{"id":28248,"date":"2016-02-04T10:35:10","date_gmt":"2016-02-04T14:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=28248"},"modified":"2016-02-08T16:07:21","modified_gmt":"2016-02-08T20:07:21","slug":"why-empower-girls-if-you-can-just-protect-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2016\/02\/why-empower-girls-if-you-can-just-protect-them.html","title":{"rendered":"Why Empower Girls If You Can Just Protect Them?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

A while back, I posted about the sexist way our society approaches fathers, daughters, and dating<\/a>. You know, the whole \u201cI\u2019ll have to get a shotgun to keep the guys away from my daughter\u201d meme\u00a0and the \u201cI\u2019m not letting her date until he\u2019s thirty\u201d line. I know, I know, I\u2019ve had people insist to me that it\u2019s a joke<\/em> and I\u2019m taking it too seriously, but I\u2019m sorry, if it\u2019s a joke it\u2019s a sexist<\/em> joke that perpetuates sexist ideas about women and removes agency from girls and women.<\/p>\n

Take a look at this shirt:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This shirt lays out ten \u201crules for dating my daughter\u201d:<\/p>\n

1. Get a job
\n2. Understand that I don\u2019t like you.
\n3. I\u2019m everywhere.
\n4. You hurt her, I hurt you.
\n5. Be home 30 minutes early.
\n6. Get a lawyer.
\n7. If you like me, I will find out.
\n8. She\u2019s my princess, not your conquest.
\n9. I don\u2019t mind going back to jail.
\n10. Whatever you do to her, I will do to you.<\/p>\n

The central problem with all of these memes is that they ignore the daughter\u2019s agency. As parents, we need to focus on empowering our daughters rather than on cloistering our daughters. Even a focus on protecting our daughters doesn\u2019t work once they reach a certain age\u2014what\u2019s to stop a daughter whose father takes this approach from simply ditching her dad and running off with a guy, but without the tools to recognize abusive patterns or stand up for herself? We need to be teaching our daughters skills and putting agency in their hands rather than steamrolling their self-determination.<\/p>\n

Anyway, someone made a counter list, which you can see here:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This one reads \u201crules for dating my daughter\u201d and lists these:<\/p>\n

1. I don\u2019t make the rules
\n2. You don\u2019t make the rules
\n3. She makes the rules
\n4. Her body, her rules<\/p>\n

This approach, as you may notice, places agency in the daughter\u2019s hands and seeks to empower her. But what I didn\u2019t notice at the time I first wrote about these memes was that several weeks after my post on the subject<\/a> the Federalist posted an article titled \u201c3 Inadvertent Truths In Feminist \u2018Rules For Dating Daughter\u2019 T-Shirt<\/a>.\u201d The article, written by writer Mollie Hemingway, focuses on the shirt pictured above.<\/p>\n

\n

The shirt suggests that we\u2019re talking not about an adult woman but an underage daughter. And while I know we all thought we knew everything when we were 15, we in fact knew nothing at all whatsoever oh my goodness wasn\u2019t it embarrassing we were so foolish I\u2019m so glad we survived how did we survive.<\/p>\n

So the idea that parents wouldn\u2019t have dating rules during the parenting process is mostly just an abdication of parenting as opposed to some kind of feminist empowerment thing. It took me years to realize this but parents who didn\u2019t have rules for their teens tended to be parents who just didn\u2019t care enough about their kids to provide guidance.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I made that last line bold for emphasis because I\u2019ve never seen this nonsense idea stated so plainly before. This idea that parents either have rules or don\u2019t care about their kids is not at all reflected in my experience as a progressive\u00a0parent surrounded by other progressive parents. Notice that Hemingway contrasts parents who \u201chave rules for their teens\u201d with parents who \u201cjust don\u2019t care enough about their kids to provide guidance,\u201d as though the only way to provide guidance is through rules. Are there parents who don\u2019t provide guidance? Absolutely! Ironically, many of them are the same ones who make lots of rules for their kids, because rules are not the same thing as guidance<\/em>. Rules provide external control. I want to give my children internal<\/em> control. There\u2019s a difference.<\/p>\n

More than that, I believe that trust is mutual, and that communication is a two-way street, and that the two, if given a solid foundation during a child\u2019s early years, can carry a parent and child safely through the teen years. I know, my oldest is only six, but I know people with older kids who are taking this approach, and I\u2019ve seen it work. You don\u2019t need rules to raise a teenager, or a small child for that matter. You need parents and children who are willing and able to communicate about expectations, needs, and priorities. Are there parents who \u201cjust don\u2019t care about their kids who provide guidance\u201d? Absolutely. But this dichotomy between parents who make lots of rules and parents who don\u2019t care about their kids is bullshit.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m rather getting off track here. Next Hemingway says this:<\/p>\n

