# And from the " Slut-Shaming Is The Way We Live, Deep In The Heart of Texas " Department... **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 18, 2018, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-from-the-slut-shaming-is-the-way-we-live-deep-in-the-heart-of-texas-department/819817 "2018-08-18T01:00:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 18
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2018, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-from-the-slut-shaming-is-the-way-we-live-deep-in-the-heart-of-texas-department/819817/341 "2018-08-27T23:53:28Z")
It’s our curse to bear. ---
**Author:** ![Nawth\_Chucka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nawth\_Chucka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nawth_Chucka)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-from-the-slut-shaming-is-the-way-we-live-deep-in-the-heart-of-texas-department/819817/342 "2018-08-28T00:18:58Z")
> [@Sunny\_Daze](#): > > It’s our curse to bear. And our bear to curse. Fuck off, bear!! ---
**Author:** ![Jane\_Elliot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jane_elliot/32/6166_2.png) [@Jane\_Elliot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jane_Elliot)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-from-the-slut-shaming-is-the-way-we-live-deep-in-the-heart-of-texas-department/819817/343 "2018-08-28T12:15:52Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Yes. > > I don’t blame you. I’d reject such a notion too. > > Am I correct in assuming, according to your response, that I should heretofore never speak at all of anything whatever that might make a situation safer for a woman in any way whatsoever, lest I by implication be assigning her culpability in the event she should come to harm? > > And further, if everyone were to adopt this practice, how would anyone ever learn to recognize the potential for, or how to avoid, dangerous situations? > > Having said that, I think I’m done here. At this point there’s no point. For someone who complains that other people put words in his mouth, you sure made a lot of assumptions about what I said. What people are trying to point out to you is that telling women how to dress or how much mace to carry is pointless unless we address the real harmful factor - men who hurt people. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-from-the-slut-shaming-is-the-way-we-live-deep-in-the-heart-of-texas-department/819817/344 "2018-08-28T14:16:46Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Am I correct in assuming, according to your response, that I should heretofore never speak at all of anything whatever that might make a situation safer for a woman in any way whatsoever, lest I by implication be assigning her culpability in the event she should come to harm? Yeah. Because you’re really fucking bad at talking about rape without sounding like a huge cunt. > [@](#): > > And further, if everyone were to adopt this practice, how would anyone ever learn to recognize the potential for, or how to avoid, dangerous situations? Not everyone is bad at talking about rape without sounding like a huge cunt. Some people are capable of empathy. Some people aren’t best known for their defense of a child rapist. Those people should offer that advice. You should shut up and listen. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-from-the-slut-shaming-is-the-way-we-live-deep-in-the-heart-of-texas-department/819817/345 "2018-08-28T16:20:04Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > It’s a mistake to humiliate or patronize Ah, you’re _so_ close to understanding the problem with the sign referenced in the OP… 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-from-the-slut-shaming-is-the-way-we-live-deep-in-the-heart-of-texas-department/819817/346 "2018-08-28T21:44:08Z")
> [@Jane\_Elliot](#): > > For someone who complains that other people put words in his mouth, you sure made a lot of assumptions about what I said. Not at all. “Putting words in someone’s mouth” means that you are attributing to them things they did not say. But I didn’t do that. I clearly stated that my inference was an assumption, and then left it to you to say whether that assumption was the correct one. > [@Jane\_Elliot](#): > > What people are trying to point out to you is that telling women how to dress or how much mace to carry is pointless unless we address the real harmful factor - men who hurt people. Forgive me, but it appears for all the world that what they are doing is saying that anyone who dares suggest such precautions is an asshole. And how are such suggestions pointless if they help keep women from harm? What sense does it make to adopt the attitude that until a danger is removed we should stop cautioning against it? And lastly, what do you mean by “addressing” the factor that [some] men hurt people? I’m unaware of any culture or country anywhere in the world where men don’t hurt people. So how do you