My 10 year old son calls the "Free the **" bluff

My wife was on Youtube the other night, and ran across the documentary trailer for Free the ** - where women are calling out the discrimination/sexism of a man being able to walk anywhere **, but women can't.

Now, I'm not in disagreement with that position (I'd actually like it a lot). But, I'm also a practical man, and gently argued back on why it works in principle, but would have a hard time reaching velocity and suddenly seeing women running around **.

Well, that struck a bit of the woman in her, and she got a bit passionate, even getting to the point of being God's creation, and that we shouldn't be ashamed of our bodies, nor equating nakedness with naughtiness. (I agree with all this - I let her have her time on the soapbox- she was on a roll!)

And her amplified call-to-arms for ** everywhere was loud enough to interrupt my kiddo's video game in the next room. Naturally, the first question from his mouth is "why are you mad, mom?"

Now silenced, and turning several shades paler, she stood there for a moment. I piped in. "How come you can jump into the pool with just your shorts on, but girls have to be covered up over their chest?"

"Well, because they have **"

I told him that's what mom was mad about - that boys could take their tops off, but girls couldn't, even though our chests had the same parts. And you can see those parts on the boys on TV, movies, or even in the back yard, but women's chests were considered naughty and needed to be covered up. "what do you think?"

"Are they naughty?" he asked.

"Of course not" mom piped in. "Some people like to make us think they're naughty, but they're the same parts! And if you can allow boys to take off their shirts, why can't girls do the same??"

He nodded in agreement, and just like the darndest things kids say, he asked "so, does that mean you won't have a top on when we go swimming?"

Dead silence.

At this point, I had to pile on. "well? will you be taking off your shirt when we swim? Or how about when working in the garden, or even cooking dinner when it's warm inside???"

"will you?" my son asked. We were both chuckling at this time, as she wasn't about to take off her top right then and there. "But you said it was ok, and not naughty", I chimed in. The cold look I received let me know it was time to move on to another subject. I sent him back to his video game, and Free the ** is no longer a conversation.

Related Posts

More Related Posts