This is a reply to an article that was published on Givenbreath.com
No. Just no.
First, when we tell boys that their thoughts and actions cannot be controlled unless girls behave or dress a particular way, we teach boys that they do not need to be responsible for their thoughts and actions. We teach them it’s okay to make judgements of a girl based on her clothing and her body language. We set arbitrary guidelines on clothing and poses we deem appropriate. Saying “men of integrity don’t linger over pictures of scantily clad high-school girls” means we as parents, are responsible for teaching our boys how to be men of integrity. There is no need to police the bodies of young girls in order to teach this to our sons.
Second, imagine you are a young girl who was recently blocked by the Hall family. You’ve been told by Mrs. Hall, in the most public way possible, that you’re behaving inappropriately. Rather than speaking to you directly, she has chosen to block you and blast the internet with her judgment, saying there are no second chances in her family. You have no chance at redemption or forgiveness. Can you imagine how horrifying it must be to see this posted all over the internet? My heart breaks for these girls. These young girls are finding their way in a world obsessed with sexualizing women’s bodies for the male gaze, combined with the technology for instant publication at their literal fingertips. They are learning to navigate these difficult waters compounded by the complexities involved in discovering their own sexual identity. They are going to make mistakes. They need all of the support, grace and kindness we can muster.
Third, when we treat a young girl as a sex object, no matter how smart or kind she is, she sees herself as a girl who only has worth in her physical appearance. When we treat a young girl with respect and kindness, no matter what she looks like or what she wears, she sees herself as a woman worthy of respect and kindness.
“A lot of people will try and tell you that a woman should watch how she dresses so she doesn’t tempt you to look at her wrongly. Here is what I will tell you. It is a woman’s responsibility to dress herself in the morning. It is your responsibility to look at her like a human being regardless of what she is wearing. You will feel the temptation to blame her for your wandering eyes because of what she is wearing – or not wearing. But don’t. Don’t play the victim. You are not a helpless victim when it comes to your eyes. You have full control over them. Exercise that control. Train them to look her in the eyes. Discipline yourself to see her, not her clothes or her body.” (Nate Pyle)
Jerilyn
Bio: Jerilyn Hassell Pool was born and raised in Southern Oregon, the eldest of 8 children. She is the mother of five children, ages 7 to 23. She has been married for nearly 25 years. She has a calling as the pianist in the local Spanish-speaking branch (although she speaks no Spanish) and is active in feminist and LGBTQ communities as a Mormon advocate for inclusion and acceptance. She works from home as a freelance web and print designer.
All posts by Jerilyn
Well said and I agree. Here is a link that someone shared with me to a post that I believe is a much better message for a boy.
http://natepyle.com/seeing-a-woman/
Yes we quote Nate in the last paragraph.
🙂
I hate that blog post and was really upset when the author started deleting negative comments. Don’t blog if you can’t take legitimate criticism! You didn’t mention the half-naked boys that were scattered throughout the post, which was very hypocritical. I’m going to mention it here in case she deletes all of the people calling her out on that as well. Thanks for writing this great response! Hopefully it’ll sink in for the author before her daughter becomes a teenager.
Very nice post! I agree, we need to focus on teaching our boys how to treat girls–not on berating girls for behaviors that are actually culturally coerced. (So many girls feel they NEED to post sexy photos, thanks to the messages society sends them about the primacy of their appearances.)
I offered my own rebuttal to Mrs. Hall along these lines here–if you’re so inclined, please check it out: A response to Mrs Hall: Teaching Our Boys Respect and Self-Control (FYI, If You’re A Teenage Girl)
Exactly, Jerilyn! I can’t believe so many are reposting, agreeing with Mrs. Hall’s despicable behavior. It’s incredibly hurtful to the specific girls she targeted, and it’s neither Christlike nor mature. And yes, the Hall boys need to be taught to respect women instead of judging them. She’s teaching them that it’s okay to shame their peers. Disgusting.
Well, she also states that she is teaching her sons to look for women of character, so it sounds like she is removing the temptation by blocking the girls (I wish there was a way to block images and not people entirely) and teaching her sons to look beyond appearance for strong inner qualities. She’s doing both, but according to the this b/c she’s written a public response (she could have emailed them personally–we don’t know for sure if she did or not) to encourage girls to not post pictures on such a public forum (girls and boys alike need to understand that once posted and public always posted and public and that there will be people viewing their posts that you really don’t want to) that she has declared that her sons should not be held responsible and I just don’t see that message within the article.
