The Unending Influence of ‘Boys Will Be Boys’
Updated at 1:18 p.m. ET on August 25, 2020.
When you were 13, a guy you’d never met got a nude photo of you. He demanded that you give him more naked pictures of yourself, or he’d send the one he had to everyone you knew. You did not do what he asked. So he sent out the photo of your naked body to your schoolmates, your friends, your family.
Several years ago, a guy began harassing you. He got your home phone number. He kept calling your house until someone picked up. This lasted for months.
When you were in sixth grade, a friend of a guy you were dating decided he didn’t like what you looked like. He called you a whale. He told you to go on a diet. He told you to get braces. He told you to kill yourself. He bullied you so cruelly and consistently that you tried.
Earlier this month, 19-year-old Aaron Coleman, running on a progressive platform against a long-term Democratic incumbent, for the Kansas state legislature. The victory, eked out by a margin of 14 votes, “should have been a political fairy tale,” on Friday—a David-defeats-Goliath rebuke to the Democratic establishment. But the victory to share what Coleman had done to them, he . He apologized. But the sad story did not end there. Instead, Coleman’s candidacy , fomenting debates about accountability and atonement and justice. He is sorry, many of the arguments have noted. He was just a kid. Isn’t it time to move on?