propose this addressing be accomplished? I think this is where the major disconnect lies between people like you and people like me. I take it as a given that some men are going to sexually abuse women. I take it as a given that some men are going to beat women. And I take it as a given that some men are going to grope or harass women while simply going about their day-to-day business. But I also take it as a given that men are going to attack or beat up other men. I take it as a given that some men just like to get drunk and pick fights. I take it as a given that some men are going to fire frozen paintballs from cars at pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists. I take it as a given that some guys are just plain mean…to men, to women, to animals, you name it. Thus, the to my mind the only sensible and realistic response to the fact that such threats exist is to try to determine the factors that lead up to them and then try as best as possible to avoid putting oneself in that position. Hence the types of precautions (and on occasion, recriminations - justified or not) that liberals find so offensive. Liberals, on the other hand seem to think that if we can just “educate” people (or shame or demonize them) sufficiently, they will then begin to behave as desired, and all will be well…but in the meantime we must attack and villainize those who seek to keep women safe, because heaven forfend, it puts the responsibility for a woman’s safety upon the _woman_! Well, guess what? Men take steps or moderate their behavior in order to avoid dangerous or threatening situations, some of which can pop up instantly at any time during their day. And yet men don’t go through life feeling entitled to behave as provocatively or carelessly as they want, free from any and all harmful consequence. The fact that most women thankfully do take steps to avoid dangerous situations and/or to moderate their behavior to keep themselves safe puts them squarely on an equal footing with men, who have always found it necessary to do the same. You might want to think about that for a moment, unless you happen to be of the mindset that asserts, “We want equality, except when we don’t!” ---
**Author:** ![Crazy\_Canuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazy_canuck/32/5282_2.png) [@Crazy\_Canuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazy_Canuck)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-from-the-slut-shaming-is-the-way-we-live-deep-in-the-heart-of-texas-department/819817/347 "2018-08-28T22:07:48Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > And yet men don’t go through life feeling entitled to behave as provocatively or carelessly as they want, free from any and all harmful consequence. Your posting history clearly demonstrates that statement is a lie. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-from-the-slut-shaming-is-the-way-we-live-deep-in-the-heart-of-texas-department/819817/348 "2018-08-28T22:45:08Z")
Did I call it or what? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2018, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-from-the-slut-shaming-is-the-way-we-live-deep-in-the-heart-of-texas-department/819817/349 "2018-08-29T02:29:24Z")
**Starving Artist** , you still haven’t addressed the current question raised by this previous exchange concerning the topic of the OP: > [@Starving Artist](#): > > […] young girls are a bit of a mystery to young and even high school boys, thus young boys don’t know how to interact with them. So to hide their awkwardness and insecurity, some may display rudeness and crassness and try to appear that they’re not interested in female friendship or approval […] > > Girls who are ladylike are not threatening […] Their demeanor says they’re friendly and they like you as a person. They make you comfortable, in other words. And if you’re comfortable with someone and you like them as a person, whatever motivation you may have had to withdraw from them or be mean to them evaporates. And so you begin to relate to them more as people and friends instead of as incomprehensible alien beings who probably disapprove of or look down on you, and out of that grows friendlier and more respectful (i.e., gentlemanly) interaction. > [@Kimstu](#): > > Why aren’t we simply telling the boys that displaying rudeness and crassness is impolite behavior that will not be tolerated? Why are we expecting the girls to solve the problem of the boys’ unacceptably impolite behavior by sweetly soothing their hypothesized insecurities? […] > > Why should we be encouraging girls to provide friendly behavior and liking and feelings of comfort to people who are displaying rudeness and crassness to them and being mean to them? > [@Starving Artist](#): > > […] we don’t know of any particularly unacceptably impolite behavior this suggestion is supposed to correct. We merely surmise that if the girls behave in a more ladylike fashion, the boys will respond in a more