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Feminism: Sex & gender discussions

Our poor daughters...

24 replies

BitOfFun · 27/08/2020 07:06

What is going on here? We fought for years so they wouldn't feel like this.

OP posts:

Report

ItsLateHumpty · 27/08/2020 07:22

That’s so sad. I know we (almost) all feel the pressure to conform to whatever the latest beauty standards are at certain points in our life, generally while younger and looking for acceptance or starting to date, but this relentless on-line tweaked ‘perfection’ that is held up as the norm is something I’m glad I didn’t also have to contend with while I was growing up and trying to learn to accept myself.

As a sidebar, this report is from girl guiding who believe TWAW and accept transgirls in their organisation, so this use of acronym has confused me:

“More than half felt pressured to change their appearance after viewing online adverts, rising to 67% of the girls who identified as LGBQ.”

highame · 27/08/2020 09:55

Can't believe it's still called Girl guilding. TRA's haven't had a go at that yet.

The girls who are leaving social media are the ones who will benefit in the long term.

WhereYouLeftIt · 27/08/2020 10:13

"Can't believe it's still called Girl guilding. TRA's haven't had a go at that yet."

And they never will. Because the name is validation, right there on a plate.

Deliriumoftheendless · 27/08/2020 10:32

Juvenile uterus owners guiding doesn’t have such a snappy ring to it.

ErrolTheDragon · 27/08/2020 10:47

Can't believe it's still called Girl guilding. TRA's haven't had a go at that yet.

You've misunderstood the (post)modern rules of nomenclature. If an activity or facilities are now mixed sex but supposedly single 'gender' they will definitely be labelled 'girls' or 'women'. If something is unambiguously single sex (periods, cervical screening etc) then these words are verboten and must be replaced by dehumanising terminology. There are attempts to push 'female' from the latter to the former usage too.

DreadPirateLuna · 27/08/2020 11:39

Social media "likes" are a drug. I've felt it myself -- that tiny thrill when you see those thumbs up, that slight sinking feeling when you don't. And I'm in my 40s and I can put it in perspective and laugh at myself! It must be so much harder for our kids who don't know a world where this isn't normal.

JoysOfString · 27/08/2020 12:41

It's not just the likes and having to look perfect - it's being brought up with the whole idea of selfies, and posting images of yourself all the time for other people to praise, as a norm. I try to get my 10yo DD to question that.

She isn't doing anything like that and isn't on SM yet, but we talk about the phenomenon.

I'm an old bat but when I was a teen that would have been seen as an up yourself, show-offy thing to do (obviously we didn't have the technology then so it wasn't a thing, but IYSWIM).

OverTheRainbow88 · 27/08/2020 12:45

2100 is a very small sample size.

Kantastic · 27/08/2020 13:03

2100 is a very small sample size.

It unquestionably isn't. I am morbidly curious why someone would want to derail this thread.

OldCrone · 27/08/2020 13:13

As a sidebar, this report is from girl guiding who believe TWAW and accept transgirls in their organisation, so this use of acronym has confused me:

“More than half felt pressured to change their appearance after viewing online adverts, rising to 67% of the girls who identified as LGBQ.”

I was puzzled by that as well. Why LGBQ? And why would lesbians be more pressured than other girls to change their appearance after viewing online adverts?

ErrolTheDragon · 27/08/2020 13:45

@Kantastic

2100 is a very small sample size.

It unquestionably isn't. I am morbidly curious why someone would want to derail this thread.

Quite large for this sort of survey I'd have thought, especially as it's already a limited demographic range.

ErrolTheDragon · 27/08/2020 13:49

^ "More than half felt pressured to change their appearance after viewing online adverts, rising to 67% of the girls who identified as LGBQ.”^^

I was puzzled by that as well. Why LGBQ? And why would lesbians be more pressured than other girls to change their appearance after viewing online adverts?^

It might be that what this is detecting is to some large extent the subsection who are interested in 'identifying' as anything.

GrumpyHoonMain · 27/08/2020 13:50

I imagine if they asked boys they would say the same. Nothing is posted on social media without a filter now.

