If You Want To Protect Your Daughters, Raise Better Sons

If we wanted to protect our daughters, we wouldn’t allow boys to fumble into adulthood, hoping our daughters aren’t prey in the process

Source: Getty

“If anybody tries to talk to you, you tell them you’re our little sister. Ok, Arah?”

This was my big brothers’ way of offering me their protection in my younger years. Where I grew up, being someone’s sister, niece, cousin, or daughter meant something. It meant you belonged to someone important, a man, to be exact. Emphasis on belonged to.

I was too young to fully comprehend my brothers’ concerns, but I wasn’t too young to notice how they behaved around women. I told myself if that was what they wanted to protect me from, then I guess I sort of understood their concern. My parents knew of my brothers’ antics, and while they didn’t praise their philandering ways, they certainly didn’t condemn them. Their daughters, on the other hand, were to be virtuous and pure, saving themselves and their bodies for their husbands (who would most certainly be worn out by the time they got them).

Eventually, I would grow old enough to identify the double standard in my parent’s parenting. My mother’s justification remained that the boys could care for themselves…