gentlemanly fashion. […] > > As to why we don’t simply ‘outlaw’ rude and crude behavior, that would be because such behavior falls on a wide spectrum and no bright line exists that would allow all objectionable behavior to be prohibited and only the desired behavior to remain. > [@Kimstu](#): > > Certainly there will always be gray areas on the behavior spectrum. But it seems likely that directly disciplining boys for behavior that is obviously rude and crude would be far more effective—as well as far more just—than simply expecting girls to put up with the rudeness and crudeness until and unless they can manage to coax the boys to “respond in a more gentlemanly fashion” by being “ladylike” and “friendly” and making the boys “comfortable”. > [@Starving Artist](#): > > […] It’s just as likely, in my opinion, that such a tactic will serve to anger and alienate the boys even more, with the result that they will be even more inclined to be mean to or difficult with the girls in whatever ways they can get away with. […] > > […] I think we need to keep in mind that all this “rude and crude” behavior on the point of the boys is mere speculation. We don’t know for a fact that any such behavior exists, or, if it does, that it exists to a particularly troubling degree. > [@Kimstu](#): > > […] So we are supposed to avoid prohibiting certain forms of unacceptable behavior on the part of boys, or disciplining boys when they violate that prohibition, just because we’re afraid it will “anger and alienate the boys even more”? […] > > By the way, what level of “rudeness and crassness” and “being mean” to girls on the part of boys do you feel falls below the “particularly troubling” threshold? > [@Starving Artist](#): > > In the small percentage of cases where the rude or crass behavior is overt enough to be actionable, discipline certainly is warranted. > [@Kimstu](#): > > Can you give some examples of “rude or crass behavior” in such a situation that you consider **not** “overt enough to be actionable”, along with a few that you consider just over the borderline of actionability? You’ve now clarified that you think behavior like obscene name-calling and bra-strap-snapping and joking about bodies ought to be actionable, but I’m not getting a clear sense of what you consider **not** actionable. […] > > Then what sorts of “rude and crass” behaviors of boys towards girls are you suggesting **do** qualify as not “particularly troubling”? > > I have no objection at all to the possibility of finding out that we’re actually in vehement agreement that boys shouldn’t be allowed to treat girls badly. But I can’t tell whether that’s the case unless you are willing to be candid about what sorts of specific bad treatment towards girls on the part of boys you think **should** be allowed. You’ve been insisting all along that it’s a good idea to encourage girls to try to influence the behavior of boys by responding to boys’ “rudeness and crassness” or “rude and crude behavior” or “being mean” with a “ladylike demeanor” that “says they’re friendly and they like you as a person”. But you’ve been very coy about actually specifying what particular form(s) of “rudeness” and “crassness” and “crudeness” and “meanness” on the part of boys you think warrant this sort of conciliatory “ladylike”, non-“threatening”, “friendly” response from girls to make the boys who are engaging in that rude behavior feel “comfortable”. It still seems to me that the appropriate response to rude and crass and mean behavior on the part of boys is for adults to clearly prohibit and discipline it, rather than to encourage girls to endure it with a soothing demeanor in the hope that it will eventually “evaporate”. And if we just want to give schoolchildren the general message that good behavior in oneself often inspires good behavior in others, we can easily accomplish that without loading it up with heavily gendered baggage about “ladies” and “gentlemen”. ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2018, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-from-the-slut-shaming-is-the-way-we-live-deep-in-the-heart-of-texas-department/819817/350 "2018-08-29T03:02:23Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Not being a woman, I have no first hand experience with how much of this goes on. But I’ve spent a great deal of time with a lot of women over the course of my life. I’ve spent time with girls at school, around the mothers of friends at school, around the women my father dated after my parents split up, around my own mother and her mother, and my dad’s mother. I dated a lot of girls, some for a long time, and spent time talking with and becoming friends with their mothers. I was married and became close friends with my wife’s three sisters. I’ve worked for companies most of my life that had lots of female employees, many of whom I became pretty friendly with. There is a generation of young women in my family who I’ve been extremely close to