There is much anxiety at the moment about what our girls are facing – misogyny, the manosphere and sexual violence. Increasingly, I hear murmurings about teaching girls self-defence. Perhaps we need them to learn how to fight back?
After more than 30 years working with teenage girls, I am a huge advocate for anything that gets them out of their heads and into their bodies. Research tells us there is real value in girls experiencing their bodies as active and capable, rather than primarily something to be looked at and judged.
But let’s not kid ourselves that knowing how to throw a decent punch will keep them safe from the dangers they are most likely to face.
The person who hurts your daughter is far more likely to be someone she knows than a stranger she can punch her way past. That is where parents and carers have an enormously important role to play.
I’m in schools with girls most weeks, and the same thing keeps coming up: how normal some controlling behaviours have become. Sharing passwords. Letting a boyfriend read messages. Having him comment on what she wears. Being expected to share her location.
Control rarely introduces itself as control. More often, it initially sounds like concern: “I just worry about you. I only want to know you’re safe. Do you have something to hide?”
We need to talk about this before our daughters are deeply invested in a relationship and trying to make sense of it from the inside. And if we’re honest, we might need to watch our own behaviour, too.
Location-sharing apps can be incredibly useful. If your family uses one so you know your daughter got off the bus safely, terrific. But I meet parents who anxiously watch that little dot move across the map and demand explanations when it stops somewhere unexpected.
I am not suggesting parental monitoring and coercive control are equivalent. However, if we teach our daughters that love comes with the right to know where they are at every moment, we shouldn’t be surprised if that feels normal when a partner expects it, too.
While we are fluent in red flags, we are far quieter on the green ones.
Popular culture has sold generations of girls (and women) the idea that passionate relationships are tumultuous ones. Jealousy. Drama. Break-ups and make-ups. Actually, that can just be exhausting. I sometimes tell girls a good relationship should feel more like ugg boots than spiky stilettos. It’s about a partner who is glad when she spends time with her friends, who speaks well of other girls and women, and doesn’t call every ex “crazy”.
And our daughters need scripts for the moments when things go wrong.
I recently asked a group of year 10 girls what they might do at a party if they saw a very intoxicated girl being led towards a bedroom. One student bravely admitted, “I probably wouldn’t do anything because I wouldn’t know what to say.”
Adults constantly tell young people to speak up and set boundaries. We expect them to magically produce the perfect sentence when they find themselves in complicated, possibly distressing situations.
So practise.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Come with us.” Or find some friends and say, “Come with me and let’s check that girl’s OK.”
But there is an important caveat.
I don’t want another generation of young women burdened with the message that if something bad happens, they should have fought harder or shouted louder. Because freezing can also be protective. In a threatening situation a girl may instinctively understand that fighting back, running or making a noise could put her in greater danger. Sometimes staying still and surviving the moment is the safest thing she can do.
Finally, can we please retire the jokes about fathers waiting at the door with baseball bats when their daughters start dating? The boy who is going to treat your daughter badly is unlikely to do it while Dad is standing there.
Instead, help her learn to recognise disrespect for herself. Talk about the movie you’re watching. Ask whether a character’s behaviour seems controlling. Don’t tell her what to think; teach her how to think and question what she is seeing.
We can’t be beside our daughters at every party, read every message or assess every relationship. And our daughters don’t need us to frighten them about the world. They need us to help them understand it.
Because while a roundhouse kick may come in handy, knowing what respect feels like, recognising when something isn’t right and trusting herself enough to act on that knowledge will prove far more powerful.
Dannielle Miller is the chief executive of Enlighten Education.
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