You'll be fending 'em off with a baseball bat!

[Heart_of_Dorkness]

In this other thread, someone made the comment that, while there’s nothing weird about commenting on little kids’ future beauty (“Gee, he’s going to be handsome!” “She’s going to be a real knockout!”), they do find it offputting when someone sees a beautiful daughter and jokes that her dad will have to get a shotgun or some such. I agreed. I also clarified that while I understand the impulse to protect people who genuinely seem less capable of taking care of themselves, it bugs me when someone automatically puts *all *girls in that category, and I think that kind of comment does that. And I suggested that if someone thinks their daughter is not as capable of taking care of herself as she should be, that rather than trying to protect her, it would be better to teach her how to protect herself. I didn’t expect this to spark an argument, but it did, so I elaborated:

@Heart_of_Dorkness

I’m not saying it’s malicious or misogynist, or that these dads think girls are less awesome than boys. On the contrary, they’d probably say their daughters kick ass, and they love them more than anything in the world, and that’s *why *they make the jokes about the baseball bats: it’s their way of saying they’d do anything to protect them. That’s sweet and wonderful. But surely they also love their sons, right? And would do anything to protect them, too? Then why no jokes about *their *dates? The only conclusion I can come to is that they feel their sons don’t really need to be protected in the same way.

Since the discussion continued, I thought it would be best to start a new thread. Here are the responses, and mine:

@Unintentionally_Blank

Because the number of girls that can benchpress 200 lbs are few and far between. Because Dads don’t like the thought of their girls becoming sexual things. Because the libido of teenage boys is legend and outstrips the development of their brains by several years. Because fear is a powerful motivator.

You understand that these are all blanket statements and as such aren’t worth much.

They have to protect the girls FROM the boys. THATS why it’s stated that way.

Right. That’s the joke. Boys are horndogs, and girls are not (or at least, their dads would prefer to believe they’re not), and, since boys can typically overpower girls physically, dads need to put the fear of death into the boys in order to keep their daughters safe from their lewd advances.

So why does this kind of joke bug me? Well, you nailed a few of the issues right off the bat:

@Unintentionally_Blank

It does not, in any way, acknowledge that girls have raging hormones, too.

…and I’d say, not only does it not acknowledge it, it denies it. It hinges on the idea that if anything untoward happened, it would be against the girl’s will.

@Unintentionally_Blank

OR that they might initiate something that would scar their Daddy’s impression of them,

Which is not cool. Unless, of course, Daddy’s equally uncomfortable with his son as a sexual being. If he’s just generally squicked out by the idea of his children doing the nasty (I mean with other people!), then that’s understandable. After all, he bottle fed them and diapered their precious butts, fer chrissakes. But if he’d be fine with seeing his son become an adult, while unnerved by seeing his daughter do the same, then that’s a problem. A girl is not damaged, sullied, or lessened in any way by having sex, any more than a boy is.

@Unintentionally_Blank

or a host of other loaded things.

Like the fact that such comments are only made if the girl is pretty, because ugly girls don’t get dated, much less raped. Yeah, that’s kind of… loaded.

@Unintentionally_Blank

Doesn’t make it right, doesn’t make it wrong. It just is.

Well, there, we disagree. I think it’s wrong when boys and girls get such different messages about sex from their parents - or from their teachers, their church, or anyone, for that matter. I also think it’s wrong to give girls the message that they need to be protected, rather than that they need to protect themselves. I mean, I have heard of rape. I fully understand wanting to protect one’s daughters from it. *I *want to be protected from it. And I know that on average, boys can overpower girls, and so if they wanted to rape a girl, they probably could. But first of all, I’d like to think, and Dopers (men particularly) tend to agree, that most guys *wouldn’t *want to. Secondly, the fact that rape happens does not mean that every guy should be treated as a potential rapist. Thirdly, even if dad is literally standing at the door with loaded weapon, his daughter may still get raped. Unless he escorts her through the entire date, once she and the boy are alone, it’s up to her to protect herself. And she’s a lot less likely to get raped if she knows what she can and should do to protect herself.

@Unintentionally_Blank

And frankly, with single parents, joint custody, Bobby’s got two mothers, I wonder if it’s really a standard thing anymore.

No, I don’t think it is standard. I even said (in the other thread) that I’m *not *talking about all fathers. All I’m saying is, the (few?) people (women do, too) who make “fend off the boys with a bat” jokes are implying that girls can’t take care of themselves and need to be protected.