all their lives and I’ve spent lots of time with them and their friends all through their lives, including their teens and twenties. “I am a man and naturally women would tell me if they were sexually assaulted, but since they haven’t they clearly weren’t. _Res ipsa loquitur_.” ---
**Author:** ![Nawth\_Chucka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nawth\_Chucka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nawth_Chucka)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2018, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-from-the-slut-shaming-is-the-way-we-live-deep-in-the-heart-of-texas-department/819817/351 "2018-08-29T03:52:52Z")
/snipped/ > [@Kimstu](#): > > It still seems to me that the appropriate response to rude and crass and mean behavior on the part of boys is for adults to clearly prohibit and discipline it, rather than to encourage girls to endure it with a soothing demeanor in the hope that it will eventually “evaporate”. > > And if we just want to give schoolchildren the general message that good behavior in oneself often inspires good behavior in others, we can easily accomplish that without loading it up with heavily gendered baggage about “ladies” and “gentlemen”. I see one of the early seeds planted in women that they can/should fix men; the idea girls should take control of boys for their own good starts young w/ the kind of message we’re all talking about. How many times have you seen a man being treated as a woman’s project? I know I’ve done it myself, thinking I had the responsibility. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2018, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-from-the-slut-shaming-is-the-way-we-live-deep-in-the-heart-of-texas-department/819817/352 "2018-08-29T04:02:22Z")
Hell, at least 75% of “bad boy charm” is the notion that “I can fix him!” (no you can’t). In a codependent relationship you have the Person Who Needs Saving and the Protector (usually male) or Fixer (usually female). The genderedness is a social thing and therefore varies\* but the relationship being unhealthy and exploiting what should have been a healthy trait (the intent to help others) is unchanging through time and space. - Cis-female, but I was raised to be a Protector, both because that’s what my mother wanted from everybody and because in my father’s culture, Noblesse Obligue doesn’t give a shit about groins. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2018, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-from-the-slut-shaming-is-the-way-we-live-deep-in-the-heart-of-texas-department/819817/353 "2018-08-29T07:13:14Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > You’ve been insisting all along that it’s a good idea to encourage girls to try to influence the behavior of boys by responding to boys’ “rudeness and crassness” or “rude and crude behavior” or “being mean” with a “ladylike demeanor” that “says they’re friendly and they like you as a person”. > > But you’ve been very coy about actually specifying what particular form(s) of “rudeness” and “crassness” and “crudeness” and “meanness” on the part of boys you think warrant this sort of conciliatory “ladylike”, non-“threatening”, “friendly” response from girls to make the boys who are engaging in that rude behavior feel “comfortable”. > > It still seems to me that the appropriate response to rude and crass and mean behavior on the part of boys is for adults to clearly prohibit and discipline it, rather than to encourage girls to endure it with a soothing demeanor in the hope that it will eventually “evaporate”. I don’t know that being coy is the correct way to describe my lack of specificity regarding the behavior of the boys at the school in Houston. We simply don’t know what their behavior was. Nor do we know the motives the school’s administrators had mind in putting that quote above the girl’s lockers. It’s just as possible that they saw the boys behaving in benign ways that the school’s administrators felt were ungentlemanly, such as perhaps ignoring a girl and walking past after seeing her drop her books on the floor instead of stopping and offering to help. Or ignoring them as they struggle to get large or heavy objects out of their cars. Or using foul or sexually related language in their presence. Treating them like guys, in other words. And perhaps some of the girls complained about this, because young girls don’t like being ignored by young boys and treated like they don’t exist, so they began to complain to the school’s administration that the boys don’t behave in a very gentlemanly way toward them. So it’s possible the school’s administrators recognized this and perhaps attributed a certain amount of it to what they perceived as unladylike behavior on the part of the girls, and felt that one of the ways the boys might be inspired to treat the girls in a more ladylike way would be for the girls to begin to behave in a more ladylike way themselves. Now clearly