Are "barely there" dresses acceptable in high profile public?

[Nothingyet]

Are "barely there" dresses acceptable? I saw this this in the Mail this morning, and there were the usual comments: "and they wonder why men sexualize them..." etc.
I wondered if there were any views? www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-9792613/Cannes-Film-Festival-2021-Kimberley-Garner-flashes-bottom-Georgina-Rodriguez.html#comments

Yeah there was the heroin chic thing, that's true. I'd forgotten about that. I was thinking about how I dressed when I went clubbing; long skirt and tshirt, jeans, trainers, hardly any make up, hair straighteners weren't even a thing. We wore ex-Army shirts over baggy jeans and Nirvana tshirts.

Didn't stop any shitty things happening to us though. In one year I had nine incidents where I felt in danger from a man. Nine. I'm writing a book about it now.

I still think it feels more dangerous now. Maybe the advent of social media makes things tougher as your image is out of your hands as soon as its online.

@OutwiththeOutCrowd

I quite like these vintage photos of equal opportunity exhibitionism at Cannes film festival. Plus ca change ....

1954: Simone Silva (British actress) goes topless and is asked to leave but not before one photographer breaks an arm and another a leg in a photo-taking scrummage.

1953: Kirk Douglas strips down to show off his hairdressing skills on Brigitte Bardot.

1977: Arnold Schwarzenegger comes over all coy.

They're on the beach though.

@Guavafish

She has a envious figure. I don’t see any reason why she should wear that dress to the premier of a film festive.

If you got it

Who is her figure envious of? Does it have its own personality?

My figure certainly envies better ones

Don't we all

@Deathsquito

My favourite comment was the ‘Humph! Either you want to be treated as professionals and not a sexual object OR you want to flash your body to men to make money. You can’t have it both ways! I give up!’

I love the fact this bloke thinks he is personally the arbiter.

That because these women on this occasion wore revealing dresses, that it means that no woman actually wants to be treated as a competent professional at work. Or worse, deserves to be.

I kind of agree though...maybe I'm getting old but in my opinion women don't sell their bodies if they've got other options.

All I could think when seeing that lilac. Umber was what a pain in the arse it must be to walk in...all that fabric flapping around your feet.

What about professional women who just enjoy fashion and feel good about themselves? I'm a marketing director with great tits; if I wear a low cut top or dress that doesn't mean my brain can no longer function.

Can we stop fuelling the 'beautiful OR smart' dichotomy please?

I can't tell you how shit it makes my short-sighted daughter feel to sit and watch a film where the premise is a nerd takes her glasses off and therefore become shaggable.

maybe I'm getting old but in my opinion women don't sell their bodies if they've got other options.

I'm having such a hard time teaching my daughter that she can enjoy playing with clothes and fashion and still enjoy reading books, doing sport and being clever. Please don't make it harder still.

It's nothing to do with being old, it's just reductive, misogynistic and really quite offensive. They're not "selling their bodies" by showing a leg on the red carpet.

Bullshit is it not selling their bodies. If she's turned up in a shapeless hessian sack from chin to ankle do you think she'd have got the column inches she did? Of course she wouldn't. I'm not the one being misogynistic and offensive here.

@MyGhastIsFlabbered

Bullshit is it not selling their bodies. If she's turned up in a shapeless hessian sack from chin to ankle do you think she'd have got the column inches she did? Of course she wouldn't. I'm not the one being misogynistic and offensive here.

Wearing a glamorous dress (which is all most of those are - did you see them?) at a red carpet event in the hope of appearing in the press is not selling your body, and nor is it a sign that you literally can't do anything else.

It is intensely misogynistic and offensive to suggest otherwise.

Ok @DrSbaitso you've obviously decided I'm wrong and you're right so you crack on. I've got better things to do with my time than argue about this

*I think it was worse back then. We were expected to be pin thin and the aesthetic was even called "heroin chic". Nowadays there is a strong push for body positivity and I see much more variation of size, even if we still have a way to go.

Women were still wearing sexy dresses then*

Don't remember the 90's like that. I lived in dungarees, oversized T shirts and jeans, went clubbing dressed liked that too.
Heroin chic was heavily criticised and not held up as a beauty standard in the circles I mixed in. i.e. working class, it was more of a rich girl problem.
Lots of strong female singers, PJ Harvey, Bjork, Macy Gray. The female indie bands garbage, catatonia, the cranberries. All intelligent, powerful women.

I think things have gone backwards. What started out as a move towards empowering women, by acknowledging them as sexual beings has been commercialised and turned into an out of control monster. I sincerely hope there is a backlash against it ,as I feel very sorry for young women today.

@MyGhastIsFlabbered

Ok *@DrSbaitso* you've obviously decided I'm wrong and you're right so you crack on. I've got better things to do with my time than argue about this

You are indeed wrong to suggest that wearing wearing a leggy dress on a red carpet is akin to being a sex worker, or that it makes it impossible to have any other talents. I can't believe you don't see that.

checks date on calendar

@comebacksunshines

*I think it was worse back then. We were expected to be pin thin and the aesthetic was even called "heroin chic". Nowadays there is a strong push for body positivity and I see much more variation of size, even if we still have a way to go.

Women were still wearing sexy dresses then*

Don't remember the 90's like that. I lived in dungarees, oversized T shirts and jeans, went clubbing dressed liked that too.
Heroin chic was heavily criticised and not held up as a beauty standard in the circles I mixed in. i.e. working class, it was more of a rich girl problem.
Lots of strong female singers, PJ Harvey, Bjork, Macy Gray. The female indie bands garbage, catatonia, the cranberries. All intelligent, powerful women.