You might say, Well duh: girls get raped far more often than boys, so clearly they *do *need to be protected, right? But boys get murdered, assaulted, and robbed far more often than girls, all of which are far more common than rape. I’d argue they could use a little protection, too. Not from their dates, perhaps, although that certainly happens. Just from the entire rest of the world.

@Unintentionally_Blank

I reserve the right to sit down with my Boys and say: “You sully her reputation and it’s not HER FATHER you need to worry about.”

Would that help even things out?

Nope, not in the least. That just reinforces that the boys are the potential perps and the girls are the ones whose reputations would be ruined. How about, “If you ever force someone to do something they don’t want to do, you’ll have to answer to ME!”

And a quickie:

@CookingWithGas

How many daughters do you have and how old are they?

Zero, and therefore, zero. I know, I know: when I have daughters of my own, then I can tell dads how to feel about their daughters. Because then, I’ll understand the fear of letting my little girl go off with a stranger who might ruin her. And I’ll understand why this fear is justifiably greater than the fear of sending any child, son or daughter, off into the world to do anything else. And I’ll understand that it actually is better to try to protect her than to teach her to protect herself.

I’ll have some kids and get back to you.

[Cat_Fight]

So then you won’t be attending the Daddy-Daughter Purity Ball?

@Heart_of_Dorkness

You might say, Well duh: girls get raped far more often than boys, so clearly they *do *need to be protected, right? But boys get murdered, assaulted, and robbed far more often than girls, all of which are far more common than rape. I’d argue they could use a little protection, too. Not from their dates, perhaps, although that certainly happens. Just from the entire rest of the world.Nope, not in the least. That just reinforces that the boys are the potential perps and the girls are the ones whose reputations would be ruined. How about, “If you ever force someone to do something they don’t want to do, you’ll have to answer to ME!”

I think the difference in stats is that, AFAIK, girls are more likely to be assaulted or murdered by someone they know, love and trust (like a boyfriend, husband or ex). So while doing all the right things – growing up in a good area and avoiding drugs, alcohol, gangs, bad neighborhoods – might be good advice for a boy to stay out of harm’s way it can’t really help a girl who’s got an abusive boyfriend with a squeaky clean reputation and a charming manner.

But I do think it’s sad and it does seem to fit into the non-advice boys are given. There was an SDMB thread quite a while back in which the males were asked what they’d been told about sex by their parents (including cautions about pregnancy, STDs, their reputation, etc.). IIRC, for quite a few of them the answer was ‘Zip’ or along the lines of a condom and a wink (something I’ve seen with my female friends’ brothers – one actually had to go out with hers, and he was two years younger!). I find that tragic. And I find the whole cliché of the gun-toting dad pretty creepy and, often, borderline incestuous.

[Unintentionally_Blank]

The problem here is separating anecdote from media from ‘accepted truth’.

I have 7 year old boys. I’ve had no girls. I can’t really comment on how I’d behave with a daughter, what I can tell you is: It feels like I was changing diapers and chasing around toddlers about 25 minutes ago. When they’re dating age and can ‘get into trouble’…it’ll seem like it was about an hour and a half from driving mom to the hospital for the delivery.

Will we be ‘modern, educated, fair, sexually neutral’ in our teachings? That’s hard to say. ‘Don’t get anybody preggers’ may be the most complex command we can drum into their hormone addled, thought-vacant heads.

There’s a BIG difference between ‘This is bad parenting, I’ll never do it’ and how you act when you’re in the trenches, being a parent.

What’s funny is: I still remember feeling the way my kids to when they do stuff…only now, I have the benefit of being a parent and am saying the exact same things I told my kids despite the fact I swore I’d never be that way when I grew up. Perspective is everything.

Okay. Your daughter is going out on a date with a boy. You don’t know him, you don’t know his predilections, his beliefs, and you certainly don’t know the expiration date on the condom in his wallet. You have 3 minutes contact with the boy. What do you do?

“You touch my daughter inappropriately, I’ll take a bat to your knees.” is pretty effective shorthand in setting the tone of his relationship with you.

[Arnold_Winkelried]

Dear OP - you forgot to mention one important biological difference, namely that girls can get pregnant and boys can’t. And there are a lot more single teenage mothers raising children by themselves than single teenage fathers.

[Boyo_Jim]

First of all, let me say the “beating them off with a bat” IMO refers to 'suitors", and ultimately sex. It is about protecting your offspring from sex, not simply any kind of forseeable danger.

With that in mind:
How many men are raped outside of prison?

How many women are raped outside of prison?

I think there’s the basis of paternal protective feelings right there.

