Society just really seems to love a good display of strong paternal possessiveness over teenage girls, especially when it involves hypermasculine guy-on-guy violence.
Protective-father memes didn't appear out of the blue, they actually have several thousand years of history behind them encouraging paternal ownership of female sexuality. In ancient Rome, a daughter belonged to her father's clan until she was married off, whereupon she belonged to her husband's. Daughters were political tools to ensure profitable relations with other wealthy families, and as such, her virginity was her father's asset, to be carefully controlled until it was needed. This filial duty didn't really change for a couple of thousand years - in Shakespeare's plays, fathers are constantly controlling their daughter's sexuality to further their own power: Polonius warns Ophelia to stay away from Hamlet's advances, and Prospero has a frank discussion with Miranda's future husband about the chastity of her "virgin knot". Fast forward 500 years and honestly very little had changed, by the early 1900's women in almost all societies were expected to be virgins upon marriage, whilst men could happily hire a prostitute or two on his buck's night. Some slight advancements have been made recently upon the sexual revolution of the 60's and 70's, and the growing influence of feminism. But an entire civilisation's worth of patriarchal domination unsurprisingly still manages to seep into today's world.
With the widely held acceptance of the nuclear family, it often goes without saying that children are subject to their parent's control to a large extent for at least eighteen years. Regardless of issues with the historically heterosexual and Westernised nuclear family, it is interesting to note that somehow daughters are expected to submit to their father's control more than sons. Father-son relationships have always been characterised in books and films as being relatively equal, or with a sense of the father teaching the son how to win at life, such as Frank Abagnale Senior and Junior in Catch Me If You Can, or Vito and Michael Corelone in The Godfather. Along a similar vein, fathers are consistently portrayed to support their sons' sexual exploits - think Sean Connery and Harrison Ford sleeping with the same woman in Indiana Jones - whilst simultaneously condemning their daughters'. Understanding these historical and pop-media influences begin to clarify why there is a male entitlement to police and own female sexuality.
Because when a father tell his daughter that he will shoot her boyfriend, what he is actually saying is that she doesn't deserve autonomy over her own body, and must allow her father to claim ownership over her as a sexual being. Oh, and it also assumes she is cisgender and heterosexual. This idea of protectiveness may come from a reasonable place, such as the warranted fear of rape or sexual abuse. However warning a daughter against sex and men altogether has very little impact other than to encourage victim blaming for "not listening to her father" should she ever be abused, and moreover, this attitude is only acceptable if those same fathers educate their boys on consent and appropriate sexual behaviour. Very likely, the extent of education for the brothers of these girls is "get in there mate".
We undoubtedly live in a society which polices and censors women's sexual lives; slut shaming is rampant in all social circles, and there is a problematic obsession with female virginity. Fathers "protecting" their daughters from boys and sex is just another manifestation of society's underlying belief that women do not deserve sexual freedom, but what it most worrying is how we never call these people out; in fact, we celebrate them. It is extremely disheartening to think that our ideal image of a "legendary" father is one who will deny his daughter's sexual autonomy in the favour of outdated patriarchal traditions.
Protective-father memes didn't appear out of the blue, they actually have several thousand years of history behind them encouraging paternal ownership of female sexuality. In ancient Rome, a daughter belonged to her father's clan until she was married off, whereupon she belonged to her husband's. Daughters were political tools to ensure profitable relations with other wealthy families, and as such, her virginity was her father's asset, to be carefully controlled until it was needed. This filial duty didn't really change for a couple of thousand years - in Shakespeare's plays, fathers are constantly controlling their daughter's sexuality to further their own power: Polonius warns Ophelia to stay away from Hamlet's advances, and Prospero has a frank discussion with Miranda's future husband about the chastity of her "virgin knot". Fast forward 500 years and honestly very little had changed, by the early 1900's women in almost all societies were expected to be virgins upon marriage, whilst men could happily hire a prostitute or two on his buck's night. Some slight advancements have been made recently upon the sexual revolution of the 60's and 70's, and the growing influence of feminism. But an entire civilisation's worth of patriarchal domination unsurprisingly still manages to seep into today's world.
With the widely held acceptance of the nuclear family, it often goes without saying that children are subject to their parent's control to a large extent for at least eighteen years. Regardless of issues with the historically heterosexual and Westernised nuclear family, it is interesting to note that somehow daughters are expected to submit to their father's control more than sons. Father-son relationships have always been characterised in books and films as being relatively equal, or with a sense of the father teaching the son how to win at life, such as Frank Abagnale Senior and Junior in Catch Me If You Can, or Vito and Michael Corelone in The Godfather. Along a similar vein, fathers are consistently portrayed to support their sons' sexual exploits - think Sean Connery and Harrison Ford sleeping with the same woman in Indiana Jones - whilst simultaneously condemning their daughters'. Understanding these historical and pop-media influences begin to clarify why there is a male entitlement to police and own female sexuality.
Because when a father tell his daughter that he will shoot her boyfriend, what he is actually saying is that she doesn't deserve autonomy over her own body, and must allow her father to claim ownership over her as a sexual being. Oh, and it also assumes she is cisgender and heterosexual. This idea of protectiveness may come from a reasonable place, such as the warranted fear of rape or sexual abuse. However warning a daughter against sex and men altogether has very little impact other than to encourage victim blaming for "not listening to her father" should she ever be abused, and moreover, this attitude is only acceptable if those same fathers educate their boys on consent and appropriate sexual behaviour. Very likely, the extent of education for the brothers of these girls is "get in there mate".
We undoubtedly live in a society which polices and censors women's sexual lives; slut shaming is rampant in all social circles, and there is a problematic obsession with female virginity. Fathers "protecting" their daughters from boys and sex is just another manifestation of society's underlying belief that women do not deserve sexual freedom, but what it most worrying is how we never call these people out; in fact, we celebrate them. It is extremely disheartening to think that our ideal image of a "legendary" father is one who will deny his daughter's sexual autonomy in the favour of outdated patriarchal traditions.
Comment below x
Hannah
I think it' not as black and white as this , at times it would be difficult to draw the line essentially because we live in a world where rape culture is becoming more casualised and also we live in a world as you stated above, that is still condemning females sexualilty. So as a parent I would be worried about exposing my daughter to sexual abuse encounters, but at the same time I want her to have her freedom too.
ReplyDeleteIt all plays into context... can you honestly say you would let someone as young as 15 have their sexual freedom? I mean it depends on age, so yes when they are legal i think theres more room for it to come from a place that is more mature and of knowledge, but even then.. parents need to feel good about giving this freedom otherwise they will blame themselves for any negative encounters their daughters have with men '' for not saying anything''.
I think maybe the better thing to do would be to educate women AND men on these issues at a young age as much as possible, obviousy without traumatizing them because that is a real possibility too. It has to be at the right developing age. Because limiting someones freedom in any way.. only turns that person against you, the daughter wouldn't trust you or even want to come to you if anything DID happen. And it's very possible young people expose themselves to dangerous situations on purpose in order to rebel against the rule in the first place.
This article really made me think about this father/ mother role in sexual freedom..