How Not to Respond When a Boy Admits He Has Impure Thoughts
By Arti Teemant
At Timpview High the last two weeks, a situation about cheerleading uniforms is going viral. Reportedly a parent called administration at the high school, saying her son had impure thoughts about the cheerleaders in uniform at school. Somebody alerted the media and started throwing around words like “rape culture” and “body shaming” --two very socially prevalent phrases. Now that People Mag has picked up the story, others from the outside are happily looking in on a Mormon-heavy community, mocking us for our absurd obsession with modesty.
I, for one, think this is an unfortunate situation. We live in a society that is justifiably enflamed when women are wrongly objectified or threatened or lessened by a patriarchal society. However, we have to stop crucifying people for making mistakes that are fairly harmless and blowing them to rape proportions. Can we be a bit more strategic in our approach to these situations? There is a spectrum of severity when it comes to objectification of women. Rape is way on one end and making a comment without thinking first is on the other. This latter end of the spectrum needs education, not philippic rants making them out to be horrible human beings.
The boy who complained at Timpview about having impure thoughts about the cheerleaders in their uniforms is in a prime position to be educated about controlling his thoughts and looking beyond a woman’s body and seeing her as a person, not an object. Now, however, you better believe that this young man will never say anything out loud again when he thinks inappropriately about a woman again. Neither will any of the other young men having impure thoughts. They’ll be too afraid that People Magazine will breathe down their necks to get a statement and be epitomized as the worst male to ever think a thought about a woman in a short skirt. As we should know as a culture by now, creating change by fear is not as effective as good leadership, support, and education. Shaming men for having impure thoughts about women is not the way to respond. Straight forward discussions about mindset and old-timey beliefs about women and their bodies is a much better way to cultivate change in our young men.
Isn’t this blown up response part of the problem? I am a particular fan of the movement to allow women to love their bodies as they are and show them off if they want. I think it is liberating and akin to the bra burning of the past. But can we just imagine this situation as it probably actually happened?
Theoretically, Timpview gets a call from a concerned mom. “My son said he had impure thoughts about the cheerleaders today. Can we do something about that?” Administrators scramble to think about what should happen. “Should we not let them wear the uniforms? Well we don’t enforce our dress code here anyway, so why should we start now? No, let’s let them wear them, but talk to the cheer coach about it.” The administration talks to the cheer coach, and they say something like, “Hey, we’re concerned about the shortness of the cheer skirts. Is there something else the cheerleaders can wear to school on game days?” Instead of the sincere question, the cheer coach, as the protective woman she might be, heard instead: “Your cheerleaders are immodest, so they can’t wear their uniforms.” She circles the wagons and tells the girls they can’t wear their uniforms to school anymore. The girls freak out. News outlets are informed, and you know the rest.
I work at Timpview and that is how I see this story going. Principal Montero is not the type of principal who rules from his administrator seat on high, making decrees and banning girls from wearing their cheerleading uniforms. He’s a pretty informed, liberated member of the patriarchal system that generally runs schools in Utah. I doubt forbidding the uniforms was ever a real consideration, and if it was, I don’t really care. It’s just another opportunity to educate the men who run things. These girls have not been body shamed; they’re cheerleaders. If anyone could parade around in underwear-length skirts and pull it off, it’s these girls. The real issue here is that this boy who took his concerns to trusted adults seeking help (probably), will now internalize his thoughts and think he is an evil man for thinking them. That sounds to me like a dangerous complex for a man to be carrying around.
We have problems in our country with how we present and perceive women and their bodies. We need to protect the rights women have to love their bodies and wear what they like, absolutely. But we should definitely not be doing it at the expense of vilifying our men who are struggling to change their mindsets when it comes to women and their bodies. There are true villains in this world, but a boy admitting his impure thoughts is not one of them, yet. I have a feeling that if we don’t turn to educating the masses as opposed to vilifying them, we will only exacerbate the problem.
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