Then throw in that men remember being boys, and how even the ‘better’ ones would do almost anything short of rape to get in a girl’s pants.

THEN think about that even with consensual sex, women are taking almost all of the physical risks from pregancy to the likelihood of catching STDs like AIDS. I really couldn’t say whether that’s the case for all STDs, but AIDS is the killer, and it is far more likely to transmit from men to women than vice versa.

AND THEN think about how many men and boys abandon pregnant women or new mothers.

[Jimmy_Chitwood]

@Boyo_Jim

First of all, let me say the “beating them off with a bat” IMO refers to 'suitors", and ultimately sex. It is about protecting your offspring from sex, not simply any kind of forseeable danger.

Well, right, except not your offspring, protecting your female offspring from sex. I think that you actually encapsulated the OP’s point in that phrase.

With that in mind:
How many men are raped outside of prison?

How many women are raped outside of prison?

I think there’s the basis of paternal protective feelings right there.

Or maybe, to some extent at least, the product thereof, which is why this isn’t necessarily an answer.

Then throw in that men remember being boys, and how even the ‘better’ ones would do almost anything short of rape to get in a girl’s pants.

THEN think about that even with consensual sex, women are taking almost all of the physical risks from pregancy to the likelihood of catching STDs like AIDS. I really couldn’t say whether that’s the case for all STDs, but AIDS is the killer, and it is far more likely to transmit from men to women than vice versa.

AND THEN think about how many men and boys abandon pregnant women or new mothers.

Do you have a cite for the ‘almost all the physical risk’ of AIDS? I’ve never heard that.

But again, that point about how men remember being boys is a potentially troublesome one, because it still sets up a very specific sexual dynamic, which you could charitably call wooer and wooee or whatever, or which you could call predator and prey. However you talk about it, there’s definitely an actor-object relationship involved. It seems like that’s what the OP is troubled by, and I think that’s a fair point.

[Boyo_Jim]

According to Wiki the risk per act is double to women over men for heterosexual sex. I’ve seen several other claims (and I’ll do some more looking) that only about 1% of AIDS victims are men who cought it from heterosexual sex with women.

As far as your other comments go, I’d have to say the OP is extremely fuzzy about what the specific point is. Kind of an ongoing discussion of another thread, but the question seems to involve why dads in particular seem so much more protective of daughters than sons.

As to why the ‘joke’, if you can call it that, is particularly bothersome to the OP, I really couldn’t say. The OP suggests it implies a double standard, but it seem to me it also suggests an understanding of the reality, that the risks to girls are much higher, and therefor they should in fact be more protected.

This might even be worth it’s own thread. Should teenage girls be somehow more sheltered or protected than boys because the risks to them are greater? Is this a sexists attitude? Even if it is, is it necessasrily incorrect?

[Boyo_Jim]

Another chart from the CDC. If I am reading this right, about 13% of the men who contract HIV do so through “high risk heterosexual sex” (that is sex with a person known to have HIV, or known to be at high risk of it. Known to who – it doesn’t say). Compared to 80% of women who contract HIV.

Something I didn’t know until looking for this is that transmission via lesbian sex is so rare that it isn’t statistically quantified.

[Heart_of_Dorkness]

@Unintentionally_Blank

There’s a BIG difference between ‘This is bad parenting, I’ll never do it’ and how you act when you’re in the trenches, being a parent.

That’s true. But I think there’s also a big difference between changing your mind on “I’ll never let my kid do X” and changing it on “I do not think girls should feel dirty or guilty about having sex” or “I do not think all boys should be treated as potential rapists.” I suppose it’s possible I might be persuaded under some bizarre circumstances, but I really can’t see it happening.

@Unintentionally_Blank

Okay. Your daughter is going out on a date with a boy. You don’t know him, you don’t know his predilections, his beliefs, and you certainly don’t know the expiration date on the condom in his wallet. You have 3 minutes contact with the boy. What do you do?

“You touch my daughter inappropriately, I’ll take a bat to your knees.” is pretty effective shorthand in setting the tone of his relationship with you.

I’d agree that it certainly sets the tone of his relationship with me, but I’m not sure it would accomplish much else. Certainly, any guy who would rape my daughter is already well aware that this behavior is frowned upon in certain circles, and as such, carries risks, including being maimed or killed by his victim’s vengeful family and friends. My saying so is not going to be news to him, nor is it likely to dissuade him, I’d think. What it might do, though, is run off decent guys who would never consider raping her, but might have been interested in a little consensual smooching, and are now afraid to come within 10 feet of her. It also stands a good chance of encouraging my daughter never to introduce her boyfriends to me and sneak around behind my back. It seems like it might be more helpful for me to try to get to know the guy, so I can learn about his predilections and beliefs. Then, if he seems to be a bad guy after all, I can express concerns about him to my daughter, or even forbid her seeing him if it came to that, and she can’t just blow me off with, “Oh, you just hate everyone I date.”

