“Today’s Girls Are So Badly Behaved” – Is The Problem With Them Or With You?

Posted: January 29, 2019

Feminism is all too often blamed for ‘girls behaving badly’. But – this allegation may reflect more on those making the accusation than on the members of Generation Z. Here’s a rebuttal.

under the garb of feminism, the girls of today’s generation are so rude and badly behaved. Such disrespect. So much so, that many mothers are complaining that it is easier to manage sons than daughters these days – so read a post I came across recently.

First of all, the standards of good behaviour for men are set so low, that anything within that is touted as great behaviour. “Mera beta aaj time pe ghar aagaya and usne apne socks dhone daale washing machine mein” (Wow, my son came home on time and put his socks to wash in the machine!). So comparing both is pretty juvenile.

When you look at behaviour of girls, there are several things that you have to consider, especially as women. For eg. Do you think the girls are misbehaving or are rude because of your own internalised misogyny or the socio-cultural patriarchal conditioning of your own psyche? What do you define as ‘respect’? Are you misunderstanding disagreements or non-adherence to traditional stereotyping as ‘disrespect’? For a very long time the anger of women has been invalidated. The answer lies in exploring your inherent conditioning first before you school the current or coming generations.

There are several other aspects to consider too. The Gen Z, as we call it, is growing in a very volatile atmosphere. On one side there is a fierce fight on with casteism, sexism and other ills and on the other hand they have to survive in a forever dynamic, inflated, capitalist culture where monetary standards are high, education standards are messed up, global politics and economy has gone to the dogs and there is a terrible threat to the environment to top it all, due to which several other problems have cropped up.

There are so many aspects to mere rudeness that there is no reason to generalise anything. Everything needs to be evaluated objectively, with a lot of emotions as well, and many from older generations find it inconvenient to balance both, which in turn makes them think that the next gen is rude. Anything out of the basic conditioning is “blasphemy”.

No, the next gen is just more aware. More socially capable with more courage to deal with the changing dynamics but at the same time being put down and infantalised constantly by the same society. It is your failure as the previous generation, so accept it. Give them the love and affection they deserve even if they are not willing to adhere to your social conditioning because your social conditioning achieved zilch. Look around you and you’ll see what I mean. Stop acting as if they owe respect to everyone. Earn it!

There is no excuse for bad behaviour but like I said, behaviour needs to be evaluated holistically and not as a standalone trait.

Also, let’s stop attributing everything to feminism? And if that’s causing women to retaliate and break the chains, and if it causes men to behave better than they have been doing all this while, what the f&^# is even wrong?

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