As a parent, I understand the feeling of wanting to protect our children from temptation, but I think we do them a disservice when we remove temptations completely. If we don’t help them to recognize when their thoughts are on the wrong path and if we don’t help them learn strategies for correcting their thinking, then we are not empowering them to rise above temptation when they are on their own.
I think Nate Pyle got that part right.
So you are suggesting that we should train our kids to handle temptation by…throwing temptation at them. Nice idea. I am sure your boys will love learning how to deal with temptation in your house. Like a little kid in a candy store. Woohoo! Ok. I know you aren’t really saying that…but do you see how that works? You… And Nate need to soften your judgmentalism just a tad. She did not personally or publicly attack anyone. She was making a valid point even if it may have been more conservative than you prefer. Try to take it in the spirit it was intended.
She certainly publicly attacked any girl who anyone knew she blocked. The GIRLS certainly knew they were suddenly blocked! That kind of information is not only not secret, it’s quite open.
“there are no second chances in my family” “You have no chance at redemption or forgiveness.”
It was INTENDED to be judgmental and caustic. THAT is the spirit in which it was offered.
Nailed it.
Seee her earlier post with gratuitous pics of her shirtless husband:
http://givenbreath.com/2011/12/08/i-spy/
But, but women are not visual!!!
We’re not? Oops!
I love this. I really hate that society tells my daughters that they are responsible for the actions and thoughts of others and that it tells my son that he is not responsible for his thoughts and actions, that his self-control is so tenuous.
That page is already gone. LOL
Bravo, Jerilyn! There are few things that hurt my sense of decency more than a mother teaching her sons to actively disrespect girls/women. I just don’t get it. She thinks she is being all “Mama Bear” but what she is being is “Ridiculous Fool”. When you teach your children to disrespect females guess who else is on that list? In addition to that, her hypocrisy is staggering, as is the level of involvement in her childrens’ lives–looking at Facebook together??? If your child still needs Mommy to look at Facebook with them they are too young to have a Facebook account.
You make some good points. First, young men are responsible for controlling their own behavior. Expecting them not to have a physiological reaction to visual stimuli is simply not realistic, but unfriending a girl who posts a suggestive selfie shows responsible self-control. After all, covering certain parts of the body is not at all arbitrary. It is based on God-given drives and physiology. Girls and boys who want to be respected should show off their best assets rather than distracting those who view them with suggestive dress and poses. Boys and girls can choose what they wear, but those with whom they interact can never un-see them.
Second, you rightly point out that to publicly humiliate another person is both unkind and un-Christlike. Thank goodness Mrs. Hall didn’t reveal any names. Assuming her sons unfriended the girls to whom Mrs. Hall alluded, only she, her sons, and maybe the young lady found out who got unfriended. Since Mrs. Hall gave vague descriptions of multiple situations, there was no public humiliation of an individual. Mrs. Hall’s post was targeting any young lady who might not recognize that her value far surpasses her sexual desirability.
Which leads to your third great point. We should all focus on the eternal worth of other people. Mrs. Hall tells the girls, “We think you are lovely and interesting, and usually very smart.” She enjoys “seeing life through [their] unique and colorful lens.” When these girls learn that their value goes far beyond their bodies, they will not feel the need to test their power over young men by trying to arouse them. As Mrs. Hall points out, it is unlikely that the girl with arched back on her bedroom floor was getting ready to sleep. Let’s call it what it is: an experiment in sexual power. I am glad that someone gave her the feedback on the experiment which directed her to her worth which far supersedes her sexuality.
One final note: It is ironic that Mrs. Hall chose to post pictures of her children in bathing suits rather than fully dressed. And yet, none of those pictures convey sexuality. I guess it goes to show two things: First that modesty includes but goes beyond how you dress, and second that boys don’t have as much power to arouse girls as the other way around. We should use it responsibly.
“Expecting them not to have a physiological reaction to visual stimuli is simply not realistic, but unfriending a girl who posts a suggestive selfie shows responsible self-control.”
