Horrific story .This "I no longer feel safe with my Father".
card can be played anywhere anytime.Subsitute Father for teacher or any other men.
It makes all social contact with women or children highly risky.

This is why I think girls should be raised only by fathers in most cases. From infancy, if possible. Girls who are very close to their dads don't act like that, and the best way to be that close as buddies is to have the mother nowhere around, ideally (unless she is the OK type of woman, but we're rare.)

Sure, the girl will grow up to be a tomboy and be clueless when it comes to other women, but is that REALLY such a bad thing?

Children should be raised by both parents. Because both parents are equally important. If both parents are active in a child's life, they will all be closer and the child will grow up to be a well rounded individual.

Quote from selkie

Children should be raised by both parents. Because both parents are equally important. If both parents are active in a child's life, they will all be closer and the child will grow up to be a well rounded individual.

My problem with daughters being raised by mothers is that often, the mother will instill her own insecurities (especially in the body image department) into her daughters. Even if she doesn't mean to, the daughter will pick this up by observation and may end up with just as poor a self-image as her mother (it seems that many women have a much lower selfimage than many men do.)

I have met a number of women who had extremely poor body images due to mothers who were always obsessing about their own weight, or who raise their daughters to hate their own bodies. This is one reason why I do not allow any women's magazines in this home; I do not want my daughters adopting the selfhating body image that many women today have, from their mothers and from these warped magazines. It is also why I never gave them Barbie dolls to play with; they create an unnatural image, just as the media does.

Quote from Annette1313

My problem with daughters being raised by mothers is that often, the mother will instill her own insecurities (especially in the body image department) into her daughters. Even if she doesn't mean to, the daughter will pick this up by observation and may end up with just as poor a self-image as her mother (it seems that many women have a much lower selfimage than many men do.)

Most people are insecure about one thing or the other. The media picked up on this a long time ago. Women spend the most money so what better way to get them to buy your products then to play on their natural insecurities.

Quote from Annette1313

I have met a number of women who had extremely poor body images due to mothers who were always obsessing about their own weight, or who raise their daughters to hate their own bodies. This is one reason why I do not allow any women's magazines in this home; I do not want my daughters adopting the selfhating body image that many women today have, from their mothers and from these warped magazines. It is also why I never gave them Barbie dolls to play with; they create an unnatural image, just as the media does.

How do barbie dolls create an unnatural image?

I don't know the source (though undoubtedly feminist), I read previously that if Barbie were a literal person built from the dimensions of the doll, she'd be 8ft tall.

Quote from selkie

Most people are insecure about one thing or the other. The media picked up on this a long time ago. Women spend the most money so what better way to get them to buy your products then to play on their natural insecurities.



How do barbie dolls create an unnatural image?

Does a Barbie doll look like any (healthy) woman you have ever seen?

In all fairness, boys are now also developing poor body/other image problems, thanks to the metrosexual "men's" magazines that tell men they are nobody unless they have a) six pack abs; b) a huge penis, and c) a huge wallet.

Barbie looks fine to me. Maybe because when I look at a Barbie, I see just a doll, nothing else. I do not read anything else into it and children don't either. It is parents and the media who use it to play on insecurities.



Blaming the Barbie doll for a girl's poor self image is the same as blaming G.I Joes or toy guns for a boy's fighting/ violence. Poor self image, fighting have nothing to do with Barbies, G.I. Joes, or toy guns.

A fair & reasonable point, selkie.

As a child, I played with my action man doll (though back then, I'd never use 'action man' and 'doll' in the same sentence) and I didn't view him/it as some role-model... it was a toy, nothing more.

Conversely, I would look at films with tough guys and wonder when/if I'd ever get as big and muscley as them... I'm still waiting for that to happen.

I can't say that Barbie dolls affected my self-image, because I never played with them except to sometimes pull off the heads of my older sister's Barbie dolls, for fun.

Quote from Annette1313

I can't say that Barbie dolls affected my self-image, because I never played with them except to sometimes pull off the heads of my older sister's Barbie dolls, for fun.

Quote from Annette1313

This is one reason why I do not allow any women's magazines in this home; I do not want my daughters adopting the selfhating body image that many women today have, from their mothers and from these warped magazines. It is also why I never gave them Barbie dolls to play with; they create an unnatural image, just as the media does.

Well it must have had some effect on you, because why else would you come to this conclusion and not allow your daughters to play with them?

Same as someone saying this

I can't say that toy guns affected my aggression, because I never played with them except to sometimes use them as door stops.

....

This is one reason why I do not allow any toy guns in this home; I do not want my sons adopting the he-man, rambo macho image that many men today have, from their dads and from these warped video games. It is also why I never gave them toy guns to play with; they encourage violence, just as the media does.

I was speaking from a personal point of view. I, personally, never played with dolls, so for me, it was not an issue.

But I do know other females for whom it was an issue, and who thought they were supposed to be physically "perfect", the way Barbie dolls are.

Dolls or no dolls, Mothers present or not, the issue is the power that girls and women have and their wicked misuse of that power.

To my mind a child needs both father and mother, teaching different modes of thought and action. Balance in other words. But both need to be honest and have integrity.

Children test boundaries. Here a father tried to establish a reasonable boundary - 'don't talk in this or that disrespectful tone' - and was met with a mother who was hell bent on contradiction and blowing things totally out of proportion just to damage the father. This is child abuse as well as domestic violence.

He was rightly wary that the incident could easily have been used against him in a family court as our courts have become complicit in fraud, family destruction, and father disempowerment.

But, what could this man have done? What can we do to rectify the situation? How is this battle to be fought?

We are faced with Emotional Terrorism supported and nurtured by the State. What can we do about it? (Talking of Barbie Dolls does not add or help).