we don’t know that this was the motive either. So all we’re really doing is speculating. And in speculating there’s simply no reasonable way to be specific about certain imagined behaviors, and how or to what extent they should be addressed. > [@Kimstu](#): > > And if we just want to give schoolchildren the general message that good behavior in oneself often inspires good behavior in others, we can easily accomplish that without loading it up with heavily gendered baggage about “ladies” and “gentlemen”. As you might imagine, I don’t regard behaviors based on a person’s gender to be “baggage.” Like it or not, men and women and boys and girls are different in a lot of ways. And as such they react differently with members of their own sex than they do with the opposite sex. So a general message that good behavior inspires good behavior will not result in the same behavior coming from boys toward girls as toward other boys, nor from girls toward boys as toward other girls. The reason? Each sex has different ideas as to what constitutes good behavior, and each has a better understanding of their own sex than it has of the other. So even if everyone involved is trying to use good behavior, those behaviors will not be identical and they will inevitably result in misunderstandings, hurt feelings and resentment, with the result that we’re right back where we started. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2018, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-from-the-slut-shaming-is-the-way-we-live-deep-in-the-heart-of-texas-department/819817/354 "2018-08-29T07:23:45Z")
> [@Penfeather](#): > > “I am a man and naturally women would tell me if they were sexually assaulted, but since they haven’t they clearly weren’t. _Res ipsa loquitur_.” Is this really what you draw from that paragraph, that my being a man is the reason woman should speak to me of sexual assault? Or would it more likely be that in 55 years of spending time with women of all kinds and in sorts of ways, including romantic relationships and marriage, none of them in all that time has complained to me about the constant non-stop sexual harassment and assault that, according to **Kimstu** , statistics prove women experience as they innocently go about their daily lives? They have certainly complained to me about plenty of other things men do, so why not that? If daily life were like **Kimstu** suggests, I would expect women all the time to be complaining that _“I can never so much as set foot out of the damn house without some asshole grabbing my boobs or my ass or shaking his crotch at me and yelling obscenities.”_ But I’ve heard nothing like this in all in the 55 years since I turned 14 - 15 and began experiencing talk involving sex coming from the girls and women in my life. I’ve not even heard about wolf whistles or suggestive comments or excessive requests for dates. And I’ve certainly never seen any of this assaultive or harassing behavior myself, and I get out and around a lot and I always have. So my guess is that most women experience sexual assault of a serious nature pretty rarely if at all while out in public or otherwise going about their day, and that to whatever degree they encounter minor harassment and annoyances, it happens so infrequently, and they consider it so minor and inconsequential, as not to be worth mentioning. And that perhaps **Kimstu’s** “statistics” have been exaggerated by someone with an anti-male or woman-as-victim agenda to make it appear that women’s lives are considerably more fraught with abuse than is the case in reality. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2018, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-from-the-slut-shaming-is-the-way-we-live-deep-in-the-heart-of-texas-department/819817/355 "2018-08-29T07:27:55Z")
> [@Nawth\_Chucka](#): > > /snipped/ > > I see one of the early seeds planted in women that they can/should fix men; the idea girls should take control of boys for their own good starts young w/ the kind of message we’re all talking about. How many times have you seen a man being treated as a woman’s project? I know I’ve done it myself, thinking I had the responsibility. The responsibility? Or the desire to create acceptable behavior in a man you were inexorably drawn to? I’ve often heard or read that certain women are drawn to “bad boys” because they’re interesting, or they’re exciting in that you never know what they’re going to do next. Or that they make the woman in question “feel protected.” And what of women and teenage girls who find “nice guys” dull and boring? These are often the guys that a girl’s parents approve of. So where is society’s motive to “plant a seed” that nice guys are dull and undesirable? This is the first I’ve heard of any woman having become involved with a bad boy purely out of some subliminally instilled obligation or responsibility that she fix him. Is a woman _ever_ responsible for her own behavior in your world? Or are they all born as innocents who would remain ever thus if not for the self-serving manipulations perpetrated upon them by society or by men? Frankly, it’s beginning to look like you people view women as helpless, inborn saps, incapable of using their own intelligence or judgement and only arriving at any sort of belief or behavior because it’s been preordained and thrust upon them by outside sources seeking to use them to their advantage. In other words, _“I am woman, hear me roar!”