Because Jesus unfriended and publicly blasted people at the drop of a hat rather than engaging them in discussion, loving on them, and exercising some self-control in not giving in to temptation? You must be reading a different Bible than I am because the only people I recall Jesus treating the way you and Mrs. Hall recommend were the Pharisees, the super-religious who were incredibly legalistic and so caught up in making sure everyone followed every single teensy weensy little detail of the religious law according to their interpretation that they forgot to love on people. Hmm.
“After all, covering certain parts of the body is not at all arbitrary. It is based on God-given drives and physiology.”
People groups around the world who go about wearing less clothes than we do – or none at all – would disagree with you, as would those who go to nude beaches or live in nudist colonies and exercise great self-control, not being overcome by lust and throwing themselves upon every single person they encounter while foaming at the mouth screaming “BOOBIEEEEEEES!!!! ERMERGERD!!!!! MUST! HAVE! BOOBIES!”.
The girls she mentioned were not conveying their bodies sexually, either. This mom said the girls were in their jammies, but – ta da! – were not wearing a bra. These weren’t girls flashing flesh to be provocative, they were judged as sexual by a mom who shamed them for not having perky confined breasts underneath their clothing. That discredits her for any other judgments she brought up afterwards. A girl arching her back on the floor? Maybe was doing a complicated yoga pose and was proud of herself? Maybe was posing for her friends on the cheerleading squad or gym team and this mom turned it into something creepy and salacious? That’s the problem with people taking it upon themselves to be Jesus and cast judgment on others. There’s no context here, only a mom going about the wrong way to teach her sons that they have the power to respect all girls and women no matter what they are doing or wearing, that everyone deserves to be treated kindly, that they are not victims.
“None of those pictures convey sexuality. I guess it goes to show two things: First that modesty includes but goes beyond how you dress, and second that boys don’t have as much power to arouse girls as the other way around. We should use it responsibly.”
I don’t understand how you arrive at any of these conclusions. How did half-naked pictures of young men NOT convey sexuality? As a teenager, I promise you that seeing a guy with his shirt off, especially with low-riding pants (as some of her boys are wearing in the pictures), was enough to set my hormones on fire. Therefore, I am at a loss for how you can conclude that “boys don’t have as much power to arouse girls.” Are you kidding? Do you live in a cave? I have stared at enough arousing pictures of men in my life to know how wrong you are. I have a background in psychology, and can assure you that IT IS A MYTH THAT MEN ARE AROUSED MORE EASILY THAN WOMEN. I write in all caps in hopes that people will actually read it and stop perpetuating this ridiculous lie. It is true that men and women may experience arousal differently, but research shows that both sexes become physically aroused by pornographic images.
That last sentence should read, “both sexes become physically aroused by pornographic images within the same length of time.” Meaning, men do not become physically aroused more quickly than women, and women are just as likely to be turned on by a sexual image.
Very sad for these boys. They are being taught to judge girls by there appearance and not there personality and friendship with them. I am not saying girls should go out and explot themsleves but if a young lady is partaking in such things one should not shun/ judge them but show more empathy and maybe point out how pretty they are without behaving/posing that way and build a positive friendship. It doesnt help these girls or boys to teach them to ruin friendships over such an unimportant things like a photo. Also it is completely normal for boys to have sexual thoughts about girls but instead of hiding them a mother needs to teach them what is appropriate and not approparate sexual response.
First, that blog never said that a boy’s thoughts and actions cannot be controlled unless girls behave or dress a particular way. It recognized the fact that how a girl presents herself can provoke temptation, and avoiding temptation is wise. That is a principle that applies to any kind of temptation to any sin.
Parents are responsible to teach young men to be men of integrity and dwell on thoughts they shouldn’t, but that also applies to their daughters too. They need to be taught to have the integrity to be modest. Boys should limit association with immodest girls, and girls should limit association with boys who do not exercise control over their thoughts and behavior.
Second, I really doubt anybody except the girls who were blocked knows that they were blocked, and even if it was widely known, there are 1001 reasons a person could wind up blocked so I really don’t see it as at all likely that anybody was publicly humiliated by this. Even if they were it may not be a bad lesson to learn that if you publicly post something shameful, you will experience some public shame.
