Dori Monson: You can’t stop high school boys from rating girls by banning hot or not list

Taken from The Dori Monson Show on KIRO Radio.

There’s a local story that’s gotten a ton of play that I want to comment on, because it illustrates an essential outlook on life for me, and something that I’ve tried to impress on my kids.

I’m guessing people are going to be furious at me for this opinion. But there’s a local high school and there’s all this outrage, because every year at Mount Si High School they have a “hot or not” competition for all the girls at the school, where the boys basically rate the girls on their looks.

Now some people are saying that it absolutely should be banned. The school shouldn’t allow that to happen. The boys shouldn’t be allowed to decide which girl at the school is the prettiest. And I’m guessing there are a lot of people that would think as the father of three daughters I should be against this. But you know what? I’m not.

Boys will be boys. Boys have always, always evaluated the looks of girls. I remember when I took the SAT. My friend Pete and I went to the University of Washington to take the SATs, and we had time after the SAT before our parents picked us up, so we were walking around the UW campus with all these college women. As we were walking, as we passed every girl, we’d give her a 1 to 10 grade. We wouldn’t say it to the girl, but we’d say it to each other because that is was 13 and 14 year old boys do. They always have, always will.

There are a couple of ways that you can handle something like this. You can unrealistically tell boys to stop doing what boys have done forever, which is a stupid way to deal with the world, or, you can tell your daughters, “who cares.” You shouldn’t care about the opinion of a bunch of moron boys. Their opinion means absolutely nothing to your life.

Honestly, I think that is a far healthier way to go through life, instead of trying to change what has always been and what will always be, to try to learn to cope with what is. I think coping with what is, is a billion times healthier way of dealing with life.

One Mount Si student said she thought it was a form of harassment. It’s not a form of harassment. It’s human nature. Girls do it too. Guys rate girls, girls rate guys, that is the way it is.

A junior at Mount Si told KING 5: “They honestly don’t think what they’re doing is wrong. They think it’s silly. They think that we’re overreacting. They think that what they’re doing is harmless.”

Here’s why that is what they think: They don’t think it’s wrong because it’s not wrong. They think you’re overreacting because you are overreacting, and they think what they’re doing is silly because it is silly.

Girls please don’t base your self-worth on the opinion of guys that you consider to be morons. By the way, that is all of us guys when we’re in high school. We’re all morons at that age. Ignore their opinions. Stop basing your self-worth on morons.

Taken from The Dori Monson Show on KIRO Radio.