It just means he likes you...

LenaClaire

Someone sent me the link to this blog and it is making me re-think a lot of things I had always just accepted before now.

The gist is that we should not tell little girls that a boy taunting them or hurting them means that the boy likes them. That telling girls this, when they are young, is teaching the girls to equate being diminished, and hurt with love.

http://viewsfromthecouch.com/2012/02/12/you-didnt-thank-me-for-punching-you-in-the-fac/

If these same advice givers’ sons came home crying because another male classmate was pushing them, pulling their hair, hitting them or calling them names, I would bet dollars to donuts they would tell him to defend themselves and kick the kid’s ass, if necessary. They sure as **** wouldn’t say, “he probably just wants a play date”.

I will teach my daughter to accept nothing less than respect. Anyone who hurts her physically or emotionally doesn’t deserve her respect, friendship or love. I will teach my boys the same thing as well as the fact that hitting on girls doesn’t involve hitting girls. I can’t teach my daughter to respect herself if I am teaching her that no one else has to respect her. I can’t raise sons that respect women, if I teach them that bullying is a valid expression of affection.

I think they are right, but I am sure I have said the same thing in the past. I am going to try to stop myself from saying this in the future.

What do you think? Have you thought about this before?

lilmissprincess

Isn't this the basis of the first scene of "He's Just Not That Into You" ?

LenaClaire

lilmissprincess wrote: »

Isn't this the basis of the first scene of "He's Just Not That Into You" ?

I don't know, I have not seen it

wivy

strangley I was watching 'he's just not that into you' the other night and this idea was at the very start of the film... that the boy pulled the girls hair and the mom tells the girl that it means he likes her...
film shows how this fallacy then spirals on as women grow older...
very interesting!

Acacia

I don't really know where this "it's just because he likes you" thing came from. It just serves to confuse the child, really. If I had daughters (or sons, for that matter), I'd teach them to stand up for themselves from a young age, and that you should be treated with respect by everyone.

I think in some cases, parents use this line to make the child feel better about themselves but it just clouds the matter. When I was bullied by guys, I was under no illusion that it was because they secretly liked me or were "jealous of me" (another line my parents used, probably with the best of intentions.)They just thought I was an easy target (shy, studious, not exactly a girly-girl). There was a world of difference in how the treated me and girls they actually did like i.e. with respect, and not name-calling.
If my parents had just told me to tell them to fcuk off or words to that affect, it probably would have done much more good. The way it worked out was that I felt I was hated , looked down on, etc, but my parents would downplay the issue with well-meaning stuff like "He probably just likes you underneath it all." That said, when it got to a certain point, my parents went in to the school to have words with the teacher to try and sort it out. But yeah, as I said, it would have been better from the get-go to just stand up to them myself.

dearg lady

jujibee wrote: »

I don't know, I have not seen it

Lucky you, don't watch it, it's awful!

OT, it's a strange one, there are instances of 'playful teasing' that do indeed indicate a man is interested which would fit into this category. But no, for the most part, if a guy is being mean to you, he probably doesn't like you!

I think the whole premise of 'He's just not that into you' is something we're all completely aware of, but we choose to ignore sometimes...for the record it works both ways, I don't expect a man to do all the chasing!

as a side note, I got the book of 'He's just not that into you' free with a magazine a few years ago, great I thought, bit of easy reading chick lit, I'll take it on a solo flight with me. Settled in to the plane, took out the book...only to discover it's a bloody self help book, not exactly what I wanted for an entire plane journey! Out of sheer boredom I read most of it, never again!

Seomra Mushie

I always just took it as meaning a little boy was too immature to understand or deal with "liking" a girl and was maybe embarrassed by those feelings, especially if the popular playground consensus is still that girls are smelly and so this was the kid's way of giving the object of his affection special attention without losing his playground cred.

Kooli

Seomra Mushie wrote: »

I always just took it as meaning a little boy was too immature to understand or deal with "liking" a girl and was maybe embarrassed by those feelings, especially if the popular playground consensus is still that girls are smelly and so this was the kid's way of giving the object of his affection special attention without losing his playground cred.

Yeah but I think the point of the blog is that this doesn't really matter.

If he's being mean, girls shouldn't be taught to accept it as a compliment. Whatever the reasons behind it, the behaviour itself is not acceptable. The message 'it's just because he likes you' is saying that it kind of IS acceptable.

It kind of reminds me of the common thread in many tv shows and movies where the male love interest is an obnoxious tool, but if the girl sticks around long enough and puts up with all sorts of crap from him, he will eventually realise she's the one and somehow transform into a good, respectful guy through the sheer force of her loveliness. All very damaging messages about accepting poor treatment.

Seomra Mushie

While telling someone "He's just doing it because he likes you" isn't ideal, it's hard to explain the real reasons to a little girl, I guess. It's not really saying it's acceptable, rather "You're too young for me to explain this to you properly".

Think it's a bit alarmist to think this will mold girls to expect ill-treatment from men when they get older. I was told this as a child and I'm pretty zero-tolerance on being treated badly. It's not giving womenfolk much credit, IMO.

Lady Chuckles

I remeber being told that "a lot" in kindergarten whenever a boy would hurt me or push me over. Maybe that's why I hate the phrase so much

After a while it started to get on my nerves. Why wouldn't the teacher tell the mean boy off? I clearly didn't enjoy being pushed (sometimes it would even hurt) and being told that he "did it because he likes" me really didn't help. I wasn't comforted in anyway.

It was said with a smile, making me feel very small and helpless ... And I could certainly not grasp why you'd be mean to someone you like

Looking back at it, I still find it incredibly unfair. I'm almost certain, if I had been a boy being pushed over by another boy the teacher would've helped me out in some way instead of laughing it off.

Kooli

Seomra Mushie wrote: »

While telling someone "He's just doing it because he likes you" isn't ideal, it's hard to explain the real reasons to a little girl, I guess. It's not really saying it's acceptable, rather "You're too young for me to explain this to you properly".

Think it's a bit alarmist to think this will mold girls to expect ill-treatment from men when they get older. I was told this as a child and I'm pretty zero-tolerance on being treated badly. It's not giving womenfolk much credit, IMO.

That's great that you don't accept bad treatment. I'd like to think I don't either.

But I think if a women is raised in a culture that consistently tells her in subtle ways that bad treatment from guys is OK, normal or even a compliment, it can't then be a surprise if she internalises the idea that bad treatment from guys is OK, normal or even a compliment.

The fact is there are women who see things that way. And we can't absolve society's role in shaping these attitudes by saying all women should just 'rise above it', or that to suggest women are affected by these things is 'not giving them enough credit' (almost as if to say that if they were affected by these constant messages it would mean they are weak or stupid)

Jack B. Badd

"He's just doing it because he likes you" sounds a bit too close to "He only hits me because he loves me" for my liking. And I don't agree that's it's too hard to explain to a young girl why a boy is treating her badly. What do parents/teachers do when both children are the same sex? They don't resort to this rubbish, I bet.

Dr. Manhattan

I would have thought this stems from the inability of boys to express their feelings properly at an age when they become aware of girls, as a result of which they pay them attention in a somewhat similar way to how they treat other boys.

I've heard that said to boys as well. Lots of my friends were convinced that whenever a girl made fun of them, it meant she fancied him. I've even come across a grown man in work that still thinks that way!
If we stop saying these things to girls, we should stop saying it altogether.
Personally, I think that idea is pretty backwards. It teaches that everyone expresses their feelings in the same way, which is wrong, and it could cause people to get the wrong impressions in their adult life.