I mean, I totally understand the impulse: girls run a much higher risk of being raped, *and *have a higher risk of being raped by someone they know… someone like that little weasel sitting right there! You see the risk, and you want to say or do whatever you can to prevent it. But my point is that threatening the guy is going to do a lot less (if anything at all) to prevent rape than teaching your daughter things like “Don’t be afraid or embarrassed to say ‘no’ or fight physically”, “Alcohol and drugs impair your judgment about risky situations and people”, and so on. Teach her to protect herself, rather than trying (probably fruitlessly) to protect her.

@Arnold_Winkelried

Dear OP - you forgot to mention one important biological difference, namely that girls can get pregnant and boys can’t. And there are a lot more single teenage mothers raising children by themselves than single teenage fathers.

@Boyo_Jim

First of all, let me say the “beating them off with a bat” IMO refers to 'suitors", and ultimately sex. It is about protecting your offspring from sex, not simply any kind of forseeable danger. <snip> THEN think about that even with consensual sex, women are taking almost all of the physical risks from pregancy to the likelihood of catching STDs like AIDS. I really couldn’t say whether that’s the case for all STDs, but AIDS is the killer, and it is far more likely to transmit from men to women than vice versa.

AND THEN think about how many men and boys abandon pregnant women or new mothers.

I want to point out that I think it’s important not to conflate rape with *all *sexual activity in this discussion. As I’ve said, it’s perfectly logical to be afraid of your daughter being raped, and somewhat understandable, although I think totally counterproductive, to want to threaten every guy she dates in order to prevent it from happening. And it would be silly to have the same level of fear about your son (unless he’s gay, but we’ll leave alone for now).

But if we’re talking consensual sex, then I can’t understand why I should be more concerned about my daughter having sex than my son. (We’ll put aside the whole “purity” angle for a moment, since no one seems to be going there.) I agree totally that sex, consensual or otherwise, is absolutely a riskier proposition for women than men. But as far as I’m concerned, if my son gets a girl pregnant, then he is exactly as responsible for whatever happens as she is. And yes, he’s at a lower risk of AIDS and other STDs, but certainly not no risk at all. But even if we took as a given that sex is only risky for women somehow, I’d think you’d want to threaten your daughter, if anyone. I mean, if guys are horndogs who will jump a girl’s bones if she bats an eyelash, then it makes a hell of a lot more sense to me to put the girl in charge of saying “no”, rather than trusting that the boy’s fear of you will hold back his surging tide of teenage lust. Not that threatening your daughter would be a lot more effective than threatening her date. Again, I’d have to say that the best way to go is to teach her the risks, and teach her to protect herself in the way you think best, whether that’s encouraging safe sex, espousing abstinence (good luck with that), or something in between.

@Boyo Jim

As far as your other comments go, I’d have to say the OP is extremely fuzzy about what the specific point is. Kind of an ongoing discussion of another thread, but the question seems to involve why dads in particular seem so much more protective of daughters than sons.

As to why the ‘joke’, if you can call it that, is particularly bothersome to the OP, I really couldn’t say. The OP suggests it implies a double standard, but it seem to me it also suggests an understanding of the reality, that the risks to girls are much higher, and therefor they should in fact be more protected.

I’m not fuzzy about the point, although because it has been a kind of wandering discussion, I’ll try to sum up:

The “joke” is bothersome (I wouldn’t say “particularly”) because it reflects the attitude that girls need to be protected from having sex while boys do not. There might be several reasons behind this attitude. As I see them:

1. Good girls don’t want sex, and if they want it, or worse, *have *it, they’ll be sullied and tarnished in their daddy’s eyes. Boys, on the other hand, are expected to want and seek sex.
   I hope I don’t have to explain why this is not okay. I guess it might be “normal” for some dads to feel this way, but it’s not healthy, and definitely not healthy for your daughter or son to hear. This has been alluded to in the discussion, but it seems like no one’s really on that bandwagon, so I’ll leave it at that.

