Burn with Honor | Teen Ink

Burn with Honor

February 15, 2009
By Anonymous

Most of my friends are girls. Being a boy, people often look down upon me for that, seeing me as
weak, gay, girly, unmanly, or as a lower life form if they really hate people like me. I don't mind,
I prefer to hang out with girls. I am something of a sexist person, when I see a boy I often
instantly judge him as a moron or a pervert. I admit to this but I can truly say that I try not to,
that I want to think of boys and girls with equality. And I do feel that way, I really do. The
problem is not everyone feels that way. The reason why I judge boys so quickly is that, judging from
my experiences of socializing with members of my own gender, boys often lack honor when it comes to
others of the opposite gender. Having many friends who are girls I often experience this firsthand.
My female friends often complain about the perverted nature of boys and they have justification for
their complaints. Just the other day I was following a close personal friend of mine, who was
female, in the hallways when another friend of mine (male) came up to me and bluntly asked 'Hey
dude, are you hitting on that'' Note the use of the word 'that'. I didn't react automatically to
what he said, I just said 'No' and walked off. It wasn't until later that the full impact of what he
had said hit me. It was then that I wish I had realized it sooner so I could have responded to his
question in a more' appropriate manner. Quite simply, I would have asked him what did he mean by
calling my friend a 'that', as if she was an object and not a human being with a human mind and a
human soul. What kind of person was he to refer to her as a thing, as something lower than himself'
He was not greater than her, he was a human being just like her. If he had asked 'Hey, are you
flirting with that girl'' I wouldn't have minded so much. At least then the respect due to my friend
would have been shown. But my friend didn't show that respect to her, he thought of her as a lowly
girl: a nobody. I've noticed it; from many other incidents besides this, that many boys refer to
girls as a simple organism. Basically, to a boy, a girl is a human being except with fewer
privileges than a fellow man. She is a 'thing' that talks, something which they may consider and
treat as inferior to themselves. They think of a girl as a 'thing' with breasts, a butt, calves,
thighs, a face (optional to observe), and a treasure between her legs. They think of girls as mere
slot machines really, that is why when a boy manages to sleep with a girl all the other boys smile
and laugh saying 'You scored the jackpot man!' It's not funny, those who laugh at those words or
words like them lack something. Or rather, they possess it but choose to ignore it and abandon it.
That thing is called humanity, virtue, respect, honor. Those who laugh at those jokes, those who
join in with it, those who either support lustful boys by playing along with them and laughing with
them or support it by simply not saying anything against them, they who choose to give up their
humanity, their honor, by either forsaking it or by supporting those who forsake it, have no honor
themselves. Having honor means a lot of things but apart of it is to have respect for oneself and
for others. An honorable person lives by respecting themselves and not living in a way that
disgusted them, in a way that they knew was wrong. An honorable person lives by respecting others as
fellow human beings, guarding their thoughts from becoming dark and hurtful because thoughts
inevitably grow into actions. Boys and girls are human beings; they're different in the way that a
hermit crab is different from another hermit crab. They might live in a different kind of shell but
they're the same kind of creature on the inside. A good person doesn't stare at another person's
shell dreaming of performing horrible acts upon it and neither does an honorable person forget that
the shell they look upon has a soul just like theirs inside of it. For all men (as in humans) are
created equal, we all have the same individual, God given rights. I have friends who are boys and
friends who are girls, they're equal in my eyes. Both deserve respect. They're both just people. A
boy has no honor if he treats a girl like something beneath himself, as simply a sex slave or a toy.
Girls are not toys, they're people. Girls and boys are both human beings and they both have the same
rights. If, at the moment when my friend had called my friend a 'that', we had suddenly been set on
a stake and set on fire, there would be a difference between us. I would burn with honor, he would
not.


The author's comments:
This was written because I want sexism to end. I want the idea of judging a boy for being a boy or a girl for being a girl to fade away into humanities memories. And I know the teenagers of today are just the ones who could make this happen.

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This article has 1 comment.


on Jul. 26 2009 at 2:24 am
Hay_Wire PLATINUM, Independence, Missouri
42 articles 0 photos 219 comments
wow. that was really great. i..was so suprised that somehting like this was written by a guy.. i realy loved it. im kinda same as you, except im the girl with 15 guy friends and maybe one good girl friend. id have to say all of the guys except one has treated me like that before.

trust me. they learned not to.



thanks for seeing us for more..its great.