AIBU to let my teenager wear this?

[imnotquitesure]

My 16 year old DD is going to a party and I have bought her this dress. I at first said it was inappropriate but I caved and bought it anyway. I said if it is not appropriate when it arrives I will send it back. She thinks this unfair and I shouldn't control what she wears at 16 because all her friends wear the same. AIBU?

Haven’t read the whole thread but at 40, I wish I’d worn a few less things at 16 before I stretched my poor guy and boobs with babies/binge eating/crash diets.

let her wear it whilst she can!

If you don't approve why did you buy it for her?

Gut not guy. He’s stretched too though. 😂

Nothing to do with teaching boys about consent. Just read some of the comments on here made by other women. It won’t just be boys looking at her but girls too. I agree girls should be able to eat what they want. But why do they want to wear this? Boys of 16 don’t go out wearing a man kini or shorts up their bums? If they did, I’m sure boys and girls would comment on it.

If you are paying for the dress, you decide. You might think it looks OK, or it might look grim (as in poor quality fabric - things ordered online don't always look quite the same when they are delivered). If you think it is too revealing, you should say so. There's no point in being wise after the event if she gets upset by remarks made to her when wearing the dress. What that dress really needs is a nice warm cardigan or a thermal vest 🤣

It's not really a dress at all, it's a girdle attached to a bra.

See so many young girls - early to mid teens - out and about wearing shorts that don't actually cover their buttocks.

It seems this is the sort of thing young women wear now.

Just regarding men's reactions to what girls and women wear. I was travelling on a train many years ago wearing trousers and a winter coat when a man exposed himself to me when it was just him and me alone in the carriage.

Very unpleasant and I couldn't have looked more respectable.

Most of us know teenagers - they have terrible, terrible taste in clothes.

There is a reason most women outgrown this sort of clothing very, very quickly.

No woman ‘asks for it’ by wearing revealing clothing.

But abusive, gropey, rapey boys and men aren’t exactly in the habit of waiting to be asked. Are they?

And @Iliveonahill is right - boys and men don’t go out in clothing that only covers the bare minimum of flesh.

Why is that?

You shouldn't have bought it for her. It's horrible.

I don't think anyone should wear this if I'm honest, I think it's overtly sexual and sending out the wrong message. Nothing wrong with dresses, even shortish dresses but you can see it all here. I'm a 36 year old women and I don't think it's appropriate to wear this. You can't stop her per say but you can advise against it

Tell her the risks of a dress like that. Tell her the red flags and to stay close to a friend all night, if her friends are wearing dresses like that it'll keep them both Safe

This is lovely

This is a better pic

I saw plenty of men out and about in the hot weather shirtless and wearing only a smallish pair of shorts and flip flops.

TRIGGER WARNING VERY UPSETTING CONTENT

For anyone who thinks the dress will attract unwanted attention/make her look like she can ‘handle herself’/will invited sexual assault, you should read this article. It’s not the clothes, it’s the man. www.boredpanda.com/what-were-you-wearing-sexual-assault-art-exhibition/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

Yes it is the man, but I know if I were to go out in that dress I’d get a lot more comments and looks than if I were in something less revealing. It’s draining to have to deal with it and I would want my 16 year old to understand that. These comments and looks are not invited, it’s just how some men are. We spend our lives up against the patriarchy, sometimes you just want to shelter your 16 year old child from that.

The dress is hideous, but I wouldn't be getting into a fight about it. Her body so her choice.

Yes but generally speaking they don’t go to parties dressed like that.

You can’t police what she wears at 16! Her body, her choice. My DD is 16 and I’d never dream of telling her what to wear. She wears dresses like that and looks amazing, and I tell her so.

I travel to Amsterdam regularly for business, this is precisely what the girls in the windows wear, how on earth is it sexist to acknowledge that some women sell sex and wear exactly this kind of clothes to do so? If they were stood there in their fluffy PJs I am not sure they would get the same interest! Ot it would be incredibly niche if they did.

It is kind of ridiculous to say that wearing the same dresses that strippers and sex workers use to attract custom will be somehow different on a child, that somehow it is more acceptable on a teenager. Sadly I am not sure the average man or boy is that thoughtful, they just see what they see, and make their own deductions. You can't single handedly change the though processes and biological responses that a man has! As much as you might like to.

I also fundamentally disagree that women are respected whatever they wear, I sincerely wish that was true, but it is not flissypaps there is such a thing as unconscious bias. Most people will form an opinion of another person within seconds and it is wishful thinking to imagine otherwise.
In fantasyland we can all skip around naked or with hardly anything on, and we would be perfectly safe and everyone would respect us, no, back in the real world that would either see us in a prison cell or best case scenario there would be some raised eyebrows and maybe some kindly person would put a cardigan over our shoulders.

I strongly suspect you are defending this dress because you allow your own young teenagers to go out in stuff like this. It is up to you (and them) I have teens too, and I am very relaxed about what they wear to a point but honestly I will not paying for or encouraging them to go out semi naked. I want them to be equal to the fully clothed boys that they meet, not already massively disadvantaged by being half dressed from the get go. I want the people around them to listen to what they are saying, they are intelligent, articulate girls that don't need to reduce themselves to teetering around half naked. I think it is a crying bloody shame that women and girls are still thinking this is any way cool or aspirational to be honest.

It’s tacky as hell and looks like it cost £3.50 from a market stall, but if that’s what she wants to wear let her get on with it.

This. Agree.

That is a very very different situation.

You aren't really asking that question, are you. No adult could ask that question with faux wide-eyed innocence and expect to be taken seriously.

Men and boys haven't been objectified and sexualised by the opposite sex since the beginning of time. They haven't been told that their worth depends on their face and body.

Does that help to clarify things for you?