Boys are actually human too
Sep. 5th, 2012 04:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lliiraContent note: sexism, rape culture
Vanity Fair has an article about Scientology auditioning Tom Cruise's next wife before he married Katie Holmes. It focuses on Nazanin Boniadi who, when she "failed" by being unable to understand David Miscavige's mumbling, was summarily dumped by Cruise through an intermediary. (Boniadi isn't just gorgeous, she also works for human rights with Amnesty International.) Boniadi was then punished by the Church of Scientology with three months' hard labor.
This post is actually not about Scientology or Cruise or even Nazanin Boniad, though I'm developing a girl crush on her. It's about a comment I saw that claimed Cruise's behavior looked like that of a "high school boy".
Dumping through an intermediary -- maybe. Though that's more middle school than high school. Not caring that a woman he was dating was sentenced to three months' hard (and humiliating) labor because the relationship didn't pan out? No way.
I realize that there are some vile teenage boys out there, and things seem to be getting worse in some ways. But I am tired of the idea that adolescent boys are all misogynistic, narcissistic abusers. It's part of the same idea that men don't have patience (another comment I see a lot), men can't be expected to care about feelings, men can't be expected to notice when a woman's upset, men are happy to live in filth, men are all really grunting cavemen with clubs. So women should just suck it up and stop having standards and hold with teeth and claws onto any man who doesn't physically abuse us.
Stephenie Meyer defended Edward removing Bella's truck engine by saying he was only seventeen years old, so what do we expect? Putting aside the fact that Edward's actually more like a hundred and twenty years old, I sure never expected any boy I knew in high school to be a controlling, abusive jackass. My first boyfriend was seventeen when we started dating, and the idea of him doing something like that is not comprehensible. For one thing, he knew nothing about cars. But mainly, the idea of him trying to stop me from seeing anyone I wanted to see is about as realistic as the idea of him deciding he didn't like sex. None of my male friends would have acted that way.
This infantalizing of teenage boys and men hurts everyone. Of course it does, because it's a lie. It is one of the longest-running, deepest lies there is.
Vanity Fair has an article about Scientology auditioning Tom Cruise's next wife before he married Katie Holmes. It focuses on Nazanin Boniadi who, when she "failed" by being unable to understand David Miscavige's mumbling, was summarily dumped by Cruise through an intermediary. (Boniadi isn't just gorgeous, she also works for human rights with Amnesty International.) Boniadi was then punished by the Church of Scientology with three months' hard labor.
This post is actually not about Scientology or Cruise or even Nazanin Boniad, though I'm developing a girl crush on her. It's about a comment I saw that claimed Cruise's behavior looked like that of a "high school boy".
Dumping through an intermediary -- maybe. Though that's more middle school than high school. Not caring that a woman he was dating was sentenced to three months' hard (and humiliating) labor because the relationship didn't pan out? No way.
I realize that there are some vile teenage boys out there, and things seem to be getting worse in some ways. But I am tired of the idea that adolescent boys are all misogynistic, narcissistic abusers. It's part of the same idea that men don't have patience (another comment I see a lot), men can't be expected to care about feelings, men can't be expected to notice when a woman's upset, men are happy to live in filth, men are all really grunting cavemen with clubs. So women should just suck it up and stop having standards and hold with teeth and claws onto any man who doesn't physically abuse us.
Stephenie Meyer defended Edward removing Bella's truck engine by saying he was only seventeen years old, so what do we expect? Putting aside the fact that Edward's actually more like a hundred and twenty years old, I sure never expected any boy I knew in high school to be a controlling, abusive jackass. My first boyfriend was seventeen when we started dating, and the idea of him doing something like that is not comprehensible. For one thing, he knew nothing about cars. But mainly, the idea of him trying to stop me from seeing anyone I wanted to see is about as realistic as the idea of him deciding he didn't like sex. None of my male friends would have acted that way.
This infantalizing of teenage boys and men hurts everyone. Of course it does, because it's a lie. It is one of the longest-running, deepest lies there is.
