Humor will not be tolerated!! -Portia

http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/87519/

So. Rubik touched a nerve.

Young women seem to not have the default assumption that we are capable of making wise decisions about whom we date.

One of the most damaging experiences of my life was when my parents interfered in this aspect of my life through totally out of the ordinary harassment and belittling of anyone I dared date. Though some of these relationships were great, some less so, I've never been confident in my own judgment, and whatever assertiveness I had was pretty much screamed out of me.

Add that to some already sexist norms borne of BYU's heady double standards, and I'm almost 30, and still have a really difficult time expressing what I want to romantic partners. Maybe this sounds minor, but it's caused me a lot of unnecessary grief.

I've been fortunate to never be in an abusive situation. Rubio's offhand joke about death threats sounds like a VERY BAD IDEA in a potentially abusive situation -- ironically, about the only damn time a sibling or parent is really justified sharing an opinion. (With their loved one; not the bf!!)

Everything from being "given away" to the inequitable societal treatment of sexuality gets under my skin.

But when it comes to a life or death situation in abuse, I can't laugh it off. Hope this helps someone.

Yeah...I feel like guys sometimes have this macho power fantasy about intimidating their sisters' boyfriends and don't realize how that plays into a lot of deeper societal issues for women.

Zedability wrote:Yeah...I feel like guys sometimes have this macho power fantasy about intimidating their sisters' boyfriends and don't realize how that plays into a lot of deeper societal issues for women.

https://twitter.com/broodingYAhero/stat ... 5217674240

I did Ryan North's To Be or Not to Be for book club a few months back, and it's a choose-your-own-adventure book, so we went around in a circle and took turns choosing. Except there's a bit where Ophelia's brother Laertes is blatantly slut-shaming her and she has the choice to either throw him out of her room or be like, yeah, I accept this double standard and what you're saying makes total sense, and ALL the ladies in my book club kept choosing to listen to Laertes. At each turn the author keeps basically saying, "really, is that really what you want to do?" until he finally just says, look, I gave you a million chances to tell this guy what's what and you didn't take it, so Laertes is going bye-bye and we're moving on with the story. It was a bunch of older church ladies, but still, I was like, I can't believe they're going along with this.

Even after all those chances!