I think things have gone backwards. What started out as a move towards empowering women, by acknowledging them as sexual beings has been commercialised and turned into an out of control monster. I sincerely hope there is a backlash against it ,as I feel very sorry for young women today.

Well, we may have had different backgrounds. Plus someone else mentioned Nirvana shirts, so I think I may also be a slightly different age (mid 30s). I definitely remember feeling an intense pressure to be thin, and failing miserably (I was a healthy weight, but very curvy, and I rarely saw any representation). Fad diets and eating disorders were all over the place.

Objectification of women most certainly happened then as it does now. I suppose my general rule of thumb (not perfect, I realise) is: is the scantily clad woman doing her own thing, or is she supporting a male act? Miley Cyrus sometimes gets criticised for being too sexual, but it's her work: her voice, her songs, her videos, and she is most definitely a talented singer and actress. (She's probably just setting up for a "more mature" image change in her 30s anyway.) I feel very differently about all the scantily clad women jiggling around Robin Thickasshit or whatever his name is while he sings about sexual coercion and "I know you want it".

So you would have been aged around 8 when Kurt Cobain from Nirvana died and early teens at the end of the 90's ?
I agree that women have always been objectified, but they are now willingly objectifying themselves, under the guise of empowerment. I think I prefer the former, at least it was honest and you knew what you were fighting against.

Objectification of women has always happened. I was young in the 70s when page 3 was in full swing. One of my friends did a nude session for a men’s mag called Mayfair and says it’s the one thing she bitterly regrets. It makes her feel dirty just thinking about it.

I'm having such a hard time teaching my daughter that she can enjoy playing with clothes and fashion and still enjoy reading books, doing sport and being clever. Please don't make it harder still

I completely get this but enjoying fashion isn’t remotely the same as wearing something that exposes almost all of you. Would you be delighted to see your daughter dressed like those DM photos? Because I wouldn’t. I’d wonder where I’d gone wrong.

@CandidaAlbicans2 @TableFlowerss I don't like women being manipulated into allowing themselves be sexualised by others, or thinking that being sexualised is necessary for success, but at the same time, critising a dress at Cannes isn't the way of changing that happening. The show of flesh in itself should not be made the problem.

@comebacksunshines

So you would have been aged around 8 when Kurt Cobain from Nirvana died and early teens at the end of the 90's ? I agree that women have always been objectified, but they are now willingly objectifying themselves, under the guise of empowerment. I think I prefer the former, at least it was honest and you knew what you were fighting against.

Yes, I was a young 90s teen but I have an older sister who was always on some crap diet or another and watched a lot of music television. I read "heroin chic" in the newspapers and when I read her magazines they were full of diets and how to get thin. And the early 00s weren't massively different from what I recall. I remember the Spice Girls and Gina G being criticised for wearing scanty clothes but I liked them and I don't recall anything inappropriate for a tween audience. And lots of women in bikinis in men's music videos. Rap and hip hop especially. Some horrible shots, really degrading. I remember Ali G's Me Julie song (2002, so not quite 90s), which in retrospect I realise was a piss take. But it featured Shaggy, who did that kind of thing for real, so I'm not sure how subversive all the jiggling tits and arses really were. Now, had he done it in his mankini...

There was one video, definitely 90s, that even got half blurred out during the daytime. Can't remember for my life what it was called or how it went (I remember not liking it).

[quote smokeball]**@CandidaAlbicans2* @TableFlowerss* I don't like women being manipulated into allowing themselves be sexualised by others, or thinking that being sexualised is necessary for success, but at the same time, critising a dress at Cannes isn't the way of changing that happening. The show of flesh in itself should not be made the problem.[/quote]
But as humans we judge. Everyone judges and makes assumptions based on all sorts of thing. How you dress can say a lot about a person so if you dress a certain way, then it’s likely people will perceive you in a certain way.

Whether that’s a true reflection of who you are or indicative of the message you may want to portray, people will judge. So people can’t complain if they dress a certain way and people form opinions.

For example someone wears sporty clothes often. People will likely assume they like sports.

I'm underwhelmed.
Neither shocked nor in awe.
Nothing to do with the 'exposure- I just don't think they look very stylish.

I just know men don't feel the need to flash their arses for attention. I don't know what the answer is anymore

Not clicking on the link.

My view is that if you have to spend any amount of time 'fiddling' with the clothes to keep your dignity then you shouldn't wear it in public.
So hoiking tops up, skirts down etc

If it fits comfortably go for it.

@DrSbaitso

I'm not saying women are to blame as such, OF COURSE NOT, but I do think we need to be able to talk honestly about the messages that clothes send.

Ooh, "as such". How....sinister.

How do you reconcile the first part of your sentence with the second part?

It's depressing and scary in equal measure.

Messages that clothes send? Terrifying. So who decides what level of exposure is unacceptable and 'asking for it'? Is it culturally driven, so in some countries where women are very covered up, is a flash of ankle to excuse sexual assault?

FFS, no we shouldn't be having a conversation about the messages clothes send. If we're talking about sexual assault we should ONLY able having a conversation about male entitlement and power relations that leads them to sexually assault and rape women.

Whether an outfit is tasteful or not should be an entirely different discussion and we should not mix up the two, EVER.

If women aren't saying that 'she asked for it because: drunk/revealing clothes/sexual history etc' there's no hope that things will ever, ever, change.

*is not an excuse for rape