I have a childhood friend who has been inactive for a very long time, he started posting photos on his wall that were pornographic in nature. Why should I continue to allow myself to be subjected to seeing porn? I had to block him. This is a milder version of the same thing. They are exercising control over what they are exposed to in accordance with church standards. Good for them.
Third, the girls were presenting themselves as a sex objects and having a very mild consequence come from that will hopefully teach them to think a little more before doing stuff like that again. Does allowing them to misbehave without consequence help anybody?
Yes, boys are responsible for how they react to immodestly dressed women, but that is no license for women to dress as provocatively as they wish and it is not justification to shelter them from consequences either. If a girl doesn’t want to be seen as a sex object, then she should not send out invitations to look at her that way and just foolish expect everybody else to do what they should when she is not doing what she should.
Actually, girls do have license to dress how they want. We are not living in Saudi Arabia. Boys are not victims who have not control over their hormones if they see flesh. if they were, men could not be OB/GYN’s without being rapists, we’d have to segregate the genders at pools and on beaches, and ballerinas would have to start wearing pants. because we know boys and men can control their reactions and thoughts according to context, we know they can CONTROL THEMSELVES, period. When we teach our sons that girls who are dressed a certain way or sexual, we give them permission to see them that way, and it becomes a cycle where boys probably wouldn’t have cared until they were told it was somehow scandalous or slutty. teach your sons to respect all girls and women no matter how they are dressed. If a man can have his hand inside vaginas all day and keep it professional, your boys can deal with looking at a girl in a bikini and just think of her as nice to look at instead of a slut to shame.
Just wanted to say that I agree with what you said!
Just wanted to flip a quote of yours, to illustrate that morality and integrity is universal. There is no separate standard for men and women:
Parents are responsible to teach young women to be women of integrity and [not] dwell on thoughts they shouldn’t, but that also applies to their sons too. They need to be taught to have the integrity to be modest. Girls should limit association with immodest boys, and boys should limit association with girls who do not exercise control over their thoughts and behavior.
Morality and integrity are universal. There is no separate standard for men and women. Why does it always seem to be a female responsibility to dress and act modestly (modesty being, in my mind, how you dress, act, speak, and present yourself, not just how much skin you cover) and a male responsibility to control thoughts that come based on the actions and choices of women/girls? The mentality that women are the ones pulling everyone’s virtue strings is absurd.
“If a girl doesn’t want to be seen as a sex object, then she should not send out invitations to look at her that way and just foolish expect everybody else to do what they should when she is not doing what she should.”
This sounds uncomfortably like the justification some men give for rape and molestation. “She was provoking me, so I had to do it. She made me lose control.” I can’t believe you are actually saying that a girl essentially “deserves what she gets” from others’ treatment of her just because she dresses immodestly.
Paul, you are clearly a product of being taught that girls are objects. The girls were not presenting themselves sexually. They were wearing shirts, and most likely posted those photos to show how much fun they were having with their friends – I don’t know if you’ve ever been a young teenage girl, but girls post selfies, and most of the time it’s actually not to impress boys. If the boys (and entire Hall family) saw them in a shirt and immediately looked at their boobs to see if they were wearing bras, that is the fault of the viewers.
Also, there is a BIG DIFFERENCE between porn and some girls posting pictures of themselves and their friends in their pajamas. If you even relate young teenage girls having fun at a slumber party to kinky sex being plastered all over the internet, you have a big problem to work out.
I wish instead of coming against each other, moms and dads could just stand together realizing that both sides are right Both girls and boys need to be taught self control and integrity. Both girls and boys need to have self control in how they dress and act. Both boys and girls need to have self control in choosing where they set their gaze. Both boys and girls need to have integrity in how they represent themselves on social media and in person. It is both. Let’s join hands and encourage each other in this instead of tearing each other down!
Thank you! I’m so tired of people implying (or sometimes even saying) that we have to choose between teaching young men self-control and teaching young women modesty. both virtues are important for men AND women.
I completely agree. Boys and girls should be taught to dress modestly. Boys and girls should be taught that they alone are responsible for their responses to how people are dressed (or posed).
I am guessing that this mom does not have girls. She only has boys and she is doing what she knows how to do – protect them.
When we teach our children, for instance, not to drink, we do not take them to a liquor store or post pictures in their bedroom of wines and beer. No, we keep the temptation away from them. We try our best to keep it out of their lives.
