Whatever additional background or details surrounding this incident come out, this young woman has done a service to her community with her response. I imagine that the guy who got stabbed may think twice about pulling up another woman’s skirt in the future and so will any other boys in his vicinity. Perhaps the parents of sons should advise their young boys that it is not only morally wrong to treat young women this way, it can also be dangerous to their physical well being and rightly so.
You might want to check with an inner city school teacher before lauding the girl’s response. Might have a much better idea of the likely repercussions for this girl. I would not always assume a happy ending. Yes, the boy’s actions were dreadful, and she had a right to defend herself, if that is what she did. But there are other preferred responses to this situation, so we certainly should not be encouraging this one. Knives and scissors are particularly dangerous as they can so easily be turned against one with greater upper body strength.
Why does anyone think that a boy pulling up a girl’s dress is somehow harmless and OK? What about this action isn’t about humiliation & provocation? Why does anyone think that humiliating and provoking someone is OK, but defending yourself isn’t?
No one has said the boys actions are ok. No one
“Why does anyone think that a boy pulling up a girl’s dress is somehow harmless and OK? What about this action isn’t about humiliation & provocation? Why does anyone think that humiliating and provoking someone is OK, but defending yourself isn’t?”
I haven’t seen one person say this. As a matter of fact everyone has said it’s not OK. Why is it that when people have said the response could have caused serious injury, you assume they are ok with the boys action. You would have been OK with serious harm or injury?
“Could have” caused serious injury. Not did.
Even if she did, it was self-defense. I’m guessing if she wanted to, she probably could have hurt him worse than she did.
Women are forever in a no-win situation. If they don’t fight against sexual assault, it’s “well, why didn’t you fight back?” if they do, it’s “wow, what a psychotic overreaction!” Personally, if those are the two options, I want victims to go for the psychotic overreaction.
Exactly.
Honestly, I don’t know what is wrong with people who celebrate violence that could have serious repercussions for both parties. Scissors are a weapon, they can be deadly. If you need to use them or a knife to protect your life, have at it. I guess if the teenager had access to a gun (a lot of guns in that area, by the way) and just grazed the boy, even better, right? She didn’t cause any permanent damage, and he won’t do that again.
And pretending that anyone is saying the young man’s behavior is just fine because you don’t agree with a violent response (unless it was attempted rape or fear of serious harm) is just that…pretense.
I think we can do a better job of training both appropriate behavior and responses than for anyone to have a psychotic overreaction. I was in Dallas last weekend on business. It happened that the NRA was there too. 80k visitors, most presumably armed. Plus I suppose some percentage of the local populace is routinely armed as well. So while I didn’t have any incidents, there is no way I would have waived around a scissors on a city street had this happened to me. As another posted noted, parts of Memphis are very heavily armed as well, and aggressive responses by those armed have left kids dead for small things. Be smart in responding.
In the discussion revolving around the UCLA basketball players who got themselves into trouble by stealing in China, a number of folks here came to their assistance using the ‘undeveloped and immature’ brain defense. They had an inability to discern consequences or the wrongness of their actions. They succumbed to group/peer pressure.
If adult, college aged men can be excused for theft (taking something that isn’t yours, violating someone else rights and all because you just happen to want to do something and feel there’s no reason you are no entitled to do so) couldn’t we give both of these true KIDS a break. If anyone has undeveloped and immature brains it would be this age group.
Which is why I still wonder where the teacher was in this situation. There are all sorts of things we teach in our classroom, both openly and by what we allow or don’t (and when the “don’t” things happen, we’re back to teaching openly). Only some of what we try to convey are academics.
Many will then say, “but schools shouldn’t have to teach these life lessons.” Maybe not, but some kids don’t get them at home or elsewhere and then there are others who might get the exact same lesson at home, but many of us know that moms and dads (or guardians) tend to not know a thing at this age. They only get smarter after grandkids are born and age a little.
I’m not at all against teaching life lessons in my classes. It’s something I do all the time and it might even be more important than Algebra or Chemistry or the lesson of the day.
“It’s equally easy to stab someone’s jugular or an eye with scissors by accident during a chase”
Yet it didn’t. She scratched him.