2. Girls are at risk of being raped and so they need to be protected from boys.
   As I’ve said, this is more understandable to me, because parents naturally want to protect their kids from harm, and because there’s a disproportionate risk of rape for girls, they feel more protective of the girls in that regard. But it’s still problematic, for a couple reasons. Not only does it encourage girls to view all boys as potential rapists (which isn’t helpful or fair to either sex), it tells girls they can’t protect themselves and therefore need to be protected by someone else. But truth is actually the opposite: the only person who can prevent a rape from happening (besides the rapist, and he doesn’t seem so inclined) is the victim, by not getting herself into risky situations, or by getting herself out of them.

3. Girls face the risk of pregnancy and higher STD rates, and so they need to be protected from having sex.
   Again, somewhat more understandable, in the sense that it’s natural to feel more protective of those at greater risk. But as above, the only person who can prevent a girl from getting pregnant or catching an STD is herself. The fact that there are greater risks involved doesn’t mean we should prevent girls from making choices (more so than boys). It means we should teach them the risks and how to avoid them.

@Boyo Jim

This might even be worth it’s own thread. Should teenage girls be somehow more sheltered or protected than boys because the risks to them are greater? Is this a sexists attitude? Even if it is, is it necessasrily incorrect

Sounds like a winner. Do it up!

[Terraplane]

Regarding the saying, I always assumed it was because older people understand better than young girls just what a young guy will say to get some. I’m sure girls want sex at that age too but I can’t remember any situations in my teen years where a girl professed her undying love for a guy just to get laid and then, after she got what she was after, dumped him and bragged to her friends about how he was such a dumbass and a really easy lay. I saw a lot of situations exactly like that when the genders were reversed.

It’s shitty but it does happen, a lot, and I think it’s reasonable and wise to both warn and to look out for it. If you’re the parent of a boy you have to be careful about what he’s getting into as well, but I think girls using him just for sex is probably pretty low on the list.

[chela]

For the most part I think the phrase is a cutesy way of letting the world know you are the gatekeeper. In a not so cutesy way I sometimes get a skeevy feeling that the Dad is really saying aren’t I bad ass who has a hot daughter the world wants to fuck. To me , sometimes, it implies the daughter is naive,clueless and about to make a bad choice with the first dude she wants date, that her father has a violent tendency which may very well scare away the decent fellows altogether. Or conversely a Father who expresses violence as a means to solve a problem, will end up having a daughter who looks for a mate with the same trait?

I wonder how does the implication of the bat really help a young woman make wise choices on the dating scene and how to protect herself when Dad ain’t around.

[Unintentionally_Blank]

Or, you know, folks are putting WAAAY too much thought into a trope.

[Jimmy_Chitwood]

@Unintentionally_Blank

Or, you know, folks are putting WAAAY too much thought into a trope.

Yes, thank you. And some refuse to put any.

[Unintentionally_Blank]

There’s a whole nother side of this we haven’t brought up:

Perhaps the Father’s a prick and overly protective because he doesn’t want to put his illegitimate grandkids through school quite so soon?

[Jimmy_Chitwood]

And he thinks that the most effective way to keep his daughter from having a child is to threaten all the young men nearby not to go forcing her to get pregnant?

I know you’ll be offended if I think about this too much, but maybe that says something about his perspective on his daughter’s capacity to make a decision about that herself.

[Unintentionally_Blank]

It would take more than that to offend.

[Freudian_Slit]

I think what I hate most about it is the feeling that, “I’m protecting my property from damage.” It’s the idea that girls are in need of being protected because they need to stay intact or pure or something. And I think it’s an idea that’s still here even in our culture–why are there Purity Balls for fathers urging their daughters to not have sex till marriage, whereas there aren’t any equivalents for mothers and sons, or even fathers and sons?

[Unintentionally_Blank]

Be sure to be upset at the father in law paying for the wedding. It’s the modern equivalent of a dowry.

[BigT]

I just want to point out something that may be glossed over, though it may have just gone without saying.

The whole point of that saying is to say that the prettier girl is more likely to get hit on, and be hit on by the type of guys that just want to brag ala Terraplane. But, even if we leave that last part out, it’s the idea that all girls can only handle a certain number of suitors, and that the the prettier one will have so many suitors she won’t be able to handle them all.

[kittenblue]

Gee, I always thought the saying about having to beat them off with a stick (which I’ve heard applied to boys, as well) was just an indication that they were so attractive that there would be a lot of boys (or girls) swarming around, like moths to a flame, vying for attention, and you’d have to use a stick to make a path through them. I never thought of it in the sense that every guy would want to rape her…or that girls shouldn’t enjoy sex. Live and learn, I guess.