Let's teach girls to put up with violent boys

The BBQ Pit
81

First of all, this whole “people don’t agree with me so I’m taking my ball and going home” thing is a little distasteful. If you’re incapable of addressing the points that have been made, fine, but pretending that we’re saying things we’re not saying is tremendously dishonest.

You seem incapable of recognizing that there is a middle ground between what you appear to be espousing - “you must never strike anyone, ever, no matter what” - and what you keep trying to attribute to those arguing against you - “It’s OK to hit people.”

But if you truly believe that everyone else lacks imagination and competence, as you suggest in your posts here, tell me what a competent, imaginative person would do in the following situation:

Wesley is a high school sophomore. Eigth period gym class ended a little early today, so the boys in his class have extra time to kill before the bell rings. The kids are mostly unsupervised. Wesley is approached during this lull by another student, an athlete who is a little - though not enormously - bigger than Wesley. This other boy is feeling surly, and begins insulting Wesley, finally finding some pretense to challenge Wesley to a fight. Some of the bully’s friends gather 'round in a loose circle, laughing and cheering: “FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT.” No teacher in sight. Wesley knows that if he tries to run, the crowd - which wants to see a fight - will stop him. The bully shoves Wesley into a bank of lockers, hard enough that the back of Wesley’s head bangs up against them. It hurts. Bully’s coming forward again, definitely not to apologize. What should Wesley do?

If your answer is, “take his beating like a good little boy, then tell the teacher afterward,” then please explain why Wesley has no right to take active steps to avoid physical pain (and potential injury). Also, for extra credit, please tell us what Wesley is to do when he tells the gym teacher - the bully’s coach - and is told to toughen up.

And if you believe the scenario I’ve outlined above is anything like uncommon, then I submit to you that you weren’t paying a whole lot of attention in high school.

When the time comes, I’ll teach my daughter (and future children) that violence is almost always the wrong solution. I’ll teach them that in the wrong situation, hitting back can even increase the danger of that situation. I’ll teach them that it’s dangerous to hit people. But I will also tell them that if, in their judgment, hitting back is the only way to keep from being harmed, then I won’t blame them for it afterward.

Hitting is a tool. It’s a crude tool, and a crappy tool in 99% of situations. But if I find myself in the 1% of situations, if someone is coming at me with the intention of causing me pain or injury and I can stop them by hitting back, it’s a tool I will not abandon altogether.

82

Re: teaching my daughter to raise hell during an attempted abduction

We lived in a tough working-class neighborhood where we could afford a house & build equity. When sex-offenders are released from prison, they can’t afford houses in nice neighborhoods, so they rent in poorer areas. There was a child-rapist who was placed in a house on the same street where my daughter’s girlfriends lived and played, who would stand on his porch and watch them, or he’d walk a few blocks over the their shcool and watch kids get on and off the bus from exactly the legally allowable limit. Every day as she walked to school, my daughter passed by the home of Teekah Lewis where a large banner was hung from the porch.

There are billions of birds and very few of them get eaten by cats, but if I had a canary and a cat, I’d keep the canary in its cage.

83

And neither one of these is necessarily relevant to the OP.

The boy in the incident the OP described might have been acting as a bully, or he might not. We haven’t been given enough information to be able to tell. For all I know, it could have been bullying, or it could have been hyperactive brattiness, or it could have been an innappropriate-but-understandable response to verbal teasing or other obnoxious provocation by the girl.

Then the OP goes on to compare this to domestic abuse (“when they’re teenagers and adults and their boyfriends start slapping them around”). My understanding is that the appropriate response to something like this is to leave, or to tell the abuser to leave, or to call the police, or something like that, but not to hit back.

And this is different from the kind of violent assault or abduction attempt that catsix is talking about in post #72, above.

So there are more than two issues being mixed in this thread.

84

Sounds like a situation where Bill O’Reilly’s knack for stirring up the right-wing myrmidons can be turned into a force for good…

85

I kind of wonder how he translates it.

86

Thread from 2 years ago.

My response.

The only change in the above statement is that karate and judo might be seen as more offensive than defensive. The rest stands.

87

Meanwhile, these ornaments to the parenting profession take their own approach to teaching children to deal with violence, and get a stern telling off from the judge and a slap on the wrist. :rolleyes:

88

My question is this: why should someone be expected to take a beating, as it were? Blocking punches is good to know, but it sounds like a prolonged attack where your son still managed to get injured. Retaliation, as I see it, is someone shoving you or hitting you, but making no further attempt to harm you, and you shoving or hitting them back. In that case, if someone only hits you once but is not continuing to pose a threat, then reporting it to the authorities would be the best option. But if someone continues to hit you repeatedly, while you just try to dodge the punches or cover your face with your arms, seems like putting yourself in too much danger. If someone won’t stop hitting you, I don’t see how in that situation a good punch to the nose which stuns your attacker and allows you time to get away can be considered retaliation. To me, that seems like self-defense.

Once, I got jumped by 3 older girls, who kicked the crap out of me for several minutes while I did nothing but try to dodge their blows and protect my face. I ended up with a bloody nose and black eye and generally just got the shit kicked out of me. In hindsight, I would have taken a few swings at the biggest girl- hit the biggest one, and the others back down.

I think the problem here is that some don’t see a difference between self-defense and retaliation. The latter is done out of anger, the former is a means of preventing more harm and giving yourself a chance to get away.

