I couldn’t believe my eyes seeing this advice to teach young boys to hit girls so as to restore the boys’ self esteem and pride.
This is the kind of toxic belief that shouldn’t be allowed to proliferate here and yet is embraced with open arms by other users.
That boys can only regain their pride and self esteem by hitting girls leads directly to more violence against women and girls.
Perhaps look inward and consider why “self defense” means retaliation to you.
Difficulty: not bringing anyone else’s behavior into the equation
Perhaps you look inward and consider why you think DEFENSE means violence.
You charactized hitting back as self defense, not me.
Also good job on the “not bringing anyone else’s behavior into it” part. Well done. Masterful.
I characterised self defense as self defense. The person in the quote thinks taking karate lessons involves punching back and it’ll boost the kid’s ego, I’m pointing out that’s not real and what martial arts lessons really are. Self defense and martial arts lessons will teach the opposite. Don’t teach kids self defense means hitting back.
Don’t change your tune now. We can see your other comments clearly supporting teaching children to hit back. You even compared these 5 year olds to Palestinians fighting back against Israel.
I said “hitting back means getting hit first”, and then I talked about defending yourself when you talked about unnecessary violence. You quote the part calling for both self defense and hitting back and you’re focusing on the hitting back part calling it unnecessary violence. You are ignoring half the sentence you quoted, I’m pointing out the part you tossed away. I’m sure you can see my other comment explaining what the karate classes will do in opposition to what the person quoted thinks, I’m not changing anything.
You’re departing from the thing we’re actually talking about to try and justify your point of view, and we’re not letting you drag it off that way. The person who is pictured in the OP is not encouraging someone to take karate lessons and learn peaceful means of self defense or self discipline. They are suggesting a kindergartner be taught to hit back. That is the thing that was said and that is what we’re discussing. Deal with that or just stop replying.
I quite enjoy running into your comments. I know we haven’t always agreed in the past on some small things, but I do very much view you as an ally around here <3
To be honest, I just felt like some things needed to be pointed out, that we need to still be careful about some things even while we’re finally finding something hopeful to hold on to. Now that I’ve done that “civic duty” I’m ready to shut up about it, give my support to the best choices available, and hope my fears don’t come to pass.
And I’m explaining that that person is wrong and the lessons will do the opposite of what they think. They think the kid will be taught to hit back, I’m saying they will be taught actual defense, not to hit back.
You should have been replying to the person I was replying to above, then, and not to me. You didn’t make your position clear, you just came out swinging with overblown sarcasm and dragging Israel into it. Chill out; we’re probably on the same side of this.
Teaching 5 year old children to hit back is teaching them unnecessary violence.
And you clearly missed the other conversations around this topic. The problem isn’t karate. It’s asserting that this little boy can gain his pride and self-esteem back by hitting this little girl.
I have seen the other comments disagreeing with your take that handling a bully who happens to be a girl goes back to misogyny, yes, because you focus on “teaching a boy to use violence against girls is bad” while refusing to deal with the initial violence and are also completely blanking on the self defense part. How should a boy protect himself against a girl who’s hitting him? And no, I am not saying “punch back duh”. I agree that actually karate classes will teach a 4 year old to avoid getting hurt and keep control and will, in fact, boost his confidence, just not the way the other asshole person you were responding to thinks, and punching back won’t go well, short term or long term. The other person may be an ass thinking “they’re kids, it’s totally fine to hit a girl”, but learning how to handle a violent bully, girl or not, is not misogyny.