Jul 02 2008
Why Are We So Tough On Boys?
It’s a pretty cruel irony that the majority of autism diagnoses being made are for little boys. We live in a world that is generally less tolerant of boys than of girls, yet these poor boys have it even harder. Think about it. If a little boy and a little girl were engaging in the same behavior - throwing rocks, for example - the boy might get yelled at, chased, or maybe spanked by his parents. The little girl would probably be reprimanded more politely and gently, maybe a finger would be shaken at her. From a fairly young age, boys start to be challenged by their peers much more aggressively than girls (although that is rapidly changing, I’ve noticed). At my son’s age - seven - boys will already start with shoving and physical intimidation, whereas, I think it starts a little later with girls.
I remember having a conversation with my brother years ago about how he noticed his reactions to his own children. He said that he was often more stern with his son because he wanted him to ‘toughen up,’ while his daughter was often handled more gently. I think it is fairly typical from the earliest ages to want little boys to learn to ’suck it up’ and be strong, so we tend to treat them more harshly. When you’ve got a large population of boys who don’t understand the rules, well, we all know where that’s going.
I seriously wonder if Jarett Farrell had been an autistic girl if the outcome would have been different.
I don’t mean to say that autistic girls don’t have it hard or that girls in general don’t have their own challenges ( I have a daughter, too) but I think as far as tolerance goes, boys get a bit cheated.
And yes this has everything to do with the kid at the beach the other day and the young woman at the beach who made a gesture like she wanted to hit my son because he was kicking sand too close to her. The summer has started off pretty rough so far, but I don’t think it’s fair for me to just ban him from the beach either. We paid our dues and he has just as much right to be there as anyone else, without being threatened or called names because he’s autistic or because he’s a little boy.
We toughen up boys because we want them to be able to use force. Part of our definition of a man is (disciplined) force. If they are unwilling or unable to use force, we feel we have compromised them as men.
This is not going to change, but the consequences for boys (or men) who don’t fit in have to be addressed.