That is what this mother is doing.
Kudos, to you, Mrs. Hall, for helping your kinds know how to be decent men in a world where they are hard to find.
Actually her post starts with MY DAUGHTER notices these things, she has a daughter.
Britney – It might be important for you to consider the implications of your comparing human beings to a substance such as alcohol – a substance which is consumed, sometimes for pleasure, sometimes in destructive ways.
Mrs. Hall seems to have the same problem – these young women are important to her only in the context of what her sons “do” with them, or how they impact her sons. The women themselves are treated like a bottle of beer that Mrs. Hall wants to toss out so her sons won’t be “tempted.” This is twisted thinking and beautifully illustrates the point Jerilyn makes in this blog post.
Melody, thank you. I had missed that now-amazingly-clear fact. Thank you for pointing it out so succinctly.
a comment she probably won’t allow to stay.
what happens when these girls take your directive? What happens when there’s nobody to judge? What happens when there’s no harangue to hide behind?
This isn’t about the girls in the pictures. This is about her and her insecurities. The judgmental self-righteous diatribe is just a cover for her envy and it’s a cover for how she feels about herself. These girls are being covertly sexual in her eyes, something she feels like she can never be. So she lashes out acts and places herself on this pedestal. In the end it’s primal. She envies them for their youth because they are young and she will never be young again.
FWIW I hate youth to. All youth. For lots of reasons, all of which are probably condescending and self-aggrandizing. They bug the shit out of me. But deep down, it’s mostly cause I fear death and sometimes feel I’ve squandered youth.
http://theirondaisywrites.wordpress.com/2013/09/04/fyi-if-youre-a-teenage-boy/
LOL
What would be funny, if it wasn’t sad, is that this mother has probably created MORE of a yearning toward “immodest” young women in her sons, not less. They probably didn’t even THINK that many of the photos were provocative until she pointed them out.
Being a teenager is about exploring burgeoning sexuality. Team Edward or Team Jacob? Do people from the opposite (or same) gender think I’m sexy? Whether it’s taking a duckface selfie in your PJ’s or “accidentally” showing a little ankle in cultures that covered women head to toe, teens want to explore that power. Contrary to the idea that only boys look, girls look, too, or their walls would be covered with photos of chess champions and Bach. They’re going to look, they’re going to flirt, maybe tease a little, they’re going to fantasize, they’re going to masturbate.
Can someone be an object of heated sexual fantasy AND still be treated with respect? Hopefully, moms and dads, that’s a solid yes, or you’re sending a very sad message about what teens have to look forward to when they marry.
Thank you, Jerilyn. Nicely put, as always.
Mrs. Hall’s post was ill-advised and ill-concieved — which may also be true of her sons. 😉 Time will tell.
conceived. dang. typing too fast.
Thank you!!!!
With respect to the rebuttal, I still side with the mom! Of course she knows her children are going to be exposed to immodesty and pornography….it’s everywhere. She is not trying to control the girls, just choosing what will and will not be allowed in their home!! Lets look at Face Book for what it is…a social network! There is wisdom in blocking deliberate questionable images that are being sent to your children! And, if the Halls choose to block someone, it’s not splashed all over the Internet for public humiliation.
You talk about it as if her sons were being intentionally sent images of pornography, not very normal photos of a teen girl in her pajamas. What I’m most concerned with is that she was SEEKING OUT these images so she could then point out things that SHE thought were sexual to her sons. I mean, had she not talked so much about how a young woman in her bedroom was so sexual, do you think it would have had as much of an effect on her sons? A wise bishop of mine said “You get more of whatever you pay attention to.” If she’s pointing out all the various ways these young women are now apparently sexual objects instead of real people, she is now teaching her sons to look for sexual messages when they may have been able to let go of it otherwise.
Sure, boys and girls like to look at each other and there is nothing wrong with that if it is kept within certain bounds and not used as justification for treating one another poorly. She is teaching her sons to seek out images of women to judge them and find sexual innuendo where there may not have been any, but SHE decides there is and so now suddenly sex is everywhere! The most disarming thing you can do to an immodest man or woman is pay attention to something other than what they’re trying to show off (money, body, clothes, etc.) Then they will notice that there are more important things. If you instead hyper-focus on what they are doing “wrong”, you will simply get more and more of it because you’ve just proven that they do indeed get attention from it.
