A couple of months ago, I watched a movie that was made by Girls Club Entertainment. I was awakened to see how much disrespect women get as a whole because the “men” are trained to disrespect them. I cannot stand the phrase, “Oh, boys will be boys” because that gives the idea that boys can do what they want and it’s okay. My dance teacher, when I was in elementary school up through middle school, taught me and continues to teach me, “If he’s not treating you right…get rid of him.” When did it become okay for a boy to treat a lady with complete disrespect?
This past awhile ago I was in a situation where I was vulnerable. I was talking to a boy that I had met several months earlier. The entire time that I knew him, he was asking me out and I was not interested in him because I knew that he wouldn’t treat me the way a gentleman should. I wasn’t interested in a BF but I wanted a friend. One day, this boy asked me out AGAIN. I told him what I always told him – no. *This conversation is over text.* This time he became very angry with me. He told me that I, “ripped out his heart, stomped on it, and let it rot…” and started verbally harassing me. I told him, “Whoa! You need to learn how to talk to a lady!” A few minuets after this he told me that he doesn’t need to treat a lady with respect because a lady doesn’t deserve respect…umm, a lady does!! In his opinion a woman is over the age of 30, but any female under that age didn’t “deserve” any respect. Everything that my dance teacher taught me was going through my head and I expressed that to him. His last words to me was, “Just leave me the F*** alone.” I gracefully responded with the word “Ditto.”
What’s wrong with this picture is that if boys don’t learn from a young age to treat every lady he meets like a princess and respect they won’t learn how to treat anyone he proceeds to date when he becomes a little older. A few weeks after my “friend” and I had this conversation he fb messaged me asking if I was ready to apologize to him. Excuse me?? To him I was the one in the wrong because I, “Ripped out his heart, stomped on it, and let it rot.” I told him again that I didn’t want to date him. Then he gave me a spiel about how he’s “changed” and gave me a humorous unbelievable story about how he apparently had a girlfriend after we had our fight who hit him every time he was disrespectful and she almost dumped him because he didn’t open the door one time for her. Needless to say, I didn’t believe it but thought he just had a interesting story and he hasn’t tried to communicate with me since.
Of course, I cannot cover a general disrespect for women without briefly touching on sexual assault. Women are taught to watch their drinks when they are out, carry pepper spray with them, and not show too much cleavage because that may “increase their chances of being sexually assaulted.” We are told to take precautions to be “safe when going out” but when are men taught that they are responsible for their actions? When will the phrase be no longer “boys will be boys” but rather, ” boys are responsible for their actions, it doesn’t matter what she is wearing.” Women are taught what to do to avoid sexual violence, men are not taught to prevent it in the first place.
Lastly, I’ll write about young men in a better light. One of my guy friends was taught from an early age that “women are precious jewels” and there is a noticeable difference of how he treats women of any age with dignity and respect. When this young man reached out to me, I pushed him away some because I felt incredibly awkward with the way he was treating me because that was not something I had really experienced at that point in my life. I asked him why he was nice to me, and didn’t do anything to disrespect me and he response was simple, he said, “Jesus wouldn’t do that.” Wow! This was coming from a young boy! Yeah, he probably had “raging hormones” and most of his peers weren’t doing that. He treats every women at any age with respect and that is something that is not particularly common in this culture of ladies being portrayed in media and movies of being the “hot side kick.” You are probably thinking, “Well, he was only 13 when he said that, he probably has changed his way of thinking since then.” Nope. He still thinks and acts against the culture. If parent taught their boys how to respect a women from an early age with the parents modeling this the world would be immensely different for the better…especially for women.
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