Underdressed teens prancing about on school stage

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I'm feel so old but when did this become a thing?
I've been to a couple of high school showcase evenings this year. Where the kids show off their singing, play musical instruments, do some acting or dancing.
The evenings are really good and it's brilliant for the kids to be able to show off their talents but sometimes the clothes the girls wear for the dancing acts seem a bit inappropriate to me.
The one I went to last week had two teenage girls in what looked like knickers and t-shirts dancing very well but rather erotically to a Beyonce song.
The girls were really good at dancing and would not have been out of place on a stage or a lap dancing club but AIBU to feel it's not very appropriate at a school event?
Do all high schools have these sort of dance classes? Is dancing around in skimpy clothes just a normal thing to do nowadays?
I'll put down the pearls I have been clutching and am fully prepared to be told to get with the times!

When other women are slut shaming other women for how they dress how can we expect men not to judge us???

These are children. Not grown women.

It would be inappropriate for a teen boy to prance around erotically, half naked, in a school show, too.

So you can't slut shame (or body shame for that matter, considering all the mentions of boobs) teenage girls?

Calling outfits sexy or sexualised because they don't cover the whole body is only encouraging men to look at them that way too.

You can't both say men are wrong for sexualising women's bodies AND call clothing sexualised because it reveals excess skin...

I think you're wilfully ignoring the sexualised dancing though? A child could wear similar on the beach and no one would think anything of it, but a lot of dancing, in music videos etc, is really quite sexual. And also you have to remember that some of these girls will be more confident than others. Some will genuinely want to participate in this dance dressed like this, others may feel peer pressure and need adults to step in.

It would be inappropriate for a teen boy to prance around erotically, half naked, in a school show, too.

This would never happen. It's accepted now that girls have to sexualise themselves for attention while boys can showcase their actual achievements. Any pushback on this is "slut shaming."

I'm with you OP. School should be standing against porn culture - which is essentially what this is.

I wish schools would think a bit more about the sex stereotype messages they are sending out. I went to a high school show and there were songs from boys and girls. The boys sang song about how 'I am amazing, I can do anything.' The girls sang about being love struck and moping after some guy.

Maybe the kids picked the songs themselves, but couldn't the teachers have encouraged them to apply some critical thinking to why the boys were picking songs about their own capability and achievements and the girls were picking songs about not being complete without a boyfriend?

Well said. Exactly this.

"We can't get away from the fact that to young boys boobs/ bums/ camel toes are sexual, not merely physiological. I'm sure if the boys had their pecs/ 6 packs on show with super tight, high-cut, lycra shorts on, the girls would feel the same."

No, they wouldn't. For some reason it's not popular to point out that there are vast differences in this area between males and females, but males have a massively intensified instinctive response to the display of female sexual characteristics compared to female responses at the sight of 'pecs', etc.

The attached photo is standard Ballet dress, age 14. The link is to a freestyle costume marketed age 13-14. freestyle

Both are posed as they are intended to be worn. Both are tight-fitting, both are (technically) covering the same amount of skin, but there's an obvious and massive difference between the two.

Combine the second with the type of choreography that is commercial competition dancing - which, frankly, is all arse shaking and chest pushing, with lots and lots of moves that are bent over, crotch flashing and very sexualised - and there's a huge problem with a school not spotting the safeguarding issue in allowing that to be performed in front of a mixed audience.

Even just bra-tops and booty shorts... There's a HUGE difference between children wearing them in class with vetted, checked teachers and other pupils only, and dancing in public wearing them.

We had an issue at a public performance a couple of years ago in our town. An under-11 comp team in shorts and bras, dancing to Rihanna's S&M. Slut drops were a featured step and the 'teacher' was over heard reminding the girls to 'remember to give it more bum...'

Yikes at that second costume! WTF.

I think maybe it depends on the school? I'm nearly 40 and remember a school show which included several 14/15 year olds with skirts rolled up and shirt knotted, Britney style, dancing sexily on tables and singing along to 'Dr Jones' by Aqua. But with the words changed to 'Mr Jones'.

While Mr Jones the notoriously pervy science teacher sat on stage with them nodding and smiling along.

Even at 13 I thought that was gross 😬

Not sure if this has been suggested but maybe raise it with the school?

Absolutely this.

Exactly what I was saying earlier- tight & supportive is good, not tight & revealing the private parts of children.

I'm not ignoring it.

Plenty of comments on here are about the way the girls were dressed

And something cannot be sexual, short of actual sex acts, without someone interpreting it as such.

Someone viewing teenage girls dancing and viewing it as sexual has made that choice

Boys too sexualise themselves for attention. What do you think dick pics are for example?

And it is slut shaming to shame someone for how they dress or act and imply that means they are asking for it in some way

I dont believe dick pics are anything as widespread as sexualised clothing and cosmetic enhancement for girls. Really?
And I have not once implied that any girl or woman asks for anything. Objecting to twerking at school is not the same as saying they are asking to be harassed.

Dick pics are a HUGE issue.

Implying how someone dresses is inherently sexualising themselves is pushing towards "well dressed like that what do you expect?"

Boys being encouraged to send intimate photos of themselves and those photos being used to bully or blackmail them is a big problem. Children have died. I would go for the job of any teacher that was encouraging boys to send them, or implying it wasn't a big deal.

That's the issue here. It isn't whether or not teenagers are normal for behaving in appropriately, or sexualising themselves. They are teenagers. It's part of growing up. It's whether Adults should be airily handwaving it away as "not my business", or somehow empowering or "it's only sexual if you make it sexual" .

We are going to have to disagree @ButWhatAboutTheBees. I don't know any boys or young men compelled to send dick pics, and yet the bulk of young women, including powerful pop stars and actresses, seem to have to sexualise themselves to get any attention in thus Kardashian age.
I don't buy that it is all their own free choice.

We had to wear gym nickers for pe.
Hated them.

Fine, if boys sending dick pics is also a big issue, as some think, I stand corrected. Let's not have sexualisation of either sex in school.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2llzppyx05o
It is an issue. There are scammers as in the article but also paedophiles. No one is forcing the boys - they are often very young teenagers, hormonal with undeveloped brains and little experience of the world. Children in other words. Just like girls their age.

I don't know why the other poster brought it up though. It doesn't really support their point at all though. Normal people (not nonces) wouldn't think that underage boys sexualising themselves is a good thing or something that should be left alone because it isn't anyone's business what teenagers do.

Cross post. Agree 100%

Yes, I had absolutely forgotten about this case and the recent horrible case in Whitgift School. I take back what I said! I framed it poorly.