Fathers be BETTER to Your Daughters

My problematic boo, John Mayer, has a song called Daughters. The song's chorus implores fathers to be "good" to their daughters because daughters will love like them. But there is one particular part of the song that I would like to address today:

Oh, you see that skin?
It's the same she's been standing inSince the day she saw him walking awayNow she's left cleaning up the mess he made

Songwriter: John Clayton Mayer  Daughters lyrics © Reach Music Publishing 

I see many of my male friends and associates on social media say and do terrible things as it relates to women. Defending their right to be creepy, flirty or obnoxious is chief among them. While I get that some irreverent things can be humorous, some things are not funny in today's climate. I laugh a LOT, all day even... But when I see the people that should be more aware of certain issues making light of them, it cheeses me off. (I say "cheesed off" in real life, this is not just blogspeak)

All over the internet I see Black women, specifically being the main reason Black men are in jail, effeminate, f**kbois. There is hardly ever any mention of the father. So when I see Black fathers of Black daughters saying and doing things that are not in-line with who they proclaim themselves to be, I cannot wrap my mind around it. I have called out a few on this incongruity and I have been told basically that they are teaching their daughters how to deal with men like them. Wait, what?!

I have had a dude tell me that some things are in a man's nature and therefore women should get used to it. I call BS! Part of psychotherapy is to treat maladjusted or problem behaviors. If you are looking at women and they are calling you creepy, that's a problem that even if it's in your nature can be treated if you are willing to make the change... if you are willing to make the change.... But if you feel like it is your right to leer at women because they are showing cleavage or their skirt is tight up on datazzdoe, then you clearly do not see the need to change. Yet, you are telling the women that you are making feel uncomfortable to change how they dress so that you don't creep them out. Huh?
via GIPHY

If you feel your daughters deserve to be treated by other men better than you treat other women, perhaps you need to treat other women better. If you wouldn't want a married man whispering untoward things into your single daughter's ear, then maybe you should stop doing it to other people's daughters. If you wouldn't want some old dude in a corner undressing your daughter with his eyes, then maybe you should stop doing it too. I cannot comprehend having to put your daughter in the situations you put other people's daughters in for you to see you could do better by them. Your disrespect toward your wife, your girlfriend, your baby mama and the women in the street by means of both your words and your actions impact the young women you are raising. All I am requesting is that you be better to everyone's daughters.

If you take issue with anything I have said here, may I suggest you contact your daughters and check-in with them. They are what's most important here.

In a world that is constantly making a Black woman feel unprotected, all I want is for these Black daughters to feel safe and protected by Black men (not from them).

 Full disclosure: I celebrate gray sweatpants and basketball shorts season in much the same way men celebrate sundress season because who doesn't like to look at nice things?? However, there has not been a time -to my knowledge- when a man has told me I was making him uncomfortable or felt like me glancing at him (not leering, staring, oogling, or salivating) put him in danger. Yet almost all of my women friends have felt uneasy or threatened by a man leering, staring, oogling or salivating at them.