_ is not the message coming through in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2018, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-from-the-slut-shaming-is-the-way-we-live-deep-in-the-heart-of-texas-department/819817/356 "2018-08-29T10:06:01Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > I don’t know that being coy is the correct way to describe my lack of specificity regarding the behavior of the boys at the school in Houston. We simply don’t know what their behavior was. No we don’t, but presumably you knew what **you** meant when you stated very definitely in post #200 that boys “may display rudeness and crassness” towards girls for reasons that you explained as having to do with boys’ feelings of “awkwardness and insecurity”. And you claimed that this was a situation “where ladylike behavior can be beneficial” in displaying attitudes of friendliness and liking towards the boys who are behaving rudely and crassly, so as to make them “feel comfortable”. So my question is very simple: what are some specific forms that you had in mind of this “rude and crass” behavior from boys that you think girls ought to respond to by being more “ladylike”? > [@Starving Artist](#): > > Nor do we know the motives the school’s administrators had mind in putting that quote above the girl’s lockers. It’s just as possible that they saw the boys behaving in benign ways that the school’s administrators felt were ungentlemanly, such as perhaps ignoring a girl and walking past after seeing her drop her books on the floor instead of stopping and offering to help. Or ignoring them as they struggle to get large or heavy objects out of their cars. Or using foul or sexually related language in their presence. Treating them like guys, in other words. That doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense either. Why should we encourage boys or girls to regard helpfulness, self-sufficiency or foul language as gendered issues? Why not just straightforwardly and consistently tell all students _“If you see somebody else struggling to cope with dropped or heavy objects, offer to help them. If they decline your offer of help, leave them alone. Don’t use foul or sexually explicit language.”_ ? Why are you so focused on trying to complicate this sort of simple and easy basic rule of good behavior by insisting that it needs to be directed in a gender-specific way? > [@Starving Artist](#): > > So a general message that good behavior inspires good behavior will not result in the same behavior coming from boys toward girls as toward other boys, nor from girls toward boys as toward other girls. > > The reason? Each sex has different ideas as to what constitutes good behavior :dubious: Well, they’re bound to if adults keep trying to drum it into them that basic good behavior is somehow fundamentally different for boys and girls. If we instead concentrate on promoting and enforcing standards of basic good behavior for everyone that aren’t loaded up with gender-specific criteria, then both sexes will probably have much more similar “ideas as to what constitutes good behavior”, despite their biological differences. After all, we seem to manage to teach both boys and girls many of the same standards of universal basic good behavior already: e.g., we teach them in day-care centers that you shouldn’t hit people and you shouldn’t take their snacks, or in grade school that you shouldn’t cheat off other people’s test papers or steal money out of their lockers, and so on. So I’m not as pessimistic as you seem to be about the feasibility of teaching both boys and girls other standards of universal basic good behavior, such as _“Be helpful and respectful towards other people”_, in a way that’s not intrinsically gender-specific. > [@Starving Artist](#): > > So even if everyone involved is trying to use good behavior, those behaviors will not be identical and they will inevitably result in misunderstandings, hurt feelings and resentment, with the result that we’re right back where we started. Again, it might help if you would give a specific example of what you think constitutes a situation where “everyone involved is trying to use good behavior” but which nonetheless results “in misunderstandings, hurt feelings and resentment” solely because of this postulated fundamental incapacity of boys and girls to correctly understand each other’s behavior. