage girls" are made of straw, actually.

But, you know what, Seven, you're a feminist, and you be always said that, so it must be right.

"But, you know what, Seven, you're a feminist, and you be always said that, so it must be right."

Not nice, Sanity, not nice.

I didn't realise if we didn't like a particular put down we had to invent a new one and also educate the entire UK teen population about it.

"Btw Frau, if any poster had told OP to fuck off, he could report that as a PA."

Fair point. Not as simple as just using "fuck off" really.

DD is 16. I just asked her what her response to a creepy comment would be - some guy cat calling her in the street.

She says she would say

"Yeah like you're so sexy"

With a drawl and an eyebrow lift extraordinaire.

I think that's a good response.

Really? Feminists shouldn't continually question their own attitudes? We've been brought up with the patriarchy. It's in the very fabric of our being. It's sometimes really hard to see things without the patriarchy-tinted spectacles on. We should never just assume that "what we have always done" is always right.

I can only speak from my own experience and that is that this is a phrase used by teenagers. Girls in that age group where they start getting harassed, at about 13.

I have only heard adults say it a couple of times and those times felt like an auto reaction to something they learned to say when younger iyswim.

I stopped saying it at about 16 or 17 as did most of my friends, for the reasons on this thread. Because I started to understand what it meant.

And I asked her if she would say "you can't afford me" - she says not.

I asked her has she ever said "you can't afford me" - she says not.

Maybe we are stuck in our generational responses and the young girls of today are developing their own language of response?

I'm not talking "as a feminist" I'm talking as someone who used to be a teenage girl and who heard this phrase used by friends who were being harassed and who used it occasionally myself.

The focus of this thread of how girls should or shouldn't behave when harassed by older men feels all wrong to me.

I think the point is, Jassy, is how we react when we are challenged on the things we say unthinkingly. I challenged a friend at work the other day for using the word "special" as an insult. I explained that it was a word used to upset my autistic DS all the time. He was very apologetic. We hugged. It was lovely.

But I don't think it's the teenage girls (who most definitely are not a strawman Sanity) who need challenging but the ones who feel entitled to ogle and harrass in the first place.

And frankly, the idea that the mass rape of teenage girls in this country iwas due to lack of pithy put downs, is bizarre.

FrauHelga: You were complaining of being "shot down" on this thread though. As far as I can see you've done as much "shooting down" of people on this thread as anyone else has.

I mean, you didn't even give AsAMan the benefit of the doubt, did you? Just went straight in on the attack.

Sanity, no one said that. Now you are strawmanning.

I feel like we all agree with each other anyway! No one here wants teenage girls to be harrassed, fullstop. Can we all agree to blame it on the big P?

I don't think her post was particularly attacking, she was upset/offended at the post and said so.

I wasn't attacking NotDavidTennant - I was explaining why I found the post rude and offensive.

I haven't said to challenge teenage girls on their use of language, messy. Not sure who did.

I was challenging people on this bread, who I assume are mostly adult men and women to consider the language they use, and to help their children find appropriate language.

I know what someone means by "big girls blouse". It means they are a bit wet and wimpy. It will convey that to most anglophone people. But that doesn't mean that "big, girls blouse" is not sexist language, and shouldn't be challenged.

If a teenage girl (of which I am the mother of 2) needs assistance with dealing with creepy guys, then I would hope that they could be given some stock phrases to use that didn't assume that sex is a commodity, within their meaning.