Treat Her Like A Lady

This e-letter came to me yesterday. It is from Mike Bradley Ed.D- adolescent psychologist and frequent television consultant. I like him and appreciate his common sense approach to raising teens. This newsletter stopped me in my tracks. I have included the complete message, it's lengthy but how could I have eliminated any of the following?

For a minute I thought he was making this up, but as an adolescent psychologist I guess I should know have known better. Zach was laughing loudly as he described the wonderful dance for high school kids he had recently attended at the local community center. He especially loved the theme: CEO's and Corporate Ho's: "The boys all dressed like corporate leaders, you know, like bosses, and the girls all dressed like, you know, 'ho's' (whores). It was FANTASTIC," he raved. "The girls, they were all like, willing to really be ho's---you know what I mean? Not all of them, but a whole lot were. Even girls that would never do that stuff normally were, you know, doing that stuff that night. They were all into it. It was GREAT!"

I was stunned for a moment, not quite knowing where to go with this. Before me sat this great 16-year-old young man. A caring, intelligent, sensitive and hard-working kid who had just participated in the equivalent of a white supremacist rally, held at our local community center no less. Think not? Think again.

There is a secret war raging in this nation of ours, but it's not religious, racial or political---it's sexual. Our daughters are under attack, being programmed, abused, and raped in astounding numbers. Last year 20% of our daughters in high school were sexually assaulted. In our universities, every fifth coed was raped. Perhaps even more stunning in this supposed age of equality, 93% of these wounded women said nothing. Only 7% decided that what had happened to them was a crime of violence that required reporting to the police. Many felt too ashamed to report, believing that it was their fault ("I had too much to drink" and "I guess I was leading him on"). Others thought they wouldn't be believed. And a frightening number of them did not understand that they had been raped.

In my office too many of those young women have talked out this profound act of denial. Or perhaps this profound effect of cultural programming which teaches them to be sexual second-class citizens, creatures clearly worth less than the boys. "Did you say 'no' to the guy who forced you?" I asked one confused coed. "I said no over and over," she answered. "Actually," she softly cried, "I was sobbing and begging 'please,no; please, no', but he pinned me down and..." After she calmed a bit, I softly asked, "Can I ask why you didn't report it?" This smart, 20-year-old, post-feminist female locked eyes with me and asked, "Report what?" And before I could answer she added,"Isn't that just the way it's supposed to be sometimes? I mean, he didn't stab me or anything."

As I sat there looking into her pained, confused and tear-stained face, all the female-degrading lyrics, videos, phrases and jokes (been bitch-slapped recently?) of this culture seemed to suddenly swirl behind her head. I could hear the echoes of all her sexual programming resonating around her, now having led her to this bizarre place, a schizophrenic world where she could compete nose-to-nose with the most talented males by day, and then be brutalized by them at night---and never think that something was wrong: "Isn't that just the way it's supposed to be sometimes?"

If you don't like scary novels, don't read the report I'm about to cite. But if you've got a daughter or a son, you really must read the Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls (available online at www.apa.org/pi/wpo/sexualization.html). When you're done I suspect you'll suddenly begin hear the battle sounds raging around our daughters, and better understand how so many of our girls get taught to submit to sexual abuse like POW's.

What can we parents do to fight back? Talk with your kids, but use questions, not lectures. Watch their terrible shows and listen to their terrible music with them, and then quietly ask things such as, "Do you think these females are being portrayed as 2nd class citizens?" and "When a guy forces sex, is that about love or violence?" Dad, take your daughter out for a coffee and have a stumbling, stammering chat about what goes off in a teen boy's brain when he sees a girl dressed provocatively: "Honey, as an ex-14-year-old boy, I have to tell you that when they look at you dressed like that they are NOT thinking about love relationships.

"Mom, get a latte with your boy and ask him a question you don't want answered: "Son, in today's twisted world, girls are being told by their culture to have casual 'party' sex, and I know that some will approach you saying that all they want is sex. As a female I can tell you that girls are just not wired that way, regardless of what they say. And later on, they feel lousy about what they're doing, to a point where many of them become depressed, anxious, and even suicidal. Here's my question that I want you to not answer, but to please consider: 'Are you willing to hurt a girl just to have some sex?' Thanks for listening."

The key is not to have one marathon talk, but to have a thousand mini-talks with short questions designed to get our boys and girls to think, not long-winded answers that sound like morality lectures. Slowly help them to build their belief systems about what sex should really be about, and to value themselves accordingly. Give them a fighting chance in this scary, secret war.

To subscribe to Dr Bradley's newsletter or see his website- go to http://www.docmikebradley.com/

This is sobering but certainly something to consider regarding our children and their choices. chrissie