“My view is you have to be a good woman, respectful, one day you will be someone’s wife, you have to learn family morals… what it is to be a good woman.”
You would be forgiven for thinking this statement was made by a staunchly conservative politician with a double-barreled named in the 1950s.
They are in fact comments made by boxer Anthony Joshua during an interview with GQ last year, comments which have this week resurfaced online.
Asked during the interview whether he is a strict father to his son, Joshua says:
“I don’t think I’m that strict with Joseph, I don’t know why. But with my niece I’m strict.
“I think it is because she is older, but also he’s a boy – he’s going to be a man’s man, he’ll want to spread his wings be a Jack-the-lad, build his character.
“But with my niece, there is none of that Jack-the-lad nonsense for her!
“My view is you have to be a good woman, respectful, one day you will be someone’s wife, you have to learn family morals… what it is to be a good woman.”
These may just seem like off the cuff remarks, and no doubt Joshua himself thought they were, but in truth they hold a far greater significance to how society views women of all ages.
How Anthony Joshua can look at his niece, not as a child but as someone who is going to be a "wife" is really bemusing. Girls are hardly ever allowed to be. This isn't just about him, it's about everyone who shares this shitty, reductive view of little girls.
— T. Rânkïn' (@AfroVII) March 2, 2018
From a young age women face the sort of scrutiny that men rarely ever do in their lives. Look at how we insist that little girls must be prim and proper, while boys are told they should gallivant around and get into trouble.
As children it seems like nothing, but it sets the framework through which we look at women for the rest of our lives, and contributes to a cultural assumption that women must be held to a higher standard of behaviour than men.
They must be mindful not just of what they do, but what everyone else does.
They are responsible not just for their own behaviour, but for the behaviour of men who – thanks to a world which has, from birth, told them that boys can do what they want – all too often behave in such a manner.
Now look, there is nothing wrong with wanting your niece growing up to be a respectful human being, nothing at all, and Joshua’s use of the phrase “I don’t know” with regards to why he thinks the way he does suggests that his views are a product of society more than anything else.
But if we’re going to teach girls to learn family morals, then we could at least try to teach boys to do the same. If we do, we’ll all benefit from it.
