The recent discussion of a seemingly harmless and positive meme  has prompted me to try to acknowledge and address this phenomena where people from the same socio cultural and economic backgrounds can have such polar opposite views.  Also, the phenomena of quick judgement on the pages of social media while in real life sharing the same basic core values.

The meme is

Boys will be boys respectful and responsible for their actions

Boys don’t cry. And that’s ok

Act like a man. A human. Be kind and be yourself.

 

As a result I was accused of being extreme and not being able to find a ‘golden middle’  with the following arguments:

 

The first argument is that civilized boys do not grow up to being men and this causes chaos because they will surely loose to the brutes who are not educated and don’t play by civilized rules.

Men should act like men.  Women’s equal rights movement turned boys into pussies.

A belief that there are two genders and everything in between is a disorder.

Men who are polite are less likely to rape a woman.

 

Now if you care to imagine me in person sitting with a cup of tea or a beer and having this discussion in person and try not to put a label across my forehead as a liberal agendist. That’d be nice.

Here is what the meme I posted means to me, mother of one boy and two girls (as if this should give me more credibility or expertise on the matter than someone childless or a parent of just boys).

My boy was born a boy.  Just like my girls were born girls.  According to scientists (not just something I believe) sexuality is a spectre.  This is nature and not something I can control or teach (I e “Act like a man…”).  There will be boys who are not interested in cars and girls who weight lift regardless of what the main stream society thinks is feminine or masculine.  I don’t believe that this can be encouraged but at the very least it can be accepted and not stigmatized, because it won’t change things and won’t make these girls like knitting better than bodybuilding.

I do not need to keep telling my boy to be a man, because he is one.  However qualities like kindness, respectfulness, sense of responsibility, open mindedness do need to be taught and reinforced.  They are not gender qualities but (as it said in the meme) human traits.  I also don’t believe in the phrase “boys will be boys” .  The phrase that triggered the most outrage implies that boys are, naturally, these naughty creatures who will behave badly because they were born boys.  It has been used prolifically to excuse acts of aggression and should not have this kind of power of entitlement.  People don’t act badly because they are boys or girls.

The idea that if men only were raised ‘to be men’ with good manners then they would not rape is confusing.  Psychopaths are known to be exceptionally well mannered, which doesn’t stop them from murder.  Good manners have nothing to do with respect for another human being’s rights to life.  And according to the first argument to my meme ‘civilized boys are pussies’ (does that mean good manners?) will succumb in battle with non civilized brutes.  So which one is it?  Neither meme nor I said anything about raising children without manners (no I don’t consider good manners a sign of pussiness).  On the contrary, I strongly believe that respect and caring for fellow men is something that should be taught absolutely.  Only then will see people (yes both girls and boys) getting up for pregnant women and elderly on the subway and holding doors for each other.

Speaking of the argument that civilized pussies will lose out to the non-civilized brutes.  I think history is cyclical.  We did have a certain renaissance period after the wwII and made significant progress.  We have entered a period of global unrest, which I hope we will be able to emerge a better civilization without stooping down to the level of brutes.

In conclusion, I believe in people’s rights to their own opinion.  I do expect people who know me to return that favour and exercise a portion of good will towards me and my opinions without pigeon holing or attribution.

 

 

meme (meme – an idea or behaviour which spreads from person to person. It usually now refers to copycat videos and images shared via the internet. From the Greek mimhma (“mimema”), which means “a copy” or “something copied”. “  The word was coined in 1976 (well before the internet) by the scientist Richard Dawkins in his ground-breaking book “The Selfish Gene”. As scientists often do when they want to name something, Dawkins sought help in ancient Greek: “ ‘mimeme’ comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like ‘gene’. I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I shorten mimeme to meme.”)