\n

But that gets me to the main reflection of this piece. While the shirt claims it\u2019s from \u201cfeminist father\u201d \u2014 it actually has some really good ancient wisdom woven throughout it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Do tell . . .<\/p>\n

1) Still Dad\u2019s Rules<\/strong><\/p>\n

You\u2019ll note that while the message is supposedly that the daughter makes the rules, there are in fact three additional rules after \u201cI don\u2019t make the rules.\u201d And what this really shows us is the importance of having a dad around to provide the guidance he kind of claims he\u2019s not providing.<\/p>\n

If the father is out of the picture or not around to discuss rules, relationship outcomes are in fact less desirable. As the\u00a0National Fatherhood Project<\/a>\u00a0puts it:<\/p>\n

Being raised by a single mother raises the risk of teen pregnancy, marrying with less than a high school degree, and forming a marriage where both partners have less than a high school degree.<\/em><\/p>\n

They also have data suggesting that the absence of a father is tied to greater risk of abuse, neglect, malnutrition, obesity, delinquency and incarceration, aggressive behavior and relationship instability.<\/p>\n

So just the presence of this father is a powerful, powerful message to the daughter and to those she might date. And his mere presence is a positive factor in all sorts of outcomes.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Wait wait wait wait wait. \u201cI don\u2019t make the rules\u201d is not the same thing as \u201cI don\u2019t provide guidance.\u201d The dad in in this meme is most definitely not<\/em> claiming to not provide guidance. The remainder of his rules make it very clear that he is all for<\/em> guidance, just not for making lots of rules\u2014remember, rules and guidance are not the same thing (see my discussion above). And seriously,\u00a0look back at the first meme\u2014that\u2019s not \u201cguidance\u201d, that\u2019s petty rule-making.<\/p>\n

Also, did I miss something, or are conservatives against early marriage now?<\/p>\n

Yes<\/em>, there are benefits to a child having two (or more) adults involved in their upbringing. This is why we should support marriage equality, and it\u2019s also why we should work to value family structures that look unlike the stereotypical nuclear family. For example, one of my daughter\u2019s friends who has a\u00a0\u00a0single mother\u00a0lives with both his mother and her\u00a0parents, who participate in raising him alongside his mother. Another of my daughter\u2019s friends who has a single mother lives with her mother and her aunt, and sees her father regularly on weekends. Conservatives would likely characterize both of these families as \u201cbroken,\u201d but I would rather focus on the diversity of family structures and on valuing all of the adults involved in childrearing, whether they are a child\u2019s biological parents or not.<\/p>\n

Besides, when a father is absent there are generally reasons for that. We can\u2019t compare the wellbeing of children in families where the fathers are present to that in families where the fathers are absent because there are more differences there than the absence of the father, because the father is generally absent for reasons, and those reasons need to be factored into any comparison. Are children with two parents in the home better off? No duh! Would children with one parent in the home be better off if their other parent had stayed in the home? In some cases perhaps, but very often no! That\u2019s the distinction conservatives can\u2019t seem to make.<\/p>\n

But look again at that last line:<\/p>\n

\n

So just the presence of this father is a powerful, powerful message to the daughter and to those she might date. And his mere presence is a positive factor in all sorts of outcomes.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The problem here appears to be that Hemingway is reading cultural ideas about the father as the protector\u2014and as someone boyfriends should be afraid of\u2014into a message that is trying to counter those cultural ideas. And it\u2019s true, we can\u2019t just wipe those cultural ideas from society. The meme could have been\u00a0signed \u201cFeminist Parent\u201d and worn by someone whose gender was ambiguous, but it\u2019s not, because it\u2019s trying to counter the idea that all fathers are overprotective assholes. And apparently you can\u2019t counter that meme without someone saying \u201chey look, a father is involved<\/em> in his daughter\u2019s life, that\u2019s scary to boyfriends!\u201d Lovely. Just lovely.<\/p>\n

But you know what? This isn\u2019t an \u201cinadvertent truth\u201d in a feminist meme, it\u2019s a sign that our society\u2019s sexism is deeper than either I or the author of the meme realized.<\/p>\n

2) Reinforces Women\u2019s Sexual Gatekeeping Role<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s totally controversial to say it, but it\u2019s also true, that women are generally the ones in a sexual relationship to decide what level of intimacy \u2014 and when \u2014 will occur. Here\u2019s an animated discussion of some of why that is:<\/p>\n