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 How Black Men Influence Teenage Girls
By Mybrotha.COM Staff Writer - April 11, 2006
For a very long time, there has been an increased awareness of the positive, constructive interactions between Black male role-models and Black boys. The lack of fathers in the home and the negativity associated with broken families and "dead-beat dads", has been center stage in the Black community.
While our attention on the father-son, male role-model/Black male child relationship continues to grow, we cannot forget about the strong influences Black fathers have on their pre-teen and teenage daughters - or how the behaviors of Black males impact the lives of girls around them. A well-rounded father, or any positive male figure, is crucial to the psychological and social development of a teenage girl. What girls see and hear can play an important role in how they respond and react to men as they get older.
For instance, girls who are exposed to different men when their mother's date frequently, are much more likely to over-experiment with dating themselves. Girls who observe physical or emotional abuse towards their mothers, are more likely to allow similar behavior in their future relationships.
Also, girls whose fathers leave the home early in their lives have the highest rates of both early sexual activity and adolescent pregnancy.
These results are indicative of behavioral patterns associated with absent or irresponsible Black men, and can be explained in a number of ways. The lack of a stable father-figure results in a daughter having greater exposure to her mothers' dating, which may encourage early sexual behavior if the daughter associates male-attention with happiness.
Another explanation is that girls who live without fathers may undergo early personality changes that steer them towards premature and unstable relationships with men. This often affects self-esteem and self-worth, both of which are tarnished when girls are later exposed to men who ridicule and chastise them.
Negative adult male behavior witnessed by a teenage girl can adversely affect how she reacts to dating, social pressures, sexual propositions, and future male/female relationships. It has long been noted that daughters observe and follow their mothers, but are more influenced by their fathers, or other male authority figures.
Researchers suggest that negative behavior from Black men is highly responsible for many social problems teenage girls encounter. When girls observe men who are sexually promiscuous, physically and emotionally abusive, or instigators of unwarranted or inappropriate attention towards women -- they often associate that behavior with the male psyche, and not a single man. As a result, some girls mistakenly believe that the only way to get attention is to behave in a way that men can relate to; or subject themselves to the desires of a man.
"I have never been able to understand why women (though they may have nice bodies) allow themselves to be exploited and degraded in songs and videos.", says Erica Haley, a freshman computer science student at the University of Alabama.
"They're just going to regret it later.", she states.
"One day when the cameras are off and nature starts to disrupt the shapes of their bodies, they'll wish they spent their time developing something other than a reputation as a 'video girl'.
Erica and many girls like her, are examples of young women who haven't allowed an absent father, or bad male behavior to negatively influence their lifestyles. Their positive attitudes can also be attributed to the quality of mothers who raise level-headed daughters.
But over exposure to certain types of male behavior, such as being ridiculed, negatively labeled, or being made to feel inferior -- will often cause problems with low self-esteem and low self-image for many teenage girls.
As a footnote, we won't emphatically conclude that all women who participate in raunchy hip-hop videos, or those who repeatedly subject themselves to bad male behavior -- were at some point negatively influenced by a black man.
But it does make you wonder.
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