I spent much of my festive season in the company of toddlers, and let me tell you, it’s a great way to readjust the way you see the world. It’s also a good way to ensure you remain open to criticism, because there are precious few kids who mince words when you’re going about your business in the wrong way.

One of the things I’ve been attempting, as I spend my time around these small, direct people, is not to expose them to the half-truths I was taught when I was growing up – ideas I was given by well-intentioned adults who weren’t born into a generation questioning inequalities as we do today.

So I’m conscious of the small things, like not automatically telling girls that they look pretty, or telling boys that they look strong. But also asking girls what they are reading or what they want to be one day, or asking boys how they feel.

It was this that came to mind when I stumbled across the latest public service announcement (PSA) against domestic violence on Fanpage.it. It depicts a number of adorable little boys being introduced to a girl named Martina, and instructed to interact with her in a number of ways. At the end of the video, they are told to slap her, and all of them refuse. One of them, in what seems to be the punchline of the video, gives as his reason: “Because I’m a man.”

The social media community is going wild over this video, sharing it left, right and centre. It’s impossible to track exactly how far it’s travelled, since it’s been shared on so many sites independently of Fanpage.it. On YouTube alone – a secondary source – it’s been viewed over 12 million times and received nearly 74,000 likes in the past three days. And it’s easy to see why. The little boys are so lovely, and so brave, in the face of being commanded to be violent, that one wants to jump through the screen and hug them. And there is, in fact, a powerful message in there: hatred and violence are taught. Children are not innately violent and hateful, the video seems to say, so where are we going wrong to construct a world where even domestic relationships become minefields of violence?

In all these areas, the PSA strikes the right notes. Unfortunately, however, that’s where it ends.

If one goes back and watches the video, the reality is that an attitude of violence and possession towards women is in subliminally encouraged from the start – the beginnings of rape culture, if you will. And these innocent, lovely boys are being taught to interact in that way, at an age when they cannot help but absorb what they are exposed to.

Let’s rewind to the beginning. The boys are introduced as three-dimensional people: they are asked what they like, what they want to become, who they are. Martina, on the other hand, is introduced by name but not asked to describe herself in any way. She stands passive as a doll. It is the boys who are asked to describe Martina, which they do, in entirely physical terms. She is described as pretty; they like her hair. One wants to be her boyfriend.

As soon as the boys have pronounced their (entirely physical) approval, they are instructed to caress her, which they duly do. There is no dialogue with Martina as there was with the boys. At no point does Martina have agency – it is not on her invitation that the boys touch her; the message they are given is that it is perfectly all right to touch her because she is pretty, and there. Interestingly, the boys do not look at Martina for a reaction once they have touched her – they look at the camera; at the adult giving the commands. She could be anybody – a blank, female slate. It is not her permission or approval regarding the touching that is sought; that much, already, is clear.

I do not blame the boys for this. I blame the person directing the video. The message to the boys has been clear: Martina does not have a say. The boys have little choice but to absorb it. The fact that they do not seek Martina’s approval, but the director’s, merely indicates that the message has been delivered.

The next step is to make a funny face at her, and after that, the instruction is to slap her. The boys’ response is distressing to watch: they are clearly upset, confused, unhappy at the instruction. In a touching part of the video, they all refuse. The reasons vary: because it is bad, because the boy is against violence, because Jesus says one should not. Because one does not hit girls, not even with a flower. Because one does not want to hurt her. Because she is pretty. (A bit worrying for the less genetically blessed girls out there.) One boy says it’s because he is a man – the suggestion of the PSA being, one imagines, that a little boy is more of a man than a man who abuses. And then, once the disturbing subject of outright violence is resolved, the instruction is to kiss Martina – again without her permission – and the coda that’s meant to cheer us all up is when one of the boys asks, “On the mouth or on the cheek?” Because, again, the girl, and one day the woman, is not the one who has the say in what happens to her body or how she is touched. And that, at least, is perfectly all right.

The fact that this is all supposed to be a social experiment is neither here nor there. What is disturbing is that what is shown as abnormal is the slapping, but a) objectifying a girl and b) simply helping oneself to a girl or woman physically is regarded as perfectly normal. Interestingly, these patterns are so internalised that when I raised this comment on social media, an outraged woman responded: “It’s very Italian!! Men are like this. [my emphasis] Living in next to Italy the men are like this and yes she is shown as an object but they are focusing on the reaction of the child nothing to do with the interaction!! How dare you say this is a creepy video what is wrong with you?” [sic] Leaving aside issues of freedom of speech raised by this astute commentator, the general gist is precisely the issue: men are not “like this”.

Observing children shows us very clearly that men – humans, in fact – are not “like this”. We are taught to think like this. It is a culture we have developed all by ourselves – and are teaching, sadly, to our offspring. Men and women will do as adults what they are taught to do as little boys and girls. Teaching men as children that touching girls without permission is cute or okay becomes a far bigger, less attractive problem when those same boys are 48 years old in a bar at 3am, with the same beliefs. And unless we begin to think differently, such patterns of ownership of the female body will remain.

Domestic and other gender-based violence does not begin when a man slaps a woman, as this video seems to suggest. The dynamics between abused and abuser are extremely complex, and begin to germinate long before the two even encounter each other. Often there is a history of disempowerment in the life of the abuser, or a history of abuse in the life of the abused. Not to mention the years of cultural layering and the building of social norms in between. There is agency in the individuals – both abuser and abused – and this empowerment to see the world differently, act differently and think differently needs to be embraced and encouraged.

Abuse and inequality do not occur in a vacuum. All inequalities include, to some extent, a combination of fear and tolerance and the history of the oppressed. If all the oppressed peoples in the world were empowered to rise up in revolution, the world’s dictators would have reason to be very, very afraid. Combating abuse is not simply a matter of changing the abuser’s behaviour. The other, equally important side of the coin is empowering the abused and oppressed – and I speak here of all women, because all women are vulnerable to abuse and oppression. For that, we may need many, many more PSAs showing little girls how to believe in themselves, how to educate themselves, how to speak up about their likes, their interests, their agency – and who controls their bodies. And we need to teach boys the antithesis of entitled, sexist behaviour at childhood level. Just because little boys are doing it, it doesn’t mean it’s different or cute. If all little girls were empowered in this way, taught to believe in their value and autonomy, I believe that adult abusers and sexists alike would have a far harder time of it in the future.

In order to rid ourselves of the scourge of female abuse, we need a generation of more empowered and educated girls and women who know that men are not simply “like this”; who know that they have the right to say yes or no to being touched; that they are valued for more than their physical attributes; that when they are introduced to new people, they are just as interesting as their male counterparts for their thoughts, interests, hopes and dreams, and not just as pretty little princesses; and who are secure in the knowledge – more importantly – that when they are touched in ways they do not like, when they are hit, or threatened, or undermined, they can say no and leave at the first moment when they feel uncomfortable. And we need a whole lot more people to wake up – and consciously teach their children a different way of being. We have to redefine our whole culture; our entire way of thinking. Otherwise there is no point in asking our men merely not to slap our women.

So for this year, let’s make a resolution. Let’s promise ourselves that we will remember that our children’s world is – as Fanpage.it’s advert does rightly point out – a microcosm of our own. But let’s do it a little better than their PSA. Let’s watch those subliminal messages every step of the way. Let’s talk to our boys as though they are the kind, boundaried, respectful men we know they have the heart to be. And to our girls as though they are the strong, empowered, confident women we know they have the right to become. DM