It's gone from "Just say no" to "Don't say no".WEST HAVEN, Utah -- When Natalie Richard’s sixth-grade daughter told her she couldn’t say “no” if a boy asked her to dance at Kanesville Elementary’s Valentine’s Day dance, she didn’t believe it at first.
“Oh no, no honey," Richard said of her reply. "You guys are misunderstanding again. That’s not how it is."
However, after speaking to her daughter’s teacher, she realized the statement was accurate.
“The teacher said she can’t. She has to say yes. She has to accept and I said, 'Excuse me,” Richard tells Fox 13.
Though in reality, the latter was always the case, at least in this area. It starts from a young age, teaching the boys and girls their role and how to behave differently and instills problematic and even dangerous patterns and expectations.
One thing that's not entirely clear from the reporting is whether the school perpetuates the idea that boys ask and girls must submit or whether both boys and girls ask and are expected to submit. Not that doing the latter eliminates the problem as there are so many other messages in society to establish the dominant and submissive role. If the asking is in theory equal, I suspect the submitting isn't.
It looks like the story has quickly gone national.