The six ways we talk about a teenage girl’s age

[redqueen]

The idea that a teen can be "older than her chronological age" puts young girls in danger

Last week, Montana District Judge G. Todd Baugh declared a troubled, now dead, 16-year-old girl culpable for her own rape. (The girl was just fourteen when the crime occurred.) While in the process of reducing her rapist’s 15-year sentence to 30 days, he explained that the victim was “older than her chronological age,” and “as much in control of the situation” as the 49-year old teacher found guilty of raping her. After outraged protest and demands that he be removed from the bench, Baugh apologized and has called for a new hearing. This case bears striking similarity to one in the UK earlier this summer in which a 13-year old girl involved was described,including by the judge, as sexually “predatory.”

This happens will dulling regularity, and has for years. One month ago, defense lawyers Louisiana used similar reasoning in a case involving a juvenile detention guard and a 14-year old in his care. They argued that the girl had consented to sex with the guard, though she was three years younger than the age of consent in Louisiana.

The language used in these cases demonstrates our confused notions about girls’ ages and what they mean.

An adolescent girl isn’t allowed to be “her age.” Indeed, she doesn’t actually have one age but many that people assess and judge as she goes through her day. When it comes to sexual assault, consent, and justice, an individual girl’s “age” is especially a matter of social construction. Society constructs her age in at least six different ways:


...

http://www.salon.com/2013/09/04/the_six_ways_we_talk_about_a_teenage_girls_age/

[seabeyond]

1. i was ahving a tough time coming to grips with what i was seeing. we treat as a child UNLESS

it is sexually satisfying a man, then the child is no longer a child and shall not be treated as such. i posted:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3583517

i am listening to men tell us there is a difference with a lolita havin

sex with a man that is 35 fuckin years older than she and how she is responsible for her experience.

i have to say, that on sex with a CHILD we give it to the child to have the same cognitive abilities of an adult, where everything else in our world we would see that person as a child. the only thing i can conclude with the men telling us these lolitas having sex with old men in power is perfectly natural is their own conditioning of privilege that our young take care of their sexual need that we see thru out our society and culture. cause i am telling you, in any other instance besides sex with an old man, we would clearly see this person as a child.

where am i seeing this incorrectly?

the reply:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3584409

Have you read "The Best Kept Secret" by

Florence Rush? In it, she wrote:


Today, as in the past, our society which affirms that a minor has not the discretion to vote, leave home, enter a contract, take a job or even legally sell her doll or handkerchief, paradoxically sees the female child as responsible enough to sell her body. Now as before, we have no difficulty condemning a man who will take a child's bicycle (with or without her consent, because an adult is expected to discriminate right from wrong), but will wonder whether a man is to be held responsible for sexually using a nonresisting child. It is only in sexual matters that a child is held accountable as an adult and man permitted to be as irresponsible as a child. Consequently, the sexual abuse of children by adults has never been established as an irrefutable legal and moral violation and to this day remains a debatable polemic.


You are NOT seeing this incorrectly. The defenders, and those debating the "legalities," are -- not surprisingly -- all males.

[redqueen]

3. Sadly there are some handmaidens agreeing with and arguing alongside those men.

Betsy Karasik at WaPo is one example.

[seabeyond]

2. That assault of an older-looking 10 year old is more forgivable?

this would take me to the Op that talked about a 12 yr old strippin in a club and the men giving her money were just confused. couldnt tell she was a kid.

a male poster said once a girl hits puberty, free game.

i said, girls are starting periods at 10 now a days. is she free game?

crickets.

not a man defending the men giving money to the 12 yr old stripper called that man out. and not a man on that thread were disgusted enough at the idea of sex with a ten yr old to make a comment.

[redqueen]

4. All of which seems to point to a frightening reality. nt