Been out. It's not pretty out there. My feminist views are challenged tonight.

" That now some battles have been won portraying themselves as vulnerable sex objects that have nothing more to contribute. "

i dont understand this comment.

how can you tell from across a street or bar that a woman has set herself out to appear vulnerable and with nothing more to contribute? contribute to what? the conversation that night, her own social life, what? what do you mean and how can you tell from where her hemline finishes?

I don't think people do judge each other that much based on their clothes. People are perhaps more tolerant now than they used to be. There is usually a dress code for work because you are representing the organisation, but what people wear in their own time is up to them.

skittish - you sound more like a misogynist than a feminist.

Korma. Are you deliberately missing the point? Do you really believe any of us make an objective choice in a vaccum?
And you may not think you are defined by how you dress but you are judged on it, whether you like it or not. Or would you rock up for a job interview dressed like those girls?

I agree Mini. I meet lots of young women and so many of them seem to have no idea feminism exists. They wear provocative clothes, posture and pout. They giggle and pay helpless because, for some unfathomable to me, reason they think men find this little girl helplessness attractive.
It's linke din with an article I read recently about a worrying lack of muscle in many women - they are either thin and lacking muscle or fat and lacking muscle as it's not attractive, apparently to be strong and defined. Add in a fear of having any bloody pubes and Germaine must be feeling suicidal!

Shit, I'm getting old but it's all rather depressing.

As per usual no political analysis just a lot of individualised posturing about personal rights.

Why?
Because some of us find women semi dressed in public a problem?

This really is the most vile thread.

Of course things are different.

In my yoof we were in mixed groups, drank pints and wore DM's.

It's all this ridiculous duckface posturing they do too.

" Young slim and beautiful" hahahahahahahahaha!!!!
Been out to any bog standard club in a bog standard town recently?

Dummad, your OP is a woman-hating, woman-blaming disgrace. It sounds like something right out of the Daily mail.

My DD is in the demographic you are talking so appallingly about, she has thousands of pictures on Facebook of nights out at University and at home, she dresses in short skirts and high heels, as do all her friends, she's always out in a huge mixed group and rather than showing the women looking "tarty and vacant" they are obviously having a great time.
She has a Maths degree and is doing her teacher training at the moment, if that's even relevant.

Fashions are no more "slutty" or "provocative" than they were in the 60's , 70's, 80's or beyond.

"I agree that sexual violence against women is only going to get worse, especially if women are dressing like prostitutes and getting drunk"
I can't believe I've read that on this board.

You sound like you absolutely detest women, OP.

Look on the bright side. Today's news is that female entrepreneurs earn more than men and women do better setting up their own businesses than working for others. I think that's really positive news and mirrors my own situation.

However it remains the case that the best route out of poverty for most women sadly is to marry a richer man so I'm sure dressing in a way they think will attract the right one and staying slim is part oft he plan for many. Look at how many women on mumsnet live off male earnings - it was clearly a plan which worked for them - attract man, be kept for life and serve him at home.

There was a big fashion in the mid nineties for going out to clubs in tactel underdresses; they were semi-transparent. I used to go out in them one night and be in the pub in jeans and a hoodie the next. I didn't have a personality transformation overnight. I wasn't sexually harassed by the shirtless boys in low slung trousers I danced with either.

Really heyho? I hit the clubbing scene in the late 90s and we all used to wear little dresses and big wedge platform heels (in fashion then), along with hideous crop tops and a line denim mini skirts with buttons on! Shudder at the memory!

There have always been different groups in society, depending on interests, culture and region, that have dressed differently. There were people who dressed up or dressed down in the eighties and nineties and people who do it now. In the nineties, I could be in one pub dressed one way and have friends in another pub across the road they were dressed as the OP has described.

Women dress in a sexy way for a variety of reasons. It is often just because that is the fashion for certain people where they live. It could be that they are doing it for sexual reasons, but often the sexual reason is that for some women it is sexually enjoyable to dress in a 'sexy' way and go out drinking, socialising and often dancing with their female friends. It is a complete sexual experience in itself. I don't know why people think every element of sexuality is leading towards having sex with somebody else. There is nothing wrong with people expressing sexuality through dress if that is meaningful to them; it doesn't mean they want to have sex that night or that everyone else has to dress that way.

Men who are used to the kind of culture don't necessarily think the women are somehow more sexual than other kinds of women, or doing it for men's attention. Their mothers, sisters and wives often dress that way too. And there is nothing wrong with some women wanting to socialise more with their own gender more than men. You don't know what these women's attitudes are to feminism or anything else. You don't know anything about them.

sex objects not sexy. Stupid phone!

Sorry for typos, on phone.

I referred to the influence of porn not point.

Agree with Minitheminx.

Young women through point and social media are being conditioned to dress and behave like sexual objects, there for men's viewing and pleasure. I'm not surprised a young woman who invited a man to her flat was expected, by others, to give him sexy or a blow job as a matter of course (despite feeling ill). As a female, isn't that her purpose?

When I was a student we mixed with men on a night out, this separation thing sounds strange to me.

I agree that sexual violence against women is only going to get worse, especially if women are dressing like prostitutes and getting drunk. I don't care if it's the 'fashion' (that in itself is worrying as the fashion industry is very influential and powerful). Women should not dress like sexy toys simply because they should have more respect for themselves. That they lack this self-respect is sad, in my view.

Men not only expect women to dress like sexy objects but then despise them for it and use it as another way to put women down by calling them tarts and sluts. There was a feature in the Daily Mail about a young teen who dressed in hot pants etc for her birthday, despite her family's please not to, and was bullied on Facebook for looking like a slut. The question being why did she feel she had to dress like that? There are powerful influence site at work.

I think the separation along gender lines happens so young that it is deeply ingrained. The situation for young people now is far worse than even a few years ago. Of course there is little interaction past men looking, both sexes are being trained and moulded to fit into these roles, where women's bodies are something to look at. What need do these men have to talk to these women? because they are being socialised to think women have nothing going on between their ears and even if they did, it isn't worth knowing.

I think the situation is likely to lead (in the long run) to more sexual violence against women because men have no interest in acknowledging the humanity of women, we are becoming objectified, reduced to something to look at, something to have sex with and something to provide entertainment.

"Because it's the fashion. Because everyone else dresses like that and you'd look out of place if you didn't. Because your friends all dress like that and when getting ready they tell you you look gorgeous in this or that and it makes you feel confident."

I agree with this. People often assume that there is some agenda behind what people but a lot of the time I think it's just custom. From wearing veils to mini-skirts, I think that people just over time conform to what people around them wear and they get reinforcement from their group.

The problem only starts when that custom limits the woman's freedom in some way, is uncomfortable or when women feel pressured (media, peer, or otherwise) into wearing something they don't want.

Have you been locked away in a cave for years? I remember exactly the same from back in the 90s when I was a youngster. It's been this way for years.