Kick the eggs hard
When I think back to the first time I felt like a woman, there is this one moment. It was not the inevitable red stain in my pants, not the shamefully clutched packet of tampons, but a car. It took the bend with screeching tyres, a man leaned out and shouted after me: «Hot arse, you mare!» I gave him the finger - I decided to ignore my secret pride at arousing such interest.
My daughter is also fifteen, soon to be a woman. The other day she told me about going out. She was at a party at her grammar school, a public event in a municipal hall. The music was terrible, the boys embarrassing, but they had great fun.
Oh, and her group of girls had been grabbed badly, she said casually. Apparently there was a man, an adult, who approached her group, grabbed her colleagues by the bum and pinched my daughter in the chest when she stood protectively in front of him.
I thought I had misheard her. «What a bastard!» I shouted: Who was that, someone she knew? Had anyone else known him? She smiled uncertainly, surprised by my reaction: «Chill, Mum, it wasn't that bad.» Chill? You should kick someone like that in the bollocks without comment.
What my daughter signalled to me was reassuring. That I don't have to worry that she was an idiot and that she can cope with the experience. But I doubt whether my daughter knew what I meant. Namely, that no man should allow himself such vile assaults.
My daughter will find her own way. In the meantime, I've signed her up for a Krav Maga course.
And no woman, and certainly no girl, has to put up with it. No matter how bad the assault is perceived to be or not. Puberty is a time of physical revolutions. Hair sprouts, breasts bud, hips grow.
And the looks on the street change when you are perceived as a sexual being. The transformation is often accompanied by psychological crises, which can manifest themselves during this time in the form of eating disorders or self-harm.
Behind this is the need to regain control, to manifest one's physical and psychological boundaries. What does it take to feel at home in a flat, a new city, with a new person? It takes experience.
You pick up bread from the bakery two streets away and experience how the park next door changes with the seasons. And that's exactly how it works with sexuality. It's about discovering this new body and this new personality.
And, above all, to recognise where the boundaries are and how to protect them. My daughter will find her own way. In the meantime, I've signed her up for a Krav Maga course. There you learn effective and merciless self-defence techniques. So that she can kick the next offender in the balls.
