Does This Shirt Encourage Rape?

That’s what one irate mother in the UK is claiming after she saw a sweatshirt in a store with the phrase “Boys Will Be Boys.”

You may commence eyerolling at any moment.

According to this, Debbie Dee posted an irate Facebook screed in which she accused the chain store Asda (which is part of the Walmart chain of stores) of perpetuating “rape culture” by selling the sweatshirt. Her post has since been deleted, but the UK’s Telegraph has screenshots –

I know it’s a scary prospect, but let’s go down the rabbit hole of feminist logic (we’ll come back to reality soon enough, don’t worry) –

1. Rape is bad.
2. Women get raped by men.
3. Men were once little boys.
4. Boys are potential rapists.
5. BOYS ARE RAPE!

Or, we could go with the sane approach to the subject of the differences between girls and boys. For my part, I love what Dr. Christina Hoff Sommers has said multiple times about this subject – how our society has become feminized to the point where normal little boy behavior is practically criminal and such attitudes are actually harming our boys and young men.

Actually, I think the video itself is worth sharing again –

[arve url=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/OFpYj0E-yb4″]

Saying “Boys will be boys” doesn’t automatically mean that you’re condoning something as heinous as rape and it’s stupid to suggest that’s what the phrase means. It means that you recognize that boys have a certain way of looking at the world and that it’s different than girls. It could be something as mundane as a third grader drawing a picture of pirates swordfighting or telling a story about alien invaders.

I’m about three months away from giving birth to a little boy. I’m excited and nervous about the prospect of parenthood, just by virtue of the fact that it’s going to be a new experience for me and my husband. But some of these ignorant attitudes that people have about little boys concern me quite a bit. I sometimes worry that he’s going to have a teacher who punishes his natural boyishness in class or that some feminist mother is going to freak out because of some innocent comment he makes towards the girls.

I’ll teach my son right and wrong and to have moral values – but even boys with that kind of background are suspect as far as militant feminism is concerned. This world isn’t easy for anyone – male or female – to navigate without inevitably offending someone.

I hope my son is a happy and normal and playful little boy. I’m certain he’ll get into mischief from time to time and appropriate discipline will be necessary. But I’m not going to punish him for his natural boyish behavior, no matter what feminism’s deranged philosophy on boys and men might be.