Thanks for writing this! I saw that post shared on FB yesterday and it made me ill.
A MESSAGE TO BOYS….. A woman, or any human being, should not have to dress to get your attention. You should give them the full attention they deserve simply because they are a fellow human being. On the other side, a woman should not have to feel like she needs to protect you from you. You need to be in control of you.
This is a “little-blip” I wrote many years ago for a Women’s Yoga Retreat, that is applicable here:
“When a Male child is born, he matures to adulthood in a culture where, the predominate view of God is masculine. Growing up in this way a boy has firsthand knowledge of what masculine is, it is what he is, and God is as well. God is male and so is he. This very subtle cultural aspect has complex effects on the dynamics of the Female psyche.
Many women never gain awareness of just how far reaching the effects of these subtle cultural undercurrents reach in the shaping of their Feminine consciousness.
As with all archetypes, there are positive and negative sides to the Father’s Daughter. When a child, this archetype facilitates (in most women) the shift in primary affection from the feminine (mother) to the Masculine. Ideally the girl grows under the care of a loving father/protector who
supports, encourages and reveres her virgining Feminine Power. So in the best-case scenario, as she grows into adulthood, she is able to fully individuate into the independent archetype of the Maiden goddess energy. This helps her attract a mate in adulthood who can hold the space for her to explore the landscapes of her Goddess nature.
An adult woman who has not been this lucky continues to see herself, conscious or unconsciously, as “the woman in service to the man/god.” These women gravitate toward powerful men and become themselves defenders of patriarchal rights and values which emphasize tradition and the legitimacy (almost exclusively) of male power. They pass this thinking on to daughters, and police themselves with in more closed and conservative cultures.”
The original blog post is a CAAA-LASSIC example of the “Father’s Daughter that grew into the psyche I describe in the final paragraph above.
I wish facebook had a YIKES button
I’m not religious in any sense. I used to be. I was raised to be. It damaged me, as a female, beyond belief. I was taught heels made me look like a prostitute. I was taught I was fat. Basically, I was taught to have a good body but to hide it. My future husband was the only one allowed to see it. I was taught to be ashamed. My urges weren’t real. I was taught only men got aroused by visual stimuli. I was taught to be meek. I was taught women only had sex to satisfy their husbands.
Everything I was taught was wrong. It isn’t anyone’s place to corral another’s sexual expression. It isn’t anyone’s place to assign motive to what another is doing. Modesty is subjective. Islam has burkas. Mormons have their garments. Judaism has the yarmulke and tzniut. I, however, reject the control and wear what is comfortable to me. Some days it is pants and a hoodie. Other days it is *gasp* a low-cut tank top and short shorts. I’m not doing it to attract a man. I’m doing it to be comfortable.
This whole conversation shouldn’t be happening. People should stop trying to control another. Teach children to treat others with respect and decency regardless of dress. See past the bodies and dress. Stop seeing what others wear as a personal affront.
I appreciate the rebuttal. The original blog post made feel sick to my stomach. More slut shaming. More blaming the women. It is exhausting.
I thought the message was OK. I was more disturbed by what she did not say. Here are my thoughts.
I thought the message was OK. I was more disturbed by what she did not say. Here are my thoughts.http://www.juicsee.com/fyi-if-youre-a-parent-of-teenage-boys/
one of the things this shows that hasn’t been mentioned is that a lot of women (is this woman LDS, I wonder, or, perhaps, Christian)–
decide whom their sons will have as ‘girl’ friends and whom they will not–
These kinds of experiences can happen with mothers of sons and young women without any kind of impropriety or misbehavior on the part of a girl–
sometimes it’s something as simple as a woman wanting a trophy wife for her son–
instead of a girl who is more ‘real’–
or a mother who wants a girl who has a college degree from a particular place, or a particular profession or to be a returned missionary–
and a girl who is good and kind and loving and has never done anything inappropriate–
is made to feel like a consumer product–
pushed off to the side–
this is a symptom of an even uglier problem–
mothers who control their sons will hurt their daughters in law someday–
and these girls are lucky not to have anything to do with the “Hall boys”–
good riddance to boys whose mothers control them–
I think that the author came to some false conclusions. I don’t believe that the Hall family is communicating that their sons bear no responsibility for their thoughts. She didn’t say those girls were blocked from associating with her sons, just that their correspondence, in terms of social media, would be blocked.