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2018, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-from-the-slut-shaming-is-the-way-we-live-deep-in-the-heart-of-texas-department/819817/357 "2018-08-29T10:08:58Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > No we don’t, but presumably you knew what **you** meant when you stated very definitely in post #200 that boys “may display rudeness and crassness” towards girls for reasons that you explained as having to do with boys’ feelings of “awkwardness and insecurity”. And you claimed that this was a situation “where ladylike behavior can be beneficial” in displaying attitudes of friendliness and liking towards the boys who are behaving rudely and crassly, so as to make them “feel comfortable”. > > So my question is very simple: what are some specific forms that you had in mind of this “rude and crass” behavior from boys that you think girls ought to respond to by being more “ladylike”? I have to admit I did skip that bit. Soooo… we are supposed to reward crass, boorish behavior with friendliness? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2018, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-from-the-slut-shaming-is-the-way-we-live-deep-in-the-heart-of-texas-department/819817/358 "2018-08-29T10:25:14Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Soooo… we are supposed to reward crass, boorish behavior with friendliness? Well, here’s the verbatim text of [the remarks in question](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21161492&postcount=200): > [@Starving Artist](#): > > But young girls are a bit of a mystery to young and even high school boys, thus young boys don’t know how to interact with them. So to hide their awkwardness and insecurity, some may display rudeness and crassness and try to appear that they’re not interested in female friendship or approval, while others retreat into themselves and try to have as little interaction with girls at school as possible. > > Now we come to where ladylike behavior can be beneficial. Girls who are ladylike are not threatening, they’re not foreign, and they’re not intimidating. Their demeanor says they’re friendly and they like you as a person. They make you comfortable, in other words. And if you’re comfortable with someone and you like them as a person, whatever motivation you may have had to withdraw from them or be mean to them evaporates. And so you begin to relate to them more as people and friends instead of as incomprehensible alien beings who probably disapprove of or look down on you, and out of that grows friendlier and more respectful (i.e., gentlemanly) interaction. I also have been asking **Starving Artist** why we should consider it a good idea to encourage girls “to reward crass, boorish behavior with friendliness”, and not getting any very persuasive answers. The rather vague and unconvincing thinking seems to be that it’ll work because boys want girls to like them, or something. Which of course, even if it were true, doesn’t address the fundamental unfairness of expecting girls who are treated rudely and crassly by boys to smile and take it with a “friendly demeanor” to make the boys feel “comfortable” in the hopes that maybe it will incline them to stop being so mean. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2018, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-from-the-slut-shaming-is-the-way-we-live-deep-in-the-heart-of-texas-department/819817/359 "2018-08-29T10:33:14Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > I have to admit I did skip that bit. Soooo… we are supposed to reward crass, boorish behavior with friendliness? Not reward it, ameliorate it. If you’ll recall, the idea is to _lessen_ the boys’ alleged crass and boorish behavior. How exactly do you think rewarding it will accomplish that? ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2018, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-from-the-slut-shaming-is-the-way-we-live-deep-in-the-heart-of-texas-department/819817/360 "2018-08-29T10:47:28Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Well, here’s the verbatim text of [the remarks in question](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21161492&postcount=200): > > I also have been asking **Starving Artist** why we should consider it a good idea to encourage girls “to reward crass, boorish behavior with friendliness”, and not getting any very persuasive answers. Huh, I have no idea why I wouldn’t have given you the same answer as the one I just gave **Nava** , but there it is. And now I’m out and will be until late tomorrow night. Just FYI for anyone wanting to discuss since I’m not usually here at this late an hour and the expectation may be that I just arrived. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-from-the-slut-shaming-is-the-way-we-live-deep-in-the-heart-of-texas-department/819817.md?page=17) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-from-the-slut-shaming-is-the-way-we-live-deep-in-the-heart-of-texas-department/819817.md?page=19)