Somebody’s Daughter

There is a difference between wanting kids and being a parent. 

When a man says he wants children, it doesn’t always mean he’s ready to be a father. 

A few years ago I was having a conversation with my boyfriend at the time. We were young and merely imagining our futures. He told me he wanted children one day but he was afraid of one thing. That he might have a daughter.

I remember thinking to myself: A daughter? Why would he be afraid to have a daughter?

I assumed it was fear. Fear of raising a girl where danger is promised. Fear that one day she might face the same struggles as his mother and sister had. 

But I was wrong. 

“What if she grows up to be a wh*re?” he said.

This boy – Sweet, kind, intelligent – had a fear that his hypothetical daughter might grow up to be a wh*re.

I then asked him if he viewed all women as wh*res or potential wh*res. If that’s how he viewed his sisters, his mother… me. 

“Of course not,” He said.

But after a poor explanation of his pathetic fear. I realised that this is the reality for a lot of male thinking. 

Even unborn daughters are sexualised.

Even before women have the chance to take their first breath or say their first words, they are sexualised.

I didn’t blame my (now ex) boyfriend for this way of thinking. There’s no use in calling him a bad person simply because of what he was taught to believe. What men have been taught. Maybe not overtly or consciously but through a lifetime of social conditioning. 

I didn’t hate him for it.

I didn’t hate men for it.

I pitied him.

And I pitied the world that raised him to fear his own daughter’s autonomy. 

But this can be unlearnt. If he can unlearn it, everyone can.