When the boy was sexually harassing the girl by flipping up her skirt, it’s equally easy for his hand to slip and grope her inappropriately resulting in a sexual assault… yet nobody else seems to have mentioned this as a possibility or concern. Again, we’re very concerned that the girl’s action was risky but nobody is concerned that the boy’s action is risky or could have resulted in a much worse outcome. Things that make you go hm…
The facts we know are that the boy flipped up the girls skirt, sexually harassing her. The girl responded by swinging scissors repeatedly at the boy until she scratched him, said scratch requiring a band aid.
Why are we so worried about controlling the girl’s response as risky yet not addressing the same attention to the boy’s original, instigating action? Hint - because it’s still socially acceptable and considered a harmless prank for boys to sexually harass girls but it’s not socially acceptable for girls to defend themselves if that defense might harm a boy.
Uh…no. Because sharp scissors are as dangerous as a knife (and merely because she did not cause harm on one of her multiple attempts does not make it just fine). And sexual harassment, while not harmless, does not potentially cause bodily harm.
I think there are two sides to this, and I doubt anyone is going to change anyone else’s’ mind.
- It's a wonderful thing to use a weapon if someone sexually harasses you. Anything goes, it's justified, the more violent, the better. Girl power! And if you disagree with me, it's because you've got no problem with sexual harassment and assault.
Or:
- Encouraging violence with a weapon that could seriously injure one person and put the other person in jail (and at the bare minimum get them a juvenile record) is to be discouraged. So much for teaching our children to "use their words".
No. it did not cause serious injury THIS TIME. But the next time may be different. The article states “she attempted to strike him multiple times” If the next time tendons or nerves are cut, serious wounds, a carotid cut or even a wild flail to the heart causing death. Two young teens lives would be destroyed forever. You can’t just indiscriminately swipe a knife or sharp object and say it’s ok because this time it didn’t cause serious injury.
I am speaking as the mother of a daughter and I would not teach her this is OK. I can’t imagine the repercussions if this had been a more serious injury. Yes, she was sexually harassed but she was not sexually assaulted and I can’t believe any one is putting flipping up a skirt in the category of life threatening.
The boy was absolutely wrong and needs to be punished. In no way am I defending what he did.
We don’t know what type of scissors those were. Their sharpness and length would come into the judgment, too.
(5’ scissors are considered safe for flying for instance.)
But basically you’ve got to respond to this sort of attack and no one knows what their instinct would make them do.
We do not know the details…but since we are speculating…
A young man brazen enough to behave like this in school (I’m making the assumption it was somewhat public and there were witnesses) has with all likelihood previously behaved in such a manner.
A young woman who responds with such violent behavior (instead of screaming) has with all likelihood previously responded violently with intent to harm.
@dietz199 There is no basis whatsoever for your speculative likelihood of either such behavior. If event A occurs, it is likely to have happened previously? That would never stand up in court, and it should never be proposed in the court of public opinion.
@randyerika: I do think the fact it took place in a classroom indicates it wasn’t the boy’s first attmsw but at the bare minimum it indicates a culture at he school.
In list classrooms, boys don’t do whatever they want in class, including lifting girls’ skirts.
Sounds like self-defense to me… Sexual harassment carries the threat of assault. It’s not flirting. It’s threatening. If it had been my daughter, I would be pursuing the full extent of the law and maybe more.
I do realize that in an inner city school with a history of violence the fact she reacted with scissors is a bigger deal.
It doesn’t mitigate the boy’s action.
Add the fact we don’t know whether she reacted on instinct with anything that’s nearby, the priors, the context.
it really does not help to escalate the situation, but given some of the posters responses, I can understand why the police were called. It is likely both kids will end up with some type of record which will need to be explained. In another place and time, it could have been dealt with by a trip to the principal’s office, a public apology,and maybe an essay on the evils of sexual harassment for him, and a low key counseling session on alternative responses for her. Instead there will be court cases, testimony from witnesses, time lost from school, etc etc-I’m not sure that will be any more effective in curbing inappropriate behavior.