Earlier today, I came across a blog post written by a blogger and mother titled, FYI ( if you're a teenage girl). To say I was flabbergasted would be an understatement. You see, I am the mother of two young girls and I take issue when another mother, one of boys, takes it upon herself to bestow her passive aggressive condescension onto the entire teen female population.
Dear girls,
...we have teenage sons,
Wow -- you sure took a bunch of selfies in your pajamas this summer! Your bedrooms are so cute!
I think the boys notice other things. For one, it appears that you are not wearing a bra.
I get it -- you're in your room, so you're heading to bed, right? But then I can't help but notice the red carpet pose, the extra-arched back, and the sultry pout.
So, here's the bit that I think is important for you to realize. If you are friends with a Hall boy on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter, then you are friends with the whole Hall family....we had to cringe and wonder what you were trying to do?
And now -- big bummer -- we have to block your posts. Because, the reason we have these (sometimes awkward) family conversations around the table is that we care about our sons, just as we know your parents care about you.
I know your family would not be thrilled at the thought of my teenage boys seeing you only in your towel. Did you know that once a male sees you in a state of undress, he can't ever un-see it? You don't want the Hall boys to only think of you in this sexual way, do you?
It is not that I think Mrs. Hall doesn't have the right to feel these things or even say these things, she does; her house, her rules. But, her letter to these girls is seething with misogyny. I don't know if I want to laugh or cry. I'm pretty sure that I want to cry.
Mrs. Hall takes all of the responsibility of her sons' sexual behavior and puts it on these teenage girls. Maybe you missed the memo, Mrs. Hall but we've all decided that it's better to teach our boys not to rape than to teach our girls to protect themselves.
Instead of writing a blog post letter to all these young girls that are not reading mommy blogs, hoping maybe their parents will see it and shame them into keeping their clothes on, why not teach her sons to unfriend these girls? Why not teach her precious boys to rise above it and just not look at the photos? Why blame the girls?
Mrs. Hall threatens to exile these girls from her sons' social media pages if they don't cover up their breasts and stop popping out their hips, but at the same time she has a photo of her sons' topless on a beach, puffing their chests out. Double standards much?
I also want to know, am I missing something, are these boys One Direction? I mean she wields the threat of social media exile as if her sons are God's gift to the world. Oh, wait, they are because they are boys and those topless girls are just sin waiting to happen.
I wonder would Mrs. Hall be so understanding if it were her daughter who was being threatened to be booted off of someone else's online island? Boot away Mrs. Hall, I am pretty sure no girl in the country wants to be anywhere near that island if you are on it.