She went out of her way to state positive traits she’d observed about these girls, and she didn’t name names. So the girls would have no reason to be humiliated, as no one else would know they’d been blocked, unless they chose to publicize that fact themselves.
I think you could argue that her post, in the long run, does the girls a bigger kindness than simply speaking to them one-on-one would have, because by allowing them to maintain their anonymity and avoid a direct confrontation, she allows them the gift of introspection. I don’t know about you, but I’m much more likely to get defensive and not consider someone’s criticism if I feel like I’m called out, no matter how privately. But if I have the chance to come to my own conclusions, my defenses are down and I’m free to learn the lesson and truly internalize it.
It also seems to me that by blocking these girls as a family, the Halls are teaching their boys a valuable tool for dealing with temptation: get rid of it. That doesn’t seem to be absolving them of responsibility at all. Because it’s their responsibility to control their thoughts in a world that bombards them with sexualized imagery, they need all the tools they can get to manage those thoughts.
And I think dieting has taught us all one valuable lesson: if chocolate chip cookies tempt you to break your diet, and you are truly committed dieting, then get the cookies out of the house. I see nothing wrong with filtering the images that come into your home, especially if your home includes teenagers.
The orginial post was directed towards girls, not boys. If a woman does not want to be objectified, she needs to start by not ojectifying herself. I am sure this mother also has expectations of her son’s behavior. But, one post can not address every action item of an involved mother. Remember, she was monitoring her boys media, not the girls.
But the problem with your phrase ” If a woman does not want to be objectified, she needs to start by not ojectifying herself.”, is that it is so open to interpretation and here this mom has decided for the women, the men and everyone when and where women are objectifying themselves. Truth be told, teens don’t usually 100% understand what they’re doing. I think they can sense it, but NO ONE thinks “I am going to objectify myself today,” so telling people to not do what no one ever thinks they are doing is not helpful. These teen girls are just reacting to what they’ve seen around them. I can promise you that a lot of teen girl aren’t so much interested in making a man lust after them when they “pose” or dress a certain way, as they are interested in just having attention. And this blog-post has proven x1,000 that it will work. Even giving negative attention reinforces this.
The problem is we keep blaming these young women as if they are self-aware enough to understand it all. Society is sending them such mixed messages on how to be attractive, with shame and guilt coming from all directions. I remember feeling as a youth that no matter what I did or how I dressed, it was terrible in someone’s eyes, but at least if I was sexually attractive people would notice me (I never dressed super-immodest at all, but noticed those who did at least got SOME recognition and had some kind of power.) If people really want to encourage women to stop objectifying themselves, they need to stop being so personally obsessed with another person’s sexuality and focus on the whole person. Then the need for attention and power will not be channeled into imitating movie stars or dressing provocatively because the young women will know others are more interested in who they are and what they are accomplishing. Sexual attraction will happen, but if we focus so, so much on it, then we are inadvertently telling young people that it is more important than any other aspect of themselves.
How many inaccuracies can you perpetuate in one blog?
No one was named, the word blocked doesn’t appear in her post. She offers help and forgiveness which you accuse her of denying to those misguided souls.
If you think dressing and posing isn’t meant to “say something” to the recipients then 1. why take the pic 2. why buy a certain brand? 3. why pose like all the other young kids do? We need to stop the problem of teaching kids lies that their choices in dress do not effect their peers.
That’s like saying those tight crotch and butt splitting yoga pants shouldn’t make the boys treat you like an object but don’t wear that to your job interview because it doesn’t look like manager clothing. In one case there is no message but in another context is does say something?
Wow I think you completely missed the mark. This mother wasn’t saying these boys don’t have control over themselves. She was in fact stating the exact opposite. She stated that she was teaching her boys not to pause over these types of pictures. If she was teaching them that they didn’t have control wouldn’t she allow her sons to view pornography as well as “sexy selfies”, because they can’t control their sex drive. These boys are being taught that they don’t have to look at that, they don’t have to accept that type of behavior from their friends. Also when you block someone, no one sees it but you and the person you blocked, so it isn’t a public form of humiliation.