Overprotective dads and Patriarchy

A certain set of pictures has gone viral showing a father posing with his daughter's date, with overtones (playful as they might be) of the overprotective father trope. Feminists have then commented on this issue, and Patrice Lewis of WND has decided to lambaste them.

The very idea of a father threatening his daughter's date for consensual sex is a manifestation of patriarchy. It denies the sexuality and agency of the daughter, and unfairly characterizes boys as predatory. It reinforces these things, even done playfully.

Patrice says:

"You see, only a feminist would view this scenario with suspicion and disgust. How dare a father protect his minor daughter living under his roof? How dare he step in to “police” his daughter’s “private life”?"...

"Criminey, this borders on sick. What Ms. Williams carelessly ignores in her screed is the operative word GIRL. This is a minor child. This is a minor child raised and supported entirely by her parents. At this point, she doesn’t really have a “private” life. Minor children who are still entirely dependent on their parents are not autonomous, nor are they capable of full adult understanding of taking “ownership of their choices and actions.”

Yes, only a feminist would see that his daughter has agency and doesn't need to be "protected" from a boy who we have no evidence is going to assault her. And minors have sexuality, they do not belong to their parents. You don't get to threaten their partners like they don't have a hand in it. And if you think your child is being abused or assaulted, take action on that.

"You see, for liberal permissive parents like Williams, when it comes to “empowering” girls, it always comes down to one thing: SEX. Girls are encouraged to view sex through the exact same lens as boys."

Why shouldn't girls view sex like boys? And I see far more liberal parents pushing for empowerment through education. It seems like conservative parents push for disempowerment through having no sexual autonomy.

"Let’s face it: Boys are “inherently predatory.” It’s the nature of testosterone, which is why it takes a man to teach a boy to control himself and not be predatory toward girls and women."

WOW! That's more "misandrist" a statement than I've ever seen from any mainstream feminist. 

"As much as feminists try to deny it, girls pin a great deal more emotion on sex than boys do. Sex is biologically linked (through the hormone oxytocin) with nurturing, emotion, love."

Oxytocin is present in males and females at orgasm. There is no evidence that girls are more emotional than boys outside of our social context.

"You see, I have this little pet theory. I have a theory that girls who learn self-control do better in life than girls who don’t."

Having sex does not meaningfully correspond to "self-control." Sex does not automatically ruin your life.

"I theorize that girls who learn to value their bodies do better than girls who slut around with an endless succession of random hookups and have three abortions by the time they reach their majority. I theorize that the best way to “empower” girls is to cultivate what’s between their ears, not what’s between their legs."

Having sex does not devalue your body. Slinging slurs doesn't help your case. Multiple abortions are rare, and would be a sign of many other issues in a teen's life. Sex and education are not mutually exclusive.

"But Ms. Williams apparently finds ANY degree of female sexual self-control weird, freaky and unrealistic. The sad thing is, she has a 15-year-old daughter."

I thought we were talking about threatening boys to not have sex with your daughter. What would that have to do with her self-control? 

"Mr. Schock’s fatherly protection of his daughter is, in the eyes of Ms. Williams, a bad thing. It’s understandable feminists would object to paternal concern. After all, if more dads behaved like Mr. Schock, their daughters would be far less likely to grow up to be feminists.

And we can’t have that, can we?"

I seriously doubt that being treated like a disempowered object correlates much with feminism. Quite a few feminists come out of extremely patriarchal contexts. 

So, all Ms.Lewis has is slut-shaming to sling at people who think girls should be autonomous. Typical.