Why do some people still use this as a valid excuse for a child/teen/adult male’s behavior?!
I’ve seen it used on news comments sections and other forums when they talk about classroom discipline (too strict or not enough), sexual assault on college campuses and some cases of assault.
Timmy interrupts the teacher and runs around the room? Boys will be boys!
Bob gropes Sally? Boys will be boys!
Nathan hits a person in the head with a beer bottle? Boys will be boys!
I know not everyone uses it, but it seems to pop up every so often.
I think there’s one valid way that argument is used: there is some research that shows that some children concentrate better after physical activity than others do, and some research shows that this group of kids is disproportionately male. If someone is talking about the need for more frequent, briefer recess periods, talking about how this might help some boys who otherwise struggle in school is an imprecise way of framing the conversation, but isn’t actively obnoxious.
As for the rest–do people still unironically use the phrase to excuse sexual assault? Where?
Gerry pees standing up. Boys will be boys!
Reginald is drafted by the army. Boys will be boys!
Archibald marries a woman had has 2 kids and a house. Boys will be boys!
Theodore is on the cover of Men’s Health magazine. Boys will be boys!
As for the rest–do people still unironically use the phrase to excuse sexual assault? Where?
Today 04:27 PM
London, England 2012.
I was called in to see my eleven year-old daughter’s teacher. She had kneed a classmate in the face.
Why? He was attempting to pull her trousers down.
The teacher expected me to talk to her about violence not being the answer.
The boy? Oh, he was just playing, boys will be boys.
I then explained to teacher, that my daughter had the right to do anything and everything to someone who was attempting to undress her against her will. If teacher had a problem with that, we could involve the head, the governors, and the police.
The boy had his gold stars! removed, as did my daughter.
He then had a healthy fear of my daughter, I told all the other mums, he was roundly rejected by all the class til school ended.
I hope that he learned something, since his mum was mortified, I believe he did.
Boys/men are biologically more aggressive than girls/women and people often use the comment ‘boys will be boys’ when faced with instances of aggressive male behavior.
I agree. “Boys will be boys” is an excuse you can use for Dennis the Menace. It doesn’t apply to “boys” who are in college. Probably not even high school.
Except that the term is used very selectively, typically to excuse or diminish certain kinds of aggressive male behavior.
Nobody ever says “boys will be boys” about being mugged by a knife-wielding urban black man, for example. But when a drunken college athlete rapes an unconscious drugged young woman, that’s a “boys will be boys” situation.
A proverb usage can hardly make the topic for a great debate. The idea is that one expects a male human being to be rather aggressive compared to a female human being. People may not say ‘boys will be boys’ whenever they learn about a man committing a violent crime, but they’re well aware that men are more likely to commit violent crimes than women.
So the proverb is used as a sort of excuse in certain situations. I still fail to see the topic for a great debate. It may be there and it’s just me but I think it hasn’t been stated clearly and convincingly.
(Actually it would be nice if there were a topic for a great debate in this thread because I’m quite fed up with the political and ideological topics in this section, but this is something personal and consequently quite irrelevant.)
It is supposed to be about Dennis the Menace type behavior and used when someone is overly upset about juvenile behavior. Assholes apply the term unironically to men and boys when we’re talking about inexcusable behavior.
This attempted defense was actually used by the defense attorney in the Glen Rock, New Jersey case. Reading about it is so disturbing I’m putting the wiki link in a spoiler box. DO NOT CLICK IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE HORRIBLY DISTURBED BY THE DETAILS!!
At eleven, children in the UK start secondary school, I believe that the school just wanted to kick the can down the road until he was the secondary schools problem.
It was almost summer, they were both leaving that school forever.
I could have fought for expulsion, but a longer summer holiday is not a punishment.
I spoke to his mother, she was genuinely horrified, my daughter was ok, she felt that since she kneed his face and the trousers stayed on, she had won.
I thought that the reaction of the other children, his mum’s tears, and his bloody nose, would be a learning experience.
Boys will be boys is utter crap, but he was eleven, and his mum dealt with him.
That was good enough for us.
Okay, I apologize. I didn’t believe that “boys will be boys” was still used unironically (Annie, your link is to an event more than a quarter century ago), but here we go, dracoi is essentially using that defense.
No, pantsing someone is not normal, acceptable pranking behavior. It’s upsetting and traumatic for kidsd who are victims of it. I’ve dealt as a teacher with the aftermath of a similar situation, and believe me, the victim was not in a position to laugh it off; it was something that affected her when she was around the perpetrator a year later.
“Boys will be boys,” perhaps, in the sense that humans and especially young humans will sometimes engage in awful activities because they don’t understand how awful they are. All that means is that us adults must impress VERY CLEARLY upon the perpetrator that their behavior is completely and totally beyond the bounds of acceptability.
If a few months of social ostracism are what it takes to teach this lesson, and if the kid in question therefore doesn’t escalate sexual assault (and yes, pantsing someone is a form of sexual assault) as he grows up, the price sounds pretty small.
Attempting to.undress someone against his or her will is by itself a serious violation of another person’s personal dignity and may constitute a form of sexual assault without being a prelude to rape.
Laying hands on someone without permission and forcibly trying to remove his or her clothes is never—never—an appropriate prank. That’s a very good lesson to learn.
I remember that case. Had they done it 20 years later, it would have been all over social media.
A decade before that, the football players at my school did the same kind of thing, and everyone knew about it. I found out about it from a GIRL I worked with who hung around that crowd and went to those parties! :eek: No, we didn’t have social media, but plenty of Polaroids were taken and passed around. At the time, people just didn’t seem to realize just how wrong this was, and my guess is that since the girls had been invited and showed up willingly, it wasn’t rape or whatever other euphemism might be used. :smack:
