How can we teach our daughters to deal with unwanted male attention? Feminist Advice Friday

A readers wonders how to support a 12-year-old experiencing sexual harassment.

A reader asks…

My friend’s daughter has the unenviable task of dealing with men’s unwanted attention at 12 years old. She is tall and developed early so could easily pass for 16/18.

So far it has mostly been things like a hand on her lower back and suggestive looks/comments, but she is so uncomfortable and at a loss as to what to do.

Of course, her mum is never around when this happens - they always wait until she is by herself.

We have suggested that she tries to embarrass the man by something loudly like “Why are you touching me?” But she lacks confidence to do that, and (let me point out again) she is only 12! It is so unfair that as girls we are socialised to be polite and then this ends up making us more vulnerable.

Have you got any advice or resources to support her and any other girls who are struggling with unwanted attention?

My answer

Before I answer this question in depth, I want to draw your attention to a very subtle turn of phrase that, I think, sums up the world girls are dealing with:

You say, “So far it has mostly been things like a hand on her lower back and suggestive looks/comments, but she is so uncomfortable…”

That but is doing a lot of work. It implies that what’s happening isn’t that egregious. But a [presumably adult] man touching and hitting on a pre-teen the moment her mother is out of the room is extremely egregious, and often the precursor to violent assaults.

Every rape, every domestic violence cycle, every act of violence against women starts with something less serious. We must take these apparently less serious violations very seriously, because they are what groom our beloved girls to accept more, to not tell, to think it’s their hormones or their emotions or their overreactions, to give him just one more chance. Protecting girls begins with teaching them to trust their instincts, and to not ignore the inconsequential stuff.

I’m not trying to shame you or make you feel bad. Obviously you understand this child is suffering, and want to help. That’s laudable. The subtle messages we give girls matter, though. As adult women, we’ve been enculturated into a whole bunch of bullshit. We can easily accidentally pass that shit on if we don’t become conscious of it then work to counteract it.

So the issue here starts with you, her mother, and all the other adult women in her life who want to support her. What harmful patriarchal messages have you internalized? How can you push back on them, in front of her, to model to her meaningful self-advocacy?

There is no magic bullet here. Because the people responsible for this reprehensible behavior are the men engaged in it. If there were a magic combination of words, gestures, or threats that could stop this, we would have ended patriarchy long ago. Male abuse is effective because nothing really works to stop it, and because the threat of worse violence lurks in every interaction with men.

Meaningfully helping her begins with the insight that she cannot fix this on her own, and you cannot fix this for her. You can only support her to make decisions that improve her safety.

Encouraging her to push back her need to be nice to men is important. As I’ve written before, nice gets you killed. Ideally, we want her to understand that she always has the right to say no, to ask for help, to scream, etc.

But being 12 is scary enough. This is a kid who might still be afraid of the dark, who has been out of diapers for less than a decade, who’s only known how to read for a few years. It’s easy to forget how little 12 is, and how much a 12-year-old still really deserves support.

So support begins with the adults. Some tactics the adults can use:

• Do not leave her alone with men known to be predatory.

• Report men who engage in predatory behavior. Even if they “mean well.” Even if they’re teachers, faaaaaaaamily, or clergy. The only way that men will ever stop this is if they have to begin worrying about consequences.

• Nurture relationships with men who understand consent. Work with the men she’s close to—such as a father or grandfather—to encourage them to talk to her about and model consent.

• Push back hard on negative comments about her early development, her body, her sexuality, etc. I write a bit more about that here.

Finally, I need you to know that this is not because of her “development.” It’s because she’s a woman living in a sexist world where women and girls are property and objects. She would be getting this attention no matter what her body looked like. The men are not mistaking her for an adult. They’re exploiting the fact that she is not an adult.

Please show up for her in whatever ways you can. Because a lifetime of this shit lies ahead.

Feminism is her best friend. It won’t stop the abuse, but it will empower her to rally together with other women, and it will help her understand that this is not her fault. Some good books for her age include:

• The Feminism Book

• We Should All Be Feminists

• Feminist AF: A Guide to Crushing Girlhood

Readers, do you have any suggestions?