The National Science Foundation, the federal agency that oversees the U.S. Antarctic Program, published a report in 2022 in which 59% of women said they’d experienced harassment or assault while on the ice, and 72% of women said such behavior was a problem in Antarctica.
But the problem goes beyond the harassment, The Associated Press found. In reviewing court records and internal communications, and in interviews with more than a dozen current and former employees, the AP uncovered a pattern of women who said their claims of harassment or assault were minimized by their employers, often leading to them or others being put in further danger.
“Men will be men” just excuses the behaviour and ostracizes men who don’t do these things. It has less to do with their sex and more to do with how we raise men.
Toxic masculinity as a defence mechanism of patriarchal society is the main problem and “feminine”, “emotional” or “weak” men, or those not subscribing to heteronormative sexuality are targeted by the same types to uphold their status.
Men will be men is for where men do stupid shit like attach a motor to a merry-go-round and see who can sit on it for the longest or dig holes at the beach because hole.
It’s sad and sickening to see it be used to try and excuse sexual harassment and assault.
Yup. It boils down to power imbalances that are systemic in a world where men still control almost everything.
I had always hoped we’d move past this but it seems we may not get the chance now (with climate change raging around us).
Boys will be boys is something frequently said by mothers. But of course that’s fact doesn’t fit the “patriarchy” narrative.
Or sometimes targeted by their mothers. At least this happened to me. I had one long fingernail(on middle finger, you guessed why) and my mother complauned about it almost every day to the point where she came to dad and complained to him. He said “why do you even care?”, but she continued anyway saying “this is not how men do”.
This happened in post-Soviet society where average family with children is mother+grandmother, so it has nothing to do with “patriarchality” of society. I think it is just manifestation of much broader problems: virtual majority and I can’t translate it, but basicaly “you should do it this way because I said so”.