89

You want me to argue with this mob of people who all seem to agree that, as Jayn_Newell said, violence is “the best, if not the only answer”? What am I supposed to say to that? It’s going to be ugly, because you’re totally wrong, and if that’s what you’re telling your kids, then you’re fucked up. Is that distasteful to you? So be it. But what you have done in your subsequent festering pile is far, far more distasteful that anything I’ve said:

Oh, this is rich. What you seem to be is incapable of reading. Talk about attributing words to someone that were never remotely said. Where did I say that no one should ever strike anyone, ever? I said when you hit someone, you should get consequences. THAT IS HOW THE REAL WORLD WORKS. You may choose to use violence in school or in the real world, if you see fit. But then you have to take whatever the punishment is for doing so, based on what violent action you chose to take and how much you hurt the other person.

Please show me how that means, “don’t hit anyone, ever.” I think it should be the last resort, when you are incapable of solving things any other way. That’s what you should teach kids. You should teach them to defend themselves but not get revenge or “end things,” certainly not with physical violence, and that’s what hitting in school very often is. And if you do hit, you will very likely be punished. If you can deal with that, do what you have to do.

Oh, you ARE the little storyteller, aren’t you? I am a teacher; I live in this environment every working day. I’m not going to buy into this idea that kids tell teachers they are being bullied and teachers don’t care, and nothing is done, that the Wicked Coach is backing up the bully, that the kid has no recourse because no one in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD will help him, so he must do violence. If that’s true, then the adults are fucked up and the kids’ parents need to get involved. If they won’t help him, then this is quite a dire scenario, isn’t it? And not very creditable.

What do you do when you’re being bullied? In my experience, parents who are remotely sane who advocate for their kids get results. Trying to beat up the captain of the football team who is bullying you is just going to get your ass kicked for you and then suspended. Your Wesley (is that you, Wesley?) character can and should defend himself. There is little chance that he would do any damage to the jock who is hitting him, and no one in the fucking world is telling people not to protect themselves or avoid harm. I think you lack perspective on this because your ass got kicked in high school. Hmm? That coloring your rather irrational and fantastical tale-telling here?

Bullshit. This may have been true when you were in school, but in my school, and any well-run school, kids are rarely if ever totally unsupervised. This is a major liability issue for the school, and you can get in serious trouble if you leave your kids alone. Especially if there’s a fight while you’re missing. You act as if teachers can just leave masses of kids alone for long perids of time, regularly. They can’t, and if they do, they are taking risks with their career as well as kids’ safety.

Damn, but there aren’t enough :rolleyes: s for people who twist other people’s arguments with this sort of a vengeance. You are a dishonest debator and need to go fuck yourself.

I submit that I’ve spent far more time in secondary ed settings than you have, and your story is fiction. It’s a classic tale of woe that is far from common. I’m sure tons of Dopers are going to now tell me that they WERE Wesley. Anecdote is not evidence. Bullying happens, but there are alternatives to violence in response. There are adults in every school and in most homes who give a shit and can act on bullying like this. Empower yourself, kid. Find an ally. Do not cower before bullies and do not turn into a violent, bitter person yourself because of them-- either reaction is giving them power to change you into a lesser person.

90

No, it’s not. In the real world, I’m allowed to defend myself, up to and including killing people if that’s the only way to stop them, without consequences.

And as a kid it always amazed me how detached from how things really are the teachers were.

Your disbelief won’t stop it from happening.

There are a lot of badly run schools, and supervision only makes a difference if the adults supervising care. Or aren’t actively rooting for the bullies.

You delude yourself. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s happening right in front of you and you are simply refusing to see; I saw that often enough.

Sometimes there are, sometimes there are not.

91

The ONLY potential problem I see is that either kid could CLAIM the other was bullying him/her first. That’s the only sound reason I could see for said policy.

However, in the case of physical violence, protect yourself first, THEN tell the teacher.

92

Usually the parent’s of kids that are bullies could give a flying fuck what their kid does. They didn’t get to be bullies and troublemakers because their parent’s have wonderful parenting skills.

93

I guess my idea of defense doesn’t mean I should sit back and take a pounding.

Marc

94

I was focusing on the parents of the kids getting bullied being involved. I have dealt with a bully in elementary school by being involved as a parent.

BTW - his parents were fine. They KNEW that their kid was a little shit. They told me when I first met them. They did NOT know that their kid was acting up yet again. This is not to say that their parenting skills are top notch, but they were very approachable.

95

Shame on the OP for framing this as a gender issue when it’s really an issue of how school officials deal with violence.

96

There are consequences, always. To deny that to make a rhetorical point is kind of ridiculous and I’m sure you know it.

I have intervened in many instances of bullying, and I know a lot of other teachers who have. You don’t believe that, fine, but your bitterness is showing. Get picked on much? Still smarts, eh? Grow the fuck up.

I was 5’0" and 90lbs in high school. I never hit anyone or got hit, and it wasn’t because I was so tough. The victim mentality? Doesn’t fucking help anyone.

Well, a hearty, sound fuck you to you and your mother, since you really have no right to cast aspersions on how I discharge my job because I don’t think kids should hit each other. Ad hominem much, asshole? I see it, and I deal with it, all the time. The operative words here are DEAL WITH IT. There are adults who will help you deal with it. Your completely nihilistic attitude about this is wrong-headed and betrays your bias. Also, undermines your point in a big way.

97

Repeat

98

And there, ladies and gentlemen, is the compassionate reaction of the good active teacher who always intervenes on the side of the victim. The paragon of modern edumacation, right there.

99

Is Der Trihs a child? If he were 12, he’d get a much more compassionate response, not to mention immediate and effective action. However, he’s just ACTING like a child. Fuck you too.

100

No thanks, I’m not into exhibitionism. It should be transparantly obvious that you are desparately and uninformedly trying to ignore the failure of the system of which you are a part. I wouldn’t expect any teacher to admit the complete inability (or unwillingness) of teachers and administrators to adequately respond to bullying.