No the BOY was 11 and in 5th grade, the girls were in 8th grade, and probably about 14. I don’t know how you define sexual assault but if that boy’s brother stripped one of those girls naked in exactly the same way, with no other motive than to humiliate and embarrass them, it would probably be considered sexual assault.
I think it goes somethign like this: When a girl pees sitting down, it’s because she has to. When Diogenes pees sitting down, it’s because he wants to.
I was not home schooled, I wasn’t a bully, and I didn’t get bullied. In fact, I don’t remember there being much, if any bullying when I was in school. Maybe it was because I was attending Catholic school in the 60s, and most forms of anti-social behavior were pretty much discouraged by both the school and the parents.
It wouldn’t be the same if the genders were reversed. I’m not saying it would be acceptable, but it wouldn’t be the same. The reason it wouldn’t be the same is due to differences between the sexes that are more or less obvious to most people. When three girls pull a boy’s pants down, you think teasing; when three boys pull a girl’s pants down, you think assault. It’s an arbitrary, socially constructed double standard that only has about 40,000 years of human experience behind it.
Perhaps but, also recognizing the differences between the sexes, the damage done to this boy are in the same realm if it had been done to a girl.
I am not intending a “what is worse” argument. Just pointing out the damage the assault did to the boy are not to be shrugged off as, “Well, he’s a male, no biggie.”
We have almost no information at all since all parties want to protect the privacy of the kids involved. All we know is the sexes, ages and number of kids involved and what schools they went to.
My only evidence that the boy was probably less well-off than the girls is this. Here is (as far as I can tell) the website for the school the boy went to: http://rvp.leeschools.net/
Kinda sounds like you probably wouldn’t want to send your kid there if you could afford an alternative.
Also from the school website
It also has a list of Title I schools in the area. The list includes Dunbar High but not Dunbar middle school, which is where the girls went to school. Maybe things have changed but when I was a kid just going to the “poor kids school” made you something of a target.
This is apparently the school the girls went to. It doesn’t look special but it kind of seems like a better school than the other one: http://dun.leeschools.net/
Based on that I think it’s possible class plays some role in this.
Maybe the 11 year old did something awful to the 8 year old sister of one of the older girls and this was to teach him a lesson. Maybe that is why he wants to drop the whole thing. We really have no idea. That wouldn’t make it OK but it would certainly have some effect on how I look at the kids involved and the way it was handled.
I agree there is probably a double standard between the way incidents like this are perceived depending on the sex of the kids but using this case as an example is not going to prove much because there is so much we will never know. It is an interesting springboard for discussion though.
Actually, I loved sexual harrassment in the office as long as they were good looking. I was the only male in an office for 8 years and got plenty of sex there - even with married women.
Had a supervisor who loved to rub my buns as she was standing over my desk. I said the things I do for the job.
“If you’re captured by the enemy, don’t let them give you to the women.”
“When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains, And the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains”
No; this idea of females being harmless is not 40,000 years old.
Another thing that isn’t clear is how much of his clothing they removed. A lot of people here are assuming he was stripped naked but the article isn’t really specific. It says they took off his clothes but it doesn’t say they took off all his clothes. That might explain why they aren’t being charged for distributing kiddie porn. None of this is acceptable behavior obviously but if they got his shirt and shoes and socks and then stopped I can see how the punishment might be less than if they actually posted film of him nude.
Oh, OK. I withdraw that last comment then. I have a bunch of script blockers and stuff on my computer so the video didn’t show up at all until I went to look for it.
To the contrary, I think some women are quite harmful. When they want to tease or flirt, they pull your pants down. When they want to harm you, subtler and less confrontational methods are brought to bear.
Hyperelastic said absolutely nothing about women being harmless. In fact, he called it:
Which is more or less true. Women may be as deadly or deadlier than men, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t historically been considered the weaker, more defenseless sex.
If by “stealth” you mean “so unsubtle it leaps up and down screaming ‘Look at me! Look at me!’”, then I agree.
Has Dio been back to explain why the double standard is a good thing, and/or why it’s ok for other 11 year olds to be publicly stripped and humiliated by gangs of older children, but not his little girl?