PlanDeRaccordement · 27/08/2020 13:55

LGBTQ has a certain dress code to signal what you are. For example, wearing a plaid flannel shirt signals you are a lesbian or bisexual. Because it was underground for so long, there are codes which now have gone mainstream and so girls who are LGBTQ face pressure to not be confused with a straight girl.

PlanDeRaccordement · 27/08/2020 13:59

I know this being bisexual myself. But if you don’t think I’m a valid opinion, here is an article on this subject. On how to be “out” by how you dress
thebrag.com/out-about-lesbian-uniform-secret-code-queer-signification/

PlanDeRaccordement · 27/08/2020 14:03

@OverTheRainbow88

2100 is a very small sample size.

Yes it is very small sample size to cover all female 11-21 year olds, that’s only 190 per year age group. They could have done this at 1 secondary school and 1 university out of a country which literally has millions of 11-21yr old girls/women. You wouldn’t get a very demographically diverse or varied view. It could be completely skewed by the demographics of say, Warwick or London, or Birmingham, or Belfast.

Nuffaluff · 27/08/2020 14:05

I would like to know why this is happening. What is driving this?
In the 90s, when I had my teenage years, we wanted to look nice, we wanted to be attractive to boys, which is normal. We experimented with make up, but we weren’t very good at it. I only used to put a bit on for a trip to town on a Saturday. We weren’t bothered about perfection, we didn’t all look the same (nowadays, all girls seem to have very long hair). We all had spots and moaned about them (why do so many teenage girls nowadays have such flawless skin?).
Crucially we valued ourselves for things other than our looks. We didn’t spend the whole time talking about it or thinking about it. We never took photos of ourselves, just of each other if we were going somewhere special.
Is it just the fact that there is the internet now? There’s too much easily accessible information about how you ‘should’ look and what you can do to achieve it.

Nuffaluff · 27/08/2020 14:14

When I was 17, I had really short cropped hair. Loads of girls did. There wasn’t a strong association with a particular look being gay or straight. We had more freedom of expression.
I think it’s such a shame that anyone should feel they have to look a certain way to signify their sexuality, whether they’re gay or straight. And is that about trying to find a partner or is there some other reason anyone needs to know your sexual orientation just by looking at you?
Surely I could get a girlfriend with my long hair. Surely it’s about going to the right kind of place to meet someone isn’t it?

ItsLateHumpty · 27/08/2020 14:45

PlanDeRaccordement you’ve used LGBTQ in your comments.

You’ve added the T to the acronym used by Girl Guides in the article - they only used LGBQ. No T.

This was part of my original confusion as GG believe TWAW, etc. Maybe they just never included transgirls in their survey.

PlanDeRaccordement · 27/08/2020 14:46

I think it is happening because of social media now being so filtered that there is no reality in it any more.

I had no SM rules for my DCs and they all were obsessed with it at first. It’s a shiny new toy, but after a year or two they all quit using it. They could see how fake it was and how bad it made them feel.

The sad thing is that we adults force ourselves to use it by having work chat groups via FB or WhatsApp and every business has to have a FB page and to say things in Twitter. I wish companies would start not using SM.

PlanDeRaccordement · 27/08/2020 14:46

@ItsLateHumpty

PlanDeRaccordement you’ve used LGBTQ in your comments.

You’ve added the T to the acronym used by Girl Guides in the article - they only used LGBQ. No T.

This was part of my original confusion as GG believe TWAW, etc. Maybe they just never included transgirls in their survey.

Sorry, that was a typo. I did truly mean LGBQ. Sorry for that.

JoysOfString · 27/08/2020 14:51

Yes me too nuffaluff, I had short hair, no make-up, big DMs and plenty of boyfriends :o

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PlanDeRaccordement · 27/08/2020 14:53

@ItsLateHumpty
I think in answer to your question, there are a few possibilities in addition to your also very probable one of exclusion.
-a sample size of 2100 would not have resulted in enough girls/women identifying as trans to report statistics on.

they might have not asked about gender at all, only sexuality

Thelnebriati · 27/08/2020 21:04

Girls who identify as trans are no longer welcome in Girl Guides, so it wont be that.

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