A Letter to My Daughter About Young Men | Hacker News Reader

A Letter to My Daughter About Young Men

medium.com

65 pointseiffel30 comments

In short: don't look for (mere) strength, look for honor.

(As a side note: the author refers to high-schoolers as to a "pack" at some moment. To my mind, one of the most detrimental things modern schools do to children is packing them in large single-age groups, where jackal pack mentality grows easily, and there are no big guys to look at and emulate, nor small ones to care about and protect.)

I was in some kind-of experimental programs as a kid. In middle school, we had a "team" that we all followed with. Basically same teachers and it covered multiple grades. I really liked it. I had good friends in a grade lower, and I could be a part of some classes a grade over. But I never had the awkward in-wrong-grade feeling.

I have no clue what difficulties that put on the teachers, but as a student it was pretty nice.

This was hard to read. I know the author meant well, but I have a lot of bones to pick with this. The shortened version of my gripes is this: Don't teach your daughter to excuse casual misogyny and seek "honorable" men, for whatever definition of that you might have (there seems to be a latent message of "don't be a slut" in here too, which is also a big problem). Women shouldn't have to put up with men who see dating as a bloodsport and women as "prey", and men who conceptualize their relationship with women like this are so profoundly complicit with misogyny that I don't see how compassion would do any good. The author uses colorful analogies as stand-ins for things that are very cold and dark, and I don't see how this is anything more than victim blaming.

I'd rather read the letter from a father to his son. At least this person realizes that socializing men is part of the problem here.

I agree that women should not have to put up with casual misogyny. However that belief alone doesn't make the problem go away. In that vain, giving advice to your daughter that is pragmatic and acknowledges a problem isn't synonymous with excusing a problem.

My point is you probably shouldn't normalize this kind of behavior or advise your daughter to forgive it and steer men like this towards someone to mentor them. Women don't have an obligation to raise men they didn't help birth, and teaching them that they ought to promulgates misogyny of a different form. I understand this is meant in the spirit of "turn the other cheek", but this isn't really good advice unless you're already operating on the principle of good faith and equal standing. It's not even clear that this alleviates the original problem, since why would men who don't respect women be amenable to this?

Teach them to require consent and communication, and tell them they'll always have your support. Beyond that, don't get involved in what may or may not be virtuous behavior to you. Women inherit a lot of puritanical guilt over nonsense that parents project onto them.

I understand the desire to protect your children, and particularly your daughter in a world that generally values them less. But misogyny is a power dynamic that is reinforced by socializing women to normalize it and especially by socializing men to perceive their existence and agency as more valuable.

Who are these men who hunt women? Even metaphorically I've never seen or heard of such nonsense much less participate.

I feel that these articles are written to make the author feel good, telling scary stories of monsters to make themselves feel like a hero.

Fratty douchebros. Hard to miss in clubs and bars.

EDIT: I just realized that's not very descriptive, but all I can say is that the author is not alone in noticing them.

It's all in good fun if you do it. It is a little douchey, I'll admit, but it's harmless fun.

Would love to hear the reverse perspective (mother to son)

I am a mother of two sons. I raised them with the idea that affection required mutual consent. I was very big on that. At some point, I stopped worrying they would accidentally commit date rape due to a tragic misunderstanding. I also stopped worrying they would be molested or otherwise taken advantage of.

I have heard that where the English Bible says "The meek shall inherent the earth," the French says " The nonchalant shall inherit the earth." I prefer the French version. If you have clear and healthy boundaries, you can sidestep a lot of unhealthy expectations with little to no drama.

I was a full time mom for a long time. I cannot imagine writing a letter to my sons. I raised them. I know they got the memo. I don't need to leave something in writing of this sort.

That's what I expected: even a letter to your sons is focused on how to treat women and at best, focused on equal treatment.

The real letter from the mother I would have loved to read is "stay away from this type of woman" or "if a woman does X, she is someone you can build a life with". Just like this father did for his daughter.

No. Your bias is twisting my words. First, I said I would not write such a letter to my sons. Second, mutual consent is not focused on how to treat women. It is focused on how you get a positive outcome for both parties. It honors my sons as much as it does any hypothetical woman.

You are making me regret replying to you. I answered in good faith and your reply here feels like a smear campaign against me.

My original post said that I'd like to see a similar letter for a son from a mother. The equivalent letter would be dedicated to choosing a good woman. I don't think that's controversial.

You replied and said:

1. You don't think your sons needed a letter. 2. What you would teach them had nothing to do with choosing a mate.

So... I'm a little confused as to what you expected. You didn't even make a closely analogous post from the letter from the article.

I have seen very few women take up the challenge of teaching their sons how to choose a good woman and instead, it's about mutual respect which is totally uncontroversial and should be the case whether you are dealing with someone of the same sex or the opposite sex. So I don't see how it's relevant here.

Maybe you should think about whether you're really preparing your sons to choose well or just setting them up to be nice guys.

And then you ended up making it about your feelings.

Come on.

There are tons of articles covering this mindset. It's exactly part of the problem, "pick up artists".

What...

I find the tendency of a distinction toward "teach girls how to be safe" and "teach boys how not to hurt" to be dispiriting. Boys can be hurt, too.

Yep. That's why I wanted to hear what a mother would say. Looks like the intuition was correct based on the response. I guess this is a biological difference between men and women.

What does this have to do with computers/technology?

The posting guidelines to not limit NH to discussions of technology.

"Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."

Fake pretentious rubbish.

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