Every breath you take
And every move you make
Every bond you break
Every step you take
I’ll be watching you….
Oh, can’t you see
You belong to me?
How my poor heart aches
With every step you take?“I think [“Every Breath You Take”] is a nasty little song, really rather evil. It’s about jealousy and surveillance and ownership,” Sting in 1983.
It’s every woman’s fantasy, right – to be pursued? We see it in tons of romantic comedies: The heroine chases after one guy, while another guy chases her… The pursuer is first seen as a nuisance or a joke. As his efforts ramp up, he is everywhere in the heroine’s life. Why can’t she give him a chance? Of course, at the end of the story, she realizes her real love is this guy who has been there the whole time, showing his love, never giving up, never letting go of the dream that they could one day be together.
There’s another word for that, of course: stalking.
No! I hear you say. What’s wrong with being persistent to “get the girl,” especially if they aren’t the Prince Charming type. Is a nice guy expected to simply accept a rejection, when they’re really into someone and know they’d be a great match?
Yes. Exactly that. If you ask someone out and they say no, that’s the end of it. No is a full sentence. We saw this play out in public last week when a woman got down on her knees and seemed to be begging a man to stop pursuing her. A witness claims the man had been chasing her for five years. We might never know, but it’s just one situation out of many when a woman either 1) made her feelings clear and the man refused to accept her answer, or 2) a woman tried to nicely reject a man multiple times because we’re taught not to be a bitch, until it was too much for her; she broke down crying in public and had to beg someone to stop harassing her.
Another possibility is that she was being nice to him because she was afraid of him. We see examples of men feeling entitled to a woman’s affections all the time, and can get angered easily if they feel like they aren’t getting their chance to prove themselves. We hear too many stories where rejection ends in violence. In the US alone, 54 percent of women and girls who were murdered in 2017 had reported that they were being stalked, according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Statistics for stalking behavior in China are not easily found, but social media now allows more of these stories to come out of the shadows.
Society tells men from the very start that they must be strong, they must be persistent and never give up. Persistence can be an excellent trait. You should push your body and mind to try its best, but be clear that your persistence ends at your body; your persistence does not apply to anyone else. It does not allow you the right to another person simply because you want them and won’t give up.
Classic movies and TV tell us different stories. The Breakfast Club was carefully reconsidered by its star Molly Ringwald years later when she found herself uncomfortable while watching it with her own daughter. Her essay is well worth a read, as Ringwald moves into a very grey area on this topic with both hindsight and candor, for instance when she describes her character’s romance in the film:
“Bender [the sexy rebel]sexually harasses Claire [the popular girl who Ringwald played]throughout the film. When he’s not sexualizing her, he takes out his rage on her with vicious contempt, calling her ‘pathetic,’ mocking her as ‘Queenie.’ It’s rejection that inspires his vitriol. Claire acts dismissively toward him… ‘Just bury your head in the sand and wait for your fuckin’ prom!’ Bender yells. He never apologizes for any of it, but, nevertheless, he gets the girl in the end.”
It starts much earlier than high school though. From the moment a woman is pregnant, her unborn baby’s gender and heterosexuality are assumed, with jokes about their prospects. I’ll never forget the confusion and look in my cousin’s eyes when he was 4 years old and someone in my family said he’d be a lady killer. He seemed very distressed and asked me quietly, “Does that mean I am going to kill ladies?” The adults laughed it off, but he was terrified.
We’ve seen these narratives turned on their heads in more recent movies, but not enough. Sometimes it’s gender-reversed, but a woman pursuing a man or showering him with unwanted advances is more often seen as stalking. And we as parents cannot continue to condone the jokey comments about girlfriends when our kids are barely potty trained. Children listen and absorb the stories we tell about them. Teaching kids that persistence and not giving up is important when it’s about their own selves and their own achievements; applying that narrative to “getting the girl” is likely to lead them to be publicly humiliated, like the guy in that viral video, or believe they are owed more from a woman than a simple “Yes” or “No.”
Change the plot. We have the chance to teach our kids to be better, more respectful, and kinder. Let’s use it.
KEEP READING: Teach Your Kids About Consent Part 1: The Cat in the Hat
Images: AHTV, Canva
