One lesson drummed into my young head was to never hit a girl. My father was adamant on that point.
"Son, you never hit a girl. No matter what she does, you never hit a girl."It was like being a bully, he said, only worse. It was ungentlemanly. It was unmanly. It was cowardly.
Why, my daughter asked, do men beat up on women? I don't know, I said. Perhaps they were not trained properly when they are children.
But what was proper in the 1940s and 1950s may not be proper now. Maybe it wasn't even proper then. Who's to say? Attitudes change. Relationships between men and women are markedly different today than they were when I was being taught how to be a man.
For instance, my father also told me to never run from a fight. It only makes matters worse. He said if he ever caught me running from a fight, I could expect a second whipping from him. Of course, he was talking about fights with other boys. When it came to girls, the rules were exactly opposite.
If a boy struck a girl, someone was sure to tell the teacher. To the taunts of his classmates, the boy would be led straight to the principal's office where he would catch a few behavior-modification licks on his bottom.
It also was wrong to play rough with the girls during recess. If a boy got too aggressive with crack-the-whip and caused a girl to cry, the boy was in trouble. Some girls would cry if you looked at them cross-eyed. Others were just as tough as any of the boys. But the rules were inflexible-- boys didn't hurt girls.
And all boys my age learned early that there was a price to pay for ill-chosen remarks or rash actions.
But just as boys were taught to never strike a girl, they also were taught that it was wrong to pick on smaller boys. Only bullies did that. Bullies ignored the rules, but the stigma associated with bullying must have kept it somewhat in check. Woe be to the generation that drops the stigma of bullying, or, worse yet, holds bullies in esteem.
For their part, girls were taught to be ladylike, which meant they played half-court basketball, didn't cuss as much as boys, couldn't open doors if a boy was nearby and wouldn't go all the way until their wedding night.
Gender roles have changed, as well as attitudes on most subjects. We hope the changes mean civilization is marching forward. But society has not made noticeable progress toward stopping men from beating women. Domestic violence needs to be brought out in the open. The judicial system must crack down on domestic violence.
But in addition, there needs to be a renewed effort to teach boys that it is wrong to hit girls. Children should be taught to respect themselves and others. And once again, boys who hit girls and who grow up to hit women should be branded bullies and cowards.
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